MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Charles Oliveira-Dustin Poirier | BKFC Death | MMA Rules | Fury-Wilder III | EP 212

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

On Episode 212 of MK, the guys do an early preview of Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirer now that it is official for UFC 269. Justin Thornton tragically passed away this week following a Bare knuckle fighting loss. Marc Ratner called for consistent rules across all commissions in MMA. What are the positives and negatives of having consistent rules across the commissions. Next up the guys break down where the heavyweight division goes if Tyson Fury or Deontay wilder wins the rubber match. They close out the finally topics with a debate about Joe Rogan's commentary. The boys close out the show with Celebrity Wheel of Death and Fan Submissions. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, reveley, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. It is hump day. It's the middle of the week. It's the moment when the week just begins to tip to the better side of things. And speaking of tip to tip, this is Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. I join you right now live from the nation's capital here in Los Estados Unidos. And I am joined, as I always am, by from uh Naugatuck Connecticut however you pronounce it he's the king of Connecticut now that apathy has retired it's it's Brian Campbell hi Brian how are you I'm great Luke it's Wednesday I'm so happy to be back here just two days before I finally

get to host again on Friday but we do have a great show in the midst, Luke, of all things Wilder Fury 3 Fight Week. I mean, what a time to be alive, Luke. I mean, let's not bury the lead. Today is not only the return on Morning Combat of the Wheel of Death, but today, for just the second time ever, we go celebrity style on the old WOD. And Luke, your boy BC bumped up the guest list, so to speak. Okay? And the last time it was like a lot of Damien the Donk, a lot of, you know, Bronsted.

Let's be honest. It was a lot of zeros. You know, a lot of ones and zeros, like the binary code. Well, shout out to Billy Q for helping us out last time. Yeah, he was a 100. He was a one and two zeros. How about that? This time it's going to be fantastic.

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I will say that, like any show, not every season is equally good, I feel like I'm the Bobby Axelrod of the MMA media game. Look, I'm sorry. I will say that like any show, not every season is equally good. But if you make it to season five, you're going to love everything. More or less, you're going to have a great time with it. It's like, obviously, Showtime is the part that produces the show, basically, and treats us real well. We're part of the family. But that show is legit. I don't who you work for i don't care where your checks come from it's an amazing show and if you don't believe us just hear what the critics have to say or your friend i don't

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Just bet $1 on the boxer that you think will win the main event, and DraftKings Sportsbook will give you $100 in free bets if either lands a punch. DraftKings, of course, is a safe, secure, and reliable way to bet. Best of all, BC, you can deposit and withdraw your cash whenever you want. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code COMBAT, COMBAT with a K, K-O-M-B-A-T. Turn $1 into $100 in free bets if either main event boxer lands a punch. Combat this Saturday, DraftKings. And look, we know with heavyweight championship fights,

heavyweight boxing in general, one punch could change everything. And you've got an underdog here. DraftKings has Deontay Wilder at plus 240 minus 310 Tyson Fury we have an underdog here who can who can turn the lights off on a career with one punch so you want to get involved those are uh those are if you like underdogs that's a great bet right there dude damn right at 240 I'd take that bet sure like I think Fury's gonna win but at plus 240 yeah I'd take that bet, sure. Like, I think Fury's going to win, but a plus 240? Yeah, I'll take that, sure. And if you want to mess around with $100 on a great app like DraftKings

and, you know, try it out, test the waters for free if it's legal in your state, then download that today. I mean, look, you talk about the consummation station known as the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Two powers, DK and MK, coming together. This is like that great 1995 movie Heat when De Niro and Pacino, you know, finally met in the same scene. That's such a great scene. This is what that's like, okay?

That's such a great scene. That's one of the great scenes of those kinds. That genre of movies, sort of action thriller types. That scene is unbelievable. Yes, DraftKings Sportsbook. Go download it. And BC, I'd be remiss. Last sort of thing we plug here, and we'll get the show started in a proper way.

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They got Donk Force bomber jackets. They got Factory Town MMA fanny packs. Luke, I hear our maker somewhere, one of our sweatshops somewhere in some undiagnosed country is trying to figure out the MK drug rug. That's what I hear. The rumor's coming out of there, Luke, okay? You talk about fighter pay. I don't know what we're paying the people in the sweatshops but they are figuring out how to make a mk drug rug possibly

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So it is a triple header. But I want to focus in on the main event, BC. Now that it's official, let's talk about it here a little bit. Is there any doubt in your mind that the winner of this fight, without question, will be labeled the world's best lightweight? They will. They will. I mean, look, as long as the great Habib Nurmagomedov is still able to put two feet on the ground and stand up,

or maybe not even with that because he works so well on the ground, of course you're going to loosely asterisk it with that. But look, Habib's gone. He's not coming back. We love and respect him. He's one of the greatest of all time. But this division keeps rolling, and I think it's great to see that finally the uncrowned champion i know he does not like that title but dustin poirier finally getting a chance once again to lift the real title yes he chose the money and the fame of akana mcgregor fights two and three

this calendar year but to his credit luke he not only won both he won both by stoppage and he is on pace right now dust Dustin Poirier, should he win the title from the always, always dangerous Charles Oliveira, the Charlie Olives who has the UFC record for most finishes. You're talking about fighter of the year for Poirier? You're talking about, Luke, putting that stamp on what is already a Hall of Fame career, one of the better careers in this short time that the

UFC has been this popular and this much to the forefront. Poirier has a chance now to really cement that with the real, full, undisputed championship. That alone, Luke, gets you in the door. But now that this thing's real and you look at the style contrast and the matchup, Luke, you got to be honest this is one of the better fights that this great promotion has put on this calendar year i mean i i you heard me popping for volkanovsky ortega and i think rightfully so right that was fun as shit uh this fight in terms of two guys in my top 10 pound for pound there's a great great ass fight and i know we're gonna favor poirier coming in but I have no idea

what this thing's gonna look like let me let me ask you this way maybe a little bit different I think if Dustin Poirier wins some questions will obviously linger about the fact that this guy got choked up by Habib not too long ago you know he's the best active lightweight but he wouldn't be the best lightweight in the world if Oliveira, I wonder if the conversation switches, BC, because you would still be like, well, we'll never know. Oliveira's not going to fight Habib, and so this will just be a question, and probably not because Habib's Habib. But at the same time, with the improved striking of Oliveira,

his better overall decision-making, his championship-level cardio, which I think he'll have, we'll have to see, but certainly his submission ability on the floor, I think you would then create a situation where you're like, let's get this straight. This guy beat Kevin Lee, Tony Ferguson, Michael Chandler, and Dustin Poirier. What would make us think that he would not be able to beat Nurmagomedov? I don't think it really matters in the end. I don't think Nurmagomedov's going to get pulled back into the fray to answer that question, but I will say, depending on who wins this main event on December 11th, BC, I do think the conversation switches where Poirier will kind of always be nagged by that loss,

whereas Oliveira, A, doesn't have the loss to Nurmagomedov, and B, has a particular skill set on the floor that would, in theory, give him some ability to win, where I think the conversation switches around Oliveira where you could actually be, he might actually be, the best lightweight on earth, independent of Nurmagomedov's participation or not. At least a little bit, I think you might see that. What are we doing here, Luke?

Where are you going with this? I'm not suggesting, hold on. The mere fact that I introduce it as a possibility does not mean that I endorse it. It means what will the broader conversation be? And I do think part of the broader conversation will be that Oliveira has a claim to be the best lightweight on earth, independent of Nurmagomedov's participation. No, no, look, it fights so prestigious in so many ways.

And this would really, we talk about the cementing of Poirier's all-time great legacy. Well, look, what Charles Oliveira has done the past few years is downright remarkable considering it's happening in this division. He's doing it with finishes, and it's not just on the ground. You know what I mean? He's rounded out his game to such dangerous levels. Look, I'm interested in your take. Will you see the majority, the overwhelming,

even though the fight odds-wise, it's going to be really close by the time they touch gloves, December 11th, probably in Las Vegas. I know they haven't sorted out all those details. But I'm thinking all of us, because we, I think rightfully look at Poirier as the uncrowned champion, will ultimately pick Poirier to win. Do you think Oliveira will end up being to some degree overlooked or underrated entering here. I saw some early predictions from both Michael Chandler and Justin Gaethje, both obviously prominent fighters in this division. Both predicted Poirier would win by stoppage,

and Gaethje went as far as calling Oliveira, you know, a quitter. And that's the reason why he thinks he falls. I mean, do you think that wave's only going to get stronger? That, like, look, this is Poirier's coronation ceremony, December 11th here. Let's not forget about the damn champion, Luke. I mean, this guy finishes more times than your brother-in-law. That's right. I tend to think that what's made the big difference here

is that some people have been really convinced by his transformation. Olivera used to be a guy who was obviously a real submission threat and had developing Muay Thai. Now his Muay Thai is really good, but back in the day, he had okay Muay Thai, very good submissions. He was a little flaky. He would sometimes just kind of fall apart in fights in ways that you didn't necessarily expect or came kind of quickly

even after not the stiffest resistance was given to him. Now you just, you just don't see that. Like, for example, to me, the Kevin Lee fight gets lost a lot because that was the last fight before everything in the pandemic suspended it and whatnot. And in that fight, you know, Kevin Lee was kind of all over him, taking him down, trying to be in his face. And you see a guy in Oliveira not only give it back to him, but not fold under the pressure, not make bad decisions, not rush into a situation he didn't need to be in, to wait it until he had a much more ready-to-be-finished-off Kevin Lee and then did the damn thing.

Follows it up by beating Tony Ferguson. That's the only decision fight he's had since his winning streak that dates back to 2018. And Tony could have been stopped there a couple of times with those submissions a lesser fighter would have been for for sure and then goes in there against Michael Chandler and should have folded the old Oliveira no doubt would have folded in the first one not a doubt in my mind but he made it out to the second one he he had he showed veteran savvy and then came out and snatched the title um from the jaws of defeat basically basically. Dude,

this is a different guy. I think you're absolutely right. He's still going to be impacted by, you know, a pretty large body of work where he was just consistently flaky year over year. But since 2018, dude, that guy has not shown up and he's had opportunities to be invited to the party and he did not show in the best way possible. Yeah think you're absolutely right i think i think dustin poirier probably is the best lightweight certainly active but he's gonna have to earn it i think two brief questions related to this because the people they love more than anything if i just shut up and we ask you mma related material so luke do you believe you don't seem bitter about it do you believe believe that after this title fight takes place December 11th, the next title defense will come from Michael Chandler or Justin Gaethje?

Do you believe that? Well, let me ask you. Let me spit it back very quickly. You think Justin Gaethje is going to beat Michael Chandler, right? No, I didn't say either way. I don't really. Look, Chandler is at a point, Luke, as we know, where he's all in. He's all in on his day his his own danger mixed with

his own vulnerability so anyone can win that i'm saying do you think that is the number one contender fight for the next title opportunity against the winner of this december 11th title probably probably unless makachev does something utterly spectacular probably yes why okay that's that's fine that makes that fight which takes place at UFC 268 on November 6th in Madison Square Garden the Chandler Gaethje won all the more important beyond just the oh my god these two violent MFers are gonna go throw down but number two Luke let's talk about this car December 11th you mentioned the two I'm sorry the three title fights atop it let's not forget you've got Cody Garbrandt, Kai Carafrance,

Macy Barber, Montana De La Rosa, Ryan Hall's back, Dominic Cruz vs. Pedro Munoz, Sugar Sean O'Malley is back. I know this isn't 268, for example, which you could argue is the best card of the year and one of the best cards of the last two, three years. I'm gonna give

the MSG card 268 an A+. What would you give this card 269, December 11th? Ooh. I don't know about A+, but definitely an A. Definitely an A. A+, it'd have to be like, do we need the third fight between Figueredo and Moreno? I'll take it, but we don't need it. I do think we need this lightweight fight, so that's really important.

But you don't have one of the big— Poirier's name has grown leaps and bounds, but there's no top three level attraction in terms of box office sales for the card. The Amanda Nunes fight is interesting to me because I think Peña is sort of absolutely flying under the radar. Yeah, you know what? I'll give it a solid A. Not an A+, but a solid A. That's where I'm at.

I mean, if you just weighted that on those three fights alone, it's hard to hate on either of those three title fights that we mentioned. I mean, this is going to be great. No, they're all good. Dude, UFC's firing on all cylinders. I mean, by and large. Not entirely, but pretty close. And I heard Dana's post-DWCS press conference. Not only are they firing all cylinders, but he's deflecting at very high levels, too. And I heard Dana's post-DWCS press conference.

Not only are they firing all Senators, but he's deflecting at very high levels too, Luke. He's been doing that. Yeah, you know, did you hear the latest, Luke, how he defended fighter pay by saying it's the fighters prefer that the general public thinks they're underpaid so that their family members won't keep hitting them up for money. He really said that out loud, Luke. That's great.

Dude, you know what's amazing is he used that years and years ago. I want to say not quite 10 years ago, but maybe 7 or 8, something like that, 2012-ish, 2013, somewhere around there. And I remember he said at the time, and at the time he was like, you know, you should ask these baseball players how they feel about their money being put out there. And I'm like, I don't know, man. They don't seem to mind. Like, they don't say shit about it.

Obviously, it's a different situation there with the union and whatnot. But here's why he says stuff like that. I figured it out. It's because there are, like, a lot of fans in the sport who, A, I don't think watch other sports. Number one, not much. And number two, just they're ready to take marching orders from leadership like leadership says oh sky is green hey dude sky is fucking i've never seen a greener sky in all my life he'll just say things and it'll just be these minions out there

who are just like yeah that's it they just don't want to tell people it's like dude if they're gonna make 250 mil over the course of three years or something insane like that they're gonna tell every fucking body who listen what are you talking about but okay neither here nor there um i firmly believe i don't know if you care about this topic probably not i firmly believe that daniel white's gonna run for a governor of nevada one day and if he gets it we'll consider a run for the president of our country. Do you think that's absurdly ridiculous? I don't, Luke. Well, he's utterly unelectable on a federal level, I can tell you that. I think he fashions himself a maverick, Luke, who doesn't take no for an answer.

That part I am certain is true. There's a lot, being BJ Penn put out a thing, being like, I'm going to run for governor of Hawaii, or at least least into that I think there's a lot of people in the fight world that overestimate how in tune their views are with the wider electorate and I think they're all in for a pretty rude awakening but if they'd like to go do it certainly it is up to them all right I consider reforming the wig party Luke it's got a know. You can join Andrew Yang's forward party. How about that? Oh, hey, all right.

Andrew Yang, a legitimate MMA fan. Wonderboy Thompson is his favorite fighter. How about that? All right. Nice guy, yeah. Yeah, he is a nice guy. Never met him. All right, topic number two, BC.

I did that just for you, just for you. Topic number two. All right, in all seriousness, a fighter has died in Mississippi. Now, it's not an MMA fighter, although he has fought MMA. It's a BKFC fighter. His name is Justin Thornton. He was 38 years old, and he competed just at the end of August and was knocked out in merely 18 seconds.

The fight was not long. He had a record of 6-18. He was 0-5 in his last MMA fights heading into BKFC 20. This took place in Biloxi, Mississippi. His opponent, Dylan Kleckler, was 2-0 in BKFC and has an MMA record of 11-1. Now, BC, there's a lot of different questions here where does the blame fall for this i don't want to say the blame falls on the victim itself but obviously these guys take certain risks is it just the inherent risk of the sport do you put the fault on and by that i mean bare knuckle in particular do you put the fault on bkfc who is the promoter in this case should they have done something differently or three is it an issue of what the commission should have been doing in any of those cases?

Who gets the blame here? My answer is yes, Luke. Yes to all the above. But I want to lay down some things first. Look, this is a unique, unfortunate situation in that Justin Thornton was knocked out in what? Something like 18 seconds against Dylan Kleckler. But Luke, he fell face first to the canvas and actually screwed up his spine and was in intensive care for weeks and and was really in in extremely bad shape and had a really bad forward prognosis

that eventually led to his death so Luke this was one of those uniquely dangerous situations because of the way he fell and the way he compressed his spine but I think this very unfortunate death, it's not the right timing for a death like this, obviously. It's not what I'm trying to say. But it's the right timing that all of us in the extended combat sports game, which, by the way, goes way further than the elite levels of UFC and Bellator and MMA and the elite boxing promoters on that side. I'm talking about across the board.

There's a lot of cleanup that needs to be done. And I think this is a reminder of that. So let me frame what I'm really trying to say here, Luke. I almost regret it now that for years I was the, we like them extra sloppy fight fan. I was the hashtag old guy fights. My name for a promotion I wanted to start in boxing some 10 years ago Luke when I worked at ESPN and we got a few laughs of it off of Twitter hey Luke you know some people some like ex comedians or ex UFC heavyweights are like I

never read the comments man never ever look sometimes I you know I'm not I'm not I'm secure enough to tell you sometimes I do look at the comments luke and i saw a comment after my take on the uh whole nick diaz situation i think i mentioned it on one of our recent shows where somebody was like man bc's the biggest hypocrite i ever know what a skip bayless hot taker he loves the sloppy shit and now all i hear about is him damning triller and damning nick diaz's return at age 39. Luke, I think I'm here to tell you that not only is my liver in the process of being reformed from a bad stretch of gas station food diet addiction, my fight diet of loving sloppiness this calendar year,

I think it's run its course. And I think for the right reasons, obviously, Luke, the combination of what we're seeing on the lower levels of this bkfc breakout and the various bare knuckle operations you know extended from that from what we're seeing in triller with the evander holyfield you know debacle which we're lucky that it wasn't worse through the fact that riddick bowe damn near almost put on the gloves for another boxing fight, considering his physical condition, it echoes more and more, Luke.

And maybe it's just because there's been so much of it in our face that I finally got to a point where I'm like, I don't have a taste for this anymore. It's sickening. Fighting is a young man's game, except for very rare circumstances. Fighting is a young man's game. This is the most, meaning combat sports in general, is the most dangerous sports possible to have weak commissioning, weak promotioners who want to just make a buck,

weak sanctioning bodies, weak everything across the board, that I think it's time we all really look in the mirror. So is BKFC to blame for this? I don't know in this circumstance. Justin Thornton, though, Luke, as you mentioned, had lost his last five MMA bouts. His 6 and 18 overall was 38 years old on the way out. What have we seen from BKFC of late? Fighters who have been cut from major MMA promotions.

I think BKFC, by the way, is trying to promote a fight with Melvin Gillard in the main event coming up soon. Guys who have been knocked out so many times in a row that they're essentially like persona non grata from the elite levels of their own sport. So they're doing this stop by at what I've called, jokingly, the BKFC, the last stop, right? On the food chain, get your final dollars. And Luke, of course, we're all wondering is this being done under the the right up and up scenarios in most cases they're not in most cases regional mma shows are probably not in most cases anything short of the elite level in boxing is probably not

these sports are the absolute worst for that situation to be a reality but sadly it is you know what d White said Tuesday night Luke which you mentioned his press scrum he does after the Dana White contender series is becoming must see in a lot of ways because he typically addresses the biggest news across all combat sports was that the UFC spends 20 million dollars per year on medical safety and in in all of that and he was you know bragging about it but that's one of the good brags, Luke. That's one of the, they've gotten to an elite level where, say what you will about a lot of things they do, they're realizing that the most important thing they could possibly

do is fighter safety to avoid really bad scandals and those kind of things that destroy your sport. They've got much more money than these other promotions we're talking about. But Luke, I'm less inclined to put the point of blame and just say in general, we've got to clean up the sloppiness of the fight game. I've lost my taste for

a lot of this bullshit, Luke. I don't want to see older fighters who shouldn't be in there, fighters who are on 7, 8 knockout loss streaks end up on a bare knuckle card because it's the only way they can make money. I'm hoping that this death of Justin Thornton here does not go in vain or does not get forgotten because how many active in their prime boxers have we seen die through the years?

These sports are not to F around with, man. So, Luke, I'm less inclined. I just want to say we need some serious change across the board in the stringency and the rules from everything from promoters down to state commissions down to everything because you could argue looking at the records here and looking at the back, should Justin Thornton have even been in there, Luke? Yeah, I don't. I think you make a great point.

And I also can tell the the audience like bc's not doing i mean he's always doing a bit of a bit but he's not really doing a bit here about the change in his opinion like i've watched it in real time with the circumstances kind of evolve and and get to the position that he's in now and you know this is why we were like so adamant about evander holyfield not fighting a guy like Vitor Belfort. Like, it was just a... I mean, the guy's almost 60. What the fuck are you doing in that ring?

And the reality is you cannot rely on the commissions to keep you safe. You just cannot. I mean, this is really, to me, where it all comes down. There is not a whole lot of studies about BKFC, but what studies exist paint actually a pretty good picture, which is to say that they result in more hand injuries and facial lacerations, but there is less brain damage that they've been able to measure. Still, it's a very limited study and it doesn't really mean anything for the poor situation that we have now, where it is a grieving family and a dead man who tried to

compete, or ultimately did compete, and it cost him his life. I'm not exactly sure what the specifics are yet, but the Association of Boxing Commissions came out and basically said to any state commission, this particular case, it's Mississippi, if you're going to do BKFC and you're going to license some of these guys, who, by the way, they come here after 35, which is usually a benchmark in officiating circles about when extra tests and screens need to be introduced

for clearing a fighter that they didn't really do any, uh, cat scans. There was no MRI scan. There was no board certified neurologist looking at any of this man's work. There was no work to be done. He probably did blood work and not a whole lot else. Dude, this is, this is negligent. If you're a fighter out there, I can understand if you don't have any other work or you have a, you have a bills that have to get paid, dude, I truly understand that. But you are, in any case, listen, fighting doesn't really matter how you do it. It's like smoking. There's really no safe way to do it, right? In any case, that one cigarette may not be the one that gets you, but cumulatively, it's about the same, or at least the analogy works in that way. But in this particular case,

you have somebody who probably had a pre-existing medical condition. I'm assuming that. I can't prove that. I don't know that. But for situations like this, what they usually find after the fact is through some autopsies, there was all kinds of medical red flags that a proper screening should have gotten to.

Like, why is the UFC's record so good? Okay, they spend a lot of money, but what does that $20 million really go to? A lot of it might be for the Performance Institute and other things. And I'm not here to diminish it, but I'm just saying how much of it goes to pre-fight screens. A lot of the reasons why the UFC is in good shape is one, they go to places with big commissions or when they don't, they bring good commission practices with them, right? When they self-regulate or whatever the case may be. Two, they got younger athletes in general.

And three, they just sort of get a better class of referee over time. This is the lesson to me, BC. This is really where I come down on. I one time had a conversation with Faraz Ahabi, and I asked him, what would you rather have? A commission that you could not trust in terms of the opponent, in terms of the refereeing, in terms of the judging, or an opponent who you knew had taken steroids? And he said, I would rather have the bad commission. Boy, I would strongly caution against that. If I were

you folks from getting a bad deal to the judging, to getting a bad referee or whatever else, or now pre-fight screens, it is a clear and present danger to go to a place. If you are 35 years or older, that doesn't do proper pre-fight screening. It is not okay. It is not acceptable. And over time, bad shit will happen right in front of you. Bad commissioning, lax commissioning, or just, you know, not robust commissioning, I should say. That's a problem. And I guarantee Mississippi regrets not doing more ahead of this one.

Well, you know, BKFC put out a statement on Twitter from David Feldman, the leader, and, you know, people criticized the sentiments of it statement on Twitter from David Feldman, the leader, and people criticized the sentiments of it. I'm not here to do that. I mean, I don't know what the promotion should do beyond that. But I do want to echo, again, like this specific scenario, Thornton paralyzed himself by the way he fell on his face, according to the medical records.

And he, like I mentioned, was on a ventilator with a tracheotomy and an IV drip. And Kleckler stated publicly that Thornton died from pneumonia. So, I mean, who knows, you know, if this is a could-have-happened-to-anybody situation. It's just unfortunate. But you referenced the Association of Boxing Commissions, which is headed by Mike Mazzulli there from the Mohegan tribe, Luke. And that specific quote in the statement that they gave to MMA Junkie said, disturbingly and despite our recommendations,

some jurisdictions regulating these events are still not following the minimum medical guidelines set forth by the ABC and the Association of Ringside Physicians. More concerning is the fact that many commissions do not require any imaging studies for CAT scan or MRI in a sport where injured individuals are at risk for acute and chronic head injuries. So it's sort of like, Luke, what cripples boxing in general from being the sport it could be? The lack of organization from a more promotional and network standpoint. But a lot of that is still rooted in what we don't have across both fight sports, which is uniforms code across the u.s in terms of how the states handle everything from drug testing to to medical and i and i get that there's different levels of shows of events which which can you know not every show can you know can afford the elite olympic level drug testing you know but again is this the sport are these the sports that we want to

f around with moving forward you know i mean this is a horrible stain on bkfc's record in terms of what they're going to be capable of moving forward in terms of the perceived danger because let's be honest they're selling extra danger they're selling bare knuckle right they're selling the idea that this is going to be not just bare knuckle bc not just bare knuckle but they have to face off when the round starts the ring is smaller to induce action the rounds are two minute sprints like everything is about close contact action and you know and you got you got the other bare knuckle one that dada 5000 runs the byb that has that trigon ring you know paulie malinaggi and uh and uh goldie are the announcers to that and that's like and even more like nowhere to run or hide.

I love, dude, I love all kinds of combat sports, combat karate, like whatever. Luke, we run, have you seen this shit? All these barnyard knuckle sports. All that stuff is going to go away if we keep seeing stuff like this happening. Again, which is the reason why UFC is so smart to have a performance institute and have so much money. I mean, I think Dana said in the interview, Luke, that because of their pre-fight medical screenings, they've caught upwards of four fighters and pulled them from fights who had major pre-existing conditions that weren't found before that could have led to an in-competition death.

So, again, you know, if Thornton's death because of the circumstances are a bit random or just, you know, bad luck, it's not going to be the end of it if we don't get this stuff dialed up. So you're not going to hear me anymore, Luke, being excited about, you know, De La Hoya and Trinidad touching gloves again to run back their 1999 first fight. I'm really done with that stuff. I really am. It's a young man's sport. It's not a career.

Luke, this fight game is not a am. It's a young man's sport. It's not a career. Look, this fight game is not a career. It's a moment in time. It's like saying an NFL player has a career. What's the average career length in the NFL? What is it down to now? A year and a half? Three years? Three years, yeah. The fight game, maybe because

you can linger on regional levels, but this is not a career. This is a moment in time where you can make a lot of money in a short period. if we're not doing it right let's not do it anymore last thing i'll say i agree with everything you're you're just talking about here the last thing i'll say is i i don't know i don't have the i don't have a good explanation for what i'm about to say but i've seen it enough to know that it's a problem which is that there it's in many ways bc you know as well as i do do when we were kids if you're if you're a teenager now right and you're into combat sports and you're just trying

to figure out what you like maybe you like boxing kickboxing you're watching everything and and whatever it is is appealing to you dude this is the golden era we never had espn plus we never had fight pass we never had any of these fucking things we had to wait for the limited amount of quantity in the limited way in which it was delivered if our parents even let us in as we got older you know i think the options opened up a little bit but they were always pretty narrow dude now is an unbelievable time to be a combat sports fan if you're into like you know sport jiu-jitsu that shit's on almost five days a week it's crazy how much there is now to say nothing of kickboxing mma or whatever the case may be. But as the golden era, so to speak, of combat sports has expanded,

it's also expanded what kinds of combat sports we entertain. I don't want to make this necessarily about a taste level, BC, but I have a hunch. And again, I'm not saying this is right at all. I'm trying to figure out what's happening. But I feel like there's a lot of new fans. And when I say new, I don't mean just this year. But you know, if you've been watching for a few years, and I've been watching for a very, very long time, that haven't seen some of these morality plays like you and I have kind of over and over.

Dude, I've, like, here's one thing that fighters don't realize as media guys. If you're successful enough, I'm going to watch careers start and end. And then I'm going to watch another career start and end after that. And I'm still going to be here. I've seen this play enough times to kind of know what's happening here I feel like they just have a thirst for the kinds of fights that you and I have because we've been salty dogs and we're old and you know uh lame now but we've kind of seen like yeah these lead down a path you don't want to go down maybe this particular event will be okay but uh there's just been this expanded notion of what kind of combat sports

we should promote and celebrate. And there should be a diversity. Not everyone's going to agree, but when you get to the Holyfield part, when you get to, I'm not saying BKFC necessarily, but you know, guys who are on terrible losing streaks over 35, you're in Mississippi. These are, these are reddish kind of flags that have resulted in this. I just feel like we need, need i don't know i don't know what we need but i feel like as long as this is in play it's going to be hard to get some of this stuff to go away that's it yeah um full full agreeance all right topic number three this is related didn't get a lot of media but i think this story is super interesting. I mean, really interesting. So Mark Ratner, who was the VP of Regulatory Affairs over at UFC for a long time,

was on the Nevada Athletic Commission, but for almost 20 years or something, for a long time has been with UFC. And he's well-liked. And he is mainly the guy you could credit from the UFC side of things for being the one who helped spearhead their efforts to go state by state to get things regulated. But now he said something, and I like Mark a lot so what I'm about to say is not a critique of him personally but it's a critique of the ideas that he was professing and the policies that he wants there if you guys don't know the story I'll make it quick Colorado

where the UFC got their start by the way has adopted not a change to their rules but they have allowed the accommodation of one championship rules, which has sort of different rules potentially about striking, but certainly also about judging. You get the idea. They're willing to accommodate them if one wanted to do that. They are the only state athletic commission that has done that to this point. Mark Ratner spoke to MMA Junkie and said he was against it. And to the point, BC, he said the following, quote, what we need is an association of commissions i mean they have one um they don't really have the power and that's what needs to be

stronger the rules should be the same in every state it's terrible and he says in relation to colorado i would tell the world that the ufc is not going there ratner said about colorado's decision to allow head stomps and competition again um this is the one championship rules we're talking about here. I would tell the governor that we would love to come to Colorado, but you have to have the right rules. So I'm against that. There's no reason to have these rules. I don't understand why they would do that.

Okay, BC, this issue really bothers me a little bit. And the reason why is because I brought this up previously, and people just laughed it off. This is not a joke. What the UFC did was twofold when they went state by state by state. They always bragged they ran towards regulation, and that part is kind of true.

They weren't the first ones to do it within the UFC framework, but they did. They made a really conscious effort to go state to state, even in states like Tennessee that doesn't do a lot of combat sports. They tried to get a commission up and running and making sure they could cover professional MMA. That part is pretty good, but part of the reason why they do it is what I always try to explain a commission up and running and making sure they can cover professional MMA. That part is pretty good. But part of the reason why they do it is what I always try to explain to people about the UFC.

Like when they create these performance institutes. Yes, that will pay dividends for actors beyond just the UFC. But they're not doing it for that purpose. It might have that benefit, but that's not. They're doing it a lot to protect themselves. Namely, if you go state to state and you make them borrow your rules, you reduce the ability of competitors to have a different product by virtue of innovation being totally dampened.

Colorado said, we'll give it a try. We will try to accommodate under these rules. It doesn't mean when UFC goes there, they have to obey those rules. They don't. They can stick to the unified rules as they have it. BC, are you a little bit alarmed that the VP of Regulatory Affairs for the UFC is bemoaning states broadening what rule sets

they will use to allow other actors into the space? Well, it frames it like almost a mafioso way of saying you know if you allow these rules in your state we won't bring our shows there right that's exactly what he said it's almost like a vince mcmahon telling you know pay-per-view providers if you put on the wcw pay-per-view we'll never give you a wwf1 again which happened in the late 80s was part of you know that that promotions just take over monopoly and dominance. I could see it putting it under that loop because different promotions tend to have different rules. And, you know, if his stance was I'm against

kneeing a downed opponent, if that was what the stance is, then, you know, that's a personal stance and I'm not against it. I tend to look at this as more in relation, as you mentioned, to the previous topic, mostly because in that statement that the Association of Boxing Commissions gave to the MMA junkie that Mike Mazzulli wrote, one of the things were that we can't enforce this state by state. All we can do is suggest to them. And the problem is that the states aren't taking these suggestions, usually in situations because they just want to make money. They just want the easiest path to resistance here. Look, what we need is what we've always needed. I mean, when you see this come in at the UFC level, and I'm not pushing the Mark Ratner thing aside, I'll get back to that. But it's like, you know, where the rules change state to state, we hear it say on the UFC broadcast, sometimes the

broadcasters to the fighters are not sure. Wait, what state are we into? What does that rule mean? I mean, the fact that that's even a thing that's allowed is ridiculous. What is stopping our country at this point unless you have a fear of government control in this area of creating a combat sports

nationwide governing body that sets rules across all 50 states and Native American territories and your nationwide governing body that sets rules across all 50 states and and you know native american territories and your uh los estados de dice whatever you call that city you live in luke what is stopping us from having a national board that sets these regulations of safety and if you want to have within that luke an adherence that allows if a promotion has a rule set that's different as long as the the national commission approves the differences between them so it would be up to a national commission in my eyes working with the lead promoters to determine his knees to a

ground opponent in 2021 a safe thing as long as it is cleared luke then i'm not i don't really care if one guy from the UFC is saying we won't go back to this state if they don't change the rules. The larger picture is that we need a fricking national commission that avoids any kind of loopholes or states that allow you to get away with things. What are we doing here, Luke? Okay, we got the ABC, which by the way has boxing in its title yet covers mixed martial arts too. Not weird enough. All they make are suggestions. Can we make a national commission?

I mean, like, how many more bad things have to happen before this type of action will be taken, Luke? Because what Mark Ratner is saying at its core is correct, Luke. We can go down that road if you want with what this relates to one. But what Mark Ratner is saying at a whole is the answer to a lot of these issues. I don't think he's doing anything like that. He was against an, he wants a commission,

but he doesn't want any kind of federal mandate about, uh, or any kind of body with a federal mandating power. What they just don't want are competitors with a different rule set. I mean, the argument is impossible to take seriously, right? You don't want to go to Colorado because you think that they're, I don't know, sending a bad message with health and safety by allowing this rule set.

Okay, let's assume for a second we think that's true. Guys, you went to Florida a million times, which just allowed as a sanctioning body Evander Holyfield to fight. Like, if you care about health and safety, you won't go back to Florida, period. And of course they will. So this argument is not, I don't know how to interpret it other than to say it's just simply not accurate. Moreover, to the point, BC, I'm not saying it's mafioso, but I am saying that a large dominant power publicly saying we're not going to go to a state that allows a rule set that would allow a

company with a different, meaningfully different product to use their rules here, ones that, by the way, I don't know what the reality is with the totality of the health and safety record of one, but it doesn't look to me majorly distinguishable from any other major promoter for that level. We're supposed to just assume that that's a good way to do business or to allow for innovation? It's actually a bit of a problem. If you want something to be done in a way that's meaningful i agree a federal commission or at least having a binding power with association of boxing commissions is how to get there but i just don't think folks are paying enough attention to the fact that they're trying to bake in the impossibility of innovation

into government law that's what they're trying to do that's a problem colorado said we don't want any part of that and immediately you have them pushing back i just think that should make folks think twice about the the value of saying oh we give all this power to the states well now when the state wants to exercise this power in a different direction we're not going to bring shows there i mean i don't think it cripples the commission per se but like i don't know i don't think it sends the best message about um how they welcome other rule sets if it's out of if it's out of the right reasons you're not against it right so what if this is just retina saying i fully disagree with the one rules yeah but then why would you go to places that have a horrible health and safety record yeah like i just don't

it doesn't compute uh oh yes colorado who hasn't colorado who doesn't do the same business as texas and florida so it's not apples to apples certainly but doesn't have to my knowledge any of the same problems related to health and safety that texas and florida we're going to go to texas and florida well they'll put dada 5000 on a stretcher after a Bellator show. That's cool. But Colorado's beyond the pale for rules that we don't even have to abide by when we go there. It doesn't make, it makes zero sense.

I mean, it's not like there's no issues with my dream scenario of a federal commission either, Luke, because if the UFC got to a point where they felt they were being overly being overly regulated they would just take all matters to Fight Island moving forward right I mean that's that's that's how this works I don't think so I don't think I mean the whole the whole notion of like oh we can just go to Texas Florida and fight out I don't really buy that anymore dude if you watch TV how many sports don't have fans in them like UFC is the the only one left. Now, obviously their situation is different because they had the apex to retreat to when there was nowhere else to go. And I think that they planned a calendar around that for 2021, probably prudently, right? They were like, you know

what? We don't know exactly how things are going to shake out. Let's do the safer option and make sure we're not getting fucked with in 2021. I actually think that's probably the smart call. I'm just pointing out like this idea that you can be closed off from the world when even with COVID doing whatever it's doing, the rest of the sports world's kind of embraced it and sort of moved on for better or for worse. The idea that you can just go to Texas, Florida, five Island. I don't buy that. Like you got to reach out to the rest of the world and that will require meaningfully, um, some adjustments along the way. I think, well dana says he still owes tai chi palace something for uh getting his back luke okay he certainly does all right with that

in mind let's go to topic number four we are just now what three days it was like thursday friday saturday yeah three days away from the i don't know i gotta say bc it's the third fight we didn't really need to see it we weren't asking for it and now that it's the third fight. We didn't really need to see it. We weren't asking for it. And now that it's here, I just can't wait. Tyson Fury taking on Deontay Wilder. I want to sort of have a conversation about game, not game planning, but mapping out the future, BC. And I want to start this way. Deontay Wilder has made some statements recently that indicate he's kind of eyeing retirement, where he's got a few more things to do. He didn't say after this fight, no matter what.

He didn't say that, but he did kind of hint that it wasn't too, too far in the future. Maybe that's bullshit, but that's what he said. Okay. Let me posit a situation for you. Wilder has come into this fight denying the validity of what happened in the second fight. Yes, the fight got stopped and yes, I got hurt, but I wasn't done. My coaches in the case of Mark Breland were sabotaging me. They threw in the towel when they weren't supposed to. I shouldn't have been counted out. I had that big, heavy, heavy ass rig he was carrying. Like all these reasons to say he didn't really lose. has maintained some of those fictions okay let's assume a world we'll do the opposite in a minute but let's assume a world where Wilder goes in

there for the third time made all these changes and it amounts to nothing it amounts to him losing in the exact same authoritative way that he lost before does he retire after the bout? It depends. It depends. I see the angle you're going here. I mean, it could depend financially because there are many, many heavyweights that he could knock out. Look that he would go in there with not take a lot of punishment at six foot seven with that power, even if they box for six, seven. I mean, we've seen it before, right? It would come down to his want level. It would come down financially because, you know, he can make a hell of a lot of money coming in against anybody. But you do wonder the fighting spirit, especially, I mean,

that's the risk in fighting anyone a third time, especially when you enter a third fight against somebody when you haven't won any of them yet. The risk is that with that many consecutive defeats, and again, I know the first fight was a draw, but we all sort of realized that Fury should have won that and was very unlucky if not robbed on the scorecards.

I get what you're saying. I don't feel like Wilder's going to be around a ton longer. He's 35. He's got a style that once solved at the elite level, we've seen it solved twice now in a lot of ways by Tyson Fury, although the first fight ended up being closed because of the knockdowns.

You know, you're not, I don't think he's somebody that's going to hang around and just keep getting solved is what I'm trying to say. Now, if he wins this, what's interesting, what's developing during fight week as much as we want to say, oh my God, what if Wilder wins? Could we see fight four or five against each other? They're both saying this is the end of the rivalry.

Wilder's saying, even if I knock him out, I'm done with this. It would be smart for Wilder to be done with a guy who's really, you know, as far as we know, the only guy who could really do this to him because Fury has the size, the brains, the balls, and the speed to pull off

what he pulled off in that second fight, to walk him down and do that to him. But, um, there's almost a potential Juan Manuel Marquez situation here where if Wilder wins this fight, he's going to feel like he won the rivalry, just like Marquez knocked out Pacquiao in the fourth fight, said, we're done, we're not fighting again, I just showed you I won the rivalry. But regardless of that, there's a lot of things surrounding Deontay Wilder heading into this fight that are interesting.

I do wonder, the crux of your question, you know, is his heart, his heart's into it to get back and use the 20, by the way, it'll be 20 months between the second and third fight. Neither of them have fought in the interim. None of us, including those two thought this would be the scenario, the way it played out with COVID with the Joshua fight almost happening. Then the court injunction. We're almost two years later.

I feel like Wilder's dialed in to give his very best effort, and he's used that time from what we can tell the right way to come back. But, yes, Luke, if he loses here, I do question what would be left for him to accomplish because, you know, the only way these guys would fight again is if Wilder knocks him out, then goes and fights Usyk and takes all the belts, and then, you know, I don't know, Fury beats Joshua, and then we end up back in one more giant payday here. Could that happen? You never know. It's heavyweight boxing. But, you know, what's interesting here, Luke, is one of the big storylines,

as much as the biggest storyline, what we talked about on Monday's show, is Wilder's mindset, the changes to his camp, the 20 months, how did he use that to improve? There's obviously a flip side devil's advocate argument to that, which I want to know if you're worried about this. Why did Wilder fire Mark Breland, who was the most, by far, decorated coach in his corner, the assistant trainer, the former gold medalist and boxing champion, Hall of Famer? Mark Breland's a boxing mind. Why did he fire him, Luke? Out of what Wilder's calling disloyalty for throwing in the towel. But from what a lot of people on the outside in, or people who have had a cup of coffee inside the Wilder camp have come out and said critically is while there's got too many yes men in his corner that's why

jd has stayed sliding down now to assistant trainer and mark breland left so as much as we're saying okay hiring malik scott the 40 year old former heavyweight who by the way lost to wilder in a first round knockout that i remember when it happened Luke some people like did he actually hit him that looked a little questionable we find out they're like best friends Wilder wanted to give him the payday is he just bringing in another yes man I think Malik Scott is a you know much brighter boxing mind than say a Jay Diaz and Scott's a smart cerebral boxer and if this is the way to get through to Wilder, someone that he trusts,

and I don't know if you saw Deontay Wilder's interview from Tuesday's grand arrival outside the arena where Ray Flores talked to him and Wilder said, look, I finally have my brothers in my camp. I finally have family that I can trust. Okay, if that's the best way for Wilder to feel comfortable, okay. But Luke, are we overlooking the idea that Wilder just took out

maybe the most integral, important person in his camp, the only one that was looking out for him, Mark Breland, and just subbed in another yes man? There's only one way to find out. I tend to think that Malik Scott... Do you believe that Malik Scott would be doing what he's doing if he felt like he was just marking time? Like, I got hired for something and I had noble intentions, but in the end, you know, Deontay is going to be who he

is. And so I'm just going to help him kind of, you know, massage his downfall as best I can feather a bed for him as he falls, no matter what, or do you think he's in there because he thinks he can make a big difference? I tend to think he thinks he can make a big difference. I really do. I think he thinks that he might have to find unorthodox ways to get Deontay to comply with whatever else he's advising him from a training perspective or this needs to change perspective. By the way, Deontay, he does strike me as a guy who can kind of convince to be doing things,

but he's not going to let another man tell him someone, some guy has to like get in his head and convince him. And it has to make it a good idea. And like, think about all the major, amazing possibilities and someone of your incredible ability, what they could show if they did this, like you got to get him to buy into the system and then he'll go all in. I tend to think that's how Malik Scott has operated here, but we simply won't know until Saturday. It's why it's one of the most intriguing questions. I just feel like everyone's kind of assuming Joshua's going to beat Usyk, and then he didn't.

And all of us are assuming that Fury is going to beat Wilder, and I still think that he will, but we haven't reconciled with the world where A, what happens if he does, or B, the opposite BC, what happens if Wilder actually does the damn thing and gets the win? For the fans out there, is it realistic that he'll fight Usyk?

Would they do a fourth fight? I mean, let's say he gets him like he did in that first fight, except he doesn't get off the canvas. Something like that, right? Like classic Deontay Wilder. Dude, what about that world? What happens then? Yeah, there's a lot to talk about what happens next

on both sides. On the Fury side, his co-promoter Bob Arum of TopRank said they would be very willing if Fury beats Wilder in this third fight to entertain a fight against Dillian White in early 2020. And Luke, besides Andy Ruiz Jr., who's busy tatting up his ass cheeks, more to

come on Mondays, have you seen this shit? Tattoo on ass-y. Besides him, Dillian White's the next best, along with Luis Ortiz, heavyweight, in the outer conversation of this. But it is interesting. What happens if Wilder wins? I think that he's had enough with Fury and this rivalry

where I believe him when he says, we're not going back to a fourth fight. There's no contractual obligation this time heading into this one. Luke, do you believe that even though the winner of this will have just one belt, the WBC, and will have though the lineal championship for those like me

who still care about that, the guy who beat the guy who beat the guy, the real recognized champion in the division, do you think the winner of this fight is the power player? Even though they have less titles than Usyk moving forward? The A-side, if you will, the decision-maker in boxing, when you are the A-side, when you're a De La Hoya or a Mayweather or a Canelo, you call the shots, you set the terms.

Do you think that's kind of what's at stake here, where Wilder can basically regain control of the division if he redeems this loss? Of course we're going to have to wait to see if Joshua goes through with the Usyk rematch and if he redeems this loss of course we're gonna have to wait to see if Joshua goes through with the Usyk rematch and if he wins or loses but there's a lot at stake here you know from the face of the division standpoint for the winner I think there's a lot of things if if if Fury ends up winning first of all you just have this proximity where Joshua loses and right behind it Fury wins so just that juxtaposition makes it a bad look for Joshua.

I also think most people, it's one thing to convince the boxing insiders. It's another thing to convince the broader public. In the case of AJ, he does giant stadiums in the UK, but Tyson Fury is selling out ostensibly or coming close to it anyway, doing big shows, let's put it that way, in America. He has sort of crossed over to be an American star in certain ways, or at least in the last year, well, since the first Wilder fight anyway. So there's that.

So all of these sort of different little soft measurements of power, where you're fighting internationally in Las Vegas and there's sort of a triumphant victory relative to someone's proximate loss. Those kind of matter. But the other part is like, I feel like this was, how do I say this exactly? Among the major power players in boxing, the really big ones, I'm not, you know, this is not true either. I'll say this.

More recently, it just seems to me like Fury and Wilder have kind of set themselves a little bit apart from the rest of the pack. Ruiz got close with the win over Joshua and was supposed to be Joshua's homecoming, but couldn't follow it up. Usyk did it, but did it in a way where it was, to many people, it was a bunch of a shock. They don't really know exactly what to make of it. They're still kind of processing it. These two guys have had a larger-than-life rivalry. They're bigger-than-life personalities in their own kinds of ways. They have elevated themselves through this rivalry, where Joshua certainly elevated himself,

but not by having that one foil that he faced down, not once, not twice, but thrice. There is something to be said about not just the courage it takes to do that, but how much that can make the public view you as a separate, more significant pairing and entity relative to each other and the division than what Joshua's doing, even if we can agree that Joshua's record in terms of who he's had to go through to get here is more than commendable. It's extraordinary.

Just to bring a full circle on your original question here, obviously what we want to see most in this fight, has Wilder changed? Will he go after Fury? I mean, believe me, this has potential to be a slugfest if he does. But I hope Wilder has learned his lessons, and would he consider not coming back? We did see Prince Nassim Hamed,

who had a very untraditional style, Luke, and sort of loved being this frontrunner and baiting people and tricking people. The second he got solved by Marco Antonio Barrera, he was done. He walked away. That was it. Sometimes that happens. Wilder got solved, but

to his credit, he activated this third fight. He's going to get it. We're going to see what his future brings after this. Funny that they showed his famous heavy suit that he wore, Luke. I don't know if you saw Mark Raimondi's ESPN story detailing the leak. There was leaked photos about Wilder's suit for this third fight. He's going just as large and ridiculous, Luke. So maybe we can squash the excuse that the suit cost him the second fight.

Not if he loses. Yeah. Not if he loses yeah not if he loses uh last but not least here on topics for the day before we get to everything else here on the show there was an interesting article published a few days ago caused a bit of an uproar in the community which was what we didn't have time to get to it on monday but we wanted to make sure we at least touched on it before we entirely move on. So Bloody Elbow put out an article, which is the site BloodyElbow.com from Vox Media. They since put out a second column behind it saying the opposite, which if you know who runs Bloody Elbow, that makes entire sense. They often air a viewpoint and then right behind it air the opposite viewpoint

so that readers can make an informed choice about which one they find more credible. But neither here nor there. The first of them was about how the UFC should replace Joe Rogan. The author, I believe it was Trent Rainsmith, had argued a series of things, but namely that there's just not a lot of contribution there, and the UFC, in addition, is sort of doing business with the guy who does conspiracy theory and blah, blah, blah, whatever the various... You can go read the piece for yourself and decide.

But the point that I was more interested in considering was just the amount of uproar this caused. So, BC, what was your estimation? What did you learn about the community and Joe Rogan through the situation? What's your major takeaway from the controversy that it caused? You got to take it with a little bit of grain of salt here, Luke. Obviously, because of Rogan's platform and because when he makes certain stances and right now there's you know stances on uh against COVID and masks that people have been you know have not fielded uh happily so when you cross over into some of that political side it can it can fuel people's decisions I did though think that this was an interesting story to hit the wave at the right time why because

you know Rogan had a hunting trip so he missed the last pay-per-view. I think he's supposed to miss another one, Luke, for another gig he has scheduled, which is completely fine, by the way. Rogan is at such a point in his career, he can call his own shots, rightfully so. But I think, Luke, what we saw in the absence of him there with Paul Felder filling in

was in some ways a more efficient broadcast. So the fact that the appetite of the public for someone who's been there for so long is starting to change is interesting right now. And it's not wrong, right? When you see somebody in there in one seat for so long, they change. It's hard for them to keep up that same spirit

or that thing that made you fall in love with them, where for other people, there's just the long-term nostalgic, I want them there no matter what. I'll say this this luke i've gone on record a couple months ago and saying the trio of joe rogan john annick and daniel cormier i think it might be the best we've ever seen at one point in this sports history together but that's because i enjoy the entertainment side of what they bring and when you get dc and joean together, you still get fight analysis, but what you really get Luke is fight reaction as if you're up in the hills in Calabasas with

the boys breaking it down and laughing. You get a lot of oohs and ahs and big reactions. Sometimes that meshes perfectly with what's going on there. And sometimes I lean a little bit more toward wanting to be entertained during a broadcast than wanting to be educated. Maybe that's just because I'm at a fairly, well, despite what the listeners think about me, I'm at a fairly high knowledge of this. But I don't think the backlash,

meaning the fuel behind that story being written, is necessarily wrong. Rogan's, he's not much of an analyst anymore. Luke, he's an entertainer. He's a narrative teller. You know what his best role, still does it great today, is the video package before a fight that's supposed to get you hyped up

and lay out the storylines. Nobody does that better than Joe Rogan. Why? Because sometimes he can fudge the truth a little and be like, this guy's one of the most historically best strikers we've ever, I mean like, he's passionate, he's in the moment, he's there. That's what

he's great at. He's a professional entertainer. Has this job passed him by? Not fully, Luke, but I think it's starting to, and I just think that's where the backlash is starting. If the backlash stays in that lane, I actually agree that it's kind of time

to start having these conversations because surprisingly or maybe not, I really enjoyed Felder in that spot and maybe how professional the broadcast became. And you can like different things at different times and I like that UFC mixes it up often. If it's not because of the COVID backlash and just about his actual job,

I do agree he's on the latter half of an all-time great analyst career in the fight game. And if you're done with him, that's okay, Luke, because he's not – it may have outgrown him to a certain degree, and I don't think that's disrespectful or unfair to say. That's an interesting perspective. Yeah, I don't know how I would challenge too much of that. I mean, on the question of whether UFC should stop you know using him I you know if I was in charge of

the UFC for a day or something no I don't think I would do that right I mean here is a guy who what did what did this reaction show you it showed you that Joe Rogan has you know if you looked at approval ratings right about what did the average MMA fan think about these various characters and what is their approval rating as if they were a politician or something. I hate to put it in those terms, but it's an easy way to describe what I'm talking about. Joe Rogan would have an extremely high approval rating. It would just be very, very, very high. It'd be high among fighters. It'd be high among fans. And I think even for the most part, it'd be high among media, although you

probably get different levels at different places, but it's high. It's very, very high. And so the intense reaction you saw to that was part of that, which I can understand. And so that's one reason to not get rid of him. The other reason would be his role has, I think what you've honed in on is correct, his role has substantively changed to the audience. So if you watch in the old days, UFC 39, 40, whatever, around that time, what you'll hear is a Joe Rogan who was, they needed somebody who could explain MMA to the audience in the most basic, understandable terms, particularly the ground game.

And they had a guy in Joe Rogan who had been on a sitcom and was now had done some work with Fear Factory. He was certainly the most publicly known MMA fans of the way you could describe it. Obviously he was more than that, but that was one way to understand him. And he was the guy who put your arm around you on a broadcast. It was like, okay, check this out.

Watch when this guy steps over, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,

dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,

dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,

dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,

dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,

dah, dah, dah, dah, He was your best friend that helped you understand fighting. We all had a friend usually or a father figure or somebody in your life who was like, I'm going to, I'm going to teach you how to watch fight sports and how to understand them and appreciate them dude that

was that guy that is a profound thing to have in your fandom like to to that guy for him to be there for you in that way which is what i think joe joe rogan was is extraordinary but if you're looking for like that now he doesn't provide that level of sophisticated analytical work. I don't think he's trying to, but I don't think he does either. That's left to the Felders and the DCs. Now you're right. Now he's the narrative presenter. He's the guy who synthesizes the information and puts it together in a coherent whole. And on top of that, he went from being like the guy who puts your arm around you. And now with his podcast, having blown up, he's like the, he's like the biggest ambassador that MMA has, for better or for worse,

depending on one's perspective, certainly, but he is that. And I think from the UFC's perspective, particularly Dana, and their politics seem to be, for the most part, in alignment. I think he likes some of the controversy that Joe Rogan courts. I think he likes the idea that Joe Rogan sticks with certain audiences that they don't like. So if you're the UFC, they're not getting rid of him anytime soon. The only part that I objected to in all of this is,

you know me, I don't like MMA commentary that much anyway, not because it's universally bad. DC is a wealth of information. It's just MMA happens so fast, even the best commentators have a hard time examining what they're looking at. The part that I found interesting was everyone lashed out at Bloody Elbow and then they lashed out at the idea that this question was even in play.

As BC indicated, it's a small audience and you can say their perspective is stupid, but there is a portion of the fan base that doesn't want Rogan there. Again, you can like them or hate them. You can say they're big or they're small and they're small, but they do exist, number one. Number two, like, dude, no one in MMA is above reproach or above questioning you could say if you wanted to that maybe that some of the tone of the bloody elbow article wasn't in keeping with like a good faith approach if you wanted to say that potentially but like the idea like why can't we question certain things of course you can

Joe Rogan is so popular, just a mere suggestion about something negative about him elicits this immediate response like, oh, hands off Joe. So dude, Joe's a grown man. He can take criticism. And if it's bad criticism, it'll go away tomorrow anyway. The last thing I'd say is just about Bloody Elbow, BC. Now, as a matter of disclosure, I was the editor-in-chief there up until about 2009, 2010. So it's been a long time since I worked there. But the guy who runs it was the guy I used to run it with. Let me explain something to you about Bloody Elbow.

Dude, they're not going to publish things that you like all the time. They're going to publish shit you hate a lot. Because in MMA, people do not like to question powerful figures. They do not like to raise questions about things people like. What MMA fans want from MMA media is to service their fandom. They don't want the public interest, for the most part, serviced all that much. And Bloody Elbow, like any other site, has made a fair share of mistakes. They made a fair share of mistakes when I was the one calling some of the shots over there. So, you know, mea culpa.

But you need someone in this space, whether they are right or whether they are wrong, BC, to say to audiences that don't want to hear it sometimes things that they don't want to hear. I don't agree that the UFC should get rid of Rogan. But last thing I'll say, last sentence, literally last sentence, I am glad there is at least one place inside MMA that is not afraid of challenging some status quo ideas. Damn right. And that place usually is called Morning Combat, but it's also Bloody Elbow as well, Luke.

And I know Brendan came out hard in support of his boy and really put it on the MMA media, but I know he's got other beefs with other guys. We're big Brendan supporters on this show. Luke, you said no one in MMA is above reproach. Even me, I think our staff the other day was like, ABC, you're a little too ridiculous and arrogant on these Zoom calls here. Can we clean it up a little bit?

Can you, you know what I mean? Well, you just wouldn't keep, stop bringing up a terrible situation. I'm like, dude, stop talking about it. And it was like this weird thing where you had pulled the string on you and then you just had to do it. I learned my lesson, Luke. I don't want to be a distraction for this show at all, Luke, okay? I want to fuel the good times on this show.

But look, final statement, if Joe Rogan's schedule got a little bit more refined, I think that's the best thing moving forward. I'm not with anybody saying take him off the air because of what he said about COVID. I think that's totally, like, come on. That's not in this conversation. It's more about performance. And I think we are seeing fighters who are, especially DC, who are figuring out how to be entertaining and educational at the same time.

Yes, yes. And I would just say, you know, UFC would be foolish to get rid of Rogan, but at the same time, at the MMA world, does not like having people question assumed sets of wisdom. It's okay for someone to raise that prospect. You know who shouldn sets of wisdom it's okay you shouldn't go anywhere is that john john annick shouldn't go anywhere because you know what luke that guy is on the verge of becoming the best to ever do that job okay i'm just letting that i'm letting that be known out loud i agree i completely agree john annick's the man all right we'll put that

behind us let's go now bc to your portion of the show you You have talked, let me just say this, BC. You have talked a gang of shit about how good the Wheel of Death is today. Sir, it is time for you to deliver. Well, I hope it plays out like that, Luke. We did have a bonus special guest who was unable to finish and provide the video that we were looking for, Luke. But we still have a great group here ready. So, look, here's what we do. You know the premise. Some Wednesdays we do this great segment called The Wheel of Death. It's based

on the idea that Luke Thomas is so, there it is, spin the black circle, is so arrogant and unwelcome to certain questions that we had to create an uncomfortable segment in which hard-hitting, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes personal questions are there. So this segment is built upon the idea. Of good faith responses. For decently faith questions. Only for the second time ever. Your boy BC spun out the Rolodex.

Reached out to those famous folk. Who have come out and said. Look I love me some MK. I love what you guys are doing. And have joined forces today to create. What can only be an exciting mix of the celebrity wheel. So here's how it works. Luke, I won't have long intros this time, so you're going to be very happy. Ten categories, five spins of the wheel, five celebrity questions, five actual responses from you. Let's look at the wheel. Here's your ten categories.

We have Rose Before Hose, Almost Octagon, Left Wing Fighters. Wow, I don't even know if that's a thing, Luke. Dead Right, Frosting the Tips, Celibate Colombians, as if that's a thing, Luke.

Sharing Dana's pie. There's plenty in the Catholic Church who are nuns and shit, but okay. Fathers who care. My other job. And Luke, young lust. Luke, you get what you get. Please, spin the wheel. These categories are a little bit unnecessarily insulting,

but okay, I'll play your game. Almost octagon. Luke, to ask this question, let's bring him in. One of the most famous voices in the history of the damn octagon. Luke Thomas, what's up, man? It's your friend John Ann. I hope you guys are doing well. Really enjoying the show.

I have a question for you this week, and I could have gone in a number of different directions. I could have asked you about your beloved Washington football team or any of the D.C. sports teams. I could have asked you about cannabis. But I want to know, in all your time covering combat sports, whether in person or watching live at home or otherwise, what is the most concerned you have ever been for a fighter's safety? We just had a boxer die after competing in bare knuckle. I covered a boxing death, Lavander Johnson, back in 2005. And I'm sort of forever scarred by that

night back in 2005 because you knew you were watching something that could potentially be fatal. So, appreciate the opportunity to check in with you, my man Luke. I'm just curious. A little bit morbid, but what is the most concerned in your life you have been for a fighter's safety while watching combat sports?

Love you guys. Hope to chop it up with you soon. Well, John Anik's just the fucking fucking man i just can't say enough good thing i the only can i say this no one's perfect the only thing about john annick that is not perfect he's just an over-the-top boston sports fan which i just can't stand but uh everything else about him is just how about the merge how about john annick wearing the One More Sleep merch on our show? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, listen. He made it work for him. Go get checks is what I say.

Go get checks. Please, hey, folks, buy that merch, OK? Support John Anik. Please do that. I guess there would be two of them. There's probably been, like, dude, just last week, this guy Liam Smith or Callum Smith knocked out. Jesus Christ, that was bad, know on the zone um yeah that was len lennon castillo got knocked out by callum smith that was horrible that was horrible um and there's been ones like the maxim

dadshev one where you know you watch live and you just don't think anything of it and then later on you're like holy shit this guy you know is in the hospital and then he later dies. So there's been ones where I underrated it too. I guess there'd be two. I was in attendance for Kimbo versus Dada, and Dada looked like, I was there when they pulled him out of the ring, and he just looked terrible. Even I didn't know how bad it was, but I was like, ugh. Sorry to interrupt, but he actually died in the cage, right?

Well, I don't know if he died. but I was like, ugh. Sorry to interrupt, but he actually died in the cage, right? Didn't his heart stop? Well, I don't know if he died. I mean, I don't know what the medical classification of death ultimately is, but if you're asking, did his heart stop and they had to get it going again? Yes. So, yeah, that was fucking terrible. But the other one would be, believe it or not, it ended up not being that bad,

but it looked really bad based on the way that he fell which was when nate quarry got knocked out by rich franklin if you watch like nate like did one of these numbers where his he's almost like uh doing an airplane i don't mean to to diminish it in any way i'm sure it was fucking terrible but it like when guys freeze a certain way or when the toes curl you get a little and that was one where i watched him fall and i immediately felt like man that was a mismatch they should not have made this fight and i was i got real concerned when he fell the way that he did i think he was ultimately fine but in that moment when he was when he was frozen like this and you could see he was labored breathing

the rory mcdonald one against lawler was another one where i was like you know fuck these are tough ones man um so yeah those would be my those would be the ones that come to mind it's a tough question against Lawler was another one where I was like, you know, fuck. These are tough ones, man. So, yeah, those would be the ones that come to mind. It's a tough question, but it's an important one. I appreciate John sending it. I've said before, Luke, that when I was cage side for Ioana Young-Jacek versus Weili Zhang, that fifth round and, you know, Ioana's head is, you know, I mean, it was such a violent fight with no back steps that I was getting pretty nervous for both. I think you and I also shared in the past that Mark Hunt versus Bigfoot Silva won around the late end of the fourth round as we were about to go to the fifth.

There was so much blood and just damage that I was like, somebody should step in there. I'm uncomfortable watching this. It happens. BC, real quick, how many times have you watched a fight, either in person or on TV, and your natural reaction based on what was happening was where you had to watch through your fingers? You're like, Mark Hunt and Bigfoot, the first one, I was just like, I could not fucking believe what these two were doing to each other.

That was another one, yeah. There was a fight on Showtime. It was a boxing match about 2012-ish victor chinian you know the the armenian champion luke he went in there against a fellow named victor burgos and uh and just it was one side of the whole way and i remember just having a bad feeling in my stomach and unfortunately burgos afterwards that was the last fight of his career he suffered some some medical uh results of that negative ones that uh it was just one of those were in the moment and i was also unfortunately ringside for um magomed abdusalamoff in 2013 against mike perez which was you know it led to him being paralyzed and stuff that was

another it's tough luke is it that's why again look coming out hard against this being a dangerous sport because it is these sports are super dangerous and once you you know john annick was ringside when levanderander Johnson died in boxing. Once you see it once, man, it's, you know, it's... All right, Luke. That was a serious question and a serious answer. Let's get back to the wheel, Luke. It's time for spin number two.

I like the celebrity edition better. Little SBC. Hey, dead wrong. No, it's dead right, Luke. And speaking of dead, let's bring in one of my favorite musicians, the bassist of Dead & Company, formerly of the Allman Brothers and Oteel & Friends. It's Oteel Burbridge coming in for this one. Dear Luke, you say you don't believe in superstitions i take it that you mean you don't believe in anything that cannot be proven

objectively by the scientific method but if objective truth exists then might subjective truths also exist isn't love in fact a perfect example of a subjective truth? Even scientific materialists probably love somebody, but they can't prove that love exists objectively. In fact, don't all concepts of morality exist only as subjective truths? And aren't all of our laws an attempt to impose these subjective truths on our objective reality? And lastly, would love qualify as another superstition? Sincerely, Othiel Burbridge. Luke, Othiel going deep here on you.

Yeah, there's a lot there. I don't know if I can remember the entirety of the question, but no, there's a lot there that I would say is not true. Like love as a concept is simply a word that we ascribe to a series of both emotions. You could measure it based on some biological responses, but also more than that about what it results in terms of familial care, self-care, romantic relationships, child reproduction, although they're not exclusively related to that, but they often can be overlapped.

That's simply a name that we give to some of these associations and how we identify their strengths. But he is right that, yes, by superstitions, I don't necessarily mean anything that you can't get through objectively from the scientific method, although I suppose maybe you end up there. I merely mean anything that you can't get through objectively from the scientific method although i suppose maybe you end up there i merely mean something that posits a supernatural

explanation for natural phenomenon like you know is there why is the podcast constantly featuring fighters that ultimately lose there's probably a lot of reasons for that but the one that i can't sign on to is that there's some mystical force guiding it right so that's sort of the point but about the the last thing you said about aren't the laws uh this imposition of subject to truth onto objective reality again i have to have a deeper conversation with him to know exactly what he means but not necessarily like there are some ways to think about which societies you would rather live in and how they prioritize what they spend money on and how they organize themselves. Namely, if you had a society based on some kind of restrictive monastic religion versus one that identified some measures of human flourishing as achievable and laudable goals,

you're going to get higher literacy rates on one side. You're going to get women who can contribute to society. You're going to have a better democratic process simply by orienting along something that rewards the challenges and then the needs of the human experience versus something else. I don't know that that is the imposition of subjective experiences onto objective law. It seems to me quite the opposite. It seems to me writing at scale policies, which tend to produce better outcomes for the human experience. So, wow.

All I can say is thank you to the professors at William and Mary, because Luke, I have no idea what he just asked you and I have no idea what you answered, but it was really fun hearing the two of you converse, you know, I would have to hear more because there's a lot he put, he baked in a lot and i guess it's hard for me to get to all of it all right is love subjective luke is it a superstition i guess not all right it's not

a superstition but what what we call it isn't exactly what it is kind of a thing so he's he's on to something there okay okay very interesting there luke all right hey i told you we're going deep today with these questions you're not saying no... No one asking, like, what's your favorite set of cleavage you liked when you were 19? John Anik was like, what kind of questions do you want? I'm like, you know, ask him what song was on the radio the first time he got to second base. You know, that's

what I expect from people, but they brought it this time, Luke, all right? Hey, let's get on over. Thank you, Oteel, for that one. Let's get on over to spin number three. Hey, sharing Dana's pie. Something the UFC not always willing to do with the fighters. Luke, we went into the world of professional football to draft Springfield Mass' own and former L.A. Chargers wide receiver coach. And you may remember this guy from tearing some ass on hard knocks a couple years ago.

Here's the Irishman himself, Phil McKagan. Jamaican Irish. Luke in B.C., what's going on on your way to 100K? My question for the Wheel of death has to do with fighter pay. So as we know, the UFC had a record year in 2020, grossing about 900 million in revenue. We also know that 20% of that money goes to fighter pay. If we bumped it to 23%, that's an additional 27 million. That's where our hypothetical question comes into play if you were Dana White, Mick Maynard and Sean Shelby how would you distribute that additional 27 million to the fighters a couple of suggestions would be assigning bonus on your second contract

very similar to other sports leagues also a $150,000 bonus say for the first time and only once when you crack the top 15 and Maybe a longevity bonus of 10 fights or so you get another low six-figure Bonus when you hit 10 fights These are just suggestions just a couple of talking points to get you going really curious to hear what some of your suggestions May be a lot of people complain about fighter pay, but they don't have any suggestions. So I want to seek some solutions and I want to see what you guys have to say. And you cannot spend any of this money on BC's fatty liver reform school or cotillion or anything that he made to clean up some of his rough edges.

So again, congratulations on all your success. Love the show. Big fan. All right. MK nearly every day. That's great. I called them LA Rams. It was LA Chargers. I dead wronged myself in real life there.

But Phil played two seasons in the NFL, an alumni of the University of Maine. Big time fan of the show. Appreciate him wearing that shirt. But Luke, that's a good question. What do you do with that 3%? Where do you share that? Yeah, yeah well let me just say one thing he did he may not like this answer but I think it's the one it's the one I've been giving a long time which is there used to I've said this before there used to be a credible argument that could be made about

MMA media that they were ignoring fighter pay realities in favor of access or whatever they just weren't doing the job but that changed over the course of the years. They actually really did the job in a very, very thorough way at this point. Some more sturdily than others, but it's not a secret anymore about what's happening, right? So in that sense. But what ends up happening is when the MMA media has to do that job, which I think, again, they rightfully did, but at some point what you end up seeing is the media's job is to always advocate for higher fighter pay.

And I got to tell you, like, I don't want that job anymore. I mean, I will continue to kind of do it in the sense that I feel like it's necessary. But like, you know, what should happen when a fighter does something from a disciplinary perspective that means that they should get in trouble? You know who should answer that one? Is the fighters fucking union, right? In the NFL, all this shit is handled by the union whether it's disciplinary stuff whether it's uniform stuff whether it's minimum salaries whether it's what you get on the practice squad what you get in bonuses what you get on game

checks all that shit is handled by the nfl pa which is exactly how it should be the media should be the one sort of uh observing from afar so my first answer is, I wish someone else would handle this because I don't want to be the guy to make this call. Forced to make the call, which is the spirit of the question. Yeah, you are forced to make the call. If you've got $27 million, if you've got $27 million,

there's a lot of different ways you could cut it. You could go all in on a big fight that you really, really wanted. Let's say, you know, I don't know what they want to do with Jon Jones now that he's got these criminal charges, but before that, you know, could you do that to make the fight with francis pour an extra 10 million on it and put the seven into whatever you want right that's one way that's one

answer you could go about doing but do you really want to do that probably not i think the way to maybe think about it is they always like to distribute things at scale rather than going like all in on this or all in on that. I think what they could probably do is, actually, you know what? One more caveat. They could put the $27 million into overseas development, like find another country upon which to begin to plant some seeds about creating facilities. It would cost more than $27 million, but you could put that as a down payment or something. But the way I would handle it is if you have $27 that's about 2 million a month it's a little bit more than 2 million a month so you have a million extra every two weeks to give away i think you create all kinds of incentives on fight

cards to give it away all different manner of uh performance bonuses and uh rewards and you just go on if you want to buy yourself publicity from the faithful of MMA, which again, Dana's like, hey, these fighters don't want to say how much they make because they don't want family members harassing them, like a completely illegitimate way to not pay guys more, right? But can you imagine Uncle Dana with a wheelbarrow rolling in there with cash, handing out like Christmas, like my dad handing out. You get cash.

Yeah, dude. You get cash. Yeah, dude. You get cash. Think about it. It sounds crude, but like my dad handing out Roy Rogers coupons on Halloween, right? Just showing up like your Michigan J frog strutting down. And you did this for a year on every fight card. They would call you the king for life doing something like that. You just gave away $27 million.

You didn't have to give away. You did it in the most showy, demonstrable way possible. Do the dividends that would pay forward for that audience and for the fighters who just believe that they're entitled to not make more for whatever reason. Oh, my God. You wouldn't hear Union talk for 10 years after that. Yeah.

I would much rather have this pay this let's say this was some kind of compromise like phil put out there and he's right not very few people have answers on this they just want to complain but if i would think ufc would be you know there's going to be some until a full union and a walkout happens which you know who knows if it ever would luke there's got to be some smaller compromises along the way that'll help PR and help the fighters feel better. I would want it to go to the middle class and lower class above, you know, throwing an extra 10 million to make a super fight happen. Because at the end of the day, UFC knows they can just wait these people out and they're going to want to eventually fight anyway. So, if you could even be really selfish and make it all finish performance based like you're saying

like basically you get a finish you get an additional 25 000 you know what i mean like above the above the win bonus above the submission of the night bonus i mean there are ways that you can do it that look i can't i can't see any more of these stories and not feel any worse of fighters who can't pay for a training camp, can't pay for an elite training camp so they can become an elite fighter to try to actually make enough money to quit their job at the airport. You know what I'm saying, Luke? Yeah, you got to give them, you got to show up with a stack of cash.

They're like Dave Chappelle. They're like wiping their tears away with $100 bills and that kind of thing. You do that, and I'm telling you, man, you make a big demonstration out of it, and that's what you have to do. You've got to show up with the clear suitcase with just money stacked on the inside. People would lose their shit. I guarantee it. Hey, shout out to our guy Phil McKagan there,

former high school standout at Agawam Mass, not far from where I grew up, Luke. There was a park called Riverside there, a nice amusement park that eventually became Six Flags. Phil and I, you know, we're from the same area. We're cut from almost the same cloth, Luke. Are you? Although he resides in Cali now, but yeah. You were almost the wide receivers coach on hard knocks for the L.A. Chargers? Of all NFL position coaches, Phil is the most factory town MMA ready.

You know what I'm saying? See, I disagree. I think if you're – he was a wide receivers coach, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I was going to say the quarterback coach is the overrated one. They're the ones that end up going like QB coach, offensive coordinator, head coach, and you're like, why is this fucking guy head coach?

Oh, because he was a quarterback coach for blah blah blah at Clemson or whatever. But wide receiver, you gotta earn your dinner every night. He was gonna be a head coach one day. I saw him on Hard Knocks. He was eating some ass. He's built for it. He's built for it. With maple syrup or jelly. Yeah, alright, Luke.

Two more spins to go on today's show. How are we doing up to this point, Luke? Not so bad. Not so bad. Okay, okay. Two spins left, Luke. You get what on today's subreddit. How are we doing up to this point, Luke? Not so bad. Not so bad. Okay. Okay. Two spins left, Luke. You get what you get. Here we go.

All right. Come on. Non-passive aggressive title. Oh, the worst one. Oh, fathers who care. At least one thing we can guarantee, Luke, is that your father won't be asking a question right now. But I did find a father who does care, Luke. Did you DM him? No, I did not.

I mean, I tried to go through your brother that time. He don't want anything to do with me. Maybe I'll track your sister down. Dude, literally, I had my dad. I FaceTimed my dad so he could talk to his granddaughter. This was two days ago. I swear to God, this is true. And then I told him, because I hadn't talked to him in like a week or something.

And I told him, I was like, hey, I'm going to the Canelo fight for Showtime. And, you know, we should be able to get a sit down with him. And the first fucking word out of his mouth was, oh yeah, if you're going to go to Vegas, can you check in on one of my rental properties? And I was like, wow, okay, all right. Come on, Dad. Come on, Rob Thomas, right?

You know what I mean? I know you're not crazy. You are just a little unwell though. All right, Luke, I found a father who does care. Let's hear from him right now. Dear Brian, dear Luke, considering the name of this segment, I'm not sure how my question fits in. It feels kind of like bringing cotton candy to a bursum concert. My question is, which was the first word that your children said besides mommy and daddy?

And why? As in, where do you think they heard that word? In Luke's case, I think it's fair game to split the question into two, which was the first English word and which was the first Spanish word that Violeta said. And for extra points, which was the first word you said when you were kids? Mine was moon in my native tongue of Greek. Thank you for taking my question and have a great celebrity wheel of death. First words. Look, Webscream is a very loquacious fellow.

You know he's the Greek voice of the Waze app? I do know that, yes. I don't know if the audience does, but yes. First word in Spanish and English. Well, for sure her first word, and my wife would verify this was papa papa was the first word is that for you or for your dad no for me

the first yeah it was very sweet the first word beyond that I'm trying to remember I think it was a sentence, really, which was, are you okay? She kind of got through with that. Like, individual words she knew, a comma, which is bed, she knew. English.

Her first paragraph was, what are all those loud noises in Uncle Felipe's room? He's just doing work, sweetie. That's all he's doing. He's just laying pipe. He's a plumber. Yeah, he's with the pipe fitters union, sweetie. Yeah, he's with the pipe fitters union. That's right.

Steam fitters, local 253. Yeah. I'm trying to think first English word beyond that what oh i know um it was cream which was short for ice cream she loves what kid doesn't but she loves ice cream and it was cream i thought you were gonna say she was a huge prince in the new power generation fan luke a little cream she might she might be she might be but more to the point she likes a lotto which is ice cream so i think it was loose yeah look my first word was dad it was also the first words of my two sons what about you do you did they tell you what your

first word was lose luke help was that your first word probably suck my balls something awesome like that oh yeah gaff and cory chiming in with ass barf yes that was your i'll never forget this is a true story i remember i remember my like second grade was a real wake-up call to the fact that my parents had been shielding me because i went to watkins elementary which now i'm told is much nicer but when i went in was.C., it was not money. And I remember my first year of second grade, someone had said to the words, I'd never even heard this before, like, you'll suck my dick. And at the time, I was like, you know how old you are in second grade? That was such a concept, like mind-bending moment.

I was like, wow, I'd never even thought of that before. That's really something. That's out there. I remember in my elementary school when the Bushes, when we found a magazine that was showing pictures of that action you just articulated for the first time. And it's like, that's the moment you lost your innocence and you'll never forget that gross feeling of seeing those pictures for the first time, Luke. You know what I mean? Yikes. All right. shout out to the great web screen, though, over there in Italy and his newborn son,

Petros. We're big fans on this side of the pond. Alright, Luke, one more. You get what you get. We have one more celebrity waiting. Let's do this. Come on, big booty Latina. Oh, wait, not this time. Didn't you take that off? My other job.

No, Luke, this isn't a question about you needing us to rush the show so you can get on over to SiriusXM. Those days are long over, Luke. But here's a familiar face from our travels on CBS Sports HQ. I'll let you know trivia-wise, the first North African-born man to ever host SportsCenter. He's Libya's own... Hakeem. Hakeem Dermish.

This is Hakeem Dermish, CBS Sports HQ anchor. And Luke, I know that you've already been asked, what job would you do if you weren't a combat sports analyst and you'd be a soccer analyst. If it were me, I'd be a major in baseball umpire. Ready for this? Three! Right there. But since that question has already been asked, I'll come up with another one because that's my job to ask questions.

So, here it is if you could choose to coach any UFC fighter which fighter would you choose to coach and by the time you were done coaching them that person he or she would they be a big underdog or a heavy favorite come fight night wow look how about how about Hakeem with the punch out there? Yeah, you know what? He lets those authoritative threes be known. What fighter would I coach? Jesus, I am woefully unprepared for that job.

You know what I would do? So was Coach LaTorre, Luke, but she pulled it off unprepared for that job. You know what I would do? So was Coach LaTorre, Luke, but she pulled it off to the record of 1-1, okay? I'll tell you what I would do, and I'd make this real simple. Max, Max Holloway. Max Holloway would be the guy I'd coach because BC. I'm not saying I have, like, a block on anyone's game,

but if I have one on someone in MMA, I feel like I've got a pretty good pretty good idea of what he's doing also with max dude he's a little bit on autopilot that's that's a very much an oversimplification i do think his corners and and his trainers and his coaches are you know uh gracie techniques ivan flores all those guys are just amazing they're amazing but max is you know he's experienced at this point, right? Been a champion. Stopped Jose Aldo twice. Like, holds all these records. You know, best boxer in MMA.

You're taking the best boxer in MMA. Does he really need a ton of my help? I don't think he needs a ton of my help. So, or the other way to do it, BC, you know what? Let me correct that. Let me correct the record. You know who I would coach? Because I couldn't do shit all for them them who pays the biggest cut out to their coach

that's what i want to know so i guess i would be like connor's coach and just let him win or lose but then i just get a big ass check that's what i would that's already what john cavanaugh does right but uh yeah i would do that i would do that. I would do that because I'm not going to help you win. You're asking if they're going to be underdog. Well, probably Max would be the favorite. Connor would be the favorite or something like that. But I'm trying to get that. Luke, I would obviously.

I like that. I like that question. I would obviously coach Ioana. I mean, let's be realistic here, right? You know what I mean? We'd both be winners, though. Okay. You know what I'm saying?

Yes. Yes. By the way, Web Scream chiming in mean? We'd both be winners, though, okay? You know what I'm saying? Yes. Yes, by the way, Web Scream chiming in in real time from Italy, Luke, saying when Violetta first said cream, it was obviously short for Web Scream. Yeah, I don't think that was it. Okay, okay. Alright.

Alright, Luke, that's the Celebrity Wheel of Death this week. You ever want to do it again? What do you think? Yeah, I do. I like Celebrity Wheel of Death this week. You ever want to do it again? What do you think? Yeah, I do. I like Celebrity Wheel of Death. It started good, but a little, as they might say, in the household of William Buckley Jr., lugubrious. It was a little lugubrious to start, but it turned around, and it was a happy affair by the end. We got to see Hakeem Dermott's call strike out.

Yes, special thanks to all five of our celebrities, Luke, for chiming in this week, helping us out, Special thanks. Call strikeout. Yes, special thanks to all five of our celebrities, Luke, for chiming in this week, helping us out, making this segment great again after we've hit some dead ends with this segment. Luke, I don't know if it still has life. In person, it's wonderful, although the UFC weigh-in show has kind of stolen our thunder. Although, Luke, in fairness, people say we stole this

from a few different shows, including Bilal Muhammad's podcast. So if that's the case, Luke, it's, you know, what do they say? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Yes, that's what they say. Okay, well, that's what they say. All right. So shout out to all our favorite celebrities there for chiming in. Thank you.

Luke, can't wait to get you to a Dead & Company concert so we can hang out with Oteel and John Mayer. He seems great, actually. He's one of our better fans of the show. We can talk bad about Death Metal and stuff. It's going to be fantastic. He will be more on my side than you think. I guarantee it. I can't wait till we all

hang out, okay? I can't wait till we test out. And we all have to wear drug rugs and smell like fentanyl i would love that i'd love if we just jam out together luke okay i'll be the lead singer you can play belly drums like my dad's famous for yeah luke okay all right luke that's that wheel of death for the week but we have another segment we do for fun the email address to insert is called morningcombat at gmail.com dead wrong on Friday but Wednesdays are reserved

for you to send in your artwork, your animations, your pictures of you and your significant others wearing our clothing it's called fan submissions whoop whoop we've got mail alright Luke let's see how many of these folks were there January 6th.

We start with Ryan. Hey, Luke and Brian, a wee pic of me and my new Donk Army t-shirt at my in-laws' restaurant here in South Korea. Luke, love the show. Listen to it every day to and from work. Cheers to both of you. It's Ryan. This guy's got a lot of soul

brother yes yes dude he's got blow that picture up for just a second let me see that thing is it my imagination or is he wearing army fatigues for pants i think they're shorts they could have like paint stains on them luke i'm not really sure but he's looking good in armor look we have fans in south korea holy crap yeah dude i'm dying to go to south korea it looks awesome i really want to go congrats to this dude would you go to north korea luke uh i might go to like the dmz to take a look i don't have a hankering to go see a place like that you know what i'm saying yeah yeah i'm wondering what do you think ryan's story is luke why is he there bro look at him closely do you think he's on the run from like like creditors or something

do you think he was no i don't know no yeah it could be luke i was uh you know we have no we have no place for brian laundry jokes here or or pat tillman okay let's keep it going here luke all right uh joshua slides in says hey guys my daughter just lights up when luke brings his own We have no place for Brian Laundrie jokes here or Pat Tillman. Okay, let's keep it going here, Luke. All right. Joshua slides in and says, hey, guys, my daughter just lights up when Luke brings his own daughter on the show. Love your show. Can't wait for the new content to drop. Luke, if you're ever in San Luis Obispo area, let's get lit on pre-workout and crush some max deads. I don't know what that means, Luke, but look at this beautiful girl. She's very cute. And then she sees Viol look at this beautiful girl. She's very cute.

And then she sees Violetta and she loves her. That's very sweet. Uncle BC sliding in there. Yeah. Good cable man. Great cable man. San Luis Obispo is where Chuck Liddell is from. Yes.

Yes, he is. Remember when every sentence was like Chuck Liddell, who has a accounting degree, he is. Remember when every sentence was like, Chuck Liddell, who has an accounting degree. Remember back in those days when it was like, we are not savages. We just have Mohawks with head tats. Luke, big fan of Joshua and his family here. A lot of talk that, you know, my fun and games did stop Vio from crying

for that short few seconds, Luke. Yeah, I'm sure it was not resting on her father, but your nonsense that really did the trick. I can't wait to meet her, Luke. Is she okay? Did you get to the root of the problem? She's fine. She's fine.

She's just, she came back. Apparently she came back from the park and wanted to play with some kid's toy, and you have to share, and she had a two-year-old fit about it. What are you going to do? She's a big Splash Pad fan. Who isn't? Who isn't, BC?

Hey, Norman has three photos for us to look at. He says, here's some fan subs from P1's Bill and Jen. Wow, why is Norman sending in some Bill and Jen? I'm down with it though. Okay. Here's Jen at the Mesa arch, Luke, Bill and Jen continuing their West coast tour of the national parks, Canyon lands. Okay. This is a Mesa Verde Canyon lands and arches national park. So Luke, they did the tour there of Colorado of Utah. There's Bill at Glacier in Montana. Look, I love these two. When are we going to get

these two on the show, right? We should get in an RV and do MK on the road for like six weeks and see if we kill each other. That would be great. Actually, speaking of the whole Gabby Petito unfortunate situation, I hope Bill and Jen could have been on the scene as live corresponders

for us, Luke. An opportunity missed. Way to go bill and jen yes yes i'll continue your tour of the if they ever make it to the east coast luke like jersey city area we got to have these these two on the rooftop or you know what i'm saying uh i'll probably ignore and walk past them and not say hi because that's what i like to do but But yes, that's a good idea. Fine Americans, as you would say, Bill and Jen. Thank you, Norman, for sharing these pics. Love our friends there, wearing our merch, out there in the great wild west of our country. All right, Luke, here's Arthur.

He says, hey, MK team, this meme is made to honor Luke's feelings about the resume review curse. Can we zoom in please i don't get it we they're they're saying let's do a resume review on planet earth then it leads to the end of the world and then luke is still not willing to admit that the resume review is real is that the joke that's what that says that's the joke it's what that says that's the joke it's well done look it's well played by arthur see i don't think it's well played i think it's done quite poorly but uh appreciate you sending it in just the same do you think they

call him arty the one man party only when he's got tight shorts on yeah those guys usually end up in jail guys that are named that all right jose a is here he says hey donks it's jose afonso once again your number one fan from brazil with another meme while i don't believe in curses i do find it fascinating and hilarious that this streak is still going i would also like to clarify one thing for mr thomas even though i used a pepe meme last time it had no political connotation whatsoever i'm fully vaccinating and raiding the capitol building is not one of my hobbies candidly it's jose all right blow this one up because this one looks pretty good the curse of resume review she wants your winning streak who is that upside

down is it me it's you luke in like a jedi pose or something yeah Yeah. Not bad. Not bad. This one's better. Okay. I like the BC, like the thousand yard stare you got going there on the right. I think Jose Afonso, like the rapey French teacher David Appleton, is becoming a regular in these parts, like Dickles and Web Scream, right? Yes. I don't know if he's a French rapist. Perhaps he's a different kind, but they seem to be followers of our work unfortunately some people hate this segment i don't get it luke it's very masturbatory

from us but that's what we do right yeah exactly i mean if you're gonna come right i mean come on all right sean's here he says what's up guys i'm an illustrator from ireland y'all recently spoke about a former super group band i figured this band would need some album art a couple of merged memes here piece this together while watching doc five cheers and thanks for all the great content can we blow this up here vulgar display of anger that is fucking great is that a saint anger meets pantera it's a saint anger meets pantera meets tip-to-tip, it looks like. Wow. With a middle finger, too.

Wow. That is just excellent. That's pretty metal right there. That's just excellent. This should be the logo of all the documentaries. Yeah, I agree. A lot of talk about Doc Six, Luke, going to be filmed in Vegas around the Canelo fight.

It should be interesting. God, kill me. Luke, Doc Five is a critical and in Vegas around the Canelo fight. It should be interesting. God, kill me. Look, Doc Five is a critical and, dare I say, commercial success. Although, Luke, can you answer this for me real quick? We got almost 100,000 subscribers. How come we can't get more than 27,000 people to click play? Like, is there really two-thirds of our fan base that won't even try that shit?

They won't even, like like attempt to hit the button. Yes. I don't get that. I don't quite get it either, except that's just the way our audience works, bro. I don't know. I don't,

the answer is yes, but I don't have a good answer for yes. If that makes sense. All right. All right. Hey, Shane's back. He says, I'm a Baltimore on here. I good show guys. Let's cut to the chase. Pull back on the docks. Three in one year in retrospect is enough. Plowing ahead. Next time I'll have something for the mathlete. This time, here's something for the mathlete. turn up the gain on his live chat does not turn up i'm going to drive to dc and bowling ball his

leather cheerio cheers from baltimore luke what does bowling ball your cheerio me i don't know something that people from baltimore say when they're done cleaning old bay off of their fingernails um okay so is this supposed to be an iron maiden thing that's a call me crazy bc on a morning combat iron maiden cover that's interesting luke a straight jacket it's pretty good it's Iron Maiden thing? That's a Call Me Crazy BC on a Morning Combat Iron Maiden cover. That's interesting, Luke. A straight jacket. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

It's aggressive. I like the Morning Combat lettering. I don't like the Call Me Crazy lettering. Okay. Okay. Right? It's good. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. We got one more, Luke. This is from... Now, remember the guy that gave us the shoe? Jaime? Is it Jamie or Jaime? I don't know.

It's Jaime. It's Jaime. Hey, guys, this is the Shoei Donk. Made a quick trip to Vegas and had to stop by the Bet MGM Sportsbook and Bar where you guys held the live show for 264. Still rocking the shoes and putting them to use. 100% willing to donate them to the new studio yes keep up the great content you guys rock luke this fella hymie who allowed us to contract a few

different venereal diseases from his shoe i that's the best idea i ever heard i would actually love to like frame that shoe in like a glass box yes i think that is a perfect idea we absolutely need to add it to uh our eventual new studio although i would say you know i guess he has different shoes on i'm assuming he's not wearing these because i say dude as much as he wore them yeah i was gonna say as much as i appreciate you buying merch maybe don't buy our merch and get some new shoes that you know can't that they can't i mean look at this thing i think it enter a rap battle it's got a mouth so wide open um you know go get some sketchers or something okay okay thank you hi may if that's

your real name for wearing that merch right there you look great in it and for revisiting the scenes of the crime look i did get some feedback here some honest feedback from people that attended our live show and while they said they had a great time they they ate the cake they were part of our celebration they said it was really hard to hear the show while there we did not unfortunately yeah we never broadcasted to the house we need to make sure that when we do that show again we we do that they're requesting that we move it to the back corner or something you know we can only do what we do look i'm only the host okay yeah i was surprised they put us where they put us but it

was pretty nice actually that worked out in the end but they're right like if we're going to do that show we can't just broadcast to the people on youtube and have a live show and with a live audience you have to be able to broadcast to the live audience so we'll work on that for next time we'll work on that for next all right well we have a we will officially be in Las Vegas for Canelo we will be shooting a doc I hope we can do another live show there Luke if anyone wants to get their travel plans in order to be there and also Luke we have a resume review cooking it's cooking right now yes we do yes we do the train gonna put this shit to the test okay the pain train doesn't stop bc it does not quit oteal's gonna find out along with us whether you believe in things that are subjective luke or superstitious okay because

if the if the person that we're reviewing loses this curse curse is alive and well, Luke, okay? I'll be surprised if he loses. Yes, I would be very surprised. The thing I'm worried about for that weekend is most of our audience is MMA fans. If we go to Canelo Fight Week on the same time of UFC Fight Week, how many MMA fans do you think would be there in Vegas at that time? Canelo fight week on the same way time of UFC fight week. How many MMA fans do you think would be there in Vegas at that time? It's a fair question.

I'd like to see if we have a large amount of Las Vegas based listeners. I'm not really sure. Luke, I know we have a few local people, local folks stop by, but I don't know. I don't know that no one, the worst thing you could do, Luke is have a live show and have nobody show up.

Right? Yeah, that'd be bad. That'd be really bad. But we may be staring down the barrel of that gun, BC. That's an unknown future we have to face. Well, maybe, you know, we don't have to do that. We have a lot of plans for that week, Luke. I mean, I want to take pregame preview to the next level in Vegas.

You know what I'm saying, Luke? I want to go where no men have gone before. Does that mean we have to bang afterwards or something? We got to go further. I mean, what more do you want me to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right.

All right, folks. That's our show for today. Thank you. Okay. I want to thank everyone who watched. By the way, if you want to send in your fan subs or your dead wrongs morning combat at gmail.com morning combat at gmail.com that is going to be the place to get all of that in uh bc morning combat dot store that's going to be the place for all kinds of stuff not limited to

namely all the stuff he's wearing there and whatnot mugs hats shirts you name it morning combat dot store uh showtime.com you want to get a 30-day free trial you certainly can do that go to showtime.com and uh you can try it for 30 days if you like it keep it if not go pound sand and of course bc it should not be forgotten the two of boxing's biggest heavyweights are in vegas to battle it out for the third time draft DraftKings Sportsbook is putting new customers in the center of this weekend's bout with a can't-miss offer. Bet just $1 and win 100 in free bets if either boxer lands a punch. Watch the fist fly this Saturday as these guys turn their bad blood into your payday. That's a little grim.

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That code is COMBAT this Saturday only at the DraftKings Sportsbook. Use that code is combat this saturday only at the draft king sports but we see that code combat with a k folks please support what we're doing here the great folks at draft kings we know that you love fights why not sprinkle a little you know a little extra it's like it's like when you'd go when you're in your bong closet in college and you'd find like oh there oh there's some resin here. Let me, you know what I'm saying, Luke? Mm-hmm. Sprinkle a little of that shit on top. Yeah, a little bit of that good good. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, tell them BC sent you. All right, hey, thank you as well, Luke, to our five celebrities who sent in this week. Hopefully, Luke, I'll do this again. I'll do this again in a couple weeks. I like those. I like those, yeah. Those are nice. Those are good ones.

You did a good job with that, BC. I commend you for it. I'll do this again in a couple weeks. I like those. I like those. Yeah, those are nice. Those are good ones. You did a good job with that, PC. I commend you for it. Good job. Thank you. All right, like the video, hit subscribe. We are back on Friday. We will get you ready for all the weekend's fights, 11 a.m. in the east. Hit us up if you have any questions between now and then on social media

or at the aforementioned email addresses. Give us a nice review on Apple Podcasts if you have not done so. So, for Malka, Showtime, CBS Sports, the King of Connecticut himself, Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.