MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - CONOR BLASTS COWBOY! WHO IS NEXT? JORGE OR KHABIB?

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

Conor takes out Cowboy in 40 seconds! What did we learn? What will Conor's next move be? What should it be? Will he be boxing this year? As you can see, although impressive, that fight raises more questions as to the future of "The Notorious One". On the other side of this is Cowboy Cerrone. Where does Cowboy go from here and how does this fight affect his legacy?   In boxing you can catch Luke and Brtian with Paulie Malgnaggi on the weigh in show Friday afternoon, January 24th for the Showtime Championship Boxing card on Saturday January 25th featuring Danny "Swift" Garcia vs Ivan Redkach as well as on the Showtime live stream for the prelims on Saturday at 630pm eastern. We also discussed Jeison Rosario's shocking upset of Julian "JRock" Williams for the Unified 154 lb title.   #MorningKombat #McGregorCerrone #UFC246 MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL, Showtime's first live digital series, spotlights the weekend’s biggest news from the world of combat sports. MORNING KOMBAT airs live every Monday at 12 PM ET / 9 AM PT. Subscribe to Morning Kombat! https://bit.ly/2lPpvsj   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, the 20th of January, 2020. I feel like that's some kind of weird date in the Mayan calendar. I don't even know. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, and it is time for Morning Combat. Hosting this program alongside my trusty Steve and co-host from CBS Sports. Had a trending video on YouTube this past week. Hey, 4 million people can't be wrong, all right?

Hey, it's pretty good. Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. How are you? Fired up. Fresh off the plane from Vegas yesterday evening. And, dude, I hate to, you know, red panties. Yeah, we're back. The business is back. I mean, can you feel the rush? It's back, man. It was big. We have a lot to get to today. UFC 246 related and beyond housekeeping notes. Of course, please give the video a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button. We're trying to meet some goals. So help us get that out there and try to meet some gains, if you will, gains, goals and everything between. Tell a friend about it as well. All right, Brian, you ready? I'm

fired up. Let's do it, my friend. Shall we? Here we go. Don't you go dying on me. I got my cup condom. I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's do this. Topic number one. This one is very easy. Conor McGregor wins at UFC 246, only 40 seconds into the very first round, stopping Donald

Cerrone with strikes. Referee Herb Dean was the one who intervened, Brian. The question I think that we need to start today, and we can go a lot of different directions, I'll go first on this one. What would be the biggest takeaway from the win of Conor McGregor? And I will say this. We all said he had to win going into the weekend. Win he does.

But there was a question about what is actually really achievable with the win. If you get a split decision, what can you really say about that? If you dominated but it goes the distance, another set of narratives emerge. But what about the one where you beat Donald Cerrone faster than anyone's ever beaten him? What if you do it and he doesn't even land a glove on you? I still think we need to have some managed expectations. We didn't see his gas tank checked. We didn't see him go tank checked. We didn't see

him go into a third round and see if his game develops in any kind of new way. In fact, I did it for Dissected. What we saw on Saturday was just kind of, for the most part, shoulder strikes notwithstanding, kind of classic Conor McGregor. But here's what I will say was my biggest takeaway. In terms of what was achievable and in terms of what the goal was, get a win, re-inspire the fan base, get some good PR because he needed it, and show that even in a tight window, that 40-second window, you are a force to be reckoned with again, I think he succeeded wildly. I think on all of those terms, he succeeded. Now, did I see anything in there that told me he can beat Jorge Masvidal? It was 40 seconds.

I just didn't see a lot. Did I see anything in there, Brian Campbell, that told me he could beat Habib Nurmagomedov? It was 40 seconds. There was no wrestling. I just can't make that kind of determination. Did I see, though, a guy who reignited passions in the fan base, who got good press, who got an important win in his third weight class, who set himself up in the catbird seat to re-inspire imagination and get people to go to the turnstile at the box office.

He did all of it and then some. Everything that was possible, he did. That is my biggest takeaway. Absolutely. Look, what this was on paper, in an era in UFC with great matchmaking where you don't make get-well fights, this was a celebrity puffed-up get-well fight. Obviously, there was potential for him to lose it. There was some certain level of intrigue of Cowboy being a live dog and all that.

But UFC's goal with this fight was to revive Conor McGregor's pay-per-view brand. And from that standpoint, this was an absolute grand slam. You want to talk about giving at least the illusion. You're right, in 40 seconds, we can't answer any of those questions. Is he a legitimate welterweight, gas tank, wrestling, all that stuff. But yet in 40 seconds, a complete return, putting all the air back into the balloon of this guy being a dominant finisher. And I think at the end of the day, even though Conor can talk, and that's a big part of who he is,

the fact that he finishes elite- level opponents, usually after predicting and claiming it, is the number one calling card of why people keep coming and why he's such a great pay-per-view brand. And to return to that and to remove, you know, we talked about the crossroads where we're at here. If Conor didn't win this fight, if this was any kind of loss, it was disastrous. He would then become the, hey, let's fight Nate and let's find an exit strategy. What he did in those 40 seconds was completely remove that. That's off the table. Whether he beats Masvidal or Habib or Gage or anybody else next or not, that's off the table.

He's not a train wreck. He is somebody who seems like excess took a toll on him over the last couple of years, but he regrouped and put that back. And then you want to talk about from a marketing point of view what this means for the rest of 2020. 40 seconds is 40 seconds. People are going to go, oh man, I didn't really learn what I came to learn. Oh, it was entertaining, but I wanted more. I wanted two rounds of action. From a business perspective, that's the best way that fight could have finished because those same questions we had coming in, is he all these things? We now push that ahead to the next fight. And that level of intrigue will keep you coming back, I think, at a higher pace than had he spent two rounds in there decimating him. It's almost like there's still a little bit of that

illusion left. And we come for McGregor to see the show, but because he's so polarizing, there's always going to be that cut of the population who comes for the chance to say, I told you so. He's not that guy. And when you win in 40 seconds, you still leave some of those questions out there. Genius for marketing, the way it played out. I don't think UFC and Dana White could be doing anything

but bathing in dollars after this. I'm sure you've seen it. I posted a piece of hate mail I got because I apparently refused to call it a fixed fight. You see a lot of the fixed fight birds coming out here. I'm not suggesting that they're in number enough that anyone should be concerned, nor am I suggesting there's any real merit to the position. I don't think that there is, but that's not the point. The point being is Conor was so dominant inside

that 40 second window, a small window, but still he was so dominant. People, particularly his critics, maybe more than just his critics, his haters, the people who just can't stand the guy, it brought them out into full force. He is a magnetism, or I should say a magnet, rather, for controversy in all forms, frivolous, fun, serious, and everything in between. And you're going to carry, as you noted, that part forward. Plus, we were sort of worrying about this pre between. And you're going to carry, as you noted, that part forward. Plus, we were sort of worrying about this pre-fight. Is he going to inspire us to reconsider his heights?

Or are we about to discover what his floor is? In part, to your point, the question is still kind of valid. We don't really know. But I would say people might be starting to tilt towards, we might be rediscovering a little bit more of a renewed possibility here, a renewed height seeking reach. So you sort of pleased everyone with the result, ultimately. You pissed off who you were supposed to piss off, and you pleased everyone who you were

supposed to please, and that is some serious momentum. And on top of it, one of Conor's biggest critics during fight week was actually Dana White, who all this talk about potentially Jorge next or potentially all these other things which we can get into, Dana was still steadfast through Thursday, I'm sorry, through Friday after the weigh-in when he did a little mini scrum with media backstage, and he told us, I don't think Conor should fight any of these 170s. Even Cowboy is too big for him. That's the boss saying that on Friday when Conor went out and decimated Cowboy at 170.

Yes, they're blown up lightweights. All of that is actually true. But when your proof in your eyes show you a full 170-pound man looking that crisp, that imaginative, that explosive, and that short window, even Dana afterwards said, I'm no longer going to make those comments if anybody wants. Like, that's impressive. Cerrone went the distance with Robbie Lawler. Now, Conor wanted to claim that he has the wins in three different weight classes.

He was the first person to do it. Well, he's the first person to do it at featherweight, lightweight, and welterweight. He's done knockouts at all three. Stoppage losses, but even then, Jared Cannoneer has it at heavyweight, lightweight, heavyweight, middleweight, so he's actually not the first, but he might be the first in those divisions, and that's still impressive in its own right. Only reason I bring it up is I had some concerns about his power. Not that I thought it was phony, but Nate Diaz does have a good chin, but it's just

one opponent, two fights. What do we really know? And here's what I'll say. Robbie Lawler couldn't put Donald Cerrone away, and their fight started identically with smashing into the clinch. I remember that. Robbie Lawler kind of bombed on him early, and in that one, Cerrone hung on at least to lose a decision,

but he didn't get stopped. He just didn't have that opportunity here against Conor all this time later. But my point about the power, what's kind of interesting about it is I don't know exactly if he's as big a power puncher at 170 as at 155 because I want to see him fight somebody who, yes, cowboy went from 155 to 170 and had 10 fights at 170 and beat good guys. But to really see, to really see, I need to see somebody who can't make 155 like a Tyron Woodley. But here's what I would say no matter what, he pretty clearly has enough firepower for 170. He clearly can hold his own there one way or the other. When he's dialed in, which was the theme of this week, right?

From that first press conference on Wednesday, where we're like, okay, what Connor are we going to get? Rattled Connor? Aggressive trash on Connor? No, we got gentlemanly, humorous, jovial, humble Connor. And I know some of the debate all week was, is that the actual guy, or is this just a very smart PR campaign to sort of go up against the negative headlines, the sexual assault accusations, all of that. And it's not like we didn't see what happened at the press conference when they shut Morgan

Campbell down. That was, you know, a kick to the face of journalism, by the way. But that notwithstanding, you know what the biggest accomplishment I think Conor had this week, even better than reviving himself as a legitimate fighter and proving he can fight at 170, this was a masterful work of PR. I mean, an absolutely masterful work. And you know it's true when you know your own friends in the business, your own media friends, your own friends who work for UFC, who you know are non-Conor guys, who are like, man, that POS,

you know, off the record to you are going, hey, man, if Conor acts like he just did the last couple of days publicly more often, I love that guy. I love that. Remember that guy? I love that guy. Sign me up. I'm not a guy who hates Conor McGregor, but I didn't love the way he would treat other opponents, Aldo and Alvarez. I got to tell you, I've never liked Conor McGregor more than I liked him this week. And I respect Conor after the fight when he was asked about that at the press conference, what would happen if and when you fight Habib again?

And he was like, honestly, he's like, look, this is who I am. You may see me sparked again. But whether this was 100% authentic, whether this was a man who in this wild three years since he was last on top of the mountain in UFC has really gone through enough-ish, a lot of it self-inflicted,

I can believe that he's partially enough of a changed man to make that feel real to me, what he's saying. But even if it's bullshit, that's a masterful PR move because he kind of went through there and revived himself in a way that the best historical combat sports superstars, the ones that you cannot get enough of. I'm talking about Ali, Tyson, Mayweather. They were able to constantly float between being a hero and villain in the public eye and just kind of just change genres constantly. And that gray area is really where the interest level is because it makes you care about them. If you're predetermined to hate them, you have

plenty of reason to keep hating them. If you're predetermined to worship and idol them, then they give you plenty of reason. But in between that gray area, they're showing so much humanity that it's so relatable that Conor is obviously the star of this era, of this lifetime, just from the standpoint of ticket sales. But I think from the standpoint of capturing our imagination, and this week was that new chapter. This was like David Bowie going, hey, I did a funk album and a rock album. Let's try a country one.

This was Conor sort of going, hey, let's try to be America's sweetheart. And it worked. I'll tell you this, last thing about it was what I would say is a lot of folks were worried because if you looked at the way he was before, he'd have this intensity and this animosity and this sort of verve that would carry right through into the fight. It was all kind of one note by design. And we thought, well, if he's going to be one note and he's calm, does that mean he's going to be a different fighter? Is he going to be too calm? Or is he going to trade off something for maturity in terms of being a fighter? Well, it turns out, not at all. He was as ferocious as normal when the fight began. Look, had cleaned up mechanics. Again, a lot of classic Conor weapons, a couple of new ones thrown in there for good measure.

But I will tell you, to me, it's like, look, will he stay out of trouble? Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea. But I would actually say if you're a Conor McGregor fan, maybe you like the old days of antagonism. And I still kind of think if he gets face to face with Khabib, you're going to get a whole lot of that back. If anybody, well, Cowboy didn't throw anything at him. We have to remember that, right? In the pre-fight, Cowboy did nothing but be like, I respect this guy. Yeah, assiduously avoided it. I don't think Jorge is going to do that and we know Khabib's not going to do that, at least in terms of what he represents. But here's my point. If you're a Conor fan, you should be heartened

because I actually think rather than a change being a distraction, if he is to achieve new heights, Brian Campbell, I don't think he can do it without the change. I don't think he can do it without being a little bit older, a little bit wiser, a little bit more of pick my battle smartly, stay focused in training, and we'll see if he says he's going to go back to training

after one or two days off. We'll see if that actually happens. I tend to think that it will. But to me, I likened it on my post-fight show to Tiger Woods changing his golf swing. And that's nerve-wracking. Or how about even the... Or his women habits, yeah. That too. But how about the Pelicans teaching Zion Williamson how to run again? I mean, these are very, you think, wow, that's really scary. What if we don't get that right? But it turns out that those kinds of changes under the right conditions, under the right sort of leadership, or in that particular case, medical supervision.

This is a little bit of a different case. Those are actually what you need to take the next step. And for me, I've got to tell you, not only did I like the way he was acting on fight week, I don't know what the situation is with the sexual assault allegations, we'll see what happens, but in terms of, I think, setting himself up to maximize his potential, that is the Conor, that's the Conor McGregor at age 30 or 31 that he needs to be to get the best out of himself. He cannot do it doing the same old things. I want to say this, when you, you know when we give takes on any polarizing athlete,

you get half of the population being like, oh, you're a, you know, you're a whatever. And certainly, you always have to put in play this. When a star is on the level of Conor, when he wins and is back like this, yes, it helps everybody. It helps our careers. It helps everybody. We put that out there just to say it. But one thing, I kind of want to believe the image that he put through.

I don't know if you saw the interview with Ariel Hawane last Monday on ESPN when Conor talked heavily about, you know, drinking in the training camp for Khabib, getting into like real sparring situations without headgear, knocking people out and then taking three days off and going out and partying. It's obvious that that version of him at 229, whether or not Khabib would always beat him or not, right? That's not the best possible version of Conor McGregor. He was living the I'm the King life at that point.

The fact that, look, he's such a great loser. Conor McGregor's the best loser UFC has ever seen because... Ben Askren's a pretty good one. There's a few of them, but he gets right back on track. He wants a rematch right away. He wants to publicly kind of talk it out and figure out what went wrong and share with you. I think he was doing that again, saying,

I was in some pretty bad things in 2018 and 2019. I was believing my hype train a little bit too much. The fact that he seems to come around full circle on that, I'm not here to completely advocate him as a human. I'm here to tell you that this is a compelling story that's ongoing and it's hard not to be behind, if not cheering for him to win, which we don't really cheer for win and lose in journalism. Obviously there's a reason not to, but cheering for him to be relevant and to be there at the table and to be the very best of him, I've got to give him credit

for what he was able to do this weekend in that regard. He could have gone down the path of self-destruction. And again, the jury's still out. We're still very early into the process. That's the best decision you ever made. I mean, the amount of noise that Jay's letting into my ear hole right now

is just ridiculous. The point being is this, and we'll move on to topic two, which is, I'll say this. Again, the journey's not over. It's going to be a long while before he can really find something to really say he's a brand new person. He's going to have to stay out of trouble. Certainly, all that is the case, but he could have gone down that path of self-destruction. He had the financial wherewithal. He had the

career accomplishments. And something about the whole situation, again, his own malfeasance included, has sort of forced this change. I want to see it brought to its full potential, but you have to kind of commend that. You have to commend the guy who made a choice, and he took the harder, more difficult approach of the two in terms of rebuilding some things that had been lost. People love winners, first and foremost. The casual public that buys pay-per-views, they love redemption stories even more. I mean, that's really the bottom line. He has that potential.

And the redemption story will continue. Here we go to topic two, which is, okay, great win for Conor. Superb win, really. Again, best I think he could have done given the circumstances. So what's next? He is saying he's not looking at opponents. He's saying he's looking at the calendar. Maybe March, maybe May.

We'll have to see. But the two finalists, Brian Campbell, go first on this one. They are Habib Nurmagomedov at 155, which Dana White says, whether we agree or not, he is entitled to a title shot, Conor McGregor, or at 178 with Jorge Masvidal. Who should be next for Conor McGregor? I got to give Dana credit, all right? Dana is who he is, right? He's the greatest carnival barker of our era and our generation. I don't know if you heard the speech he gave at the post-fight press conference. Go back and listen to it if you haven't. It's the most lustful, energized, yet detailed and passionate speech

of why Habib needs to be next. We all kind of, no matter what you prefer in this question, Jorge or Habib or Gage G or Nate or whatever in this spot, I think you're all going to agree that the most money is in Habib. So by default, we're sort of saying it's probably going to end up going that way. Dana's consistent in saying that. But to hear Dana break down and compare this type of rivalry to, you know, Ali and Frazier in terms of the hatred between them and the importance of this, it does remind you that

it's rare to ever get a fight or a fight series or a rivalry up to that level where it crosses you know beyond sports fans where it is front page news for everybody where you just have to see it because you have a vested interest in oh that guy threw the dolly through the window at that guy oh that guy said bad things about that religion the guy's religion or that guy's cousins attacked him out you know you're on one side of the fence on this when you have a window to make that when both brands are potentially, if Habib gets through Tony in April and doesn't get injured, both brands are ready and they're active and they're coming off wins and they're prime, and you have a chance to run that back again when you're more or less guaranteed it's going to break

the pay-per-view level. And when Dana boasts things like saying, I think this can move 3 million pay-per-views, this ain't Bob Arum saying Tyson Fury 2 is going to do 2 million or Joe Testor saying it's going to do 4 or 5. This is a legitimate claim. If this is promoted right, this is an insane sort of all-time level beef that has legitimate connections to each of their legacies. Habib's unbeaten record, Conor's redemption story, trying to come back here after sort of falling out of line of being a real fighter the last three years and trying to put it back on the tracks. Obviously, they have clashing styles, clashing personalities, clashing nations, clashing fan groups. This fight means so much more than a one-night, one-off of a Masvidal BMF fight that I think you go at all costs and all lengths to make

it so there's no chance something happens that would stain it a little bit. And I'm not just talking about its financial potential. I'm talking about its importance level. It's now. It's time. Let me ask you, how competitive do you think a second fight would be? Because that's part of the equation here. I don't know because Conor was unable in 40 seconds to answer a lot of the questions that we needed. And to a certain degree, Cowboy was never going to be able to provide hard enough questions to get those answers. But again, the fact that we don't know that, yet believe Conor is revived and believe in our hearts, if you do believe this by watching his interviews, that 229 was not the very best of him.

I think it's very sellable that he can win that fight. And I think that drama alone. Look, I think it's very sellable that he can win that fight. And I think that drama alone, look, I love Jorge. When Conor says Jorge has a history of, I'm sorry, when Conor says Tony and Habib have a history of pulling out and that he doesn't even think that fight is going to happen, I mean, what the hell? Habib's fought seven times in six years. That's not a lot. That's a track record of injury and issue staying out. But if Habib beats Tony and he's healthy, you won million percent cash to that in right now, and it's not just about the money.

I love the Jorge fight, but that's a one-nighter. That, to me, is a one-time, one-off thing where I think, like, with Conor and Habib, you're creating the rivalry of this era. DC and Jon Jones moves me unlike any rivalry, but that rivalry's still kind of one-sided. This has the potential to be something next level. Well, if that rivalry is one-sided, I mean, that first fight between DC and Jones went the full distance.

This one with Khabib and Conor did not. Now, to your point about whether or not the second one would be competitive, certainly I would never want to count out the possibility of Conor to get better, to have a different kind of mindset. If he's locked in at 155, the kind of extra training and really focused dieting that's required as a general life focus in general, or say, as a framework, yes, that would be part of it as well. But I've got to tell you, I think you've got to go with Jorge Masvidal. And the reason why is you say we shouldn't let anything get in front of it, but they already did. They already booked Khabib Nurmagomedov taking on Tony Ferguson.

And just like Frankie Edgar, ill-advisedly taking the fight against Chan Sung Jung, although that's a bit of a different thing. But the point I made was, even if, even if Frankie gets through that fight, you're not getting out of there unscathed. Do you really think that Habib is going to get out of there with a Tony Ferguson fight without taking... Well, can I amend quick and just tell you? The guy's never been knocked down. He's never been cut. I get you. You asked me what's the pick. The choice is Habib,

but you're right. There's many ways in fact where that wouldn't happen. So let me get to that. Again, with Tony Ferguson, again, Habib Nurmagomedov, never been cut, never been knocked down. He's going to get one of those. One of those is going to happen to him in that fight. That's first of all. Second of all, it takes place in May. With Ramadan, sorry, April.

What am I saying? With Ramadan, unless they had a super quick turnaround, now it's not going to happen until August or so, maybe even September. That doesn't fit Conor's particular narrative. Third, I noticed something this past week. Before the fight, so the fight had not even taken place, I saw that the scrum of Jorge Masvidal, the night he was launching his mezcal, went and trended on YouTube. I've never seen that before. I've seen many, many times after a fight a video trends from Conor or De Diaz or Jorge or whoever. But Jorge wasn't fighting on the card, wasn't fighting at all,

just showed up, promoted his liquor, and that video hit over a million views and trended on YouTube. The big momentum right now is behind that guy. There's no guarantee that Habib is going to beat Tony. And even if he does, he's not going to be ready on a three-fight season schedule that Conor is talking about. The biggest fight you can make right now in terms of just sales, it could be Habib if it's promoted right. I agree.

But I mean, if we're talking turnaround, about getting assets to market, about getting pen to paper, well, that's Jorge Masvidal. He's going to be much readier, much quicker. Plus, here's the other part about it. If you're Conor McGregor, think about Kamar Usman. Kamar Usman's already beaten Tyron. He's already beaten Leon. He's already beaten Colby.

He's already beaten RDA. Only guy he hasn't beaten is Jorge Masvidal. Now, I'm not saying this would be fair, Brian Campbell, but fairness ain't got fuck all to do with it when Conor's around. No, obviously. If Conor beats Jorge Masvidal, dude, he's getting that title shot against Kamar Usman, whether he should or he shouldn't. But here's the deal. He's already got the Habib one in the bag.

You go and you beat Jorge Masvidal, dude, you have, I mean, the world at that point, truly your oyster. He can get the title shot in any division he wants without going through anybody. He can't get it right now against Kamar. Yeah, he could. that point, truly your oyster. He can get the title shot in any division he wants without going through anybody. He can't get it right now against Kimura. Yeah, he could. He could, he won't. Dude, Jose Aldo might be getting a title shot. Which we'll talk about later.

But that's bantamweight. That's not welterweight. Brock Lesnar was coming back from a steroid test and was guaranteed a title shot. He's not getting the shot. Okay, number one. Number two, Conor has had a magical way, Luke, of always not just being a great loser, but having a built-in excuse, right? Well, I moved up two weight classes to fight Nate on short notice, right? It's a perfect excuse to say, well, that may have not been the real Conor. Even losing to Habib as one-sided

as he did and then taking 15 months off, he's already kind of turning the wheels and saying, well, yeah, but I was drinking too much. He's the master at sort of setting that up. So depending on which lane he takes, Habib 155, Jorge 170, a potential of a one-sided loss kind of removes him from the discussion in that weight division right away for a title, right? So if he loses to one of them, he's got to go back to the other division. I think it would be smarter to try to get him right back in there with Habib if it could be made, because it's the biggest fight you could ever make. And if he should lose it, then you just have to look. How many fights do you, how many buys? If he should lose it.

How many buys does Mayweather, excuse me, how many buys does Masvidal versus McGregor sell? Do you think it is anything less than two? If he should lose it, Luke, then he just moves up to 170 officially, and it's like nothing happened, and you can still do the Masvidal fight. You can just go the other way to 155 if you lose to Masvidal. And you can do on the flip side. So wouldn't you do the one that would make more money?

Look, the Habib play... No, you would do the one that's less consequential and you would wait for the other guy to get ready after a fight with Tony Ferguson in Ramadan. There's no other way to do it. You're the UFC and you just learned in a three-year gap of McGregor's unpredictability that he has the potential to make more money than he knows what to do with

that can keep him out of the cage. You have a chance to do this, Habib, when you do it, Luke. And by the way, these decisions cannot be made until April because you have to see if Habib can win and not get hurt. And then you're telling me, well, then that would push the timeline too far. Do you know the little trinket they can give to Conor? They can say, how about you open Raiders Stadium in Vegas in August against Habib? And it'll be outside in front of 60,000 people.

Ramadan 2020 goes until late May, basically. He wouldn't be ready outside in front of 60,000 people. So Ramadan 2020 goes until late May, basically. He wouldn't be ready to fight until late June, early August. Okay, so we do that in August. You still allow Conor a chance to fight in December if you did that. And by the way, that fight could be boxing. It could be anything. You can't make this decision until April. You cannot. And you wait to see what happens. And I agree with you that there's many ways that this Habib fight can fall apart right now based on that Tony fight. I agree with you. But if everything works out, they're going in that direction and they should go in that direction. I think you go Jorge next because if he loses at 170, if he wins at 170, holy shit, the world will be set on fire.

If he loses, he can go right back to 155 and it makes no difference to me. Now we got to move on because... Hold on, which brand do you think is bigger long-term potential for the UFC, Habib or Jorge? Well, neither particularly. Jorge is a little bit too old. He's 34. He'll be still very competitive, but how many years left, it's hard to say. And Habib, I don't know that he has much longer. He's much younger, obviously, 33 or 31.

I just don't know how much longer he wants to do it. So that's a little bit harder to say. Plus, Jorge would be good for Latin American markets. We already know the story about Habib. Let's move on to the third of those fights, because they were asking about this at the post-fight press conference. Would you take a boxing fight, Conor McGregor, in 2020? And he said, we'll see, because the way it could go, Brian,

is whether it's Habib or Jorge next, we'll have to end up seeing, doesn't mean he has to fight Khabib. What if Khabib's not ready? What if, on the other hand, Brian Campbell, it ends up being Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather? What would you say is, let me ask you the question in this way, what would you rather see if he's going to take a boxing fight? Would you rather see him rematch Floyd, or would you rather see him fight Manny?

Do you have a preference there, or would you rather see him just avoid that altogether? I would rather see him avoid it altogether as a fan in me. I want to see him come back and fight three times in MMA and see if he can have a legitimate second chapter of his career, all the things we're talking about, be a title contender in two divisions, all that. There's way too much money on the table for him not to take a boxing match this calendar year. I firmly 100% believe he will close the year. Win or lose in his second fight of this year in MMA, he will close the year in a boxing match. It just seems

to match up with the priorities of Dana White and this fledgling Zufa boxing thing that he wants to get off the ground. It would just make a ton of sense that way. I know people are interested in the idea of a Manny Pacquiao fight because they haven't seen it yet. Here's the problem. Manny's still too good. He's still too great. He would absolutely destroy McGregor. He would attack from the same angles and quickness that dropped Keith Thurman, right? Your unbeaten welterweight champion at that point, McGregor would have a hell of a time

with despite the size advantage. If he's going down the boxing road, I think Floyd Mayweather's the fight to make. You're adding extra level of intrigue because Floyd will be 43. He will have been out of a competitive environment going all the way back to the 2017 first McGregor fight. And you're putting on the line Floyd's 15-0 record. Floyd built his entire marketing campaign around that zero, TBE, all of that stuff. If he would somehow retire with one loss and it was to an MMA, obviously that's the sell right there.

And I think with the years gone by, Conor may have overachieved in that first fight. Maybe Floyd didn't turn it on too late. There's a lot of things you can say. But he didn't embarrass himself. And I'm not here to say I love this and I want this, but I'm here to say it's happening, and I'm here to say Floyd brings much more compelling opportunities in there of why the bizarre and farcical thing

of putting him boxing against an MMA guy actually has historical implications because this is not an exhibition. This would be a real fight, and Floyd's zero would be in line. First of all, you're absolutely right about Manny Pacquiao. For folks who didn't realize this, he's been on fire of late. I know he's 40 years old plus at this point, but he hasn't looked this good in years. Ever since he beat Lucas Matisse, he has been on an of late. I know he's 40 years old plus at this point, but he hasn't looked this good in years. Ever since he beat Lucas Matisse, he has been on an absolute tear. This is not the time for McGregor to fight a guy like that, period. The answer is obviously Floyd. For all the reasons

you mentioned, plus I'll heap on it one more. Yes, 43. I mean, I don't know how competitive it was the first time. It's to a degree up for interpretation. It would be more competitive this time. I firmly believe that. But here's the real reason why you want to do it beyond the fact, because, look, would a McGregor-Pacquiao fight sell? Yeah, it would do really big business. Maybe not as much as one with Floyd for a rematch, but still good enough. But here's the reality, Brian.

You know this as well as I do. Floyd is the MMA boogeyman. He reigns. No boxer has grabbed the consciousness of MMA fans more than Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather drives MMA fans crazy because he trolls them, because he beat their most celebrated star in a fight that was designed for him to look good. Then he goes to Japan and beats all of the Japanese hardcore MMA fans, delight and tension, Naskawa, and so on and so on. And he keeps antagonizing them and he keeps egging them on. And to a degree, you have to admit, the blueprint that Mayweather built for himself

in terms of his self-promotion as well as his financial aggrandizement, Conor followed a lot of it. Smartly, I'm not even bagging on him. It was the right thing to do. Look at the success of it, right? So Floyd is the guy that MMA fans want to see lose more than anyone. You have to make it that direction. It's more competitive.

It might make more money. And it means more to the community. Because Pacquiao, frankly, to MMA fans, kind of revered. They really like his all-action style. They may not have been keeping up with his most recent fights, but if you ask him, do you have a positive view of Manny Pacquiao? Well, the fight against Mayweather sucked, but in general, he's got good knockouts. He goes for it. Dana White was saying he's his favorite boxer. He bought the Manny Pacquiao shoes, the whole nine yards. So you have to go in the Floyd Mayweather

direction. Now, do I want them to go in that direction? I'd like to see a year where he fights Cerrone, Masvidal, and then Nurmagomedov. To me, that would be the best year he could possibly have. But I get it. Suva Boxing was supposed to have an announcement in October. October passed. November passed. December passed. We're now in January. They're still kind of hinting at it. They need those two to put some electrical charge into that Frankenstein. All right, let me ask you this. Let's say we did that fight in December for whatever. Floyd, Maymac 2. Here we go.

Let's say Conor's second fight, he loses, but loses respectfully. Okay. So the brand is not damaged. He just lost a hell of a fight against Habib or whatever. We going 5 million pay-per-view buys for Maymac 2, or would it be muted and go down to about three and a half because we've seen it already? I mean, the potential, if you market this right, I mean, I don't know. The perfect storm of that media tour, that Showtime, so well put on, by the way, the first two stops, incredible performance art. The last two, I want to forget they ever happened.

That was a perfect storm within it, within a perfect storm. Like, that was just the, you know, talk about selling a fight. Could you grind it up to actually exceed the 4.4? I'll tell you this much. If he loses, let's say he fights Masvidal and loses, but loses respectfully, I think you end up doing less. But let's say he goes out there and starches Masvidal. One punch, KOs him flat, stiff, the whole nine yards.

Jose Aldo saw him. Maybe not 13 seconds, but similar kind of just frozen body. The kind of way that Masvidal left Ben Askren. I think in that particular context, you actually might be able to do more. To me, it really hinges on how he looks in his next fight. Is he really back-back, or is he back in that, did he stop the bleeding? That's really the question. Really, if it was going to be more than the last time, you have to

give them a good reason to think that. A good way to show that would be to change your lifestyle and then have the results match the lifestyle to say, aha, now we're, now when we circle back here, because time is a flat circle, Brian Campbell, now we have a chance.

Now we have a chance to do things a little bit differently this time. But if he goes in there and he kind of shows us that we already saw his ceiling, I tend to think not. There you go. Fair? I like that. Very fair. All right.

You're fair, but you're firm. You're like Joe Cortez. Here we go. Here we go. No 90s and no dongs. We're on a good run right now. That train's never late, buddy. All right.

Okay. So that takes us to our fourth topic. Now, one piece of news that was big, you were there all fight week, was not about Conor McGregor, believe it or not, but it was about what's coming down the horizon for the UFC's calendar. In March, UFC 248, if memory serves, is going to be Israel Adesanya defending his title against Yoel Romero. And they didn't make a date official, but it appears that UFC bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo is going to fight Jose Aldo. Now, what's the common denominator

between both of those, Brian Campbell? Yoel Romero coming off of a loss. A hard-fought loss, a controversial loss, but a loss just the same. Jose Aldo, you can say the same thing about Marlon Marais. People have said, is this the end of meritocracy? Is there anything different about the two scenarios? I have to tell you, this is where I come down. I have no problem whatsoever with Adesanya versus Romero. I have every problem with Aldo versus Zahouda. Let me tell you why. I want to see where you come down on this.

Here's why I think there's a critical difference. One, he has missed weight a few times. That's not great. Which, credit to Jose Aldo, he made his one time advance in weight, no issue. But in Yoel Romero, while he is long in the tooth and he has had weight issues, he's also made it before as well. It's not like he's always a problem. But more importantly, he's got a long, decorated history down there.

He has been at middleweight a very long time. Two, he's beaten many former champions. At 205, that was where he was a champion, but he stopped with strikes. Leo DiMicino. He stopped Chris Weidman. He stopped Luke Rockhold, and so on and so forth. He has been shown to be devastating against that division's elite year over year. And sure, he lost to Robert Whitaker, but I thought he won the second fight. Against Costa, coin flip. Could have gone either way, all right?

Which you can see the same for Aldo and Marais, but fine. He beat USADA, too. I'll let you make that claim. But the point being is this. He has shown to be a demonstrated winner down there against very, very clear opposition. Two, most importantly, there's no one in front of him. If you want to go through the rankings perspective, that's one way. Of course, it should be Costa.

That's the way it would go, but he's not ready. Whitaker's out there, but he just lost, and obviously he's got some issues he has to work with, so that's a separate issue. There's no other real contender out there in front of him. I know Kananir is close. He might end up fighting Till. We'll have to see how that whole thing goes. But from a position of the guy's been down there, the guy's beaten champions, and really there's no one else in front of him, the UFC has a choice to make here.

They want to keep Adesanya busy. This is the way to go. Aldo, to me, is totally different. He has no record at bantamweight other than one fight, which he lost. Granted, it was close. You could have gone either way, but that's it. Okay, he made weight, and that's fine. But the other part is, if you look in the rankings, Aldo, do you know where he's sitting right now in the rankings? No. Eight. He is sitting at eight. Those rankings are bullshit, though. Okay, you're going to put him a lot higher?

You're going to put him higher than, and this is the important part, Peter Yan? You're going to put them higher than Aljamain Sterling? I know those aren't the sexiest fights. Those are deserving fighters. Corey Sanhagen? Sanhagen's sitting at four. Those are two, three, and four right there. You can go.

So here is my point. It is so shitty to those guys who've been putting in the work to go this direction. The last thing I'll say, Brian, before I pitch it to you and you're shit-eating Cheshire cat for in. Wow, wow. The last thing I'll say, Brian, before I pitch it to you and you're shit-eating Cheshire cat-girl, I'm teasing, is this. The only reason they're doing it is because Brazil's old stars have not produced enough new ones. This is to give a jolt to the Brazilian market that really kind of need ones. Costa was the fight to make for Adesanya, and they couldn't. We'll see if they can get that going, if you can get the path from there. I had faith in Korea, but you betcha she didn't pan out, right?

Fair enough. So this is the reason they're doing it. Because, yes, he's got a little bit more star power. Do you really think Aldo versus Cejudo does gangbusters on pay-per-view? It does not. Might do more than Cejudo versus Peter Jan, but that's not the reason. Peoche Jan, please. Get it right. Fair enough. The reason is they've got to give it an old pat on the rear end to the Brazilian market, and that's all they're saying. All right, Luke, can I talk yet, or do you want to finish the show? Go ahead, Peasant. So you're 100% right on Jose Aldo?

It's bad aesthetics. It's bad for the ranking system. It's bad that we're not even talking about an empty division. If this was an empty division, you'd be like, I'll grab any star who has a pulse that I can put him in there. You're right. All those guys deserve it. Corey Sanhagen, you're the man. You should be publicly being like, this is BS.

Yet I love it, Luke. I love the shit out of it. Jose Aldo at 135 has the potential to be an absolute killer. Kind of left the back door open against Maraischen. It's his fault he lost that fight. This is one of those where I'm telling you it's the wrong move, but it feels so right. So can we just go forth with it? I don't think it feels that right.

Are you really dying to see that fight? I am. Really? Why? Look, Jose Aldo, I've got a lot of respect for him. But as a fan, I never really bought in on Jose Aldo. He's kind of boring. He is what he is. Something about this turn of old Jose Aldo, something about

the way he fought against Max twice, being so willing to go out on his shield, and the way he's attempted to sort of revive himself in the past few years, and now the dedication and the commitment to this cut to 135. I think there's a window for here for him to actually become a champion in this division

and put a nice capstone on his legacy. Does he deserve this title shot? No. Are they doing it for business and all those reasons? Yes. But there's only one man who can save us from this cringe, and it just might be Jose Aldo. I don't think he does.

He's doing his own version of Portuguese-spoken cringe, and neither the Romero... Hey, Captain Cringe wants it, though. Dude, since when has that... I know Dana was like, they both want it. And? Since when has that ever mattered in any other... There was a fight called Bizping Henderson 2. It mattered

there. Exactly. Here's why it matters. It matters when, well, we want to make more money with this fight than with that fight. But the idea that because both competitors want it, that's a reason to do it. That's only a reason to do it when the UFC also wants to do it. It's never ever moved them when they didn't want... It's not like they

didn't want to put in the fight and they go, well, both guys want it, so I guess we have no choice at this point. It's never ever moved them when they didn't want. It's not like they didn't want to put in the fight and they go, well, both guys won it, so I guess we have no choice at this point. It's just a convenient excuse to make it. Look, man, I don't think it sells that much more than it was before. It's good for the Brazilian market. Obviously, if he wins, it'd be tremendous. But what if he doesn't and he goes in there and he looks terrible? Now

what? Now what do you do? You just, you burned an opportunity to make the right fight. He doesn't look any good at Bantamweight. There's a lot of different ways this could go just terribly, terribly wrong. There's a lot of ways it can go great by the way. And shout out to Adesanya's balls because Dana echoed this. He's like anyone that might have a problem with this,

what else do I want my stars to do but be like, I want the toughest guy in the jail. So let's do it right now, day one. Most top boxers, top fighters would be like woof, don't have to take on that guy. Someone else took care of it for me. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. I want to make sure I get a character for taking care of it. No, no, no. I plan on fulfilling my legacy. And it starts right now. Like buckle up. Like let's, let's, let's be there. All right. And last but not least, Brian and I, you can catch us at the Barclays center on Saturday

because Showtime championship boxing is back. And in your main event, Danny Garcia returns to the Barclays Center, which he has not won his last two times out there, by the way. So he has won there many times, but the last two have not been that case when he takes on Ivan Redcatch. So the belief behind this one, Brian, tell me if you agree, is that, well, Danny's probably the better boxer of the two. Certainly got better wins, although the Devin Alexander win is a nice win for Red Cash.

Okay, but in the end, he is looking to stay busy because he's got eyes on a bigger prize. Is that a fair way to look at this, or are we giving Ivan too little credit? No, this is a fun stay-busy fight. We have to understand, this was supposed to be Errol Spence Jr. That's what the plan was. You remember after Errol Spence beat Sean Porter, Danny Garcia's in the ring. They were supposed to do it this time of the year. Obviously, Spence's accident has delayed it. So there's a reason why Danny Garcia's looking to

get a southpaw in there. There's big business ahead if he passes the stay busy test and he's always a monster draw at the Barclays. You got to give him that credit close to his home in Philadelphia. Ivan Redcoch is what he is, but he's fun. He comes to brawl. He's on a three-fight win streak. And you look back at that win against Devin Alexander. Yes, a faded former champion, but he absolutely dominated him, Luke, and knocked him down three times and finished him. This is a fun opportunity, and you consider this. Danny Garcia has a chance at Pacquiao or Spence next. That's why he picked this southpaw right here.

Danny Garcia, I think, has kind of evolved into being the welterweight division's most dangerous puncher. He's really proven that. Go back and watch the Granados and the Rios knockouts. If he deposits Ivan Redkacin, makes a statement here, that very well could get him the Manny Pacquiao fight. And that would certainly matter for his career. There was a time after he beat Lucas Matisse in 2013 that we thought he deserved the Floyd Mayweather fight next. He thought he deserved it.

He never got it. This could be his opportunity at really becoming the level of star that he wants to be. Obviously, there'd be a welterweight title at stake. I'd want to see him against either of those guys. I'd love to see him run back his losses to Porter and Thurman that were very close as well at the Barclays Center. But you want to talk about what's at stake here. You make a splash.

You make a statement against a hungry guy who comes to brawl. This could be big things ahead. Also, Danny Garcia can be super technical when he needs to be. And I think he probably will be the more technical of the two, but he actually pairs up. He can be a stick-and-move guy against another bit of a brawler, but he can also be a... I think you get...

I'll put it this way. I think you get Danny Garcia as more of an action fighter when he's got someone like Ivan in front of him. You get a little bit more of that. Plus, your co-main event, DC's own Jarrett Hurd, loses to J-Rock in his hometown. Oh,. You get a little bit more of that. Plus, your co-main event, DC's own Jarrett Hurd loses to J-Rock in his hometown.

Oh, it was such a disaster. Comes out as the Redskins ambassador the whole bit, and then the co-main event, Jarrett Hurd taking on Francisco Santana changes trainers to go with a gentleman out of Alexandria, Virginia who is involved in USA Boxing

at the amateur level but has trained Olympians. He's been in Colorado Springs, Jar Jared Hurd, coming out here. After that terrible loss to J-Rock, who, by the way, we'll talk about him later because he lost this weekend. This division's fire. This division is fire. But you know what? I feel like all of the air went out of the tire on Jared Hurd.

It's interesting. He was on this moment where he could have been building, and I feel like he's just totally deflated. You don't see this move a lot. What do I mean by this? He lost a fight to Julian Williams, one of the fights of the year, but it was largely one-sided, and he had the opportunity, the contractual opportunity. It was actually supposed to be him

and J-Rock this past weekend, if you really look at the way it played out. He chose against that. He was flirting with moving up to middleweight. It's an extreme cut at 54. He's a monster junior welterweight. I love that he went back to the drawing board, and I interviewed him a couple weeks ago, and he told me straight up. Junior middleweight. I'm sorry. I love that he went back to the drawing board. And I interviewed him a couple weeks ago, and he told me straight up. Junior middleweight.

I'm sorry. I love that he went back to the drawing board and said, look, you know what? I started believing my hype a little bit too much. My head got big. I didn't do the things I needed to do. Not different than Conor McGregor, by the way, in being that public with it. And now he's like, I'm not going to run back that title shot. I'm going to stay in this division, and I'm going to regroup and build, start over.

I love that attitude. He's obviously a fighter who gets by on size and aggression so much, but I think he learned in that J-Rock fight, Luke, that he's got to add more wrinkles to the game. He's got to add more skills. And by the way, he's finally moving out of his parents' house. This is a more mature Swift, Jared Heard. So he's got a lot to prove on Saturday night.

It's going to be fun to see. All right. So there are our five topics, which means it's time now to get to your questions. It's DMs from dogs, ladies and gentlemen. See if we've got any animation. There it is. Look at that ass.

By the way, Jay is telling me to make sure you put your earpiece back in. Why can't you? Well, because every two minutes, it's like trying to blow my... It's just clipping? No, there's static and feedback. It sounds like Jay playing guitar. Did you see his Johnny Cash video that he put out there? Who?

We're going too deep. Too meta on Jay, sorry. Jay put out a Johnny Cash video? Jay's a musician, director, producer. Jay's a renaissance man. Is he mediocre at all those things? Have you heard his podcast with Sinbad? I was a guest on it one time.

Yeah, apparently. I think it fell apart after that. Okay, so let's go first. I think we have Riggins32. Love that. That guy's becoming a regular in this family. Certainly is. What did you make of the respectful build-up from Conor this week? I seen, I have seen, sir. Wow. Got to conjugate these verbs correctly. I have seen some media and fans say it was boring, but I found it a refreshing change, to be honest,

from the toxic build-up of the Khabib fight. The same people would probably further criticize Conor if he returned to that. We kind of went over this, but I don't know if you weighed in on it. Do you like this Conor? I do. I do like it a lot. I need him to still be the Conor if somebody agitates him and somebody activates that, because that character has become such a monster draw in this sport.

I mean, it's insanely fun to be at a... In fairness, isn't it the case with everybody? Like, you can get... Who's the most respectful person? GSP. Maybe he never broke it, but I feel like you've gotten... He wore the jorts that time and made that awful line to Matt. He was in the cage.

Fair enough. That was staged. But I mean to say, even the most... Like, for example, even De La Hoya. I remember. Dude, when he was getting the bear... When... Mayorga was going on, yeah.

Mayorga was like, I'm going to drink his wife's breast milk. Bro, you had De La Hoya losing his mind, understandably. So my point being is if Conor keeps it cool but then loses it against Khabib, okay, lose is a strong word. But I wouldn't really mind. I don't think he's going to go down the level of nastiness. I think he'll return fire for fire in certain situations. But you have to remember the build of 229 was insanely off the rails at every step by Connor, every step he was going for the throat. So I think you're going to see a much more reserved,

confident, if it escalates, he'll fire back, but we just want to see him be a little bit more human. I mean, you can go back and watch that build and look at his comments. I think there was a lot going on in his life, maybe even beyond drinking. I think there was some, you know, there's some issues. If he works those out, it'll be fine. I did ask Dana White Friday. I think there was a lot going on in his life, maybe even beyond drinking. I think there was some issues. If he works those out, it'll be fine. I did ask Dana White Friday. I said, hey, any fear that the pay-per-view numbers for this cowboy fight will be muted because Conor's not being Conor?

And he's like, no. I could love seeing him get more sanity in his life and live that. He actually said at the post-war press conference, he goes, Conor's happy. That's the difference. Before, he was pissed off and just angry at things. You weren't quite sure why because you're rich and you're winning, but whatever. But he looked happy.

Yeah, dude, be happy. Stay cool. Jim Zorn, staying positive, acting medium. You know what I'm saying? Keep it medium, Jim Zorn style. All right, next, from Emilio Brusia, I guess, Bruce A. Do you think we will see more and more fighters using shoulder blows in the clinch from now on?

So he famously comes out and hits them with that. So for Dissected this week, I looked at Jon Jones doing it a couple of times as well. Although Jones did it to push a guy up and then turn him and then take him off of his feet. Did it to Anthony Smith, did it to Rashad Evans. My answer to this one would be, you'll probably see a little bit more of people trying it,

but it's only, it's not one of these things where like no one was doing it because it's, no one knew about it. It's kind of hard to do. It's situationally dependent. The other person's got to be leaning in and be ready for it. Cowboy just kind of took it because I think he thought it was going to stop or he wasn't expecting it to be as damaging as it was. You'll see people try it, but to me it's like, it's a little bit more than a foot stomp, which do almost nothing. It's a little bit more than a foot stomp, which do almost nothing. It's a little bit more than that, but it's not a whole lot more than that. It takes a very smooth operator and a very, not checked out opponent, but not fully checked in opponent. So slight tick here or there, I wouldn't expect a game change. No, I mean,

Israel Adesanya already went on Twitter and said he's inspired by it. He wants to add it. I think the best thing that it showed was that Conor knows he needs to evolve. And I'm sure in your Salt-N-Pepa video, Professor, you went back and showed that. But remember early Conor? He was doing a lot more than being a one-dimensional guy who was trying to set up the left hand. I'd like to see him return to that, be a little bit more of a mixed martial artist and work in the kickboxing and work in all of that. Probably never going to be great on the ground.

But I think the fact that he's 31 and still evolving, that's a good sign. Yeah, two things I would take away from it. One, attacking in all positions. And two, one of the reasons why he got tired against Diaz the first time is because he's doing spinning wheel kicks and jumping switch kicks. A little shoulder shrug, very economical. That is a good point.

Doesn't tire you out. We don't have anywhere else to talk about Cowboy in the rest of the show, right? No, what do you want to say? So much for that beat in that narrative that he can't win the big one. I mean, that's a really bad loss for him. Do you think so? I do think. And do you...

Here's the part, though. Can we be super cynical? Well, can we be super cynical and honest? Does this kind of just prove that he's a B-level compiler? Or does this just prove he's MMA's Arturo Gatti, which some people are trying to say? He's that blood and guts warrior that we're going to love the character of, but every time he got close to that upper level, the door slammed shut. Well, here's the thing about it. People were calling him. I don't know exactly how you want

to label it. Let me tell you how I don't want to label it. I really resent the idea that he's a choker. That part kills me. I don't think he's a choker. That part kills me. I don't think he's a choker. I just think against the A-level opposition, the true A-level guys, yeah, he's probably not up there. Let me just do this very quickly if I can. It's one thing to be like,

I'm capable of winning at this level, and another one is I'm not capable of winning because these guys are just better. They're better than me. I think it's more of the latter. I think there's enough evidence to conclude at this point that the guys he's lost to, it tells you sort of where Cowboy's level is. Someone called him the most elite gatekeeper ever. That's sort of what I'm saying.

Listen to the names of guys he's lost to. Conor McGregor, Justin Gaethje, Tony Ferguson, Leon Edwards, Darren Till, Robbie Lawler, Jorge Masvidal, Rafael Dos Anjos twice, Anthony Pettis, Nate Diaz, Benson Henderson twice, and Jamie Varner. Not a chump in there, dude. That is a great point. Not a chump in there. And you notice, even when we write him off, when he gets back on sort of the B level, he destroys those guys. He takes care of them. He gets them out of there. Yeah, and listen to his wins. James Kraus, nine millimeter, Ed Ratcliffe. Well, I want to talk about his wins. I mean, I think it's... He rebounded against Jamie Varner.

Let me ask you this. Real fast. Charles Oliveira, Jeremy Stephens, Melvin Gillard, KJ Nunes, Evan Dunham, Jim Miller, Eddie Alvarez, Miles Jury, Alex Oliveira, Rick Story, Matt Brown, Mike Perry, Al Iaquinta. Not a chump in there either. Well, okay. But not a champ in there either. No, not a champ.

That's right. I think his best win is Eddie Alvarez. It was Alvarez's UFC debut. Alvarez or Iaquinto, yeah. And it was the way he did it was technical and all that. Iaquinto was a big win to regain the brand, but he doesn't have much better than that outside of like Benson Henderson. No, those are probably his best wins.

This is what I mean. Against true A-level guys, he's probably not that guy. But I don't think he's one of those guys who was capable of winning and just fell apart. He just fought better guys. I think he's one of those guys who was capable of winning and just fell apart. He just fought better guys. I think he's always had mindset problems, Luke. I don't believe. I think it's a bunch of bullshit, honestly.

I don't know. I mean, how much does it change you as a fighter, what your goal is when you're actively telling everybody, I don't care about titles. All I want to do is fight as many times in the year and get as many paydays as I can and go buy more power tools and go up in the hills and ride my snowmobiles. And that's great if that's his passion. But what I'm saying is his potential, potential, I don't know if he fully cashed in on it. Oh, I see what you mean.

Yeah, but that's one of those chicken and the egg things, which is to say maybe also being that happy outside the octagon. Oh, God, yes. Maybe being that happy outside the octagon also makes him that happy as a person, which actually gets you more in the end. Or if you tried to leave this sort of like, not aesthetic lifestyle, but he was so hardcore focused about getting better, he'd get bored, he just couldn't do it. Like, to be able to get what you get out of Nurmagomedov,

not even the very best fighters can do that. It takes a certain kind of real, intense, hardcore focus where you have to be able to put off most of the rest of your life. If Cerrone would be unhappy doing that, I don't know that he would be a better fighter. That's what mine was doing last week Yeah, it's great. It sounds like it's like a power to watch alien versus predator this weekend Sounds like one of those things But do you see him?

Do you see cowboy dressed like a Confederate Army general on the way into the fight and his son who was in the same? Suit it was here that he surrendered Appomattox? All right. Yeah. Question three from Traveling Craft Enthusiast. Is Dana White saying Nurmagomedov is the next fight to bring Jorge to the negotiating table quicker and maybe lessen his power? Maybe he was already booked for a match, and Dana is too smart to not realize the monetary potential of a BMF fight between Conor and Jorge. Yeah, we've sort of been over this. The last thing I'd say on this, a lot of people read into the intention of certain things, like, oh, Dana White's going to say this to get his reaction. Well, he does.

Well, okay. Did you notice Paul Acosta got brought back into the conversation this past week? Okay, in part, that's true, but it's also a little conspiratorial. Like, he probably actually just wants to see that fight. He probably believes that's the fight. Maybe he's not even thinking about it.

But he also said, after Askren beat Lawler, oh, we're going to run that back. And then they just didn't run it back. So whatever he says may not actually happen at all. Anything else you want to add? Nope. All right. You have another job to get to, I'm sure.

I have a couple more jobs. D'Armude Ward says, although Adesanya Romero has been confirmed for March, would Conor headlining that card give Adesanya an even bigger push? Obviously it would, but you're almost hurting yourself business-wise doing that. Why would you be hurting yourself? Because Adesanya, I think, is ready to headline his own card and do his own big business. So Conor's a separate pick. As we saw with this card.

As we saw with 246, which was a bar I'm sorry, 246, which was a baron undercard. You're selling just Conor. I don't think you're going to have two title fights below Conor ever again. So I'm always of two minds. On the one hand, it's like if Conor's going to compete, you don't want any second act there because you're going to get overshadowed. On the other hand, it's a Conor card. You're never going to have more eyeballs.

And it's a bit of a chicken and the egg thing. I don't know which is which. I'll say this. Like, they put Ioanni and Jacek on as many, they put her on I think a couple of Conor cards. It has certainly turned into a bit of a hardcore fan's delight. I don't know if she ever got past that. But you know, she was ready to headline and also Tyron Woodley was ready to headline. He was on the undercard of UFC 205. So the fact that she was ready to headline to me wouldn't be a reason not to do it.

Being overshadowed, if you really believe that, that would be. Dude, he's not going to fight this soon. I know even with him wanting to... He said March. It's not going to happen. I'm telling you, it's not going to happen, dude. You're not going to risk these two potential paydays of Jorge or Habib. There will be no

just engaged interim fight. There will be nothing. They're going to wait to see what happens with Habib, and then you try to make either fight for August. That's what you're doing, dude. That's what you're doing. I've ran many successful MMA promotions. Have you?

Yeah. You can call me Bjorn Coker. That's a terrible name. Alright, let's go to Tink, Tinkin, Tats, and Jacks. All right. What do you think about the tweets that came out of Usman's account on Fight Night? Wow.

Yeah. They say it was hacked, but a lot believe it was Ali. A lot is Connor. Is there a survey that was done? No, it was Connor. Just wondering your thoughts. Love the show. Yeah, there was a lot of N-words in a survey that was done? No, it was Connor. Just wondering your thoughts. Love the show. Yeah, there was a lot of N-words in that. There was a lot of bad that went on.

A lot of N-words, a lot of sexual assault threats. Here's what's crazy, though. The second it happened, and people are texting me, going, oh, my God, did you see this, whatever? And my response was, wow, that's awful, dot, dot, dot, hell of a way to promote a fight. Oh, get out of here. I'm not going to sit here and say I agree with Conor that it was planned. I'm saying even if it is a hack, Luke, even if it is a hack,

Usman is now in the conversation. Oh, there's a hack here, all right. Usman's in the conversation when in reality he has no business to be. Why? Because that's the most difficult fight of all of them for Conor. I agree. It's the one that would sell most difficult fight of all of them for Conor. I agree. It's the one that would sell the least out of all of them. Agreed.

And who's the one name that was uttered inside the cage after the win? The one name. I didn't hear Habib. I didn't hear Jorge. I heard Usman. What did he say? He said, I want to fight them all. And then he mentioned Usman.

And Usman's like, you know, bring it on. I thought he mentioned the guy with the house coat. And then the guy on the panel. I didn't hear him mention Usman. I thought I heard him. I mean, I didn't see the broadcast. I'm only going what I heard in the arena. If I missed know, bring it on. I thought he mentioned the guy with the house coat. And then the guy on the panel. I didn't hear him mention Usman. I thought I heard him. I mean, I didn't see the broadcast. I'm only going what I heard in the arena. If I missed it, I missed it.

I thought he mentioned Jorge and then he mentioned Paul Felder. He didn't mention Kamaru, did he? I thought I did. Okay, here's the point. Dude, I've seen people being like, oh, could have been Ali Abdelaziz, who does run many, or not run, but certainly has access to many of his fighters' accounts. But a couple of things. I'm not demeaning Ali for this, but he does speak English as a second language. Hold on. My mom spoke English as a second language. My wife speaks English. She was from Qatar. Yeah. No, she's not. She's from Beirut. But my wife speaks

English as a second language. It's not a demeaning thing, but it will reveal itself over time in the way the language is written. I didn't detect that this person who was, the person who was writing those tweets was a native speaker, number one. Yes. Number two, more importantly, dude, they were releasing his bank information. Why the fuck would they do that? Yeah. If it was, why would Ali put, it makes no sense to me.

Now, maybe Conor didn't see that point. He just saw the ones or threats on his wife. I'm not saying I believe in the conspiracy. I'm saying either way, it's a hell of a way to get Kamaru in the conversation. Come down on it. Do you believe the conspiracy or not? I don't believe it was done conspiratorial. If it was, I would believe it.

It's not out of the realm of possibility, but I'm saying either way, it's actually not a horrific thing for Kamaru in the long run. It's not in that sense, but I don't think that Kamaru is behind it. I don't think that Ali is behind it. I just think his shit got hacked, and that's the end of it. Some don't think that Ali is behind it. I just think his shit got

hacked and that's the end of it. Some awful language, Luke, right? Certainly. I mean, language that you use pre-show. Oh, stop. What is this? What is this? Okay. That's it for us. My friend. Oh, hey. It is your turn now. You don't have the earpiece in.

No. Well, let me see if it's back up. So you're not communicating with Jay. By the way, I can hear his earpiece hissing all right no jay it's not working but full disclosure this week luke you made a by the way jay thinks that we are just malingering we're just making up dude right now it's not too bad but normally it sounds like a power tool or a 747 is going off in my ear hole um before we get to have you seen this shit, you had made a request last week. Can we see more animal on human violence? Yes, please.

I did produce a clip this week that as a team, we sort of said, we're not sure if the person who got hurt by the animal was killed or not. I don't mind seeing an animal fuck up a human.

I don't need to see faces of death. That was what the backroom debate became. We brought it to Luke. We said, hey, let's get an independent arbiter. And you said,

let's not go with it. Oh, my God, Jay. Can you get this noise out of my ear? Anyway, we will not be seeing that snake kill that man at that circus in Russia. Good call. All right. Hey, we're ready to run the animation. Let's do this.

Let's see this shit, OK? The good, the bad, the ugly from combat sports around the globe, Luke. We start in a little karate practice, taekwondo practice. You ever hold the pads for somebody? Here, hold this. Oh, my God. Wow. I like the top comment. You are an asshole.

Yeah. Wow, sir. Here's your first class ticket. You've been sent to hell. Wow. Wow. The noise in my ear right now. Wow.

Sorry, Jay. We're not doing this. You want to switch? You want to switch? No, no, no. That's all right. I don't need them. I don't need them, okay? All right. You can have mine. Wow, wow. The noise in my ear right now. Wow. Sorry, Jay. You want to switch? No, no, no. That's all right. I don't need them. I don't need them, okay?

All right. You can have mine. Wow, Luke. That's the instructor taking out the kid, too. That's not good. You don't need that. All right. We roll on from here.

Rebel FC10. I think this is Russia. Check out Gazavat Suleymanov on the right. Oh! Now serving elbows, Luke. Bro, you fight some dude with an Amish beard who's got some Z's and Z's in his name. You're about to call it a day. I think he's probably from Dagestan, right? I mean, he's got to be. Look at this. Over. So he misses one. Wow! Hold that, son. Wow. Gonna have to see a

dentist after this one. Good lord. Yeah, dude. These Russian dudes with the're in a hurry. With the Amish beards. I ain't playing with them. Wow. Hey, we're going to go to a full contact Taekwondo, I think, Luke. Dude, you love full contact Taekwondo. Because people die like that. Talk about a dead body and have you seen this shit?

Luke, did you see the ghost go out of this guy? Did you see that flash of light? Run that back, Jay. Holy shit. Good Lord. Fat shit. Good lord. Fatality. I love these comments. God. What came out of him?

What fluid came out of him? That looked like, remember that hit that Deontay Wilder put on Luis Ortiz and all the sweat went flying? Oh, wow. What sport is this? I think that's Taekwondo. I'm telling you what, that headgear did not do its job. That guy, wow. Yikes.

All right. Hey, we're going to go from organized fights to street fights. Check out these two guys in pink, Luke. This is action personified. Wow. But the guy in the black t-shirt, I'm going to give you a spoiler. He has a sneaky secret. He knows a little MMA.

Watch as this fight escalates here. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. Look at that takedown, Luke. Okay, what do you do when you getedown, Luke. Okay, okay. What do you do when you get him down, right? You want to get him out? Well, he just, well, he's got the one lady who's dragging him.

Okay, okay. Watch out on the left. We might have to bleep this out. Dude, what Latin American city are we in? I don't know, but we're about to see Dong. Why is she stripping him? What is happening? Cover that ish up.

And look at that. This looks like Rousey Tate. Check that out right there, right? The arm bar is totally wrong. I think he's got it. I think he tapped it, right? Did Alistair feel that? Dude, what a goat rope clusterfuck.

Wow. Look at that guy at the end. He looked like the guy from the cantina scene. You know, these are very disappointing South Americans because if they were true South Americans, they'd just keep walking. Yeah, their strike percentage in this fight, not good, Luke. Look at this. Wow.

Wow. How about that guy? It's like a hockey fight, MMA fight. Is that guy in your jiu-jitsu class? You roll with that guy in the pink shorts right there? Isn't that our producer, Derek? No, no, no, no. That's not Derek?

That guy does not have a body of a D1 athlete. That's not that D3 scrub? No. So we were going to go from possible dong here to... Derek, you wear some interesting underwear. Luke, unfortunately, we can't show the video of the snake suffocating the underground circus performer in Russia. So you know what? We're going to roll on to this, Luke.

Rule number one about this video, we're not supposed to talk about Fight Club, but what the hell is going on here? These two women? Is this some jail chicks going wild? What is this? Dude, she's just holding her arms out like an inflatable tube man. Is this the same place where Kimbo Slice fought Sean Gannon? What is this, Luke? This looks like a movie set that went, like, where all the MMA fighters go straight to DVD.

You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. Okay, who is that in the red gloves? Is that a male or female? We couldn't figure this out earlier. In the pink gloves? Yeah. Is this a chick fight?

I can't really tell. This is like, what's that? But people are betting. People are, this is underground, right? People are betting. You think this is fake? Well, the guy, they got a Foot Locker employee to be the referee. Right?

Wow. Why is he wearing that? This is great. Look at the guy with the Burger King crown right there. I sell Nike Air Maxes, and I watch two women beat the fuck out of each other. That's how I pay my bills. I could actually get down on this sport. This is like a little Orange is the New Black kind of vibe.

Yeah, yeah. Wow. All right. Hey, we're going to go on to actual. Have you ever watched that show? No, I don't. It's terrible. I watch Ozark.

That's what I watch. By the way, everyone tells you to watch this new show, You. Have you seen it? No. It's about a serial killer with an inner dialogue. Of course, that charlatan behind the door would say it's good. It's one of the worst fucking shows ever. Did you watch the Aaron Hernandez miniseries on Netflix?

I did see that, yeah. Freaking amazing, right? Amazing. How do we have access to those phone calls? Isn't that privacy? All that shit's recorded from the prison, dude. All of it. What, you think you have rights as a prisoner?

Come on. What? All right. Dude, you don't have rights in the military either. That's how I know. You know what I'm saying? All right. Dude, of course Jay likes you because he's a zero.

Hey, let's go to boxing over the weekend. Remember former light heavyweight champion Elider Alvarez, the Storm, the guy who knocked out- He's Colombian. He knocked out Kovalev? Yeah. He was back this week against Michael Seals. Look at this kiss from Rose. Oh, my God.

Ten. Wow. Oui. A la derecha. Oh. Fuck. God. Golpe a golpe. Uy, a la derecha. Oh, fuck. God. Golpe a golpe.

Please return his soul after the fight is completed. Jesus Christ. Is he good? Can he box? He's real good. Alvarez is rediscovering power now because he had an issue with his hand where only three knuckles or something, and he's just figuring out how to become a power puncher late in his career. He sent Colt Levin to hell in that first round.

I'm not sure I should tell this story. You know who almost lost a finger this past year and almost had the knuckle removed? No, sorry. He was going to lose a finger because he was going to be able to keep the knuckle. Do you know who this is? No. Anthony Smith. Remember that injury he had to his hand?

Yeah. The surgery went bad. He had to get it redone. And his finger got infected. He almost lost the finger. And he told them, just take the finger as long as you can leave the knuckle. And they were about to. They were 24 hours out from it.

And then another surgeon intervened and he didn't. But he almost lost a finger this past year. How about that? Wow. I'll give him one. All right here, Luke. We're going to go to UFC light heavyweight Johnny Walker, you know, the biggest circus clown in MMA today. What the hell is this

video, Luke? I don't want to know. I don't know what's going on. He lost a video game. There's a person under there. Oh, it's that dude. This guy's gone viral, this little skinny guy. What? No, no. This guy appears all the time on social media. Yeah. Who is it? Michelle Podeta? I don't know who that is. No, no, no. He's everywhere. I've seen him everywhere.

Always getting thrown around. He's in all the Strongman videos, too. They always throw him around. Are you down for Johnny Walker, yes or no? The whole shtick. All right, he had the Green Mohawk this weekend. He was in the crowd. If he had beaten Corey Anderson, I would be, but because he didn't, I'm a little bit off

the bandwagon. I like him. He seems like a nice guy. Would you hang out with him in South America? Yeah. Yeah, I would. Okay. Have some cachaça together, right? All right. All right. You following Danny Segura's Instagram journey?

Yeah, he's out there in Parada. All right. Having a good time. Shout out to him. Hey, let's go to Muay Thai right now. Some people are saying this might be fake, Luke. I need you to interpret here. There's going to be an exchangement of souls coming on. This is like Fedor Mitrione. Watch this. All right, throws him. No big deal. No big deal. Oh, wow. Double

pancake, Luke. This is like the Grand Slam at Denny's. This is great. No, that is not. That is just, it's a guy, dude, it's Carlos Condit, Dan Hardy, except one person just. Is it real? It looks pretty real. Yeah, it's super real. They just wind up left hooks as they're coming in here. Bop. If there's a double knockout, you will see it on the show.

We get down for that, Luke. We get down for that. This is the Tony Ferguson special. Remember when I was asking him, what do you think is going to win for the fighters? I was like, double KO. Double KO, indeed. The old T-Ferg special. All right, Luke.

I want to close with a home repair remedy. Okay, here. You know what a kick in the dick it is to get a little dent on the side of your car, like a little brush up, right? So you pour a little hot water on it, you put the... Oh my god, what is in his hand? Oh, it worked! Luke, it worked! Oh, it's a dong-tastic!

Dude, that is a giant dong. Hey, you think about trying this at home on your 74 Chevelle? What do you think? So wait, how does it work? You pour on the hot water, then you take the 15-incher, and you stick it on there, and then you just pop that dent right out. Dude, that's like five Coke cans stand on top of each other.

Oh, wow. I would celebrate like that if I was able to fix that dent. That thing's a weapon. You could club someone with that thing. I know. I'm on a lease right now, and you're trying to, you know, the last few months of my car lease, I'm trying to keep, you know, if anything happens, I know where to go now.

Let me ask you, how did you find this? I can't reveal how I get there. Do you, like, go through, like, I need to find guys who are doing interesting things with rubber dicks? What you need to realize are the videos I refuse to put on. That's what you need to realize. We need to do one episode. I do have standards.

We need to do one episode. Not the one where the dude got eaten by the snake. But sometime down the line. Save the ones. Patreon episode? Is this Mortal Kombat After Dark? No, hear me out. Hear me out.

Morning Kombat uncensored. Oh, wow. Or have you seen this shit uncensored? I mean, at some point, we're just devololve into two guys fucking based on what you've shown me. But short of that, maybe there's room for that. I don't know. All right, Luke.

One day, I'm waiting for you to be like, have you seen this shit? It's two guys banging. Who's winning, Luke? And I'm going to be like, I don't know. Faces of Death edition, MKUltra. All right. There you go.

Have you seen that shit? Yeah. I've seen that shit now. Time for odds and ends, sir. What did we miss? What's one thing that happened in the combat sports world? We talked last episode about how this February 22nd Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder rematch is going to happen. Double pay-per-view, double network.

And they haven't done anything to promote it. Well, they finally had a press conference last week in L.A. to kick it off. I know there's only so much you can take from an interview, right, from all that. There's only so much you can take. But when I watch this thing, I feel like Deontay Wilder is in a much more focused place. If we are going to score this press conference and try to feel what we can learn from it, I'll tell you what Wilder's doing this time around, not getting caught up in the mental wars and games and traps that Tyson Fury sets.

He's cold and calculated like he is in the ring. And I feel like he has some kind of advantage entering this fight. Here's the biggest question we had about that. Serious question. Is Tyson Fury still calling him a dosser? Yeah, on and off. Yeah. Do you know what that means?

It's like a vagrant. D-O-S-S is Department of Social Services. So you're basically calling somebody like a... Yeah. It's like a vagrant. Yeah-O-S-S is Department of Social Services, so you're basically calling somebody like a... It's like a vagrant. Yeah, yeah. The question was after that first fight, right? It was 50-50. It was basically even. It ended up in a draw, although Tyson Fury got screwed. Who can improve from that? Who did worse?

Was it the fact that Tyson Fury had just come back, or was it the fact that Wilder, admittedly, was daring headlights for most of that fight? He took him a while to figure it out. I think Deontay Wilder's had the better year in terms of fights that mattered and certainly two sensational knockouts. I've got some fears about Tyson Fury. If you go back on his career, it's always sort of been when he's motivated, he looks insanely good. When he's motivated to get over that mountain against Klitschko and prove everybody wrong. When he's motivated to come back

against Wilder and finish off this redemption story. But in between, I've seen him put on weight. I've seen him look not so impressive. Remember when Steve Cunningham dropped him in 2013? I've seen a lot of that. I think this year was certainly a step back, right? He goes to ESPN for the brand recognition. I feel like it was almost a step back in the ring. Obviously, he can put it all together on fight night, and what I'm saying could be muted, but I just picked up on some things there. I don't think he has that same internal focus this fight around. Changing trainers last minute is certainly a red flag. I feel like when you're not coming in there against Wilder

with all your ducks in a row, you could be obviously setting yourself up for disaster. I'm going to call an audible. I was supposed to do one on J-Rock. I'll just skip it. J-Rock did lose, but how about Roxanne Modaferri winning? She was like a huge, I think the biggest underdog of minus 850 for Basie Barber or plus 850 for her. I'm not sure who had the plus. Barber was minus 1,000. She was minus 1,000. And I'll be honest, not that I

said that those odds were fair, but I was like, yeah, she's probably going to win. Someone was asking me for betting picks. I'm like, don't do it, but your safest bet is probably this one. Whoops, there you go. First of all, never do that kind of thing. Second of all, look, Barber was clearly injured, and it clearly played a role in her performance. But there were some things she did on the ground where if it was a function of losing focus because you're injured, no harm, no foul.

But there were some methods of control she was employing underneath that were not particularly good that gave me a little bit of like a someone else puts you there. Yes. I don't, like, there was real amateurish, to be quite honest with you. Yes. So I was a little bit concerned. Again, if she was injured and now she was just trying to hold on, that's

a completely different story. I mean, she was gritty. She was on brand for her grittiness to want to continue, and I really felt that even in that third round, like, I'm thinking, should they stop it? No, she probably still has a chance to score. Someone asked me, should her corner have thrown the towel? I think it's a difficult question to answer. I will say this. Because it went to the ground and even she was reversing, probably

not. You can just survive on the ground that way. If you were standing and falling over and over again, that would have been a problem for me. She's going to benefit long-term from this loss. I absolutely think she's going to be. She's so young, she's going to be great. But it was one of these things where it was like, dude,

Jon Jones' legacy is a hard thing to chase. Don't worry about that. Be on your own path. Also, when the fight was over, I was like, can we let Roxanne talk first?

I appreciate her sentiments. Shades of Force, Griffin Tito Ortiz, too, right? A little bit there. So I'll just say this. For Roxanne Modaferri, dude,

a martial artist who just never stops trying to get better. Don't sleep on her. She is a capable competitor. She's very durable. She's very gritty. And legit good on the ground. Can we say that out loud? She's good on the ground. Not a great athlete. If Macy had won this and if she had won it by

stoppage, she was fighting Shevchenko this calendar year. There's no question about it. There's nobody in that division. Even Dana told Erin Bronstetter, I can't keep her away. She's texting me like crazy. I'm afraid of her. I've got to give it to her. She's not ready for that.

This is perfect for her. Yeah, I agree. Shout out to a friend of the program, Brian Kelleher, coming back after missing all of 2019 with injury. Big win for the Bantamweight right there. A fellow MMA beat panelist. There's hope for us yet, Brian Campbell. He shouted me out there in person. He's a big Luke fan, so that was good. And you mentioned that

Julian J. Rock Williams lost his 154 title. Jason Rosario was a plus. I'm sorry. J. Rock was minus 2,500. You're shitting. I'm not shitting you. Jason Rosario was plus, I think, 900. And this was not a one-punch caught him. No, no, no. He got dominated. This was a five-round destruction. Here's the thing. He showed a great chin because he took some bombs from J-Rock.

But he got inside on J-Rock, which is kind of interesting because that's the strategy Williams used to beat Jared Hurd. He out-Jared Hurd-ed Swift Hurd. He got on the inside and just out-did him. And I give Jason Rosario, I panned this fight. I didn't think it was worthy of a Fox main event. I didn't think this was the right fight. It was a homecoming opportunity for Jay Rock. It was all about, let's give

him his moment. And Banana over here took the damn moment. He did it the damn right way. He got inside and he just broke him down systematically. This division is wild. Jermell Charles is back. Tony Harrison's still lingering. Erisendi Lara's still lingering. Jared Hurd trying to come back this weekend.

Everybody's under PBC. It's going to be fun this year. It's competitive as shit at 154. So there you have it. Say what, Jay? Oh, yeah. The Mission Impossible guy? Jay, can you speak to me now?

Oh, yeah. We have a viewer. Yeah, shout out to Buretic Joseph, who's checking out this episode live right now from the hospital bed. I don't know what it's for. I don't know if he's having that procedure done. I had that, Luke. It changed my life for the negative. Don't ever get it done, okay?

Do you have a vasectomy? Yeah, it's just not the right direction to go. Why? It was a hack job. It was the worst day of my life, okay? I had a 75 year old Vietnam veteran. I didn't research. I didn't know he only works one day a week. I didn't know he had no sympathy. Are you like a corpse now? I didn't know he didn't, I didn't know he did. That is disgusting. I didn't know he didn't offer drugs. You know, everyone else is like, oh my God did it in 13 minutes and he gave me drugs to take on the

way in. Where the fuck did you go? Back in time to 19th century dentistry? I basically went to like, yeah. You went to like some steampunk outfit? I went to some noodle place in Bangkok. Got a side dish and a vasectomy. But shout out to our friend and listener right there. We got passionate listeners. Remember that guy from Scotland that sent us that damn card? Yeah.

Hey, shout out. I'm just glad you didn't make a Caitlyn Jenner joke. Oh my God. Yeah, thank God you didn't. What did you say, Jay? Yeah, the guy with the card here. We wish Beretic Joseph well. A well recovery.

I love our fans. A lot of our brethren in the industry watch the show. Did you get accosted over there in Las Vegas? You kept a low profile? I kept a low profile, yeah. Made a lot of great friends, though, in our business. I got one thing to say. Okay.

The MMA journalism field is getting a little sketchy right now. In what way? A lot of alliances? A lot of showy people right now. Showy? A lot of, hey, it's media day and we're all in line waiting for our one-on-one interview, but I'm going to take 15 minutes to ask the fighter what his spirit animal is. You know what I mean?

And I get that there's gimmicks you can do on media day and stuff like that, but there's a lot of showy stuff going on. Can we get back to journalism here? I mean, come on. That's why I don't go to those things, man. Yeah. They're just not that great. Yeah.

Just going to the buffet line, you know? I mean, look, it's tough coming from me, the tip-on-tip guy, but, you know. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're going to lecture everyone here. Seymour Hersh on... Hey, I was very professional today. You're going to have to give me that, okay? I know.

It's so weird watching your CBS work. I'm like, he doesn't do any of that stuff for them. I was watching your video, that one. It was number two on trending on YouTube for a while. It was you, Richard and CBS Sports HQ. And I was like, wow, Brian is so great on this video. Why does he turn into a degenerate weirdo? I've got 20, 20 vision. Pneumonia almost killed me. I'm back. I'm ready. All right. I'm ready to turn this career around. I back. People are going to, I back. Trust me. I back. People have to wait for morning combat on center to see the, uh, the after hours me, I back. People are going to have to wait for Morning Combat Uncentered to see the after hours of me. All right.

Hey, we've got to do another drinking show. What do you think? I know, I know, we do. We have to figure it out. Maybe when the Habib fight when we're in Brooklyn. Oh, yeah.

That would be kind of fun. Oh, yeah, that'd be great. All right, we'll see you on Friday. Real quickly, a bit of a programming note. Brian and I are going to do the prelim stream on YouTube for Saturday for Showtime for the Danny Garcia will be the main event, but there'll be a prelim card. He and I are going to do the prelim stream on YouTube for Saturday for Showtime.

For the Danny Garcia will be the main event, but there'll be a prelim card. He and I will be at the desk working it. And, and, and, and, he and I will be working the weigh-ins. How about that? What time does that start Friday? Noon. Oh, no, sorry. I'm told 1. 1 p.m. Eastern on Showtime's YouTube and Facebook accounts. Yeah, it should be you, me, and Paulie Malignaggi. It's going to be Danny Garcia and Ivan Redkotch on the scales,

Jared Hurd, et cetera. It's going to be a fun night in Brooklyn. It's going to be really good. Fun weekend in Brooklyn. So Brian and I have a lot of work to do this weekend. Please join us if you can. We really appreciate it. Until then, like the video, subscribe to the channel,

tell a friend about us. Always appreciate that when you do. If you want to follow us, look down on your screen. That's how you can do it. That is Brian. I am Luke. Until next time, thank you guys so much for watching. May all of your gains be loyal. Outro Music Thank you.