MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor McGregor ESPN Interview, Sergey Kovalev, Bellator 225 | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 8

Episode Date: August 27, 2019

Today's episode of Morning Kombat with Brian Campbell and guest host Chuck Mindenhall includes a full breakdown of Conor McGregor's ESPN interview, Sergey Kovalev, Bellator 225, and more. 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. #BelowTheBelt #MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. you Thank you. Oh, heck yeah. It's Morning Combat, and it's back with a bang. Monday, August 26, 2019. I'm your boy, Brian Campbell of CBS Sports. And sitting in for the honky-donk man himself, Luke Thomas, August 26, 2019. I'm your boy, Brian Campbell of CBS Sports. And sitting in for the honky-donk man himself, Luke Thomas, is Chuck Mendenhall, the man in the hat of the athletic veteran journalist here.

Great to have you. Luke Thomas on assignment in greater D.C. Something about jury duty, maybe standing trial. Murder may have been the case that they've given him, but great to have you here. It's good to be back. Feels like a little while. Put it right here. Man in the den. How many hats you got? I mean, these great to have you here. Oh, it's good to be back. Feels like a little while. Put it right here. Man in the den.

How many hats you got? I mean, these are questions people have wondered. You really want to know? I really want to know. I probably got about 20. I'd say about 20. Good information. We got a lot to talk about

in the worlds of mixed martial arts, boxing. Maybe tickle the rim a little bit about pro wrestling. I don't know if you get down like that. We're going to find that out there. But let's hit it right off the top with the biggest story of the week.

He's back. Conor McGregor. No, he's not fighting, but he is out of hibernation, at least for now, doing his first public interview in almost a full year when he sat down with the ESPN's Ariel Hawane for a remorseful 41-minute chat, which touched on some of the issues of late. I'm not sure, Chuck, looking back at this, whether a lot of talking in circles and we didn't learn anything, or if you can put on your psychologist cap maybe, dig through a little bit. I'd like to hear what you got from it. I'm going to pass you the microphone first so you can bust like a bubble.

Did Conor actually say anything here? Nothing that made sense to me in the way that we know Conor McGregor, right? It struck me as a guy that was going through somewhat of an identity crisis, to be honest with you, man. We were watching him kind of stumble for words, stammering a lot. He was searching for the right words. It was almost like he was being repetitive at points. Obviously the agenda was to go on and make an apology.

He did that. Wasn't a good look in that sense because when does he ever contrite? When does he ever do that sort of thing? So the whole thing, I guess I watched it with a little bit of a surreal tinge to it. I was like, is there going to be something going on? I think that the only thing that really came out of it that I took from a fan standpoint a little bit was just that he says he's ready to fight again. He was dropping some names. He was doing that kind of thing.

But otherwise, this is a different guy that we're dealing with. That's what struck me. And you think of it, he was for so long, he was trying to live up to the notorious nickname. And I think that we were all a part of that ride.

We were all sidecar to whatever he was going to do. Vicariously, we were going right through this guy. Now we're on the other end of that. And he has to live down that notorious label. And that's a whole different angle.

And I'm not sure he... You touched on a lot of good stuff right there. I mean, ultimately, if we're going to ask, what did we learn, there was a couple, I guess, news that came out of there. We found out that he was hoping to come back this summer.

He was even looking at potentially a July card at Madison Square Garden. He brought up the name Justin Gaethje as a possibility. We didn't know necessarily about that hand injury that had pushed him off of that. But we wanted to come out of here feeling like there's the spark back. That's the old guy. I mean, backbeat, the word is on the street, Connor, that the fire in your heart is gone. And I'm not asking you to be my Wonderwall or anything, but what I'm saying is I want to come out of that feeling like there's still some version of that same guy. And I think, unfortunately, from a brand perspective for Connor in this, he almost looked like a washed-up rock star. And I don't necessarily use washed-up in comparison to his fighting ability.

I just mean he looked beaten down. He looked like he knew he had to deliver an apology for PR purposes, but I didn't see the fire, even with mentioning the names of potential opponents that he can fight. It came across

almost as, look, there's one thing, there's a reason we fell for him. There's a reason why he became such a phenomenon. It was what he was selling. He was selling unfiltered, pure, passionate confidence, unadulterated, irrational, obsessive confidence. And I think in a lot of us, and certainly when somebody comes on the scene like that, they're going to be polarizing because either you're going to look at that figure and find something you like out of them. Maybe that's something missing in your life, or you're going to outright hate him. He had us all trans-posed to the screen at all times. But I didn't see that hunger back. I didn't see what you just mentioned,

that character, the notorious. And here's the deal, Chuck. When you put so much into being that character, your marketing scheme, the fact that you don't give a crap about anybody, you're going to get arrested for all these random things. You're going to go in that cage. You're going to knock people out with one punch. And you're going to trash talk everyone. I almost feel like there's some expectations with that. Yeah. To carry that from a marketing standpoint.

And what I saw was a broken man there. Yeah. And it just was weird. I think it went on too long. I think it wasn't really the best look. Whether you're going full on PR apology or you're trying to bump him back up in the public eye. I was confused coming out of it. You wonder to what extent that him watching Nate Diaz.

Now, remember, Conor has even done a good job in this hiatus, his latest hiatus of keeping himself in the headlines by just basically flirting on Twitter. After somebody was a big victory, he'll go on there and basically make a comment and get everybody kind of talking about him again. He's been very good about doing that through his career. You wonder, though, when he becomes a non-story, as he did at this last UFC 241 in Anaheim, when Nate Diaz, when everybody's kind of expecting Nate to win, when he wins that fight to get on the microphone, use it to call out Conor McGregor,

and he doesn't. Instead, he calls out Jorge Masvidal, and that's not the worst of it. It's that everybody is surrounding it. Everybody in the arena and everybody on social media is like, yes, that's the fight. And he is a non-entity in that scenario. When that happens, you wonder to what extent his identity

is confused. He's like, wait a minute. Now we're on the psychology couch here. You do wonder to what extent he's saying, all of a sudden, it's dawning on him maybe a bit of an epiphany like, hey, I thought I was here, but apparently now I'm down here. And that has to play into his lot right now. In the old scheme business structure of UFC, he can call his own shots like no fighter had ever been able to in history. That's obvious.

He was the biggest pay-per-view drawing fighter this sport's ever seen. Got to be the biggest personality in terms of people just addicted and just have to reach out and need to be a part of what's going on. Now he doesn't have that leverage under the new pay-per-view structure, but I think you nailed it. I saw a guy just longing for people to say, hey, remember me? Hey, how about me?

And look, I'm asking for the character to come back. Underneath, there's a man with substance. I just felt like the man I saw in the interview, I'm not sure he knew who he's supposed to be. I wasn't sure he knew he had an actual handle on how he was gonna live his life moving forward. He recognized some of his missteps, did the I'm sorry, did all that. But I'm just a little bit confused on where his fighting spirit is.

And that's ultimately what matters in the end. It doesn't matter about the whiskey. You can use your fighting fame to be able to do ventures outside of it. To become a whiskey salesman, to become a crossover TMZ star. Every time you talk, people are tweeting and writing about it. But if you don't go back to that well and pump

it a few times, and what I'm saying ultimately is I don't need 41 minutes of him apologizing and attempting to be humble. He's not humble. He's never been humble. That's why we love him. I need him to fight Chuck. I kept waiting for him to come out of that, actually. Like, the first part, okay, we're talking about an apology. I thought maybe we were going to ride this for a minute.

We hear it's 41 minutes, been teased out at 41 minutes. You're thinking within that 41 minutes, maybe 10 of those are going to be an apology, and then he's going to return to form. It never really happened, and I think that that's, that presented, like, that's where it was surreal. And I don't know where the fight world will be if that's the Conor McGregor that's coming back. I'm not sure that... First of all, he has an uphill battle to get that Nurmagomedov fight, the one that he's kind of holding out for, according to him. I'm not sure how he gets that fight, even from a casual standpoint at this

point. So I just think that he's going to have to rediscover himself in a strange, like that bombast, right? That kind of obsessive behavior. But at the same time, people now have a dark cloud over him. And it's just, that's going to be the type of thing, I don't know how he's going to overcome that as he goes forward. I don't know if you can play humility through a full fight, like a full fight lead up.

You can't fake that. That type of thing, he's jumped the shark in multiple ways, if we're being honest. Let's face it, man. There's this sexual assault thing that's kind of hovering over the whole situation. We don't know the extent of that or if he'll be charged in the end, but we know that there's an investigation towards that.

There's multiple other legal issues that he's been dealing with. Well, it comes to a point if you're not fighting, who are you? That's true. He certainly sold his soul to a certain degree to become the biggest star possible, to wait and get that Floyd boxing match, to do all these other things. But at the end of the day, you gotta come back and you gotta be active. And I feel like, Chuck, that fixes all sins. It always does.

Winning always cures all ills, right? If he's consistent in the cage and winning, we're going to care to a certain degree even about the arrests outside so that's why i'm saying i'm not ready for remorseful connor can there be life after notorious though is there a second character that he can put out there that would be marketable i'm not really sure muhammad ali was able to do it but you know how he really did it yes through social issues and stuff like that but he did it by willingness to fight everybody and winning fights he shouldn't have by being courageous. Conor's got to really stay active to have that kind of run to win the fight, the people over.

Very interesting scenario. He needs to win a fight. Let's put it that way. He needs to win a fight. All right, real quick to finish this, gun to your head from what he said. He mentioned a lot of names. He even mentioned Frankie Edgar. Edgar came back on Twitter and essentially said, although I'm planning on going down

the Bantamweight, I'll meet you at any weight, brother. So what's most likely and when, in your eyes, if you're plotting Conor's future? You know, if Justin Gaethje weren't fighting in a couple of weeks in Vancouver, I would be like, that should be the fight. But maybe that still is the fight, because honestly, I'm not sure

that Conor McGregor's going to show up and fight before this year is out. I would love to see that fight. I think that's a winnable fight for Conor McGregor, and I think he has to look at all of that at this point. He needs to be strategic. He needs to be big picture. That was one of the things we loved about him.

He showed all fighters on the roster how to be big picture, right, by just picking his shots, knowing how to get through, and always have the breadcrumb to the next guy. But if I'm him, who's the guy that they're saying he's basically ducking or he'll never fight? A guy like Tony Ferguson. I'm like- He didn't mention that name.

He did use those words. He did mention it. And when he mentioned that, that was probably the only moment where I was like, wow, this is progress. I wouldn't mind if you're keeping in the audacity and the confidence and the mystic Mac vibe, like the guy who sold Ireland on his spirit and sold the rest of the world on his spirit. That's the fight I would like to see. I'd like to see him go against a guy that everybody's doubting him

in. Maybe he does some version. I thought you were going to call it the old guy at the bar. You thought maybe we could get a rematch there. We've seen a lot of those pictures. Hey, let's transition to the world of boxing. We had a title fight this weekend in Russia when light heavyweight champ Sergey Kovalev defended his WBO strap against unbeaten Anthony Yard of Great Britain.

The fight turned out to be exciting back and forth. Kovalev almost stopped in the eighth round and ends up rallying for a knockout win. The reason why this is topical, the reason why we're bringing this up right here is because Kovalev had a lot on the line here. This victory likely sets him up for a showdown with Canelo. Alvarez, of all people, talk about a daring to be great. Alvarez wanted to move up two weight classes to meet Kovalev. But at age 36, for as good as this comeback win was, for as much heart that the noted frontrunner Kovalev has shown,

certainly a lot of questions. What did this fight do for you from the idea of what Canelo Kovalev may end up looking like? Well, I think that just him being able to get through this fight was a big deal. I love those kinds of esoteric stakes where there's like a big, like, hey, if you win this fight, $10 million could be sitting there. You lose it, you may be going home. Exactly. And then there was a brief moment in that eighth round, not a brief moment, eighth round. For a minute, you're like watching all of those $100 bills being lit up and being sent to the sky. So I thought it was cool that he, like I saw that you actually mentioned this, he kind

of dug deeper than maybe we've seen him in the past. I mean, he'd been called the frontrunner for a reason. In his losses outside of the knockout to a lateral for us, Andre Ward kind of took his fighting spirit from him. I think that it certainly sets, I think there's intrigue to it, right? Like I want to see that fight. I would love to see, you know, Canelo go up those weight classes. Obviously, Canelo's not going to be fighting Triple G next,

so it's like, if that's the fight that's going to happen, I'm down to watch it. I still now, from watching that fight and watching the vulnerability and knowing his age and all that, I still get a sense that that's Canelo's fight, even though he's going to be the smaller guy. I think that reinforced that. If you had any doubt about what that fight would look like when they fought and the idea of Canelo. that's Canelo's fight. Even though he's going to be the smaller guy, I still feel like that's his fight. I think that reinforced that. If you had any doubt about what that fight would look like when they fought and the idea of Canelo fighting off more than he can chew here,

what we got to understand, Kofla has been a little chinny against elites, does not like it to the body, as we found out from Andre Ward, which Canelo does oh so well. Yeah. And he's 36. Still can jab stiffly.

Still has a game plan he can carry out. But this fight is so damn intriguing because it's such a daring to be great. I mean, Canelo moving up two weight classes against a guy, Crusher Kovalev, who's one of the sickest punchers in the sport. You've got to see this. And it's interesting right now because we've seen Canelo linked

to so many names in the past few months and we know everyone from Tazon to Golden Boy to Every Fan to Gennady Golovkin was hoping we were getting that Canelo GGG trilogy. If we get Canelo Kovalev as things look right now, I think that's certainly a fine replacement because of the danger involved, the elements of history for Canelo moving up to yet another weight class to get a belt. But when you look at Canelo signing a $365 million deal with T'Zone

and being undoubtedly the biggest star in the sport, what's the responsibility level in your eyes?'ve seen floyd in this position before but he ultimately gave us the main weather i mean sorry the uh the pacquiao fight what's the responsibility of canelo when everybody wants triple g well i know after the rematch i think what a month later whenever he signed that deal one of his statements you know through the press was basically like hey i want to do, I'm doing this for the fans. This isn't about the $365 million, which obviously it is. But he was saying he's doing it for the fans. He was trying to remove that $80 price tag from the pay-per-view.

He was trying to get back in that sense. But the main thing he was pointing out was the fans, right? This is the fight the fans want. I think it's probably the biggest fight, right? Is this the biggest fight that boxing could put on? Pretty close. Yeah, Triple G can owe a three. I mean,'s probably the biggest fight, right? Like, is this the biggest fight that boxing could put on? Pretty close. Yeah, Triple G, Canelo 3, outside of the heavyweight. He's the A-side, right? Outside of the Joshua Wilder or Tyson Fury

in there. So, I'm like, it's under DAZN, you sign the deal with DAZN, DAZN has every reason to want to put this fight together. I mean, it's all about the subscriptions, and it's kind of in the spirit of what you were doing when you signed that deal. So, yes, there has to be some responsibility.

You have to have some personal responsibility, like give the fight that the people want to see. I mean, in Canelo's defense, he was basically saying, A, I don't owe Triple G anything because I already beat him once, even though, obviously, both fights very disputed. And, B, Triple G doesn't have anything to give me. He doesn't have a world title. I cannot extend my history. I do think, though, Kovalev is the best replacement gift. If Canelo had fought any of the other top middleweights, it's really a step down because the two Triple G fights, both did over a million pay-per-view buys.

Both were fight of the year contenders, action-packed. But, dude, even with what we saw this weekend, even with Kovalev walking that line, there's still legitimate danger. Canelo is not a big middleweight. This is almost Sugar Ray Leonard moving up to face Donny Lalonde, where you're just sort of like, what the hell is that going to look like? And Leonard had to get off the canvas in that fight.

Ultimately, Canelo is such a good boxer, digs to the body so well. But you're telling me when those stiff jabs of the Crusher comes out there, I know Crusher's not the best dude. I know he gets handsy on airplanes. We're not cheering for him necessarily. Couldn't resist. But, man, talk about making big, fun, creative fights in boxing. That's a good one right there.

You've got me fired up for it, man. I'd love to see it. I like the little boxing shirt you're rocking out right there. Yes. A little King Moe action. Yeah. Big fan. I like the dress code here.

This is great. Oh, it's very loose. I like the vibe. Absolutely. All right. Also, this past weekend, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Bellator was back with a 225 card. But really the big story was on the undercard when congenital amputee and one-handed Nick Newell was back in the headlines making his Bellator debut and winning against Corey Browning via first round submission. The crowd went wild. I was there.

I should know. But Chuck, this is a big deal because Newell signing a one-fight deal with Bellator, it was basically all or nothing. It was win or go home. He dominated five and four Corey Browning. I mean, it could have been bloodstained lane in there that he was fighting. This wasn't world-class competition. My man.

But you're a horrible person if you don't pop for this. The emotion in knowing Nick Newell's backstory. I know you've written about this through the years. Just as the fan in you, what were you feeling watching that? You know, a little bit of nervousness for him because I did feel like this might be his last big chance to get something done in a big league organization. Because obviously, we saw him get a little bit of a shot in the UFC, not a full shot, but a little bit of a shot. We knew that Dana White has his aversions to him. So to see him get the chance to go and fight in Bellator and against a guy like Corey Browning, who I think was being structured like, hey, this is a legit guy who

could beat him. He's already beat Baby Slice. He just went and beat Aaron Chalmers. This is real danger. I thought he was the perfect opponent to kind of get something done like that. So I felt great for him, man, because he was ultimately fighting in front of his home fans. And you were there and you saw the pop he gets. They love him in Connecticut. So I was just happy for him, man. He's a great kid. He is.

And his story is very inspiring. And I was really impressed with his demeanor. I mean, he retired a few years ago. You know, when things didn't work out after that World Series of Fighting run, that was largely impressive. He went 4-1, lost to Justin Gaethje by knockout in that title step-up. But let's be honest. I've called it before the Florida nursing home of MMA. I mean, you can find second life there if you're an aging fighter.

It's like that movie Cocoon with that weird egg on the bottom of the pool there. You've got references, baby. You can be dunking basketball after swimming next to that thing. The level of competition-wise, this could be the perfect landing spot for his story. This could be an opportunity where he's fighting the right guys that could be competitive and he can win. But here's the deal. His story is super inspiring for a reason because he's been told no so many times because he's overcoming that. I've got to believe in his heart.

He still wants that ending of getting in the UFC, having a real fight and getting a win. I know he had the Dana White Contender Series opportunity, lost by decision, got beaten up pretty badly. And we all remember what Dana White said after that in 2018. He said, look, like essentially to paraphrase, maybe this isn't the place for him. This is a place where many people with two hands and two feet have had trouble. How do we deal with that in light of this victory? Because I think two things

can be true. I think one side of it is Nick Newell deserves an opportunity. He showed you something. But the other point of it is Dana White might not be wrong. What you're saying is essentially the complication of the whole situation because the optics of it. If you're just tuning in and you're like, wait, is that guy missing his hand? It's an optic thing,

right? Like you watch it, you feel danger for a guy because it's the old saying, like, I could fight this guy with one hand tied behind my back. He literally has one hand tied behind his back. He's going in there and doing this. And we've seen him beat guys who don't really, you know, we don't know who these guys are, but he's winning. He uses his wrestling really well. He actually uses his other arm to set up things.

It's kind of crazy to watch. His left arm is pretty muscular. It is. Despite his situation. But it's a complicated ordeal, right? It's the optics thing. And then it's also an opposition thing. Even talking to Browning before this fight, he's like, this is kind of a double-edged sword type of fight.

If you beat him, you set Nick Newell back on his journey. And he was sympathetic to his journey as well. So you have guys who are basically wanting Nick Newell to succeed and don't want to have to be the guy to beat him. And I feel like that's where Justin Gaethje really was the headhunter he's always been because he was like, hey, man, he wants to step in when they all go right through him just like I do everybody else. That's what Nick Newell ultimately wants is guys to not take any kind of pity to go

in there and do it. But he also wants to really ascend the ranks and make it to that top level and go for it. I'm just not sure that will ever happen. And that's a tough spot if you're a Dana White or a Scott Coker, because those optics that you talked about, if you put them in a no-win situation with a guy who can do it all and can... Look, you're gonna feast on your opponent's weakness. It's very obvious if you come in from that left side on him, you're going to have an advantage.

So you don't want to see somebody beaten up badly. But again, Bellator might be the perfect landing spot for this to happen. This is a great story that I think hasn't even come close to crossing over in sports beyond the bubble of mixed martial arts. Bellator is excellent, masterful at booking guys against the right guys. You know what I mean? They put a guy, they got a guy with a name, they're going to put him against this guy.

If you're 50 and you got a name, you still want to fight. It's a soft landing pad. But speaking of Bellator, one thing they gave us this weekend, wow. Big time fireworks in this 225 card overall. 14 fights. They all ended with a finish. Let me just clear my

head there. I was in the building for this. This was a great night of fighting. Our friend in the business, Mike Chiappetta, said this was the most violent night in MMA history. Your good buddy, Front Row Brian, tossed out on Twitter, hey, anybody know what's the record or has this happened before? We find out from people responding. Two Bellator cards in the past had all finishes, but they only had five and seven fights respectively. You've got to go back to 2014 in the UFC. Rockhold Bisping won in Australia.

That fight night had 11 for 11 this one went 14 I mean Bellator has always done well with the match making on the undercards in giving you the type of fights that can produce these spectacular finishes but also pairing their prospects

with guys who can beat them we saw that again with Mike Kimball one of my favorite young fighters going down but like what is the big highlight that came out of this? Because there were, like, four or five legitimate viral highlights on this night. I mean, there were a ton. I think that... Who was the heavyweight in the co-main?

Tim Johnson. Tim Johnson got... I'm, like, 12 hours notice. He basically got chopped down on the fence. And it was just the way he went down was just... I said it was like watching a great machine get shut down. It just kind of just slumped over his own weight. I mean, that's incredible to watch that sort of thing. The main event, obviously, like that was a-

Yeah, no stick kicks this time. No. In Mitrione Caritano. No stick kicks. He was doing a mouthpiece issue, though. That was, and it was bizarre. It still ends in a bizarre way, but it shows you better not get distracted by your mouthpiece in a situation like that.

So that was a crazy knockout. But I mean, you go back to the first fights. I thought that he had a record broken in the fastest submission. I'm not sure anybody can break that. Aviv Gozali, the 18-year-old, calls himself the king from Israel. He really made a giant statement about who he is. Running across the cage, Imanari roll, getting the quick tap, 11 seconds to new Bellator record. But did you see

the setup there, Chuck? His opponent reaching out the hand, and he no-sells it and goes right in. Shades of Eric Silva from UFC in 196. He did that exact same thing where he went in like he was going to high-five and then just took the guy. Is that morally and ethically sound in your eyes? I don't like to see that, man.

If you're going to offer the hand, you've got to like, I don't like the, you have to trust me on this. I don't like that idea. If you're going to do that, there should be an etiquette. Like you touch hands and then you set up. That's fair enough. Man, we saw everything on that night. So where are we at with Bellator? We know they can put on the tentpole cards, as Scott Coker likes to say.

We know they have always a good mix of sort of wash names mixed with guys on the up and up, but then they can go dark in between. There can be a lot of Thackerville, Oklahoma cards coming at you. What do you think this card did to sort of update where we're at for that promotion in the kind of lane they're trying to stay in, obviously, UFC? I thought it was good in the sense that it brought a couple of guys to light that you maybe, you know, all of a sudden Henzo Gracie's back, Henzo Gracie's guys, and there's a Gracie on the undercard. A lot of those guys I wouldn't have really paid attention to, but this card had something to it where you were paying attention to the whole thing.

And so it got across, I thought it came across, like people were talking, I felt like Twitter was alive with the Bellator event. That's not usual. So this one really worked. It was perfect to be on an off night for the UFC. Obviously, like, that helps. But can they carry momentum? Can they put these guys in situations where you really want to truly follow the career? That has always been their hard part, right?

Like, even during the thing, you know, they're announcing Mir versus Nelson, too. That's not going to move your needle. No, it's not. I mean, do you think they're sort of evolving away from really their peak of drawing interest was about three, four years ago when you're doing Kimbo, when you're doing Ken Shamrock, Gracie 3, and you're waking up a lot of old fans to check that out.

Do you think they've sort of evolved away from that? They seem to have. I'm not seeing them put those kinds of guys, the ones who they're putting in there that are kind of the brand names that are on their fumes, those guys still have something left to them. They're not like these washed up. If you've got a Machida going up against a Musashi, I've got to see that fight.

Yeah, I would watch. That's the kind of fight that I think they're at. Hopefully, we're done, honestly, with the strict sideshow stuff like the Shamrock. You know, I don't really need to see that kind of thing. I think they've made some good moves, though, for their future. You've got a 16-man featherweight tournament now. That is must-see. You've got to see that. And then the announcement

just that they had this week of, we're going to get that rematch, of course. The finals of the welterweight Grand Prix, Rory McDonald, Douglas Lima, going to be in our backyard at Connecticut. I'm fired up to check that out. That's a fight that you're basically building around two strong, modern, in-their-prime

pieces that could compete with anybody in the UFC. And I want to see, honestly, if Lima, did his stock go up after that knockout of Page? Because to me, that thing was almost like a, it seemed viral, but I don't know if it really was viral, but it seemed like everybody was talking about that for the hot minute that it happened.

I just want to see, does that finally, because that's been Bellator's thing, they can't keep momentum rolling with these guys. I'd love to see if Lima gets his due for this one. I don't think Lima's as good as any fighter in the world. I mean, he's, pound for pound, he might be the best fighter on that roster. Pound for pound, one of the worst talkers, too, though. He's not one of those guys who's ever going to go out and he's not going to kill you with his charisma.

Well, Rory's not a great talker, either. No, that's true. What's his famous soundbite? I'm going to take your health. I'm going to take your health, and I'm going to spread the word, though, the good word. I think that's his new way of going. That's it right there. All right, there. Thank you, Bellator. Man, just turned to viralness., though, the good word. I think that's his new way of going. That's it right there. All right, there.

Thank you, Bellator. Man, just turned to viralness. It was just in my blood. I just wanted to see more blood. You saw that nice blood stain on the canvas that Paige Van Zandt's husband left out there despite that horrific net attack. You got any comments on that net attack? The third eye?

The thing never blinked, not once. I wish you would step back from that ledge, Vanderford. Thank you. All right, let's move on. Hey, Chuck, we got UFC China this weekend. UFC Shenzhen, did I pronounce that correctly? It's a fight night card. Traditionally, these UFC foreign invitation fight night cards

are pretty awful top to bottom. This one, no different, but we've got a very key title shot at the top when women's straw weight champion Jessica Andrade defends against Wei Lizong. Very good fighter. Maybe got rushed into this because of the setups here, but with UFC's expansion in China, with the performance center, with

the untapped potential. We saw Bob Arum try to bring boxing to China with Zhu Shiming, the two-time gold medalist. That came up empty. Untapped market there. How important is this card just on an outside looking in for the company? I think it's a big one. Because they had, the UFC itself couldn't get into mainland China for a long time. I remember RUFF, that promotion, RUFF.

No. R-U-F-F. That's horrible. They were there, yeah. It was short-lived. But they were the only promotion, I think, at the time to get into mainland China. And that was kind of their thing. And I remember talking to the RUFF guy about how difficult it is to navigate that water and to get through.

And the UFC couldn't get in. That was the thing they held over them. UFC fought for a long time to get in there. Now that I think this is their third show, possibly the fourth, I think it's their third in mainland China, they have a contender. And I think that that's the hardest part is to get a good Chinese contender. Now, I don't know if she's going to be able to pull this off, because Jessica Andrade is a beast. And she's on fire. And she's on fire, especially after that Rosnami-Yunus slam.

I mean, that's a ridiculous reel. But out of all the women champions right now, I would have to say that Andrade has to be the one that you think could possibly be upset. We've seen her lose. It's interesting. It's interesting. I'll say one thing about this 115- be upset. We've seen her lose. It's interesting. It's interesting. I'll say one thing about this 115-pound division. I always say it. Pound for pound.

Okay, it's not as deep as men's lightweight in UFC right now, which was a historically deep division. But pound for pound, good Lord, Chuck. You get violence. You get action. You get competitive fights. Everyone's a player in sort of the top 15 in general. Andrade is hot right now.

Zong, we've seen her put some wins together. I mentioned, look, we can't lie on the timing of her getting this shot with UFC going there. And the idea, Chuck, what happens if she wins? The connection to the UFC's financial future here. I mean, you want to talk about a card in China, somebody on the rise, should she win a title here? I mean, she could become a top five biggest star in the company when you just consider that market tapping into. I guess I want to know this. I don't know this. I want to ask you. How hungry is that

Chinese fan base for mixed martial arts? I think that that's really the subplot of this whole thing, right? We find out if that were to happen, and even in this fight, I'm anxious to see a Chinese contender. How is she embraced? Does it become a sweeping thing across China?

There's a billion people there, right? So some people, the one championship people are saying, everybody watches out there. Do they? I want to see this for myself. But if it happens to be the case that a big portion of that population cares, she would be. Just like that, she would be. Just like that, she would become, I think, a global sensation in that sense. She would be, the UFC could go back into that market and she would be that.

It would be very interesting to see how quickly she could rise with a win here. Now it's gonna be a tough out, Andrade on fire. She produced a knockout against Carolina Calvacavis that we just don't see on the women's level in terms of the one-punch variety. Follows it up with Andrade with the slam on Nami Yunus that you mentioned here. How does Zong do it? I mean, she's consistent. She's strong.

But I don't know if I see one specific avenue for victory. That's a great point. And this is where you wish our boy Luke Thomas were because he loves to break down these. Luke Thomas at this point, I think, he probably got off jury duty because he probably broke down his long-winded theory on performance enhancing drugs and how they should be legalized in America at this point. So at that point, they're probably like, we're done, we're set, we're good. Low blows, I like that. I don't really see it either.

I don't know how she'll get that done. But if she somehow figures out, maybe she catches her with something or whatever it's going to be, maybe she gets spirited by her country people. You never know. You never know. But I would like the fight to be competitive. I think that that's what I would really like to see because I feel like that would show progress in terms of for the Chinese fight

because I know they've been trying to educate the Chinese, get them more involved with mixed martial arts, opening schools, all that stuff. If she puts on a competitive fight, that might actually carry, you know, that might carry more than whatever. I'm not even sure what time this fight starts on the Easter. I don't know.

Sometime during the day. The rest of the card, as Luke Thomas would say, is the drizzling shit. So you got to be honest about that. I mean, any of those names jumping out for you? Not really. All right. Not really. I did want to mention, you brought up one real quick.

One championships was in the headlines in a big way this week. They're going to be doing two cards on one day, October 13th in Tokyo, calling it, I think, one century. That was their 100th card in their company's history. But the hook is that the first of the two cards, which has more names American fans would recognize, is going to air live on TNT, 11 p.m. Eastern. Chuck, we've been sort of waiting around going, hey, one.

I agree. You got Demetrius Johnson. You got Eddie Alvarez. You got some fun highlights. But if I can't watch you in real time without getting a virus on my computer, like, pretty big. Yeah, I think so. I mean, the bigger issue, I mean, I think that that's what you just said is America can't complain about that if they get this opportunity, right? So this is one kind of saying like we're going to accommodate the North American audience,

which they've been trying to make some inroads with. Okay, here we are. Does Demetrius Johnson, because the whole problem that he was exiled over there anyway is because he doesn't really move the needle. Are people going to care? I almost feel like people care less. They care less about him now than they did before, but it's almost like they just kind of scrubbed him from memory in this weird

way. The hardcore fan, it's bizarre how they treat him. He's falling off a pound for pound list. Everything. Just not seeing. And he's still winning. It's not like he started to lose. But I do think that it's cool for them to stack, I guess, under their roster. You talk about stack. It's a stacked card. Basically, everybody that you've ever heard of on their roster is on one of these two shows.

Right. I just don't know why. Because if it's at the same venue, I'm like, wasn't it just one marathon show? Why split it into two? Maybe they're selling two sets of tickets. I don't know how that works. I'm just happy they're getting a live card in the States. They put the right people on it.

I mean, Angela Lee will be in the main event. She's got a story people are caring about. You got Demetrius. You got Eddie. Eddie, yeah. I think there's a Shinya Yaoki and a Yushin Okami sighting on there as well. But I think until they really make their U.S. debut, you're not really going to see the full impact of what this promotion could be.

Some of the things I really like. I like that the guys get to wear the Ultimate Warrior armband around their thigh boxing style. But Michael Chiavello saying the biggest night in MMA history at the last card, that kind of turned me off a little. That can be fixed very easily. Hyperbole? Hey, we've heard a lot from you and I, Chuck. We got to hear from the donks.

Let's do it. I think it's DM for donks time. This is why I came on right here. We got to hear what the people want us to be talking about because I can talk about this nonsense all day. But what do we got? Let's hit it up from at dat underscore surge underscore doe on Instagram. Wow, that's a mouthful.

All right. Chuck, how much of the Conor McGregor interview was influenced by ESPN? ESPN now has a very vested interest in getting Conor back in the octagon, getting him on TV for damage control. Seems like a smart business move. We definitely wanted to keep this topic and hit it

because we're in a different time period here. UFC, certainly you would think, would want Conor front and center apologizing for his outside the cage bad headlines of late. But ESPN certainly has a heavy financial interest as well in getting Conor rehabbed, is it right to sort of pick apart this interview with gloves and sort of just make sure everything was asked and everything was sort of on the up and up? I mean, it was, part of why it was so weird is because they had all the B-roll, they had all this stuff set up like intros to each segment and it was very ESPN, right? I thought that's the best you're going to get on something like Conor McGregor. Well, I'll come on and I'll do, we can fill an hour special where I'm gonna give you all

this stuff. I think that where it failed was it just didn't, he didn't say anything. There was nothing of substance there. And so therefore it seemed anti-climatic. But the fact that he's doing it on ESPN, he's using that platform and who knows what mandates are coming in from where or the motivations behind everything. But it makes full sense. You know, it makes full sense for him to be on there doing it and for them to make a big deal of it.

This is an interesting crossroads at this point, though, of where we're at. Because ESPN's MMA coverage, which is fantastic, you can argue is the number one in the game or has some of the biggest names in the game, yet I don't think we've ever really been in this spot where they have where at the same time the company has so much potential financial interest in what the UFC does because they're the exclusive holder of the fight. So it's a tough spot for any journalist to be in. We're going to pick apart and scrutinize. And Ariel, certainly there was a lot

I loved about that interview, but no mention of that recent sexual assault case against Conor. It makes you sort of question, was that a deal breaker on the way in or whatever on that? That's where you, like that DM said, that's where you start to sort of question how deep we're going to attack UFC. And we've really never seen a giant scandal yet

since ESPN's taken over UFC coverage where we're sort of going to be able to look on the outside in and see how much they dug into this. It's funny because when ESPN got, you know, when the partnership with UFC began, I was like, for a Disney-owned company, I was like, if they are

afraid of bad headlines, this should be a very interesting marriage. Or bad tattoos, yeah. Because you're going to get it all the time. And Conor McGregor right now being a poster boy for that kind of thing. And Jon Jones. So you've got two of the biggest stars that are basically battling all kinds of things outside of their fighting. And, you know, man, it's just we follow fighting.

We know how this goes. But some of that stuff is pretty ugly. Some of that stuff is pretty ugly. And it becomes a responsibility to talk about all of it. You know what I mean? And you did one thing. Conor did an excellent job for his own interests in kind of just talking in a big circle

and not really addressing, saying, I don't want to talk about the guy I threw a jab at. I was in the wrong. I want a little bit of details on there, a little bit of dirt. Why'd you step on that guy's phone? I got to find this stuff out, all right? Hey, let's move on.

And usually he wouldn't. I don't know if that's where it's different. Usually he would give you something on that. All right, what do we got up next? Let's hit it here. The people in my ear. By the way, I can't hear you in my ear because my earpiece fell out.

If you're talking to me, all right. At fight.center on Instagram. All right. Is Ben Askren's return scheduled too soon after such a terrible loss to Masvidal? Ben Askren signs on to face Demian Maya in a heck of a potential grappling situation. Do you know the date on the buff hand?

I don't. That's what I was just about to ask you. I know that obviously that's happening, and I looked at this, and it was just far enough off where I thought that probably is okay. The idea is that was a brutal, brutal knockout, but he doesn't usually take a ton of damage,

so it comes down to was he okay after that fight? Obviously, he doesn't remember it, so he was concussed pretty good, but the good thing is, Damian Maia, how do you really go against something like that? I've mentioned this a million times. If there's a pacifist in the UFC, a guy who's not all

about throwing the hands, it's Damian Maia. So he's getting the ideal opponent if he is making a comeback. Styles make fights. Styles make fights when somebody's coming back and needs a soft-ish landing. He's over that hill now. He's tried his best.

He worked himself back into a title contender there at Welterweight. Got as far as he could, not knocking people out. This kind of feels like the perfect launch. It's the perfect fight. The best thing Asprin can do to sort of put that behind him. Same thing we said about Conor. The best thing he can do is get in there and start beating some dudes. Have a three-fight year again. For Ben Asprin, this is probably the best thing

rather than getting rattled again. I'm sure he's dying, too, to erase the memory of what just happened because I think his stock was at maybe an all-time high going on. Basically, it was a baton exchange, right? Masvidal just took everything that Askren gave him and took off with it. And now here's

Askren down at the bottom trying to get the scraps again. So this is a great chance for him to kind of get back in there. It would be interesting to see how his wrestling merges with Maya's relentlessness. It's fascinating. I love that. I want to see how Grappler. For high-level nerds, the Luke Thomases of the world, the Metamorris nerds, you know, he gets off on that.

He loves that stuff. Thump on this table when he's talking about that. There you go on that one. Hey, what do you got next for me? Come on, people. At Cooper underscore Whitmire, Francis Ngannou versus the bronze bomber heavyweight boxing champion Deontay Wilder in a street fight. Oh, my God. Who wins?

Interesting here. Fans win, Brian. Well, whoever's in the street. Whatever homeless folks are in the street that night, they're going to win. Interesting now we're talking about a street fight because you're going to be able to dirty box. Right. There might be a cracked beer bottle. You might have brass nuts in your pocket.

No, but straight up. Knowing that, I would go with Wilder. Straight up no rules fight in a confined space. I would have to go with Wilder there. Now, here's where it's interesting, though, because if we're going to compare and contrast, we know it's different when you punch in MMA compared to when you punch as a boxing champion. I mean, we found that out even with McGregor walking in there against Mayweather. The punching, the leverage, the strength was all sort of different.

But Ngannou seems to have the kind of concussing power that's just next level in any sport. Certainly, Deontay Wilder is one of the biggest punchers and best finishers in boxing history. Would they cancel each other out enough? I don't know. Where Ngannou's muscular advantage in... I mean, he's not a great... I just think

Wilder has that dog in him more so. I think he's going to be more willing. If it's a street fight, I think he's going to be like, let's do it immediately and therefore land first. I think he'd be the aggressor. That'd be hellacious. Would you imagine that? I would love to. You know what we're missing out in combat sports?

I'm a sadistic, but I'd love to see it. You are very sadistic. I am. I've seen you with your hat off. Do you know that pit, the BKB? Remember that fighting pit? Remember BKB originally was launching itself as bare-knuckle boxing, and then they really couldn't get it passed with the commission, so they went to that pit, and they essentially did boxing matches in a phone booth.

And the pit was interesting because there's no ropes to lean against. You fall. You fall on an angled surface. I'd like to see... You wanted to see a moat around it. Yeah, well, I know we're seeing the launch with sharks

with frickin' laser beams on there. I know we're getting to the point where there's almost too much bare-knuckle fighting now and it's okay, but it's still not like go into that phone booth

and see who comes out on top. Give me Nganou. Give me Wilder in the BKB pit. How big should the gloves be? Oh, man. I mean, somewhere in between. But it's somewhere in between.

You can't run. There's nowhere to hide. There's no takedowns. It's just old school bar fighting, right? I think Nganou would actually like that. I think the big thing he has to get used to is the wrestling, right? Like he doesn't want to be wrestled. So I think he would actually dig that fight.

That'd be interesting. I think in that setup, you gotta go wilder just with the boxing advantage right there. Did you ever see the movie Far and Away? Some good fighting in there. Far and Away. Alright, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman? Yeah, that's, yeah. They're coming from Ireland, and they take their claim in the way. When I think of people like Tyson Fury and the Gypsies fighting for their freedom, I think of Tom Cruise. Alright, hey, you got any more

for us? I like what the dogs have to say here. Bring it, bring it. And I sound taller. Wow. I think that's, what's the guy that wished he was a baller? Skilo. Oh, right. Yeah, there you go. I wonder if Skilo hitting us up here.

Luke isn't on this episode. That is true. What hot takes slash controversial opinions do you have that you're afraid to talk about when Luke is around? This is a testy subject here. Luke will grab you by the throat verbally and sort of giving you that force choke that they do in Star Wars. Very

Vader-like if you cross his theories here. You're going to enter into any kind of talk about PEDs. You've got to be ready to dig in against Luke. You got any hot takes you want to sit next to Luke on tables like this? Oh, man.

He's pretty open. He's pretty much an open book, right? So I see him guzzling his Pepto-Bismol before a show and things like that. He comes in with these jerky sticks that are about this long. I'm not judging him. He likes cured meat. He's fantastic. He wears his neuroses on his sleeve.

I don't know if you saw last week's episode, though, when we had the great Thanksgiving debate, okay? Which luckily overshadowed my hot takes that Stipe Miocic is not the greatest heavyweight of all time, which people want to come into my door and assault me. But Luke took some shots at both Turkey Day being the best holiday and the idea of that meal being fantastic. But he's leaked out something from his past.

Something happened to that man in Marietta, Georgia, all right? Something happened to him. We're going to get to theta, Georgia, all right? Something happened to him. We're going to get to the bottom of it, all right? That's a topic we need to talk about when he's not around. Love me some Luke Thomas, obviously. Hope he's doing well in trial right now. I'm sure he's loving it. He loves that kind of thing. I've had some long jury duty

days, you know, where you're waiting until 5 p.m. just to be told not. Have you sat in on a trial before? I've never sat in. I've been called in, but I never get on the actual jury. What happens in jury duty stays in jury duty, right? It's usually my day. It's like a four or five hour day, and then they're like, all right, you can go. That's usually what happens for me.

All right. What else we got here? Hit me up. At Tattoo Tatum Temple. All right, there you go. Favorite whiskey. Chuck, I could see you as a high spirit guy. I, there you go. Favorite whiskey. Chuck, I could see you as a high spirit guy. I don't really dip much into whiskey.

I've had Conner's whiskey. It's flavorful. It's very sugary. Is that your favorite? I'm not really a whiskey guy. I'm an IPA guy for life here. But I could see you getting down. Perfect foil for Luke Thomas.

Perfect foil. Maybe getting one of those. In the town I live in, all the trendy dads think they're hip and cool, so they buy the bourbon glasses with those special ice cubes in there. I could see you in suburban Connecticut getting down like that. I would say that

the scarcity of the Pappy Van Winkle brand, just being able to try to find it. I was smart enough back in the day to go track down some bottles before it got to the point where they're selling for $2,000 a bottle for the 20-year-old and things like that. So I've had everything but the 20-year-old. I've had a 20 bottle of 23.

And I have to say, man- You can taste the difference? Yeah. I mean, it's very good, but I will say, you get down to the 10 and 12-year-old, I'm not sure that those are better than plenty of other ones that are out there. But I would say that ultimately I like drinking that. I find the 23 and the 20 and the 15, all those ones that are kind of the harder to find, they're worth the money.

Maybe not $2,000, but if you're in a bar and they have them, maybe $100 for a glass, it is worth the splurge. Is that your whiskey meeting? Is that your stressful day? Sit back on the couch? No, no, no.

Tell the kids to go in their room. It's only a special occasion thing. What's your go-to? How does Chuck Mendenhall get off? I mean, honestly. Relatively sober. So usually it starts with me opening my computer. No, I have a variety of different bottles, but I would say, honestly, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam,

if you're just mixing drinks or something, you just go with the standards. You in on this craft beer revolution, the fact that New England IPAs are just changing the game? I've stood in some lines. Any other state who goes, well, Pittsburgh's got great... No, they don't. People got to understand. Pittsburgh does have a good one. Yeah, but once you wait in the

line in the woods for Treehouse in Massachusetts or you take the journey up to Maine or Alchemist in Vermont. You find out it's just a different league. Have you been to these places? I have been. Yeah, same here. It's just a different level.

When you taste, I say this a lot in pro wrestling, when you taste the steak, when you taste the very best of what something has to offer, you can't go back. You know? You can't go back.

Sorry, Bud Kan. Thank you very much. It is true. You can't go back to that watery domestic crowd. What else we got here? There's got to be something else. There's got to be more from the people. Nothing? You got nothing for me? All right. I would hear you if my

earpiece wasn't under the table right now. Odds and ends. Let's sort of recap what we didn't touch on what's going on this weekend. I wanted to point out that ESPN bringing us a boxing title match that we have to see this weekend when pound-for-pound king Vasily Lomachenko defends two of his lightweight belts and fights for a

third one that's vacant, the WBC, when he takes on former gold medalist Luke Campbell of Great Britain in Great Britain. And Chuck, we love us some Vasily Lomachenko. We love his artistic stylings. We love his incredible footwork. Hey, he did a lot

of sparring with TJ Dillashaw, by the way. I hope he got tested after that. Just a little second-hand rub right there. He's a fantastic artist, and what makes this fight so interesting is Luke Campbell technically can box, and he's a lot taller and a lot longer. Luke Campbell gave Jorge Linares

hell. I thought he maybe deserved the decision there, and if you remember, Linares may have been Lomachenko's toughest fight. Lomachenko's incredible, but I think he's found his ceiling at 135, where maybe not much more he can go unless there's some super fight for big-time money at 140. So this is a different kind of style we're going to see him against. And if he can come out of

England, enemy territory, with three of four belts, you know top rank is setting up for later this year. Richard Kami, Teofimo Lopez Jr. Chuck, could you imagine if we've got Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez, like the sort of crossroads variety of the veteran pound-for-pound king against the young up-and-comer, trash talker, big punch. Look, just talking long-term planning.

This is what I want to see. You a big Loma guy? I do like him, yeah. I do like him. He's an artiste. He is, man. I would what I want to see. You a big Loma guy? I do like him, yeah. I do like him. He's an artiste. He is, man. I would say that that's true. You know, like watching him fight is like it's like watching some kind of ritual

or a dance a little bit. I don't think we've seen footwork. I mean, Roy Jones did things that were just not functionally sound because he was so athletic. But the way that Lomachenko dances out there, the way that he trains and all the weird sort of hand and foot,

it's incredible. How old is he now? He is in his early 30s. Let's not forget, I mean, two-time Olympic gold medalist, stayed in the amateur program a long time. There was a point where I kind of wanted to see if he would switch over to MMA.

There was just a little bit of, like the Dillashaw stuff. I kind of fantasize about that a little bit because it seems like he might translate over. That is interesting to note. It's such a risk for these guys to ever think about doing that because nobody wants to take such a public L. Why do the big names don't go to the dunk contest these days?

Nobody wants to take an L on camera. I'm willing to take Ls, all right? Especially these boxers who manicure their matchmaking and all that stuff. That's very true. But I love Darren to be great. I love what Lone has done in his young career. He sort of started a new trend, Chuck, from the standpoint of let's not wait 25, 30 fights

to fight for a world title. This is a guy who wanted to do it in his pro debut, did it in his second fight and lost, came back in his third fight, now he's won titles in three divisions. Love him. What do you got for us, odds and ends? Well, we were talking about crossover. I don't know if you saw this, but rugby player James Haskell is going.

He signed with Bellator. And it's like it's one of those things. MMA has always been a little bit of a hobby for some guys, right? Like they do it as a hobby. And I've heard about him a little bit going back. I know that Michael Bisping, he was at London Shoot Fighters, but Michael Bisping had kind of mentioned him from way back just being a good athlete. Luke Barnott, you know, a big slow, had trained with him a little bit.

So this one I felt like would happen at some point. I thought it might happen in his earlier 30s, but now I think he's like 34. He's going to give it a shot. Have you ever seen this guy? I have not seen him. He is huge, man. He is a huge. Marius Pajanowski huge?

Not quite like that, but he is stacked. I mean, he is just a specimen. So I'm intrigued to see to what point he can come in there. I don't feel like this is a situation like CM Punk or anything like that. I think this guy's going to be legit. Does he have a fighting background? I mean, he's been a rugby player, international rugby player. He played in London, he's played all over the globe. I just, and I'm not a big... No Brock Lesnar amateur wrestling background?

No, but I mean, you see guys like Volkanovski, right? Like who, they come from something like rugby and somehow they've, they actually find some stuff within that, that game to bring to the MMA cage. I wonder about that a little bit. I think he just has that feel to him a little bit. Now, I don't want to put too much pressure on him, but I feel like he'll have a compelling, especially at heavyweight, I feel like he'll have a little bit of a more of a compelling story.

I know he loves, from what I understand, his boxing and jiu-jitsu are his specialties. Well, Bellator seems to have cornered the market on fat, white heavyweights. You can just kind of throw out there. 100%. He could go in there and dominate that. Maybe driving the Uber or setting up the cage, and then they just sort of give him a fight after that. That's good to know.

Also, I don't know if this moves you at all, but Ken Shamrock at 55, I know he's... I knew that would move you. He's launching yet another Bare Knuckle Federation that's out there, and boxer Ishe Smith, by the way, signed up for that. But he's going to make a pro wrestling comeback at 55 with Impact Wrestling, which is a little bit below the radar these days. I know I've got a nice old-school TNA Impact Wrestling shirt right here. You bought that for $10.

I did buy this for $10. I don't think King Moe was my guy, by the way. Big King Moe fan here. Great guy. I mean, that spinning back from Emmanuel Newton that time. Both times, but that was a tough break. Where was I? Oh, dude. I mean, I don't doubt that Ken Chambers can get his skin leatherly

and maybe take some supplements and find some abs under there, but I have a doubt that Ken Chambers can get his skin leatherly and maybe take some supplements and find some abs under there. But I have a feeling that this guy is still going to be doing something like this when he's in his 80s. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is almost a surprise to me, but it's like so weird and cringy that I have to see it. He's going to be doing a program against Moose. I love that shit. Moose is a former NFL lineman with the Atlanta Falcons, now a wrestler with Impact Wrestling.

They're developing a little rivalry here, and we're going to see that. Does it move you any time we do this MMA pro wrestling crossover? Cain Velasquez is a big topic right now. He's meeting, by the way, ESPN's Mark Ramondi reported with New Japan Pro Wrestling. Oh, really? No, I did not hear that. He's got a couple of dates left with AAA. They keep all that going.

I don't know. People hate. I know the YouTube comments. They hate when I talk pro wrestling. They call me, what do they call me? Chubby Lance Bass? Bass. Bass?

Yeah, I think. Rob? Rob Bass. Rob, Lance Bass, DJ Easy Rock. Not moving you at all? Not really. All right. Not really.

Do you think Ken Shamrock could pass the USADA test right now? No. But does he have to worry about that? No, no, he probably doesn't have to worry about that. So, I mean, you know, he put himself in the right position, you know, to make that happen. All right, what else you got on our heads? Anything else you're looking forward to? No, man, I just feel like I've made it to the big leagues, though.

Look at this. You have made it to the big leagues. Look at this. I mean, we went, you know, this long, and we didn't even bring up Andrew Luck's retirement. You got any hot tweets you want to talk about? Have we ever really seen this in our modern fight era? I mean, Rocky Marciano is the one we always point to. But have we seen this?

Because I think we're so accustomed with fighters when they do that, like Floyd Mayweather retiring after the Ricky Hatton win, walking away, but we all know he's going to come back. But in the fight game, have we... Oh, in the fight game? Is it the built-in belief that they're always going to come back, that we'll never believe them?

That's the problem, right? Because we've had guys, you know, Conor McGregor has retired, right? But he's always come back. We didn't bring up when we just talked about him, he announced with Ariel Hawane that it's not a retirement. It wasn't a retirement. Everybody knows it. I think we kind of took that as a given. But that's the problem, right? Like anybody who was like, who was it? Stefan Struve recently retired. Within the same year, he's

back. You know, he's fighting within months. So it's always with a grain of salt when guys like this. But it's very definitive when a guy like Andrew Luck, and it just doesn't seem real. You see that habit. It's like genuine shock because people are, it's almost like such a privileged position to be a good quarterback in the league,

a guy who can actually, you know, is a winner in the league and could actually win Super Bowls, and you know he's a franchise guy to step away just shy of 30 years old. So that's shocking news. It's brought out an insane level of back and forth hate and deeper talks from Doug Gottlieb's tweet, Troy Aikman sending him to hell. That poor guy, the ratio. But the fans booing him after finding out.

That was pretty bad. That's pretty bad. I'm not going to sit on the high horse here. Here's the thing, though, man. Okay, that's absurd behavior. Any rational not going to sit on the high horse here. Here's the thing though, man. Okay, that's absurd behavior. Any rational person is not going to behave that way. I'm a Denver Broncos guy.

If John Elway is just right in the middle of his career, he's like, I'm done. I'm pretty sure I'd be heartbroken, and I'm pretty sure I would want to take off. I don't know if I'd take off my jersey and burn it, but I'm sure that you would be like, oh my God, you've deceived me on some level, right? Because that's your connection. We forget that these fans are that fanatical about their team. But I'm sure that you would be like, oh, my God, you've deceived me on some level, right? Because that's your connection. We forget that these fans are that fanatical about their team.

So I can see where those guys are coming from to an extent. Do you think this is a hedge play by the Colts? They're not making him return any of the advanced money that we've seen in other situations. Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson early retirement. The Lions came after him for the money. I almost feel like the Colts are saying, fine, dude, take a year off. Let your brain rest. Let your brain rest. Let your body rest.

One vacation with the wife, but you'll be back. I saw a lot of people talking about that. I mean, there was a lot of hot takes that maybe he would go the XFL route because his dad's been hired by Vince to run that one. I mean, come on on that one. I don't think he could do that, though, could he? No, he couldn't under contract. But we don't see it in fighting.

We've seen Sugar Ray Leonard walk away with injuries and then come back. I would like to say, I mean, outside of Rocky Rocky Marcel, there's really been no one who's been... The guys who really disappear don't announce their retirement. Like TJ Grant, for instance, was one of those guys. He works his way up in the lightweight division to earn a title shot. He's next. He suffers a concussion doing jiu-jitsu,

and it's almost like he went into the twilight zone. Nothing ever happened again. He never came back. I've always wondered what really went on. What really went on between all this stuff. But there are guys like that. But there are very few who can get to that level and then they just disappear or they retire. Most guys don't

want to use that word and mean it. No, and the reason why I bring that up about that you don't see that in fighting often because we never believe them. But number two, I bring it up because part of what Andrew Luck's talking about is it has to be the ongoing thing about head trauma. Guys get to a certain point, they've made the money, they've done certain things, they're sort of saying,

what's the price I have to pay in combat sports? Good Lord. I mean, it's part of the deal. And I'm a little bit surprised we don't see more guys get to the Conor McGregor level, get to after he beats Eddie Alvarez, or even after the Mayweather and just go, look, I'm done, guys. There's only bad things that can happen from this point forward. He was one of the guys

who I legit thought might stay out. There was a possibility from a superstar standpoint like that who might not because he likes the money. He's already made a ton of money. He's always on Forbes list just about every year over the last few years. Just knowing that and then he has his whiskey, everything

else going on, I'm like, I thought maybe he might walk away, but he's also addicted to it on some strange level. So it doesn't surprise me that he's back, you know, but I'm like, there are a few guys who I think have that good sense in that big picture where they're like, hey man, I've taken every vital

anything I can from the fight game. There's absolutely no point to stick around right in their prime. What would be the, real quick, the combat sports equivalent to the shock that we all saw when we saw that Andrew Luck news? You know, you didn't see it coming. Is there, what would be the combat sports equivalent to that? I don't know if there really is one.

Not that I can recall. No, that we haven't seen. Oh, that we haven't seen? That you saw tomorrow. I mean, it'd be something like that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You? I mean, I guess if it was a Deontay Wilder or somebody going,

you know, I've won the championship. I've gotten to this point. Sorry, guys. Not going to give you any of those big fights. I'm going to walk away. Yeah, it would be interesting. It's such a different thing, too, with the team sport, because there's a guy behind him, right? Like, that they're grooming. There's a guy behind him. There's a fan base. There's fantasy owners that are all up in our... Oh, my God! O.J. Simpson's video.

Oh, my God. I'm surprised he didn't pull out a weapon at the end of that. That was very interesting. All right. I wanted to close with one thing. All right. This weekend, just chilling. Backyard.

You got very serious. Barbecuing. And when I get out there, crack a beer, and I'm barbecuing in the backyard. The last day is a summer. Cool breeze. Dogs running all around. I'm putting 90s music on. It's the way I roll.

It's the way I get down. Had this debate with my neighbor. Wanted to ask you if you agree. I'm not asking you the best song of the 1990s. You can go Black by Pearl Jam and I'll fight you if you want to argue on that. It's just one of those. But the most 90s song in history, the song that the second you hear it

you're mentally back in like 1997 in your car driving around or whatever. I think the most 90s, 90s song ever. Or Anoko Flo. Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind. I just heard that last night. That's funny. I just heard that on my satellite.

That's the most 90s song. And I think it would probably make a top 10 of best 90s song, too, in terms of quality. Interesting. You going to back me on that? You're more big of an OTC hobby. I will say that when I hear that song, it is so very 90s that it does remind me 100% of that decade. I will say that.

I don't know if I would put it as my song of the decade or anything like that. I think the second I hear that, man... You're just right back. It zooms you right back. The four right chords could make me cry, you know what I mean? When I'm with... Zooms you back to when you were a teenager in the 90s?

Oh, yeah. Community college, 1985 Chevy Celebrity. You know, a lot of crazy things happened in that car. All right. That's going to wrap it up for morning combat this week. Shout out to the great Luke Thomas. We had some fun with him. Look, the former Marine serving his country and his people once again with jury duty.

Standing up for that man. I don't think he lasted an hour. No. He's got too many hardcore beliefs. I hope he ends up on like a ridiculous trial. That would be great. Then I'll be back here, man.'t think he lasted an hour. No. He's got too many hardcore beliefs. I hope he ends up on a ridiculous trial. That would be great. Then I'll be back here. Then we'll Wally Pip. Where can the people find you, Chuck Mendenhall?

Not all these people already know who you are, but your work at The Athletic is fantastic. Can I find you on social media? You can. You can find me on Twitter at Chuck Mendenhall, just my name. My Instagram, which I barely use, I should use it more, is at Chuck underscore Mendenhall. All right.

You haven't been in Laura Senko's DMs, right? No. All right. Just making sure. Brian Campbell, signing off here. Check out my podcast, State of Combat on CBS Sports. Rashad Evans and myself breaking down all things MMA. Rashad's great, man.

Thank you. We'll be back next week. More fighting. More combat. What does Luke say? Jump up, jump up, and get down. Hands up. Chin down.

Hands down. Chin up, chin down. Hands down, chin up. We'll be right back. Outro Music