MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Burning Questions for UFC 277 | Pena vs. Nunes 2 | Moreno vs. Kara-France 2 | Ep 328

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

On Episode 328 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian break down the biggest questions heading into UFC 277. Why did Amanda Nunes implode at UFC 269? How has Kai Kara-France improved since his first fight? Next up the guys play a little Over/Under and close out the show with Fan Submissions. (12:50) - Burning Questions for UFC 277 (65:30) - Over/Under (85:00) - Fan Submissions 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

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Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Reveley, Reveley, dogs. Look at us now. Tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show.

I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It's a quiet UFC 277 fight week, if I do say so myself. But it's going to be a loud-ass morning combat. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the best combat sports podcast that there is. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of Estados Unidos right here in Washington, D.C.

And to my left, to the right of your screen, I don't know what shirt he's got on because the lower third is kind of blocking it. What's the shirt you got on there? He's the king of Connecticut. He's my friend. Oh, it's a Brock. It's a Brock Lesnar shirt. You know what? I will not tolerate Brock Lesnar slander on this show. That man changed my show. You know what? I will not tolerate Brock Lesnar slander on this show.

That man changed my career. You know what? Mikey Morms, our great producer, asked me yesterday at BC, who's your dream guest for MK? I'm like Lesnar, bro. Right, Luke? Wow, that's a great question. You know, I've never thought about that.

What would be, well, he'd be top of the list, right? He has to be top of the list. Yeah. Who's your, okay, if he's your 1A, who's the 1B? Yolanda, right? Dog the bounty hunter. You know, Habib. Habib is a good one.

Habib is, I don't know if I have, honestly, maybe Rogan, maybe. That's not bad. Al Heyman? I'd have a lot of questions. Al Heyman would be a great one. I don't think he's going to do that. But hey, we've got a show for you today. It is, in fact, UFC 277 Fight Week.

By the way, for Showtime, folks, it's also Danny Garcia Fight Week. We'll talk about that a little bit later as well. But I want to remind everyone, we're going to get to all the UFC 277 stuff today. I want to plug it. You can see the stream right there on the lower third right here. If you want Showtime, Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not it you can see the stream right there on the lower third right here if you want showtime showtime.com 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce uh neither of us have on the merch today bc but we do have great merch morningcombat.store including your favorite shirt which i find a little bit weird but the folks do love

real talk like men do huh well i did ask our fine mage mervin, RJ Dunkelhopper, if it's selling, Luke. And he says, you know, not up to the expectations that we would have loved. But, yeah, it is moving off the shelves a little bit. Maybe not a surprise because it takes a certain kind of person to buy this shirt, Luke. And that, you know. A misogynist. Not a misogynist. No, no. Somebody that's willing, you know, on a daily basis to say what needs to be said, you know,

to not pull punches, to execute like we did in pregame preview this week with Chuck Mendenhall. Check it out at youtube.com slash morning combat. A little bit of that real talk, right? Yeah. So we should remind folks today we are going to talk about UFC 277. We're going to remix it a little bit. However, BC brought it up. So let's talk about it here very

quickly if we can we did an entire ufc 277 preview yours truly bc the king of ct and then we had the man the hat ice man himself chuck mendenhall that's available right now youtube.com slash morning comment i believe they put it on the podcasts as well so if you want that kind of a sort of an all-in just ufc 277 preview that is available but we're going to remix it a little bit today yeah folks watching the live show and if you haven't caught the pre-game preview the reviews are in uh a little bit too much interrupting of chuck by me again i'm sorry luke i get really excited when you put substances in my body but um i think it might be our best best mix yet of of analysis and creative humor, Luke.

It's a good time. Come sit on the couch with us. That's what we're asking. I had a good time. I also pitched this. I want to get the audience in getting my back on this one. I pitched to Showtime that the next time we shoot one of those preferably on the roof, by the way

but beyond that, weather permitting and uh union labor permitting um what i would say is what i wanted is to get 30 minutes where he's all sitting down the couch talking about nothing no fight related talk record that and then put that out separately i think that they're going to do that next time so kind of a fun little thing we're going to try next time all right as well i'm into that as well it's almost room service diaries ish 1.0 style so i'm definitely we already do it anyway we just don't record it so i thought well why not just record it because the conversations are kind of fun actually yeah then they're real talk but like on brand um look quickly i'll you know because i

will be getting on a cruise ship on friday and i you know i know i've taken a lot of vacations in a short period but uh shoe polish season is upon us and you know I mean I did it as a gift for my wife but what do you think I could you think I could pass for 34 right now um only if you were like a 34 year old heavy smoker that kind of thing oh god come on all right but I will say I will say it does it does you know it makes you youth, it makes you youthful. It makes you youthful in like an Elvis, a late Elvis kind of way where he was, you know, cheating the system a little bit there as well. 68 comeback special, I'll get down with that.

More Ronaldo level of jet black, you know, I can get down with that. Even though this was actually blonde I put in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, how long does it take you to do that? Like start to finish? Five minutes to apply. And then it says, depending on which kind you buy, some are five-minute waits, some are 10-minute wait.

But what I found is if you really want the gray to go, you got to wait about 15 to 20 before getting in the shower and cleaning it all off. Now, that's a dangerous area, the 15 to 20, especially if you pick the wrong shade, like I famously did at our live show ahead of McGcgregor probably way three luke when i when i did put on the jet black uh shoe polish and made a lot

of mistakes that day luke so yeah well we've all had our mistakes with those live shows haven't we i mean there's yeah boy have we yeah yeah yes we have people always ask because uh a guy i hired a guy to do some of my social media stuff and he put out an old clip that I did from this very short-lived sort of, I don't know what you want to call it, video series called Luke Thomas is Pissed that was shot, I don't know, circa 2015, 2014, something like that. And obviously, I'm not nearly as gray, and people are like, have you ever thought about dyeing your hair? And I'm like, Bubba, getting old is part of the show.

I ain't here to deny myself. Well, I do agree with you on that. I don't do this for vain purposes. I try to be a good husband and do it, but I'm very close to just letting it go. And a lot of people have filled my DMs to say, BC, come on, man. Who are you fooling?

Not us. So let it go. So we'll see what happens here. Quick shout out, Luke. It was my birthday earlier this week. I just want to say I got an unnatural level of love from our fans and DMs and texts and emails. Thank you, guys.

It's ridiculous, but thank you. Seriously. I love you all. Thank you very much. And yeah, Luke, so that's the deal. I had something else important to tell you. I forgot. Oh, we're doing over-under today.

It's back. It's back, baby. We're doing over-unders today. We're going to do fan subs a little later. And again, we're going to remix the five most important questions heading into UFC 277. We have that separate special that goes all in on it. But today's show will give you the most important high-level stuff related to that event on Saturday. Okay.

I want to remind everyone, though, that we have a partner, BC. Well, you're my partner. I'm your partner. But we have another partner in this love triangle, and it's called Athletic Greens. And we take it. People are like, oh, but your health sucks. Right.

But not because of AG1. In fact, it'd be far worse were it not for AG1. They're the ones keeping this train on the tracks. I love it. You love it. What can you say about it, BC? I can say it doesn't taste super healthy. And that's the thing. If you're going to do something every single day that's positive,

I could eat steamed broccoli all day, Luke, but it sucks. How about this mild tropical taste that tastes clean, makes you feel clean, and if you're going to start your day with it on non-show days, it's the first thing I put in my body, Luke. Right now I'm doing this for visual effect.

But it's one delicious scoop, 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food sources, probiotics, adaptogens. I mean, you could start your day wrong, Luke, with a 12 ounce Mountain Dew or a watermelon vape. Or you could put your health first.

I don't always make the right decisions, but the first one I make each morning definitely is, Luke. Well, I haven't had my AG1 yet. I usually have that after I go to the gym, which I'll do right after the show. This is coffee, so you can eat a fat one, although I do have my watermelon and mint vape. Nevertheless, though, talking about good things for you, good things for your nervous system, good things for your immune system, for energy, for recovery, for focus. All those good things.

Athletic Greens is going to be your best friend. That's a fact. That's a fact, Jack. And it's so convenient. I take it with me on the road. You can too. It's lifestyle friendly. Whether you eat keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free,

it contains less than one gram of sugar. There's no GMOs, no nasty chemicals, or anything artificial. It just tastes freaking good. And you're like okay but what about the price three bucks a day less than that you're already spending that on your damn cold brew habit why don't you make a switch it maybe it's time maybe it's time for us as a people to start making some changes and that's verbatim bitch it's not verbatim but that's close taking athletic greens is a small micro habit with big benefits it's one thing you can do every single

day to take great care of yourself yeah and you're asking me who else believes in athletic greens is a small micro habit with big benefits it's one thing you can do every single day to take great care of yourself yeah and you're asking me who else believes in athletic greens how about 7 000 five-star reviews how about the leading health experts who trust this shit i'm talking about tim ferris and michael gervais and right now luke not only you but our listeners can reclaim their health and their immune system with this convenient daily nutrition especially heading into that flu cold cold, and COVID season. It's just one scoop in a cup of water every single day. I add it to shakes sometimes. It's delicious.

No need for a million different pills or supplements to look out for your health. I don't even know what you're doing. All right, to make it easy, Athletic Greens is going to give you a free 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. Again, athleticgreens.com slash morningcombat to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional drink. You can riff a little, Luke.

You can freestyle. It's a blues riff in B. Watch me for the changes. It tells us who's supposed to read what and Brian then just reads my lines it's just unbelievable okay Brian we have a lot to get to today we do have some Pena sound some Moreno sound we got

some Anthony Smith sound we're going to talk about all three of them here a little bit one more reminder you want the full UFC 277 Monty so to speak with me Brian Campbell and Chuck Mendenhall that's already at youtube.com slash morning combat let's do five burning questions for UFC 277 Monty so to speak with me Brian Campbell and Chuck Mendenhall that's already at youtube.com slash morning combat let's do five burning questions for UFC 277 now BC in fairness you wrote these so do you want me to pitch these to you or you want why don't I read them to you

and I'll counter you Luke okay you done with that that sounds good that sounds all right uh five burning questions for UFC 277 let's's start off here, number one. Luke, it's the main event. It's the rematch, Pena versus Nunes, Deuce. But in hindsight, looking back to their UFC 269 fight, maybe the biggest upset in MMA history, what do you believe was the— separating what Juliana Pena did successfully to win that fight, what do you think was the single biggest reason

for Amanda Nunes' implosion that night that made that such a shocking upset? Single biggest, right? But you would agree. I will answer the question in good faith. I will do that. However, just before I do, you would agree that it's got to be a combination of factors. I just want to put that on the table. Not only a combination of factors within Amanda and what went wrong,

a large combination of what went right for Juliana Pena, and I know a lot of people ripped me for my takes during pregame preview, which are very macro. I do have some micro takes as well, Luke, from rewatching Fight 1, but when you do look back on Fight 1, what's the biggest thing Nunes got wrong?

Mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, anything that caused that defeat? I think in the way in which Juliana Pena decided to fight her, I think. Okay, so when we use the word expose, it's overused, right? It means like, oh, they were this fraud fraud all along i don't mean it in that way whatsoever we're talking about a first ballot hall of famer mount rushmore of women's mma well however you want to put it i don't mean it that way but in terms of showcasing that for all the good things amanda nunez is good at and all the things that she's accomplished she got outboxed

she got outboxed there She got outboxed. There's a video that came out yesterday. I've been talking about it because I thought it was just pretty sharp. Jack Slack's a great internet sort of personality, but he does really great technique breakdowns and fight breakdowns. He's a very salty dog on Twitter on purpose

because he likes to be a bit of a jokester in that way. I like him a lot. And he had a video talking about how, basically, there was a certain style of jab that Amanda Nunes was using called the dipping jab, where they get off as they throw and they dip to the side. It's not the same as a slip, which is almost like a shoulder roll. It's a little bit different.

Slipping and dipping are two different things. But it was a dip jab. And basically Amanda Nunes had no answer for it. So to answer the question, she got outboxed because in the way in which she had been winning up to that point she never developed any kind of answer for that that was she just didn't have the technical skill on that night to deal with that particular style of attack to me that's the biggest factor I recognize BC there might be other ones curious to hear what your thought on this is but dude I say it all the time skills win fights and Amanda Nunes might have overall more skills and overall a much better resume but on that night in the way in which they chose to fight

she came up the less skillful oh absolutely it's interesting my answer is a little bit more it's connected to yours but it's a little bit more chicken and egg yours is the result that she essentially got outboxed in that second round that led to her you can say implosion you could say just she got broken down you know and and taken and taken the back of and i'm not even sure that choke was actually in it was so damn startling i mean look i was lucky enough to be cage side i was cage side by the way when amanda won the title from from misha but i was lucky enough to be cage side when amanda knocked out cyborg in that wild 51 second fight and then this fight and both had just such surreal elements to what i was watching but i think it was the chicken that set up the egg in this case and that was the exposure of amanda's

gas tank and here's what's really interesting luke is it's kind of always been originally had been the major achilles heel of amanda's game you look back to the way that she folded against katsugano after dominating early and you can even look back to ufc 196 the first fight with valentina how much that fight shifted in round three some people even go further and i've read some very educated comments on some of our videos where our viewers are like you know also don't forget she gassed out as well against jermaine durand to me once the fight went to the ground but had such a ground advantage over durand to me in the same way she did not have over juliana in this fight that it

didn't end up becoming a factor look that first that first round in which Amanda won against Julianna, I don't know how you could score it for Pena, but Pena did so many sneaky things upon rewatch that sort of perfectly set up a foundation for what was such a monumental upset. And look, that upset doesn't happen unless Julianna's willing to stand in and take hella punishment. And she did when Amanda got into fight or flight in round two and they had some crazy exchanges.

But in that first round, Luke, not only was it the active guard and the constant fainting that essentially froze Amanda and took away her jab, which is a big part of how she sets up that right hand. But once that fight went to the ground, even though Amanda ultimately had the dominant position and near chokes, dude, if you really watch closely, and this is something I did notice in real time, Juliana was grabbing on Amanda's arm, in theory to try to go for eventually an armbar, Luke, but the constant yanking and battling for control not only put Amanda in an uncomfortable position in which she wasn't even putting in offensive output, she was really just trying to fight it off, look for a choke, not really, let's just get out of this round. Dude, that gassed Amanda. The yanking on the arm, the constant upper body, you know,

grappling and sort of effect, it gassed her a lot. So then when that left hand started to ring up in round two, it really put Amanda in the same position that she ironically put Cyborg in in the first round of their fight, right? Lured the brawler at

hard into a brawl. In this case, I think for Amanda, it may have just been a little bit of frustration and desperation and thinking, oh crap, I got the gas tank yanked upon. So I think it was actually more of that that set up the foundation for her to be willing to stand and trade, and to your credit, it wasn't just the jab, it was the left hand in general.

It was some of these little looping sort of check hooks. It was just an educated left hand that once Amanda was tired, it really exposed her boxing. And I got some flack, Luke, because during our pregame preview, I mentioned, look, Amanda's got some of the best boxing in this game, particularly on the female side. I don't necessarily mean in the most traditional sense. I just mean in the sense of success and effects.

You stand and box with Amanda Nunes, history tells you you're getting knocked the hell out, Luke, okay? And anyone who wants to say that she has no idea about distance or IQ, rewatch the second Shevchenko fight. It was a chess match and she won it, whether you believe she won it or not. But I think once she got exhausted, that just opened the fight up to chaos. So Luke, do you believe in sort of this theory that Amanda learned in the first Shevchenko in a fight, and I'm barring this from some of our viewers, I thought it was very educated, that she learned in the third round of the first Shevchenko fight

that if I try to wrestle aggressively for more than a round, like she did rounds one and two, I'm going to gas myself out. It kind of resurfaced against GDR. Some people are thinking that's why she didn't try to wrestle Shevchenko at all in the rematch. Are you at least in belief of this as well well that going to the ground was the worst thing that could happen in Nunes because she just got out tricked into into dumping half our gas tank yes yeah I think it's a huge component again like all these things kind of work together and and by the way there was like who knows about the camp she I mean the fact that she left American

top team afterwards again I don't think it was just that camp. That was probably long, simmering issues that came to a head as a consequence of the result and probably a few other factors. Well, look, don't overlook that she said publicly she feels like the gym chose Kayla over her, which meant she wasn't getting the focus with all of the coaches and the spotlight that she felt she deserved for being the GOAT, which is not unfair in theory.

It's not unfair. Right, right. I mean mean there's probably something to that and also that there may have been a knee injury and everything else all of those factors combined but yes like i go back to the duran to me fight which amanda nunez was able to get but once she was able to get to these control or you know i'm not going to call them stall positions but i'll call them stop positions where you kind of get to the spot and then it kind of slows down there before a lot of other stuff happens she was able to get her breath and there was enough of a wrestling uh advantage that Nunez retained where she wasn't forced to work that hard with Pena for all her strengths and weaknesses she doesn't really just sort of relent to these positions she kind of keeps working at them slowly but surely right there's there's a little bit more action there yeah she got drained she got drained there's no denying

she got drained and then on the feet when she encountered other problems who knows what her prep was like and everything else it all just culminated in this disastrous performance where she gets finished inside of the second round no doubt about it i think if you're juliana pena you already like uh an aggressive pace right You saw an aggressive pace on the ground. She likes to go for aggressive takedowns, typically from body locks, although not exclusively from them. She likes to get right to business, right to action. She doesn't wait around.

That is something of a, you know, we'll see what happens on Saturday, but that kind of fighter, the one that likes to get to work, the one that has a high work rate while having a fair amount of other issues in there, that has a high work rate while having a fair amount of other issues in there that is a bad matchup i think for amanda nunez the second shevchenko fight when you watch it what's the big takeaway that besides the fact that it was on the feet it was very close the pace was slow the pace was very slow that seems to me quite intentional and there's other fights where she had against who was the math teacher at 145 felicia spencer yeah that fight wasn't as slow but it was still slow enough and it was amanda nunez dealing versus being on the defense and having to worry and trying to catch her breath

and eating shots so she could keep up a slightly higher pace as a consequence but i think if you're draining her again i go back to it round one connor versus abib you can say whatever you want about that round but all that was designed to do was to take a guy who operates here and make him operate here where he is much much more beatable and it worked perfectly as but here's what's crazy is to get to the ground in that first round of their first fight uh pena went down twice the first on kind of a slip when she got punched, but Amanda didn't take the bait and she got back up. The second was a fairly stiff jab. It looked like a right cross in real time. DC called it a jab on the broadcast. I never slowed it down to get them. But the point

is she got stung with a legit shot. She dropped, but this time Amanda took the bait and went in for the ground and pound. Can Juliana, and this might be better reserved for our Friday Actually X's and O preview, but if we're establishing here that we feel like Juliana's got an advantage on the ground, not just in her submission potential, but she tired out Amanda, who's just not fully comfortable there, can she get this fight to the ground? I know that the last takedown in round two was more Amanda was exhausted. She did a trip takedown from the clinch. Can she offensively shoot Luke

to bring this fight to the ground in this rematch? And should that be a part of her strategy? For Amanda or for Juliana? For Pena to take advantage of exactly what we're talking about here. So again, we'll kind of, I want to leave a little bit of this, if I can, to Saturday.

I'll just put it this way. Juliana Pena's takedown accuracy is fine it's 55 it's kind of noteworthy as her takedown defense is only 22 I wonder for Amanda Nunes I know she doesn't want to grapple but I wonder I wonder if there might be some kind of case for her to take the bull by the horns get Pena down and then ground and pound kind of set the tone there early probably not because of all the trade-offs that it comes with, but it is something worth thinking about. But yes, to answer the question, I don't think it's merely can she.

I think eventually, yes, she certainly could. I think it's a must. I think it's a must. I think you've got to go in there and you've got to drain Amanda Nunes. You've got to see exactly where is she in her career and just fighting. I mean, just imagine that. Like, oh, we're just going to have a kickboxing bout with no wrestling with four ounce gloves on.

I don't know how smart an idea that is. That doesn't seem like all that great an idea. However, if I can make you wrestle and then not only are you drained from that, now there's at least something of a dual threat as a consequence. Now you're dealing with a completely different set of of incentives if you're in either case i i think it's again all has to be applied carefully strategically but yes i completely think that has to be a part of it all right luke uh nunes did implode you can again it's a very good argument to talk about how much of the outside distractions you know ended up being her fault leading to the to the implosion or again if it was juliana

that fueled it with all the things that we mentioned but it was shocking to see once hurt and exhausted how quickly that fell apart so this leads me more into the mental side of things i think we have some clips to show to to help set this up luke is to throw to is that true indeed indeed so let's start with these we have pena who is she talking to shack because or is it no she's talking to bc this was right at the conclusion of the Ultimate Fighter season in April, looking ahead to this fight, which didn't have a date yet, but we knew it was coming.

She talks about lighting a fire under Amanda. Let's go to cut one. I think that I lit a gas can of fire right underneath her behind, and she is going to be more focused than she's ever been. I think that she's going to be the more focused than she's ever been. I think that she's going to be the best Amanda that she's ever been. Um, which is funny because that's what she said she

was going to do the first time. So now I have to be like, okay, now this time it's this time it's serious, right? This time she's being for real. She's coming at 110%. And, um, and I'm going to get the best version of Amanda Nunez. And that's great. Cause I was ready for that best version of Amanda Nunez in August. I was ready for that best version of Amanda Nunes. And that's great. Cause I was ready for that best version of Amanda Nunes in August. I was ready for that best version of Amanda Nunes in December. And whenever that day happens, hopefully in September on the John Jones card, I will be ready for that best version of Amanda Nunes and I will be willing

and able. I can, and I will meet that head on and, and do everything in my power to get my hand based. Look, before we get into how mentally tough Juliana is, excuse me for jumping over you, and I want to get into that. Amanda has a lot of explaining to do, obviously, in this rematch, and the odds still reflect that if an Amanda comes in with no issues, skill for skill, she should beat Juliana.

That's a topic, again, for another day. But I don't know if you saw the interview Amandaanda had with uh somebody we respect out of a brazilian outfit uh is it evie rodriguez yeah evelyn but she goes by yeah okay what who does she work for i want to get that right very very nice i thought i thought she worked for globo but i could be wrong about that you know i saw a very nice chat she had with amanda in the camp about amanda saying look like yeah i got humbled by this but life has humbled me many times and how i've reacted each time to being humbled by life is the reason why i'm at where i'm at today so who knows luke i would say though from the outside looking in juliana's right you're gonna get the very best of amanda in this rematch i'm not questioning that at all like this is a wake-up call obviously fair enough but also what she

talked about with you was having herself penya a little bit of dog in her i think we all saw that here's where she talks about it you know there's one thing that i think that separates um you know the the elite from from the regular people um uh there's a dog uh b. There's a little dog that lives inside of me, but it's actually a real big dog. And it's a scary dog. And when you have that dog mentality, and when you have that, I am literally going to rip your face off if it's the last thing that I do type of grind in your head, and you're crazy enough, and you actually know the work that you've put in. It's easy to say, come one, come all. I'll take you all on at the same time. Who wants some, come get some. I don't care if you weigh 160 pounds, 115 pounds. I will fight anybody that you put in front of me. There is a dog that lives inside of me and I will not be denied. And when we do find out whatever happens, you're going to remember that you were in a scrap with me, period. She's right. Win, lose, or draw, she fights with a certain amount of intensity.

Does she not? That's the thing. This is not part of our burning questions, but if you ask me what's the thing that we missed the most in terms of trying to gauge Juliana's chances in that first fight, Luke, based on the fact that she had been 2-2 in her last four, stopped by two elite opponents in Valentina and GDR. It's that we overlook, Luke, how big that dog actually is. In fact, it was overwhelming how big that dog was.

And, you know, again, her ability to take Amanda's, while Amanda was in fight or flight mode, Juliana stood in there and took huge shots. And, Luke, she's next level mentally tough there's no question about that the key here as we're talking about storylines this week is how much will that play into the rematch if and she probably will get a better version of Amanda because she won I love to say it and I stand by this Juliana won that first fight on the it was a triumph of the human spirit her insidesides would just not say no, and she proved to be the last one

standing. It was like a, it was more of a schoolyard fight. She stood up to the bully, and the bully is like, holy crap, I wasn't prepared to do this. I don't know what to do next. It's going to be interesting as we now look ahead to the rematch to say that superpower, which we didn't necessarily know was that big

the first fight and end up being maybe the reason why she won it, can that power have the exact same effect the second time? Does she, in fact, Luke, have a mental edge? Sometimes certain athletes in combat sports at the elite level, they may not be better than you, but that guy just knows how, or that lady just knows how to beat you, Luke. Same thing in basketball or any team sports, right? Remember in basketball, even if you had a powerhouse team, that could be that team with all five guards that just pass well and make threes. They just know how to beat

you. Is that part of this equation heading into this rematch? How much? Because, like, I look at Juliana, cannot be phased mentally. She's elite in that category. Is Amanda Nunes, for all her goatness, as equally elite in that category of the mental makeup and the backbone to be able to bounce back,

to make this not part of the topic heading into the second one. Well, here's the thing. I think Amanda is overall more talented, but I think that Pena has shown more resolve in bad situations. And in fact, you asked her about having the mental edge over Amanda. This is what she said.

Um, the mental edge over amanda this is what she said um i think i've always had um the mental edge uh when it comes to amanda i've been calling out this fight for the last five years and she hasn't wanted to fight me she's always made every excuse like me not making myself worthy for her or oh i'm gonna fight ronda instead or just finding a way to get out of every fight that we have. So, you know, obviously what I feel and what I say and how I approach things bothers her because, you know, she's made that very clear. You know, one thing I picked up on all this conversation, BC, and I didn't necessarily care about, like, on paper,

what folks accuse each other of being like when the cameras are off. It's always he said, she said. And sometimes fighters are selfish and sometimes they are dicks, but it actually is a competitive edge. But here is a case with Amanda where she's accomplished so much and she finally got all these, relatively speaking, financial rewards. And she was in these Modelo ads and the media is blowing her up and the promoters blowing her up and everyone is just lavishing praise on her i wonder what that might have done to her i really want to play this next piece of sound and then react to both of these together if i can she talked about excuse me juliana pena did talk about amanda being a bit of a diva during their filming of the ultimate

fighter i want to play this clip and then tie that into the larger picture that might be here let's hear it she's a little bit more high maintenance than i uh had originally thought you know i definitely you'll see what i mean but yeah that's all i can say for now okay i mean look with membership has its privileges she's still a champion of the women's featherweight division she's considered the go i I mean, could you see yourself as champion now becoming a little more high maintenance, a little diva action? Well, I thought that I really was. I really thought that I was high maintenance, like the most high maintenance, like no one gets more high maintenance than me, right? Like I'm a diva. And then like, I kind of experienced like the things that Amanda was in. I'm just like, my goodness, like, wow, I didn't think that.

So, you know, I think I'll probably be the same throughout, you know, it's not, nothing really is going to phase me too much in terms of being more high maintenance or not. But that was just one thing that I, that surprised me about her. I wonder about that BC. And again, I'm not here to make a judgment call i don't know amanda nunez or her life i wouldn't i'm in no position to dictate how she should live it but i do wonder once you get to a point where you've beaten the rouseys and the homes and the cyborgs

and everyone else on her on her list of scalps and, all that praise, all that acclaim, what it does to you in terms of how you want to be treated and what you expect and what's a given. Do you think there's something to that, A? And B, do you think there's something to that in a relevant sense, which means competitively what that might do for her willingness to really go to the depths that she might need to?

So it really makes me wonder. And first of all, let me just say, you saw it right you saw the charisma the charm she's endearing she's got star power like juliana pena could could really go somewhere if she gets a second victory here but i wonder how much this does apply luke because she had the mental edge in the first one no question but what we don't really know was that mental edge because of what amanda wasn't doing or was distracted with or was that mental edge what happens when two people who think their alphas come together and one exposes that they're a little bit more of an alpha that's what's got to be answered of course on saturday but it's really interesting because you you know watching that interview, I mean,

she's, she's, she doesn't sell it. She's mentally tough as shit. I don't question whether Amanda Nunes was, was, you know, ever mentally tough enough.

Look at what she's accomplished. It's incredible. But there is something about you land in big shots and people taking it and absorbing the pain and then just sort of telling themselves, yeah, I guess this is how it's supposed to go. And they don't get up or they don't keep coming. Pena kept coming. And now they coached against one another.

And granted, I didn't watch all the episodes, so I'm not going to be the best to tell you about the interaction between the two here. But, Luke, there still seems to be some type of an edge here, which maybe just naturally comes when you defeat somebody. We talk about that all the time, entering a rematch. You know, even if one fighter got a lot better or one fighter got worse, how much is just that big brother mental edge if I got you the first time? When I talked about the micro-macro debate here during our pregame preview

and how I look at this fight in general, it's not necessarily changed. In general, I look at it like this. There's a big skill gap between these two. We're talking about the greatest of all time and somebody who showed us on her biggest chance her best performance of her career by far in terms of a lot of those intangibles but we're asking a lot of her to do it a second time i mean if i'm not comparing juliana pena here to muhammad ali but i'll just compare the two scenarios in this case both fights against sunny liston liston was the favorite heading in all right even after that

first one it's because he was on paper supposed to win that, he's the better, more accomplished guy in that moment but Ali, along with being the greatest, had a significant mental edge that he was able to expose, I do wonder even with Amanda going, okay I'm not going to beat myself up, that's my worst night

it's my worst performance, I know who I am I'm going to go, I'm going to go back to my new camp I'm going to come back and no you know, no stones left unturned. When I said macro, I believe Amanda's going to go back in. They're sort of the betting oddsman. They believe that she's going to go back in there and right the wrong. GSP Sarah part two. But I have to say, the more Juliana interviews I watch, the more UFC countdown I watch, right,

that kind of stuff, the more I look at this in ways that we don't always in a fight i get a little bit more micro and i do wonder if we're just dealing talking about juliana with at least in terms of a self-belief backbone somebody who is a little bit different luke i do wonder if she's in the head of newness i do think she's to have to walk through maybe double the hell she did in the first fight if Juliana's going to win this. But I do wonder if there is a breaking point. I do wonder, in general, not unlike how the first fight played out,

if Juliana can welcome Amanda into the deep end of the pool and can swim with her. Is there a breaking point, even with a full camp, even with the embarrassment of having lost that, and to be honest, tapping to something that wasn't even a choke, she tapped to exhaustion.

Let's just be straight up and honest, right? She was hurt by jabs and getting caught in the skirmishes. She tapped to exhaustion. Is that receipt lingering, Luke? I do have to be, this is when I get micro. I do have to realize that sometimes that matters. Sometimes that matters more than anything else. Luke Thomas, I'll ask it to you.

Is there a breaking point that Juliana can blow up the Death Star all over again, even if she gets Darth Vader this time and not Anakin? Yes. Yeah, I mean, again, think about the conditions under which Juliana Pena can win. Now, even with this win here, she got her eye busted up. She had to take huge shots. Relatively speaking, it was a kind of short fight inside of the second round, but it was still a tough fight that was something of a bit of a, to your point,

someone standing up to the bully, a bit of a schoolyard fight, a bit of just an ugly scrap. When you think about it, while there were some technical advantages that juliana pena retained on the feet in terms of what their boxing was in general the complexion of the fight looked the way that you if you're juliana pena you wanted it to look right it was a little ugly it was a little bit kind of all over the place it was a little bit up and down and so forth that is the kind of fight that favors however difficult it still may be juliana pena i think if you're amanda nunez keeping her on the outside and trying to work from that or having her backing

up under pressure and you know and then engaging in not wildness per se because again i think the wildness might actually work in pena's's favor, but like panicking. That was one thing that Pena never really did. She just met the moment. She didn't really panic. She didn't kind of get, she didn't lose herself in that way. She leaned into it. If you're Amanda Nunes, you want to apply some kind of pressure to make her panic or make a secondary or third kind of choice.

Not the kind of one where she leans into it and i think yeah dude i think these you know the the way the fight look as i mentioned looked i should say it speaks to the kind of strengths that pena can bring she can't beat the totality of amanda nunez she can't beat that resume she can't beat all of the various skills and the power punching in general i think that amanda nunez has but there are other ways to drag her and drain her and then pull her into certain problems. And you saw that. I think you peel back that onion,

Luke, you get to the dog. If she can make this dog versus dog, you're right. It could be a different fight, man. I just got really excited. I just got really,

I know we got to move along. We got four more of these plus over under plus fans. I always know where we are. I always know where we are. Let's do it. Burning question number two for UFC 277. Luke, we all know Brandon Marino owns a victory over Kaikara France from 2019 by unanimous three-round decision.

They'll be fighting for the interim flyweight strap on Saturday. In what ways has KK France improved as a fighter since that first fight that should affect who wins Saturday? So, if you actually go back and you watch their first fight, it's funny that the dipping jab was something that got Nunes into

trouble, because it actually got a little bit of Kaikara France into trouble in the first Moreno fight. If you go back and you notice, they were talking about some of the kicks that Moreno was throwing to the body and to the head, but it was actually because Kaikara France kept dipping and leaning off to his right side. He was trying to correct for that. And if you notice, Kaikara France tends to stay a little bit far away.

So a lot of times he'll jab and then throw the overhand right and then delay and then throw the overhand left. That was a big weapon, for example example in the askarov fight so one of the things that's kind of interesting to me is the the answer to your question as best i can tell is not anything that we've seen like for example like the last loss on kaikara france's record is the brandon roival fight since then the biggest improvement i have seen is definitely in the defensive grappling and defensive wrestling on the part of Kaikara France. There were multiple times, for example, go to the Bonterin fight.

Bonterin had his back for most of the first round. He is, I mean, and there were times, man, where he was getting the, it was under the throat. He was taking his head back, all kinds of stuff. And he fought it out. He did okay with it. And then it was able to escape and then just put it on him on the feet. It was amazing.

And even in the Askarov fight, right? Multiple times taking the back, fighting the hands, fighting the hands, fighting the hands, extracting himself off the fence and then taking it back to being a striking affair. How about the time where he got lifted up off a body lock

and then he had this incredible balance early in the first round to stop Askarov from finally finishing the takedown. His defensive wrestling and his defensive grappling have come a very, very long way to the point where he can't seem to fully stop the takedown and he can't seem to prevent the grapplers from ever getting there.

But once they get to some of what you would think would be pretty dominant positions, he has neutralized the worst of that a lot very very effectively kind of interesting in that way the question remains for me is it's like i don't think he can go out there and really wrestle with brandon moreno but one thing i think he does have to do bc and i'd be curious to see what you think about this is he does i think he does have to at least introduce some different threats this time around i'm striking on the outside kaikara france is very good but certainly brandon moreno actually is pretty good striking on the feet now as well

not just being a wild man what i think really has to happen here is he's got to make brandon moreno confused we'll talk about this more on friday so while I really appreciate how much Kaikara France has worked on his defensive grappling and his defensive wrestling, and it makes a huge difference, no doubt about it, I'm not totally convinced that will be the difference maker in the case of the Brandon Moreno rematch. Where are you on this? No, I'm with you on that. This is such an interesting fight.

I mean, it's a great fight. It really is. Interim title mattering in this case or not and i do think it's you know largely gratuitous that there's a title in this fight but um kai car france has been so good in these three fights since being submitted by roival which was the second loss in three fights including the the fight to moreno and it just looks you know the intentionality the power the setups you know i wonder if he is the rising stock i I know Moreno's coming off a defeat to Figueiredo, and they may trade wins and losses for as long as they keep

fighting, for all we know. But I do wonder if this is Kai Karafran's chance. We're going to need to see the most of him I think that we've seen up to this point. There's certain things he was able to do against Garbrandt, who's got some vulnerabilities, although give credit to Karafran, he did just that, and he got him out of there.

And even Askarov, Luke, who I think made some big mistakes, but I think also something was off when we looked back on the fight. I think we're going to see him much better, and I'm an Askarov superfan, so I'll protect him at all costs, but I do think that was not the best version of him, and we'll see them rematch down the road. But, Luke, I did want to throw to

some Brandon Moreno sound to get his answer to the same questions I essentially asked you about how much France is better and what happened in that first fight. But before I do, always a fun chat with Brandon Moreno, which I had this week. As any sound in this, you can check it out, youtube.com slash morningcombat. But, Luke, I don't like the assassin baby anymore for him

because he's going to be 30 eventually, Luke, right? I pitched to him a new nickname. I want to get your thoughts on it. El Huevos Grande. He didn't like it. He didn't like it. He didn't want it. Yeah, I mean, it's a little.

Yeah, it's a little. It says it all. Dude, it says it all, bro. Okay. I mean, I guess if there's, you know, Brandon Royville is raw dog. So I guess you could be big balls. Oh, shout out to jai herbert black country banger that's that is top shelf luke okay that is top shelf for a nickname thank you yeah yeah uh okay there's three moreno clips i'm gonna skip the first one because it's about figure eight i don't really care about that right now so let's go to the second one which is is Moreno discussing Kaikara France's adjustments since the first fight.

Let's hear it. So, yeah, I mean, I can talk about the technical stuff, definitely. But I think the most important thing with Kaikara France is he's more mature and he has more experience he looks more confident in the moment when when he's stepping the octagon and that that is a amazing is a wet weapon to to put in in the fight because you can have all the technique but if you're if you don't have the confidence in yourself, nothing else matters, right? So that will be the most biggest challenge in this fight to me.

Even with that, put my pressure and go against Kaikara France. One thing you got to agree with me, BRBC, is Kaikara france for all the improvements that he's made you know this goes i'm not gonna say unnoticed but i'm just gonna say it's worth mentioning out loud comes from a camp where the guy who runs it eugene bearman is you know i don't know if he's a genius but he's pretty goddamn close they are going to have a good game plan now whether or not Kaikara France can execute against this version of Brandon Moreno obviously highly debatable we shall see Brandon Moreno it currently sits as your odds on favorite according to the odds makers I think most folks probably expect Moreno to win given he's showed

a bit of a higher ceiling nevertheless what do you make of that that like Kaikara France they have three rounds under their belt against this guy. He is much improved in the grappling and defensive wrestling. He already was a very good striker. And now they're going to have a little bit of a switch to make and all the little adjustments they want to. What do you believe? How effective do you think that will be?

Very effective. And a very good fight. Like, you know, I could wait till Friday or I could tell you right now, KK France is going to win this fight, Luke. It took a while for him to win me over, but Brandon Moreno nailed what this three-fight win streak has done to Kaikar France.

It took a guy who already had very good skills, amazing camp. Is he the next in line to join the Volkanovski-Adesanya sort of level? Let's not put too much pressure on him. But Luke, confidence-wise, cocksure-wise, dude, he he's showing that he's upped his game he's a finishing threat there's a lot to love about this win streak and how it sort of seemed to supercharge him i think he's dead on luke i think he's gonna win this fight i think it's gonna be fantastic to watch but i love who he's become and where he's going right now it's made me readjust a lot of how i look at this guy and also moreno spoke to you about in fact that first fight with kai car france and how he reflects on it here's what he said uh what simple i feel just just like i decided to win because I remember the first round was tough I feel

I lost that first round but then you know I started to go forward and put pressure on him and just believe in my technique and believe in myself and I got the victory so this time

definitely I'm expecting a whole different Kaikara France, more mature and more experienced. But man, I think it's a fact. It's the same with me, right? Like more experience, more evolution in my technical stuff. And man, I can't describe with words how this feel, but I feel very motivated, man. I feel a lot of confidence.

Yeah, I gotta tell you, I did think he lost the first round when they followed it was very, very close. But from the second round on, he just couldn't get going. Kaikara France. Yeah, no question about it. And this is, once again, talking from a marketing side, a Mexican-born champion, the first they've ever had.

They're putting this in Texas, Luke, putting an interim title on it. So Moreno has a chance to do big things. I don't know if you saw Dana do big things again. I don't know if you saw Dana White tell Kevin Aioli that, short of the Conor McGregor star level, anytime they do fan greeting signings, Dana was saying nobody in the organization gets the kind of fan turnout like Brandon Moreno does.

And while that's not necessarily a perfect transition from how this rematch will be different from the first, it shows you, Luke, that they got something big here in him if he can get back and win this strap and get back into another Figueredo fight. Can't wait. We'll talk more about that on Friday as well. Question number three, Luke, as we speed it up here.

I'm burning questions for 277. Is there a single fight on the ABC preliminary card or the early ESPN Plus prelims that you'd actually consider appointment viewing? That said, obviously from the standpoint that second pay-per-view in the same month,

they've already put great fights on UFC London, UFC Long Island on ABC. This is not a strong pay-per-view card after those top two or three fights. Yeah, so the question is appointment viewing. No, there is nothing on the prelim cards I would consider appointment viewing. Now, that doesn't mean that the fights will be bad. That doesn't mean there won't be finishes. That doesn't mean that someone won't shine. That doesn't mean any of those things.

But in terms of what they've showed, the relevance of the matchups, and what we can reasonably expect, I mean, some of these might be just fine, but there's nothing appointment viewing. And I went back and I double-checked. So there's eight fights, I believe, on the prelim card as it stands today in five of those eight fights at least one of the competitors is from the contender series now the reason why I bring that up is like a thing that kind of slows me down a little bit is I watched the season six episode one opener last night and it on for contender series it was dreadful it was dreadful

it was not good at all there was a couple of guys who you could probably see as future UFC signees in fact we often find out that guys don't get contracts on the show then they somehow end up on UFC shows later when they fill in for short notice or whatever there was one guy who got a deal as one of Sean Brady's teammates Joe P pifer he actually looked pretty good he got a deal so all's well that ends well for him but in general like you know the contender series people like they they the last few years they were just giving those contracts away to whoever and so i'm you know last night i was actually you know i was really glad to see dana and not deny fighters opportunities but to be a little bit more discerning with how they handed out those deals. And so if you look at these fights, you've got Orion.

I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Kosei Kochei against Blood Diamond. Doesn't do much for me. Nikolai Negomoranu taking on Eeyore. I can't pronounce this dude's last name. He's Ukrainian. He comes from the Contender Series. He looks pretty good. It's a fine fight. Jocelyn edwards taking on jiyeon kim i don't have a whole

lot of interest in at all uh michael morales he is a very interesting prospect i do sort of care about what he's up to but he's still very green and we'll see what happens with him jakar close versus uh rafa garcia's fine fight don't tell maze versus hamdi abdel wahab don't tell maze is you know it is what it is there's nothing really pulling me there drew dover's's fine fight. Dontel Mays versus Hamdi Abdel-Wahab. Dontel Mays is, you know, it is what it is. There's nothing really pulling me there. Drew Dober's a fine fight against Rafael Alves, but it's not appointment viewing. Alex Morneau versus Matthew Semelsberger.

Semelsberger's a guy out of this area, not too far from where I live, and Morneau's a very good guy out of sort of central Texas. You could have just said no, Luke. You could have just said no. Again, I'm just sort of going through it. Nothing in there, there's nothing in there that's necessarily necessarily garbage but there's nothing in there that's like oh i i mean on the prelims man you got to make time for this one i i just don't see it oh the dichotomy of luke thomas always complaining that bc's carrying the show too long but then

you know let's drop everything and go through the wikipedia luke i love that move out of you all right you know it's i'm reading the bro. What do you want me to do? It's why the vape pen, Luke. I'm not... Listen, whenever we ask a question like that and guys are like, oh, yeah, don't watch it. People are like,

oh, you're saying those fighters are shitty? I'm not saying any of that. The question is, are these the kinds of matchups with fighters at this stage that, as a fan, I'd be like, you really should make time for?

No. No. No, there's nothing on there like that. No, and that's not wrong, okay? Burning question number for ufc 277 this is more of a future rollout of what happens in that interim title columbian event at flyweight luke the ufc flyweight division has crazy parody at the top which fighter appears most capable of winning the belt and multiple times defending it over the next year, something we haven't seen since the Demetrius Johnson era, although Cejudo had a very strong little run there.

I'm going to say I don't see one. I can see guys winning the title. I see very good talent. I had an interview with Matt Schnell. It'll either be out today or very soon, where we discuss in fact how there was this, as you recall, they almost got rid

of flyweight. There was this bloodletting where they got rid of a bunch of guys, and you're like, I don't know what's going to happen. And then they kind of stopped, and it slowly kind of reconstituted itself. You look inside the top 10, there's great fighters. Even on this card, right, we haven't really talked about either of these fights

that are going to take place, but you've got the Pantoja and Alex Perez fight. Like, both of those guys are very good. In fact, you could see Pantoja potentially winning the title, but, like, is there some figure you can look at here where you're like, oh, this guy has the skills, potential youth, physicality, whatever you might need to be like, this is

someone who can reign over this division in a coordinated, consistent way over time. I got to be honest, BC, I would love to hear your answer. I just don't see it. I see a lot of good fighters. I don't see a ton of separation between them. And that to me gets to the heart of your question. You nailed it. And I think that's the right answer.

Nobody. There's so much parody. It's very fun right now. Seriously, the Flyweight division rules. We know that at the moment. Luke, I thought it was going to be Figueiredo after the two Joe Benavidez wins and the dominance and the swagger, but I do think the parody, his own

age, and also his... Look, it's a tough cut for Davis and Figueiredo. I don't know how he's going to continue to do it. It's conspired against him in terms of from the idea of doing just what I said, winning the title and then defending it two, three times. I thought for a moment it would be Moreno, but the parody of the division overcame that, and there's still time for Moreno to be the commercial face, no question.

But, Luke, Askar Askarov was the other one who I thought could potentially do it. But, you know, he didn't beat Kaikara France, whether there was injury or layoff or anything associated with that. So, no, I don't see the guy right now. I'm interested to see. I think we're going to get hot potato and I think it's going to be fun as balls. Final question, burning questions, UFC 277,

Luke. It's of that third very good fight on this card that we need to see. For all the talk of Magomed and Koliath's chances of cutting the line to the title with a big win here over Anthony Smith at light heavyweight how strong is the case for Anthony Smith if he scored a fourth consecutive stoppage win when you say how strong of the case you mean for a title to cut Jan Blachowicz and Glover Teixeira atop the very crowded title picture

with Prochaska on top right now. Who gets next? Realistically speaking, even with a stoppage win here, I don't know if he gets it. In part because while I believe that Smith is well-liked by management and I do believe well-liked by the fans in general,

there is just always, it seems to me, lingering doubt about him in one way or the other. And you could say, well, four stoppage wins in a row. Certainly that would be great. And of course, Devin Clark, Jimmy Crute, and Ryan Spann, those are great fighters. Magomed Ankhalaev, I think, is better than all three of them. So it would be a triumphant, a triumphant win in that sense. It would be the best of the four to cap off a four fight run in that way nevertheless Blachowicz held a title and I think folks think a second

shot well not with Glover but a second opportunity to get back there against the existing champion Yuri Prochocka could produce not only fireworks but you know this is a guy who's already been at the top why not try it again or in the case of Glover, he had the most incredible fight, maybe not ever, but certainly one of the more memorable ones you're going to see against Brohochka. Maybe he should be that guy. Is a win over Ankhalaev, given how Smith is viewed, even if that win is spectacular,

is there enough there to have him, in the eyes of the fans or management or both, make a case to leapfrog those guys, I think it would have to be the most spectacular of wins. And even then, I would be somewhat skeptical, in part because, BC, there's a bit of the bottleneck up there about how they're going to resolve it. Plus, the last loss, I believe, that Smith has prior to the run was against Rakic.

Rakic has to come back after having that injury in his last contest. I think folks will want to see him beat somebody like that, like get over a hump that you previously couldn't. Just one more, and you might be like, oh, well, that's unfair. Guys get title shots off three, four, five win streaks. But he already had a title shot. To get another one, it would be a lot he'd have to do. It is unfair, but it's

the truth. It's where we're at, unfortunately, Luke. And by the way, did you see Rakic publicly accused Jimmy Manilow of sucker punching him at UFC London, and Manilow claims it was leftover trash talk between them from the fight that knocked out and retired

Manilow. That's a little bit interesting, Luke. I don't know, maybe it's Manoa trying to get in a fight. Maybe he's trying to get another big payday here, Luke. Yeah, I mean, apparently you can just hit people in society that say things you don't like. I guess that's a thing we're doing now. I mean, I watched the fight. Like, Manoa got hit with a vicious head kick

and got dropped badly. It was a terrible loss. Manoa was a great striker. He had a very good career. But I just don't understand this whole thing like, oh, if you say things on Twitter, you'll get slapped slapped i realize that's the real world like people can do that but it's like if you're doing that um that's just an l in so many you know who didn't do that to me luke anthony smith when he called me out at the world mma awards and you know he had a point luke

okay he certainly did now he spoke to our friend shack the prince of persia about this upcoming fight he was asked you know give us your assessment about magomed on khalif how good is he what do you think here's what he told him i don't think he's the most dangerous i don't i don't think he's the most dangerous guy in the division at all he's absolutely not the scariest for me at least um i he is very very skilled and he's very very technical it's hard to beat but that's not necessarily scary if that makes any sense he's he doesn't do a whole lot so he doesn't leave a lot of opportunities to make mistakes or leave there's not a lot of opportunities to take advantage because he stays very much within himself so he's hard to drag out of the way he wants to fight one

certain way it's hard to get out of that so. He wants to fight one certain way. It's hard to get out of that. So if there's anybody in the division that can make someone fight the way that they don't want to, it's me. So I'm really excited for it. I got a lot of respect for that guy. Could you tell which one was the pro fighter? Oh, wow, wow. That was during our Vegas trip, Luke. And Shaq had been through it like we

are luke that place will kill you okay uh and then last but not least i didn't know this was coming i've not seen this so this would be interesting i guess smith one more time was asked about us let's see what he had to say uh luke thomas that's my colleague man i always have um he is so analytical there's times where like sometimes i'll like try to look for a new twist or a new way to look at a fight and sometimes i'll go to luke like i'll go to his stuff and like what does luke say about this guy and sometimes it'll put me on a different path so if i'm trying to break a fight down like everyone can do the regular oh he's got a good right hand or he's got a good kick. But sometimes Luke puts a little twist on it, and then it will fire something in my brain that will get me onto another path.

So I actually use Luke for motivation. Oh, you're just going to smile hearing that. Brian Campbell. I don't know why he hates me. Okay. Do you want me to explain it to you? Because I know. I think I've heard it.

No, no, no. Yeah. It's not he. Luke really respects no. Yeah, it's not. He, Luke really respects you. Yeah, because Luke is so respectful. And his whole life comes. Brian's like, why are you always riding his ass all the time? Yeah, it's really.

Brian, stop it. No, I promise he has no issue with you. I love fucking with him when I see him. No, you should. Because I know he doesn't have a serious issue. No, no. You should go on Room Service Diaries. They've got a thing. they've got uh they've got

a thing they've got like a totally i don't know if you've seen it they have like a ugly ass casting couch it looks like it looks really shady was just on it right uh who was on it i know they don't want glover they've done one with michael kia so that's not out yet they did one where i think one when josh emmett came out today yeah you should do it and uh lots of room to strangle Brian. Yeah, I would too. All right, now let me pull. Wow. Wow, Luke. I didn't. First, I'm like, hey, Shaq, can we keep this kayfabe here?

You don't have to expose the little man behind the curtain. But then he was out there recruiting for us, Luke. That was nicely done. I mean, he also talked over Smith for like 45 seconds of that clip, so that wasn't great. Well, that's also on par for MK right there. But yeah, Luke, this would be the biggest win of Anthony Smith's career. I'm cheering for him, Luke, okay?

He's factory town MMA approved. Let's see if he can crash that party, Luke. It's a tough fight. It's a tough fight. He is a heavy underdog, by the way. I was looking at the odds today. Let's see. So they've got him. Just to wrap this up with conversation very quickly,

they've got Smith. to wrap this up with conversation or very quickly. They've got Smith. Jesus Lord have mercy. They've got Smith at a plus 400 on Kalia at minus five 50. I understand uncle. I have being the favorite. He's only got the one loss to Paul Craig. And that was kind of like a little fluky and the end of the round, third round and whatnot.

But yeah, it's a little high. If you ask me, it's a little high. Yep. me. It's a little high. Yep. Hey, look, this is our best first hour in a while. We're on pace for a top 50 show in MK history right now. Yeah, when I get some decent sleep and

some caffeine and we have some decent topics, Lord knows all the things we can do. By the way, we should remind folks, though, we are a nominee for the best sports podcast and best male-hosted podcast category in the People's Choice Podcast Awards. We appreciate all you guys do for us and we hope you enjoy our show enough to

nominate us to advance us to the final round. To nominate Morning Combat, you can A, just use the QR code on your screen or B, go to podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up, toggle down to the sports category. The whole process takes less than 60 seconds. We've included the link at the top category the whole process takes less than 60 seconds we've included

the link at the top of the episode description as well i have begun the recruitment process luke for a potential ufc at msg weekend mk live variety show chuck minnehall says he's in if we do this luke what did you your your sound cut out in my ear what did you say i'm still here luke i just i want to win awards so we could do more live shows and make magical moments half of your your sentence got cut out i was like did you stop talking because your mouth kept moving i didn't know if you were doing some kind of bit but like right where i fake a seizure yeah it's a great bit luke that's just fantastic yeah no no uh yes i obviously completely agree and ken i really hope we get it and i really would like to do i've done some shows at bars nearby msg for series xm and some of them were great and do the new york fans and that new york energy oh yeah i know vegas is the fight

capital but i gotta say the Big Apple holds a special place in my heart. I'd want to do a theater, like almost like a, you know, basically a bar restaurant that's got a stage, you know, almost like a mini theater set up, Luke. I think we could do that. Yeah, but I don't want to do a bit where we look like a regional MMA show where there's like five people in

attendance and the crowd. Well, that's the fear. Seriously, that's the legitimate fear for any podcaster that thinks they've got something special going. When you build it, well, they come, Luke. Nobody wants to put on a live show in front of 18 people, but we'll see what happens. Luke, we do this reoccurring segment sometimes on Wednesdays. We haven't done it in a while.

Shout out to this. It's a time filler. It's a lot of fun. It's called Over Under. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial habits.

Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Oh, let's get some vape juice going in this bitch. That's what I'm talking about. All right, I've got 10 scenarios. I'm going to give you a number, Luke. You're going to tell me whether it's more likely to be over or under.

Number one, Luke, four and a half. Four and a half. Four and a half. The amount of remaining fights that the 20-1 Kamaru Usman would need to win without losing again to retire as one of the five greatest fighters in UFC history. Now, let me hedge that by saying this. He is one win away from Anderson Silva's consecutive UFC record of 16 wins. So this is saying, what if he got four or five more wins and then walked away? Are we putting him in the GSP Silva Jones?

You know what I'm talking about here. Wow. Okay, let me look up something real quickly on his record if I can, because you're springing this on me. I'm obviously not prepared for these because that's the whole name of the game. That's the object of this segment. So he's 35 years of age. Four more fights if he remained active will be two more years.

He'd be 37. He'd have to beat Chimaev. I'll tell you that much. At that point, he would have to beat Chimaev, right? Maybe even Rachmanov, right? I mean, I doubt Rachmanov's all that far at this point either. Wow. To be, you said, among the five best fighters ever?

Yes, the upper, upper room. I'll say under. I'll say under. I think if he got four more wins, given who's in front of him. Now, if he ends up getting like a third, I don't know, Maz or a fourth, whatever,

how many times he's fucking fought Maz at this point, I can't remember. We're talking, I'm talking fresh matchups, fresh matchups. Would you say it could be the under if one of those wins is a title in another division? That that would be enough,

just right there. Jesus. And especially, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this much if it's 205 and he goes up there and starts bodying people at 205 fuck me um yeah i think four would be enough dude if he if he walks away with having one never lost in the ufc which is true right now. Two, having broken Anderson Silva's untouchable 16-fight win streak record. Not untouchable, but very impressive. And then three, dude, he dominated people, and he didn't lay in prey. He became a finisher. Yeah, close fights with Colby, but that's part of the journey for Jon Jones and everybody else. It really would be hard to keep him away, Luke.

It really would. Yeah, I mean, to retire at 24-1, beating the next generation of welterweights and or some light heavyweights, shit, that's, I mean, that's, his resume is already insane. That would make it, yeah, that would make it next level. Yes, four. It would depend on. Yeah, that would make it next level. I guess for,

for me, it would depend on opponents and all that kind of stuff, but I don't think he needs five. So I'm not, I'll take the under. I mean, let's not look, dude,

it's not impossible that our Sonia would move up full time to two Oh five and would open up the chance for Usman to fight for the middleweight title, right? It's not impossible. There's that, right. There's that as well.

And I do think he's very competitive with some of those middleweights. So yeah, I think four, four or less, depending on who it is, four would be enough. All right, number two here, Luke. The number is 70, and that's the percentage out of 100 that you're confident that former Penn State All-American Bo Nickel will win a UFC contract with a victory of any kind when he debuts on the Augustust 9th dana white contender series there's if he wins

i'm gonna put the chance at 100 there's no way they let him walk okay i said of any kind what if what if he's got some uh or what if it's boring as shit lou he's only got one pro fight he's fighting on the contender series in his second pro fight now ed ruth was one of his, I think they had some overlap together at Penn State. And Ed Ruth is one of the, I've had people who follow collegiate wrestling for a living tell me he's got a case as one of the 10 best collegiate wrestlers ever. He went over to Bellator and hasn't quite panned out.

So it's not like he's a guaranteed success. Well, he's not a train wreck. He's pretty good. He's pretty good, Luke. He's definitely good. But I think people thought he was going to come out and just beat the shit out of the world, and it hasn't happened that way. Yeah, I think if he gets any win at all, they sign him.

Any win at all, even controversial, even if he looks shitty for half the time, they're not going to let him go to some other promoter. No chance. Absolutely. I mean, they're building, what, state college you know because the guys like him like he's going to be a major major thing all right number three here 500 as in dollars the amount of combined money that you average to spend each month on vaping thc and delta 8 products over under, Luke? Okay, so it definitely is the under. I will tell you this.

One of these costs, I don't know, depending on where you buy it and the brand and whatever, anywhere between 20 to 40 bucks. Let's just say 30 to average it out. So it's about 30 bucks or so. And they all come in different. I've discovered this. They all come in like, they measure it in puffs.

So do you get 1,500 puffs so do you get 1500 puffs or do you get 5000 puffs for one of these but let's say it's about 30 i've actually cut way way back on look at you devil's lettuce because i've got so much stress that i'm dealing with right now and trying to get like all these things in my life situated that it's been making me crazy paranoid. So I haven't had any Delta eight or THC in several weeks, several weeks. All right. I didn't know. Cause you know,

I have seen you fourth wall removal here, go to the dispensary and drop a couple hundos Luke. So that's what I've been wondering your total cost, you know? Yes. So I mean, have there been months where I've exceeded five, even then I wouldn't exceed five.

I would say the most in a month, probably a shade under three. That's a good month. That's a fun month, Luke. That's a month where I just walked around zombified 24-7, but not recently. One day as you're dying, you'll be like, well, I did have that month. That was fantastic. All right. All right. Our next one be like, well, I did have that month. That was fantastic. All right. All right, our next one, Luke, is 2.5. Over or under, the amount of remaining victories

that Paddy Pimblitt will have in the UFC before suffering his first defeat. Ooh, that's a good one. Mmm. I'll take the over but I think it's right at the over like I think it's right at three because I do think he's getting better I do think that that last

win showed you he's a legitimate I mean his back attacks and his nimbleness from that position are no bullshit he's very good there and that might be enough for a little while i do think that like everyone loses in the ufc he's going to lose two um i think three is probably the right number but i will tell you if you had done it at one and a half you've done it at one and a half i probably would still take the over but i'm that's why this one's hard because it is that two to three range

where you feel like, what is that? It's another year, year and a half, right? Yeah, like within that time frame, he might actually get bossed around. I mean, there's going to be a hammer eventually. He's going to open up that door, and there's going to be a hammer right there, Luke. What I always say, dude, like are the UFC matchmakers doing him a favor right now?

100% they're doing him a favor, but they can only do that for so long before that train comes to a stop. Eventually it will. I'll say it's three or more. Three or more. I want to bring up something that seems crazy on the surface, but I want you to think about it. I saw a clip on Instagram. I guess the Schmo does a podcast with Henry Cejudo.

Shout out to them, by the way. And Cejudo said because of Patty's marketing and if you want to make him a star right now, the UFC should match him next against Conor McGregor on pay-per-view and that Cejudo believes Patty will win. Now, I know right away people are like, why are we doing this? Why are we talking? Luke, get through that.

Get to the core of it. Does any level of you agree with that? No, none. I mean, I agree with the sentiment that if you want to make him a star you got to push him hard right now i do agree with that that part i think is right like just waiting to see what that's going to look like and we'll just slow roll it no they need to have a plan in place and dana i think even talked about it yesterday's contender series where he was saying we're going to bring him to a pay-per-view in new york then put him in vegas like they've got a real clear

strategic step-by-step process to get him maximum visibility and i think that's right but fucking conor mcgregor do conor mcgregor would put his lights out quickly no i don't like really okay i mean you know if conor mcgregor is coming back compromise which how could he not right in some levels right how could he freaking not i mean you see him partying all the time look how could you not i do wonder you know but i get into that more circus side that the king of cringe is all about i know you hate that shit you're like give me a ranked fight give me one versus two i'm just saying i don't mind that he's thinking in an unorthodox way and i see where he's going he just took a like a he took a he took a he took a very smart insight and then went crazy with it okay You know what I mean? He's like, you know what?

I should get a marijuana license. And then you show up to their house and they've got a bong the size of a three-story house that they can live inside of. It's like, well, you played the idea right. You just went too far. All right. Four is the next number, Luke. The number of top 15 ranked UFC women's straw weights that you believe you could survive

five minutes in the cage against without tapping or losing consciousness. This is only about survival. This is only about survival, and I'm going to guess you got like a 150-pound weight advantage probably. Yeah, okay, so all I have to do is not get tapped out with a limb extension

or go unconscious from a choke, right? That's the only thing I have to do. not get tapped out with a limb extension or go unconscious from a choke, right? That's the only thing I have to do. Yeah, yeah, basically quitting is tapping. So, yeah, as long as you can make it to the end of the five minutes, that could be you covering up in the fetal position. That could be you taking big power shots, Luke. That could be you doing north-south. I mean, it could, right?

You know, it could. It could, Luke. I mean, I could be totally overestimating myself. I'm going to take the over on that. Wow. I've survived seven eight-minute rounds with dudes who were 300 pounds. Wow. All right.

I like that. I feel like, again, if the goal is to survive, I think I could survive over. All right. I like that's an alpha answer right there. I like it. All right. We got another alpha question here, Luke. 7.5. The amount of top 15 ranked women's straw weights

that you believe your boy BC could successfully DM slide into at least one date if everyone involved, including myself, was single. Boys, I got to tell you, I got to take the under on that. Oh, come on. Come on. Put the question back up. Let me see if I'm reading, come on. Come on. Put the question back up. Let me see if I'm reading it correctly.

One more time. Put the question back up on the screen. Okay, the amount of top 15 UFC women's straw weights. We got 15 women. The 15 ranked. You could successfully DM slide into at least a first date assuming everyone was single. And you think you could nab eight of 15?

I think you are grossly overestimating your capacity here now okay if it was the top 15 bkfc straw weights oh there you go there you go wow that's not the wrong way to look at it too right because what if you would put the over under let's say at four four, four and a half, where I had to pick, could he get five into a first date? That's a little bit more of a thoughtful maybe I could see, because I did see how you did some of that in Vegas. I saw you just turn into a fucking dirt bag.

I could see how maybe some of that is doable. Come here, Spitfire. Yeah, but think about it. Yeah, but think about it. When you called over Emily Whitmire. But it's like, dude, imagine if you got three of them. Just imagine if you got three of them. It's like, wow, dude, Brian Campbell got three dates

with three of the top 15. Holy shit, what's he, what's, you know, he's by hung like Snuffleupagus over there. What the fuck's he doing, you know? And just for the record, obviously, we're joking here okay we're completely joking but i'm just saying even if any one person you me whoever if they got three of them that'd you that'd be like dude you were running the fucking table at that point you're talking about eight who the fuck you think you are dan blazeran

good one all right look let's keep it going here three and a half three point five the remaining number of fights kayla harrison will have before making her ufc eventual debut here jesus whatever the contractual minimum is um well you figure two tournament well it could be one if she loses but she's not so two more fights in this season's tournament, right? Playoffs and championship. Then one pay-per-view fight next year. Will that be two pay-per-view fights? Well, three and a half over under her, Luke. Are they really going to do pay-per-view fights?

Who the fuck are they going to line up for? They've made no progress on this whatsoever. It probably has to do with Cyborg's contract status or talking to Coker. I mean, that's got to be the one they're looking at, right? Yeah, I'll take the under. I take the under. I don't. I just, you know, again, folks need to understand this.

Once PFL matched what was in the contract, she had two options. One, you can retire and you don't have to fight. But if you want to fight, you have no other choice the way their contracts are written than to go back to the pfl think folks think she had a choice i can just sign with whoever i want nope with the matching rights being what they are once pfl makes a match commensurate with whatever she was offered elsewhere by bellator whoever that's it game over so and she acknowledged that the ufc did make an offer but it was certainly of the variety where it's like, come here first, improve yourself, then you'll get that money, right?

Yeah. So I'll take the under, but they've not, you know, they've not, it's not working out. All right. One, Luke, one. The amount of times

the super friends friendship between Patti Pimble and Molly the Meatball has included benefits in the past year. Oh, Jesus Christ. I'm trying to fill time here luke okay you know what i'm saying i'll say zero because this question's out of bounds and anyway like dude dudes can train with women and it's fine like okay not everyone is a scumbag oh yeah you're right you're right you're right all right let's keep it going i don't know know. Over, under, I don't know. All right, Luke, 2.8 million. 2.8 million. Jesus.

The number of pay-per-view buys that a Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing rematch would do in 2023, and let me hedge this, whether you believe in the Irish mirror or not, as a respectable news organization, they claim that both have agreed to it having to be at 155 and that it only becomes signed, according to this report, per Conor, if Floyd will make it a real fight and not an exhibition fight. 2.8 million, Luke, over under. Under.

Under. Wow. I think that it would sell a lot. I think two and a half is probably its limit. Obviously, the first one did four and a half or whatever, or around that mark. And that was a peak fever. I mean, that was peak Connor.

We are far past peak Connor. And frankly, we're far past peak Mayweather as well. Now, again, for folks who may not be aware of this, anything that sells a million is a huge success anything that sells two million is somewhat historic two and a half would put it in the top five pay-per-views of all time i believe right we're talking about a that would be um that would be an enormously successful buy rate but i also think that like i'm not saying the boxing mma thing is completely played out but it's heavily played out these two are the exception to the rule so it would do well but i don't know dude i just

don't the records and they're gonna charge 100 fucking bucks for it you know oh hell yeah they would um and by the way me even mentioning this report obviously the elephant in the room is it's would only happen if ufc decided to co-promote it under the current contract status as we know it right of course but 4.6 million is mayweather pacquiao 4.4 million mayweather mcgregor and then what we had uh 2.4 uh for ufc 229 i believe uh you know connor and habib you had 2.4 for mayweather canelo and then also uh mayweather de la joya was in that area too but we're talking about like just those fights in the history of combat sports have produced those you know that many uh many buys and eyes so to speak finally

luke our last one five the number of fighters habib namaga met off would need to guide to a ufc title before his legacy as a fighter was eclipsed by that as his legacy as a trainer three is the answer so i'll take the under you really think three yeah are you kidding how many trainers have three champions under their oh i'm not saying it's likely you're up there in trevor whitman territory right i mean that's wild right yeah yeah three i think would be the answer i mean i don't even know if four is doable to be honest with you um i'm just saying his legacy as a fighter is pretty damn impressive here luke you'd have to trump exactly oh okay okay let me think about that okay so it over under is five to trump what he did as a fighter. I mean, they're always kind of downgrading him after the fact. Still going to take the under.

Even if the answer is four. Or even if the answer is... Yeah, even if the answer is four. Dude, if you have four champions... And not like, you know, Akhmet champions. But like Bellator, PFL, and UFC. Yeah. Well. Do you think that okay okay if he gets four ufc champions it might eclipse it but if he gets i mean that'd be a lot of ufc champions yeah i think that's what it would take

for you but what about this what if he gets like two ufc champions one bellator one pfl does that really change his legacy? Well, you know how there's a small critical minority who can look at his career and say, okay, undefeated, but didn't get to fight Tony, missed a lot of time, didn't fight everybody we wanted. Okay, well, would they say the same thing about the coaching because his dad kind of started it and reared all these fighters up? And then also he's got Javier Mendez with him too,

which can't suck to have that on your staff. Nope, it can't. Again, it's also like how much can you say he's responsible? But like if Islam got one, if Usman Nurmagomedov got one, if one of the other Nurmagomedovs in the UFC got one, I mean, yeah, it would be four. Four UFC champions, you'd be like, holy fucking shit, he's next level. But if it's just four respectable world titles,

I don't know if that does it. So it's going to depend. Okay. Luke, that'll wrap up Over Under, but we've got one more segment, and it's fan-driven. MorningCombat at gmail.com. It doesn't get to us. Reminder, it goes to Mikey Mormile, our fine CBS sports producer.

You send in every Wednesday your pictures of your art. It doesn't get to us. Reminder, it goes to Mikey Mormile, our fine CBS sports producer. You send in every Wednesday your pictures of your art. You wearing a shmedium, but it says Morning Combat across it or whatever other bullshit you can come up with. I mean, you've been on fire lately, so this is no disrespect, but it's time for Fancy. You've got mail. Viewers. Yeah, we got mail, Luke, okay? Viewers. Yeah viewers yeah all right let's start with a male

viewer here christian he says what's up luke and bc i was that donk that was training with tony ferguson on bc's feces although my twitter fan account is strike force nick diaz my real name is christian daguerreau i was at the live show a few weeks ago but i think luke had seven margaritas too many to remember me and bc was trying to recover mentally from the trauma luke just put him through oh i mean lighten up everybody i mean you act like i fucking hit him with a shovel jokes aside i'm a massive mk fan i had a blast at the live show i have my fifth amateur fight coming up on August 13th. Yes! And if it's okay with you donks,

I'd love to put the MK logo on my shorts to rep the best damn combat sports show. Period. Here's the pics I got with you guys at the live show and me repping the shirt I got at the live show. Keep killing it. Much love from Kelly. Luke, I remember meeting this guy. Very nice guy.

We've never had this type of solicitation before. Is this a smart idea for us to go down the fight road with him for his fifth amateur fight with that MK logo up on that ass, Luke? I think it is. I think I endorse this idea informally anyway. I love it. Hope he wins. Let it film it.

Have someone film your fight where however it's being broadcast and i would love we you know what send it to us we'd love to play it on the show well i want to you know if he wins like let's put the pressure on him let's go all or nothing here if he wins would you approve you and i in a very coach latore like manner cornering him for his sixth amateur fight with MK Doc cameras ready. That's us going to walk. I would barely feel adequate cornering him. I will hold that bitch's spit bucket.

I will hold that shit. You could be the guy that puts the ice on the back of the neck for no reason. I'd pour some water on his huevos, Luke. Let me pour some water on your balls. Thank you, Christian. We love you. We'll see what we can do with this relationship. You've got tovos, Luke, okay? Let me pour some water on your balls. Okay. All right. Thank you, Christian. We love you.

We'll see what we can do with this relationship. You've got to win, though, brother, okay? You've got to get out there and win this fight. You're training with Tony Ferguson, apparently, so let's see what you've got. Our second one's from Tony. Hey, gents, a proper thank you is in order for keeping me occupied in the Tesla while the wife shops endlessly. BC, picture this. Your pale, pasty ass is slamming a gas station hot dog, unlikely your last, in the driver's seat

while the Tesla drives you down 890 on autopilot. Unfortunately, they don't come in that atrocious orange that you love so much, but I'm sure red will suffice just as well. And Luke, don't act like all your neighbors in DC don't already own one. It's time to sack up and join the team, Elon. Right, fellas?

It's Tony P. from Connecticut. Wow, this guy's from—dude, is this Tony P. that I grew up with from Greenwood? No, it's from Connecticut. I hope it is, Luke. I know he watches the show. But your thoughts on his Tesla offer? Yeah. Don't put that bitch in autopilot.

You never know what could happen. You do that okay but do you get his frustration there you're out shopping with the wife it's like when you shopped with me and i went to fryer tux luke and they kept me hostage back there for a while yeah i mean you took i mean could you have taken longer was it my fault bro was my fault we had to wait two hours in a shitty parking lot in the worst car ever yeah they saw it on the dock they know all about it luke okay we had to wait two hours in a shitty parking lot in the worst car ever yeah they saw it on the dock they know all about it luke okay i wanted to kill you all right sham

roz is here he says uh hey guys i'm my name is sham i'm from middlesborough england long-time listener first-time contributor i just thought i'd send some pics of my first ever ufc event in london last weekend i traveled down for four hours by car with my friend Ryan. When he asked me had smart we should be dressing, I said there's only one thing to wear to an MMA event and that's to rock some MK gear. Had an absolute blast of a time and I

can't wait to go again. Keep up the great work. Love the show, but P.S. I think I may have converted Ryan into a listener after forcing him to listen to Friday's episode on the drive. To him, you two are no longer the weirdos I listen to. You're now them two geezers.

Alright. Alright, yeah. Who is your friend? Ali G? Shout out to this British bull care Shamraz. I love this guy, Luke. You know anything about Middle Borough, England? Sounds factory-ish. Yeah, probably sucks, Luke. You know anything about Middleborough, England? Sounds factory-ish. Yeah,

probably sucks. I don't know anything about it. Yeah, there you go. Luke, by the way, people coming at you for that shitty take on London food quality, Luke. No, they're so fucking wrong. I mean, yes, obviously a world-class city like London has good food, but the test of good food in a city is can you walk

around without having to do a ton of research and find decent food in various spots as you go around? If you think that you can do that easily in London, you have the palate of a toddler. Just sort of putting it out. So you can come at me all you fucking want, you dopes who like beefaroni. Enjoy Chef Boyardee, fuckfaces. I think we're going to hear more about this in Friday's Dead Wrong. I'm just guessing. I'm guessing here. All right. this in friday's dead wrong i'm just guessing i'm guessing here all right this is how i'm gonna get wrong me it's an opinion what the fuck i mean what my question is that you can say how many michelin store restaurants you have

that doesn't change anything take that zag it uh luke from at the lauderdale local one of the best south florida food accounts apparently hey american alpha and lukito big fan of the show next time you guys are in south florida i will show you guys the best hot dog spots tons of good colombian food down here for luke as well mk all day nearly every day look is this a female viewer i can't believe it but yes it does seem that way amazing and by the way she's right like florida is not for me i don't think but i will tell you bro if you're into like you know anywhere from like any kind of latin food of any kind including like brazilian food dude florida's got it going on it's so good down there doesn't mikey

live in greater fort laura dale mikey is this a recutable food account this female viewer of mk he says that's my homie oh yes yeah all right maybe this is a setup there but i like it i like it just the same all right food account in florida damn all right there you go all right uh jp look you know jay paquette right from uh mount unike i know i got that wrong nova scotia i don't know even the names of the people who work on the show i barely know your name so he's a French-Canadian, Luke, although he told me how to pronounce this. I can't pronounce it right. Mount Eunach? I don't know.

Fan submission of sorts, but I couldn't wait for Friday's Dead Wrong for not having BC's super sloppy special graphic ready for MK episode 326. So much so that he called me out at the 102 point. Hilarious yet disappointing at the same

time i dropped the ball on the king of connecticut look i didn't even award a super sloppy special to any fight on this uh bad undercard we got this weekend but this is jay paquette's idea originally and i hope we worked this into the fabric of our wednesday show moving forward look yeah but the tate that'd be see that's not fair to this one tate and murphy was not super sloppy i didn't name it that one my super sloppy special i think he's just having fun here luke okay all right all right there you go all right thank you very much uh thank you jp we love you brother uh this from art bombs hey guys congrats on everything you've done so far much love i mean could i have seven more chins, please?

I mean, what the fuck is this? So did he draw this digitally, Luke, on the computer? I saw an old guy. This is definitely based off of a picture. So I don't know if he drew it separate from that or on top of it. And he used his computer to draw this, Luke. He used the old Macintosh oh luke i forgot to ask you what do you make of this we have a lot of southern americans hard-working blue-collar

people who are very up in arms that feel that because you and i are caucasians we feel like we can over and abundantly dunk on on like wt people and and really push forth an unfair stereotype that is offensive and if done under any other you know nationality would probably be banishment luke uh how do you respond to that touch grass losers we're gonna keep doing it you should have puffed to that luke you should have done the lebron high court puff which is genius by the way way. That's just, that's amazing. Yeah. Luke Thomas, everybody. He'll be here all

week. Okay, let's go over to Jason. Jason says, Hey, I'm Jay from Boston here. Today's submission is paying tribute to the 90s rock bands that BC brings up on a weekly basis. We start with a band that you showed some love for a few shows ago the verve pipe okay okay look at you look at luke in the background i love that pose i

mean is that little look of i'm you know i'm waiting for the lady at the dmv to call my name like jesus you kind of look like michael stipe in the losing my religion video there luke uh let's go over the second one uh next up is a 90s rock staple third eye blind okay that's disturbing is that the room service diaries curtains from the hotel room behind that why are you like i mean yeah this jay you're losing me here. The third one is a personal favorite of BC's Matchbox 20, led by BC and Rob Thomas, a.k.a. Luke's dad. Dude, what is up with all these 90s album covers? These are guys all looking pensive and sad.

It's like these were fucking giant hits. That was the mood. Bro, that was the mood. Come on. Second to last one. I know you both love The Counting Crows, led by LT as his favorite lead vocalist adam duritz okay i gotta tell you i just i tried with the white guys with dreadlocks thing

to not stereotype but every one of them just deserves the wood shampoo i mean every single last fucking one of them okay uh i don't know about his ancestral history luke but if he wants to try to pull that off you know it's mean, he got both of those chicks from friends like right one after each other, Luke. Yeah, no, he killed. He did way better in life than you or I. I mean, there's no denying it. I mean, he got prime friends.

He almost banged the whole staff, Luke. Listen, he went out there and he did some slanging and banging, but I see it, and the only thing i can think of is i really hope violence happens to this person oh wow okay and finally we have to close it with the one band that luke will always admit rocks harder than cannibal corpse and that's limp biscuit oh jesus this is so this is so on brand because you once wore that fred durst yankees cap randomly that one day like what are you doing, dude? Dude, I have my, oh, my DC hat is out there.

It's a similar kind of thing. But so wait, so I am Fred Durst. Which one are you? I don't know. Which one or anyone in that band besides Fred Durst? Okay, hold on. I think I can name two more of the guys, but that's it. So the DJ is obviously from House of Pain, right? It's DJ Lethal.

So that one I can get, I think the guitarist on the far right is Wes Borland. I believe that's the right pole. Wow. Look at this guy, but I can't name the other two. If my life depended on it, the guy in the far right looks like how I would have guessed you would have

looked in college. Luke, are you out of your fucking mind? I was in the Marine Corps at the time. How would I have looked like that? That's how I imagine you back then. Luke. uh let's go utterly unrealistically i mean what the fuck kind of statement is that let's go over to cg luns once a heroic jedi knight although there's no such thing as an ex-jedi knight darth vapor was seduced by the force of the dope side for years the evil lord has sought to crush and

destroy the bc alliance now the choice is yours vape or vape not that might be the best one i've ever seen that literally might be the best one i've ever fucking that is that is so good. I barely know what to say about it. Wow. Wow. Wow. It's better than Darth Raper. I'll tell you that, Luke. Oh, God.

God, wow. This is crazy. Okay. I think we got a second one here from JP from Mount Uniac. First and foremost, BC, pronounce it correctly, Mount something. Seeming as I'm closing in on my 10th fan sub, I figured we should get that corrected before we continue wanting to wish a happy birthday on Monday to our very own BC Horowitz.

Where, where would the show be without him? Well, that's, that's well done. Look, you remember Barry Horowitz, right?

I don't know who that is. Patting himself on the back in the WWF. Yeah. Sensation. Thank you, BC. You dirty 44 year old wash bitch. Love you guys. Keep you dirty 44-year-old wash bitch. Love you guys.

Keep up the amazing award-winning show. It's JP. Wait, go back to the one where the guy's with his dog. So this is JP. That's how he lives, Luke, up there in Nova Scotia. Look at this dog. This dog looks like a teenager that got forced into a picture they didn't want to be in. By the way, hey, Jay, could you be redder, motherfucker?

Jesus, have a glass of water, not vodka. I was trying to put Jay over, and you're like, look at this piece of shit. Yeah, all right, okay. Listen, they roast me. We roast back. That's the relationship. That's how it goes. All right.

Let's go over to Danger Mouse. Luke, normally he's the closer here. Normally he's the sandman that's about to enter, but today he's just a setup guy. Hi, BC. I'm giving you fair notice that if you keep hating on my mk hub merch i'm coming after your ass i forgot he created that but not in a gay way although that would be kind of appropriate but in a meatball molly way i don't even know what that means luke i probably shouldn't have read it out loud so you have been warned you hug hating hack anyways you mentioned your lockdown watching habits last week and this is how I imagined it.

That's about right. That's probably about right. Honestly, that's pretty good. Oh, by the way, it's Danger Mouse here again. Luke, you can relax. You represent the MK Hub shirt. So we're just going to have fun together this week. So let me start by giving you that product you wanted.

The man from where? Contagium. He says yes. Oh, this was the joke that Michael Chiesa made at Room Service Diaries, the Paulo Costa juice thing. Wow, that went over my head completely, but that was very funny in the moment by Michael Chiesa. I don't get the contagium part, though. I don't know what that is.

Yeah, I'm sure this is really funny. Danger Mouse typically slays. And he says, finally, your admiration of the English pint had me thinking of this moment in film. A bit of a rush job, but I think you'll like it. I don't get it. Do you get it? No.

No, Luke. See, am I getting too old or the joke's getting worse from our regulars here luke um well definitely we're getting older so that part is true that is true i don't get it all right we got one more fans of uh good effort danger mouse but uh you know even amanda newness gets gets stopped once in a while. This is from Ali, Luke. He's going to close. He says, last time I sent a fan sub, you guys referred to me as no name, even though I stated my name.

It's Ali, by the way. Neither here nor there. Hope you're having a fantastic day and hope I can make it even better with a couple of memes. Cheers. Let's see what he's got. They put him on last, Luke. That means something here.

When you derail the entire show and send Luke Thomas into a vape-fueled rage, a small price to pay for a dick joke. They should have one of you being like, I am inevitable. Let's see. All right, blow it up. Pepto-Bismol, nicotine, margarita, tattoos, the love for BBLs, not knowing whether you want to bang or murder Brian Campbell. All right.

That's pretty good. By the way, i watched both of those this week infinity war and endgame they're so much better than thor my lord okay luke you keep whipping me for taking my son out on a father sunday to his favorite movie okay luke all right i watched incanto for your ass um any anything else here from ali shout out to him him, though. Thank you for closing, sir. Maybe you're not quite Randall K. Myers or Roger McDowell. Bro, the Darth Vapor one, that is a sick burn. Jesus,

that is very good. I was very impressed by that. All right. Well, we will get you ready for two big events this weekend. Two big events. UFC 277 and then Danny Garcia is long away to return this time he's going to be at 154 pounds at the Barclays Center that'll be a lot of fun I will be there in attendance for that doing some prelim action for you bitches uh on the

old YouTubes on Showtime the Showtime Sports YouTube channel me and Raul Marquez maybe a couple of extra guests oh yeah dude boots boots Ennis right yeah they said Stephen Fulton Jr. but I'm not sure if he's actually going to be there so we'll see but it's definitely gonna be me Raul and I think old boots the maybe the best new box or the best up-and-coming boxer that exists uh anywhere in any way class so that's you know do you know about the rule Raul and I have it's like our safe word do you know what we have when we work together on camera I don't it's like it's like you know the first rule of being in together on camera? I don't. It's like, it's like, you know, the first rule of being in an orgy,

no eye contact. He says, if I look at him, he loses it all Luke. And he, and whatever he was thinking and just starts laughing and he can't, you know, so you do that weird,

like Thierry on re meme smirk all the time. I don't know what my face is doing. It's just reflecting the inner turmoil that's happening. Okay. The joy that's, that's combusting. Yeah, it's great reflecting the inner turmoil that's happening luke okay the joy that's that's combusting yeah it's great all right uh but we'll get you ready for all the fights for on friday we'll talk about of course ufc 277 danny garcia and everything else that is relevant at that time so for now uh obviously showtime.com is the label that pays showtime.com get a 30-day

free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce and let's see we got the merch store morningcombat.store where you can get all of your favorite merch and hats and shirts and bags and everything else in between and uh bc any final thoughts here oh yeah morningcombat at gmail.com for friday's dead wrong so you can i believe we are gonna uh pre-record friday's episode ahead of my vacation launch luke so they they'll have me again. The people will have me again. Excellent. Excellent. Glad to hear that as well.

You can follow us on social at the graphic below. We appreciate that as well. Thank you guys for tuning in. One more reminder, your entire UFC 277 extravaganza with the Iceman, Chuck Mendenhall, as he joins us. It's on the old YouTube right now, youtube.com slash morning combat. I've got an interview with Matt Schnell coming out I believe later today look is this too

is it too good of a dye job does it look fake because if I show up one day with like hazel looking hair you gotta just tell me cut the shit alright like when you say too good do you mean I would never if I were you and I don't do this as myself either I never look in the mirror

and go Jesus this looks too good I don't do this as myself either, I never look in the mirror and go, Jesus, this looks too good. I don't think I've ever said that in my 42 fucking years. I've never done that. So I would caution you against that as well. All right. Oh, I wanted to tell the people, Luke, I went to the dermatologist yesterday for the annual skin update. So you talked about this.

I did one of those here in D.C. Buddy, when they do a skin check they mean a skin check dude i didn't you know i was shocked when it was like drop your drawers and spread the cheeks like i'm not kidding they checked it all luke okay i didn't do that how about this they had i had to lay on a table flat and they're like get on the table with your underwear i'm like yeah cool whatever and you know they do all the checking and then they're like okay and then they just pulled my underwear off and started and started hunting around you're like i've seen films that start like this you know and then i had to turn over and it was the same thing and i'm like i don't know what y'all are looking for but this is yeah you should have been like just just give me the uh give me the old

uh check oil check when you're down there i mean just get it all done and no just electrocute me next time just have me line up for a firing squad that's more comfortable than this jesus i mean it's you know you're an old piece of shit when you're standing naked in a dermatologist's office and they're going oh no that mole's okay but no you should probably get that one removed the point of the story though luke is i'm going to get back on the sauce i'm going to get the toes fixed. Okay? It's time.

It's time. All right? I'm going to get back on the medicine. The check is valuable. They found one on my ear that was a little messed up. I had to get it trimmed off. And then they checked the biopsy, and it was fine. But there was one that was looking a little dicey, and they had to cut it off.

So you got to do that shit. I didn't tell this publicly, but I had that cancer scare six months ago where something showed up on the back of my kneecap and and it was a little hairy for a while luckily it turned out good so yeah get get your hairy balls looked at once in a while folks okay there's a public service message for the day or just get man just go in there with do either one or two things either get manscaped ahead of time as like a favor to the dermatologist or just go in there like a fucking old billy goat on the farm like it's just i got manscaped luke i used the lawnmower okay i provided the service you ever seen those stories it's like the sheep wandered off the farm and they found it like two months later and it could barely move because it was covered in hair

do that bit just just make them just make them do a real easter egg hunt you know i've got really bad medical bits like during COVID lines. Every time. My friend here asked about erectile option. I mean, that one always slays, Luke. But I got this other bit about, what's that check called, Luke? The prostate check. It's 2022.

It's like we really don't have a machine that can, we can perform surgery with laser robot arms. We don't have a temperature check you can put on my things and go, oh, no, his prostate's fine. Like, you really got that? That's the only way in and out, Luke? It's getting old sucks. There's really not much upside to it. Oh, you get more wisdom. Yeah, you get more wisdom about how you fucked off the first 42 years of your life.

That's what you get. Regret. regret my tight 10 i'm preparing for for our next doc how much should should my uh should my uh um you know prostate check uh in that 10 take up you know i'm gonna tell you plenty because i am going to relish you bombing in ways you can't imagine i'm going to heckle you so i'm gonna be i'm gonna save you because i'm gonna heckle you and allow you to do crowd work. Like, oh, who's this dirtbag here? And you can take a dump on me.

And that's fine because that'll be the best material you have. I'm telling you right now. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be great. Thank you. This is going to be bad, but thank you. But you got to do it. You got to do it.

Luke, I got to do it. I got to take a stand, right? Isn't that what he said? You got to check that off the list. You got to check it off the list. I got to take a stand, right? That's that what he said? You got to check that off the list. You got to check it off the list. I got to take a stand, right? That's what it was. I got it. Yeah. Alright. Alright. Well, we'll look forward to doing that when they give Jake a budget

again because he still hasn't edited the last doc. So we got a lot of work to do. Alright. For CBS Sports, for Malka, for Showtime, for Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. We'll get you ready for Saturday's fights on Friday. We'll see you then. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.