MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Carlos Prates Destroys JDM | UFC Perth Results | How would Prates Fare Against Makhachev or Morales?

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

LT and The Iceman are back on a Monday for your daily dose of Morning Kombat. In the main event of UFC Perth, Carlos Prates battered Jack Della Maddalena en route to a third-round stoppage victory. Based on his overall record and this performance, should Prates leapfrog Ian Garry to get the next title shot against Islam Makhachev? How good is Quillan Salkilld and is it time for Beneil Dariush to retire? And did Steve Erceg prove anything in his win over Tim Elliott? Plus, David Benavidez destroyed Zurdo Ramirez, Naoya Inoue secured a unanimous decision win over fellow countryman Junto Nakatani in Tokyo and a recap of PFL Sioux City.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. You're going to do. Look at his mouth. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, combat. Oh, there is. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment.

Do you want a margarita? We're going to do it. Two, three, two, three. That's it. On your marks get set and go on. Oh, if it bleeds, we can kill it. But we don't bleed. What's up, everyone?

My name is Luke Thomas. Welcome to another edition of Morning Combat here on this fourth day of May, 2026. May the fourth be with you if you're a fucking Star Wars loser. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estatus on Nitos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my Connecticut brethren. He is a man of quite literally many sombreros.

It is Chuck Mindenhall. What's up, Iceman? I'm just glad I don't buy into that Star Wars crap, man. I can't stand that stuff. you know what's kind of funny is uh i see there there are people on mma twitter i see god bless them they're nice people but like you can clearly tell they were children or you know some some kind of somewhere in that age range when uh episode one came out the phantom menace and they're like you know they're like this is a great movie and people love this and i'm like guys one more time i was 19

or 20 i think one of the two when that movie came out when i tell you it was universally fucking by audiences. The only people that liked it were the people that showed up to like, you know. Yeah, they were showing like the trailer. Remember they're showing the trailer. People were showing up for like six months

beforehand watching certain movies to see the trailer of it. Yes, it's such a big deal. In any event. How was your weekend, Chuck? It was a busy combat sports weekend. How was yours? It was, man. There was a lot going on.

You know, and I like to watch some playoff hockey. I don't know if you've been paying attention to that. It's kind of revving up. So I was doing some of that too. But yeah, man, like so much, so much combat. that it was almost impossible to juggle all of it with everything going on. But I managed to get through it.

How about you? Yeah, same. My daughter had her birthday. Your birthday was last Monday, but we didn't have a party that day. We had a party on Saturday. So I had a kids party at the roller skating rink. Oh, nice.

One of them here in town. Yeah. I think it went well. No one went to the hospital. The kids seemed to like it. I don't know, you know. Wait, did you put on skates? No, are you kidding?

I was going to say, that would have been the site right there. Yeah. Just coming through that bitch, like, who was the guy? who played professional hockey who was like six, seven or six nine, maybe. Oh, Charra. Zadayno Chara Islander's origin. That's right. I was like, I'm going to be like a less athletic chara on this bitch, just falling over.

No, I'm not doing that. I'm not stupid in that way. No. The only thing I hated about it, it ended up being a thing that it worked out. But for like, people are like, if you're going to have kids, here's something you got to be aware of, a lot of these places where like, you know, one of my favorite parties to have for kids is like when they're at a park, you know, because you can just bring your own food and it's cool and it's chill. But you go these places, man, they make you buy their food. So we had to buy the roller skating rinks pizza, which, you know, I'm not going to say it was the worst diarrhea I ever had afterwards, but it was certainly- Had some bad diarrhea in your day. Yeah. You know? So anyway, it was a good party.

My daughter had a good time, but between that and watching five. So I literally, so Chuck, I literally, I got up, set my alarm, caught the fights, caught the in-of-way fight, switched up stuff, go to the party, set up, do all that, come back, and then I watched the Benavides fight, and then the Sioux City fights that night as well. So it was crazy. What a way to end it all with PFL. That's pretty good. You must have got some sleep then. If you're like, if you got up and you did all of that in a single day. Well, all thanks to Logan Storley, if you know what I'm saying. I had a great night of sleep. I'm sorry, he won, but I was like, what the fuck are we doing?

At like the 12 in the morning. Oh, man. All right. Let's bring in the third member here of the show. He is my friend in yours, probably not sober, but certainly locked in. It is it is Long Island. Luke. What's up? What's up? I'm already getting shit in the chat for saying Zadano Char was an Islander's legend. First of all, drafted by the Islanders ended his career with the islanders, pretty sure. At least the last few years, you know, I know, I know, everyone

chill out. Everyone chill out. But guys, you know, did the UFC Perth watch along this weekend? Fucked up my whole weekend. Just, you know, ruined my sleep schedule, but I finally got some good sleep last night. Did you watch the entire card? Fuck yeah, I did. I was there for all of it. So what was the first fight started at what, three? No, it started at four, but I woke up at three because, you know, I got to get some some pre-prep in and went live at 3.45. And then I had some technical difficulties, Luke. People were like, oh, this is classic Luke Thomas. How am I getting blamed? I'm just saying.

You know, I got a new cable for my mic. My stream went down at one point. It was all good, though. Got it up by four. We were good to go. And everything was great. Did you make some money at least Long Island, Luke did you? Dude, I did. I did so good. on the prelims chuck and then went ofer on the main car so uh well you've been on tie to i wasa so you

deserve it i didn't bet on him i bet on him to not go the distance you know that's even worse yeah all right let's set the table for today because there's just so much going on of course we have ufc perth we're going to discuss in great detail we have the two monsters of boxing both the monster noya in a way getting the victory and then the mexican monster as he is affectionately known David Benavides looking like an absolute boogeyman, if ever there was one. As we mentioned, there are also some PFL results that are interesting as well. Plus, here's what we're going to do. We are going to, of course, do DMs from Donks.

And then, while we're going to do fan subs, we're going to announce the winner of last month's contest. We actually picked one. And, of course, always send those to morningcombat at gmail.com. That's going to be a great place to reach the show, both for this contest or just to literally just reach out to the show for whatever reason you might have. We're going to announce the winner of that today,

sign poster, whole bit. And then also, Chuck, I don't know. Now, Chuck, before we show these to you, have you seen the new merch designs? I have not. Okay, I want to be a reveal to me too. Now, Long Island, don't show them. Just wait one second. Chuck, there are three, three of them this month. The third one you're going to see, I literally,

was when they sent me the design, I literally laughed out loud on my phone. Okay? All right. I'm glad I didn't have to sign off on anything. Let's see. All right. Morningcombat. Dot shop, let's take a look at these.

Here we go. Here are your three designs. Oh, man. Do you have individual slots for these? Here we go. Here's our Renegades of Donk shirt. All right. Very fun.

Here is the essentially Washington DC T-shirt in the old DC 101 logo. All right. And this one, Chuck. I mean, Whippets in the parking lot player. You familiar with that? Put this shirt design. Go back, go back, go back, go back.

Put this shirt design in the Louvre. I mean, this is the best thing I've ever seen in my life. And if you want it, Chuck, if you want it, morningcombat. Dot shop, these will only be available for this month. So you have until May 31st at 1159 p.m. Or while supplies last, that Whippets one. is so fucking good. I cannot believe it. All right. You didn't request this. This is just like,

they just sent you this and like, okay, the people know the show. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. They know the show. I love it, man. All right. Without further ado, you ready to get this going? Let's do it. All right. topic number one, let's start with the biggest fight to us anyway here in the MMA world, or less moderately centered MMA world. UFC Perth took place this weekend. In the main event, wow, Carlos Prachis. He just battered Jack de la Manalena

on route to a third round stoppage victory. Based on his overall record, Chuck, plus this performance, let's get right to the heart of the matter and we'll use this framing to talk about how well he performed. So based on the record

and based on this particular performance, should process leapfrog Ian Gary to get the next title shot at Islam Makachev, considering how spectacular this run that performance truly was. I love that he has responded with what was basically a short notice fight with Ian Gary in Kansas City a couple years ago, whenever it was last year, with this kind of

showing, because sometimes we'll see guys get derailed after something like that. This is three in a row, right, for Prochia. So, like, going into this, and every single one of his victories has been by a finish, you could certainly make that argument. And especially if you put a little bit of an asterisk on that Ian Gary loss. Um, if you remember that fight, like as it was going into the fifth round, it's almost like he figured it out. It's almost like he figured out how to hold his hands low where he got comfortable in that fight. Because you remember there was a couple of takedowns in it, um, that kind of like, he was fighting with his hands up.

But then as you get in the third and fourth rounds, he starts to put him down in fifth round. He almost has a moment where he pulls off an upset. If you want to put that asterisk on that, I would be okay with it. And honestly, when you have somebody like Pratchez who goes in there with that kind of head hunting instinct and just that, that, kickboxer like that that true kickboxer range where he's like picking you apart and he starts flowing like that i feel like in some ways it would be the better fight you know um it it intrigues me more to see that fight i think than i and gary but to answer your question i'm not sure i would do it only based on ian gary's victory right like would you would you put him above it when

ian has a head-to-head over proches i don't think giving prachis the not right now is the right thing to do. But I think, I think if the UFC did, I really don't think there'd be a lot of belly aching. No, I don't think so either. And you know, you have like this perfect like four piece combo that's up there at the top, you know, for like, you know, with, with Michael Morales sitting there too. I'm not sure. You know, people have talked about like process against Morales and I'm like, man, it would be a beautiful fight. But I'm so intrigued to see how Morales at whatever young age he's like, what, 26. If he were to get a title shot, you'd want to be able to see how he stacks up,

given his age and his prowess on the feet and everything he does. So I'd want to see that matchup with this long. And if you go the other way with Prochis, I want to see that matchup. So to put them together, as dynamic as it is, I would hate to kill off one of those guys, you know, before they get their title shot. You know, there's a whole conversation to have about Jack Dela-Madalina, which we'll have here in just a few moments. but to keep it on Carlos Prochus and his title shot worthiness,

as you indicated, Chuck, I'm kind of with you in the sense that if they did, I don't think they'll do it, but I think if they do, it would not be met with great friction. There's a question of how well he perform against Islam because Jack De La Manalana did get takedowns seemingly without too much difficulty. It didn't matter in the end, obviously. And this is kind of what Carlos Prochus said in the post fight, where he was like, you know, it doesn't really matter.

if I get taken down or not to say he doesn't really matter, but that he was confident and he would be able to deal with any kind of grappling threat. In fact, I think we have the winner of that. You know, let's play that because I want to react to it. Yeah, let's do this, you know. I hope he beat Islam. I think it's a really hard fight, of course,

but I think he has some skills to beat Islam. Let's go. Let's do this. I will be there watching. The fight is going to be two days before my birthday. So I'm going to ask UFC as a gift of president of birthday. bring me to the fight and let me watch. I was not worrying about take it down.

A lot of people are going to say, how Carlos can fight his land because on the first round, he got dropped by JDM, you know? If you see like when he comes to take down, I just open my arm like, now you become a wrestler and then he takes me down. I'm not scared about takedowns. I'm BJJ Black Belt, you know.

I love the confidence. I don't know if that's going to matter against someone as skilled as Islam, but I will say if this fight to me was anything, I mean, we had Jimmy Smith on Friday show, and I thought he made a really great point. It's something we've hopped on at different points, you know, on the show, but, you know, he

crystallized it here, which was like, someone had asked me previously, Chuck, maybe like a year ago on my live chat about like, hey, is Carl's Parchus, like, you know, one of the heavier hitters ever at Welterweight? And certainly, like, his record was awesome up to that point, but he hadn't beaten anyone like super good. And it's like,

I've seen guys who can knock out guys, who aren't good and then they get to the good guys and it just kind of falls away a little bit. But now, dude, this is two champs in a row back to back. He's finished with strikes. I mean, this is now you're putting away. You're putting, you're putting like, I don't know where Leon is in the full arc of his career, but he is not a scrub and neither is JDM. And he's just, this was an assault, Chuck.

This was a mugging. And so for me, the point I'm trying to make, and this is what Jimmy underscored is once they begin to level up that way, well, then you can really say, something interesting. Like, I don't think Carlos Proches right now, I'm not fully convinced he's well-rounded enough to beat a guy like Islam, which is obviously an incredibly high bar

that you have to clear. But I will say this, Chuck, his power and his ability to be punishing and unforgiving with simple touches of what he's doing, right? Not even necessarily like, oh, I'm going to throw it as hard as I can. I'm just going to make contact with you. And then that being devastating. He's got that more than anyone else in this division by a long shot i mean you mentioned leon like when you're

talking about like okay he's got to go up against the exclusive competition for us to start to determine if he has that right leon hadn't been knocked out in like what was it 30 fights um he hadn't been knocked out he stood in against just about everybody so to me that was like the first you know we're okay this this guy can put uh he can he can knock out anybody and so going into this fight my concern i don't know how you and a jimmy kind of diagnosed it going in but like you're going into a guy's backyard who has his back against the wall coming off a very bad performance where people start to question you know what kind of champion he really was in the end because he didn't have a title defense gets worked over for 25 minutes so you're you have jack coming in

as a wounded animal in a weird way with a wounded pride and i just i thought with that crowd there this might be a tougher fight for purchase but like just seeing his confidence right his ability to kind to get out of the way. Those hands down, when you see guys who really fight with that style and just like establish range start getting in flow and then they become these snipers and just kind of piece apart a guy like that, it's a lot of fun to watch, man. I mean, it, we, it was like Anderson Silva back in the day or something like that where you're just watching a guy who as soon as he starts to kind of go, starts to get in that flow, just takes over the fight. So he, I think what you said is right. He's a very, he's not a guy who's going to, he's not trying to knock your head off with

every shot. But he's setting himself up at all times to knock your head off. And I think that that's really why he's such a threat. Dude, he's got like, I don't know if anyone else has ever called at this, but he's got like shot clock power. So here's what I mean by shot clock power. Two guys can be exchanging in a fight

and they can be landing and they might be bleeding busted up, but you never get the sense that like, yeah, of course, one big shot can always land it, but you never get this sense that the way in which they're landing automatically means, oh, just a few more of these, and then the person will drop. Like, they'll just exchange for, you know, 10, 15, 30 minutes or whatever, not 30, but,

you know, 25 minutes sometimes. And the power can be important, but it doesn't, it doesn't really ever change the tempo or the urgency in a fight. And then there's other guys, like a John Lineker, who will land on somebody. And you can tell, dude, if he does that one or two more times, this whole shit's coming apart, right? You're on the clock. Like, once he lands like that, boom, you're on the clock.

because it's not going to go much longer if he keeps doing this. He's got that kind of power. He was landing on JDM. First round I thought was pretty competitive, right? And I think the stats speak to this. Like numerically, they, I thought Prach just won the first round, but you could see JDM trying to keep pace. He even got that takedown, didn't get anything with it,

but, you know, was efforting. Then in the second round, the fight gets completely away from him. I want to point out something. I looked at the stats on this, Chuck. he only targeted targeted Prochus did the legs of JDM 10% of what he threw just 10% and he dropped him twice with them this is what I mean dude once he lands you're on the fucking clock

this cannot go on much longer and so he does all of this shit and I'm like dude this is this is just you know almost effortless I mean obviously he's skilled and you know there's more to it than that but like he can ruin you almost instantly. And I just feel like that is such a unique power in MMA in particular, but in this division right now, you know, makes it fun. Let me ask you this. Like, how well does the Ian Gary fight age now for Ian, right? Because you pointed out, like, your thesis was like, dude, this guy disrupts. He like, he has good defense. He blends his defense into his offense. And like

he just does the right thing high IQ type thing. When you watch this, because I fairly recently watched the Ian Gary, Carlos Pratchez fight again. And the way he kind of shuts down Carlos Prachis would be the blueprint for everybody. If you go back and watch it, you know, it's just, it was really just disrupting the space early. But then he starts to kind of dictate terms through like the second and third rounds.

And I, you can just kind of see it, you know, fall into his patterns rather than Pratchez, right? So like when you, when you see this, how well does this age for you? Like watching out what Ian is able to do. This is why Ian Gary's heart to deny. It's like, dude, he, so one of the criticisms that you have of Ian Gary, that I have a Vian Gary is that there's, I have bigger ones, but like one of them would be his finishing mechanics

on submissions are poor. And it's really unfortunate because he actually can get to really good spots like the back or that happens often. And he'll see his choke mechanics aren't quite right or his guillotine mechanics are a little bit off in a way where the rest of his game is so good. you're like, how are you, why are you dropping off at this end stage finishing mechanic stage? So that's one kind of problem I have.

But like, think about how close he was, had his finishing mechanics been a little better, he might have beaten Shafcott Rock Bonoff. That's true. Like, understand something about this Ian. I'm so fucking glad you asked this, Chuck. I have looked into this. Understand something about this Ian Gary Winner of a process that you guys may have missed. And the only reason I saw it is because I just kind of look at this stuff to do this

job prior to Friday. So before the fight, if you looked at Prochus' numbers, statistically, his statistical profile, his strikes landed per minute and strikes of soarbed per minute. You know, you would think a guy who's got like nothing but CO wins, you know, would be probably leading in some of these categories. But he wasn't. He actually had a negative differential, which means he absorbed more strikes than he landed on opponents. And that might that might compute for you, but that might not. You might be like, well, I don't recall him getting like blasted in fights, you know. He didn't, except for one fight, the Ian Gary fight. If you take that fight out, Chuck, his stats would be through the roof. That one fight turned it upside down for him. Then on top of it, numerically, now I realize Gary lost the fifth round. I get that. But at least numerically, Gary outstruck him in every single round.

By double, like, right? It was like by a wide margin. In certain cases, by triple. Right. and got four takedowns. Now, it was only four of 19, but I'm just saying like, dude, that guy's offensive of,

sorry, that guy's overall ability, Ian Gary. My problem with it is, as I mentioned, there's finishing mechanic issues, Chuck, and on top of it, his offense doesn't wow you

with its ferocity, but his footwork, his foot speed, his ability to manage range, his ability to manage tempo, his ability to use space effectively, his takedown defense, they're excellent. He is an excellent fighter.

He just doesn't wow you with K.O. Power or, you know, Charles O'Levara submissions. Yeah, 100%, man. And that fight, if you recall, it was supposed to be Jeff Neal, right? I believe it was Jeff Neal was supposed to be fighting Carlos Prochus a couple of weeks earlier in Miami. And then they got called off because of Neil injury and then he fought. It was basically a late notice kind of switch up, city disruption of the camp do you put anything into that for process where you're like okay but if he has a full camp maybe we see a different fight between him and the end because that was like when i was

watching i mean you kind of it seems so out of character but then you're like you sign it which way do you want to sign it is it because gary made it out of character or is it because carlos wasn't fully prepared for that so the question you're asking is uh to me i i realize that we have different forces that are pulling um who's at the top of this division but if you just think about about it, would it be true, absent any other broader considerations, would it be true that Carlos Prochus versus Ian Gary, too, would be a highly anticipated contest? I think that it would be. And it would answer these questions that you have, because if you look on social media, there's a lot of people being like, all right, props to Gary, because, you know, he definitely won

that one, but, and look, look at how good Prochus is doing, but, oh, Prachis would win the rematch. I understand the logic for that. I don't think there's bad arguments for it, but I do think like here's the reality chuck like what i believe is gary went through that media scandal largely about nothing manufactured by losers and it kind of affected how people see him now obviously i want to also say he brings it on himself you know he's got a certain kind of way of doing it like he's a contributor to the thing the point i'm trying to make is how much is perception about him fair or unfair but how much that person guiding people's sense about actually how good he is because the resume, it's aging pretty well.

I mean, and the fact that he doesn't really turn people down that he wants all the hard fights. I mean, I give him tons of credit for just, you know, saying, I'll stand in against Carlos Proshes because he took the fight on short notice too. So you got to look at it both ways. But that is like a looming thing. And I mean, I don't think Mike Morales can, you know, jump into the pole position for the title shot. But if they were to make a rematch of that fight, I think it would be fascinating, just for those reasons. And it's really only because you're seeing how good Carlos proches really is as he goes on from that loss.

And it just, there are certain fights that you, they magnify because you know, Carlos Prudges, what is it? Like seven, the other seven guys his face he just destroyed. So,

that's the only example you can look at the way you're like, okay, well, this guy had the kryptonite for him. With that in mind, hold on, let's see. Oh,

so let's, I want to use this as an opportunity to, uh, get into the JDM conversation. Let's play a clip of Carlos. reacting to JDM's alleged power and what he thought about it. Hands down for a lot of the fight. Were you not worried about Jack's power?

Bro, on the beginning of the fight, I feel like I got some punches. And then I was like, man, it's the one that knock me out, you know? Like, yeah, when I fought Geoffney, when I followed Leon, I was the same. Like, I started to fight like with my hands up. And then I got some punches. I was like, it's okay. I can do my game, you know, because. Because I like to drop my hands and do some faints.

Like, you know, like, if you remember many times of the life, I just faint, and Jack was like, what's coming, what's coming? And then I didn't punch him and move a little bit. You know, I like that. So I got some points, and I was like, no, he don't going to knock me out today. Yeah. Let me use as an opportunity to ask. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium.

Harry Styles. Iheart Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic, hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Here we got it. Download the free IHart Radio app. Listen to IHart new music for 10 minutes. Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Styles. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now. Obviously, Parchus is an animal, so that's one problem. but in your estimation what what has gone wrong for him jack de la medallana the last eight rounds oh well they i mean the way he was losing these fights was very different but there may have been you know when jack that when he was kind of coming up even the ball fight i feel like this was the one fight that you're

like okay is he a champion or is he is he on this level or is he not he wins that fight and i think that we I was certainly one of those guys who picked against him in that fight, and I was like, okay, I got to give him his flowers, man. This guy is, he's fighting on a different level way tougher than I thought. You know, just kind of carried a chip on a shoulder, I thought, all of that stuff. But then he gets into that Machachia fight and, you know, all of that goes away. This had to have been his redemption. I just didn't, you tell me, I just, it didn't feel like he knew.

Once there was kind of like, it felt like he wanted to get the takedowns, and once they weren't really coming and, like he, you know, he wasn't winning on the feet. Like, what was his path to victory in this fight? Because once it started going downhill for him, I didn't feel like it's the same, it had the same feeling in a weird way, even though it was completely different than the macho fight, but it felt similar in that I felt like he was in deep water and you didn't know how to swim.

I don't, yeah, I wouldn't really disagree with that. I think I would say to look to, from my perspective, whatever this is worth, in fairness to Jack. Okay. Yeah. Going from Islam Makachev to Carlos Prochis, it turns out that's a real tough assignment. Yes, it is. You know what I mean? Like not a lot of people in that division are going to get through that very easily.

Okay. So that's just, in fairness to him, holy fuck, right? Yes. Okay. That being said, if there is a common denominator between the first and second fight, and this was something I didn't bring up on my post-fight show. It wasn't until I was talking with somebody else that, you know, is really brought to my attention. consider that in this fight, particularly when he got battered in the legs, you saw him grimace, right?

And like audibly make a noise, even on the broadcast that I was receiving, you could hear him like, you know. And remember, he was grimacing in some of the fight the later rounds against Islam, where Islam would have him in some kind of control position. He'd be trying to turtle out. And then you'd see the look on his face. The thing I want to say is, I don't want to be up one of these guys who's trying to do like, body language analysis, Chuck, or, you know, maybe this is falling into that territory. I'll let the audience decide ultimately,

or maybe you feel that way you can tell me too. But I will just say, I'm not tougher than these people. This is not one of those arguments. I'm just saying, having watched really good fighters for a really long time, the really good ones don't do that. They don't, like their face, you know, you might see them turtle up, like their reactions might accumulatively show it. You might occasionally see them, you know, limp or whatever.

whatever, like they can't fully hide it. But they don't have consecutive fights where the agony is unmistakable. And in fact, like, plainly staring you in the face. And I'm not saying he's not a tough guy. I'm simply saying, first of all, remember, he's 29. Carlos Proches is 32, about to be 33. So there is still some time left for him. But it just seems like, not that he hasn't faced adversity, Chuck, because he has.

But he's losing composure in high pressure moments. Yeah. in ways that even under duress and punishment, I don't see a lot of other elite fighters do. No, I'm with you. And you've got to be careful, right, with kind of, you know, yelling out because we've seen fights in the past where they just stop it.

Stop the fight. What was the guy? God, I always slipped on his name. Chal Sondon had beat him in the WEC. They rematched, but it was like the first fight, like it was a verbal solos. Yeah. You remember this whole thing?

And I remember even Ron. He was talking to himself. Right. Yes, that whole thing was so bizarre. It was so bizarre, yes. But in Ronda Rousey, one of her early, like, at the Strike Force Challenges, there was a situation, I think that was just like that.

I think it was Sarah, gosh, I'm horrible with the names, but like it was the before, it was on challengers and she had a verbal. So you got to just be careful. You yell out. The referee, they warn you, if you ever listened in on, you know, when they give instructions in the locker room,

I've sat in with a couple of fighters before their fight and heard the instructions. They warn you about this. They're like, be careful. If you yell out, I'm taking that as a, you know, they'll tell you that that's a sign of a submission. So I heard, you're absolutely, I kind of forgot about the, you know, being able to hear JDM and that Mockachachief fight. But I do recall that. And I think that's something he's probably got to fix.

You don't want to have a, like, it didn't happen to him here, but that could, that could be one of those situations where a referee stops it prematurely for him. Let's, let's, let's, we have a clip of it. Let's see. Wow. How would you like to be on the end of those elbows, Jesus. Now understand, you know, like, that is, obviously, like, that's going to hurt really bad. The argument is not, does it hurt really bad, right? That's not the argument.

Like, and not everyone can be no gara where, like, there would just be zero reaction until you knock them out cold. Like, he would never give you an inch. I think he was one of those guys, he didn't feel pain, you know. He's like, what I'm saying is in the last fight, he was grimacing under, I'm not saying not difficult conditions, but not like torturous conditions. like this one. Yeah. Like I'd be totally okay with like, oh, yeah, it's a normal reaction. But you can just sort of hear the defeat in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the will audibly.

And again, I want to be so clear, I'm not saying like he's worthy of mockery for this. I'm saying I think that there is to your point, Chuck, what it looks to me like, St. Pierre, when he was around. And again, this is a very high bar to meet. Was he the best striker? I mean, he had some of the best boxing, but he wouldn't necessarily say he was the best striker. at Welterway during his time. And was he the best wrestler?

Certainly in certain times he would. But you know, that began to weigh in a little bit too. But he had the ability to play the levels. Right. Right. He had the ability to just like, oh, I can't outstrike you. Fine. I'm just going to thrash you on the ground.

Yeah. And it seems like Jack doesn't have the ability to go there. And once it dawns on him that his A game is not going to work, it just seems like the whole thing comes apart pretty quickly, you know? 100% right. It's funny you mentioned GSP because you remember the cost check. he like busted his orble with the jab. He just kept jabbing, jab in his face.

He's going to get so right. Like he could do that. He could just sort of say like, all right, well, I'm going to beat you the BJ pen fight where he kind of drained his shoulders. And he was like, I'm just going to wear you down. I mean, he just kind of knew how to make it unravel. You're absolutely right, man. Because when I'm watching JDM in these situations, there's just some kind of sinking feeling

that he's not going to be able to get out of it. I mean, these two fights particularly, I don't know. You mentioned he's what, 29, right? So, I mean, it's not like it's the end of the world. He could still kind of add to his game, you know, like he could maybe, you know, I'm not putting, I'm not saying that he's done, you know, I don't know if he ever becomes a champion again. I'm not saying he's done. I still, he could become a better fighter.

But there's some holes there. And it's, um, some guys just don't have the ability to adapt, you know. It's not just that they're getting beat. It's just that they don't know how to adapt. You know, we've seen a lot of those over the years. I still think he has time. I, I don't want to write him off. But I think it's like, you know, these are two insanely tough challenges and the really difficult ones are going to really show you what the bottom looks like.

If he's good, he'll look at this as the bottom, the place from which to right now build up off of. And I'm not going to write them off, but definitely a lot to learn there. Who would you book them against? Like who would you put it? Like, I mean, the problem is at the top of that division. It's just monsters right now. If I'm him, you know, this is me. You know, for me, you've had two.

insanely difficult fights in a row. Even if you'd won either of him, it would have taken everything you had. And I think it's worth saying that. To me, man, if I was him, I'm looking around the Mike Malat thing or that's what I was thinking. Somewhere around there, like a good, hard reset back inside the top 10. It would make sense from a lot, right? Like you're kind of going up the kind of escalating the challenges.

Now you've got a form of champion. He's kind of on his way down, but he has a chance to rebound. I like that one. That's what I was thinking exactly. And Malat's not a lot. scrub he's well rounded he can do a lot he's also had issues by the way we saw in the neil magnify where he kind of fell apart at the end there so you know there's there's there's some commonalities although you know again in jack's defense he was fighting the very best that the division

long island says winner of brady and uh buckley and buckley i mean that's kind of still into that we said that before you guys said mike milad i actually like the mike malad matchup better because i feel like it's a bounce back whereas that's still a tough matchup but that keeps him relevant in the division and if he loses that fight you're like okay well Now you drop them down to the, yeah. Well, I'll just say this. In terms of electric talents at Welterweight, who can punch, Carlos Proches is the inheritance of whatever lineage, you know,

came with Robbie Lawler and Johnny Hendricks. He's part of that club now in my opinion. And the Ricardo Mayorgo with the cigarettes after. I mean, it's like he doesn't give it damn. Yeah, exactly. All right. Let's get a topic number two. Let's talk about the rest of the UFC Perth car, top and bottom.

Two-parter about the same fight, All right. Okay. Is Quill and Saul kill good, or is it time for Benile Darius to retire? I can't figure this one. I mean, I guess I kind of feel stronger about the latter than I do the former, but where do you come down on this? I like this footage that we've got.

Like, you know, Daryush came out. I thought kind of with a smart game plan, which was, all right, I'm going to kind of jump on him, go for a takedown. He was, you know, he's really selling out for that takedown. Also, just kind of drain the joy out of the building for a minute, because we know that Australia is very hyped about Salt Kild. So I was like, you know, I felt like he was kind of doing a veteran savvy thing by trying to get it into his realm. But then it's, then it happens.

You know, they separate and immediately he's hurt. You know, it was like a right hand, another right hand kind of, I think he's almost out from the big right hand that, that dropped him down. Because as it kind of went into a scramble there, Sal Kild just kind of stepped right through and finished the fight. It was that's where you're like, okay, it's both. things. It really is. It's both things. But like for Dary Eush, I think that's four KOs. And I'm not sure those were the biggest shots. I mean, they did land flush, but like,

that's four KOs and like five fights. And I'm, that always will raise a red flag for a guy who's in his later 30s, like beyond 35 and been to a lot of wars. So there's a part of me that's just like, is Daryush the same guy? No.

You know, but did Salkil look like he was able to kind of, you know, step up and be explosive and do it on a big stage with escalating stakes. Yes. I mean, it's both things, but I got to say, man, Luke, do you want to see Darius stick around for four KOs? That's tough for me. Like he, and he, this was a guy who just didn't really get K-O'd for the longest time. He was beating guys at their own game. And some of of them, you know, he had some real highlight finishes through his career. He started doing rockum sock him around, you know, I mean, obviously the one you would pinpoint the most would be the

Dracar close fight, right? Right. But dude, don't forget. I mean, you're right. He didn't get knocked out a lot. This is only more recently, but, you know, I always go back to that. If you've never seen the Edson Barbosa, K.O. of Derrius, it's one of the worst ones you'll ever see. That is a flying, but Derrush is coming in on a takedown and then vertically, here comes Barbosa, and he times it perfectly, and it's a completely out, toes curled kind of K-O. And so, you know, those things can happen even for good fighters and careers. We've seen that. And to the point you raised, Chuck, he was up, he was down, but he rebounded, certainly from that. but now we're in a place dude where it's just like

it's not just that you're losing a lot you're now losing a lot via stoppage and they tend to come I mean I realize the saw you can almost quicker than this one but you can see they're happening quicker and quicker in terms of the overall arc of your career and they're happening under faster I should say more fragile conditions you know there's just no there's just no give

to the amount of damage you can take it's immediately a problem you know and if you want to fight good guys hungry guys like dude you just I mean at lightweight anybody with those gloves on is a hard puncher basically you know what I mean yeah so I would Darius is a nice guy man have you ever talk to him oh yeah he's a family guy he tries to live you know I think the right way in his life and he certainly has taken on all tough challenges but dude this is coming to an end and if you got to think long term about your family and your life you know I realize it's harder to make sure change when it's your income but you know

the move needs to be made. Do you think he survives like those, you know, those right hands that landed were nice, right? I mean, it was off the separation, but it was almost like he just put his hands down and boom, he just gets out the first one. But do you think, A, he gets hit with that earlier on? I mean, maybe he does.

But with this, I mean, you can see there that it's pretty flushed that top picture. But like, is that the finishing blow for him from before? It's always one of those things you're like, is he more chinny, you know? And I'm like, I guess that's what my fear is. Yeah. I think so. I mean, you know, there's an argument to exactly. how much worse it would have been

because your point is you got caught flat-footed. But the other part two is like reaction times, not the same. You know, you're getting caught flat-footed, right? I mean, it's just a lot. And I don't know. I will say this about Quill and Saul killed. I mean, the dude is now 11 and 1, right? Chuck, he's three, he's got three first-round stoppages

back to back to back. Right. Right. NASRAQ, HAC, PRAC, a K-O-of-the-year contender, then Jamie Mularky, and now this one. It's like on some level, quite obviously, this is not accidental. But I will say that like, you know, more testing is needed. I don't think that's in any way an insult or in any way an indictment.

26 years old, his birthday is not till the end of December. He's still got time. I mean, there's just so much time. Clearly they're trying to push the next generation of Australians afford. And I get that, especially as some of the other investments have not panned out, tie to Evasa. but there's no need to rush him. And I realize he's kind of helping himself to do that.

But yeah, I'll say that. It's been kind of tailored to his, you know, kind of a slower build. And in the sense like, you know, malarkey, I was all right, well, they got a guy who wins half of his fights. He's going to accommodate. Saul killed.

We made a big deal of it because it was, you know, two guys from the same area. And you're like, they don't usually do that type of thing. So, but I mean, it still felt like a setup for for solkill like a showcase and he did he handled that hack press you mentioned and then this one with an aging deriushi maybe chinny and i'm like okay well you've done all of these i'm curious to see now because darius has been a perennial top five guy but like you know maybe top 10 you know top 15 as he's declining but i'm he's still up there do they kind of look

in that same range but like of a more viable guy who's not his arrow is not pointing down and say like okay let's see what what happens when you go against guy like this it's an interesting test case he passed the test he did what he needed to do i guess we'll see how this goes i you know just hard seems to own the spotlight when the spotlight's on him he seems to really love you see him jump up on the cage and he's smoking you know it's like i feel like he's one of those guys it's it goes into it right like it's this the psychology of the stakes where you say like i'm up for any challenge i i love that's what makes the it factor sometimes is guys who meet every challenge and they exceed expectations every time they're he's certainly on the

path now, but you do need to see him now against the guy where there's doubt in the matchmaking. I felt like this was going to be a fight for him. I want to see one where it's like, okay, I don't know if he gets through this one, because then it gets real. Yeah, I mean, you're going to be tested in the UFC, so when you're blowing

through tests, you're actually, it's like the thing with Tom Aspinall, people are like, oh my God, Cyril gone was landing on him. I'm like, Tom's never really been tested. True. You know, like, the question is not can you avoid testing, the question is how you perform when you are, Exactly. And so we'll see. We'll see about that.

McGregor, when I hate the comparison on the time, but that Mendez's fight, if you remember, Mendez looked like he was dictating everything in that first round. And then that's what made it such a crazy second round that. That tables turned, all of a sudden, McGregor got through that challenge and you're like, how did that just happen? I mean, that was wild, right? I mean, I'm not saying that everybody's going to have as dramatic of a, of a leap like that, but it certainly helps when you when you're building up here. So he needs that. He needs to weather some adversity or treat adversity like it doesn't matter and just go right through it. We'll see. People think because you can avoid adversity and long stretches of your career that you can avoid it entirely.

And that's just not the way that this goes. Like, oh, Tom Aspinall is like the fact that he's knocking everyone out means that he'll never, like no one will ever do this or not any time soon. And that's actually not what that means. I mean, it could mean if you were like really in a sandbagging division or something. But as long as you're not sandbagging, it's like you're, like you're, you're, going to get inventory that's going to happen. So something to think about. All right. Steve Erseg defeats Tim Elliott, Chuck.

He does so. Loses the first round in my judgment and then wins the second two kind of adapts his boxing to make it work. I don't know. What did this win mean to you? What did it show you about Erseg? I mean, is he supposed to win this fight, right?

Because I think there was a nine or 10 year gap between these two guys. We have seen some stubborn older guys showing up and saying like not on my watch lately. but I felt like Erseg was a guy who probably got thrown, you know, thrown to the wolves too early in his career, because he was fighting Pansoja in Brazil, like in his, what, third or fourth UFC fight. So I felt like, you know, this is a guy who's kind of coming at it from a, from an experience factor of having done some things like that

that maybe is closer to an Elliott in terms of like, hey, I've been in big moments too, I know what to do. I felt like he handled himself. But at the same time, was it any kind of fight that you're like, okay, let's talk title again or anything. Like, no, I mean, it just looked like he outclassed a guy, kind of figured it out and beat a 39-year-old fighter who he probably should. You know, I felt like he got through it.

The one thing that kind of, like, I feel like Ers Seig is, you tell me too, because I know you watch these fights from a little bit of a different standpoint. There are a couple times, and I've seen this in some of his fights where it feels like he's a little holstered, like he doesn't, he might have an offensive moment, like if he pressed a little bit more. but he he's one of those guys who boxes or sometimes he'll just kind of box and like you know kind of outpoint you and not have that instinct and he's it's only knockout i think was against schnell right so it's like i'd like to see him be a little more like show a little more urgency i think in these types of fights he's got the same problem jdm does he's a good boxer who can wrestle defensively pretty well who can do some offensive wrestling but you're probably not going to win the fight that way you're going to win it with your boxing you can do some kickboxing but it's not really what you do which you do what you really do is boxing. It's the same problem JDM has.

I'm not saying that their games are identical, but they're up against the same kinds of challenges. Like you can do, you can with a good jab, good footwork, good takedown defense, you know, that same kind of core boxing technique,

a little bit of toughness, you can take that skill set very, very far. You might even win a title with it, but you're not going to be able to maximize opportunity with it. Necessarily, every style does this, but that one in particular necessitates of some tradeoffs.

And I think it's a little bit of an avenue for people who want a little bit more of a, they want a refined A game without much of a B game. Like they kind of want the A game to be so applicable that they can use it in every scenario. And what you're finding out is like the higher you climb, it's got some limits. Now obviously, Erseg won this one and he adapted and got the job done. But, you know, Elliot is a good fighter, but he's not Carlos Prochus. and he's certainly not Islam Makachab and you can see what happens when you go up there it's the same thing with like you know i love max holloway but like max has got a lot max is max has varied

it up a little bit more recently that's not quite fair but for example in like a couple of the volk fights um there there was a sort of he got reduced to being into that boxing role now again that was partly through the smarts of bulk anyway you get what i'm saying so urs i perform well dude he's a good fighter it's just did this change what i thought was possible for him right not exactly it doesn't help that he's not he's not I mean he's just not he doesn't look like a physical specimen he doesn't really kill it on the microphone

there's not a ton of charisma I like that it's like but I'm saying like you know so he's not going to he's not going to do it in the action probably I mean I remember when he was fighting Pantosia you know the UFC had you know for B-roll they had one knockout to go off of basically so it's like they're just showing different angles of

same thing. But, you know, he kind of looks like Ikebaud Crane, you know, like the cartoon version of him. Like he doesn't really, I don't know. I feel like those types of guys, if they don't really excel, like if you're not going to be, you know, this outgoing guy, like it has to speak in the cage. And we'll see if he's able to do that. That's, he's kind of fighting twofold in that division. It's going to take one thing is going to have to, you know, help the other. And I'm not sure he has either right now. Long Island. Do we miss anything? about your, your astro boy? He's not my astro

boy. I just owned him this week. I had Tim Elliott. Tim Elliott let me down, man. I didn't even think Tim Elliott won round one, if I'm being honest either, but I think all three judges gave him round one. If he did, if he went around, it was one. Yeah, but like you guys were saying earlier, Chuck said earlier, I'd like to see

with some fucking urgency once in a while. Not in this fight. I didn't want to see it, but going forward, man, like, I'm no longer like hyped on him as a title challenger, whereas coming off the loss to Pantosia. You're like, oh, shit, he gets one more win. He gets that rematch. Maybe he pulls it off. But like, I don't think it was urgency as much as it's like you guys want him to have offense. He doesn't have. Maybe. I mean, dude, he has to win with that boxing game. That that's just

going to narrow how easily that can be done versus if you if you had a good boxing game and a dynamic kicking game. Well, now it changes a lot of the ranges and the the counters. He's got a good ground game. He's got a good ground game that he never has used in the U.S.C for whatever reason. I'm not saying he should have used it here. I'm just saying Steve Erseg, we think of as a boxer because of the match, Schnell knockout, but like you actually look back at his record, it's really

mostly sub-wins. I don't know. I'd like to see him grapple more. Yeah, well, he doesn't. He's some killer instinct. That's all. Even in the boxing, you need some killer instinct. I don't know what to say. Marwan Rahiki beats Ali Schmidt. Ali Schmidt should not be in this organization. and Rehiki looked nice.

He did his job, you know. Shouts to him, but this was a waste of time. I have nothing to say about it. Brando Perichich, defeating Shemil Ghaziev. Chuck, this was fight of the night. Yeah. Perichich winning in the second round with a barrage of punches. Boy, he was beaten the absolute stuffing out of Ghaziev,

but who just would not go down, would not go down, and then finally, you know, chopped the tree. so to speak. He moves to seven and one, Brenda Perichich. Listen, if heavyweight is going to be like terrible, at least let it be fun. Yeah. It was kind of terrible in its own way still. I mean, but it was like it actually delivered a knockout, which is all you're hoping. Because if it goes into the third round, I mean, you're working at two heavyweight fights on this card that you're like, oh my God, why? You know, he got it done. Gassia was sucking so much win. Mirriya's mouth wide open.

And at least this time, you know, Perich, like he had enough strength to finish the fight. That's all I ask sometimes at these heavyweight. And it goes deep into the second round like that. So good for the Balkan Bear. That was a fun end. I mean, that knock out, straight backwards was pretty cool. Yeah, like a mannequin. Yeah.

I will say this, like the worst place in any MMA fight to be as a fan watching is when you're deep in a fight and you've got two heavy weights too tired to punch each other. That is, that's the lowest of the low. That's when you're like, wow, man. Because now you're just like, we just got to work. wait out the clock. I know. It's like purgatory. And it was at 6 a.m. It was fucking fantastic. And then last but not least, oh, Jesus, Chuck, died to Evasa. What is? Dude, he can't fucking fight in this organization anymore. And this has been obvious for such a long time. And now, Chuck, what are we doing?

What are we doing? The biggest pop he got. Well, there's two different times. Once is when he got up on his own in the second round after just laying there and the crowd went crazy he got up and then it was taken right back down again by the vanilla gorilla and who just kind of laid on him. And then in the third, it's only because at a minute the referee comes in and says, all right, stand it up, stand it up.

And the crowd goes crazy because this is what you get. You know, this is your excitement. It's just him being able to get back to his feet in these fights. He's one fight away though, Luke. You really want to cut him on one fight away from tying Tony Ferguson's all-time eight fight losing streak record. I mean, he's this close.

He's at seven. You don't want to see it. One more fight. The crowd still loves him. It is funny, man. Like, you hear them just, I mean, I don't know if it's like, I honestly, I don't know what he can do anymore. You know what I mean? He can't wrestle.

He can't kick. Seemingly can't punch much anymore, at least not enough anyway. And he can't get the gas to, you know, offensively anyway, go the distance. Like, what can he do? I don't. You reminds me like, who's the fighter? Chonkers.

You've ever heard of Chonkers? Chonkers? Yeah, chonkers is my guy. Well, no chonkers out there in San Francisco. This was, dude, this was a vanilla gorilla versus chonkers. Yeah. You're going to tell us. Chonkers.

You have to tell the backstory to Chonkers. Yeah, you got to tell the back story. He told us a story right before we went live. And I was like, you got to tell us on here. There's this marina apparently in San Francisco, and there's this seal that has gone viral there. It's been all over the news because there's a certain kind of seal that is the typical seal that you see, like, you know, they inhabit on these, these, these docks. But then there's a special kind of seal called a stellar seal, S-T-E-L-L-E-R, which are apparently like Clydesdale's to horses or, you know, wolves to dogs kind of a thing. So they're huge.

Anyway, Chonkers found his way, this giant fucking seal found his way over there to the marina. and every time he steps up on there, you know, he's just rolling up like the fucking cock of the walk, and they call him Chonkers. And he just lays there like a big old fat ass. And I was like, dude, I would watch, I would watch Tuivasa in that cage. I'd be like, chonkers.

Look at chonkers just laying there on the marina, you know? That's a beautiful thing. Chonkers is the new nickname. Surely they're going to cut him, yes? I think so. You can't even, you can't even stay defensively. I thought we did this before. We did this.

couple months ago and I was like yes they they got to cut him right and then here he is so I'm like I don't know I mean some guys look I mean Long Island you saw the reception out there they love them I feel like they could just keep throwing them on these Australian cards and that's exactly it Chuck you bring him back for the next one you give him Sean Sharoff against sure off against he should have Sean Sharoff who he should have fought or like Parker Porter bring Parker Porter back you know you give him someone that's like chase Sherman give him someone that it's like okay if he doesn't beat this guy. Now it's really over. Because, like, Louis Sutherland lost to Volter Walker,

and he lost to Brando Perichich. These guys are pretty good right now. We don't really know. Maybe Louis Sutherland is decent, you know? Give him one more. Give him one more. You're fired. Thank you. I'll see you later. He was what I went to. Dude, did you see, by the way, speaking of, like, improper matchups, did you see that karate combat gave Larissa Pacheco?

Remember, Lister Pacheco was like a fucking hammer. We had her in our, at, uh, at Yahoo, we had her in the pound for pound women's rankings. I mean, like, whatever else we want to say about her, heavy-handed, experienced striker. Yeah. And good one. They gave her someone making their pro debut.

Oh, my God. Right. So what do you think happened to the girl making her pro debut? Yeah, she got fucking traumatized. She didn't just lose. It was one of those losses where they get hit with something and then they turn and just start walking away. Oh, my God.

because their back is turned they get fucking drilled that's like the old days of m-m-ma oh my god yeah like the worst shit you've ever seen you know because their bodies are just not used to like absorbing this kind of trauma and so like you know the velociraptor hunting you down is very experienced with it it was terrible and dude the commission allowed this and by the head of that commission is the guy that spoke in the last hearing in the senate in favor of destroying the ali act so my god you know i don't know if florida is fighter first and my opinion, Chuck. I'm just speaking out loud. You know what I mean? I mean, Larissa Pacheco, how many fights does she have?

She fought cyborg and hurt cyborg, you know? It's just, that's, that's insane. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now got my own show. If you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app. Any, before we move on, any word for the undercard here, I will say Cody Steele. that's the one getting that backside 50-50

that was how fun was that dude with the reverse grip was even the commentators were like hey he doesn't have anything here he doesn't have anything and you just see him kind of working through his progression down there man that was a thing of beauty and he did it so fast it was like a cobra strike right

I mean how fast he was able to get that heel yeah I in defense of the crew he was trying to come up and then his opponent beat him to it so then he inverted underneath but the fact that he adapted was so great I have seen that guy on a thing I did out in a syndicate training. And he's one of those guys who'll talk to you.

He's a student of the game, Cody. Like I know he's a little bit older, like 30, 31 years old to kind of be starting. But he had a decorated jujitsu career. But like you see him perform like that. And doesn't that make you intrigued? I'm like, it's been a while since I've seen where it's just straight scrambles and ground game like that. It reminded me of which fight was it? it might have been the Miguel Torres fight from a long time but anyway it was just it was kind of a fun like if you're kicking off a fight card that was a fun one also kind of proof i mean cody steel was a very very very very good jihistu competitor but he wasn't bouchetha good and yet look what he's able to do granted you know we're not talking about like the toughest level of opposition but hello neither are we doing that with bouchesha what i'm trying to make is you can see and this i made a video about this chuck and one of the points that i made was like the guys of the newer era of josephiq and

jujitsu where wrestling is much more important wrestling up is significant guys have take downs from the clinch you know and it's just it's all no gee for the most part anyway now like they're got they've got a skill set much better suited for the modern game i think this is kind of evidence of that you know and it helps too like you know this guy cote i mean he's he's a training he's a training partner every day with guys like al jemine sterling and marab and i mean it's just got to be very helpful you see all those guys kind of iron sharpens iron um that gym I think is actually living up to that. All right, before we get up, move on from this, Long Island,

anyone else to shout out on this card that you thought was a noteworthy performer? I mean, we got to give junior Taffa. He went from six and five to seven and five knocking out Kevin Christian there. You know, you got to give him some flowers. And West Schultz, I got to say, does not look like he should even be in the UFC. And he was looking terrible in this fight. But he did get the guillotine over Ben Johnson. Cash does an underdog, by the way, too.

So that was nice. But, you know, the rest of the card, whatever. I did think it was interesting, the Kobe thickness Vince Morales fight. It was 29, 28 across the board thickness. But like, they gave us the split screen as if it could have been anyone's fight. Vince Morales seemed super bummedy lost. I didn't think it was controversial. But then you saw Alexander Volcanowski tweeted after the fight.

He's like, I saw a tap in there. And Kobe thickness has an arm bar on Vince Morales at one point. And it's very quick, but it did look like Vince Morales tapped. I believe that was in round one or two. So fight ended up going the distance. Vince lost anyway. It doesn't really matter. But that was the only other like noteworthy thing on the pre-

How much fun did BC have with that name thickness? I feel like I'm missing. Yeah. He loves the sausage. What was I going to say? I forgot. Sorry. No, that's all right.

I mean, you know, Brian Campbell and Dix. It's fine. You know, we can transition. Oh, there were three guys on this card. Vince Morales, Gerald Mears chart. tie to Ivasa that had at least

obviously two of us was more but at least had a five fight losing streak going and all of them lost whoa so and also only two fights on this card had two guys coming in off wins worth noting gerald meershardt was the biggest underdog on the card he closed at like plus 900 against malcun and he won round one on all three judges scorecard so imagine how much

people were sweating their malcun that's going into that but yeah he lost uh well there you have it that's our recap of UFC Perth. Let's take a moment here to talk about UFC 328, which is coming up this weekend. Yes, this Saturday, UFC 328. And of course, we're going to be in studio again

to preview that. But right now, before we even talk about that, let's get you ready for what your weekend plans are going to be. You're going to hang out with the boys or the ladies, depends. You're going to do, whatever you're going to do, you're going to plan it. And hey, if you're planning to put a little wager down, we're going to take care of you.

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Ontario. Restrictions apply. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance for additional terms and responsible gaming resources. See sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos limited time offer. We will come back to MMA, but for topic number three, let's switch gears for just a moment. Let's talk about what happened in Las Vegas. So we had a pair of monsters. We had the Japanese monster. Let's start with the Mexican monster here first. David Benavides, Chuck, becomes the first boxer to ever capture titles at 168. 175 and now cruise away 200 pounds after positively abusing zerto ramirez look at this finish dude the spray you just can't believe that he understand david benavides is moving up 25 pounds

to do that to this guy so my question for you chuck after dropping him twice he drops them in the fourth and he takes a knee there in the six I guess he took a knee in the fourth two. Yeah. He didn't return from that second one though. Exactly. Dude, considering how he calls out opposition, he accepts every challenge, he moves up in weight, and is physically brutalizing these opponents, is David Benavides boxing's most can't miss fighter. He certainly has to have made a huge leap here, right? I mean, this, because you look at that footage, when you see something like that where a guy is basically standing in, and he was doing this the whole fight.

So if you haven't watched this, go back and watch it, because he's standing in close, and yet he's elusive. It was almost like the end, if you're making the, you know, an MMA kind of comparison, it'd be like when Anderson Silva was just getting out of the way of punches. But this is within, you know, a phone booth a lot of times. You can't get hit, but then he's landing these flurries that are just, I didn't, you know, he's moving up to 200 pounds. Does the speed, does it, is it going to translate it 200 pounds?

Is there going to be strength? that shows up. Not only does he have both those things, but he puts it on display in a way that it makes the, you know, it makes Zerto look like he's, you know, being outclassed completely in this fight. I think he had maybe one good round, Zerto, in this fight. And to me, that becomes must-see. Because when you see guys who do something, you know, in boxing, there's so much, there's so much hyming and hawing, guys don't want to move up, guys don't want to move down, whatever it is. They, you know, fights are hard to make, guys finicky and who they want to fight. this is a guy who did this,

moving up 25 pounds, which is just absurd. Even if you think about that in MMA, it's absurd and puts on that kind of performance six-round, and like you mentioned in the Pacheco fight where the girl she's hitting just kind of turns away. I mean, this wasn't so different. It was almost like, Zerda got hit so hard and so fast that it had to register like, oh, my God, you know.

And the way he took that knee, that's theater, man. I mean, that's one of the better finishes I can recall. you know in the last you know in the last little while where you're just like oh my god what did i just watch do we have a picture of zerto's face bro look at this damn he didn't even get through half the fight you know this guy was like i can't i can't deal with this anymore i have uh i mean i've seen conflicting reports about how many things were broken including some of his teeth reportedly um you know david beniviz doesn't have that one punch killer power but he's got consistent 75% real bad power.

And so each one of those doesn't knock you out, but it just is like the sweet spot of tearing flesh, breaking bones. You know what I mean? Like that kind of power. And he just delivers it like a jackhammer. Yeah, like atomic. All the time. I mean, it was just for a due to 100 pounds.

I mean, you might see this sometimes with the lighter weight guys where they're just like, bum, boom, bum, bum, bum, they can do this very fast, you know, combination than lands. But it was also that you had the, you got the, you know, got this guy who's basically a pug like he's in the crouch he's moving forward like a pug um and i know that you know it's toughness and it's kind of like he's trying to do his game plan zirto but like the first evidence of i think was in the first round right there was one of those those sequences where it's like bam bam bam bam and you're like okay wait whoa whoa there is a huge speed factor here that's going to um catch zirto at some point in this fight i felt like it was already in the air

and that kind of dynamic really feeds the excitement. And he had, you know, the fourth round where he goes down on a knee, the sixth round way he pulls it off. And each time he did that was surreal. I mean, it was just, it did not seem correct. Who has done this? Who has moved up basically 32 pounds from his original 168? Who has done this, right?

We were kind of touching on this a little bit. Who does this type of thing in boxing? I know that guys have done similar things in the past, right? Yeah, I mean, you've seen guys move 30 plus, De La Jolla did it at a smaller weight, obviously. So it means, technically it means a little bit more, I would argue. Yeah. Akeow did it.

Mayweather did it. Not all the same. Roy Jones, maybe Roy Jones Jr. went from like middleweight to heavy weight, right? All the way. Right. Something similar as well.

Yeah. And obviously, if you go from like cruiser weight to heavyweight like Ussick, you might be fighting guys who might be like, gigantic, you know what I mean? So, you know, it's hard to say exactly where this fifth in terms of like. Somebody put up a graphic like, who should you fight next? And it was like the four name. Usik's on there.

You're like, okay, so let's just, let's just check all boxes. Jim Lampley might be a little bit washed. But one thing he said a long time ago to me in BC was that he thinks that eventually Benavides could win the heavyweight title. And you know what? I don't, I'm not there yet, but I don't know how far apart I am from that. I mean, I just want to say this. There's two things about David Benavitas that just need to be said out loud.

Number one, how many times have we seen athletes who fuck up in their careers and you think, oh, they'll eventually get it together. and then they maybe kind of sort of get it together, but really not, not really. They don't, they just kind of, the mistakes just tend to plague them one way or the other. No, guys like John Jones have figured out a way around that in part because the system accommodated them. Also, in part, he was just so much better than everybody else. But like, you know, in general, I just feel like most of the stories are you see guys mess up and, you know, they don't always learn their lesson in the way that they should. Durante Davis, for example, it seems like one of these guys.

Now, obviously, David Benavides didn't commit any. kind of issue like that. He lost his title a long time ago for testing positive for cocaine and then for missing weight. My first ever interview with him on MK for Showtime was the way-ins where he missed weight. BC and I did it. But the point I wanted to make is look at how much he has learned his lesson. You don't ever have to worry about him making weight. You don't ever have to worry about him staying out of trouble. You don't ever, at least now anyway, right? You don't ever have to worry about him not showing up prepared he does a he'll do every press conference every interview he promotes the shit out of the fight and then come fight night he's moving downhill on your ass in terms of like

money you can pay to a guy and be like what is the likelihood this is going to be fun for me the consumer i don't know who's a safer bet or investment in boxing today than david benivete is fight over fight round over round, what are you going to get from him? You're going to get assault. You're going to get assault. It's insane what he's doing. And I'm just going to say this to- His eyes lighting up when he's talking about the end there.

I mean, it's just, when dudes, like, when they have that moment of clarity for everybody, this is what happens. You know, it's like he had that moment. And in boxing, this is important. He speaks English. He speaks Spanish. This is very huge in boxing to be able to do that.

Dude, David Benavides should be the face of boxing. That's what I believe. I'm not saying that he is Chuck. He's not, right? And I'm not saying that he will be. You can't make the fans respond the way you want. I think that his fan base is growing accumulatively, and he's been denied opportunities against big names

that if he had beaten them, like Canelo Alvarez, would have sent him into the stratosphere, and they don't want to fight him. But like, understand what this guy does, not just moving up and wait, taking on the toughest challenge that he can find all the guys that no one else wants to fight like David Morel previously

oh you don't want to fight David Morel I'm gonna I'm gonna call out that fight and then move downhill on him no one wants to fight Demetrius Andrade send his ass over I'm gonna send him packing Caleb Flammes got tricky yard was only six months ago to 25 pounds less it's crazy demolished him he's hunting

better be of he's hunting Bivol he's hunting Canelo he's hunting he moves up 25 pounds to go take on a champion in Ramirez and demolishes him. This is what you want out of every single boxer. Show up, make wait, entertain, don't get in trouble,

keep this thing moving and alive, and make it so that we can't wait to see what you're going to do next because you don't duck smoke and you deliver when you fight. Who is doing that better right now than David Benavides? I don't know who that is.

Yeah, man. And it's kind of a sub-tweet, right, that it happens on Cinco de Mayo around this, where Canello usually owns this weekend and, you know, a lot of eyes were on it. And I just, I just think there's sometimes, I know that you were at the, the Bud Crawford fight, when he, you know, when he basically had his moment and it was in Vegas, right? Like that, and you, you were like as a transformative type of thing. Now, I wouldn't go quite that far, but I did feel like seeing a guy take on a challenge like this,

like you mentioned 25 pounds difference. And then having that kind of showing, it always, it, it, it, it, adds to some kind of mystique, man. And I mean, honestly, I don't, like, who's talking about David Benadiz? You know, guys like us might talk about him, but I don't feel like the broader world is talking about him, but we'll see how it kind of pans out if he gets one of these big names that they keep mentioning here next. Let's talk about what might come next.

So everyone wants him to fight Jai Opataya, who just signed with Zufa boxing, and they asked David Benavides about it, and here's what he said. Jai Opetai, how important is it for you? to get a chance to fight him without all the red tape in the way. I mean, I think that's the biggest fight in the world, especially at this weight division. You know, and that's definitely a fight I want. Like I said, I'm not scared of nobody.

This is monster of the world. And if he wants to get that fight, we get that fight. I don't know why he went to Zufa. We could have made this fight right after this one. You know, but now, I don't know if he got stripped by the IBF or what it is. it is, and I'm not going to go over there fight for a Zufa title, but

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that would be a great fight to make in the future. And I mean, I respect Jai Lai. He's a great fighter, and I think he has to come back over here to make these fights happen because you know, we can't make no fights in Zufa. This is, I mean, more of a question about like what Zufa is going to do and whether they're going

to play ball. It's just very funny. They're like, oh, these promoters don't want to work together and you know, it's all dysfunctional. And it's like, okay, are you guys going to work with David Benavides's team to make the Jaya fight. What's kind of proof of concept here, right? Yeah, and do you think, I mean, do you want to see him stay there? Do you want him to be

to stay at Crucauton? That's what I'm wondering, right? Because I feel like, you know, he goes back down now and you've got these huge fights with a B-ball. You mentioned, I feel like that's the fight to make, but I mean, honestly, I'd love to watch any of these. Oh, look, there's our boy. Yeah, here's Brian Campbell who tweeted this, who, by the way, called the fights. Shout to Bucc. Yeah, he's been a great job. Yep. And he says, Benavides, Bivol is the best fight you can make in boxing.

I mean, I'm not sure if that's number one for me, but it's at worst top three. I mean, that is a huge fight. And this is, we should say this, Zerto had a terrible game plan. Okay. That's what I'm saying. He's kind of moving forward. He was, and Benavides was faster.

And Benavides will stand square at you, but he'll switch stances. And he's got guard pulls and manipulation. He's off balancing you. And, you know, but like, Zerto was just there. Dude, Bivel's not going to fight that way. Bivel is going to be on his horse. So it would really put the, I think that, in my opinion, Chuck, Benavides is underrated as a technician.

But Bivol might be the highest level of that. So it's a real test of what Benavides can do to be the guy who's so crafty. Yeah. I mean, it would be fascinating. What about Better Bia of then? Who would you prefer, I guess he goes against Snakes? Better Biav, I might pick, no, I might pick Benavides. because he's crafty too, but he's going to be a little bit slower.

He's going to come to you. I mean, Better Beav is not going to be super hard to find. And because he's a little bit older and Benavides is on the up, I feel like that could benefit. Now, that would be a tougher fight than what's certainly what he got on Saturday. But I would fit, but the Bivol one because he can dance for 12 rounds. He's a fucking tough guy to track down. Feels like forever he's been out, man.

I would love any of these. But I think that that's what's so great about it. And you know, you get the sense that they're not going to, Benevarez is not going to fight some woodwork fellow necks. Like some so many times you see in boxing where you're like, okay, we got all these options. And then it's like some fifth option jumps in. You're like, ah, that's the least option we want. I feel like we're actually going to get something with him. We shall see.

Let's keep it moving here on the boxing side of things. Let's talk about now what was technically the biggest boxing fight of actually not, you know, definitely the biggest boxing fight of the weekend. I started with David Benavitas because it was the one that was more recent because it was the evening as opposed to the morning. And it was kind of fun and BC did the call. But the biggest fighter for being honest was at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on Saturday. The biggest clash in Japanese boxing history, Nooya Inouye secures a unanimous decision victory. By the way, the judging, I thought, in terms of how they scored it, I thought they did a great job here. You can see 116, 112, 115, 113, 116, 112.

All of those seem quite justified to me. I don't really understand giving the last round on the first scorecard to Nakatani. but okay, it doesn't matter. The point I'm trying to make is this was tightly contested from beginning to end. So how was in a way able to seal the victory late Chuck? And does this supplant in a way as the sports top pound for pound talent over Olexander Usik. By the way, like how much did you enjoy these walkout entrances? It wasn't it like it just adds the ceremony with the Japanese fans.

It was like it reminded me a pride. Just kind of the... Chuck, I'll let you go back to your answer. Just answer the question really very quickly. I never show anything fight related to my daughter ever. Yeah. If she asks, you know, I'll answer, but I don't ever show her. And I was like, you have to see this entrance that Noya in a way made.

Got the guitar player and all that. It was fun. I mean, he was, I thought that he built up a lead. Now, they were talking on the commentator, like, the commentators were saying, like, they thought he was winning. It was tightly contested. but he was doing more. His jab, man, I mean, even though he didn't get the dynamic kind of knockout that we've seen,

you know, a year or two ago where he was putting all those guys away, that left jab and then setting up his right hand and just his use of space and his aggressiveness. I mean, it's just, it's mesmerizing, even in a fight like this, you just kind of get lost watching his movement and just him kind of go to work. But I thought in every round, like we were looking at the scorecards, I thought through the first six rounds, it was his fight. And I think he just kind of, you know, we knew that, you know, there might be a little bit in a fight like this. It might start to go the other way.

I think Nakatani, like a lot of people thought he would be competitive and that he would be a real danger in this fight, maybe even early, like with a K.O. or something like that, which we got past. But we knew he would kind of come on at some point, which he did. To his credit, he came on. It made it very interesting. But I felt like in the end, the way that the score kind of think, the 115, 113, the other ones were 1-16. 112, that's back then the range I'd have been in. Yeah, same. One thing we didn't mention, by the way, in the Benavitas fight, which

we'll mention something here, something of a common denominator, not quite, but there were elbows that Benavitas landed on Ramirez. I don't think they were intentional, although, you know, they could be, it's hard to say. I'll just say this, he didn't really need him to win. You know what I mean? So, you know, something to pay attention to, to see if it has. happens again because then it can be a thing that you can say might be intentional. Right. All right. I bring that up to say the one kind of asterisk in this fight is that in the 10th round between Inouye and Nakatani, there's a headbutt. It's accidental. Right. You know,

they're open stance. You're going to get that. And cut him a little bit and who knows if it did anything else. But then, Inouye has the 11th round that Inouye has is one of the best rounds of his life. I mean, he was just almost. bullying is a strong word, but he had certainly, certainly taken command because he started out this fight, Chuck. Yeah. Winning not easily. It was tightly tested, but like, you know, rounds were accumulating. You're like, Nakatani is not really getting involved here. Then like halfway through to like that, you know, to like maybe the round six-ish to round 10-ish,

Nakatani is now boxing him up and looking slick and countering him and hitting him with that long left hand. and all kinds of stuff. But then the headbut happens. And then I'm not saying it's one to one. Like that's why, but it is also the case that in round 11, he storms back and I thought he took round 12. One judge disagreed.

But the point I want to make here is like to answer the question, like should he be pound for pound or boy. I think he should. And I've been a little bit slow to that. Like when Bud was going around and he was beating Canelo, I'm like, well, that's, you know, or even when he beat Errol, I'm like, that's kind of the guy.

And then Ustick was doing what he was doing. You're like, well, that's kind of the guy. I'm not mad at it. Usik, he's beaten so many great guys. He wants to go fight a kickboxer. It'll be okay. It's going to make some money. Yeah. It'll be okay. But in a way, fought another pound for Nakatani was also top 10, top five by some people pound for pound. And in a way, beat him fairly in my mind. What I will say is Scott Christ of Bad Left Hook at SB Nation property, he's like, there should be a rematch, not because the judges got it wrong or that, you know,

the headbut is some giant asterisk, Chuck. But just that, I think a second fight, there's some unanswered questions. Maybe Nakatani, for example, starts a little quicker in the next fight. Well, he responded to Rudy Hernandez, who was like, hey, you've got to start throwing hands. Right around the sixth round.

Yep. Like when you're mentioned this, like that's when he came on. So just to say, just to say, I think that with a performance like this, it wasn't a thrilling fight. It was tense.

It was interesting. It was good. It wasn't like edge of your seat. or, you know, the, I mean, the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, just the, animal abuse that was the Ramirez and Benavides fight. It wasn't that. But it was certainly high craft, the jabs to the body by in a way, the jack. He would change up tempo and then go upstairs.

Those were just fucking brilliant. It was a beautiful boxing display. And the winner of this one, in my judgment, he's the best guy in the sport. It's no way in a way. Yeah. I couldn't argue it, man. The only reason I've kept Ussick up there is just because I haven't seen him start to decline, you know, and his last fight against Dubois, he still looks so good after Dubois had looked really good, you know, against Joshua.

So you're like, I thought that until you start to see him decline, it's like it's hard to dethrone him until, you know, he's 39 years old. You think it's inevitable that he's going to show up in a diminished form at some point. And maybe that's what happens against with Rico. But at the same time, I can't argue, man. Like this kid, the way he fights, man, and like his just, oral, you know, like, as the kid said, like, his way of handling his business is, it's fun to watch.

And, I mean, I always go back, was it the Cardenas fight? Who was the guy who knocked him down? Got him with, like, the left. Cardenas and, yeah, Cardinness. So the Cardenas one, I remember, like, this is when I first saw what I was, like, what a dog he was, man, and just how graceful of a dog he was as well, because just to come back and win that fight the way he did. I just, I think that he's, I would probably put, I would probably put him number one now, you know?

And you're talking about guys like Ashikour who like is breaking into that space and some of these other guys. But I feel like this dude is probably a cut above everybody. Yeah, I mean, I'm so glad you pointed that out because he's like, he's not untouchable. You know, he's been hurt and dropped in fights. And then he's like, okay, well, you know, now you're not, now you've signed your own death warrant. That's true, though. And he didn't, Nakatani was too good to be able to level that kind of punishment against them. But play this round 12 ringside highlight here.

I'll talk over it if we can. You can see here, this was the whole thing. You basically would have in a way pressing, trying to get the jab going off into the body. They're both trying to counter each other. This was when it got a little bit looser. It was much tighter earlier. But I mean, just, you know, the highest fucking level of crap. But the point I want to make was Chuck, again, is it related to the 10th round headbut?

I do not know. Only these two will know in the end. But for in a way to have a strong 11th after a period where Nakatani was doing great, he's rescued himself and like bucked up in fights when pressed before. This wouldn't be new. You know, we've talked, we started out talking about JDM where he kind of like has like a real bad look on his face and shit gets out of hand and it all falls apart. This guy has had bad moments and then really stuck it to the opposition after the fact, you know. And you've seen, we've seen these in MMA, these guys who, at the first sign of it, like, and I'm not saying he was sleeping through the fight.

He was obviously, like, doing his fight, but there's some extra gear that they can jump into. And I mean, that's, that's always the sign of a guy who's, you know, going to be there for a while. And how old is anyway? He's like, he's 33. He's got to be 32-ish. I mean, it's not, you know, by comparison, he's still right in the wheelhouse in his prime. So, I mean, it's, it's fun. And I'm like, some of the fights that, uh, like, some of the fights that, uh, like,

Like, would you put him, like, I would love to say, every since I saw Bam, you know, fighting in Philadelphia like a couple years ago, I wanted to see this fight. Is that what they should do at this point? If they don't do a rematch or something like that, you got to do the super fight, right? I mean, they're two, two top five pound for pound guys. They were talking about Giovante Davis for a while. And I'm like, I think Jervantes' alleged crimes have made him an unattractive opponent, to say nothing of the weight.

There is, there are talks about the Bam Rodriguez one. That would be, Ban would be the smaller guy. you know, not by the hugest of margins, but, you know, Inouye's a dominant puncher at a higher weight class. So that, we'll see if that ends up getting a little bit of juice. But the Nakatani rematch is one you can do. I don't think the Japanese would complain, certainly.

You'd favor though, would you favor Inouye if Bam came up to 122? Like, I've taken it, you would take Inouye that fight. I'll tell you what, if they fought next, like let's say they actually make that, I would pick Inouye way. Right. in a year or a year and a half too? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

It'd be fun though, man. I'd like to see it. It'd be fun as hell. I'd be all about it. Experience Harry Styles live in London, England at Wembley Stadium. This is Harry Styles. IHard Radio wants to send you and a mate across the pond with flights from Virgin Atlantic,

hotel from TripCentral.ca, tickets, and $1,000 cash. Download the free IHartRadio app. Listen to Iheart new music for 10 minutes. Enter to win. Every day is another chance to see Harry Style. Very excited to see you with the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now.

Before we get to the last bit of MMA news, let's talk about our friends at Cuervo. Guys, you all know the drill. You all know the drill. It is officially Fight Week. Here we go. UFC 328 is this weekend. Hamza Tchaimai is set to make his first title defense

against you guys know who. The infamous Sean Strickland, former champ, by the way. And of course, some are saying it's the nastiest grudge match, I don't know, maybe ever certainly since Connor versus Habib. I can't think of one that's been uglier than that. So it's going to

be interesting. Let's say that euphemistically. And of course, morning combat is going to be here to preview it and get you guys ready, all in partnership with our good friends at Cuervo. As always, we will be live this week, Wednesday, May 6th, in studio for our UFC 328 pregame preview presented by Cuervo because from face off to final decision,

Fight Night delivers the adrenaline and Cuervo, the energy to match it. Whether you're hosting your crew at home or catching the action at the bar, Cuervo brings the good vibes that turn every round into a celebration from margaritas to Palomas. Every main event simply tastes better with the world's most iconic tequila. That's this one. And no matter who walks out with the belt with Cuervo in hand, like I do right now, you're already celebrating like an undisputed champion.

And for every round, keep it fun, keep it Cuervo. Huge week, huge stakes. So you know we're going to have Cuervo there for it all. Again, we're going to be enjoying Chuck some Cuervo on Wednesday in studio, pregame preview covering everything from UFC 328 with Especial Gold. That's this one right here from our friends at Cuervo. Cannot wait. Should be a lot of fun.

Unless, Chuck, Amtrak gets in my way. Your greatest nemesis of the career here. You know what? I'm taking earlier trains. now I'm not even messing with it. I'm just going to take the 5 a.m. train and just be done with it. You take those 7 a.m. trains. You're taking your life into your hands, player.

It's brutal. All right. All right. Let's do this. Last but not least, let's talk a little bit, just a little bit about PFL Sioux City. So the PFL, they ended up going to the, essentially the hometown, you know, eventually the hometown of Logan Store Lee. He survives a late scare against Florums and Delly to secure a unanimous decision victory. Now, Chuck, I had a friend who was there. I talked to him and he told me like, hey, man, when Storley came out, the place went berserk. They loved it.

If you hear the decision, you know, and then the crowd response, it's massive. So you might be saying, wow, another decision victory for Logan Storley and the crowd liked it. Yes, they loved it. Take it for what it is worth. I guess I'll say this. I don't understand, listen, I can see what the PFL is doing. They've got a headliner. They went to a place.

They may have gotten a site fee to go do it. it. The crowd loved it. They're going to look at that internally and say, hey, this event worked for us. Let's see what the ratings come back as. I don't know. But honestly, Chuck, I do not know what you're supposed to do with Logan Storley as a promotional entity.

Makes sense of this weekend for me. Well, I will say that that is the only place on earth that Logan Storley is going to have that kind of reception. I mean, that was pretty wild. I mean, it was kind of cool in the sense because they've been doing this in Madrid with Vancinas and they were in Pittsburgh with the cat's name that I always forget who was the more of an Dalton roster Dalton Ross. Yeah. So I mean they've been kind of doing this and it didn't backfire on them. I dig that aspect, but in terms of what you're saying, I don't know what you do with Logan Storley because he's a guy like, you know,

that's going to get booed if he's just in an arbitrary safe. He's like a, you know, if he's at a neutral site, he's probably not going to, it's not a, he's not the lovable figure that he is. The kind of fighting he's doing. I mean, what did you think you're watching this? It's just rinse and repeat for the whole fight, right? I mean, 30 to 25. I know there's some fence grabs in the beginning, but like it's, it's just one-sided traffic. And we've seen that a lot from Logan's story. So I'm not sure what you do. And he's lost. Like, if you look at the top of the rankings of the Welterweight division, he's kind of, he's fought a couple of the guys already. He lost to a couple of them. So I'm not sure what you do with them. Because if he can't fight up, then what are you

doing? Who are you fighting guys that are down? What would you do? I mean, the thing is, dude, this event was actually kind of interesting. They had six PFL champions on this card. Now, what I mean by that is someone who Chuck might have been a tournament champion at some point or a PFL Europe champion. And so these don't all

necessarily mean the same things or even in certain cases anything. But what I can see the PFL was trying to do was we've got these people who certainly on the PFO Europe side. So that was the B side for the main and co-main. These guys out of Europe who had done really well and we're looking for a level

up so they want to level them up against here and you're like well you know i mean we can't give them a name opponent right away let's give them you know on the smaller sue city card um some names to see if they can step up and they couldn't godzi rob robadinov you know sent his opponent packing and basically so did logan sorely here now zendelli did make a big third round push you know and kind of made things interesting but couldn't really get it done i mean this is the point it's weird for me. It's like, I appreciate the kinds of things that PFL is doing this season relative to previous ones. And I do think it's going to make a difference. And I think it is making a difference. And I also like how they're thinking about trying to like, you know, use the tears

in a rational way of their product. But in the end, it's like what is the promotional impact? There's a lot of value to like giving, giving guys advancements or another, you know, like maturing in their career and all that stuff. And I don't. know. There is a lot of thought. I think what I guess this is my point, Chuck. There is more thought going into these cards than meets the eye. Right. But I still don't know if they're having enough of an impact to really materially change the organization's fortunes. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And you know, one of the things, if you were, if you recall, like, so that any promotion that comes along and they're trying to play like the Romora fish to the, the shark,

which is the UFC, if they're trying to do that, they want to. want to be second, they have to come up with something where it's not just about that night. It has to matter to what's going to happen going forward. And so we've seen like, you know, Bjorn Rebney and the Bellator with the tournament structure we've seen World Series of Fighting and PFL, like, you know, PFL with the, with a tournament structure. But it's always the same problem in the sense, like, to actually fill out, um, rosters within each weight class that you're dealing with in a way that there's something always compelling,

right like if you fall down there's a guy there that you could be fighting if you go up there's a guy there there's a dangling carrot is what i'm trying to say the ufc has been expert at this from the beginning i mean you know as well as soon as zufa took it over they've been very expert at just kind of always having the dangling carrot who's next who's next this is the way the sport has operated and i feel like that is always where we end up with these these promotions that start to lose identity is they just don't know how to do that portion of it. They don't know what to do to keep fans interested for beyond just the night that they're doing. Strike Force went through this for a long time. They would have some fights kind of set up, but there was a lot of them. They're just like,

this is just a colossal one-night thing. Like, you didn't know what it meant for any of the fighters. Maybe a guy was defending his belt or something like that, but you'd had no idea who might be next beyond that. It was just, it was one of those type of things where they didn't have the future element, you know, the nearby future element to kind of rev people up on fight night beyond it. And I feel like with the UFC, it's always like, what are we talking about? We're always like, who's next?

Who's next for these guys? That's a tough thing. And I think the PFL is in that identity crisis a little bit. It doesn't help though when you have guys, because the UFC obviously frowns on too many, you know, strictly wrestling types. They don't want to, you know, they don't want them to rule their ranks and like, you know,

be at the top. So it's a little bit different there too. but like when you're saying what do you do with Logan Strow I'm like well you got to kind of keep him up there toward the top he's going to have to fight one of those guys you know he's going to have to fight one of those dudes I know Thad Gene beat him right like

but like who is it like Musayev the guy who he fought at one point and I think he lost that fight you're going to have to fight one of these guys again you know yeah great I mean I don't know I was looking at their rankings as you know as I was watching

and I just I don't know what you kind of do with a guy like that. That's this building a bridge to nowhere is the part that I don't really quite get. As we mentioned, Gadsie Rabatanov B's Alexander Chazov, you know, pretty straightforwardly. It wasn't an interesting. The one that was, there's two interesting notes from this. One, Simeon Powell defeating Emiliano Sordi. Sordi had actually been doing pretty good on the regional card out, the regional scene, Chuck.

I called one of his fights at XFC and he performed very, very ably, Argentinian guy. nice guy out of Kilcliffe FC has Argentinian dog business that he's heavily involved in. But he had been doing kind of well and Powell here started off decently, sortie rallied and then Powell had to dig deep

and then finish him off in the third. That was pretty spectacular. But the one that I think really matters is prospect. Sergei Billosteni, this heavyweight dog, fast hands, Chuck, fast feet, decent finisher.

obviously is a heavyweight, pretty athletic. You know, you look around at heavyweight and all of a sudden, like in the world, finally there's a little bit of movement to the division that's happening. Well, look at that guy compared to what we were talking about in the UFC, like the two. Oh, my God. I mean, that guy looks like he could run roughshot, you know. Bill Estenny beats, I think probably both of those guys in the first round. I mean, that's sincerely.

Anyway, he dropped Hen and Fahara multiple times in this fight and then finished him off in the third. There were some other wins on this. Mega Mad, Mega Medo, defeated Leandro Ego, was close fight. split decision you got it done and there's some other ones but uh in any event so the fun there one was bill bill asteni that's the name you're gonna want to remember we'll see how it goes all you say benavitas wins the weekend though like like of all the fights that you watch this weekend was benavitas the standout him or prachis you know proches okay yeah i got all right i mean in a way is the real big winner but you know in terms of how i feel right no i got

Processor Benavitas. All right. That is it for our top five. That is it for us to go back and forth. It is now time for you to ask us questions. It is time for DMs from dogs. That's me and my wife's ear. All right. Let's go. Topic number one or question number one from Sasquatch Toys. The announced teams seemed a bit drained, probably from the travel to Perth. Who could blame them? What's the longest travel you guys have ever had? Mine is 20. plus hours to Europe. Jesus. What about you, Chuck? Yeah, that's brutal. I mean, I mean, there's, there's been, if you're talking road trips, there's like tons that are like that, you know, but if you're talking just straight flights going to, I went down to Rio and there was,

like for UFC 134 with Anderson Silva, Yushanakami, and, uh, there was complications with the flights and stuff. So in route, actually it was the way home that was, it took something like 24 hours to get home. So that was probably the longest for me. I'm trying to think. I mean, you know, obviously my dad was a low-level diplomat. So like we flew all over the world before I can remember. I don't know about those. But from what I can remember, the longest flight I've had was maybe a 12-hour flight from the States to Turkey.

That's tough, man. That was a long flight. The guys, like, I've talked to John Anick about this one time. Perth is one of those ones that almost kills him because he's, coming from Miami. So he has to go to Los Angeles. It's already a lot of a five, six hour flight. That's at least six hours, yes. So it's like six hour flight. And then you're, and then you're jumping on that plane to Sydney,

which is like 14, 15 hours. And then you've got to go across the continent of Australia to the other coast. And so like he said that that flight across Australia is what almost killed him because you can brace to get to Australia, but then you have this still five hour leg that you have to go. And it just sounds brutal. I'm pretty sure New York City to Perth is the furthest, like they're opposite sides of the world completely. So it's literally the furthest you could travel. I was going to say, I've done the Australia trip a few times and even not including layovers, you're on a plane for 20 hours. It's just so brutal. Like it's split up, you know, you fly to Cali. That's what happened to my wife. So my wife had to fly her, dude,

her work, I can't believe how much money they spend. It's insane. So they flew her. Not even just that. I mean, here's the thing. She flew there on a Monday. Their event was, or no, on a Saturday. So she had Sunday off. The event was Monday, Tuesday. And then she flew home Wednesday. So she's basically in Australia for three full days.

It's like, you can't hire someone local in Australia to do that fucking job, you know? That's wild. That's insane. They would spend that money. So anyway, so it's D.C. to L.A. at 6. And then L.A. to Sydney, my understanding is that's around 14, maybe a little bit more. I'm not sure. I mean, I've flown to far reaches.

I've flown to Beirut, but you can't get it direct there. So you have to go to like France or I went to, I went to Athens. That was a long flight. I don't remember how long it was, but that was a long one. That Los Angeles to Australia flight is like, I mean, where are you going to land? I mean, it's just kind of, you're just going to one place and it's at the other side of that. Yeah, it's on the side of the fucking planet, you know, it's far. So anyway, those are the longest ones.

But, you know, dude, sitting in a metal tube for longer than five hours is hell on her. Well, she had business class if your wife did. And anybody who can fly like that. I'm like that that's at least okay you can lie down okay yeah so like I told her I'm like if you've got a bed yeah exactly so that I feel like that's different you know yeah that is uh but it's still I mean it's just you know crazy all right next from real kempie can yuel Romero come back to the UFC and do some damage in the heavyweight division so if you didn't see this chuck he fought in jungle uh not not, I'm not, I'm in Jungle Flight. What am I talking about? In a game bread MMA on Friday night, he wins. He beats, what's the dude's name? Alex, what's his name? Nicholson. Nicholson. Oh, right. That dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, that dude, he's nearly 50, you, well, he looks the part, you know, he's supposed to be Hector Lombard, I guess, and they all got went away, you know, messed up, but, dude, dude, dude, he still looks like he's a viable fighter, even at this stage of his career division.

Um, I'd have him probably fifth or sixth in that division right now. Like even if he jumped in. It's like, how many heavyweights could he beat on the White House car? More than one, you know. Uh, next. That would be exciting at least. All right, from Fahy, Liam or Liam Fahey, whichever one it is. Uh, will UFC go back to Japan if Tyra beats Van and Horaguchi beats cop?

Or will there be too many issues between UFC and the Yakuza slash Japanese MMA promoters? I don't think the latter is really any kind of holdup that I am aware of, Chuck. I certainly hope that they do go back to Japan because the Japanese fight fans are a special treat in the sports world, I think. The greatest thing is after each round, you'd hear the smattering of applause. Like, that is the greatest thing. It's just so, yes, exactly. It's so unique. I've never actually went to an event out there.

I wish so bad I could have went to one of the pride events back in the day. But it would be kind of cool. You know, just having watching the in-way fight where it's, you know, got two Japanese guys like that was fun so I there was a part of me that was hoping that that might be the matchmaking even before we get to this but if it happened and uh you know horaguchi if he's able to get through and he's the he's the next guy and uh tassoro's like I would love to see that fight I think it would be fascinating and where else would you want to do it I mean Japan makes a lot of sense next from von Beck Cal out of all the people that Dana tried to erase from UFC

history. Who's the most significant? Probably Frank Shamrock. Gotta be, right? Gotta be. And he's still not in the Hall of Fame, right? Like they've just kind of held him like he's persona non-gras. Like he's not even acknowledged that, right? So my understanding

is that they did try. Now, you can, I don't know what Frank's side of the story is. My, my, I have on a pretty good authority that UFC had offered to put him into the Hall of Fame and like no funny business. you know and I don't think uh Dana would even be there would just be like a ceremony but like you know to have it for just him or whatever and he declined he didn't want it so okay you know so part of it is he is maintaining whatever and again he might say oh yeah but I have good reason because blah blah blah I don't know I don't know you know right but uh you know there's Francis is up there too Francis is definitely up there I was like there are guys like that Mark hunt is not gonna like that's a guy and any of these guys that uh you know it got sideways yeah they got some

I was and especially initiated the lawsuit. I mean, these guys, the UFC, I'm sure, are not too happy with that. There's been a bunch over the years. Paul Daly, remember they kind of ostracized him for the sucker punch. I mean, there's been so many. But the biggest ones are like Shamrock, the guys who mattered to them in the day. Yeah, definitely I agree with that. All right, next.

You don't know Tyler. You're right, I don't. Change the outcome of one of these fights, which one, and what would that timeline look like? so for example strickland versus poiton imagine strickland had won nunes versus rousey rousey had won gauchy versus ferguson ferguson wins pick pick one of these oh so we're saying oh well i would i mean the rousey nunez one would have been very interesting right what happens after that if the if if rousey wins that fight like i mean that's kind of a wild scenario there I mean, they're all pretty big, but the biggest one is probably rousy, or you could argue really the Ferguson one, because Gachie changed him.

That's true. You know, he destroyed him. And he, that set in motion the end of his run there. Don't you argue that? I mean, I don't know if Khabib puts a beating on Tony like Gachi did, but like Tony's next fight would have been Habib anyway. So like, probably loses that and then eventually down spirals anyway. he might have i'm kind of with chuck on the ronda thing although she probably eventually runs into cyborg that's the problem she if she got past the nunes someone else would have knuckled her into

okay but what about poeton on the rise now gets stopped by that's that would have been so bad for ufc because he's been critical for i know you know he stood in look at that year he had with ufc 300 300 303 and 2020 square garden all those big ones where he filled in for like these massive spots and he was able to do it with knockouts i mean that does does alter a lot of things if he doesn't, if he's never big enough to fill those roles. Yeah, he completely changes the last like, you know, a couple of years of MMA, if that's the case, potentially. Let's see.

I think we have one more. No, that was it. That's it? All right. So with that in mind, now it is time for us to go to fan subs. All right. How do you want to do the? Oh, let's play the intro.

You've got mail. Viewers. Okay. How do we want to do this here? Long Island? I think I'll basically just run through them if you don't mind. All right. All right. All right. So basically these are we've all shown every single one of these before, but we're obviously revealing the winner of April here. Chuck, you may not have seen all of these because some of them we show on Fridays and stuff. First, we're just going to run through some honorable mentions. We got five of them. Shout out to Spencer for this gem of a meme here. One time I was with a lady and couldn't climax, so I spit on her back and said I'd finished. He did say that by the way. he actually said that on mk and it's also hilarious with the dionte interview did you see that dionte wilder interview chuck no no oh you didn't oh jesus bro he literally he basically says word for word what oscar said but in a different you know it's very detailed

about his sexual excapade i'm gonna have to look this up because we were talking about like on a different show i know we talked about we alluded to this like i'm not to look this up i guess here Bro, he gives the most sexually graphic answer, imagine. In terms of information you absolutely never wanted to know. It's quite literally, like, you hear him talk, you're like, well, this is the dumbest person walking. And then I'm not kidding, under interrogation in the course of the interview says, well, that's because I'm smart. And I'm like, point of order. Point of order.

No, you're not. It's a top five, you know, combat sport. you got a yeah uh next up honorable mention we got christian l for this vince mcmann l i l i'm so long island luke's excitement level you got ufc numbered event but then you got apex fight nights but then you got contender series but then you got road to ufc and then you got hang out with the girlfriend nah i'm not about that actually i showed this to her too i had to explain it it was because she's like what's road to ufc you know it was a whole thing but what did she say she didn't love it love it. We'll just leave it at that.

Next up, we got an honorable mention from Jesse. Luke, can we get you on prop quiz again? Smack. I'd rather be fucked to death by an eight dick Walrus. Which is your answer to everything. Chonkers with eight strap-ons.

I'd rather get banged to death by chonkers. Next up, honorable mention. We got Jonas for his life at CBS, MK, and 50-year-old. That's what's hilarious. Yeah, there you go. Life at Morning Combat.

10 years old. Chuck, with the anything will help sign. I know. And then Chuck, I don't think you've seen this last honorable mention because I think we showed it

just on Friday's episode. But this is Matt, last honorable mention, the old Rusini Vrabel. Oh, what's the sleep? They got a paparazzi got us, Chuck. I'm so slug.

light of build, like what I said. My little, little man. All right. Now we got the top three. So in third place is David with the Long Island Luke Tinder profile. Let me read it. Newly single and emotionally available

only between the hours of UFC events. Hobbies include bongs and turning $50 into zero dollars on pre-deme fights with confidence. Looking for someone who doesn't like to spend weekends together. Okay. Also showed this one to my girlfriend and she actually loved it

and took a picture of it and wanted to send it to people. So that was good. All right. Second place, we got Kevin for this hilarious bad bunny. Now that I know the story, I mean he's family in the background. Look at BC's family terrified in the

back. Except for him, he's happy. All right. And then in first place, he was also an honorable bro mentioned he had some great fucking memes this month i got to say yeah is christian l for this weekend i'll be doing the crack those the crack it's the pre for the audio listeners it's the predator theme where carl weathers and schwarzenegger are slapping hands and they're they're all musly and on one side it says hunter biden and the other side it says chuck and they're united by the crack

yeah i fucking love this one let's go so christian l please email morning combat at gmail com let us know where to send the poster to yes sir let's love it let's love it and a reminder to everyone else too we're doing it for may as well so send in your memes morning combat at gmail dot comm get in on the action let's awesome all right let's show the merch for this month please here we have it these are the may exclusives morning combat dot shop we've got the uh more time the renegades of donk which is a very good one then we've got the washington dc like the dc 101 logo which I also love very much. And then the king of all kings,

Whippets in the parking lot. Here we have it. I'm not going to say what it resembles, but you know what it resembles. These are available only this month until the 31st, 1159 p.m. or while supplies. What poster are we going to sign for them for this upcoming one? We didn't have a poster this month,

but I got plenty of leftovers from other months. So we'll just give them one of the other ones. I'll give them a choice, you know. All right, Chuck, what do you have in store for the MMA fans this week? I have a little feature on Joshua Van coming up that will run this week, obviously because of his fight. We've got a big roundtable that we'll be doing, and then I'll be on the crack on Friday as well.

Yeah, you will be. And, of course, I'll be with you guys on Wednesday, man. That's right. Yeah, it'll be a fun one. So we'll be back on Wednesday, as we mentioned, for the UFC 328 pregame preview. So no Friday show this week. Long Island, what do you got going on?

I'll have usual bet breakdowns, all that stuff. Prop quiz on Friday. I think I'm also going to be on submission radio on Friday. Dennis said something around the ceremonial way in, so around that. And then I'll be at the fights on Saturday. We'll still do, I'll do like a live stream of the podium in the back where all the fighters come out after the fights kind of thing, just to have something. But not a usual watch along and we'll be there with Gaff. Let's use that stuff for the show.

Yeah, hell yeah. For sure. All right. And then me, I'm definitely going to have, obviously, stuff for UFC 328 in terms of that. I'll do some stuff on my old substack for tape watching ahead of time. So take a look at that if you'd be so inclined. That is it. All right.

For Long Island, for Chuck, I'm LT. Thank you guys so much for watching. We'll see you on Wednesday in New York City. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.