MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Chandler-Gaethje, Tokyo Olympics, MK's Future | Luke Thomas' Live Chat, ep. 82

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Today on the podcast, we'll preview the Cory Sandhagen-T.J. Dillashaw fight. We'll also discuss the possibility of Michael Chandler vs. Justin Gaethje, what to expect from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the future of Morning Kombat, the striking styles of Conor McGregor and Sean O'Malley, the art of public speaking and much more. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What up, gangsters? Let me lower my seat here just a little bit. There we go. Hi, everybody. My name is Luke Thomas. It is the 22nd of July. This is paint, and this is a beard hair. And this is episode 82 of my live chat. Hi, everybody. As I mentioned, my name is Luke Thomas. I am from CBS Sports.

I am from Showtime. And I'm here to talk to you about whatever you want to talk about. It could be the Sanhagen-Dillashaw fight this weekend. It could be, I don't know, whatever's on your mind. And, you know, I always put up a community thread on the YouTube page here about 24 hours in advance. You all fill it up and we go from there. All right, so appreciate you guys joining. Thumbs up on this video.

Please hit subscribe. We're trying to move the chains every time we do a video, whether it's a live chat, a regular episode, or any other kind of upload. So please help us if you haven't already. And of course, for those who have, we are forever in your debt. Yeah, let's get this party started, shall we? Alright, and we're back. Okay, hope everyone's doing well.

Let me pull this old thangy up, the thread itself. How's everyone doing here on this Thursday? I'm okay. I'm happy to be here. Your boy is, my back issues are better slash worse. You guys know I've had problems like leaning to the right and stuff. So here's the good news. The good news is that's gone.

I can turn my head in any direction. So the muscle pain that was attached to the trap doesn't exist anymore. That's the good news. The bad news is the nerve issues are still there and maybe even worse. Before they were running up underneath the back of my arm into my pinky finger and a little bit my ring finger. Now it's the opposite. Now it runs into these two. And so I can feel it. If I squeeze my traps together, I can feel it get numb. And if I relax it, it goes a little bit numb. But here's the other part. If I go too far over, I feel it again. So I had to find this weird spot where I got a good posture and not much else. I know you don't

really care about this. I'm just telling you what's going on. So the good news is I'm not in any kind of physical pain. And the other weird part is I had a similar issue, I want to say 2014-ish, with my shoulder from jujitsu. I would close my shoulder just like that, and it would automatically cause numbness in these two fingers, or even at least this one. Now it's the opposite.

Now, I mean, a little bit of like this. The real trigger is when I go like that. That usually, yeah, I can feel it right away. So this is 42. I'm doing good, though. I'm happy to be here, and I appreciate everyone sticking around. Okay, let's turn this part off, and let's get to your questions. Shall we?

All right. First question. Luke, which scenario brings you more physical pain? BC leaves MK to join the Schmo in a new venture covering professional wrestling. That would be painful. Nothing against the Schmo, just the whole pro wrestling thing. Or in 20 years, BC's son marries your daughter, intertwining House Thomas and House Campbell. Yeah, it's got to be the latter.

Yeah. Love BC. Not trying to be his in-law. Put it that way. Someone asked me a question like this previously. I'll do my best with it. If you were in charge of the UFC for a day and could change five things about the UFC, what would you change and why? You know, if I was in charge of UFC. I mean, here's the part about it. Like, there are things I want to see changed about UFC

that I don't really expect to come from ownership, and I don't want to think it's really realistic. Like, listen, man, UFC is a business. And to my knowledge, they do everything above board. They're a publicly traded company, essentially, at least their ownership is. And they have to answer to a publicly traded company, essentially, at least their ownership is. And they have to answer to a lot of masters, the law being

a... and regulatory authorities being chief among them. So you can dislike some of their business practices, and you can say that they're out of whack, that they're a monopoly or a monopsony, but I don't know that they're egregiously breaking the law in some kind of way. Why do I bring this up? Well, it's like

the change that should happen with UFC should happen. I mean, it'd be nice if it happened internally, but it's just not in any way realistic. It should happen externally onto them. So one is fighter pay, but I don't expect like if I was in charge, you know, if you were looking at their balance sheets, would you want to change what they're doing? I mean, here's the reality about something that folks, I think need to kind of wake up to. I was thinking about this, the relationship that like UFC has,

or had, I should say to Strikeforce prior to purchasing in terms of like any degree of rivalry and UFC was well ahead of them. I mean, understand that it was not that close, but whatever that relationship was, that's not the same one today as UFC has with Bellator, which is sort of like considered to be your number two. They're actually further apart. UFC has grown even more successful and larger since that time. So I bring this all up to say, like, if you were looking at their balance sheets what would you change?

Probably not a lot if you worked for them. But you're asking five things I would like to see that were different. One is fighter pay, obviously. A union, which is not what the UFC is doing but that's what I would like to see. Probably more than the Ali Act but there's a debate to be had about that.

I'd like to see USADA chuck to the wayside and VADA brought in instead. I could live with that. That's three. How about four and five? I would add a 165 pound weight class. That's four and five. Probably do a little bit more. I mean, they do a lot with Fight Pass, but they don't do a little bit more I mean they do a lot with Fight Pass but they don't do a lot with UFC exclusive content I might try to put more UFC exclusive content again there may be contractual demands that prevent this but to the extent possible put it back on Fight Pass a little bit

I like Fight Pass just a lot better than ESPN Plus sucks in theory it's a good service in theory it's a good value for the customer on Fight Pass a little bit. I like Fight Pass just a lot better than ESPN Plus. Sucks. You know, in theory, it's a good service. You know, in theory, it's a good value for the customer. I mean, in general, it is a good value for the customer, but there's a lot of shit wrong with it that I really enjoyed watching fights much more on Fight Pass than I do on ESPN Plus.

So those are five things off the top of my head that I would change. By chance, did you see or hear this week's tough episode? Y'all know I didn't. You know I didn't. I suppose to no surprise, Dana took somewhat of a jab to a fighter that decided to drop out of the competition because he had a grade 2 MCL tear before his fight, but the doctor still technically cleared him. That don't mean shit.

They'll clear weakened Bernies to go fight. Thought it was an interesting insight to how he reacts on many other fighters that have injuries. Well, here's what I would say. I mean, there could be a lot of reasons why he felt the way that he did. He might have legit, I mean, you know,

to ascribe motive can be a perilous thing to someone that you haven't had a conversation with about it, but what I would say is a couple couple of things if we could at least imagine a world where we could think rationally through this one might be that he just thought that the guy could actually fight like i've seen guys worse you know who have fought and even won you know you're not really telling me that you have a bright future in the organization if that's the kind of thing that's going to make you pull out of a fight however medically reasonable that assessment the second thing i'd say probably the more important one is dude like you gotta understand the message here like you know it goes back to season one i

remember season one vividly uh do you want to be a fucking fighter right there i mean that was a little bit different about the guys won't making demands about their condition and stuff but um you know you want to set if you're dana and you're the promoter and you have this kind of i mean listen the ufc successful for a lot of reasons um one of which is that i think that they have to take steps day to day week to week month month, year to year to kind of corral and cajole even the fighters a little bit. They have to find ways to convince them, pressure them, incentivize them, whatever you want to say, to do certain things. If a doctor clears a fighter to fight and you don't fight, Dana is going probably as the promoter, and maybe a lot of promoters would

be this way, but certainly Dana is, he's going to set the toneer and maybe a lot of promoters would be this way but certainly Dana is he's going to set the tone with this he wants everyone to know either this guy, everyone watching that's the whole idea, you're broadcasting your values and his values in this particular case are if you are healthy enough for a doctor to medically clear you

which by the way doesn't mean a whole lot necessarily but for the purposes of this conversation if you decline to fight even though you're medically cleared, he's not going to look upon that favorably. So one, he kind of sends a message about what happens if you pull out under those contexts. And two, it may make the next person who has a grade two MCL tear think twice before pulling out. I think that's what it's about. Listen, there are a lot of structural and institutional advantages

that the UFC enjoys in the marketplace today, but part of that is maintained by pressuring fighters to act sometimes against their own interests, and sometimes the fighters do it willingly. Someone was, I saw the other day, I think Jack Slack was circulating some video that at the time was a compilation

of everyone's attitude in the UFC, or not everyone, but like a bunch of everyone's attitude in the UFC or not everyone, but like a bunch of fighters attitudes in the UFC about the Reebok deal. I mean, the Reebok deal was bad for fighters point blank. You know, there's no argument to the contrary. And there's no argument to the contrary.

It was bad for fighters, period. Couple of like people like, Oh, I don't have to chase down fighter or sponsors anymore. We're talking people up, you know, who are not at the mid or high end of the

spectrum here. We're talking about people who are very much entry-level fighters. In general, it was quite terrible for them. And even then, you saw some of them being like, you know, it wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I'm cool with it. It's like, dude, if you had a union, y'all wouldn't be saying any of this shit.

But the pressure gets put on them to behave and accommodate the UFC's interests and not theirs. That's what you're looking at there. Luke, have you noticed a shift in fan attitudes towards you since you started MK? I noticed it most on MMA. He wrote r slash MMA, which is, I think, the MMA subreddit. A few years ago, your content was downvoted, and commenters routinely asked, why do people like Luke Thomas? Yeah, my wife does that, too.

However, MK is now routinely upvoted, and you actually get routinely cast in a favorable light on the sub. Have you noticed this in fan attitudes towards you? There might be something to be said for that. I mean, I think MK is a fruitful partnership for a lot of reasons, one of which is I hear a lot of people say like, oh, I didn't know you had that side of you,

like people watching me laugh hysterically or something else, you know? You know, I try not to keep too much up with, you know, what people are saying on forums. Not that it's, not that there's no value to it or that I don't appreciate if there is a shift. It's not that I'm not grateful for it, but I try not to get mired in it too much for a lot of reasons. One, it can be really anecdotal. It doesn't give you a clean survey of how most fans feel. It's just fans in that particular area or another.

Again, I told you about the Tito Ortiz phenomenon where he just gets fucking murdered online. And then at least when he was an active fighter, you show up and he gets the loudest pop of anybody. You don't ever hear a peep of it. So it's like a real disconnect between what you see on forums or social media in that case and then real life. And the other part is that I might do work now that is a little bit more pleasing to people. I think that I know that I piss a lot of people off. Believe it or not, it's not necessarily

intentional. I've told you guys this before. If you're a longtime viewer, I know. I know this about myself. I know I make terrible, terrible first impressions. I'm actually working on it. I'm trying to be better about it, but probably not all that great. My skill in life has always been not so much the first impression. In fact, that's usually I'm working out of a deficit, but that deficit I'm usually able to work myself out of over time, and then through that process I'm able to garner stronger allegiances. People are like, well, you know what?

He sucked ass at first, but now I feel better, and that's a common thing. I said this before. My wife was the same way. She hated me when she first met me. And now I win. But it's not that I'm not grateful. I'm not even saying it's not true. It could very well be true. But you got to understand, I don't mind. How do I say this exactly? I'm not looking to be the bad guy necessarily, but I'm definitely not looking for the prom king vote either, man. I'm not. Like I've said it before, I do less of it these days because I'm a little bit fatigued with it, but this is a community that does not want to reflect on its weaknesses or its failings. It doesn't want to. It is adamantly resistant to it,

whether it's the power players, promoters, commissions, managers, elite-level fighters, or anyone else. They don't want, not necessarily things not to change, they don't mind that, but real reformation by reckoning with moral failings or any other kind of thing that's in need of service or examination, they don't want to do it. They don't ever want to do it.

And I've never really minded being the guy that likes to press the button to say, we should talk more about this. And that's not going to make a lot of people happy. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. So listen, if it's true that more people are coming around and are happy with the things that I do, I don't want to mince words. I'm fully, fully grateful. Fully grateful.

I really appreciate it. I mean that sincerely, man. You can never take even one person saying a nice thing about you for granted. You cannot. You truly cannot. So I heartfelt thank you to everyone who maybe has given me a second look and decided that they like it better this time than they did the first. But at the same time, this is going to be probably cyclical. There's probably going to be another year or two where there's going to be, I'll do

something and people will have not so nice things to say about it. You still want to stay on your path and your vision and your commitment to whatever it is that you're on. And the chips fall where the chips fall. So I appreciate people saying nice things. I appreciate people who watch MK. I don't mean to intentionally piss people off all the time. But if you get mad at something I say,

then you just get mad at something I say. I can't say that I lose a lot of sleep over that. You've mentioned on a number of occasions that you really enjoy speaking with Faraz Zahabi. True. And every time you two get together, you learn something new. True. Are you open to the idea of making a long-form podcast with Faraz? I'm definitely open to the idea of doing a long-form interview. I don't have the time for another podcast, unfortunately. But I would love to go to Montreal and do the Farazza hobby story or something. Something I think that's not quite fully told, and I'd like to better understand it. And I think he's great for the sport.

I think he's a great guy, and obviously a hell of a fucking trainer. Coach. I don't want to take away the titles from him. Would you do an interview about USADA with more plates, more dates? He has made so many videos regarding UFC doping. Someone MMA related needs to have a proper conversation with him about the subject. Yes, I've articulated interest in the past, but I've not followed through with it. Believe it or not, I'm a little bit bored with the doping topic.

USADA has made some changes, again, through public pressure and nothing else. You know, not letting the public know about everyone's failures, I think, was a good thing. Again, we had to scream about it to get it. That was good. Obviously, they've made some changes to some of their punitive actions and whatnot. But I've sort of come to peace with the idea that we are probably generations away from a more accurate and sane conversation around USADA. I could go through and probably point out many of their failings. I think I and others have done so over the course of years. But it's just all bullshit.

It's just not. It's not Kabuki theater completely, but it's mostly Kabuki theater. You've got to understand something. If you just take a step back and you have to ask, this is not some anti-USADA rant, but more just something to sort of think about. Like, if you ask yourself why we have this idea where drugs are bad for sport, right? Like, that's sort of the claim.

It underlies that. People are like, oh, you know, you can dope in other ways if you're just a regular old person and whatnot. But like, first of all, the dichotomy between the two isn't nearly as clear as they want to present it to be, number one.

But let's put that aside for just a second. It's like, is it true that drugs are bad for sport? Well, let's ask that. What are some sports where some measure of drug use is tolerated? These will predominantly follow under strength sports. And I don't think that they have it all figured out either. In fact, I don't think there is a way to figure it all out. But I'll just say this.

The claims about what would happen if you would allow drug use in sports and how it would ruin it, they're just totally wrong. They're like totally wrong. There's nothing to it whatsoever. Zero. zero. Aside from the idea that like if two people who are adults and consent and can provide biomarkers of health want to use PEDs and I as an audience member don't mind that they're using, what is the argument for why that should be not allowed? There's not a very good one, number one. Number two, if you have sports, we'll take one like Strongman. And Strongman's very interesting, right? Because you've got the super, super heavyweights for World's Strongest Man that everyone pays attention to.

But you've got natty competitions all the way down. You've got weight class competitions all the way down, male, female. If you live somewhere in the United States, probably other parts of the world too, but you certainly have in the United States, there's Strongman competitions near where you live. And it's a bunch of amateurs for the most part. And certainly, trying to do your best to segregate out the users and the non-users is worthwhile, but ultimately that will fail too. There's no really good answer for it. But the idea that steroids would ruin it, if anything, if anything, steroids have made strongman significantly better.

It's significantly better as a sport by virtue of drugs. It's just a fact. They lift more. The meets are more exciting. You get to recruit a certain kind of athlete. And then for folks who don't want to do that, they have all the options to not do that, or at least in competitions that would go through a measure. The idea that it would be calamitous for sports, well, we can look at sports that have done it.

It's just not true. It's just flatly not true. There are no pile of bodies from people using, not any more than there would be for any other sport. There's no walking of the audience. There's no message sent about why it's good to engage in poor health activities. If anything, it actually gets more people to the gym. It actually gets more people interested in compound movements. It gets more people interested in the idea of strength as a goal to attain and train for and whatnot.

And some will take PEDs along the way, and they can have federations or powerlifting too, where they can do those kinds of things. But what's kind of funny is, what's interesting is, it's absolutely not true that, I'm not going to call them clean, because that's just a war on drugs kind of terminology about the whole thing. But in sports where there is testing, let's assume a modicum of, you know, let's assume that like no one is really using for just the sake of argument. Those sports can be exciting. You should look at some of the numbers, for example, in powerlifting from the tested federations.

You're getting great, crazy, highly interesting numbers. It's fucking awesome to watch. And that's for people as high as 50, 60 years old, women, young kids, the whole nine yards. There's never been a better time if you want to participate in strength sports or even just to watch than right now. It's the fucking golden era. Golden era times a thousand. When I was a kid it was never this good. This is so much better now today. And drugs are rampant. Rampant. Allowed.

In several of these sports. And all it's done is elevate them. And the idea that there's this pile of bodies. Or this calamitous message being sent to kids. Or whatever. None of it is true. None of it is true. We have test cases in the field. And what did drugs do? It made them better. That's a bold thing to say. I realize that, but it's just the reality. Now, would every sport necessarily respond in the way that strength

sports would? Probably not. These are going to be individual things. If there are enough actors within the space between the stakeholders and the athletes and the fans themselves where they don't want that, well, then they don't want that. I'm not trying to force drugs on them. What I'm here to say is the claims about what drugs would do to sports, from what we've seen where they are allowed, it's complete horseshit. Complete horseshit. Nothing to it whatsoever. Not a drop of truth. So if you don't want to use, don't use, man.

Like, I'm not against it. You guys have asked me about TRT. I'm certainly curious about it. I probably will at some point. But I'll be 42 in a few weeks. So 41, 42, I've never used. I've done everything GNC has. And I've been tempted, but I'll be 42 in a few weeks. So 41, 42, I've never used. I've done everything GNC has and I've been tempted, but I've never used it because it's never really interested me

to, you know, it's another thing that I would have to manage. I don't really want to worry about, but like there are people who are going to be real interested in that and who are going to want to do that. And if they are into it and I'm into it and they know the risks and I understand the risks and they have biomarkers for health that are measured, I would love to hear the argument about why you shouldn't allow that. I would love to hear it. Oh, it would ruin sports. Really? Because we got these sports over here and all it's done is make them a fuck ton better. It's just all lies. It's propaganda starting from 1968 when they were testing for amphetamines and cycling. It started the same year that Richard Nixon started the war on drugs.

It's just lies. It's just lies. So you can have these conversations about what the best kind of anti-doping is and what are ways to cheat the system and blah, blah, blah. But it really just comes down to the idea that do drugs ruin sports? Only if you scandalize them. Yeah, I guess they would. If you, by definition, make them bad, then yeah, their existence is bad.

But if you realize that there's a variety of ways in which sports can approach drugs, some not at all, some plenty, whatever, you begin to realize that it's not bad for sports at all. It's not for everybody, that's true. But it ruins sports? No, it doesn't. That's a complete lie. But the last thing I'll say about that is,

I just don't think people are ready to have that conversation just yet. I think there's a shitload of denial about drugs and sports. Drugs, I know this is going to sound crazy, not in every case, but I think in a lot of cases, drugs make sports better. So you have consenting adults who know what they're talking about. You could have a regulatory mechanism. You don't even have to have that, but you could have a regulatory mechanism to monitor health and other biomarkers.

And I'm supposed to say I don't want that? Why would I not want that? I watch sports where people openly use it. You know what lesson I've taken from that? It's fucking great. It's great. Love it. Got no problem with it.

Love the ones who don't, too. Those are, you know, telling you, man, you should look up some of the powerlifting numbers from, youth lifters who are in tested federations again you never know if they're 100 clean it's it's it's a phenomenal like there's plenty of room for people to enjoy all the different kinds of sports that you get but this idea that prohibition is the answer because drugs and sports are bad really is alcohol bad in all cases i mean yeah and many it is and many it's really not um so i just i'm i'm i'm not really interested in like debating or you know having a conversation so much about like usada's weak points it's to me the whole frame around what relationship sports should have to drugs. The conversation to me is totally phony, is mired in 1980s Nancy Reagan, say no to drugs,

reefer madness that I, you know, I don't know how to convince someone that who's, who's, who's living under that kind of existential awareness. I don't know how to convince them that... I don't know what to say to that person.

I don't know what to say. I just tend to think it's going to have to be generational. And by the way, over time, you're going to get genetic manipulation where drugs may not even be the issue any longer. And we're going to have this brave new world of either CRISPR or some subsequent technology where gene manipulation, when it's better understood, I think will be frequent and common and done in utero and everything. And this kind of like Luddite sense that drugs are bad for sports. I think that will eventually go away.

But until such a time in which it's just forced on people, they want to labor under the delusion that prohibition is the only answer. It's the only answer if you want it to be the only answer. It's not the only answer. How do you keep an open mind while

conversing with someone or reading opinions that may conflict with your own worldview? How often do you find that you change your mind or learn something new when doing so? Really, I don't know that I do it all that well. I certainly make an attempt at it. How do you... Oh, Jesus. Hold on. You know what? I'm going to let it go to message. A couple of things. So, like, one, it may take repeated exposure.

I think that's the first thing. It's rare that, like, the first time you hear something that challenges your worldview that you begin to, that you begin to, oh, wow, I really shook the core of my beliefs. I mean, in general, it takes, I think, prolonged exposure to something. And even that is no guarantee. So the first thing I would say is I try to get not just an article here or an article there. I try to find pipelines where it's a steady feed. And what you find is the steady feed. Let's take, for example, I mean right now, let's take early to mid-pandemic, right?

And everyone was just killing Florida, including me early. Now the current numbers may say something a little bit different. But we're talking early to mid pandemic florida was taking a beating and the numbers at the time They simply did not match reality and then there was this whole whistleblower Uh lady who was saying that the the state's numbers um Were not to be trusted and the gestapo was coming in and taking her computers and then you come to find out through the reporting of charles w cook over at National Review that, you know, she was an inveterate liar who simply could not be trusted. But he was beating the drum all along for that.

So, like, I saw pockets of it, and then it just kind of began to snowball. This is what I mean. It's less about book or article or story. It's more about, about like trying to find pipelines where you begin to get just alternate streams of information. And a lot of it I don't agree with, but that was one where I was like,

you know, I think a reckoning on this is probably due. How often do you find that you change your mind or learn something new when doing so? I don't know what the rate would be, but probably a little more commonly than you might imagine. Yeah, I think that's what I would say. I think that's the one thing I would offer there. I was looking up some old UFC promos the other day and came across one of my favorites. That was for Nick Diaz versus Anderson Silva. If you've not seen it, it has Diaz walking back and

forth while walls crumble around him to reveal he's inside an octagon as the song Rat in a Cage plays. Yes, they also did Itsy Bitsy Spider with that, but like a goth version. Do you yourself have standout UFC promos that were memorable? I can name more Pride ones than I can UFC. If you've never seen the old, uh, pride open weight Grand Prix, when they had all the sperm cells swimming on the poster. I mean, that is fucking epic. DC versus Jones to promo was fantastic. Yes, it was.

Uh, what did you think of the... Hold on a second. I need to see something here. You guys, let me give you a word of advice. If you are thinking about traveling at some point and you need to get a passport, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. You're in trouble.

COVID has fucked everything, including but not limited to, the capacity of the United States government to issue passports in a timely manner. Oh, GW, yeah, okay. And I contacted my congressman to help me because I saw on forums that was a thing you should do. She responded and said that she would try. So I'm hoping for a call. They're telling me that my passport's ready.

I sent it in fucking six weeks ago expedited because I'm leaving. I'm supposed to be leaving in August for vacation, and I still haven't gotten it back yet. So I'm a little bit concerned and they are they they put out an advisory a few weeks ago i already sent my stuff in but they put an advisory a few weeks ago saying like you know normally if you do expedited processing it takes total two to four maybe six weeks at most now it's like 12 to 18 for expedited forget like if you're just a regular donk fucking forget it. So, I was wondering if that was a call from

the passport agency, but I don't think that it is. Alright. What'd you think of the 2010 Predator movie? Usually I'm not on board with Adrian Brody acting like a tough guy, but I actually really liked that version. I thought that was great. And I think the movie was called

Predators? Predators. Predators? Can't remember exactly the name of it. It was like a... If you guys haven't seen it, the basic plot is that a bunch of tough guys from all different walks of life, whether you're like a cartel enforcer,

you work for the Yakuza, you're like a crazy sociopath, you're a fucking mercenary, whoever. They wake up and they're flying through the air, dropped out like a crazy sociopath, you're a fucking mercenary, whoever. They wake up and they're flying through the air, dropped out of the middle of nowhere, and then they land in this place and they don't recognize it. And they have to fight their way out

and it's filled with predators. I actually thought they did a great job with it. I actually thought that that was better than any of the other Predator sequels by far. Predator 2, I don't care what anybody says, that movie sucked. Super sucked. The most recent one, which I think Shane Black had written, it was not good either. And he obviously was part of the original Predator.

Yeah, I actually think that that's a very underrated movie. And if you've not seen it I know, I'm with you I'm like Adrian Brody, the guy from The Pianist Like that fucking guy Dude, he does a good job He does a good job And by the way, there's an MMA connection to it

Because one of the Chechen gunners that they send in there Was played by Oleg Taktarov The great Oleg Taktarov So yeah, check that out If you've not seen it, it's fun. It's a good movie. Luke, which Olympic combat sports are you looking forward to the most, if any at all? Karate, I'll probably take a look, but I don't really care all that much. Judo, obviously, and wrestling are going to be number ones, or co-1A, 1B. And then for sure, my number one,

though, is not even those. It's going to be olympic weightlifting dude i've been telling you guys about lasha telekhodzie the guy out of georgia i mean let me explain something to you bamas everyone else at super heavyweight is fighting for silver it ain't they're not even close to this guy generational talent the first he's he basically at this point at least unofficially holds all the records and holds some records officially but his training lifts are all world records I mean they don't really count because it's a training lift but

you know they're documented on tape he's the first guy who could plausibly have a 500 kilo total which is like you know that you can just snatch who could plausibly have a 500 kilo total, which is like, you know, that you can just snatch basically 600 pounds over your head in one essentially continuous motion. I mean, it's just,

it's unfathomable how fucking amazing he is. Luke, I recall in a previous live chat you briefly spoke about the Tao of Jeet Kune Do and stated that Bruce Lee isn't the father of MMA as others have claimed I was hoping you could elaborate on that and give us your opinion on Bruce Lee's legacy when it comes to martial arts in general thanks, keep up the good work

I have read the Tao of Jeet Kune Do, I own it I've read it several times. Listen, I would say a couple things. What's Bruce Lee's legacy? One, I would say that his popularization in America of the martial arts and his ability to get people to accept it at a time when they might not have been

ready for that kind of entertainment was more than commendable. Incredibly important. Playing an Asian role model in the 70s as a leading man is a feat in itself. People want to underplay that. It's pretty fucking big, actually. That's the first thing I would say. I think the second thing I would say is I do think he had some uniquely interesting ideas. He did have ideas about openness to other forms of training.

He did have ideas about if it works, go with it kind of a thing, which you might feel like set the groundwork for what MMA eventually became. And it's true that there is some like-mindedness, but the reason why you can't call him that is it's not that it's it's not true that the ideas he laid out planted seeds within martial martial arts which then grew uh the game in fact uh i don't think it had any real impact on that whatsoever i mean jeet kune do still tried to be a stylus style and it still ended up being a bit of a style. Styles are hard to get away from.

It's hard to get away from compartmentalized skill sets. The truth about the growth of MMA is you could make a connection to what the Japanese were doing with shoot fighting even prior to the Gracies but let's just sort of take

what the Gracies did here in modern America. Jiu-Jitsu became very popular, and so everyone thought that was the style until you realized over time, here comes Maurice Smith and he can fight wrestlers. And obviously wrestlers like Dan Severn and Mark Coleman and Don Fry and many others came along, and so they sort of set the bar for athleticism

and what those could offer. And then Maurice Smith comes along and shows you that there's another way to look at it and so there were these iterative moments through the course of uh nhb is what it was called originally you know initially through ufc to what eventually became mma but like they did that all independently of any insights in the tao of jeet kune do and in fact he doesn't exactly explicitly recommend certain things that actually would have been required along the way. So he did have insights in thinking through some of these problems about the narrowness

of stylistic adherence. I think that is true. But in terms of tracing the events that led to where we are today, is it true that the Tao of Jeet Kune Do is like our Bible, that the work he did foundationally led to the exercises and events that culminated in where we are in 2021? No, it's just flatly not true. I think the house of Bruce Lee is happy to make that claim because it makes Bruce relevant today in a way that he otherwise would not have been. The house of Bruce Lee is happy to make that claim because it makes Bruce relevant today

in a way that he otherwise would not have been. And UFC is happy to do it because then you get to have your relationship tied to this iconic figure. But historically, that would be a very inaccurate thing to say. It's simply not true that he's like the father of MMA. He is, I think, one of the first progenitors of a style that was much less narrow-minded, for sure. He for sure realized that having an open attitude about training was critically important. Okay, that is no small feat.

But it did not lead to what we have. And even then, there are some meaningful differences with what he was prescribing. game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Which promotion do you feel is the most fighter-friendly? None of them. There are lots of things that promotions do in service of the fighter.

It's not to say that they're all anti-fighter. I don't mean it in that way. But, like, you know, what does it mean to be fighter-friendly? If you're a Bellator, you're giving nearly 50% of your revenue, but even that doesn't match a lot of the purses that UFC gives. Okay. Is that fighter-friendly? I guess it is, but in real-world terms, would you rather have the friendliness of a high-level UFC purse or Bellator purse?

So there's that. PFL is very fighter-friendly and accommodating, but at the same time, they got sued for numerous delays to their schedule by virtue of COVID and everything else. Are they the most fighter-friendly? Dude, a promotion is going to have not a completely different set, but a widely different set of values and interests and goals than fighters will. In fact, they're going to be, in many ways, at odds with one another. So when you're asking me which one is the most fighter friendly, it's like, I don't know. You know.

Which dangerous activity is the least dangerous? I mean, you could pick out a couple, but like they're still going to be what they are. So I wouldn't really think of it that way. And I don't want to take away from real steps that a promotion might do or take to make the lives of their fighters better. Those are real. They count. But at the end of the day, the question is not which promotion is fighter-friendly. The question is which day or year is it going to be when there's a union or some kind of collective action

so that we don't even have to ask this question anymore? It's asking for like, which charity is the most giving? Well, maybe instead of charity, we should have an arranged set of policies so that we're not as reliant upon the largesse and generosity of folks. We can have a more coordinated plan to tackle our interests. Fan submission suggestion. MK viewers, terrible tattoos, attacked by Luke and defended by BC. I'll go out on a limb and say there are thousands of bad tats among us.

No, I'm not trying to beat up too much on the... Listen, I got bad tattoos too. You know what I mean? Like, let he who is without sin cast the first... And I'm too embarrassed to show them, so I'm not gonna. I'm gonna get a couple of them covered up and just be done with it. But, you know, I had to make mistakes along the way too. So, let's...

You know, if someone has a big ass tattoo and BC asks me alright fine I'll do it but you know I don't want to make it a mission necessarily a point of content would you consider joining a podcast with Chuck Mendenhall and Ariel

like the old days of the MMA beat no favorite Tony Ferguson the type of guy I love Chuck but no I don't think that those Ferguson Those Ferguson type of guy jokes Are like the new Chuck Norris jokes

You know what I mean Like oh when Chuck Norris sees the American flag The American flag salutes him It's like Okay You're five years old The American flag salutes him. It's like, okay. You're five years old. All right. Y'all keep asking me about Ariel.

Listen, I wish him the best. I mean this sincerely. I don't even, it's not that I don't care. I am not focused at all on, and I mean this, I mean this so sincerely. If you guys didn't ask about it, I would never talk about it. He's got his own thing going on. He's doing super well. People love him. I'm not concerned with any of that. I've got my own thing going on. I'm very proud of what I have going on. I'm very excited about what I have going on. It makes zero sense for me to

focus on anything else at this point in my career. I'm 41. I'm 42. I don't think I have all the time in the world. I lost a bunch of years, and it is what it is. But right now, I've got a great thing, and it would be stupid of me to do anything other than just to focus on how we can make that as good as possible. And that's the end of it. Luke, were there any cultural differences that made it difficult for you and your wife at times throughout your relationship? Yeah, sure. Sometimes transliteration can be a problem.

Like in Colombia, if someone says something disagreeable, a lot of times the other person is not accusing them of lying, but they'll be like mentiras, you know what I mean? Like lies. But they're not saying that the person's actually lying. They're just saying that like that's not true. And so sometimes my wife would be like, you're lying. And I'm like, okay, I'm literally not lying. You can disagree with me, but I'm actually not in any way lying whatsoever. And it took me a while to realize. I had to hear a lot of conversations in Spanish and how they would go back and forth. And then I began to hear how they would accuse each other of lying.

And then I was like, oh, okay, that's why they say that. So that was a big one. A lot of it has to do with verbal communication and talking. I like to talk with my hands a lot. I do this kind of shit. That's considered fucking rude there, man. Doing this number. It's considered super, super, super, super, super rude.

At least among my wife and her family. And there's been some other stuff related to that too. And there's other stuff. It's not so much cultural, but like, Columbia's having some problems now with COVID and you've seen all the protests that have happened there. But let's go back a couple of years when that was really not the case.

Columbia had made massive, massive... Dude, when I was in elementary school or middle school, Columbia was like that close to being a failed state, man. Like it was fucking bad. Um, but you know, through 2018, I think 2019 was the last time I was there. You know, it's a completely different universe. I, I, I'm, I'm hoping to go, uh, soon and see how, what it's like now. But, um, the, the, the point being is, um, when you get down there, there's just tons of little differences about things you can do or say. And also the jokes about Escobar and Coke and stuff, they don't get sized for that at all.

Now, I never did that, but people who I would be friends with would meet my wife and make jokes about it. And I've said this to you guys before, man. Let me explain something to you. So anyone who is, let's say, 40 and younger, right? Older than that too, but let's say 50 and younger. How about that? No, that's not quite you. Sorry, what am I saying?

Someone, let's say, 35, 40 and older, my generation-ish and then above. Let me explain something to you, folks. Every one of them, every one of them has somebody they know, either directly related, wife, husband, child, father, mother, cousin, whatever, who has died, maimed in some kind of thing, or been captured or kidnapped. Period. All of them. A friend of mine, one of my wife's very good friends, met his father.

His leg is missing from the knee down because he kicked a bomb in a movie theater. I know another guy. We call him Hota. His dad was kidnapped and had to escape the jungle you know my wife's father was murdered you know

and you just go down the line all of them all of them have scarred and that was not because they were consuming the internationally sold product it was because obviously there was a failure of the state

to protect the people and whatnot. But they're very clear about, like any other place, do Colombians recreationally use drugs? Yeah, of course. But the way in which their society was scarred had nothing to do, essentially, with their internal consumption. It was all external. But they were the ones that had to bear the costs of it, and they paid a heavy, heavy, heavy toll.

A heavy toll. I remember there was a Winter Olympics, and my wife and I were at a bar, and they were doing the opening ceremony. This was years and years and years ago. I don't remember which fucking Olympics it was at this point, but it was a Winter Olympics, and there was a Colombian delegation. Now, obviously not a very big one, you know, a handful of people, but there was a, I don't even, who knows what events they were doing, but there was

some that had made it. And there were all this group of people next to us who were making jokes about how, you know, the Colombians must use Coke as ski slopes to get where they're going. And like, I understand, like, you can't get offended and stuff like that because these people don't know any better, but it shows you how ubiquitous and frankly wrong-headed it is. In the sense of the sort of the... Obviously the joke is designed to be literally not true. But what I mean to say is they got... The coke went to the world.

The punishment went to Colombia. And they're understandably not especially fond of the idea that that's how they get remembered. They understand it. They're not like, hey, why are we remembered this way? They get it. But even now,

when people go to do Columbia Tours and they're like, hey, do you see these hippos in Medellin? Do you guys know the story? So when Pablo Escobar had this, he had this basically, he was allowed to live in house arrest for a time. And while he lived on house arrest, there was this giant complex, a sprawling complex,

in I think the Antioquia region called La Catedral, the cathedral. And it was this house he had. And from there, they were drug dealing and everything else, partying and you know everything else and in this place he had um you know wildlife brought in and the whole night of soccer field and like he had players show up to his house and play and he brought in hippos and they never got rid of him after he got smoked and they just became an invasive species there to the point now where it's actually not so clear what to do about it you could kill them all if you wanted, but that's not a very humane solution. But trying to capture

one, it's like capturing a street dog to neuter. It doesn't work that way. And they're terrorizing the local ecology and environment. And the Colombians are like, we don't know what the fuck to do with this short of just killing them all. Which they really don't want to do.

But every time someone's like, I went to Columbia. Did you hear about the cocaine hippos? It's like that every time. It's just that every time. And I think what they're trying to do is just move into a place where, you know, what do we get known for besides this? How do we make an impression on folks that's absent this? And I just think it's going to take a long time for that. So, you know, having friends who don't meet my wife and go Hey You want a ha ha

You know they don't You would not get the kind of response that you think you might get When are you in BC going to the shooting range When BC comes to visit I'll take them Video games Don't care about that Is the show going to return to the studio full-time at some point, or will it remain a split-screen home studio show forever?

No. We've had conversations. It's complex because my job makes no sense. So I work for CBS Sports, but I barely know anyone at CBS Sports. I know a few people. I know my boss, I know his boss, I know BC, I know some producers on the CBS Sports HQ side,

but I don't really know anybody from CBS, hardly at all. I know a ton of people at Showtime. 95% of my work is all Showtime. But I don't actually I mean I do work for Showtime Because they're also ViacomCBS Showtime hires me Showtime pays me

But you know I'm not a 100% Showtime employee And so Showtime wants to send me to stuff CBS Sports wants to send me to stuff And then there's also this MK Quotient So I was like how do you manage all that travel It's kind of hard So in Miami we had conversations with Showtime and other folks.

Because Showtime is basically in charge of the podcast. CBS has obviously some say, but it's mostly a Showtime production. And we've had some conversations about getting back to the studio at least once, if not twice a month. So that's the plan. I think the plan is definitely a consistent presence. But I don't know that... Folks, I'm just not ready to get on the train every Monday at 4.30 in the morning. It's just not my...

I don't want to do that. And I don't think they want to do that. And I'm not going to do that. But we are going to be back in studio more regularly soon. I can say that, I think. So, although both are early in their UFC careers, who do you think has a better chance of being the welterweight champ? Shavkat Rachmanov or Kamzat Shumayev? Well, this is the point I've been making for a while. I think it's still too early to tell with Shumayev. He's got, what, two UFC fights? We haven't seen

anything else. Granted, or two or three, whatever, three, because he flatlined Gerald Mearshard. He's obviously super talented, right? Super talented. I'm not ready to say one thing or the other except I want to see more because what we've seen where he beat up two guys who were badly overmatched I think Mearshart is good but the fight didn't last very long listen this is the reality about UFC eventually somebody is going to test you eventually usually it happens when they're contenders sometimes not if you're like a John Jones it doesn't really happen until you're a champion. Maybe Shemayev will be that way too, but even then he will get tested. I guess I'm just trying to say the fights have been not as, the results of the fight have not been as information rich as I would like them to be.

In the case of Rachmaninoff, you've gotten a lot more. He was really patient in his last fight against Prezerish, took his time, blah, blah, blah, and put on just an absolute well-rounded clinic. I mean, he showed a lot of different skills there. And then the same with his UFC debut as well. Plus, he's undefeated in the whole nine yards. So to me, it's like you've just got still limited information both ways, but you've got much better information about Rachmaninoff's upside, which I think is championship level, than you do Chemayev. That's not to say Chemayev's not better. It's just to say I don't know what piece of evidence you would base that on

that's as valuable as the evidence you have for Rachmaninoff. The evidence is not as complete. And that's not Chemayev's fault by any stretch. We just need more. That's it. That's all I'm saying. Luke, as a relatively new fan of MMA but a hardcore pro wrestling fan throughout my childhood, could you explain what made Brock Lesnar such a huge star in UFC?

There's a giant crossover in the audience between people who love MMA and love pro wrestling. That was a lesson I had to learn the hard way. I did not realize that. There's many tracks you can take to get to MMA. And people who are pro wrestling fans think that the only way, or at least the predominant way, maybe it is the predominant way, but they think it's like the sort of designated way you get into it is that like, you know, it's really pro wrestling just with real fights. And there's certainly something to be said for that.

But I came to it from completely the other way, which is directly through the martial arts. And so it was kind of hard for me to understand that other side of it at first. It may seem a little crazy now, but back at the time, if you come from the martial arts track, being asked to accept a lot of things that are true about pro wrestling that are not at all true about martial arts, it's a little bit of a wake-up call. It's not automatic.

And so that was that. But in any case, there's a giant-up call. It's not automatic. And so that was that. But in any case, there's a giant overlap in the audience. Brock was a huge star at the time in pro wrestling. And obviously, he had the 2000 senior year at the University of Minnesota where he won the NCAA title. I remember that vividly. I was in college at the time. I was a sophomore. And Brock was a force of fucking nature then.

And then he went to WWE and it was a whole thing. And then he fought. The big wake-up call for me as an insider was when he fought Min-Soo Kim at the K-1 Hero Show at the Rose Bowl. And he looked good. And Min-Soo Kim was a silver medalist in the Olympics in judo. And I was like, ooh, okay. All right, that's interesting. Flawed fighter.

He wasn't that great of a fighter. But, you know, you win a silver medal in the Olympics. Like, you're probably pretty good, you know, or better than the average person on the street. And Brock just fucking ran through him. So I was like, okay, that's interesting. So you had this, like, speaking of promo, someone asked earlier, have you guys ever seen the original promo of Brock Lesnar being introduced to UFC? They had Brock Lesnar, like,

walk out to, like, a normal walkout for UFC, but, like, to the stage where he could stop and, like, look around. And then they cut the footage immediately of him to being in a similar kind of setup, but, like, in his pro wrestling setup. I think it was actually pro wrestling footage. And it was, like, from the ring to the cage.

They used to have the guy, remember, like like the deep voice guy who would do all the movie trailers? They had like that guy, being like, could he go from the ring to the cage or whatever, and like it would be this change where you would clearly see him as a pro wrestler, camera change, and now he's an MMA fighter, and so you take any existing popularity that he had, then you have this like big you know what CM Punk was trying but he was just obviously a significantly better athlete

combat athlete or otherwise and then he wins against Minsoo Kim which didn't get a ton of attention but we're okay and then he fights Frank Mir now Mir beats him but he looked fucking good for the most part doing that

and I just remember like I've said it before I went back and I checked my numbers that night on Bloody Elbow and I just couldn't believe how much there was. It changed the course of my career. Brock Lesnar's participation in the UFC chat asked you about fighters like McGregor and O'Malley, fighters who go from very bouncing and light on their feet to then very planted for heavy shots. The question asked about the toll that style has on the legs and the rest of the body.

At the time, you said that along the lines of that's interesting, but we'll have to wait and see. I'm curious what your updated answer. I don't know that O'Malley is as bouncy as like bladed stance McGregor. I need to go back and double check that, number one. Number two, we still don't have enough information. I mean, injury susceptibility, it varies widely person

to person. Some people don't get injured in the way that others do, and they've measured this with, for example, like ligament and tendon. I don't know what the word is. Tensile strength almost. Like which ones are just more resistant to tears. And it turns out that like, you know, some people are smarter than others. Some people are taller. Some people are, you know, more dynamic as an explosive athlete. And some people just have better connective tissue in terms of injury resistance. And I've made this argument before, like Jordan Reed, who I think may be retiring or whatever he's doing.

He was tight end for the Washington at the time, the Washington Redskins, and dude, just a fucking dynamic athlete, 6'4", 240. I mean, he could move. He had vertical ability. He could juke defenders when he had pass-catching ability. I mean, in terms of pure football play, he was, to me, injuries notwithstanding. Like, okay, put that aside. Just what his offensive ability was when he was healthy, I think he was one of the very best tight ends in the whole league. But the problem is, he just

could not stay healthy. He just couldn't. He got concussion issues, he had ligament issues, he had shoulder issues. And he was just a tremendous athlete. But it was one of those things where it's like, dude, some of these guys can get hammered in the way. I mean, I would watch Jordan

retake a hit, and I'd be like, is this going to be the time that he doesn't get up? And more often than not, there'd be times where he's like, all right, he's out for the game. He's in concussion protocol. He'd be like, fucking hell. And then you'd watch some other really good tight end. And they would get banged up too. Don't misunderstand me.

They were getting concussions and shoulder issues too. But they were just way more durable. Like a Gronkowski, just more durable. He really, really was. And he was taking monster shots too. Now, I can't say with any scientific certainty that gronkowski is more injury resistant but rather there is also accompanying research that shows some people just don't get injured the same way is that mcgregor's case i think the one that's more interesting to me is something i've been thinking about a lot let me show you guys something.

So I've been trying something recently. I don't know how it's going to go, but I've been trying to get into barefoot shoes. Now, not the Vibram Five Fingers because those are just goofy as shit. I'm not wearing those. But these. So these are the Vivo. What are these ones called? I'm not even sure. Vivo Fit is the one who makes them. Vivo, what are these ones called? I'm not even sure.

Vivo Fit is the one who makes them. Vivo is the brand. You can see the logo here. These are called Barefoot Shoes. Now, why are they called Barefoot Shoes? Do I have any other ones here? I don't think I do. But this is the idea.

Look at the sole of this thing. Let me put it this way. So this is not an ordinary shoe. It's ordinary here, but it's not ordinary here. The idea is that it's got a much wider toe box on purpose. It's got zero drop. It's got a lot of things. So it doesn't, the heel is not raised. It's the foot is wide because it turns out like all my life running was painful and I was never very good at it. I think I said in a room service diary, my fastest three miles ever in the Marine Corps was 19 minutes, but I was never able to meet that ever again.

That was a one-time deal. I got 22 once, and then 24, which is not great at all. 19 was pretty commendable for someone my size, but why do I bring all this up? Because it turns out that there's a lot of research that indicates that if you run in normal shoes, you strike heel first and then the foot comes down. This is not natural. You're supposed to run on basically your body's built-in suspension system, which means you're supposed to strike here first and then kind of come down. And you have to build that up. If you've never done that before, it takes time. I remember the first time I ran barefoot on the forefoot, I couldn't walk for like three weeks.

It was so painful because my body was not used to it. So now I have shoes. These are my workout shoes. I actually just got them today. These are the Vivo, again, the Vivo Fit. I forget what the name of them, the particular name of them. Your boy wears a size 15. In any event, or 14 actually.

I actually got two pairs, a 14 and a 15. I'm actually going to sell the 15. But to anybody who wants it. Why do I bring all this up? When you look at someone like Dominic Cruz, I don't know what his background is at all. So I'm very much speaking out of turn. But one thing I can say is,

I think a lot of foot, ankle, knee, hip issues, either related to running or use of shoes or even just not using your feet in the way in which your body evolved for them to be used, causes tons of problems. I can't run heel first. I can't do it. I can run that way, but it causes tremendous shin splints. I'm not trying to be like, oh, I know what Conor's going through.

I don't, but I have had stress fractures in both my shins. It's fucking painful. It's terrible. It's not fun. And it turns out that there's a good case to be made that it comes from not running the appropriate way and in the appropriate kind of shoe and that your feet need To spread and they need to grip and they need to you know There's there's all kinds of muscles and everything in between then you know when a guy like Dominic Cruz is telling me

He's having to Botox his feet one. There's a question of to what extent does he have general foot health? I don't know. I'm not a doctor But to you can make a case that even if he does have good foot health, there's an overuse factor there that his body was simply not ready for, and it caused all those problems. So it seems to me, to answer your question about bouncing and whatnot, I tend to think that bouncing is probably just fine if it's trained properly from an early-ish age or whatever accommodated training has to happen through adulthood because you do have a built-in suspension system landing here.

But that takes a long, long, if you've never done it before, it takes a long, years, literally years, of just dedicated barefoot application in order for that to materialize. So the question is, is bouncing good or bad for you? I tend to think it's probably fine for the right people. The question is, for the ones where it causes health problems, what's underlying that? Is it inherent inability to manage injury?

Is it from mechanical issues? Is it from, you know, what's it from? So, there you go. Alright. We'll do a couple more. Luke, have you seen or heard the Florentino Perez leaked audio tapes? And if so, what did you think?

Basically, the dude who's like the, not the coach, but like the business, the GM more or less, of Real Madrid, if you guys don't know this. You know, which is a huge club. It's, if not the biggest, one of the biggest in any sporting organization in the world. And there's a bunch of tapes of him just shitting on everybody. Including like Ronaldo and calling him a fucking idiot. And it's been leaked slowly to the Spanish press, and it's been a shit show. Who do you think will win a title first? Ilya Toporia, Armin Saryukin, Shavkat Rukmanov, or Kamzat Shumayev?

Woo! Boy, you're talking about a murderous fucking row. Good lord. I'll say Rakhmanov or Toporia. Again, Chumayev might be the answer. I just need to see more. Luke, would you consider doing a new show segment where you highlight a blue chip prospect?

Yeah, sure. I'll think about that. You guys brought up mugs on MK and how awesome they are. Will they ever get released to the washed masses? I honestly don't fuck. We have fucked that up. We have fucked up our merch launch twice. I mean, well, that's an overstatement, but we've not done it the way we should have done it. I'll put it that way. And we have so many good ideas and so many things

that I know you guys want. People have asking for rash guards. I'll put that on the list and everything else. But the answer is probably yes, but we don't have any plans as it stands. So there you go. All right, Luke, how do you think a Poirier versus Gaethje 2 plays out second time around? People forgetting about Gaethje with the time off. Yes, I do think it'd be a different fight. I wonder what would happen as he began to trade more.

And would he land a big shot on Dustin and then cause problems? Would Dustin land on him? Would Dustin try to wrestle him in the way that Khabib did? And I'll say this. I would love to see Justin get another win or two. And I'd love to see them run it back

because there's no doubt in my mind, maybe Poirier wins again, maybe he doesn't, but that would be a different fight from the first one. And that first one was a tough fight. A tough fight. Okay. Let's call it there. All right?

Let's do this. Thumbs up on the video, subscribe. Show tomorrow, 11 a.m. in the East, live. We'll do X's and O's around all the big fights this weekend. I might even do a live post-fight show after Saturday's main event, even though it's a fight night card, we'll see. But we got a lot of stuff coming, yeah?

Looking forward to tomorrow's show, and until then, I appreciate you guys.