MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor McGregor | John Nash Talks One Contracts | UFC Vegas 80 | Bellator 300 | Morning Kombat Ep 498

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

On Episode 498 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell kick off the show with their weekend picks. Who are their locks for the weekend? The boys also discuss Conor McGregor's IG post. Do we actually believe he entered USADA? Next up the guys break down some recent fight announcements. How great is Arnold Allen vs. Movsar Evloev? Next up John Nash joins the show to discuss One Championship's fight contracts. As always we close out Friday's with dead wrong. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our life.

This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, you hear that sound. You feel the feels.

You understand. Friday is for the arts. Welcome on back in October 6, 2023. Coming at you with a bang. This is Morning Combat, the best damn combat sports show, period. And we got the hardware to prove it, right? We got the frozen rope to show you right now to prove it, right, Luke? You know, we are rock hard with a haircut and i hit wow look at luke

thomas yeah i'm brian campbell i'm the bbc with that bde the beige bastard i work really hard and this is uh yeah the double a american alpha follow me below and also that's my co-host just a fantastic fight analyst his name is luke thomas luke how much did that spectacular haircut cost you? A lot because it was only $40. That's what you're asking what the cost was. But this was the third time I'd gone to this lady where she made me wait 30 minutes without saying anything to me while she had another client ahead and didn't say sorry and then is now moving to a different state completely, and now I have to find a new lady. So, like, I was just pissed I had to wait that long again. And also, there's been two times I showed up,

and I'm like, I'm ready for my haircut. And they're like, oh, yeah, she's on vacation. I'm like, right, but your online service lets me book her. They're like, yeah, we haven't really fixed that. I'm like, well, I mean, am I justified in beating everyone inside of that place with a hammer i don't know the answer to that but i felt like it no these are first world problems you'll hang in there sir i mean you do look your age with

that haircut which is good luke rather than looking like teen wolf's father but uh it's great to have you back on the show and fired up just the same hey we got a great show for you today not just okay that final thoughts on the weekend to come from everything from UFC to Bellator to boxing to one championship, looking and reacting at the most recent news. Apparently Luke Mike Perry's not replacing Dylan Dennis or so. I think I'm not really sure, but also hang around top of the hour about noon.

Eastern John S Nash is going to slide through here, bloody elbows on. We got a lot of business to talk about with that gentleman. We'll get down to that, enjoy it. Hey, not the face. Do you think he'll show his face, Luke, or will he be like you during a Zoom meeting with top executives? Yeah, again, I don't need to have a Zoom pajama party on these calls. If you want my voice in attendance, congratulations.

You've achieved it. Well, we don't need your employment moving forward. See, you're used to working in corporate America and just giving away all of your freedoms to them. They got to earn it. They got to earn it. You want me to call? I'll be on the call.

You want me to talk? I'll talk. But put my camera off. You want me to be polite? You're going to have to blow me. That's how this works, all right? That's how this works. Is that asking so much?

Is that really asking so much? Please. In this modern-day world, Mikey Mormo, CBS Sports on the ones and twos, a backbone of this facility. Hey, look, morningcombat.store can get you this beautiful hat and probably a shirt you're wearing. I think I got an undershirt on. No, not this one. I forgot to wear it. to wear oh yeah look at these chesticles right here i got it all

on for you luke here's what i want to say about it though true or false we just talked with rj uh dunkel gangbanger and uh first of all as i call him rj's first of all rj's congratulations on the birth of i'm assuming your beautiful daughter and. And much love to RJ and his significant other here. But along with that new addition, Luke, and I'm not talking about Bell, Viv, or DeVoe here. I'm talking about there's more Average Joe crossover merch to come. It's like right around the corner. And I heard, Luke, it's spectacular. That's what I heard.

Yeah, I actually got to see a sneak peek of it, I think. And it's better than you think it is. I'll put it that way. It's better than you think it is. Better than the rest. Yeah. Green to red. Right, Luke?

I mean, Luke, have you ever had a machine head? Is that machine head from Bush? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's so good.

Right? It's so good. Anyway, we got to probably have a decent show for you. We'll dead wrong ourselves. We'll do some other things. Luke, Showtime.com, the 30 days, right? You can get it right now. And why would you?

How about Bellator 300 Saturday night from San Diego, which, of course, translates directly, Luke, to a whale's vagina. Yeah, all right. Anchorman, not that funny. Not that funny. You know, for 2005, it was right borat too those are big comedic hits back then they don't necessarily got old i do agree borat got old pretty quickly at that but the original borat i think holds oh god dude i still don't think i've ever okay billy madison and borat collectively are probably the most i've ever laughed but right when they came out, right?

Billy Madison I like a lot. There's a lot of Sandler movies I don't like, but Billy Madison is very, very, very good. And I do like Step Brothers. I like a lot of Will Ferrell movies, but for some reason, I feel like Anchorman is so funny. And I watched it, and I'm like, I would just rather get fucked to death by an apedicked walrus than watch this. All right, all right. I mean, you know, there's examples that make sense there's examples though that will force you to turn your zoom camera on pretty quickly luke hopefully that's not one of them right there um

anything else you want to get into luke weekend plans uh i don't know what's going on in your world no i got a bunch of in-laws coming in a couple of weeks. I got a whole shit ton of in-laws coming in two weeks, so I'm getting ready for that. I know what that means, Luke. That means you're going to be shopping for gifts. Or maybe it's the other way around. No, because they're getting on the airplane and coming over here, they're going to be giving me gifts,

but I don't want these fucking gifts. I got to get them gifts. These are like elite, thoughtful like well-planned gifts right they used to be now it's usually just booze and i don't even drink hardly at all i'm like uh thanks all right well uh that's all we got for this intro here i hope you enjoyed it it's time now to transition to the meat of this show before we welcome in Mr. John S. Nash in about an hour. Let's get into OK Bet.

We go head to head every week, five picks against five picks. We took last week off, but we're back at it with a bang this week. We're going to find out who's worse at this and then ultimately who has to be at a concert that they despise. We call this. Okay, Ben. Teeter, I'm losing your hand. Are you testifying? What's going on? I have to speak.

May I speak? Yes, please. Now, I'm not going to make you do it. I'm not going to make you do it. I want to be clear because we didn't lock it in. But the fact that the charlo pick that you had doesn't count on this ledger is something of a crime it's approximately well luke you know what i mean it's more of a crime i would say that that man did not

show up to fight in the biggest fight of his career to back up the biggest crime is that he punted the second biggest crime is that you get to waltz through without that counting on the ledger we didn't lock it in so that's why i'm not going to force it but i want you to know you got lucky as shit with that all right hey quickly on that right quickly on that we were right we were straight up after the fight charlotte didn't show up very disappointing performance dude i went and just kind of took a circular look at the boxing takes of our media brethren people are killing dermel like killing like he'll never be the same his reputation is soiled forever i don't know if i'll go that far luke but it was one of the bigger big fight disappointment performances we've seen in a while you know

people i think we initially were like oh was this as bad as joshua claudia against pacquiao and i still don't think it's as bad as that because dude claudia came out last year and basically said he fought like that because somebody was trying to fix the fight like he had all these weird accusations yeah yeah but he still like when we were watching it in real time i was watching it at buffalo what used to be buffalo billiards in Washington, D.C. I remember I was like, dude, what the fuck is happening here? I still don't think it's as bad as that, but what I will say is that what you're talking about,

the takes about Charlo are much closer to them putting it on par with Claude than I even think it deserves. To your point, it's ubiquitous. He's getting murdered out there. That that zoo fight he needs that zoo fight yeah chris manix was like uh you know he took the check he didn't even try to win one time like people going after this guy i was like damn all right he was the undisputed champ you would expect a little bit more you know claudie was not that guy you know jermell was that guy indeed uh also don't forget mikey garcia uh he he laid an aldona size egg against errol spence in that pay-per-view after moving up to and was he ever the same no no he's not even a fighter anymore uh look before vacation

you and i went even two wins three losses so our standings will stay the same the updated overall luke has one less win at 67 68 and four but i think due to winning percentage luke that still gives you the edge over my 68 70 and one so for at least one more week you will have the champions advantage oh luke do you want to play we got some sound related to these fight events do you want to play that first or after our picks um i kind of want to hear a couple of these Bobby Green ones. Can we play a couple of the Bobby Green ones? Well, look, our biggest fight of the weekend,

our main event pick is going to surround UFC back at the Apex Fight Night, a lightweight headliner with Red Hot Grant Dawson against the wily 37-year-old veteran Bobby Green. To set the stage right now, according to the oddsmakers odds makers and our friends at over there at Caesars. I mean, are they our friends? Look,

I don't think they returned my calls that often, but I do know that what we're looking at here is Grant Dawson, minus four 40, Bobby Green plus three 40, but there are some apparently extenuating circumstances surrounding why Bobby Green is here and what he's fighting for. What am I talking about? Bobby caught up with our own CBS sports and morning combats,

Shaquille Majorey on the Shaq MMA channel. And here's Bobby Green talking about exactly why he took this fight. I have a goal. I have three kids and to get a home for each one of them kids. And they can be able to give them this. Hey, your home's here. It's paid off. That's my gift to you. My dad didn't give me anything. Maybe I can't pay for college. Maybe I can't get you all the things in the world, but here I give them, you know, a home that you will always have.

That's something that I, the kid, I had to go 50 different homes, something that you'll have that you won't have to go through that. I had to. Luke, he would go on to talk about that buying those homes may take them a little bit longer than expected due to a recent robbery. Let's hear this one. And I'm going to tell you a crazy story. Remember that 60 grand? I have been giving it away for the last year or so. Really?

Just getting to people and helping people and i think i had like 20 grand left right and just recently like a week or two ago i got robbed for the 20 grand and not literally on me because i'll be dead right now i'm gonna die before i let somebody take something from me and need not fight and so well i think what happened was i was here for my buddy alex reyes this fight he's fighting um i'm here now i'm here i'm training for my fight and i'm helping him i'm dog tired i must have freaking left my sunroof open i left my sunroof i think they went into the sunroof and got my bag full of 20 cash well i'm sorry to hear that it's okay it's a blessing someone someone really needed you need to jump into a sunroof

to get some money you probably really needed i was just about to say that i don't think that's true um i don't think that's true at all i want to have you know extreme uh heart for this moment but if you leave your sunroof open with twenty thousand dollars in a bag in your car yeah them are kind of the breaks in life, right? Like, that's rough. Also, I just want to point out, if someone puts a gun in your face and asks for your car or your phone,

just give it to them. Your shit is insured. You'll just get another one. Like, why the fuck would you fist fight over something? Yeah, I don't give a fuck. I'm going to just get another one. Like, you're going to have it, bitch. You fight it out with the law.

I'll just go get my insurance to cover for you. I'm not fighting over that shit one time. Nothing. Okay. Okay. Luke, Shaquille Majuri has, in real time, updated our Slack channel and told Mikey and I that he believes if we should finish OK Bet in a draw at the end of the year that it would make us both losers and our punishment should be going to a rave with him and i'm assuming that means dressed

like a cow if he really wants to punish us he should keep texting me keep asking for retweets look yeah did you guys mind sharing this i it's my 50th text today come on that guy works hard for us luke no no no listen listen in all seriousness shack is actually a really sweet guy and he works really hard he does a great job it is fun this is why people don't get the bit is being mean on purpose that's the bit not being truthful just mean mean. Just mean. Okay. All right.

I finally understand you. Finally. It took me only four years and nearly 500 episodes. Luke, what do you think of Bobby Green's bling in that clip? I mean, you know, combine that with the talk about buying his kids' houses and recouping that 20K. Does that change any of your thoughts heading into this on paper lopsided main event i mean i don't know how much selling the jewelry would get him closer to college tuition i don't know that but i'm not gonna you know micromanage his uh spending choices i think the um the desire to leave them a house given how incredibly messed up his upbringing was is just super, super, super, super admirable.

And we've actually seen this before. Chris Lytle, he did fight a little bit later than I think he had naturally intended, but he had also changed his fighting style in the last several years of his career. Folks may not remember this. Chris Lytle was a good fighter. He had good submissions. He had good striking, but he was never a really elite one so he decided to do was keep some of that is a very formidable skills but just become much more offensively wide open and it you know caused him to win or lose a little bit more in dramatic fashion but just that it was more dramatic so what ended up happening was he got shit tons of bonuses every time he fought remember this is back at a time when you could have been like knockout of the night and fight the night so you could have gone home with 75 or 100K.

And I remember him doing interviews and saying, like, with this money he saved, he's got money for all his kids' colleges. He got a boat that he wanted to get, a second home, like all of this stuff that it provided. So I actually totally get where Bobby Green is coming from because we've literally seen it. I hope he can get there sooner rather than later. All right. We're going to get to that pick pick in a second but we wanted to clean up some other fight week details luke we know bellator 300 is saturday night 10 p.m eastern on showtime from san diego how about this luke bellator to commemorate this may be similar to how ufc used the yellow uh canvas one time only at UFC 200.

This is what Bellator is going to roll off for 300, the gold gloves. What do you think about this, Luke? It's cool, I guess. Right? Okay. I like it. I like it a lot. I don't hate it.

Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I don't hate it. I've always argued that as a WWE fan, too. If it's a pay-per-view, do something in the arena that when we tune in looking at a highlight, we will instantly know that was a special. I wouldn't mind that type of stuff. That's right.

I definitely don't hate it, and it's probably definitely better than having a gold canvas like the UFC did for 200. But even when the UFC did it, remember when the UFC did, I think, 205, they had the Statue of Liberty, I believe, on the gloves for the first MSG show. Something like that. It's cool, but it's like, how good are the fights? It's a little more important. I'll tell you what.

I've said this before when people have asked me. They said, you're a wrestling fan, a combat sports fan. What do you think is the best-looking championship belt of all time? And Luke, if I take pro wrestling out of this conversation, do you know what I actually think is the most beautiful title ever? And I saw this because I was, I was, you know, in row eight last night, rewatching UFC recaps of 1995, six and seven. Dude, the UFC super fight championship with the original logo of that,

that guy, what's that guy's name? The original like emblem of UFC. Like the guy guy's name? The original emblem of UFC? The guy who's like this or whatever? Yeah. Dude, that's the best-looking championship belt they've ever had. They should bring that back. Look, I love the look of that. My favorite is not the Pride weight class championship belts,

which I actually did not like very much, but their tournament belts to me were insanely cool. Love that. Let's keep going. A couple more pieces of sound ahead of Bellator 300. We've got Usman Nurmagomedov bumped up into the main event, taking on former champion Brent Primus, semifinals of the World Grand Prix.

And here's Usman talking to Shaq about this matchup and what we should expect. You know, I know this guy is strong because of him. Of course, he had 38 years. And when you have like more than 30 years this is like different power like men you know like you have different power

like a man this is not like when you have 25 and 35 like 36 this is like different power I think this is like my opinion he gonna be strong first round You really will strong because he's really strong. Yeah, but nothing else now

He's strong, but he's striking is not very good. Of course. Yes. He hit low kick, but I'm white a guy I know how I have to say how I have to like make defense move everything I have to make defense, move, everything I have. And inshallah, I believe so much from God. Luke, his English is really good, really fast. It's not bad, actually. Yeah, it's actually somehow better than Habib's. Do you agree with him saying, look, premise has man's strength, but that's about it? Relative to him yeah yeah i mean that's not fair to a lot of other people but relative to uzman yeah yeah that's probably and look another pick that i'm sure we'll see in today's okay bet proceedings is the third of three title fights at

bellator 300 and that is liz carmouch defending her flyweight strap in an interesting sort of storyline matchup here against very good friend, longtime training partner and former champion Alimale McFarlane. I think this plays into how we sort of try to handicap this. Are we going to see friends brawl and go at it? Is it going to be a sparring match? Is it going to be the PFL natan schultz situation all over again here's liz karmush talking to a very busy shaquille majori about fighting a friend feeling good you

know this is a day that we knew um just coming up and training together all the time that was inevitable and it would be upon us at some point you know this is i feel like part of the reason why bellator signed me is the storyline and and the idea. So we certainly knew it was going to happen. But of course, you know, the last thing you want to do, I'd like I much like the idea of I just submit her gently and just put her to sleep. No harm, no foul. We can both smile after rather than coming out battered and beaten. But knowing the two of us, we're going to come out battered and beaten.

That doesn't give me full confidence, right? Does it? Does it give you? She's like,'s like let's have like the the most painless we'll just tap her out and that'll be it people want friends to fight each other and i'm like i don't i mean i don't know what kind of fight we're gonna get on saturday but if it sucked would you be surprised like you'd be like oh yeah right they're friends why would they want to yeah each other right i mean it is different when when you're going after a championship and they are here so it's like that's why i say if aljo and and marab want to stand by this okay that's

fine but you do at some point have to put it first in your careers this is interesting because mcfarlane's already been the champ is the younger fighter but might not be the fresher fighter of the two considering the run karmush has been on i don't know we do have one final piece of sound from shack and you can check out all of these interviews shack hour here on the show at length on the shack mma channel on youtube and here is a lima lay mcfarlane on the same topic um so i've already invited her to the putin spike talking party and i'm like yeah let's get back together and you know I imagine that whoever wins is going to bring the belt to that party and I always kind of compare it to um the movie love and basketball

so there's a scene where she plays her former college teammate um professionally in spain and they go out and have dinner afterwards and then the girls like bitch can you please take your trophy off of the table and she's like oh excuse me while i take my championship trophy off to make room and so i and like they're friends though you know so i i imagine it would be similar to that. Like whoever wins has bragging rights. Oh, look, I thought she was going with the other storyline angle and loving basketball where they, where they bang at the end and have like a,

when Harry met Sally type of story in relationship there, spoiler alert, Luke, your thought, I mean, look, are they going to throw down or what Luke? That's what I want to know. I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, I'm not – I don't know. Yeah.

I don't have great expectations for that fight, so I'll just leave it at that. All right. Do you have any final comment, Luke, on – No, well, let's do this okay bet, bro. Let's do it. Let's get these picks in. Let's lock them in.

That's what we're doing. I just wanted to say, like, where we're at with Bellator right now, Luke. This is not the final show, right? I mean, they have scheduled 301, but we did see Ryan Bader, who was supposed to be in the main event against Litton Vassell, the rematch, that Vassell is sick,

that Ryan Bader tried to fight a replacement. And according to him, Paramount didn't want to put up the money to make that fight happen. I don't know what, what is like, how do you sort of interpret what this card means beyond the historic value, but in the overall arc of, of where Bellator could be after this? It feels not, I mean, again, I know that they have another show after this, but it feels like

the bookend of a show of a, of a promotions run. Bellator has been a real interesting, weird kind of at times, very relevant and interesting promotion. And at times, you know, not. And again, I think the value in what you could get there if PFL finally goes through with it is based on the roster. And obviously some other supplementary things that would go along with using that roster. Not so much in the IP itself. And I think it feels like you know listen i don't want to be like this is some kind of funeral i don't think that's quite

right but don't you feel like doesn't it seem like the writing's on the wall again no one tells a shit we don't have any we don't have any inside scoop so we're just kind of guessing here as well but it it feels like everyone's sort of gathered to be a part of the final, relatively final acts of this body. Well, it does feel like that. And if it's leading toward what we think is happening, the outright sale to PFL and the hopeful merging of the two rosters, then I think it should be a celebratory sort of ending,

whether it's 300 as the last show or 301. We're just sort of like, look, we made it. We made it 300 shows across different owners and different that's a big achievement no doubt about it so um you know hopefully i don't know but we did hear the rumors of the bellator potentially living on under new ownership as a separate brand we'll see what happens there i do think we should mention something because i was around. I had a show on Spike TV, which eventually became the Paramount Channel and is now obviously involved in very, very different kind of programming since they made that switch. I was on Spike TV in 2011, and then you'll recall there was that weird 2012 year

where they could still have UFC highlights, and then I think it was 2013, they really began to lean into Bellator. And you'll recall that's right around the time that Viacom also purchased them and the belief at the time under Viacom the belief at the time was remember Dana White had a big beef with Philippe Dumont who's you know no longer with the company and hasn't been for quite some time um about they you know I think the UFC wanted to get a better deal with Spike at the time that they did or the time that they moved on to Fox Sports. And some of the leadership at then, again, they're all gone now, at Viacom at the time wanted to purchase their own organization

because they believed they could use that. Like rather than just renting the rights from the UFC, hey, let's just get our own MMA organization and use that for the kinds of ends of programming and ad sales that they wanted. And in the end, we do have to ask, did Viacom in that sense ultimately get out of this purchase what they wanted? If they're selling, it would seem like the answer is no um and the ufc has their market concentration even since 2011 has only grown but they had 80 percent of the world's best fighters they got closer to 85 percent of it now so you know something of an interesting experiment that a big company tried and it's remains very uh i think uh in doubt about whether or not they ultimately that that that leadership team at that time got what they wanted out of this. Well,

if this is the end of the road, would the, is the high period in Bellator that run on spike TV slash Paramount, when the ratings were through the roof with Kimbo, with the return of shamrock and Gracie. I mean, that's gotta be the, I mean that while it was circus,

like you did have legitimate fighters underneath those fights and you did have interest, Luke. So I went to the first dynamite card you know i was there for that i went to i went to kimbo dada i went to kimbo ken i went to a bunch of these bellator fights and again i went to it under bjorn rebney as well rampage versus joey beltran at the now defunct revel in atlantic city i went to that too um remember coker takes over in 2014 and there was this immediate enthusiasm that the guy that was behind strike force was going to really take

bellator to the next level because you still had revenue being like okay we're going to have tournaments but then we're going to have guys who aren't in tournaments and the product became very confused which is what you see pfl trying to figure out now pfl stop doing tournaments like you're doing them this is where it all inevitably leads i have literally seen this movie before but the point i wanted to make was what you raised as soon as he comes in he's like we're gonna do big events we're gonna do tentpole events we're gonna do you know we're gonna have this great giant screen and we're gonna make bellator big revny wanted a bellator that was interesting but lean and could run on basically the casino model yeah and spike wanted something bigger and then

brought in coker to do that and they did it they did msg they did the pay-per-view level they did some big stuff along the way they broke 100k on pay-per-view which is not a small achievement either like bellator did some stuff but it i don't know what the full situation is we're just guessing in many ways like everybody else but it does seem like some of the steam well look the end or not on saturday 300 is a big number i hope they bring back some uh old characters like caveman rickles like bjorn i would like if they announced season one uh play-by-play announcer john annick luke and don't forget about season one ring announcer lupe contreras that handsome devil from wow circles yeah so uh be a nice reunion if they did that i doubt it but we'll see hey it's time for real for okay bet luke are you going first

or second this is the last time you're going first i'll go first for whatever the hell that's worth this one bc for our main event pick not a lot to say about this one. I won't belabor the point. We were trying to decide, do we do the Bellator main event, which would be the Usman Nurmagomedov fight, or do we do the UFC one? And we ultimately had to go UFC

because Usman Nurmagomedov is like a minus one of our 2,000 favorites, a gigantic favorite. And to be clear, Grant Dawson is a pretty sizable favorite over Bobby Green, but it's a little bit more parody there. So give me Grant Dawson, BC, in the main event. Either he's going to get knocked out or he's going to do the Grant Dawson is a pretty sizable favorite over Bobby Green, but it's a little bit more parody there. So give me Grant Dawson, BC in the main event, either he's going to get knocked out or he's going to do the Grant Dawson thing. I would imagine BC part of the reason a fight like this got made is not a lot of guys saying yes to fighting Grant Dawson. Uh, does not necessarily a huge name and he's really, really tough. He's really good. So give me Grant Dawson in that main

event. Look, I tried to talk myself into the Bobby Green upset pick more for the OK Bet drama, Luke, but I just can't do it. This feels like a showcase fight. I do respect the danger that Bobby Green brings. I remember giving him a chance to do something against Islam Mahachev. Not win, but a chance to, like, compete. And that, I mean, that didn't happen in the end. But I'm saying I have respect for the high ends of where his game can go. But, yeah yeah it's Grant

Dawson's time so I'll take that in the book so it'll be a push we'll see where we go from here all right with that in mind we're going out to our favorite picks this one I need to look up the odds very quickly uh Sarah McMahon is going to be uh my pick for the favorite now she's not a huge favorite so I actually this one they have the odds makers have kind of close. She's taking on Leah McCourt, who I believe just lost to Kat Zingano. Sarah McMahon sitting, according to our friends at Caesars, at minus 160. McCourt at plus 135.

McCourt's got some interesting submission games, an interesting submission game, and we know that Sarah McMahon has not always had the most locked on submission defense. Not all the time. So I get why the odds makers are close, but McMahon is just a much better athlete, much

stronger, significantly better wrestler, even at this advanced age. I'll say this. She should not lose this fight. She is the favorite for a reason. Give sarah mcmahon yeah luke going in that direction let me i was going to look up her uh actual age here luke she's like 39 no she is uh 43 luke um three yeah but she still has it i think for this level i i like that pick as a favorite her wrestling is still very strong she's tough as I'm going to stay in women's fighting here, Luke. Shocker, right? Big surprise. I'm going to go deep down on that UFC card. You know I'm fired up for Karolina Kovalevich as a minus 155 favorite against Diana Belvita.

Luke, KK has had an interesting run considering that giant losing streak, which could have been the end of her career. And then she comes back and runs off this three fight win streak. Now it's against secondary faded level competition, but she's been solid. Whatever she needed to change to find a rebirth, she found it right there. There's a spark to her game. She's aggressive. She's basically relying on combination punching and just getting inside on you.

She's always been big for this weight class. Luke,ita is just not a great fighter she's just not she's she's at a certain level if you look at the people she's beat and lost to but I think Kovalkevich even at 37 here and even well past her prime could extend to a four fight win streak give me the give me the slight favorite here I think this is a slam dunk. I'm telling you. Right now, you heard it here, all right? Very good. All right, for my underdog pick, BC, as you know, I traditionally struggle with these, although I think the last one I got right was Tim Means,

so I feel pretty good about that one. But maybe that wasn't him. I don't even remember who I got. I'm going to go with Bill Algeo over Alexander Hernandez. Now, according to our friends at Caesars, Bill Algeo, a plus 110 underdog, Alexander Hernandez, minus 130. So it's still obviously very competitive. Algeo is 34.

Hernandez, I think, just 31. So that kind of gives me a little bit of the creeps. But Algeo can be crafty. Hernandez can panic wrestle or just make poor decisions in the middle of a fight. And it seems to me that Algeo is outmatched physically by Hernandez. I do think that's true, but it's a lot more calm in the pocket.

I do think against a guy who might make reactive decisions that aren't at his best, Algeo is just the kind of smooth customer in those kinds of moments that could make a big difference. So I understand why Hernandez is the favorite, but forced to make an upset pick. Give me Bill Algeo in this one. Dude, I have to say, we're so close in the standings,

and there's so much at stake here, because damn, do I not want to be at the abortion palooza, Luke. It makes all of these undercard fights so life or death to me in terms of who wins based on these picks. And let me keep it going. This is main card for Bellator 300, but it's a weird fight. We talked about a Lima lay McFarlane is my underdog.

Lucas plus two 20 against the favorite Liz car moose, the champion who's currently sits at minus two 70. But we talked about it. This is going to be a weird fight. They're friends. Yeah. They have five rounds to work with. Yeah. Karmush is in the, you know, seemingly in the better shape and fresher despite being the older fighter. But if they are not going tooth and nail, if that becomes a part of this where it's like, well, I don't want to hurt the other person. I think there's an

opening here for, for McFarlane who is you know younger by by a good amount to kind of find a little resurgence in this moment and maybe outwork karmush luke karmush has been a part of some weird fights before the rematch with shevchenko for the title at flyweight in the ufc just i mean it was just it's just you talk about what Jermell Charlo didn't do against Canelo, right? This, this is like the, the, the, the meter for that, the, the, the, the measuring stick. I think we're going to see a weird fight here that could go either way. That's not all that exciting, but I think McFarlane is that striker who throws a lot of volume, can ride emotion. I think she may, she may ride this to outwork Karmush and take the belt. And then they'll both be at the post fightfight party, Luke, laughing

it up and watching Love and Basketball. I mean, everyone's going to be happy in the end, so I might as well too. Give me the bold Alina Leigh upset here. Yeah. Wow. Wow. You're going to bring that She called it that, not me. I think you're confusing the

conversation we had offline, Luke, which was not for TV. And you're melding it in. First of all, she said it in the video. Second of all, who doesn't love tacos, BC? Indeed, indeed. Luke, what do you think about that pick there? I think she might outwork Karmush because the weirdness,

you can't avoid it here. It's going to be weird. I mean, straight up, I don't think she'd win. But given how bizarre that could end up going, I don't think that's a crazy pick at all. I actually kind of like it. Yeah, there it is. She said, quote, I invited her to the taco party afterwards.

Yeah. Had to be tacos, right? Not even Tuesday. DC, if I threw a taco party, would you show up? Depends on the guest list, Luke. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. All right.

Wait. For my over-under pick, this one is not really all that difficult to figure out. I'm not really going to belabor the point on this one either. It's a women's fight, so it's probably going to go the distance. Give me Kovalkevic versus Belvita. You're such a net hanger. And I had to do the same thing because you're net hanging. We're so close in the standings.

Yes. Why should I risk a men's fight right now? I'm going Montana De La Rosa against JJ Alterich, which could be the curtain jerker on Saturday's UFC Fight Night card. It's actually a decent fight, Luke. I think Montana should win this, but I think sometimes what stops her and why she juggles wins and losses so often, she doesn't have that one.

She's a very good wrestler, but she doesn't have that one dominant skill to win close fights. So I'm not sure who actually wins this because Aldridge could hang around and she's got some sneak sneaky skills to her game at this level, but it's going to go the distance Luke. And I'm going to get the point. That's just where it's at. All right.

All right. Very good. And then last but not least for KO or sub, I actually feel like your choice is better than mine. Your, I, I, I grant that yours will almost certainly be correct.

Mine, I think, is a little bit debatable, but I picked what I picked. I got Felipe Lins versus Iwan Kutelaba ending in KO. I still feel pretty good about that because Kutelaba just donks it up one way or the other. Win or lose, he's going to go in there and make suboptimal decisions that are very, very violent, and that usually ends in something pretty fun with the striking department um lens i think is more careful so i wonder exactly what it might look like but yeah give me lens versus scute lava ending via ko there's a big market for tv fighters who make suboptimal decisions luke even elite ones like matt frivola he's like dude i'm going's like, dude, I'm going in there to bang, right?

I'm going in there to take your head off. That happens. Yeah, I'm going to go KO here, Luke. Joaquin Buckley, Alex Morono. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. That's a great pick. You just get why at the end of the day.

So we're going to watch these matchups closely. I don't believe, Luke, you have any upset picks that we didn't hit, right? Whether it's Kat Zingano against Cyborg or whether it's nurmaga met off against you know or or even across the board joe pfeiffer has a very big fight against alhassan he's a huge favorite yeah he is he is yeah all right there you go well that's all i got on that okay bet in the books thank you very much all right i gotta tell you i'm ready for a big fight card in mma Like, 294, can I just be honest? 294 can't get here soon enough.

It's a great card anyway, but, like, I've been going to these big boxing megafights and stuff. I've really not had an MMA card in a while, and a card, not just a big fight or that, like a card, a real event. Pull me. 294 cannot get here soon enough, man. I really feel that way. you um uh can we tell

the people that we did a pre-game preview with eric nixick yeah tell them tell them all right we did it yeah we did when is it going to air this weekend uh that's a mikey question mikey is that going to air the sunday before so not this coming sunday but the following sunday i think right so you gotta he's got to check with malcolm But that's usually when we put him out. We usually put him out the Sunday before the fights. So we did one with Eric Nixick, and we got him to do predictions. And BC, remember, Hamzat Shumayev has done a fair amount of training at Elite XC. Eric Nixick's comments about Hamzat Shumayev are,

you're not going to want to miss them. Yeah, I didn't realize that that Deshaun Strickland and and uh Chemaev had had like lengthy sparring sessions yes long time so there you go it'll be interesting all right topic number one Luke it feels like all the jokes all the pushing off all the waiting might actually be over conor mcgregor well maybe it's not over because he's hinting luke but he's hinting strongly that he has either entered or is in motion to potentially consider entering the usada testing pool he would need in theory six months before he could be eligible for a return let's say for example uf UFC 300 next April, but they can waive that.

The Brock Lesnar rule, we know that. Luke Thomas on Instagram, Conor McGregor wrote, find my targets, hit them, fuck the consequences. You're going down. This is fighting sparring day with slick Graz Dev and Nikolai. Always a banger of a spar with the slick, slick fella submitted my stuff to Novitski ball rolling. Seeing you soon. You little light work, bitch. Now that little light work,

bitch Luke, I think is Michael Chandler, but I wanted before we hear from Chandler to get a definitive reaction. We thought Mike Perry was in for Dylan Danis but they're pulling their hoodwink in us pro wrestling style every other day is Conor McGregor really in the USADA pool and will they really make him sit out six months none of this counts until you see his testing uh numbers go into the database right like once you oh, there were two tests done for this quarter, however they would measure it, that's what you should do.

But by the way, I want to point out something about this, and I want to be very clear, if I may. Please. If it's the case that Conor McGregor has to wait six months that they don't waive it, I don't know exactly how folks might interpret that war between USADA and Conor and Conor getting his way or not. But I just want to point out, he's already won, right? Because he never retired.

He got out of the testing pool. He got to take whatever drugs via medical intervention or however it went down that he wanted. I think he's doing more than just medical luke i think there might be a no spear in there too just just me just me yeah but what i'm trying to point out is whatever methods he'd use to fuse the bone that were not usada approved and then who knows what else may have happened beyond that that he's going to be able to get back in without penalty even if he has to wait the six months he already won he already won he

had a devastating injury where he was able to take time off not retiring still able to be ranked take all the drugs he wanted for whatever purposes and come right back just that they weren't going to also make him skip the queue that we're aware of conor mcgregor already beat the system so so we will see how many times he gets tested and if he does that will tell us ultimately what the proof is and the pudding is but no matter what the guy already beat usada just then you need a new t-shirt luke because drugs win the drug war but you're saying conor mcgregor also won the drug war he yeah by by a considerable margin i would say yeah okay uh michael chandler was on the mma hour with ariel and said quote the status is when talking about a mcgregor fight unequivocally

the fight is still happening the fight is not booked for a date the fight is not booked for a venue but the fight is booked between chandler and connor there's no way connor comes back and doesn't fight me i'm ready ready to fight January, February, March, April, May, whatever we'll see. Obviously it makes a lot of sense that there's a very historic card coming

up in the UFC. I haven't been told that that's when it's going to be, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's when it is. And if it is, I've got more and more time to prepare. I've never had this much time to prepare for one guy, one opponent, me and my team,

we're going to put together a game plan and knock this dude out in the first or second round. That's an end quote to Chandler. Luke, he's teasing what we all know is coming. It looks like April. If you're on the traditional pay-per-view schedule for UFC, that UFC 300 is coming. Um, if you're going to wait and they've waited, right, this, this fight should have already taken place, right? Whether, whether it was right after the ultimate fighter season or, you know, last March or whatever. Like, it should have been over already. If you're going to wait this long, you got to put it on 300. You got to have Conor on 300.

It's the right fight. It's taken way too long to get here. Where do you think it'll be, Luke? Would you assume we're getting three to four main event level fights on UFC 300? where would this fit in that are you gonna not have Conor in the main event I don't know how the rest of the calendar is going to play out well enough to know how they're going to book that but I agree with you a billion percent you if you're going to wait this long whatever else should have happened if you're going to wait this long now, why would you put him on 299 or 301? What the fuck would be the point of that?

Put him on UFC 300. I don't think it would go at the top of the marquee, but I guess Conor might have his own ideas about that. He often doesn't like sharing the marquee with other folks, so maybe they might have to put him on 299 or 301. But if there's any sense among these folks or any ability to compromise here, putting him on 30099 or 301 but if there's any sense among these folks or any ability to compromise here putting him on 300 would i think ratchet up the big fight feel of this card even bigger

i have holy support putting him on it so do you think there's any chance they would put two title fights below him and him in the main event and i'm not arguing that that's not a ufc 300 main pay-per-view main event fight i mean it's it's big look it's freaking big even though he's washed it's still big it's guaranteed action it's a big fight for chandler who is such fan friendly um but like what champion's gonna be like yeah that's cool connor you could fight for nobel on the main event and i'll what champion has say that's fair that's fair all right what do you how good do you think that fight card will look luke i mean because ufc 200 even with the last minute changes 100 was bonkers it felt like

it felt like they were trying to give us like four and a half great fights meaning at that point came velasquez coming back after a long layoff to fight travis brown was like you know pretty pretty damn good dude every other prelims for that card was insane oh the early prelims were insane too but like think about that main card you know aldo versus edgar too isn't as a super elite fight you know misha tay against uh nunes was a super elite fight uh obviously john and dc or the replacement dc and anderson silva and brock in general brock in general was a super attraction fight but to be fair in that sequence they had the chance to put Brock in the main event after Jon Jones had to pull out they instead put

the women's fight which I guess in hindsight is a smart move it makes more sense it was a bigger fight but do you think we're getting like four elite world like elite special major main event type offerings on the same card or am I asking too much i think you're definitely getting three right wasn't that the rule when we were kids you would buy an album if you knew it had three really good songs i mean my dad had a rule he wouldn't let me buy a buy a tape luke unless i knew more than two songs on the tape it was like it was the worst rule ever people don't even know about these these these standards anymore because they're no longer relevant but the three fight rule especially if they're all longer relevant. But the three-fight rule, especially if they're all three of the best ones

are on the main card, yeah, I think you'll get that. Beyond that, it's just very hard to say. However, if they do put Conor on it and it does have three title fights or something equivalent close to that, dude, the tickets for that, the tickets for that are going to be astronomically.

You're going to have to give up your firstborn kid. I mean, look, say what you will about this Dana versus Steven Espinosa feud that keeps going to be astronomically you're gonna have to give up your firstborn kid i mean look say what you will about this dana versus steven espinoza feud that keeps going on and we have some connections to it just because we work for showtime i guess but um i thought it was a nice zinger for steven to come back with the gate comment there you got to believe dana is going to be motivated to to break all gate records that's what a promoter would want to do that's what they should be motivated to do. They could shatter a gate if they like,

okay. For example, what if you had Islam versus Volkanovski too? If that played out that way, Connor versus Chandler, give me Izzy versus somebody right for the middleweight title. Like Izzy versus somebody in a, in a big blood feud. He's not the champion.

I get that. But Izzy versus DDP as big blood feud. Izzy's not the champion. I get that. But Izzy versus DDP as champion or Izzy versus Strickland as champion is still a lot of hot fire sex to add to this, right? Yeah. I don't know how DDP would be champion, but okay. And then you got to put a good female fight up there, right? Or you don't. What do you think?

I mean, you don't have to. You don't have to. don't have to looks like make me a sandwich baby no um all right i mean are you so if they did that okay let's say they had a fourth fight that's like a title fight so you have three title fights and connor and there's a lot of like there's a lot of people you want to see there and let's say we're getting like bone nickel and all these other things on the middle card that you'd love can they charge luke not not nine hundred dollars for the worst seat in the arena can they charge whatever the fuck they want three thousand five thousand dollars it's ufc 300 charging 900 for the bleeders for john jones

steve mjocic is already doing whatever the f they want like I wouldn't pay $900 for front row for that. I wouldn't pay $900 for front row, much less the worst- I mean, that's easy to say when you've sat front row for free for your job. That's easy to say. But if you are a super, super, super fan and you would have a chance at front row, there's people that might pay that. There is. Okay, but for the bleeders, if you're charging the bleeders $900 a pop,

you're already like, you're just the Joker setting money on fire on that barge, you know? Okay, so where does this event have to be, Luke, to maximize? Because is this where you go to Allegiant or is this where you go to – I mean, he's talking about the sphere, but is this where you go to Jerry World and do like 80,000 people at – You know what's funny is we went to that we went to the Spence versus Ugas fight which was at Jerry's World the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and I think he pulled like 45k for

that obviously you can hold more much more but Canelo had almost 80 one time I thought right yeah but I was gonna say even at the way they had it set up even at 45k it looked really well attended I will say that you know BC and i had what can only be described as the most far away seat imaginable they shot us into space and asked asked us to call fights from outer space and we did our best you know but it was hard to see soon on the owen on the owen heart reference there look if that's where you're going but that's i wasn't doing that i don't know the circumstances of this gentleman's death beyond the broad headline. I'm just, I'm just pointing out,

I'm just pointing out. I know what Dana's argument is about like the fan experience, but if you go to the right stadium that caters to people who are kind of far away in it all, I was at St. Pierre versus shields in Canada. It can be done. It can be done. It can absolutely be done.

Cause he's talking about the sphere for Mexican Independence Day, which is next September. So if they're going to do 300 in April, I think you've got to go somewhere big because they are all about gouging prices and breaking gate records. So why would you not then go to a stadium? You have to. They've always been hesitant to.

But I'm telling you, inevitably they're going been hesitant to but i'm telling you inevitably they're going to be in stadiums in france and england and you know germany cameroon wherever like inevitably that's where they're going to end up if they stay on this road of maximizing profits so aggressively so maybe this is the card for that luke maybe this is the the hey it's in our backyard allegiant stadium let's freaking go after it let's just let's just go after it i've not been inside allegiant to know whether or not a fight would be good there um but i have been to jerry's world and i can tell you a fight is just fine there so yeah okay so i picked out luke four or five fights right there that i was mentioning you may have some of your own are there any like single fights that we're not thinking of even

creative matchups that that kind of would be perfect for something like 300? If Jon Jones sticks around, you could do it, right? But I just don't think he's going to. Against who, Luke? Against who? You could do it against Pavlovich. You could do it against, you know, they could bring back Brock. Imagine Jon Jones versus Brock.

I mean, it would just be absurd. You know, as much as that is absurd, that's actually the type of fight I'm talking about, to about to be fair like what's the biggest stupid event they can make that fight would be brock lesnar coming back at 200 didn't even make much sense it was just like oh brock's back he's gonna fight mark hunt all right it's gonna be yeah shit all right let's watch you know but it didn't make a lot of sense god he was yoked up for that fight i mean he turned he turned the cut the color of country time pink lemonade, and I was just like, I don't know what's in your body,

but I know it's not good for you. I know that. All right, Luke, quickly let's get through our last news items before our guest slides in. Topic two is recent announcements. Derek Brunson signs with the PFL. Yeah, they put out a graphic for this. He's going to compete in the light heavyweight division

next year in their tournament, but he's going to come back Friday, November 24th, Washington, DC, the PFL championship. This will be a special showcase bout at middleweight when he takes on former PFL welterweight champion, Ray Cooper III. Luke, I love this fight as sort of a one-off fun one, maybe kind of like what Julia Budd and Kayla Harrison are doing the same night. But what do you think in general this far into his career at 38? What can Brunson do? Because old UFC names die hard in the PFL tournaments. They do.

Well, this is a – I'm surprised they made this fight. Like, Ray Cooper is not a huge welterweight, so I think that this fight is going to be what at 185. And it's like, okay, the guy is much smaller. He Brunson should be able to win that one. I suspect I've not seen the betting lines on this one,

but I suspect he'll be the favorite, but it's like, what if he struggles against him? You know? Cause here's the thing. Even if he blows the doors off of him. Okay. That hypes his name up. Some gets people excited about the tournament fine but if you

struggle at all with a welterweight who's not like a bad wrestler but that's not his forte necessarily either dude that would be disastrous disaster so he has to go in there and then just look fantastic also isn't he doing the light heavyweight tournament, not the middleweight tournament? So it's like. Yeah, I shared all that information. Yeah, so what I'm saying is. One million dollar tournament, Luke, light heavyweight.

Yeah, so what I'm saying is to go from, again, if he goes in there and beats him up, great, you know, starches him, whatever. But if he struggles at all against a welterweight, and you want that to get people excited as you go to light heavyweight risky a risky fight he's taking a risky fight yeah i mean aspen ladd kind of did the same thing when she signed and came on and fought i think she lost initially at the yes at the maybe even to julia but i don't really remember but i i don't hate the hiring i like the hiring it's just it's

going to be tough he's going to go up a division late in his career in these tournaments are grinders, man. You know what I mean? Look at Jeremy Stevens, Anthony Pettis, on and on. People come in here with high hopes and expectations and they kind of get grounded up. We'll see. But I like, look, these are the type of signings. Not just this. This one signing won't have a big impact, but these are the type of signings PFL has to continue to do because the name value will get

a lot of people in the door very quickly i know we got to move along but very quickly you know shane burgos i thought made the switch at the right time before he was too old yes just turns out that the pfl competition was a little bit better the brunson one is sort of more of the older model which is the you know hey i got a little bit longer in the tooth but still pretty good so i want to see about his chances but But, you know, just as a reminder, even the young guys switching over sometimes find some difficulty. Yeah, ask Rory, Luke. Ask him, right?

Well, he was washed by the time he got there. He was mega washed. UFC 297, Luke, we have a fight announcement here for January 20th. Damn. A friend of the program, Arnold Allen, returning against Movsar Evloev. How much does this tingle the old tater tots, Luke? Tough, tough fight. Dude, Arnold Allen takes tough fights, and so does Movsar.

Such a great fight. Obviously, Movsar's going to want to fight a more wrestling control-based one, so it's really going to be up to Arnold Allen to create separation. His volume, I think, kind of costs him against Max Holloway, even though he had a bit of a late surge, but not enough volume in general. Can't let that happen against Movesar. But the problem is of course,

the more you open up, the more you're going to open up for takedown. So this is a tough fight. Great fight. High level guys, high level stakes. What is not to love about that? I said it.

Somebody's going to, somebody's going to feel the pain of Arnold Allen, his next fight, because you nailed it. If he was just a little bit busier, he may have won that one. And I think he realized in that fight, he probably,

I mean, he's always supremely confident, but I think he started to realize as he's executing against the great max Holloway, that like there was an opening there for him to potentially do even more. And he's going to find out that ceiling and he's somebody's going to get hurt. Maybe it's of love.

We'll find out. Great matchup. Yana Santos, Norma Dumont, UFC Vegas 83 on January 13th. I mean, I'll watch it, Luke. Where is the pants? Oh, meter. Where is where is the pants? Oh, meter.

And then find me on Patreon. Luke, we'll have a different. By the way, someone told me you scammed them on um cameo how did i scam them i i uh someone someone said someone on my super chat they paid three bucks to go you know bc accuses you of scamming everyone but he said he paid you three dollars for a message on cameo and got no reply now i don't know if this is true yeah okay no that is true i didn't even know that that they can i guess email you or dm you for for a fee like that i saw the dm um i didn't even realize that that was a pay-for-play situation they paid you bro yeah i mean it's very similar to the

thursday live chat luke is really inspired by by that just outright railroading but you know the people they need to they need you uh let's keep it going here luke uh henry so who don't might be back in a big one reportedly reportedly agreeing to return to face marab devolosh willie willie yes he will in january luke your thoughts yeah so my understanding this is what ali abdelaziz the manager told the schmo so we have to see but it but henry so hudo was then tweeting reports about it to marab saying sign the contract i believe that what has happened is that henry has verbally agreed and perhaps marab as well but there's nothing no ink on paper but i gotta tell you that's a great fight that's a tough fight for henry uh either guy actually but a fantastic fight

i love it uh yeah that's a great fight and i I want to see Henry back in another big one because look, he was pretty damn close to doing it, right? I mean, he looked a little he looked a little he looked like the layoff had affected him. He didn't have the same sort of like snapness to him. But I think as that

fight went on, you started to see a little bit more of what's available to him at this age. And I think he can still win huge huge fights he wasn't that far off is what i'm saying that's right but but clock's ticking as well right for sure and you got to stay healthy and that's really the hardest part at this advanced age also you talked to benil dariush luke and it looks like uh he's tentatively agreed to return wow this would be a lightweight hammer tilt against armin saruki and uh what can you tell us about the possibility of this yeah again this is what ali had told the

schmo and then i happened to just uh randomly get the opportunity to catch up with him and he confirmed it now it's a verbal agreement no pen to paper yet and he said it could take place probably in december and i asked could it be on 296 he said possible possibly but I don't know if it's slated for that it's more slated for somewhere in that December area they might have like another fight night card at that time but dude here's the interesting part about that story you know he wanted to fight Dustin Poirier and Poirier again according to Darius's understanding because it's not like Poirier hasn't fought tough guys he's fought tough guys but he wanted the Poirier fight and Poirier didn't want it. Now, I don't know if there

was a formal offer. I don't know how far the UFC really pursued that. I got to tell you, that's a tough fight for either Poirier or Darius, but, uh, Darius has got a lot of different ways he could make with the grappling Poirier's life difficult. Taking on Armin Saryukian i know he beat gamrot i know which was a great fight but dude fucking benil daryush fights nothing but hammers just goes down to home depot and gets and fights one hammer after the next it's absurd it's absurd and and he's shouting out my lord and savior luke anywhere at all times anywhere okay at all times uh uh and and you know he's like damn hair dye i don't need it i'm like luke thomas that's where we're at do you remember when he yelled at uh uh elon musk after he beat someone and he was like yo elon

musk what happened to my wife's tesla apparently musk like reached out to him and then he got the tesla like six weeks later all ready to go man wow that's great. Quickly, Luke, we got John Nash ready right around the corner. We have some boxing this weekend. I'm going to admit like a lot of boxing fans are all diehard about this. I love the fight. It's going to be fun. I guess I haven't been in enough, but we're going to see Lee Wood and Josh Warrington from Sheffield,

England on Saturday. It's going to be on the zone. The zone has two cards on the same day. This is for Lee Woods, WBA featherweight title. There's been sort of a good fight it's a very good fight there's there's been this incestuous pairing between them mauricio lara mick conlon you know carl frampton before he uh before he got retired by warrenton of like they're all fighting each other and changing these titles and uh minus 225 wood is the favorite he's 35 years old. Warrington coming in at 32. Warrington, though, coming off of a loss, Luke,

to Luis Alberto Lopez in December where he lost his IBF title. Now he's fighting for the WBA strap here. And remember, he had vacated his title two years ago, refusing to fight a mandatory, did Warrington. Luke, do you have a feeling on which way this is going to go? Like, they're going to get after it. They're both flawed, but exciting guys. They bring it, but this is going to be a stalemate.

It feels like I'm a, I've been impressed with Lee wood. I've not, do you know what the odds are? You may have read them. Yeah. Minus two 25 for wood plus one 75. And obviously what is our power? What's the bigger puncher? Yeah, that's right. Wood's a bigger puncher.

That's right. That's about right. But Wood has, he's perseverant. He's very perseverant. And really, obviously what he did to Mick Conlin late in their fight, he's got the capacity to really dial it in when he has to late. So for that reason, I'm going to lean a little bit more towards Wood. But it's a very competitive, great fight. And then, you know, one fight after stopping Mick Conlin

in the most exciting way possible in the final round, he gets upset by Mauricio Lara by knockout and then takes a decision from Lara in the rematch this past March to get that belt back. And now we have Warrington who looked no power really, but like just gets in your face, aggressive, high volume. He can take daring chances. He's got this.

I mean, they're all fighting each other here, Luke, but they might as well. So we'll find out here. Also Terry Harper and Cecilia break. Who's finally going to fight in the co-main. How old is she? She's Cecilia is 42 now. Dude.

She's out there still boxing these broads. Still trying. Still trying. She's the former i think undisputed uh welterweight champion pound for pound queen also on saturday this is going to go down in vegas at the cosmo zerto ramirez is back against joe smith jr the former light heavyweight champion and power puncher but it's going to be at a 193 pound catch weight because zerto is apparently doing a soft launch up to cruiserweight.

We have not seen Zerto since he got one-sided dominated by Dimitri Bivol to suffer the first losses of his career. And then Luke Ramirez missed weight by nearly eight pounds when he was supposed to fight Gabe Rosado in a fight that shouldn't have probably happened to begin with and didn't happen. And Joe Smith Jr. Hasn't fought since arthur better beef sent him to hell in their unification bout a little more than a year ago uh i'm not sure which which way

this one is going because zerto's 44 and one but you know he didn't bring it against b of all luke he left it on the table well he also was overmatched. Bivol was a lot better. There was hope that, oh, Zerto could be a sneaky upset pick. No, he was overmatched. So he's got a lot of getting right to do here. Let's see how that goes. Yeah, and this could be an absolute slugfest. That's what Joe Smith Jr. fights are.

And I'm going to be interested in watching it. And that co-main event, Beck the Bully is back. Becketeer, Beck Tamir, Mel Kuziev, he's taking on. Atlantis Fox is the long, lean boxer. That'd be interesting. Did we see Gabe Rosado in Vegas? I did not. No, he may have been there.

He's everywhere, Luke. Love that guy. And finally, Luke, this evening, a reminder, one championship is back on Prime, Amazon Prime, and it's going to be one fight night 15, and it's going to be one fight night 15, and it's going to be a featherweight title bout in the main event. I think it's a vacant title.

Do you know anything about Tan Lee versus Ilya Fremanov, Luke? That's the main event. I don't know much about Fremanov, but Tan Lee, I know he's done a lot of training with Ryan Hall, a lot of other folks. Again, he won via head kick KO in the second round of Contender Series

like five years ago. He had been the champion. He had lost it. This is for the interim championship because the guy who beat himender Series like five years ago. He had been the champion. He had lost it. This is for the interim championship because the guy who beat him, I guess, is injured. So he's still sort of at the top-ish of this division. They're trying to keep it moving forward. He's an action fighter, flawed, but a very good action fighter.

Again, there's no major MMA star or whatever, like big hardcore grudge match necessarily competing. No disrespect to Chris Cyborg in that way, but there's plenty of good fights this weekend. Yeah, Mikey Musumechi, Luke, the pizza guy, is going to open weight grapple Shinya Aoki. He's going to... Let me say something about this.

I'm not more of a grappling guy than I am a striking guy, at least historically I have been. I understand a lot of what one has done with the four-ounce gloves from Muay Thai, which I think is a really great change as a product. But their grappling product, I don't get. I don't get. Mikey Musumechi is going to tear Shinya Aoki like a piece of string cheese. I mean, it's not, they're not even remotely on the same level. And Aoki is like kind of washed.

Like this is a mismatch among all mismatches. It's a name. And speaking of one championship, Luke, I caught up with Angela Lee, the former Adam White champion who, who had that very emotional ceremony of vacating her title to a stamp Fairtex one in the fight last Friday. I had her on to talk about her future plans, Luke, and her new website fight story.org.

I really encourage people to check it out on youtube.com slash morning combat. She talks about honoring her late sister, Victoria Lee, and all of the challenges she has been through to get to this decision. So check that out. There you go. One championship championship this evening luke let's not hold him back anymore in the bullpen this bucking bronco uh hey not the face he's going to show his face i think right we're going to see him luke in the flesh he needs to turn his uh there you go is your mic on yeah my mic's on all right he is a professional john s nash and john as much as you know we either argue in dms at times or send jokes to each other.

Brian Campbell. I will say. Lomakidjit. Chest. Plooskid. Toot-toot. Wow. Did he just have a seizure?

Luke, here's what I'm trying to say. The work you do in this specific line of coverage, business, contracts, fairness, to be fair damn is it needed in this space and and you know with respects over to my guy at mmi on youtube who i like a lot i think you're the best in the game at this so welcome i'm happy to have you on the show john i appreciate nice things from you that's really kind thank you well listen you're a scumbag i hope everyone knows that getting that out of the way let me let me ask me ask a more broad-based question. What's a scummier? We're having a make-out session here.

We don't need you interrupting it. Me and Brian are having a moment here together. Hey, what's a scummier industry, boxing or MMA? I have to tell you, I think it's MMA, right? Like everyone says boxing is the scummiest industry, and it is. It was. I think MMA is worse. In some, I mean, it's hard. It's, you some I mean it's hard it's you know what it's

six of one half dozen of another they're they're both very scummy I think the thing is boxing still has it on the on corruption but MMA has found a way they don't have to be corrupt because they can everybody controls their industry so much they can get away with whatever they want without doing underhanded things like bribery and stuff so it they're both pretty – I mean, listen, it takes a special kind of person to get into a sport where their objective is to make as much money as possible by paying people as little as possible to give each other life-altering bodily harm. Yes, for absolute primates. It's amazing. It really is just an unbelievable set of industries.

Okay, so let's talk about why you're here. All right, very good. You came across, I think the first time, someone at least in the American public, was able to get a one contract. Whose contract did you get, and how did you get it? I got Adriano Moraes' contract. I hope I pronounced his name right.

The Brazilians, they always throw me off. I got his contract, and how I got that is actually, I should give credit, MMA Fighting, Cruiser at MMA Fighting did a story about a lawsuit involving the managers of Moraes suing him and that he reported on some of the details in the case. And so I contacted someone to get me, go to the Brazilian court system and download the documents and send them to me so I that's how I got it now how old is this contract is this the current contract of Moraes or is this someone from a different time period well this should be the one he's still under it's from it's it kicked off in April 2021 so that's the start date so it's

relatively it's within the last two years and if you look at the details of the contract it's a two-year contract with a two-year extension if he wins the championship so it's he still should be under that contract all right before we get to some of these details which i've from my understanding are quite interesting the manager or at least i guess the former manager of maraish was saying that some of the numbers that Bloody Elbow had reported relative to his purse were inaccurate I don't know what the updated response you might have to that would be well I contacted him Alex Davis the former manager of Marais and and he wouldn't because they're in a lawsuit he wouldn't get into details we wouldn't have a back forth but reading the tweet and and looking over what was said, this is kind of a guess on my part. He's not saying the contract we have is wrong.

I think what he's saying is if you look in the lawsuit, he claims that there was more money that was paid to him besides the contract. That one gave him a $250,000 bonus, and then he had a special sponsorship deal with one that paid him $5,000 a month. We didn't report on that when we talked about it because we didn't report on it being, we basically went through it as just a standard contract, just going through the contractual details that probably applied almost all the fighters. But I think that's what he's addressing is the fact that there was more, that he made more money than was reported because he's asking for a percentage of that money. All right. So so this is bc you can get in here in just a minute but i wanted to sort of start off here we will get to whether there is a comparison between ufc bellator pfl one contracts which one's worse which one's better but let's start with this one contracts

one one contract excuse me give me some broad details around what areas that you found in reviewing this contract that stand out substantively to you as potentially troublesome or at a bare minimum, unusual or worse than normal in this particular industry. Well, the one that really stands out is the merchandising and image right agreement now everybody remembers the old UFC agreements they gave you the UFC your image right in perpetuity but that stopped around 2017 now there's a there's a sunset limit even to the image rights I think it's two years now after your contract terminates the image rights revert back to you the one contract is is much lower than the old UFC contracts in that it's forever.

They own your image rights. And that's so – in combat sports, it's common to own the image rights for the fight. The promoter pays you, and they can do whatever they want with that fight footage, right? But this, of course, is not just the fight footage. This is your likeness so they can put your face on a bunch of products if they want, and they can do that long after you've left the promotion. When you say long after, how long? Perpetuity. It goes forever, apparently.

There's no end in sight. Now, I haven't seen them do this yet, but this raises a problem because let's say you become a high-profile fighter and you leave one and you go on to the UFC or something and become a megastar, right? Well, your image rights have value. If you look at this agreement, one has the right to sell your likeness now because they own the rights. They can continue to do it.

That doesn't mean you don't have the right to sell it yourself to other people, but they can go around, and that would undermine your value on the market at that point because if they wanted to use your image for a campaign or something, they could go to one instead of you. Is there any way to reacquire this stuff? There's nothing in the contract that says you can reacquire it. And to be fair, and one thing that these kind of likeness rights make it very easy to take from fighters is this is not the priority for fighters. The priority is getting paid to fight because that's where the majority of the money is. In fact, if you look at the antitrust lawsuit, the image right portion of that, the identity class that wasn't granted, they didn't grant class action, the amount of damage they were asking for was very small compared to the damages for bouts.

So fighters, managers, whatever, they're often probably willing to concede on the image rights and just hand them over because they want the payments now of the bout thing. But what problem is if you become big, you've now handed over your rights in the future. And it, you know, that's, that could be a possible detriment. You know, John, as you start to piece by piece, kind of pick out the red, the potential red flags here, it does, you know, beg a question for me. We're we're in your work and in our work, we're obviously very harsh against the ufc because

they are um amon sops panasi is that how you pronounce that john yeah exactly exactly like that wow that was great the delivery too um you know and they're the evil overlords and look at the end of the day i think it's it's almost uh morally are are not our right but are we should want uh to kind of you know know, report on that, whether things are fair game. But separate from UFC, how would you declare the general state of non-UFC MMA contracts? Is it fair or is it just that the UFC is so unfair based on how much they make compared to what they pay in comparison to the other smaller, you know, promotions?

Like it's, you know, like when you were picking out the turds out of this shit pile here on compared to what they pay in comparison to the other smaller promotions. When you were picking out the turds out of this shit pile here on this one contract, is this what you see looking at other contracts that are non-UFC on a regular basis? Yeah, I mean, contracts are all similar at this point. There's small differences. I mean, we focus on the UFC because the UFC has 90% of the market. They have market power. So they're the industry leader, and basically everybody's forced to follow them or kind of surpass them at times to retain whatever share of the market they have.

The other thing, though, is the other promotions aren't better because, one, PFL, they're all trying to be the UFC. They're not trying to be – no one's trying to be good guys. They want to do what the UFC is doing. So it's not like we can single out the UFC as being the one bad actor. We single out the UFC because they have 90% of the market. They're the biggest player. But yeah, these contracts, in some ways,

the contracts have slightly gotten better over the years, in recent years. The worst I've ever seen, because if you look at the fight stuff, it's probably the most important, the tolling provision. The worst one I can recall is the old Bjorn Rebny Bellator one because it just – well, I should take that back. The worst I saw is an old one championship one

where if you won the champion, if you became the title of the champion, the champion clause kicked in and added 10 fights to your contract. That seems egregious. That's like a 10-year-old one contract. But the worst for a major promotion was the old Bellator ones because they could just add tolling year after year after year. It was impossible to get out of. For nowadays, though, the biggest thing is these image rights.

The tolling, all of them fall along kind of the same tolling. You know, you turn down a fight, it extends it. If you get injured, it extends it. If you retire, it freezes. In this regard, the UFC might have the best because at least they have a sunset on theirs. The sunset they've weakened, though, so it's not quite the hard five years it was with for francis and ganu but all the other stuff you have to you know you don't have sponsorship almost all the other promotions

do that bellator allows you to have your own sponsor but all the other ones have control over your sponsorship one included they've taken all these auxiliary rights away from the fighters they've got that's where they've gotten much worse if you look at an old strike force contract it is you'll see a lot of similarities and the fact that they get to pick your opponent when where and who and they can extend it if you turn down fights but the old strike force they had no rights to your image rights they allowed you have sponsors but though you do have to get clearance they could turn down a sponsor that you had and also they had a hard five-year sunset on there's all their contracts. I mean a hard, so it wasn't a separate one for retirement.

You sign five years later, you were a free agent. So it's in that sense on that end, we've gotten worse, especially on the, um, the, the promotional rights, the, uh, auxiliary rights. Final piece on that, John, like, would you say in general MMA contracts in sort of what an MMA fighter, and I know this is kind of separate from this one contract, but I'm interested here in terms of what they have to navigate. Is that just business in general or contracts, just contracts in general, or really what I'm asking you is MMA a space where you particularly have less rights than in any other business setting by far.

I think MMA, I've shown it to other people, and they're shocked at how much you give away with MMA. Even boxing. I mean, boxing contracts are similar in a sense and can sometimes be worse that they can extend it for young boxers, the tolling provisions. But because boxers own the title and rank themselves and because it's built around the boxer, they still have a lot of leverage because the box, the promoter needs them to fight, you know, here, because I mean, a quick example, you know, Cambosis wins the title.

He can ask for a lot more, even though he's still under contract. Why? Because, you know, his, his promoter wants them to fight because now a big payday is there that they both can split. You win a title in a MMA promotion. The promoter owns the title. If you don't play ball, it's not like the promoter benefits from you fighting. If you don't play ball and fight under your contract

or under their terms, they can just strip you of the title and give it to someone else that will play ball. So it takes away a lot of your leverage there. So, but yeah, MMA is particularly bad in this space. John, give us a sense of what are the worst things in terms of the tolling provisions that you found in this one contract? Well, one's tolling is almost identical to everybody else. In fact, when you, when you turn down a fight, it's lower than like UFC adds the time to get a new fighter six months for one, it's only four months. That's not as bad. So probably the worst here was the championship clause, because usually a championship clause is the last fight in your contract. If you're still champion, it adds a year or three fights, right?

And so the whole point of that is to basically force you to the negotiating table because you don't want to have to go through three fights to get out of your contract. For this contract, what it does is you win the title. It automatically adds two years and four fights. So it's a longer duration, more fights, but it's not the last fight. So if you, on your second fight of this contract, win the championship, then on the third fight, lose it, guess what?

You're still under the champion clause. So you might have improved your status. You might have improved your value because now you're a more renowned fighter because you're a former champion, but you can't test the market for four more fights because it's extended your contract. It's just completely bonkers. All right.

I heard this is a smaller issue, and I do want to get to some more substantive ones, but to move the conversation along, is it true that if I was a female fighter at one and I wanted to change my name, I would have to get one's permission first? Yeah, there's a provision in there that says you need wanted to change my name i would have to get one's permission first yeah there's a there's a provision in there that says you need permission to change your name now to be fair maybe that's a problem with uh muay thai fighters changing their name all the time and i don't know taking taking the last name of the gym or whatever yeah so maybe they need some sort but that is in there they also i mean this one compared to the other promotions

they all have like non-disparagement type agreements in it you can't disparage or you can't suppose our sponsors all these things but one goes further than the other promotions and they also have something about you need permission to do uh you know to show the title anywhere you're going to bring it or do uh i mean they all have things that you can't like use your title the title is owned by the promoter, so you can't use it in advertising or any marketing campaigns. But one is any appearances, you need to get permission. And also you need permission, apparently, according to this, to do interviews and stuff, to talk about anything related to the business as well. Okay, I have not seen, John, that type of grip since when I covered WWE from 2016 to 2020, where, you know, you can't not only you can't secure an interview without without the request.

They need to be, in most cases, on the line, you know, kind of policing. And I know sometimes that's policing. Sometimes it's more of just making sure the athlete does all the interviews. So, you know, we've seen that same type of thing in other sports, but i've never seen that level of control that one tries to do in the mma space i mean like what would we say about ufc if they had some of these provisions that you're pulling out of these one contracts it's it's eye eye opening mind blowing um it seems to be like there's this deep-rooted sensitivity to want to protect not one's secrets, but just maybe how the sausage is made. I mean, is that, that's, that's, that's probably the nicest way to say it. Is that normal? Is it overprotective?

I think one is very worried about their image and they, they, they go much further lengths and other promotions to protect their image. So, I mean, that's a given. I mean, these contracts, MMA contracts are basically the worst of what we saw in boxing they took the option clauses of don king that were forbidden under the uh ollie act and they said we're going to use that now as our basic business model and then paired it with pro wrestling and that we oh we're gonna we're gonna control every aspect of the identity of the person under a contract and we're gonna be a self-contained universe like a pro wrestling promotion. Okay. Some of the other parts.

Oh, you know what? There was something that BC brought up. I don't know how current this is. I remember Mokikawa tweeting about it years ago. Is it true that for one, and I don't know to what extent the contracts speak to this, that you have to be registered with one as an agent to represent fighters? To what extent is there any validity to this? And there are some belief that the ones who do work with one in this capacity

take an enormous upfront fee to work in this capacity. I don't know about the fee and stuff, but it is. One has said that you have to get licensed. They published their basic standard for being an agent, which seems kind of silly that the promoter gets to decide who gets to be licensed and stuff. But yeah, there is some validity to it, but I haven't determined how much or how they're enforcing that. Okay, so you're not entirely sure how damaging that is or is not. That's just a thing that's happening a way i want to frame that john

is one of the biggest takeaways from your recent work from i mentioned mma analytics on twitter uh is just how much i didn't know about the power structure of ufc management and why certain managers are super elite managers who tend to have these loaded stables and why is you know everybody going through the dana white contender series all managed by the same person and super elite managers who tend to have these loaded stables and why is you know everybody going through the daniel what contender series all managed by the same person and all of that and and the connection between being a promoter and getting your promotion on ufc fight pass and then essentially being like the gatekeeper for people to get to the ufc is there something like that going on with one championship to your knowledge like what is their structure like

well i mean i'm sure there's something like that going on with one championship to your knowledge? Like, what is their structure like? Well, I mean, I'm sure there's something like that going on with one because you have the same, I mean, every promotion has that right now. They have, they have, they have managers that are in good, that are in good with that promoter. Uh, all of them do that because the promotions MMA is built around the idea of the promotion. It's not built around the fighters much. You know, we, we have major promotions in boxing, but it's still, the sport not built around the fighter as much you know we have major promotions in boxing but it's still the sport is built around the boxer and so managers have a lot of power in boxing where in mma because the promotions are self-contained they have their own ranking their own title all that stuff and you you the the fighter doesn't carry any of that with them

so he can't use that as leverage you have to go you have to be in good with the promotion to get in with the promotion so in a way carlos newton the guy that helped start the antitrust lawsuit i think has a great comment about that in boxing uh promoters compete with each other for boxers who compete for titles and mma fighters compete with each other to get promoters so they can get access to get a title. Interesting. In terms of what the one contract shows for negotiating matching rights, what did we find out? It's identical to everybody else, basically a one-year matching, right? It's two months exclusive negotiating period. It's almost the industry standard on that front. Do they have any arbitration agreements available? That's another thing they have, that you have to, just like the UFC introduced arbitration,

UFC is always, all the promoters have it that you have to do in their venue of choice, right? Where they're based. And they always choose, like Bellator isn't based, and UFC isn't based in California, even though the parent companies are based there. They moved to other districts. UFC does it in Nevada now.

They've always done Nevada. And Bellator does it, I think, New Jersey under New Jersey law because California law is way too favorable to the fighters. So you have your venue of choice. One has that Singapore. So if you have any problems with them, but they also introduced an arbitration clause. So now before where arbitration was unheard of an MMA,

now you've got the UFC one and PFL, all of arbitration clauses. And those arbitration clauses, are you, how much of a fan of them are you? Oh, I hate them immensely because the whole point is if you have a problem with your contract, now you're forced, you're forced to say, I have a disagreement. You can't go to the courts for some sort of relief, some sort of remedy. You have to go to their chosen court and you have to go to their chosen arbitration, whoever judge. And obviously, and I'm, I'm just thinking here, Singapore is famous to be pro-business. I am.

I doubt that they didn't choose an arbitration service. That's not pro-business. I doubt that they didn't choose an arbitration service that's not pro-business. So then you have to go there and then it doesn't set a precedent. So every other fighter that might have the same problem in the future, first, they don't know the results because it's often kept sealed, the arbitration results, and they have to argue it again. So it doesn't set a precedent that would be wide sweeping across the industry. We know, we saw that New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez was caught in his house with like gold bars in his jacket and whatnot. When you think about Brian Campbell's ideas

about how Zufa like pays certain guys but then keeps all of this extra money secret so that they can actually be good guys but then not tell the government about it, does it remind you of the gold bars and senator menendez's jacket like we're gonna leave this here for you right there oh i'm sure i'm sure that's all they do business it's it's like uh it's it's you know i i don't know what they go maybe it's platinum they use maybe use another precious metal just because they're you know they're but yeah but they all

do that i mean that's it's common in the. If you don't want people to know what the fighter's making, you give, I mean, here in this case, like I said, our contract shows that as a champ is, is basic pay to the contract was a hundred thousand to show a hundred thousand. If you want win bonus and then 250,000 flat, if he was the champion, why he held the belt. But we also, the, the lawsuit argues they have a text message that shows it, that he got a $250,000 bonus. And especially we said sponsorship deal that paid monthly. Those are things that aren't in the contract.

And you can also argue often that's done without the manager's knowledge because it puts a divide between the manager and the promotion. If you don't like a manager, you can offer the fighter money behind the manager's back because now what's the use of having a manager if i just negotiate with the promotion directly wow uh it seems john there's an aggressive like we talked about like anti-disparaging control level in the contract it's not just like it's controlling the narrative right i compared it to how wwe handled their athletes with uh with pr in that regard but you know hearing you on your podcast with withffi Haynes, by the way, what's the name of this podcast, John? I listen to it all the time.

The Hayne Out the Face podcast. Exactly. Not about porn for people confused. Love the work you guys do. But the thing that jumped out at me huge was there's literal language in the contract from one that you discovered where it's not just you can't share publicly

what you make to try to protect all of that under wrap, but you can't disparage the company at all afterwards. So my question is how do they police that? And, and is, is, is that unique to just this contract that you've seen? Well, it's unique the how far reaching it is. It's unique that there's a part of it that seems to last past the contract. Uh's not super unique because we saw the UFC had something similar when they first came back during the pandemic. They had these non-disparagement parts of it that you couldn't talk bad about anything they were doing at those events. But most promotions don't have it as far-reaching and as robust as one does.

I don't know how enforceable it is, tell you the truth. But again, things can be in contracts, not that they're legal. They're just put in there as a chilling effect because no fighter is going to be willing to risk challenging it. And so that's often, that's why stuff is in contracts. It's not that, you know, there's a lot of things, everybody reads MMA contracts often and tell me, oh, that's not legal, but you need someone withstanding to challenge it and anybody was standing at that point it's probably terrified of doing it because they're afraid they're gonna lose john um anything else in these contracts that struck you as egregious or unusual i mean it's they didn't struck me as really egregious or unusual because they're in almost all the contracts. I guess the bankruptcy, the one thing that kind of caught my eye is they can cut you if you declare bankruptcy.

And I am just confused as to why they have that right to do that. That's one. I just have never seen that in another contract. I don't know where that comes from, if it's a Singapore thing or what. But I am not aware. But they're not based in Singapore anymore. So I don't know why they would need that. I'm curious about what kind of response from one you've gotten,

not just to this reporting, but Bloody Elbow's done some reporting on tax filings that they've done in Singapore, which has now caused them to move, I think, some of their finance, not just their offices, but their financial home to avoid some of the scrutiny that these laws provide. Have they given any indication of how one feels about your reporting? Well, they obviously disagreed with it.

We went back and forth with the, I feel for the PR people there, but I've gone back and forth. We've often asked for requests for comments or interviews before we posted, but it was never on a schedule that fit our schedule. So yeah, they've never public. We've never had any statement from them except for, I believe, Chachri has gone on the MMA Hour and said it's all lies or something at some point.

I don't want to be misquoted on that. He's very credible. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. We're just quoting from the filings you did with the Singapore, your company did with the Singapore government. So I'm not sure what. Just tell us. Like I've asked before, just tell us what I misquoted, what I was wrong on.

And I will. John, I want to check your standards, you know, business ethics. Would you be willing to hush up moving forward if you were offered a spot on season two of the Apprentice One Championship Edition? I don't know. I would just take the cash. If if you have money just send it my way and i will i will leave this space forever because i am i could very easily be bribed i'm very cheap look easier than we thought yeah yeah if you do not want me covering mma just start a gofundme and i will be done tomorrow people think you have to fight your enemies you don't you just have to co-opt them right very easy that's why i'm that's why i'm in this that's why i'm doing this i am waiting for a big payday the big payday that

everybody tells me that shills get and as soon as i get that i'm gone all right you should just get into stealing stealing is really my business model your extensive coverage of all things involving mma money including the ones that are delivered in paper bags to the nelk boys by dana as the average joe fighter continues to struggle to sell their literal butthole so they can pay for training um here's the question that i've always wondered maybe this is in your wheelhouse maybe not why does dana only hang out with early 20 something influencers i i guess those are the people that like what he does i don't know i really don't that's i think it's where he just is like his spirit animal is a 22 year old beer

pong playing i guess it's fair right i mean that's that's his he's developed a persona that targets those people so i'm imagining that's what draws those people to hang out with him now john you do so much great digging for this sport. And again, I wanted to bring that to light and commend you. But like, do you have a goal? I mean, outside of getting paid and doing great work, right? But like, are you like, do you feel like you play a role in the larger battle for fighters to get what they deserve?

Do you or are you just doing your job and reporting the news i'm always curious about that well i don't think i have a greater role because i think i have a minor impact on the industry i mean you guys thankfully you guys have me on there this is great but my impact i mean i remember going to a super bowl party for not a super bowl to ufc event right uh party someone had and the the host introduced me as a guy that recovers mma and no one knew who the hell I was. And these were supposedly all hardcore UFC fans. So that shows you the impact I have on the fan base and industry.

Most fighters are not aware of what I do. Most fans aren't aware of what I do. So I have, I know I have no impact on the greater space, but it's kind of a hobby of mine. It's something I got interested in. I like, you know, it's my chance to pretend to be a reporter. And so I do that. But I guess my end objective is, I mean, I don't think I'll be doing this forever.

I guess I'll be doing it for maybe a couple more years, but I'm working on a book with Jacob Devitz, who used to write Sherdog. Oh, nice. And then when that's done, who knows how much longer I'll go. All right. If we don't hear from him, Luke, that means he's either dead or paid very well hush money to shut the frick up. Okay. So, you know, we'll hope for the latter, right?

At least. I'm hoping. I'm really hoping. Fingers crossed. Well, you can find his work on Bloody Elbow. Check out the Hey, Not the Face podcast with his wonderful producer. It's John S. Nash. the hey not the face podcast with with his wonderful producer it's john s nash and john they asked uh arnold schwarzenegger's character and raw deal what his middle initial p stood for

and you know of course he said pussy right i mean why why wouldn't he slip with his housekeeper right luke that's your hero he banged her out he banged her out does the s stand for? Oh, it's a secret. Stands for secret. Exactly. He got that. All right. There he is. John S. Nash.

Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me on. Now maybe the donks will lay off sometimes. Yeah, lay off that. Call your donks off, Ryan. I can't believe you set them on me that one time. That was horrible. PC's donks keep touching me. Yes, I hear that a lot, unfortunately.

All right, John. great to see you we'll roll on one more segment for you on this fine friday uh it's called dms from dongs uh no it's called dead wrong that's what it's called yeah there we go i'm not look it's friday bc are you okay did you just stroke out on me there for a minute i think i did luke i think i did uh Morningcombat at gmail.com is your email. We stand trial every Friday. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes we're dead wrong. And that's just what it is. Okay?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The pedantic courtroom is in session, Luke. This one is from Des. I think it's Des Berry from Cork, Ireland. The guy who sent us that Christmas card on our drinking show, Luke, the day before. This one is from Des. I think it's Des Berry from Cork, Ireland, the guy who sent us that Christmas card on our drinking show, Luke, the day before. Yeah, that was nice. The day that I got COVID

18 and a half. Top of the morning to you. Greetings from the southern end of Ireland. This dead wrong is for Luke at 2946 of Monday's episode. When speaking about the sphere in Las Vegas, Luke said, but if they can cook up something like this and the MGM folks know that obviously the UFC is going to be one of their clients, I can't wait to see what they come up

with. End quote. Luke, this is dead wrong. The sphere is owned by the company Sphere Entertainment, headed by James Dolan, owner of the Nixon Rangers, and operated via Madison Square Garden Sports. MSG, not MGM, is the owner. MGM owns the T-Mobile. I thank you, Mr. Thomas. May respect my overly pedantic approach in this dead wrong. Have a great weekend. And P.S., I spoke to the elderly man that you squared off with during the plane ride on your way home from the Canelo fight.

The old man said he would have gone third world on your ass if things had escalated any further. Thank you, Des. Thank you. I did not realize that James Dolan was a part of anything good. Yeah, that's about it, I think. That's the only thing he's got. He's got that shitty blues band. That shitty basketball team.

He's got a lot of shitty things that he's a part of. Yeah, those guys like Ursae. Although Ursae's got a great guitar collection, Luke. That guy loves to drink, though. Loves to drink. Jim Ursae? Yeah. Dude, his blood is 20% Tom Collins.

I mean. Okay. Wow. Wow. Let's hear from Daz. So we go from Dez to Daz. Daz, back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blast from the past. Yep.

Yep. Yep. About seven minutes. He says aloha. So he's from Hawaii, Luke. back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blast from the past yeah yep yep uh about seven he says aloha so he's from hawaii luke about seven minutes in to episode 497 bc referenced the old tv show the dinosaurs but he mistakenly quotes the baby dinosaur as saying knock the mama when the baby is actually saying not not not the mama to its dad a running bit during the show mahalo for all the hard work and content so look full disclosure i've always hated that show but what i thought was knock the mama became like for a short season like part of public consciousness part of this is the most inside baseball boomer shit which you've ever discussed on this show so i did not know it so i was 45 years old luke and uh three months when i found out it's not the mama but the only reason i didn't find out is because

that show sucked dude come on right i don't even understand the premise of that show it's like here's a sitcom we're just gonna make everyone dinosaurs like all right i guess that's a thing we can do uh it was the 90s they weren't thinking very clearly thank you daz for enlightening enlightening me on that luke okay you know that show that show sucked ass one more they did not write who sent this in. So it's anonymous. They say, hey, guys, longtime viewer from Toronto on Monday show. BC claimed Canelo spent his training camp away from his family. If BC spent as much time doing his research as he does planning the same old dick jokes that stopped being funny two years ago.

Wow. That's a heavy-handed opening he would realize that canelo did in fact fly his wife and daughter out for the duration of the training camp as it was shown on showtimes all access keep up the great work wow yeah did you bc did you watch all access episode i did i did when did. When framed that way, Luke boy, do I look like an asshole, right? You know, you look like a piece of trash.

Yeah, there it is. Uh, I will take both of those dead wrongs to heart. Thank you folks. Um, do we have anything else? No,

right. I've got some fan subs on here, but that's it. Mikey, right? Yeah, I think that's it. Mikey said,

these are, these are definitely pedantic. Yes, they were. There's your dead wrong. That's it.y said these are these are definitely pedantic yes they were there's your dead wrong that's it morning combat at gmail.com uh luke we're one week out from this um mike perry might fly in and save the day dylan dennis versus logan paul co-main event to the ksi tommy fury balls bonanza going on there are we really doing a live local and direct uh i i would like to i would like to yeah all right from the row of eight or is it yeah i'm gonna say

is it the best use of our time i think that's a very different question but it would be a fun use of our time certainly could be certainly could be uh would like to thank john s nash of bloody elbow for stopping by uh luke any final parting words regarding the talk we had with mr nash and these in apparently insanely uh collar tying one contracts yeah i mean they just you know the merchandising part of it we didn't even get into that's a nightmare the tolling provisions like dude i'm telling you the mma industry cannot function literally it cannot function uh in any environment as it stands today where the fighters have any protection or rights like the businesses as you understand them would cease to exist like you know a guy who could use some protection luke cowboy olivera right you know antonio cromarty antonio cromarty could use some protection, Luke? Cowboy Oliveira, right? Antonio Cromartie.

Antonio Cromartie could use, just wear like six condoms, bro. I mean, you know, it doesn't have to feel great. You just got to stop procreating, okay? Yeah, yeah. Please stop. Please stop that already. Luke. Have you ever double bagged it?

I don't know if we're allowed to talk about that unless brandon royval have you ever double bagged it uh i i will plead with you probably no absolutely not i don't have to double the only reason you would have double bagged it is because the person you were sharing this intimate moment with must have been diseased yeah um mikey saying that i don't wear them then the j the i the m the m the yo i need a body bag yeah remember that we used to be able to walk around singing songs do me baby in middle school and our parents were like yeah it's a good song bbd right yeah that's good yeah have you heard like what female rappers today are rapping about um money power and respect still no no that's not no yeah it's uh i mean i can't even say but it involves you know it involves ejaculation is really okay

here you go apparently you said it i can't say it but I will. Luke, I wanted to shout out. My uncle is a musician, Ian Campbell, and turned promoter. He's the promoter of the Black Bear Americana Music Festival that's going on this weekend at the Goshen Fairgrounds in Goshen, Connecticut. Luke, you know who the headliners are? Gwar. Jonah Osborne. Rusted Root. Send me on my way.

Send me on my way. But apparently they're not called that anymore due to a legal dispute. So it's like those guys that used to be that. Like the artists. What are they called? Something. I forgot. Root Rust or some dumb shit yeah like your

stub hub center for the rest of your life you know what i'm saying like we're not changing that we're not it's not it's not crypto.com arena it's staple center okay that's what it is you see the 95 of nfts are worth nothing 95 oh yeah so look a lot of dms about our our discussion related to danis versus uh logan paul and people think that you and i are just old boomers who don't understand that people aren't actually supporting dylan danis yes they are no listen they are they just hate logan paul so much for how oh and so you fall into the arms of another contemptible person none of i don't believe you people for two seconds i do believe that the enemy of my enemy luke is my friend and i for two seconds i do believe that the enemy of my enemy

luke is my friend and i think i understand i do believe that there are people who don't like logan by the way both of them had crypto issues although i think logan's were way worse both of those people uh like the people would be like oh yeah what it's really about is getting after logan no it's not no it's not no it's not you donks who are really into that you're just into like insulting the shit out of women along the lines of sexual humiliation like that that is appealing to the people that's about this idea well what it's really about is this is getting back at logan for his uh crypto zoo failures i don't know if it's appealing to every one of them luke they they might've laughed at a few of the jokes,

understanding that they're crass and ridiculous and liable in some cases, but I think you can laugh at a joke without necessarily being the most detestable person of all time and supporting something right back to me. This is really about laughing about jokes. This is me saying, Kurt Schilling's a gamer. I don't, you know,

I don't really follow his politics. He's a gamer. It might be a Jan six or two. Yeah. He's a gamer. I mean't really follow his politics, but he's a gamer. He's a Marky Red Jr. Yeah, he's a gamer. I mean, so is Pat Milicich. Big time gamer, Luke, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was, you know, he's down for the cost. But like this idea that what it's really about is just getting back at Logan.

This is just, that's the lie that they want you to believe so that they don't have to feel bad or take account for or be measured against what it's actually about. It's bullshit. I don't believe that for two or take account for or be measured against what it's actually about it's it's bullshit i don't believe that for two fucking seconds no no nonsense what is mikey saying mikey who had a bad take mikey's the the take police over here luke yeah yeah sorry sorry to me this idea that what it's really about is getting back. Again, I realize that there might be some element of that in play,

but for a guy in six weeks to go for 335,000 Twitter followers to a million, and I'm expected to believe that what this is principally about is getting back at Logan Paul, fails basic scrutiny. Not fucking true. Not true. Not true at all. None. Zero.

Luke, you're very heavy-handed in your takes. There is a gray area in life. Dude, are we sitting here and we're going to really believe that the people who are in on this are enlightened enough to make this about not liking Logan when we know this is gutter shit and you're going to get gutter people who like gutter shit? Like, that's what this is.

Well, to some degree, yes. To some degree, that's also true, Luke. This is about some more high-minded cause to fucking who? Come on. Yeah, that's where it's at. Two turntables and a microphone. I'm too old for these games. Bottles and cans, just clap your hands, Luke.

Hey, Beck, where it's at. I got two turntables and a microphone. Wicca, wicca, wicca. You remember the Butthole Surfers had a cool song around that time too luke um i don't mind the sands of time oh i can't remember the rest they had a hit they did have a hit in that in that stretch but uh whatever i mean you know it's just the 90s right it's just the best time of our lives right luke what's the best year of your life you know i was pretty cool in 2005 like i have to agree with you on that one you know i was i don't know if i've had good or bad years i've had easier years yeah yeah 32 was

a pretty good year 32 was a pretty good year i was on national tv and i got married that year that was a good year look can i do the podcast with bare feet or are we crossing lines now i mean what are we doing here right i think it because you're in your house i have to look at the corns on that guy don't show people your hooves yeah i did not scam anybody on only on on onlypipes.com so it's cameo.com slash brian campbell if you want to ridiculously price shout out uh and a lot of love for me you know what i mean i'll tell you what you need to hear all right try me all right yeah what's the most anyone has spent on you i don't think i need to declare that luke oh one time i got tipped the entire price i can't i don't charge a lot because i want people

to be able to afford it luke if they want a a little joy in their life that's the whole thing of it also i could pay for records and not get into a fight with my wife you know that's part of it do you have a separate bank account for what for uh no why would i have a separate bank account if i'm wed if i'm if i've given my life to this other person for the last 16 years okay then that means that you guys don't trust each other all right i'm sorry no it just means that there's things i want to spend money on without having to get approval there's are the letters o or f involved in those not not right next to each other uh yeah yeah yeah no it's mostly for stuff like i don't know

weed purchases or shit like that yeah that's fair that's fair that's fair um i mean what am i really spending money on that's messing up my life other than z-quill you know what i'm saying oh dude the energy drinks are gonna kill you so, I made an appointment today. Today, I went to the doctor this morning and then I made an appointment with a liver specialist. Luke, I'm doing this. I'm doing this because you know what I found out? I found out that I've been really lazy about this, that even though I've cut out the fast food and the beef and the pork for the most part and a lot of alcohol, I found out a couple of things. I got to get rid of all alcohol. Number one.

Number two, really sugar. Sugar is my enemy. Ultimately not fast food. Sugar is an extreme enemy. And then I started to hear about how, you know, it can lead to like dementia and stuff like that. If you're, uh, you know, and also I read about how much it ties, it does tie in with your mental health, your liver health. So i i gotta attack this i gotta go after it i gotta get rid of uh carbs i gotta get rid of a lot of things okay i gotta get rid of these toenails too but i'm working on that too thank you jubilia i'm working on the problem is the you can take the medicine that gets rid of the fungus in your toes but it bangs your liver up i don't know if you can tolerate that yeah well you know what i it's time to clean up you know because look i i was telling my kids on vacation you know i was like i was always resigned you know if i lived to 80

that'd be great why can't i live to 100 luke why can't i still be calling fights in my 80s i want to be you know what i'm going to be like larry merchant and barry tompkins they're going to have to remove me from the job luke okay i got to keep this mind fresh because this is this is my life this is my passion and that's the spirit i bring to this show yeah yeah right it's so good right it's so good yeah i don't know how good that was you just repeated the opening line of the show that's been there for four years but i do think that uh take you know listen i i had to get off the zeke well uh for that reason too there was like a don't mess your brain up over time so i mean i would like you not to die luke so what is your can we get off energy drinks i would like you not to die i don't drink energy drinks nearly as much as you might imagine

if i ever have them it's in the morning for one of these shows i didn't have one today i had just not even a quarter of a bottle of this i had one cup of coffee that'll be my caffeine for the day it's not that bad my caffeine intake is way down way down okay all right that's good to hear that's my pornography intake though is still i mean it's very because this is this is about tukie look it's not about you or me or this stupid show it's about toques all right she's the best she deserves she deserves a werewolf and i was looking at college prices and i don't know i just you know i almost had a heart attack it's i just did a uh online a zoom the other night about planning for college where like you know some loan specialists give

you tips i'm not ready for this dude no no no dude i was looking at even where i went you know like and what it is i want to check this. It's probably like a hundred thousand a year for the college of William and Mary Luke. So dude, when I was, oh yeah, dude. Okay. Ready for this? Why do you always need expensive things? Why? I want to know when I graduated in 02, when I graduated in 02, it was five grand for everything a semester. So 10 grand a year, 40 grand for the whole thing. Okay. That's what it costs. That's in-state tuition. In-state tuition now per semester is 24K. So 48, basically 50 for the whole year. So we're talking 200 to go to William & Mary if you're in-state.

I'm not sure that's worth it anymore. I'm really not. It's absolutely not worth it. And out-of-state, 50 grand a semester, 400K to go. 400K. If I could have done it all over, Luke, I might have gone to a gross trade high school, like a technical school, right? I could have got ahead of the game and got a skill. I wouldn't have been toiling in my 20s like a wandering asshole, Luke.

And then sitting on the pine in my 30s. You wouldn't have been able to tell your audience today that you did whippets in the back of an Arby's parking lot. I mean, that really is the lowest level of failure imaginable. With a Jumoka shake in the other hand, you better believe it. No question about it. I guess that's it.

We could probably take the tent down and put away the sleeping bags now. Yeah. Mikey Mormall, CBS Sports. Thank you for your service behind the scenes. uh that's luke thomas he's he's fantastic you can follow him and pay him money every thursday um and mikey mikey's saying luke people don't like my price on on cameo i thought i'm a really i thought your price was like pretty cheap 29 bucks i'm a steal i think ariel's charging you're 29 bucks yeah. I think Ariel's charging like almost 200,

you know? Oh, you think, you think that's too high. Actually. Really? I think you're closer to the two 99 level. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, but I'll, yeah. Yeah. All right. That's the end of this show. My name has been Brian Campbell and you know, I appreciate the love on Reddit folks,

but we're not breaking up. This show is still here. Okay. Let's do that. Let's do the thing. Let's keep banging our fans, Luke, one episode at a time. Until then, take care

of this upstairs, tip your waitresses, and check that hole for loyalty. We outta here.