MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor McGregor Returns | Matchmaking UFC 300 | Vacation Recap | Boxing Recap | Morning Kombat Ep 532

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

MK is Back! On Episode 532 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to the news that Conor Mcgregor will return at international fight week. With Conor's fight nearly set, what does that mean for UFC 300? The guys create their dream UFC 300 cards, as well as break down the news surrounding the card. They also recap some of the boxing fights we missed during the holidays. The boys close out episode 532 by recapping their 2023 predictions. (00:00:00) - Intro (00:07:30) - Vacation Recap (00:14:00) - Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler (00:37:00) - Building out UFC 300 (01:06:00) - Boxing Recap (01:34:00) - Garry Responds to Strickland (01:47:30) - Khamzat Chimaev (01:52:00) - Revisiting 2023 Predictions 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

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Reveley, reveley, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. oh yeah back with a bullet back with a bang It's the best damn combat sports show period, ready to kick your face in in 2024. Our first live show of the new year. Welcome to Morning Combat. I'm Brian Campbell, the BBC with that BDE. My partner in crime across the way is sick as a dog that's dying in the newark penn train station his name is the incredible luke thomas and luke i just want i'm doing a little bit of a not a bit here but like do you notice anything different about me in the new year yeah you have regressed to an even less civilized version of yourself a dumber and uh older version so congrats by the way i'm not sick as a dog my throat just hurts but i was sick over the weekend big time luke i

don't know if you can notice the changes i've done in terms of moving my camera setup to the other side of my office again yeah i mean there's a lot of gym equipment that is um worthless you know there's a lot that you really just don't need and you have somehow despite despite every warning imaginable you have somehow found the least valuable thing you could ever purchase for a gym account but uh oh sorry luke you're talking about these so here's the deal in a in an incredible bit of not irony like alanis probably more coincidence my family of course not knowing the bits we do in this game i actually got these incredible workout gloves luke in my christmas stocking this year no jokes no bits my son's a workout fiend now he got he asked for a pair so luke i find i can do a lot with these you know i can do

a lot of things why didn't you tell your son you don't need them because you know he wants to save his hands from those calluses look i can understand that you know what i mean i mean you know, he wants to save his hands from those calluses. Look, I can understand that. You know what I mean? I mean, you know, my dad, when I first got dragged to a gym at age 15, he gave me a pair of these, Luke. I will say, in general, I think you're a wonderful dad. I really mean that. But I got to say, you're falling down on the job here, letting your son go to the gym with gloves on.

Bad dad alert. If it's good enough for Ronnie Coleman and George St. Pierre, Luke, it's good enough for me, all right? They're just selling merchandise. They don't need any of that crap. Welcome in, guys. It is a new year. Thank you for consuming our holiday shows that we pre-taped. Luke, it has been an incredible time away from the microphone, but now we are back on a full-time basis. I know we're teasing all these grand new uh announcements coming about our show they'll be coming in the next you know month or two but for now luke we're gonna get back to business as usual as i uh i got the wrong microphone give me yeah here put it on me and i'll uh i'll get it going here i've got the correct one oh now it

sounds a little bit better we got the correct one now let's see wrong microphone on but now i've got the correct one. Oh, now it sounds a little bit better. We got the correct one now? Let's see. Wrong microphone on, but now I've got it. Is this good? Are we good? All right. Now you sound crystal clear and A-OK, and now you're a guy with an excellent mic and the worst gloves of all time. Well, you know, it wouldn't be this show if we, even in 2024,

we didn't start off with some self-imposed errors in terms of tech issues. Well, that's on me, Luke, but I wanted to tell you that, yeah, big, big stuff coming in the future. for now hey tooey let's bang let's dominate let's give the people what they want two old white washed males that's apparently what everybody has been asking for let's get the opinions of guys who've been giving their opinions all their lives even when unsolicited and we're here to deliver on that promise. There it is right fricking there.

Luke, we got so much great stuff to get into. I wanted to shout out, of course, in the new year, a great producer, Mikey Mormont on CBS Sports. You told him, Luke, on the first Zoom meeting you ever were a part of with him that you're not comfortable calling a grown man Mikey. I want to ask you a key question here did you become more comfortable with that idea or are you just deeming Mikey as not yet a grown man I've become more comfortable with the idea I've just never done it until I met him well I was obviously as a kid I did it but not since then but uh it works and also he's saying he's

also not a grown man so in in both ways i feel like we met in the middle right well he did go from that london steakhouse to a burger king hashtag never forget luke but you know hey it's good to see you never thought you'd be somebody calling a grown man mikey maybe you never thought you'd be a man who could lift heavy weights wearing these and then scoop at the salad bar right afterwards too, Luke, to keep that healthy eating going. Dude, it's going to be your son and then the 65-year-old boomer who doesn't know how to use any of the equipment wearing that. Like literally nobody else is wearing that. Except for Ronnie Coleman, but that's fine, Luke.

Before we kick off this show, I want to remind you guys that the same merch site is still entertaining and providing for you. If you want to look great for the new year, cause we know you're all getting in shape right now. How about you head over to morning combat dot story. You can wear that incredible super washed dad shirt from the average Joe art crossover collection.

And by the way, Luke, let's put a little royalty on that man's name. 2023 morning combat dunk of the year. Average Joe are big part of what we do over there on the merch tell rj we said hi uh why don't you order some great stuff today after you return all your christmas gifts from the relatives that you hate happy kwanzaa uh belated happy chenuka to all you who celebrate and uh luke any other absolute bullshit you want to get into? Morningcombat at gmail.com to reach.

Well, I could no longer say the producers, just a producer. A producer, yes, yes. A grown man, in fact. Showtime is done so, dude. We are in the officially, officially, officially. It was a slow death, you know? Yeah. But we were officially past it.

And so there are no more producers. Yes. Just a producer. Goodbye to. And so there are no more producers. Yes. Just a producer. Goodbye to Malco. Goodbye to Showtime. But, you know, near far,

wherever the hell we are, MK will go on. We'll continue to invade your face hole. It is Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024. We do have some interesting, a handful of news to get into over our break,

which was a week plus, as we did hit you with some look aheadseads, look-backs, and all that, and then some tall, pale, and handsome. That's what you get over here on this side of the camera, your boy BC. But, Luke, topic number one is a little bit more filler. I did want to get from you, you know, a vacation recap. Luke, anything you want to share? Lessons learned?

Did you evolve at all taking you know this time off away with your family um it was it was good for the most part um i got real i got real sick uh on saturday and sunday not sneezing and coughing but my i had a some kind of bacterial infection in the back of my throat which i know because my wife's in-laws from columbia are here and one of them is a doctor. He took a look at me. He was like, yeah, you need to get antibiotics immediately. So I've been on those for a few days.

I feel a lot better now, but my throat's a little banged up. The only thing that sucked BC, if I could be honest, was we got an Airbnb, which we had to pay for like, you know, months in advance. So we could take tukster tubing. You know, if you live in DC, actually, you're not far. Yeah, you're not far from places in southern Pennsylvania, like an hour and a half drive, to go tubing and skiing. Are you talking about the Poconos?

No, no, no, not the Poconos. There's various ones called White Tail or Liberty Mountain. There's a million different ones you can go to. There was no snow. So right when we got there, they canceled all tubing activities. They refunded us our money. But then we had to figure out, like, what the hell are we going to do for three days? So I'll tell you what we did.

We had a lot of family time. That was really awesome. The Airbnb was beautiful on this whole farm. It was great. I went and saw Gettysburg, the city of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Love it. The famous Civil War battle. Dude, I got to tell you, like, I was moving. there was a lot to that whole trip that i was not bargaining for

now it wasn't tubing but it was still pretty cool actually so did some great cooking had some great fun did a lot of just farting on the couch it was great dude what about you nice i love to hear that i didn't know you went away luke i i unplugged from everyone according especially you apparently luke apparently, Luke, but I love to hear that. I have done the Gettysburg bit before. It's great. I'm a more, I'm a bigger fan of a city, you know, very well, Luke, which is Williamsburg, Virginia, of course, because you went to college there and played hoops with, with Bruce Hornsby and the range there. But yeah, big fan of Gettysburg, a friend of the program, John Anik, by the way, an alumni of Gettysburg College, you're shot out to there. But yeah, big fan of Gettysburg. A friend of the program, John Anik, by the way, an alumni of Gettysburg College. Shout out to there.

But Luke, I did want to ask you when you mentioned your illness, I was wondering if it was something you ate. I'm having visions of the Tyron Woodley sex video that's floating around. Like, how do you think you can track this? I watched about three seconds of that before I had enough. So that was that. No, thanks. You're like, your wife's like, hey, you want Mexican? You're like, no tacos. No, please. I didn't know what it was. And then I clicked on it. I was like, oh, right. Okay, I'm good on this one. Thank you. So I had a bacterial

infection like a month ago, and I just didn't treat it. I just thugged it out. And then the problem is it came back a second time and was even worse the second time. Um, and I, I also wasn't going to treat it. And then the doctor looked at it and was like, dude, what are you doing? Get on some medicine. So I was like, my God, I feel much better. I feel much better. All right. Great to see you on the comeback trail. Um, do you believe that any of the, uh, anticipated releases of the Epstein list will list will include anyone from the mixed martial arts or boxing space? MMA, no. Boxing, maybe. Boxing, maybe.

How do you get to there? You're like, oh, yeah, boxing, probably. Because they're older. Older. Older. They're older, sort of like old rich people. If you look at a list, it was a list that came out a few years ago or something. It's a lot of like old rich people if you look at a list like it was a list that came out a few years ago or something it's a lot of just old rich people that's really what

it is you're gonna you'll get a little bit closer to that uh in in that so uh but either way i'm not spending five seconds of any time thinking about it because it's really not that big of a story jimmy kimmel just threatened to sue aaron rogers over x luke if he continues to aaron rogers seems to suck ass i don't know that but he seems to all right there you go well one day maybe we'll find out yeah in fairness jimmy kibble's show also sucks ass so we can we can agree on that certainly i wouldn't go as far as saying tyron woodley sucks ass but there are other things look there are other things just to be fully fair with you all right enough. Enough of this absolute bullshit. How did that get leaked, man? I don't know.

How does that? It was weird enough when he did that movie where he was naked and the raccoon bit off his piece. Did you ever see that piece? Yeah, with T.I., the rapper T.I., yeah. I mean, he was great as Sensei Odell in season five of Cobra Kai, but that's another topic for another day involving people who support teenagers, Luke, unlike yourself and Jack. Teen teenagers, not Romeo and Juliet, the worst play of the worst play ever written by Shakespeare. Don't give a fuck about the lives of teenagers. They're

inherently boring. Wow. All right. If you like old guys, this shows for you. There you go. I had a great, I didn't say old guys were're boring too it's the middle there like 20s and 30s dude i swear i said this before but this year i mentioned i really unplugged luke i really because you know there's a lot of freaking you know a lot of worry a lot of a lot of stuff you got to get through in this life you know we just endured the death of showtime we're hoping for some big things in the new year we got plans coming i had to just unplug and really enjoy the family time and look there ain't nothing more valuable to our lives than the people in our house all right protect that we must protect this house luke okay there you go there's my

did you get what did you get for christmas anything of note um oh i got a video game chair for my wife that looks like a airline seat so i was like are you sending me a message you know like what are we doing here but it's really comfortable luke and uh let's say who the fuck wants an airline seat yeah but it's really comfortable unlike airline seats so i'm really a big fan of it's on the floor but you can lean it back it's fantastic um okay you know i i got i got some some normal dad gifts i really just enjoyed the damn time the christmas movies the hot cocoa the napping luke it was everything i wanted you know i did a little bit of napping too the airbnb was really great i have to say dude the country that that huffing in

that clean air it feels different you know it really does feel different and it wasn't from would you and the missus considering moving to amish country at all luke no what the fuck we're gonna do there i mean it's quiet but like it's a little too quiet it'd be i think you could benefit from learning some of the amish ways luke me motherfucker i'm a i'm a handier man than you what what we don't worry about me guy it wasn't an editorial on your hand skills luke but you know i do have some gloves let you if you need it but oh jesus christ and this thing already fucking popped out can you put it on bc for just a second yeah we might as well get into the real show here that's luke thomas he's angry on bc i got a new setup here trying to figure out these lights we'll get it we'll get it done as the

new year progresses thank you for watching like and follow us and subscribe that was topic number one now if you fast forward and through our bs you can get ready for the real part of the show that matters here topic number two as we react to the latest mma unboxing news cycle and one topic we have debated i don't know for like three years now but really a lot for the last year when is conor mcgregor coming back against two against two and what are the circumstances well the, the biggest star in MMA history teased leading into the new year that he would announce his return. We not only got the opponent, we got the date, we got the card,

we've got all the info that matters. Conor McGregor, the former UFC lightweight and featherweight champion, will take on Michael Chandler after all, his fellow ultimate fighter coach from 2023. Only it won't take place at UFC 300. It will take place at International Fight Week in Las Vegas. June 28th is what I believe the date is. This is the first time that IFW is going to take place, not in the first or second week of July, and it's going to be at the end of June. But there's a lot to unpack here, not just the opponent in officially securing Chandler,

but the weight class. I believe we have a video to toss to of Conor McGregor making the official announcement. Let's go to that right now. Hold on. Ladies and gentlemen, a happy new year to you all. I'd like to announce the return

day for myself the notorious Conor McGregor the greatest comeback of all time will take place in the Las Vegas for international fight week on June the 29th come a little closer and the the opponent, Michael Chandler. And the weight, Mr. Chandler, 185 pounds. Oh! Middleweight McGregor is the plan here for late June. We did get a response from Michael Chandler over on social media. Let's throw to that right now. And then we'll hear from Luke Michael Chandler saying,

I always said I wanted to you at your biggest, your baddest and your best 185 would look good on me. Said the longtime lightweight. He would then go on to say, don't forget who was a natural featherweight who started his UFC career, cherry picking Bantamweights. So that's a little bit of the banter back and forth. But Luke, the keys that we noted, not 300, not any of those other opponents we speculated,

and not anywhere near the prime weights of Conor McGregor. So I ask you, why 185? What the hell is going on here? Did anyone confirm this report that you know of? You mean the weight officially? Or the date or the opponent? I believe Ariel Helwani confirmed the date and the idea that it is International Fight Week. And I'm not sure about the weight here. Let's go to Ariel from Twitter over the holiday saying it will be slated for

June 29th. Let me get that right for Las Vegas. First time, as I said that it's not in the first or second weekend of July, McGregor wanted to fight at 300. Ariel went on to say he pushed for it. He was ready, but after meeting with the brass last week,

he's going to fight in June. The plan, according to Ariel is to have leon edwards defend his title at ufc 300 as of now the opponent would be below muhammad but ariel mentioned that shavkat rock monoff definitely was in discussion in the mix too so luke uh let's go let's act as if it is official we saw connor come back time out i don't know that we should i mean we should definitely we are going to talk about it in detail but i just want to be clear that that announcement was really weird he looked to be doing some kind of count chocula thing with his mannerisms in fact he seemed to be trolling outright about the weight i'm sure that

maybe there is actually something to the fact that he won't be at 300 um he did express some frustration and dana white was saying you know i'm in I think they're in one of the Emiratis, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And then they said they would meet and figure it out. So I'm willing to believe that it is Chandler. I'm willing to believe that it's international fight week and an international fight week will be earlier than normal. I'm really less than convinced it'll be at 185 until I hear it actually confirmed by an independent reliable source.

Let me ask you this so I can get your reaction. When Connor came back against Cowboy, he fought, he wanted that welterweight, the UFC acquiesced, by an independent reliable source let me ask you this so i can get your reaction um when connor came back against cowboy he fought he wanted that welterweight the ufc acquiesced even though they were both lightweights it was more of the idea that you know we connor doesn't want to cut weight right after a long return to that hard i felt that that was that again with the extreme idea of 185 maybe connor thinking he's naturally bigger than chandler so let's make chandler fight an even bigger version of Conor. But Luke, I'm wondering when I wait for your reaction here,

whether that tweet from Ariel is teasing the idea that if Leon does fight against either man at UFC 300 to defend the welterweight title, do you think they're setting up the idea of Leon versus Conor later this year for that welterweight belt? And that this fight against Chandler is kind of being looked at as a setup fight, so maybe him fighting at 185 is him not wanting to cut down to 170, but him implying that he's going to be a welterweight moving forward. Yes, I think that is certainly something that they're probably eyeballing. Getting him to a third title shot in a, or I should say a third title in a new weight class, to be the first one to get three title shot in a, or I should say a third title in a, in a new weight class, right. To be the first one to get three, three belts in the UFC, I think would be a thing that

they're probably, that's going to be happening more and more in MMA in general. I think, in fact, I don't know if we're going to get to it, but Anatoly Malikin is now going to drop down to middleweight one's middleweight, which is 205, um, to get his third title. We saw, uh, obviously, uh, Saladin Parnas not be able to do it at KSW recently. I just feel like that you're going to get, and we know about Pitbull and Bellator, we're going to be getting more and more of that. And Conor McGregor being the biggest star, the first one to really begin this kind of trend of wearing belts simultaneously across weight classes and MMA. I don't think that's in any way crazy or in any way, some kind of thing that

they're not even at a bare minimum considering if not outright planning for. So to me, that sounds great. And again, I want to be clear, I'm not saying, oh, Luke is saying that they're not going to fight at 185. That's really not my point because I'm at the same place that everyone else is, which is that none of this is confirmed. And also, BC, is it me? Is it me on this one? McGregor in this announcement, like he used to try and make everyone laugh and now he seems so self-satisfied he doesn't really try as hard and it just becomes this weird kind of rich guy behavior where they just sort of believe everything that they utter is interesting or otherwise valuable to everyone else around them it's a weird position that he finds himself in

the whole thing seemed both like, this is basically my take in the NBC. And I wonder where you feel about this. It seemed half serious, very like part parts of that I think are absolutely going to be true. And then other parts of it seemed silly in unnecessary and frankly, confusing ways. And I guess I just don't know how to separate the two.

He did an evil laugh to try to show chandler in my opinion and mikey does back it up in the chat of this whole idea of connor trying to gain every advantage from chandler knowing that he's a smaller fighter i think that evil laugh is just like look i still know i'm the biggest star in the sport i want to handle the announcements my way like i'm floyd mayweather in boxing so like maybe what you said we do have to wait to see on full ufc confirmation for all the details that this isn't connor jumping the gun to try to show everybody that he's still in charge but i don't i didn't see much weird

behavior i mean he was drinking wine whatever outside of the evil laugh luke i mean i get what you're saying this modern day version of connor is not the same up and coming guy who was so good at trash talk that it was like he was inventing new ways to do it in the moment. And it was making us all laugh. And then it really got dark in the Habib fight. And in some ways, outside of cleaning up his image for Cowboy, he's always kind of been in this weird post hundreds of million dollar phase, which is everything you just said. This idea that everything I say is funny, but I didn't see a lot of weirdness outside of the ho ho ho ho chandler you're gonna do things my way he did a ben rothwell maniacal laugh and you don't think he was acting weird well in relation to what every time we see him publicly over the last two years he is is either drunk or on the mat with Coach Craig Jones,

if you know what I'm saying. Did you see him? Hold on. Did you see him at the Day of Reckoning when he got sat next to Ronaldo? Oh, yeah. Cristiano Ronaldo. And Ronaldo was just like trying to not get overwhelmed with the amount of talking he was doing.

Did you see that? I definitely did. I mean, look, we've seen him in public at the AJ fight, trying to shove the drink, the lager, whatever, that stout down AJ's throat. I mean, look, what I'm saying is, to me, ever since the third Poirier fight, in which he was absolutely ridiculous in the post-fight interview afterwards, still talking about Poirier's wife and it's not over. From that point on, to me, it's all been off the rails. What the hell's different from this video this was tame compared to that yes it was certainly tame but here's the thing that sort of stands out to me he had teased that new year's day there was going to be an announcement okay fair enough and then i guess basically new year's eve night or new year's day however you want to parse it roughly around

that same time that he had promised he makes an announcement but he's you can hear him give instructions to someone holding the phone they didn't even bother to edit that part out. He's swirling some kind of great wine, I'm sure, and then he just rattles off this information, which, again, partly seemed to be true, or could be all true. I don't really know. But number one, did the UFC agree it was going to be 185? Because if they don't agree it's going to be 185,

then it probably won't be a 185, just number one. That's the first thing. And more to to the point it's like this is your announcement about the greatest comeback of all time and you're doing it between servings of a tasting menu something is off about it like there's it wasn't planned it wasn't well executed it wasn't this big announcement like if francis does a big announcement it's a well put together video and there's a whole hype piece around it this was just hey hold the phone guys i'm going to uh and you know june 29th as i as i enjoy this delicious mall back blah blah blah blah blah uh it it just seemed it seemed weird to me it seemed weird and hard to parse i guess i'm saying i'm used to this version of him, this multimillionaire who's, you know, trying to stay

away from troubles with the law and troubles of his own, you know, loose behavior. I mean, let's not forget he was just at, at halftime of the NBA finals with a, with a young chick in the, in the restroom. I mean, there's been some wild sort of public. He was clear. He was clear for that should be, should be known. But at the very, that's a bad look if you're trying to put out a documentary that he just did that is playing up that he's the greatest father and husband of all time. I don't care if people have open marriages. That's fine.

But I'm just saying it does not look like up and up that you're back into this fight game, you know, blinders on 100%. So, yeah, I'd agree with you. He's doing the, look, guys, I'm bigger than all of you. Hey, UFC, I'm still bigger than you. And I know that. That's why I'm going to handle my own announcement. I'm going to do it like I'm this evil billionaire. I still have a lot of the same questions everybody else does if he'll ever even win another fight in

the UFC, Luke, or what his future looks like. No, you're right. This doesn't change that. This only can, I guess I'm just so used to, this is who he is. This is where we're going. Mikey did bring up a point. Did you see the post that Connor put on X Twitter today? That was a side-by-side video of Chandler training like crazy and Connor drinking wine, drinking whiskey, partying it up and trying to make it seem like I'll beat you anyway. Yeah. I mean, that's what an arrogant. Like the John Jones, you know, I beat you.

What was the quote? Like I beat you high on Coke or I've been using. I forget the exact quote yeah yeah i forgot it too so luke let's let's get maybe past that for a second to get into the actual fight like we we argued and we were right that i thought it was unlikely connor would end up at ufc 300 mostly because they don't need him he sells pay-per-views on his own that the the fight cards are normally over the last couple years a little bit weaker when he's on, because it's obvious that they have to pay him and his opponent more than everyone else. But if this is international fight week in June, there's a big deal. This is a big ass event.

I'm glad at the very least that they picked Chandler, even though maybe I would have gotten more aroused by other outside the box opponents. There's a story here that they're trying to finish telling, right? Conor's comeback comeback the ultimate fighter coaching all of that uh chandler's been basically playing the role of steepay here sitting out and taking the chance that he's going to get that one fight that'll give him the most money opening odds here luke on early lines have conor mcgregor according to draft kings minus 120 michael chandler plus 100 i want to ask you, if this is a middleweight fight, do you think that changes any element of how you would handicap it? Yeah, it would have to. I mean, they're going for a guy who fought at 145 to now 185. That's in fact the direction that they go. You would have to wonder

how much it would weigh down the competitors. Would it be a three round fight? Would it be a five round fight? I would guess it would be a five-rounder no matter what. I would wonder about either guy's capacity to carry that weight and be able to execute on a five-round fight. Now, what you might say is, well, it doesn't really matter. It's probably not going to go five rounds, to which I would agree. Nevertheless, it's something you have to consider, right? What does the five-round capacity do here? It would substantially increase both the punching power of both guys,

which, by the way, both guys can thump a little bit, different striking styles, different kinds of power, but guys who can put you on your ass with a big punch, no doubt about it. Um, but the bigger question to me is less so what it would do to Michael Chandler who walks around at around one 90 or even higher. It's more of a question of like, what does Connor look like? He's never had great cardio fighting a one 85. And I know what folks are going to say. Let's closer to his natural weight. There's nothing question of like what does connor look like he's never had great cardio fighting a 185 and i know what folks are going to say let's closer to his natural weight there's nothing natural about that i mean um or i should say at a bare minimum like since when is in this particular case natural

optimal like people need to reconcile that the two might not always be overlapping in many cases they might be but they don't always get overlapping consideration here. And so do I really believe if it is even close to Conor's natural weight, is that really the optimal one? I'm much more skeptical of that. I think BC, Conor benefits more, and we have a limited amount of data to support this, but such as I can tell, I think he tends to do better when he is forced into more rigorous training environments. And if you're carrying that much weight, I question exactly how rigorous the training is.

It just reminds me very much of like the breezy confidence of BJ Penn for a time. There was a time after BJ Penn had won a couple of titles where I remember like for the rematch with Matt Hughes, he was very, he was very clear. Like, how are you going to train for this? And this was an exaggerated example, BC, but he was like, yeah, I'm just going to surf. I'm just going to surf in Hawaii. I don't really need to do anything else.

This is not that, but it's the same kind of it doesn't matter the weight. It doesn't matter when. It doesn't really matter what else I do. This is really what's going to be great for me, and I just know I'm going to win. And, of course, he ended up losing the rematch to Hughes. It gives me a little bit of that vibe. Team vibes over here on this one, BC. Hell yeah.

But I just, I have a hard time believing, like, again, are there net positives to him fighting, or I should say, are there positives to him fighting 185? There certainly could be, and punching power probably chief among them. However, on the other hand, are there negatives? Probably a substantial amount, at least for me, do you get to a net negative scenario at 185 versus

170 probably uh i think you probably do but i guess we'll see yeah interesting uh i still think this is a major event in terms of any time conor mcgregor comes back until the wheels completely fall off it'll be monstrous i think i i don't i don't overrate what the ultimate fighter did to make this fight more important or bigger. Look, it's Conor against a guy who's an action fighter that makes amazing fights. Look, I think it's going to be huge. And Mikey asked an interesting question, essentially, about the idea of is this a big enough fight style? I think it is.

I know it's on International Fight Week, so I'm arguing against why it wasn't on 300 because Conor is his own brand. I am a little surprised. It's not to be unfair on an in-between pay-per-view because of that idea that Conor sells himself, but we are set up for this to be a blockbuster international fight. We potentially, unless they're going to do what they do when Conor has been on top, like I said, and water it down. It's I got this feeling. They want to come out big. They're going to swing big this year. Why do I feel like that? Because I like the main and co-main combos for the most part of the first three cards to kick off this year. Then we get a UFC 300 that we'll get to in a second that we assume is going to be absolutely loaded. We have certain fight night cards that will feel like pay-per-view cards, according to Dana White, including the return to England in the first

half of this year, the fight night card upcoming in Saudi Arabia, and let's not forget Noche at the Sphere. So I really think this will be a monster year for big events. So I kind of like this atop of International Fight Week. It's going to make that trip, Luke, feel as vibrant as it's supposed to, as maybe it used to. Not that they haven't put good fights on there. I just meant an international fight week, at least how I first came across it used to mean like, if I have a tight travel budget at CBS sports, which at times I have, I know I'm going to IFW because it's going to be a big one and they're going to have big names atop it. It gives me that feel again. But I want to mention one thing about Michael Chandler, Luke, 37 years old. We knew he was going to be here for a good time, not a long time. He's coming up on his three-year anniversary since joining and making his UFC debut in January of 21. He's two and three

overall, but let me just recap one more time the names that he's fought. Dan Hooker, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, Tony Ferguson, Dustin Poirier, and now Conor McGregor. There's been a vacant lightweight title bout in that mix. He weighed in before his UFC debut as the backup for a title fight in Abu Dhabi. He's been a pay-per-view headliner for the company. Luke, I mean, we're talking a lot about Conor when it comes to this idea of what does this fight mean and all this stuff. Michael Chandler pulled a steep pay and he won.

This is the biggest fight of his career. It's going to be his biggest fate payday by far, even though he's fought already for a UFC title and didn't win, but you got to give him a lot of credit. You never know when guys make that crossover, right? For every time. And Eddie Alvarez shocks us coming from Bellator to the UFC puts together big wins and then wins the UFC championship.

Sometimes you do get a Wilbur situation where it just doesn't work out. Even with him going two and three entering this fight, this has worked out blockbuster. Like you got to tip your hat to old Chandler for, from a business standpoint, even as a company man, even as the company's representative for black history month, he's delivered Luke and he's going to reap those benefits. Why would this be his biggest payday? He doesn't get pay-per-view points. What do you mean?

What are you saying? Well, I know there's been this sort of tendency. It's like, oh, red panty night. And it can be depending if it's for a title. It can be if you have a stipulation in your contract for a main event. There are ways in which it could be if you have like a stipulation in your contract for a main event there are ways in which it could be involved but basically unless you get pay-per-view points it doesn't matter how much conor mcgregor makes you're not going to get a piece of it you're not going to get any you're

not going to you're not going to get any of that money in the end if it was a title fight you you would be if you're right about lack of pay-per-view points i don't know how that would be possible since he's already been a pay-per-view main eventer and this is basically a title fight for not having a title on the line because it's so big don't you think his his like gross per or his set purse will be bigger than even when he fought for the world title i would have to think it would be i mean this is going to be international fight week against carl mcgregor it depends on the it depends on the contract it depends on the contract i mean contracts i've seen everyone assumes like for example like oh you fought tony ferguson fought nate diaz i'm just gonna make an example i realize

it's not the same but just hear me out for a second um that doesn't mean anything like the way the ufc contracts work there's basically two different ways you can make money one is if you have paper viewpoints and there's a whole system involved there that's one the other one is as i just sort of mentioned bc which is are you going to be in a five-round main event are you going to be some other kind of sort of special carve-out case that they write into the contract and also your contract if you won your last couple or whatever it there's a natural elevation so those those factors absolutely could bring him more money what I'm simply saying is like just because you're fighting Conor McGregor doesn't mean you're going to make any more money you have to have either paper viewpoints or something already

written into the contract or something in the bout agreement that enables that so if there's no other mechanism forcing it he'll get paid what he what he gets paid there's no there's no real change in fact we've seen that in the payouts i can't believe that he's somehow that's how they do business dude the same or less against conor m McGregor that he did even against any of those. Well, he wouldn't get less. He would not get less. There's no way he'd get less. And again, there probably is some kind of escalator that they'll add to the bout agreement.

But if you're not going to get pay-per-view points, then how much are you actually going to get more? A few hundred grand? I mean, that's not believing. I would love to have a few hundred grand. But I'm just saying for fighting Conor McGcgregor it's probably not that much well you know anyone with intelligence is probably going to insult me but i still think i'm right forget pay-per-view points how about paper bag points luke how about nelf boys bundle bags okay chandler is a company guy he waited for them it came through cowboy said he didn't get pay-per-view points for his

mcgregor fight like people just assume it's like red panty night. You're right. We shouldn't assume. We have enough info now to know that they're getting screwed 10 ways to Sunday on everything. We shouldn't assume. Alright, that's Conor McGregor. That's a big deal. That's a big event. I'm sure we're going to have a lot to talk about in the next six months as we get closer. But we mentioned

UFC 300. What we've already known up to this point is that Bo Nickel will most likely kick off the card against Cody Brundage in a fight that apparently you and I like or are the only two that like it outside of Cody Brundage look because the internet was shatting on this uh we saw a couple other really good filler prelim or early prelim fights but we also have that potential big building block there of the Leon Edwards situation Ariel Hawani tweeted the tease that Leon could be at 300.

Well, now we have Leon on social media, essentially confirming it here. This is through MMA fighting. He was interviewed at a soccer match, Luke involving Aston Villa and Burnley. The hell's Burnley Luke. Is that EP?

These are premier league teams. Yeah. He says, I will defend my belt in April at UFC 300 in Vegas again, then hopefully in the summertime, get a show back in Birmingham at Villa Park. I'm in talks with the UFC, so hopefully we can get that done. Do we have any other elements or tweets related to this? I believe we showed the aerial tweets already.

All right, so Luke Thomas. We heard from Ariel that Bilal is probably the target, but Shavkat in the conversation you and I put together our own which we'll get to in a second sort of what we know now what could the main card of UFC 300 look like do you think Leon's on that main card where do you think the placement could be and does it depend on which opponent they go to here again I just want to be very clear about this. I think UFC 300, based on what we now know, which is there's still a lot missing,

and we're going to look at our mock, you know, everyone calls them mock drafts, right, when you get to the NFL draft. Here's our mock UFC 300 cards. We'll get to those in a minute. I need folks to understand, just by a process of elimination, unless they have some sort of, like, crazy rabbit in the hat, UFC 300 will be a good card maybe even a great card but it's not in all likelihood going to be some kind of historical oh my god shit your pants

kind of event it just can't be there's really not the the the 299 bc might actually end up being a better card than 300 just based on the way that it's going since we don't know yet to be fair we don't know yet okay i get what you're saying though because you and i in different ways on this show over the past month have done this exercise a few different ways of just talking out loud of like wait look at the schedule who's actually available i know we've had a lot of questions but i want to ask you by a not well okay maybe this comes back to what you're saying technically ufc did not announce this connor thing connor announced it well let's assume connor's fighting fighting at IFW in June to me that tells me they have huge 300 plans because they don't they're not they could have very easily in my opinion just gone Connor Chandler main event of

300 or Connor Nate 3 right anything like that you could just put Connor in there to come out at a WWE pay-per-view style and just cut a promo and people would be excited seriously okay that sounds bullshit but you get my point uh i feel like this announcement if true does lead me to believe they have a plan but i don't know if we should necessarily assume that the plan will be decent but not great if we already know that bow nickel is probably kicking off the card and dana's trying to tell us that there will be fights on these early prelims that we're like how is that not a main card bout are you then implying that it will be deep yes but it won't be over the top call your casual fans get all your old friends that used to watch and let's have a party and enjoy 300 together so it certainly could be I mean here's what we did

right again we're gonna look at these cards here in just a second what we did was an exercise where we tried to come up with like what could actually be main card fights among people who are readily available. And by that I mean someone who's not retired, not some WWE pullout, which, by the way, they may end up going in that direction, certainly, but the task that we had assigned to ourselves was to not do that. In the event that they don't have some rabbit in their hat, a Brock Lesnar, a Ronda, something like that, and you have to play with the characters, so to speak,

that you have that are left, let's be very clear, you're going to make an excellent card. I don't want folks to think anything, you said decent, no, it'd be more than decent. It'd be really, really good. But I think what folks have been looking for is some kind of historic, really memorable, out there, next level, beyond next level level event and i just want to be clear if they don't end up pulling a nate diaz in if they which by the way justin poirier says they're not if they

don't end up getting ronda if they don't end up getting brock or something along those lines it can't be that it cannot be that there is simply not the people left to do it. Well, that's it. Yeah. And look, you know, there are still stars out there. I'm thinking about max hollow. I'm thinking about other people that you could see in our, Oh, I've used max in my mock and my mock card.

Yeah. Right. So I'm like, can you combine enough interesting matchups? Can you have four title fights on the main card out of five fights? Could you have, you know, just the kind of thing where you're like, okay, it's not Conor, it's not Brock, it's not whatever, but like, damn, I got to see these title fights. And I do think, by the way, although I did not fill my card with the Brock Lesnar CM Punk type fights,

I did take one retired fighter. I wanted to at least leave in there the possibility that we're going to get one of those weird surprises, you know, like if it's not Rousey coming back, could it be holly versus misha too not that i think you care about that but i'm saying like i think we'll see something weird and old to sprinkle in but i have to i'm still going to remain hopeful because even though 200 did not end up playing out how it could have because john jones failed out during the week of

and i'll give him credit for calling in anderson sylvan five minutes notice and you still had Brock, but they bumped up a man and newest to the main event. And I remember people being disappointed right afterwards, but they tried. I remember, you know, flying to Vegas for 200 going like, holy shit, right? Like, hold, like this is going to be the all-star game of all-star games. I mean, go back and look at that card on paper and remember where we were in 2016. Like those early fights were bad-ass. They did it. We didn't get the big ones in the end, but we got it. I mean, you had, you know, Edgar versus Aldo too. Like what's the worst fight in the main card? Kane coming back from injury against Travis Brown. Like it wasn't awful. Like it looked like it could have been great. Um, I still think we will. So Luke, you mentioned

the parameters. We didn't go too far down the road of craziness. We looked at the calendar. We looked at who potentially could be there. Yes, maybe if you want to try to pull somebody in on a three-month turnaround or something, you can make that argument. But we have identified what we believe are probably the best chances to make this great card. Luke, do you want to go first or second here? I mean, I did win okay bet.

Sure, you tell me then. All right. We're not going to get Robert Whitaker versus Jon Jones Part 2 in this main event. first or second here i mean i did win okay bet so you know maybe sure you tell me then uh all right we're not gonna get robert whittaker versus john jones part two in this main event i did a better job with this one although there is some things i need to explain oh let's do it let's find out what ufc 300 could look like per luke thomas now throw up my card now let's be clear about something here for just a second these are all title fights and so i understand you've already got bow nickel on the card you can sub out for example for example, Jean Wiley versus Jan Shonan. So here's what I did, BC. Here's what I did. I tried to come up with the biggest possible fights

I could think of under the considerations that we had put out, which is who is actually available. What have they actually sort of either announced or hinted that could go in that direction? So the first one, of course, is your main event, Tom Aspinall fighting Alex Pineda for the heavyweight interim title. That fight doesn't do much for me personally, but I honestly don't know what main event they could come up with, given the constraints of the exercise. That's one. Leon Edwards versus Bilal Muhammad is probably going to be your co-main. It certainly wouldn't be your main because it's a 170 fight versus heavyweights. It would probably go there.

Then it gets a little bit open. So I'd be happy to leave off either Grasso Shevchenko III or Zhongwei Li, Yuan Shaonan, one of the two. They both don't need to be there. But you could go in either of those directions. Now, of course, if you do, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul down the line. So I definitely think you need to sub one of those directions. Now, of course, if you do, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul down the line. So I definitely think you need to sub one of them out. But either way, if you wanted your three title fights,

certainly one of the women's fights could offer it for you. You already have Edwards Muhammad. Ask what I'll put it if you want to go that crazy ass direction. And BC, you could put the BMF title on the line against between Holloway and Gaethje. So if you wanted to, which again, I don't recommend, if you wanted to, you could do five title fights, the BMF one being

a title fight, on the main card. I think you end up going with three, picking the three best of those, and that's how you do it. Alright, can we show Luke's list again? I want to critique it here with you, because that's what we're trying to do here, Luke. I don't hate your card. I don't hate your card. There's a lot of quality and depth here. Here's what I'm going to say though even though we were this is why this

exercise was difficult because we had a short amount of huge names that were ready in the cycle like volkanovsky's fighting and you know right around the corner like all these things that you normally would want to go to uh is he's not even a champion anymore and could be out for a long time. But I do feel like you went as non-sexy as you possibly could with the established names. I'm not saying there wouldn't be a hunger and excitement and a fanfare. Holloway versus Gaethje is not sexy. I mean, what are you talking about? Can I finish talking here, Luke? I'll explain it to you.

I'm not saying here that Pineda is trying to fight for the heavyweight title is not awesome and sexy, but not in the main event, not against an Esidol who is not established to the type of crossover fans that we're talking about that an anniversary special attraction card like this should be able to learn i'm not going to say that i necessarily loaded up with those type of stars either i just feel like you are underserved unless if we can go back to luke's card that you took the star-studded holloway gaethje matchup which i do love and don't hate by the way as a pay-per-view opener that's freaking badass but that would have to be the co-main event for me in this setup to really maximize that star power right there and I do feel like even though I certainly like a lot of your matchups again you're just not

tinging enough of those boxes in my opinion to make this a slam dunk pay-per-view like blockbuster in terms of buys how could you do bmf as co-main that doesn't make sense why wouldn't it make sense if it's an attraction fight you would do connor versus uh chandler in the main event of either ifw or this okay so connor breaks all the rules but gaethje and max holloway don't right but bmf is they're treating it like a title so you, I would think you would have to put that. Because it's about the poster. You put that above Bilal and Leon? Yes, and here's why.

To me, it's not even a debate. To me, it's easy. Because even though it's not about as it used to be, using every ounce of your arsenal to sell pay-per-view since the ESPN deal. We've been over it a million times. I think you still need on the poster for 300, things that'll be there in history. using every ounce of your arsenal to sell pay-per-view since the ESPN deal. We've been over it a million times. I think you still need on the poster for 300,

things that'll be there in history. It'll be at people's walls for history. I think you need sexiness in that poster. Normally the poster is the main event and the co-main, and sometimes the third fight if it's badass, right? You got to have Max and Gaethje in that poster if you're going to do it. That's my point. And look, Luke, I love Muhammad versus Leon because it has to happen. to happen in fact spoiler it's going to be on my board in a second

too but i don't think you can have that in the main or the co-main because the overall sex appeal in there from a you know casual fan is just non-existent it is it's just non-existent okay so i don't i don't know why you have to do it the way you're talking about. So, for example, UFC 100. We often talk about UFC 200, but UFC 100, your main event in the end, I guess it may have been Fitch and Paulo Thiago had a swing belt, but it was basically Lesnar and Mir, right? So that was for the heavyweight belt. Then you had St. Pierre and Alves.

Yep. St. Pierre and Alves, which is for the welterweight strap. And then you had Henderson and Bisping, which was not for for a title but they were coming off of the ultimate fighter when the ultimate fighter still mattered as the various coaches all of those guys were on the poster if I do recall one two yeah they were all on the poster so you could have Gaethje and Holloway on the poster as the third fight but not main or-main. I have a hard time believing they're going to put a BMF fight between a 145 former champion and a 155 former interim champion over the welterweight title shot.

That sounds to me not correct. I do, because they have to do that fight because you could not justify making Bilal wait any longer unless this was an extreme gimmick. And when I mean extreme gimmick, I mean like Conor fighting for the welterweight title now they're not doing that so there's just no sex appeal in that matchup outside of the uk fan base i mean the hardcores want to see it yes of course i'm talking about how you're projecting it out it's not going to be above the the heavyweight one because it's history and it's heavyweights but i think all i'm saying luke the only critique i

have is that even with a short bin availability of big names, I feel like you underplayed what this card still needs to be. And that's a statement. I don't know if I did mine better. You can critique, but here we go. Here's BC's card of what we know and what we have. And I did make one change. Originally in that co-main event, I stole your idea of DDP beating Strickland and making a short two and a half month turnaround and fighting Izzy for the middleweight belt. But I said, look, I got to have one weird thing because I do think UFC 300 will have one outside the box.

For me, even though I get DMs all the time, people say, hey, stop making fights with GSP. The guy's 50. Hey, guys, the guy is 42 and he's in insane shape and he's staying close enough to the fight game that I really believe he does want one more. And because he used to say, I'm only coming back for something that matters historically. The only fight that really, that really was to me was Habib. He can't get it. The only other fight that I think justifies him coming back just on fanfare alone would probably be McGregor, which he's not getting, but could I talk myself into this? There's no pressure on Adesanya. In my opinion, this is almost like an all-star game exhibition

fight. You'd get GSP's star power back on the card, which would draw in a lot of the historical fans. I still think he can compete against an Adesanya who just got, you know, solved and has a lot of questions having lost so many in the last two years. I think that's perfect matchmaking. Can we go back to the main screen? The only thing, Luke, is even though I gave you that lecture about star power, I do question myself having Mahachev Oliveira too. I think it's got more star power than a lot of the fights on your card, which is why I critiqued you, but I'm still questioning if even if that fight is enough for main event. Ultimately, in my opinion here, Mahacheev's the best fighter in the world,

pound for pound, so I'm justifying it. Oliveira's a former champion who's flashy as heck, makes great fights. There's a good storyline. So I actually like my card, but this does break that rule. I put Leon Edwards-Balal as my third fight because it's not anywhere close to this idea of GSP-Izzy, which is a fantasy super fight. Then I've got the fight that you don i've got let me see if i understand this right you've got put the card up one more time for me please mikey i'm sorry about that

i apologize mikey you've got not one but two muslim fighters having to train through ramadan to compete at ufc through 300 what are the that what are the the calendar breakdowns for ramadan i don't want to ramadan 2024 is going to be march 10th to april 9th all right i didn't factor that in that that's so that's going to make that i think i think here's the thing i think balal will have to do it because they're just going to kind of make them you know if you don't have a choice fucking islam has a choice and i don't think especially for a rematch uh no that's just absolutely not going to happen. No chance.

Dude, I don't know what you need to hear from St. Pierre. He has been expressly clear that he's not coming back, and for some reason, you don't believe him. Leon Edwards versus Bilal Muhammad, too. I think you probably have it in a decent spot. Justin Gaethje, Max Holloway, I like a lot. Walk me through the Grasso-Wiley fight. That's what I was trying to do when you cut me off here, Luke.

Let me tell you it right now. It's easy. I know you don't love the idea, but here's the deal. Although this is going against the grain of the idea that if you have an opportunity to make Whaley versus Yan Xiaonan on Chinese soil, you do it. I know they want to do it. It just seems like it's going to take some time. There's hoops that they still have to jump through. I also question if Valentina is really healthy and ready for April, given that she needed surgery after that third fight. We debated the idea of would the UFC kind of wait on Grasso versus Shevchenko three, four, Noche at the sphere and continue this idea that Grasso is like the face, what we thought Brandon Moreno might be, but then he lost his belt a couple times of this Mexican movement. So you can still potentially do that. I know she

could lose the belt and I know Whaley's a great fighter, but Whaley's got to come up and wait here. You sell it as champion versus champion. It's not, you know, it's not a fight that's meaningless. It still has huge meeting, but I think it's super exciting. It would allow Valentina to get fully healthy and come back for a trilogy. And if Whaley loses no shame, You could still set up this fight with Yan Xiaonan, go back to China. It could be a big deal. But I think if you're working under the idea that there's probably going to be at least one female fight on the main card, I know you have two, then I don't see, based on what's available, where you can find a fight that has more oomph. And this fight, to me, has a lot of oomph. I know to you, it's a waste of time, which I don't fully

understand your analysis, and I'd like to hear it. But to me, a lot of oomph. I know to you, it's like, it's a waste of time, which I don't fully understand your analysis and I'd like to hear it. But to me, this actually is a perfect window to get this fight done and add some of that power and oomph to this of two champions going against each other. I don't hate that at all. So if Zhong Wai Li wins, you can't do your triple fight with Shevchenko and Grasso. Why would you do that? I acknowledge that you would be taking that risk, but what I also acknowledge is that you have the smaller fighter moving up in weight,

so it would be, in theory, less likely that she pulls it off, and then she goes back and doesn't lose a lot outside of a loss, outside of her division, and can still go back and do things. Your answer is luck, basically. Let's just hope it doesn't happen that's that's the well look you have to make those decisions sometimes as a promoter right so i look you don't have to make this one i mean you could make grasso shevchenko to be i don't know if you can here's here's what i'm saying i took into account their want to make no chance this fear be big i took into account the idea that valentina's older and coming off of surgery. I also thought

when you look at the landscape of female fighters at the moment, Nunes is gone. So Tatiana Suarez just had a fight announced. Rose is kind of in the middle of nowhere right now between two divisions. The flyweight division has a number one contender fight coming up with Blanchfield and Farrow, which I would be actually perfect for this main card, but it's going to be its own main event in Atlantic City and that's fine, but that's unavailable. So I kind of think this is the right fight for this type of setup, 300 star power, but also, yeah, you are fighting for the chance to become a two division champion.

But Luke, here's the deal to, to talk about the Shevchenko problem for you quickly. Should Whaley pull the upset? Do you want to know how you fix this wayley versus uh versus her part versus grasso part two at the sphere in in in september and the mexican crowd shows up to see their fighter regain her title you still can have it all luke okay you still can yeah you just ruin another fight to make that one but okay uh my card's going to sell a lot more than yours and even if you hate gsp so much can i sub ddp back and i think you'd like how is yours going

to sell more when uh gsp won't be fighting and izzy has no okay give me ddp in that spot then luke give me that in that spot i even think if you put mf in that spot mine sells more i think islam versus charles Charles II would bring more. I didn't make one with maximum sellable as the premier one and then just invent fights between guys who are retired and then putting two Islamic fighters on the card. If we were going to do that, yeah, I could have put up some different names. I can't argue on the Islam thing.

You got me there, Luke. You got me there. But according to Mike. Here are some names, BC. Let me read these out to you because I sent these to Mikey as well as backup ones. Well, hold on. 56% of the chat right now, Luke, which is filled with racism and misogyny, to be fair, believes that I have the key card here out of the two.

I just want to let you know that. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, they're all completely wrong because none of those fights, virtually none of those fights are going to get made. Mine are at least makeable in the end. I agree that mine are a little bit less interesting than fantasy matchmaking, but I didn't know we were doing fantasy matchmaking, so I didn't do fantasy matchmaking.

I don't think it's an insane, stupid fantasy that GSP, who's only 42, still in insane shape, is lingering close to the fight game and trying to be strategic. I get why he's not coming out and saying, I'm looking for a fight. He's trying to see if the right one for the right money. He came out and explicitly said, I'm not fighting.

I'm done. He didn't beat around the bush. He was very clear about it. What I'm saying is I still think he could get a phone call that has a lot of zeros attached to it, that he would, if it's the right type of matchup against a legendary name, that would excite him.

Not a Diaz brother. Like I couldn't put him versus Nate in there. Just, I don't think he would do it. I think he would consider doing this for the right amount of millions. That's what I'm saying. I mean, if we were doing that, I wouldn't throw an in Brock on my main card because it's no less ridiculous than that. But, okay, here are my backup fights, BC.

Now, these are the ones you might like a little bit more. You might like these ones with sex appeal. These are backup fights. Rousey versus Tate. You would agree if they pulled that off, it would be a big deal. So you're basically saying we have a targeted project, which is to present five fights, and you're like, I've got seven more if you don't like the five I did.

Well, yeah, I did extra work. I wanted to see what you thought about them. Let me read through them if I may. You have Umar Nurmagomedov versus Corey Sanhagen. I'm not sure where you would put that, probably on the prelims given just how stacked 300 will probably be in the end, but I think it adds a significant amount of value. Now this one's a little bit more difficult. There should have been an asterisk by it, but if Teporia gets out of the Volk fight relatively unscathed at 298 or whatever it is, you could in theory make a turnaround against Max Holloway.

Unlikely, but possible. BC, you could bring back Brock Lesnar and have him fight Derek Lewis. Would be fun and all kinds of stupid, but you could do it. We talked about it previously. Shavkat, Rachmaninoff, and Colby. I think it's unlikely you'll get that,

but you could do it. Dominic Cruz versus Rob Font. I actually think it would be a lot of fun. And then this one I added and I sent it, and then afterwards, Dustin was on social media saying it's not happening but at least in theory BC Nate Diaz versus Dustin Poirier would be a lot of fun with big star power that you could add in the end yeah I think you should make that Rousey Tate one to Tate home too which I actually think we could see on this card I wouldn't be yeah I think I think that's fair I think that's fair

remember the first one home was running her down for four rounds and then at the very end of the fifth tate comes back and takes her back and chokes her out it was one of the better comebacks in ufc championship history so i wouldn't say she was running her down for four rounds the key to that fight was that they alternated rounds when they alternated essentially making adjustments to each other that home would control for a round with kickboxing oh you're right you're right and tate would take her down and then she finally got that choke uh mikey offering diaz holloway at 155 not a bad call not a bad celebrity fight no no no problems with that it fits in the bmf mold just the same uh luke on the idea because the reason why again i put gsp on was because i felt like i had to put one on that was out there because i think we'll get one if i read you a handful of names like what's the order

on the most likely that we would see them rousey lessner gsp habib and anderson silva anderson will be least among those Habib right behind right next to him so you can count them out probably Brock because he seems like a whore for money Brock number one and then Rousey two I forget who the third one was

but something like that GSB, GSB three you think Rousey would be more likely to come back than GSP? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, again, one more time. GSP has been explicit he's not coming back. I don't know why we think that's negotiable, but there you go.

Okay, had Rousey decided to come back, do you think they would have put her in a vacant women's Bantamweight title fight? And who do you think would have been the opponent? vacant women's band and weight title fight and who do you think would have been the opponent because she's not signing on to fight holly under any circumstance you know that no no oh it's a great i mean this is why the tate one makes so much sense because you've already got two wins over her tate had a nice rebound obviously recently but in general has not looked overall her best uh and rousey has had a bunch of time off and god only

knows but probably still winnable based on style contrast right you would think maybe so that has and they have a they have like a rivalry and shit like that one works the whole one would do let me just ask this it's not gonna happen i'm not promoting it but just thinking through for a second dude ronda and holly too that's a big ass fight dude that's a big. Because for any hardcores that are groaning, that's how you wake up the casuals, the ones that used to be here because of Ronda and Brock, right? Like, there is that icing on top of the cake

of when you become so popular that you're pulling in those other audiences. That would bring them back. Do you think it's a zero thing for Rousey, meaning if they, like, doubled her money, then she'd be like, yeah, I'm there? Or Do you think it's a zero thing for Rousey? Meaning if they doubled her money, then she'd be like, yeah, I'm there? Or do you think it's still trying to figure out if she wants to take that risk again? I can only go based off what public information is ever released. I think she's very done with UFC, but I don't get the sense that she would

snub her nose at a big financial offer. And again, against a foe that she's got significant winning experience against. You know, if it was Amanda Nunes too, or Hopeless, if it was Holm too, which again is pretty close to Hopeless, but also probably Hopeless. Tate, it feels like there's something a little bit there maybe all right one night tournament on 300 involving ronda's three uh eskimo brothers uh celebrity exes uh that'd be pretty fun to see who comes out and gets her at the end right yes the old eskimo brothers bit that's okay that's a crowd pleaser uh i referenced that

originally i had ddDP coming on a short turnaround after beating Strickland for the title and facing Izzy. Do you think there is any scenario in which the winner of Strickland DDP, if it's early and in a finish and no damage is taken, could be fighting Izzy? What would it take in your eyes based on what we know, which is very little about where Izzy's at, what he's doing, that he's teasing the idea of taking multiple years off, would it shock you if he came back and fought the winner

in the co-main event at UFC 300? Surprise me, yes. Shock me, no. I wouldn't be like, oh my God. No, I wouldn't be quite like that, but I'd be like, wow, he came back that quickly? That would be, to me, pretty interesting. I think he actually has needed some time off, and I don't think it would be good for him to come back but you know he likes to be he has competed

regularly in his adult life between kickboxing boxing and mma and the most absurd kind of crazy schedule how long could he actually take off given the way he's lived his life probably not that long so that would be a little bit of a surprising side shocking no all right i can't believe i didn't factor in ramadan that's such white belt bullshit luke i guess you can understand where that's coming from uh if it was lesnar i see some people including members of our cbs staff brethren saying it's got to be tied to ivasa that's the stupidest fight you can make involving brock that would be so much fun you put derrick lewis which is not a bad choice at all. It's not going to be fat. The media for Derek Lewis against Brock Lesnar by itself would be fucking great. Would it not?

That would be something special right there. Do you think that? So are we settling? If we are questioning whether Islam Mahachev would work through Ramadan for the last month of his training camp to do this, if that does take him out, then does it have to be some form of Aspirinol in the main event? Does it have to be? That's my thing.

Again, Bilal probably doesn't have a choice. They're like, oh, we'll offer it to you, UFC 300. I mean, what more could you ask for? And then he'd say, oh, I don't want to train during Ramadan. They're going to be like, take it or leave it. And I don't think he's got a choice in that matter. But if you remove Islam from the equation, oh, I don't want to train during Ramadan. They're going to be like, take it or leave it. And I don't think he's got a choice in that matter. But if you remove Islam from the equation, yeah, dude, I think it changes the ballgame significantly about the latter part. But he might end up, because also they're going to have to go back to Fight Island at

some point. They're probably going to want to keep him there. I don't think Hamzat can come to this country to fight at UFC international fight week. So there's a lot of different things you're pushing back to the later part of the year, which forces you to make some adjustments up front. Again, I think 300 is going to be a great card. I don't think anyone's going to be disappointed, but this thing like who could they get?

Guys, we're giving you all of the names that we know. Okay. Even with the idea that we know it's going to be deep, I got to say if it's Espinol versus, well, if it is against Pereira, I mean, even though I don't think that sells a ton, boy, would I be excited for that. But if it's Aspinall in the main event and Bilal, Leon, and the co-main, like, dude, that's a great show for London.

That's not a great show for where we're at for the main. That's why, again, I think it would have to be the BMF sandwiched in there for the star power. dude i wouldn't be overly excited about that it's very good this is my point this is my point this is what i've been trying to say this whole time it's like dude i'm not mad at those fights but like okay that's not that's not historic you know we're leaving out poirier is poirierier Nate finally happening a possibility in your eyes? He said on Twitter yesterday it's not happening. Someone asked him about it. At 300, okay.

At 300, yeah. So, dude, if they added that, I mean, that would be a phenomenal addition to the card. It just doesn't seem likely, I guess. All right, we have a chat zinger from Metal face gamer in the live morning combat, YouTube chat, Luke versus six margaritas in the main event and Appy versus three bottles of wine. Speaking of Epstein, right? No,

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Kind of. There you go. All right. That's our 300.

I'm excited. I want to find out what this is, who it is. Poirier Holloway are two veterans that you could almost match against anybody if you need that star power. I don't think Amanda Nunes would come back. There wouldn't be a fight that would necessarily demand that. I guess that's it.

Are we missing any other stars? I mean, Nick Diaz is washed, Luke. Come on. We're not going to be overly excited at that. I mean, who would they get Nick Diaz to fight? For example, Nick versus GSP gsp2 guys did you see nick versus gsp1 it sucked not fun at all so did nick versus lawler too although a lot of people really like that apparently i don't know how they did i still don't get why people love that fight

look it was weird and old and nick i didn't hate it like you hate well i did i hated it for nick uh if that makes sense okay real bad but um yeah all right luke topic number three there actually were two very big boxing cards during our extended holiday break that we've really never able been able to pin down and get a reaction to so luke december 26 the day after christmas we did see niowa in new way really put a stamp on the idea that he could end this year as pound for pound king depending on your voting should he surpass terence crawford and maybe even fighter of the year why of course because he became the undisputed champion at 122 pounds by stopping a brave and ambitious marlon

topolis but still a one-sided fight that ended in stoppage. So now Inouye goes back-to-back, undisputed in consecutive divisions in consecutive years. He's 30 years old. He's a four-division champion. I put him up there at number one pound-for-pound on CBS Sports, again, barely edging out Terrence Crawford. I also voted for him for my fighter of the year. We did the same on morning combat.

Luke, there's not much to regurgitate that we didn't do in our award show here, but I was happy for the performance Tepalis put out. But again, when you go back, he still got outlanded by triple the amount of punches and got stopped. I think the only question here

is how high for Inoue. It did seem like he teased the idea of fighting Murajan Akmedali of the former champion who was upset by topalis later this year everyone suddenly's fantasy match making him at featherweight at junior lightweight i think he's going to stay at 122 because even though this was one-sided he did have to work for it against topalis we can say that at the very least sure yeah i watched the fight again this morning because i wanted to refresh my memory for today's show golly dude he looked sharp as hell obviously knocking him down in the fourth and

polishing him off in the 10th and everything about what he does is so decisive smooth balanced vicious powerful topalis actually i thought had to risk it for the biscuit in the way that you had talked about bc and that opened him up, especially in the fourth round when he got dropped. But he had a deep, he zinged in a way in the sixth round and kind of rocked him there. I think he had one in the eighth round as well. He had the,

they both had good lead hooks in this fight, but you know, I know some folks came away from this being like, Oh, well let's pump the brakes on how high he can go in the weights. To your point. Can you go to, can you go to 126?

Can he go to 130? I mean, we should have been pumping the brakes on some of that silly conversation to begin with, so maybe that's long overdue. But in general, I still think he can go up. I think 130 probably is where he'll top out. But BC, I mean, if my read on this was, yeah, there's going to be some finite limits

to where he can actually go, which everyone understands. But he's not done at all moving through the weight classes. Topalas put up, I think, a better fight than folks had necessarily imagined that he would. Certainly relative to Stephen Fulton Jr., he put up a much better fight. But in the end, it all ended for him the way that it probably was going to. Anyway, he was down on the cards no matter what um and just the ruthless efficiency yes of in a way everything is so smooth and so damaging your margin of error with the guy is so little i maybe he stays here for a little while obviously i'm not sure you would know better than me but i definitely think he's going to try the waters at 126 and

eventually 130 well look if he fights akmedali up next who obviously is not a well-known name but hardcores know that he's a you know among the best fighters in the lower weight classes that's him doing what he does i mean let's remember inouye made his debut in this division by going after stephen full and jude i mean that's just like dude this guy is smooth is probably the easiest way but it's like violently smooth the guy is is, is nearly flawless in there, Luke. And I, and I, it does really make you look back at the first Nonito Donair fight and really give Donair the hall of fame credit that he deserves right before breaking Inoue's eye socket and really just making that one of the best fights of this modern era, to be fair, if you have not watched that,

that fight of the year, uh, from back in 2018 or 2019, it's so damn good. But like, it's the only time Inoue's been human. The, that's the only time Inouye's been human. The only time, the only time where he's been human at all. And what he showed was a lot of humanity because he had a broken eye and he still persevered, made adjustments, outboxed Donair late, won a close fight. I do think he's going to find ceilings, but did you see Al Bernstein was on the Sean Porter podcast

that they filmed in Las Vegas? And he's like, like look i don't know if they can ever make it but what would be a better style contrast than a new way moving up one more division to one two six and fighting brandon brandon the heartbreaker dude i think he'd beat the brakes off brandon figueroa you do i don't know dude figueroa can thump at the new weight class now that he's not cutting so much dude the amount of openings he leaves and the amount of space. I mean, I think in a way would light him on fire. Yeah. That could actually be the kind of fight that gets Inoue closer to like the Manny Pacquiao comparison.

Just about the idea that like there are no limits. How high can you go? For Pacquiao, it was fighting for a junior middleweight title at a catch weight of 150 which is still insane because he debuted at 106 right I mean you know look at Roberto Duran just did you know all those legends back then were finishing their career as light heavyweights and cruiserweights and you're like dude started as a lightweight like this is very impossible but it's incredible Luke that there still are aliens out here who can just defy what you think is possible. And I'm glad this guy's a star now in America.

I know he's fighting in Japan a lot lately, but like, okay. And I know his fight was at 5.55 a.m. in the morning the day after Christmas. But my point is the fact that we can access him now easier. We're seeing one of the greatest. We're seeing him right now, and it's so fun to see three days before that though was the day of reckoning saudi arabia december 23rd it was supposed to be a showcase ish opportunity for anthony joshua and deontay wilder to fight each other in a rumored two-fight series that was set to begin in march i'm not sure if that's

going to happen at all because this turned out to be an interesting card, Luke, a lot of one-sided matchmaking in the lead into these two heavyweight fights. But we said there's a possibility either Valine or Joseph Parker could be live given the circumstances. We both, and really, especially you heavily discounted Joseph Parker, the former champion having any chance, but in that co-main eventmain event dude he absolutely gave deontay wilder a boxing lesson and he did it not just by brilliantly you know leaning on the teachings of trainer andy lee and being in the same cap of tyson fury they obviously have experience against deontay he did the right things from distance to take away the

jab and all that but look he also got inside rushed wilder met fire with fire landed a lot of big looping right hands and i gotta give credit parker has always been a guy who screamed greatness but never quite got there this was the exact fight that he needed at the right time but rightfully so the storyline is going to be is deontay wilder done shot at age 37 he didn't get like beat up badly but look he also didn't seem to like he looked like his artist or know or know what to do next i want to ask you straight up is it the ayahuasca seriously is it i don't i don't i don't think that that's that crazy a thing to say i mean listen i i've seen i went and read like people whose boxing opinions i respect like what did they say here's a couple things i saw one was you know listen we told you guys he was older and

and at age 38 for wilder and we told you that he had not been competing recently in general, and that that is going to be a big factor. And then you could say that it was, I don't think that that's crazy. I had seen some folks in boxing say, listen, Malik Scott's a great trainer, but he's kind of turning Deontay into Malik Scott. Um, and in the process of changing his style has changed him to a less potent version of himself. I'm less convinced by that line of argument, but I certainly saw it in a few places. And then you asked about the ayahuasca. Also, again, we should stop here for just one second.

Parker boxed great. He did everything he was supposed to do. And I want to be clear about that. Like, why did he win? He won because he was better on that night, and he stuck to a game plan that he clearly had practiced. he's better everywhere and i mean he buzzed him what round was it eight or nine something like that i forget what around a couple times where i thought wow there was was shaky there was one where he was doing one of these numbers and i was like oh he

might be there but here is what you're asking about you're asking about the ayahuasca i've never done it it's very hard for me to comment on about it and we're going to talk about sean strickland later in the show which might be like be like, what's the connection? I have seen BC and I want to be very clear about something. You know, listen, religion is not necessarily for me, but I, what I'm about to say is in no way, I'm trying to demean anyone's religion whatsoever. In fact, maybe the opposite. But what I mean is I have seen fighters get into the fight game who are carrying with them, whatever it may be hurt, pain, trauma, some combination of all three. And the ones who do really well, and Deontay at least financially and more than that, has certainly done really well.

Sometimes you'll see that it softens them. And that can be magnified to a degree if they rediscover their faith. Now, not always, but I have seen guys rediscover faith a little bit later in their career, and they just don't have the kind of malice for other people that they once had. And as a person, you might say, that's actually a great thing. It's not a great composition necessarily for prize fighting, but it is certainly one of human growth and development. I don't know if ayahuasca has done that to him. I don't know if it has enabled him to process some of the trauma and difficulty and perhaps rage that he has felt at various points of his life and gotten rid of it,

and that has really minimized his capacity to be the right kind of boxer. But I will say, I don't think it's silly to consider that. I don't think it's in any way wrong. If you're a fighter long in the tooth and you've made a lot of money and you've done really well for yourself and you're beginning to evolve as an adult into a new stage in your life where you're really beginning to understand who you are, what the world has done to you and what you want to do about it in a healthy and positive way, it probably is not a great scenario for prize fighting. It's probably not going to make you the best version. And BC, of course, you can find from all different kinds of faiths and all different kinds of drug uses and all different kinds of backgrounds, people who would be the opposite of this. So you could say,

ah, well, I saw so-and-so at this particular juncture. He grew in faith and it only made him a tougher fighter. I'm sure that there are examples in other places, but I've just seen too much healing lead to, too much is the wrong word. I've seen a lot of healing change people into less malice-intented fighters over time, and I don't think it's crazy to wonder if that's what's happened to Deontay. No, and I think you also really do have to take

into account a couple of things. One, and I think you also really do have to take into account a couple of things. One, he had fought one round in two years. That's not nothing, especially late in your 30s and before that one round in two years. Against a former sparring partner. And before that one round in two years, he had two damaging physical beatdowns and losses to Tyson Fury.

So that. You also add in that he was never a good boxer to begin with. So if someone's coming out with a very smart game plan, that's influenced and educated by what Tyson Fury had done going back to the first fight against Wilder using an active jab to take away Wilder's jab. If you take away Wilder's jab, then that right hand becomes less powerful. You can see it coming a lot more. And even though Wilder, it wasn't a lifeless loss. A lifeless loss would be you never went for it. Wilder at least tried to go for it in the second half in some manner.

But when you take away the jab and he's just hand hunting at times with right hands and he's not like committed over the long haul to be that nasty going after it, I think in some ways it's a little bit of everything. But I personally believe, Luke, that the ayahuasca does play a part. Not the only part of this. Some of it is also switching trainers. Like we mentioned, it's not his first fight with Malik Scott, but like adjusting to the

Malik Scott ways and plans. Still, Jay Diaz is in his corner. Mark Brilliant's out, but this is a different way of looking at it. And also, Luke, physically, he was at the lightest weight he had been in in four years. He was like 213 and a half, and it was like 25 pounds lighter than he was in the third Fury fight. His legs were like toothpicks out there. I mean, they were almost comical and getting memed up. They were like, my legs, unfortunately.

So, yeah, it's a little bit of everything. But the way that I've heard him talk about the ayahuasca experience, which I have a lot of respect for that experience and what those type of drugs that we used to look at as just extreme party drugs or for people that want to go speak to aliens. Now we're finding out. And look, Rashad's been a big part of me getting educated. Rashad Evans, the Hall of Famer who I did the podcast with at CBS Sports.

He's a regular on this show. We had the Great Room Service Diaries interview where he told us at length, but he'd been telling me at length for years. I knew Rashad before. I then knew Rashad after. He was a different person. He's an incredible person. But to hear him on a podcast break down to me at such deep detail

how much anger used to be a big part of his motivation to train, how much the trauma that Rashad endured in his life played a huge part in why he maybe went down the road to become a fighter. And now that part of him was gone. I saw the effects in how he treated people and how he acted personally. I can only imagine if Deontay had a similarly life-altering thing that it would take away from some of the things that made him dangerous. I mean, look, I'm a born-again Christian, but I've never been afraid to say that when Manny Pacquiao really, I felt, threw himself into Christianity aggressively again, which was after the third Marquez fight, in which this has kind of been proven by people that were

on the team that his wife in the locker room like five minutes before that fight basically said, I know you're, you know, you're cheating behind my back. I know you're gambling. I know you're doing a lot of all these crazy things. You got to pull this together or we're done. He went out there. He won a very disputed fight against Mark and that third fight with Marquez that a lot of people thought he should have lost. And Luke, from that point on, he wasn't, he's still great, but he wasn't, he was a guy that showed a lot of caring concern for his opponents he didn't try to finish him off he was more of a boxer now you can always argue that him getting knocked cold by marcus in their fourth fight maybe was played

a part in that too making him a little bit more of a boxer that was a bad ko but there was a noted difference that doesn't mean i'm you know that he probably the best thing that could happen to him in his life. Maybe this is the best thing that happened to Wilder. But I think when you add that with the layoff, the weight, the everything, dude, he looked really bad. I mean, Luke, like it was a, okay, he did try in those later rounds to try to chase down and land right hands. But like, it wasn't a consistent effort across the board he looked too happy to give away rounds and it wasn't in the way of like i'll just wait for you to get tired then i'll deliver i think even with parker overachieving and carrying out

such a brilliant game plan that utilized the strengths of joseph parker in ways that joseph parker hasn't in many years or maybe even ever at all like this was the most complete victory in his career yeah he beat an older version of andy ruiz he's got some nice wins former champion but he never looked like this he don't look like this against aj when they unified titles like he looked like a guy who didn't belong there the guy who the lights were too bright for so i know that that did a lot in muting wilder but luke if he doesn't figure this out even though there's still a lot of money to be made if he wants to i mean he's done because when you don't have the skills to fall back on and there's some disconnect of an inability to lead with your strengths and and make your power

a factor in the fight then unfortunately he has nothing else in the ring he doesn't have a jab look at the look at the look at the rage and intensity he fought Dominique Brazil and the second Berman Stiverne fight you know where he just like raged at them oh yeah and and they couldn't withstand the punishment because of course we're talking about Deontay Wilder who I still think has a big punch I don't think anything about that has changed but if he doesn't throw it you know or he throws it the worst times it's not going to do much um and it didn't but like you can, like, you can see the intensity in that particular case, some competitive frustration against Davern.

But, you know, look at the fire. Look at the fire underneath him. You saw none of that in that particular case on the 23rd in Saudi Arabia. It was all gone. So, to your point, can he get it back? I don't know. But I know I've seen him fight like that, and he didn't fight that way on that Saturday. What do you make of him

post fight? Because I want to give Deontay credit for making change. I interviewed him ahead of briefly ahead of this fight and you could really tell like he wasn't combative. Look, the interview before the one that I interviewed him ahead of the Hellenius fight, he almost walked out of the interview before it even started because he's like, Oh, I know you, you, you talk shit online. Like he actually, you know, he was kind of framing and i may have said something that he didn't like but i was like no i'm not really sure what you're talking about why don't we try to talk about it now and eventually his wingman was just like no that guy's cool do the interview and we were good but dionte had this edge to him you remember after the fury losses it was it was this like

heavily conspiracy theory laden approach and then firing Breland. Like there was negativity. I felt like that was gone when I talked to him. What do you make though? The post-fight interview where he was almost like matter of fact, like, yeah, it was probably the ayahuasca, but like, it wasn't like he was upset. It almost looked like he's dealing with it. How you would want somebody who's just gone through a big emotional recovery

or spiritual rebirth to tackle it. Like it almost looked like it didn't matter to him is what I'm saying. Luke, if we're panicking that his career is over, do you think he is in that same regard? No, he's made a ton of money. He overperformed relative to his skill from the Olympics onwards, to be quite honest with you, and has done really well for himself. You could argue that like, you know, that fight against Selenius was on pay-per-view and it shouldn't have been but it was because they have to pay him because he's very expensive remember when john jones wanted deontay wilder money remember that well deontay wilder's got deontay wilder money he has been an enormous enormous success so bc if

he's done on the professional side all the things that prize fighting is about right changing your life changing your family's life securing a financial future in ways that are very difficult to do in any country. And then on top of it, he's done personal healing about the things that have traumatized him over the course of his life. Who could be upset about any of this? It just doesn't make for a great boxer, right? It doesn't. You know, we often talk about how prize fighters are very sensitive,

both in MMA and boxing. And this is why this whole thing about like, it's words I'm like dude well these guys are the most sensitive to words I've ever seen in my life but there is something to that they are on edge they are on they are they are constantly on not alert exactly but they're they have it's a me against the world mentality and I didn't get the sense that Deontay had a me against the world mentality and i didn't get the sense that dionte had a me against the world mentality anymore it felt to me like he had i don't know if conquered the world but conquered his place in it and he felt very satisfactory with it it just it just won't give him a lot of w's in the boxing ring if he continues to yeah even the walkout he walked out with a crown and

he looked cool but it was almost like you could see in his face there was like an awkwardness where normally he comes out in full regal looking like he's like a knight in some futuristic war ready to like you know well at least he didn't blame the 40 pound true costume all right look before getting into anthony joshua's really incredible refreshing come bounce back performance do you think it's more likely for wilder that he doesn't fight the rest of this year that he comes back against anthony joshua anyway at some point because there's still money to be made there or maybe even that this performance makes a francis and ganu fight potentially more likely for wilder which do you think is more uh where would you put your money i i think i would say this francis is either going to get the Wilder or the Joshua fight.

I think one of those will happen in 2024. It's a little hard to tell, though. So Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua just this week have said that Francis is one of their top two choices for who they want. They were explicit about it. And Eddie Hearn has gone on about it as well. So Francis is apparently in a good spot. On the other side with Deontay, it's like,

did this ruin a potential fight with Francis? Well, it hurt it. It definitely hurt it because it wasn't just that he lost. We had said before, like, does it matter if they lose? And I had argued that, oh, it didn't matter if they lose, blah, blah, blah. But I didn't expect a world where Deontay would look the way he looked. I thought if he lost, hey, he'd knock the guy down, but then just get outboxed over the course of the rest of the time.

And we didn't even get that. Like, everything that makes Deontay special was gone, and you just got what was left, and there's just not a whole lot necessarily to that. So I do think that that hurts that fight, but i also think it'd still be pretty big you could do a you know hey one fight boxing one fight modified mma rules you could make that a really lucrative kind of thing if you wanted to so i don't know which way he'll go but my prediction is for sure in this year francis will fight one or the other for sure here's what what's interesting. It's the, the, the way that Deontay fall fought is definitely red alarms going off, red flags.

Like he could be done. He could just not be the same guy anymore and not be able to access it for all the reasons we said, but if it's actually not that big a deal, if it was really just one bad night at the office, long layoff fought a guy who had a great game plan whatever. He actually could repair it by coming back and reminding us who he is. Not that I think he would take some interim easy fight to do that. But what I'm saying is I do think there is a potential that we would forgive this and just look back and go, look, he was flat that night, a long layoff, all that BS. If he comes back.

So I think it is vibrant, especially the Ngannou one, because it's a little bit more weird and crossover and you could do the mixed mma one but if he's going to come back at all if he's going to sign the dotted line like he's got to make sure he wants to be there and that he should be there i wish dionte wilder nothing but the best he's been great for the sport of boxing haven't always agreed with everything he said either but he's i mean it's always fun when you have somebody who is so overly dominant in one area but yet so uniquely flawed in another area but can they compensate for that it's like that's always must see tv he's been he should have been a bigger star should have made more money but i'm happy he at least is now handsomely paid but i don't want to see that again luke against anyone last last thing for me i know i know we have to transition but

last thing for me there used to be controversy around dionte and in fact i asked him about this years ago where he said he wanted explicitly someone he fought to die in the boxing ring yes he wanted to he wanted one of his opponents to die think about how far huh he would always say i want to catch a body before catch a body catch a body he went from that and by the way folks asked him and he would double down and triple down on it he went from that to this performance like clearly something has changed yeah i'll quickly look anthony joshua luke i have not enjoyed questioning his his metal on the inside questioning whether you know humpty dumpty could get put back together again and turn,

try to make him that analogy from the standpoint of, could he be that warrior, that destroyer again? It turns out he can. This was such a breath of fresh air. Boxing is better off when stars like Anthony Joshua are putting their best foot forward. I give Joshua credit, whatever it was behind the scenes. It may have even been by the way the trainer change still with

derrick james james was not with him though he did have uh what's the guy's name luke davis ben davison who used to train who trained tyson fury against deontay wilder in the first fight dude he just looked comfortable dangerous efficient i mean i know that out of valine we give him a lot of credit for one performance against tyson fury where he caught him and he really came close to pulling that upset and i know a lot of people afterwards want to go well volleying was always a b or c heavyweight to begin with well look joshua has not been fighting like an a or a b plus guy for a while we had questions dude that was as close as you're going to come to the aj of old he had a plan he went right after what there was no hesitation like against Usyk

out of the fear of being countered. He walked a volume down consistently, beat the shit out of him and stopped him after five rounds. Dude, when you're only 34, when you're built like that, I know that this game is so hard and it's 90% mental. And I know he had to go through some hell to get to this point, dude, he's back. And I'm, I've been his biggest critic. I'm telling you right now, a performance like that. I can tell he's back and I'm happy to see it.

Luke. Yeah. I'll just say this very quickly. I was wrong about Deontay on this particular night and was wrong about AJ as well. I did not, I thought he would win, but I didn't think he was going to look as good as he did.

He beat to your point. Do he beat up auto volley? He beat him up, took the fight. Absolutely him, had every answer basically you would want, had the right approach tactically, had the right approach strategically, had the right approach psychologically as well. He did everything that you would want him to do in this contest, and the results speak for themselves. So BC, for folks being like, oh, well, he's not Wallin as a heavyweight on that order, right. But what joshua look like against the heavyweight of that order he should look exactly the way that he did he did his job perfectly and has set himself up for a very

lucrative 2024 so just quickly on this he did not turn away against the idea of still fighting wilder he mentioned it in the ring in the post fight press conference afterwards i still think it's in play but here's why I think it's the most unlikely. I think it's going to come down to Francis Ngannou, who everyone thinks it will be next because of the money involved. But don't sleep on the idea that it's Filip Urgovic. Urgovic knocked out a guy he should not have been in the ring with on the undercard of the same card. But here's why this might matter. Luke, after they fight in February, Usyk versus Fury for all four titles in the IBF, Urgovich is the number one contender, the mandatory. And he has said publicly, he will

not accept step aside money anymore. So what that means is Usyk and Fury have a two fight deal set up. If they activate their rematch, the winner is going to get stripped of the IBF title. That means AJ could fight Urgovich for that IBF title, give him a chance to become champion again. And why does that matter? Because the biggest fight of this heavyweight era that still hasn't happened is Anthony Joshua versus Tyson Fury.

In fact, if it ended up happening this calendar year, you could argue it could end up being the biggest fight of the entire year, even bigger than Fury Usyk, even though there's more history involved in that one. If AJ wants right back in, yeah, you could take the money against Francis. But look, I actually think they would be more apt to chase this belt, try to grab that, because then you have more leverage in a potential negotiation with Fury or Usyk to do the four-belt undisputed fight after that. So you can have your history in February as these two best heavyweights of

this era, Usyk and Fury face off. But because of the way boxing works with titles and getting stripped, you actually could create another unification down the line, even in the same calendar year, potentially. So all I'm trying to say is AJ being back. Great for the sport.

Happy to see it, but he's got a number of huge options uh jean-julie of china's also in that mix he has a secondary title and brings a big market so uh interesting turn of events right there in topic number three to close out boxing in 2023 our final topic before we revisit our 2023 predictions luke which turned out to not be consistently good across the board. What about this? This has turned into a feud here. So here's how it started. Sean Strickland's your middleweight champion. He's fighting DDP next. We saw him in that press conference last month that was vile on many levels across for many people. But we knew that Strickland had been on Theo Vaughn's

podcast and we knew the tease was that he would talk openly about the abuse he accrued during his life, but mostly by his father. Uh, and that it led to him crying. Not only did the video finally get released on that, but here was Sean Strickland, uh, a quote from that Theo Vaughn interview on this past weekend. This is MMA fighting doing the aggregation. There are some things that are off limits. Strickland said, you don't really talk about a man's wife. You don't talk about a man's kids and you don't talk about a kid being abused. These things are all off limits. Once Drikus crossed that line, I tried to F and ignore it. I was boiling. Whenever DDP goes on there and he jokes about that shit, dude, you have no idea. I'll effing kill you. You have no idea. I think the issue is too, when you're a kid and you're made to be a victim your whole life as an adult, you're like, never again, I'll fucking kill you. End quote. So Luke, that was

that. And there is stuff to respond to regarding that. But he and Gary jumped into the comments on Instagram and maybe started the continuation of another feud here. He says, how the tables have turned at Strickland MMA. You dish it out in the lowest, most vile manner, but can't take a pinch. You attacked my wife incessantly and obsessively called her a pedophile. It's clear to see your childhood trauma showing. You claimed you were giving me advice before. Now it's my turn to return the favor. You should shut your mouth and focus on the mirror because you have enough serious issues you need to solve. I wish you all the best. Don't ever project your pain onto me and my family again. Happy new year. End quote. Luke Thomas, juicy there from Gary. I want to focus

first on Strickland. Did you see the interview with theo which detailed really some disturbing images of what he actually endured as a child did you have a reaction to that uh just on the theo von podcast you mean yes this is where this all started i mean listen i mean sean strickland i don't know the the full depths of everything i don't know that he's ever shared the full depths of everything but to the extent he has shared anything, let's just be very clear, he was horribly abused as a kid. Horribly.

To the point where I don't even know if social services could have intervened, but they probably should have. They should have. No child in this country, no child in any country, should ever have to endure uh from their parents the kinds of things that sean strickland had to endure and it is gut-wrenching to listen to some of those

things and then in particular bc what you also really hear is just how every problem cascades like you know his dad coming home drunk beating up his mom he's up till three in the morning and then he falls asleep at school and now the school is taking it out on him because he can't stay awake so they remove his desk now this makes him look bad and ostracizes him further from his classmates and he still falls asleep and then the school uh blames it on him it's just this series of escalating problems that all start from this incredibly awful home life that no child should ever have to endure. And so when you hear things like that, it's like, dude, I mean, if you're at all a human being, if you're at all any kind of normal-ish rational person, if you hear something like that, and I'm not saying you have to feel bad for the

adult Sean and some of the actions he has made that, you know, brought continued suffering upon himself and other people. That's not really what I'm saying. But if you can hear those details, which, by the way, all seem very legitimate, and not feel despair yourself, because there's probably a bunch of other kids right now being treated just like that who are then going to metastasize that pain inside of themselves and then bring it further on to the world. I don't know

what to tell you you're a broken in person i mean this is horrific the kinds of things he is talking about um i mean i think it's good that he's talking about to not only heal himself i mean he actually broke down crying on there it was disturbing to listen to hopefully it can help others but i think the larger or maybe not the larger topic but a topic off of this is the tone that ian gary had luke which is basically like okay it's one thing for us to suddenly because you gotta get it's been interesting the strickland rise over the last couple years has been very interesting right i mean look we were even like we couldn't even talk about him fighting for the title without our viewers were getting mad without pausing first and just saying look we know that he says absolutely ridiculous thing we're gonna

separate that for a second like there were i mean he was vile a troll and now he's almost becoming like this baby-faced you know american made like one of us in a way with the fans are identifying him in sort of relatable ways you know i actually like that he's not clinging to the title he's like look it's just a bell it's just you know i can lose it tomorrow like who cares it's just something it's about the money i like sort of that that honesty that he's showing i like the honesty he's showing about opening up his past so that he can grow and we can understand him more but when you're a troll who is typically going after people in the same exact way that you're now telling this one man he went too far and that's why you fought him in the crowd um that there's a a giant hypocritical uh you know part of that luke where it's like okay yeah this is the fight game yeah we do trash talk we try to

get the other guy pissed off try to get in his head but you can't like you know you can't say well these sins are okay but not these right right Right. I mean, separate from the details that he has revealed about his upbringing, there is then his behavior as an adult. And it's a cliche, you've heard it before, but it really is true. Hurt people hurt people. That's what they do. This is why this whole thing about like, oh, I have intellectually deduced that the most rational and stoic position is just to allow people to say the most absurd, horrific, cruel things. And I will stand here and not be bothered by it. It's just the most, it's so disingenuous. It is not an intellectual position that someone has deduced is the best place to arrive. It is someone who finds themselves there because the pressures of

the world have put them there and they haven't really taken account of all the things, all the ways in which that has happened. Listen, nobody is more hurt than the person being cruel to everyone else. Have you ever seen that meme where someone's crying and then they have the mask in front and the mask is smiling? No one is more that guy than the Sean Strickland types. No one, no one. If the world, people who lash out at the world are people who have been lashed by it. That is, that is how this works. That is how this works. People who lash out at the world. And by the way, I've done my fair share of it. These are people who have been damaged. They have been damaged in innumerable ways. And they don't have to go as far as Sean necessarily. And he's gone

really far. You can go in other small ways. It can be in ways that sometimes people don't even detect. But this entire thing about like, oh, this is language policing. It is not language. It could be. It doesn't have to be about that. It can actually be about, we understand the fight game is a somewhat unrestrained environment, but you can actually do all of the things that the fight game requires you to do in. And the reason why we know that is true, BC, is because guys like George St-Pierre, guys like Anderson Silva never really engaged in anything like that. And you were able to fight in very able and frankly, hall of fame ways. People thinking, oh, well, this is the fight game. And so therefore this is part of it. No, you are artificially introducing something probably because you're hurt and your way of managing that pain, whatever it might be, is to either inflict a version of it on other people or try to control for other circumstances, some other kind of way in which you can assert that pain

back into the world because that's your only real means of coping with it. And so, you know, here's what Sean needs. Obviously, he needs to continue with his prize fighting career, which is going quite well. And I actually hope that fans of his really take into account what is happening here. But this guy needs help. I mean, I'm being dead serious. I'm not even doing any kind of like a bit here. The guy is in desperate need of help.

He needs help in handling everything that was done to him. I know you joke about a bc but that scene from goodwill hunting where robin williams turns to madame is like it's not your fault someone needs to tell this guy this man because until he does he's going to be tortured internally and if he is tortured internally he will lash out at the world around him i told you guys seneca figured this out thousands of years ago. People who unleash cruelty on the world are the people who have had cruelty done to them. It is not strength to watch cruelty and then say nothing.

That's not strength. That is indifference to suffering, which is a different kind of thing, but not strength. Strength is when you begin to want to lift up everyone else. Strength is when you want to make better of yourself. There's a certain kind of strength that Sean has had to get to that place, which is why I think people have really responded to his story. He does have some of those things. But everyone out there, every young man in particular who is watching this, if you are lashing out at the world you need to stop and take a moment to reflect on the fact that the world has probably lashed you and you've not done anything about it that's not helping anybody yeah i'll agree with that that's well said luke

continue luke's uh couch soapbox sessions on ths. But why do you have to? Why do you have to undermine that, dude? I'm here having like a real moment. And your first thing is some kind of joke about it. You know, I confirmed the real moment and agreed with you and then transitioned Luke into a relatable and repeatable humorous way to try to put a bow on a really awful situation in a situation where trash talk in general has gone too far of late it's weird that one guy is calling out one guy for things that you know he's done worse of but maybe this does lead for healing for everybody maybe we can get back to look there is lanes and trash talk you know what i mean so it's like maybe we can get back to you suck you know you're you

whatever anyway uh look related to g, though, and the potential. But it will cost them on Thursday, to be fair. Look, let's not try to act like we won't. I mean, look, you know, friendships aside, like, let's just be blunt with the people. OK, I mean, that's really the bit here. All right. Gary's call out, Luke, does this lead to a rivalry or a fight? He would put up another Instagram post calling out his hope for 2024.

And in his diary, Luke, looking ahead, he says, making my list for 2024, the names on there are Jeff Neal, which will be his first opponent to start the new year, Colby Covington, and he began writing Sean. So could you posit a scenario that Ian Gary goes through the welterweight division faster than you think and maybe even jumps out of that division to fight Sean Strickland to settle this beef between them? Yeah, I mean, okay, the Jeff Neal fight is a competitive one, and I think Gary's got a decent shot at it, right? Colby's a different thing. I don't know exactly how much he shot and you know from the last fight

where you're just like what was that how much of it was injury or whatever like let's see what that looks like but those are two very those are two tests that need to be passed the strictly one is a little bit more interesting to me because if strickland beats ddp and remains champion it puts that completely out of the way i guess if sean loses and gary could go up and do it but i'll just say this has gary proven to me that he's got the kind of skills that a are going to have him contend for a ufc title this year or he has like you know he can just everything will carry with him up 15 pounds i've been impressed by him but not to that extent i've not seen like oh that guy's like shavkat rakmanov, he is a guy who could do that, right?

He is a guy who could do that. I'm not saying Gary can't. I'm just saying I have not been convinced by what we've seen that he's ready for that kind of a step up. That's a big one. I mean, he's shooting for the sky, Luke, right? That's the limit. If he falls a little bit less than that in the clouds,

he's going to be just fine. You've got to win these fights, though. And, you know, I am really excited about Strickland DDP, Luke. And the more I rewatch DDP fights, it's weird. I'm still torn between, damn, I should have saw more of this DDP run coming. But also that is up against, like, his striking in some of these early fights. Like, even the Darren Till fight, which was, in the end, an absolute railroad job and so impressive as shit Luke and a badass finish outside of that round where Till made that

comeback but even then his striking is still where it's like I can't imagine him winning a title with this damn he's come a long way I gotta give that man a lot of credit yes yes but like and again like I think Sean also how old is he in gearwhat? 8, 9? I think he's like 25, but, you know, that's neither young. You know, I can check. I have the internet in front of me. I mean, I think he might eventually get to a place, BC, where that fight makes more sense. He turned

26 in November. Ian Gary is 26, so there you go. Alright. Luke, to close out our show today, oh, sorry, quickly here. The Hamzat Shemaev, Luke, there's a post he put on Instagram and then took down. The post is related to health issues he had. This is sort of this picture you're looking at combines all the pictures that he posted together and one about a recent health challenge that he had, Luke. And don't forget, he had two extreme bouts with COVID that led to him teasing a retirement that it took the leader of Chechnya to come out on social media and basically debunk and be like, no, you're fighting. You're going to be fine.

Luke, I don't know if he's going to be fine. Chimaev is still the bright prospect, despite that weight miss against Nate Diaz and still a future title challenger waiting to be happen here but should we be concerned by this because i'm sure somebody told him to take it down but this seems like it's getting serious here in terms of the may i'm guessing but the extended breathing issues that i mean if he's getting sick luke and it's turning into this this is scary stuff man yeah he looks terrible there, right? I mean, here's what I would say, dude. Without really knowing precisely what he has,

I'm hesitant to comment about it. I don't know what is really a factor here. Because what you seem to be suggesting, and I don't think unfairly, you're just sort of wondering, is this connected to old issues? Is this a different one, but it has the same kind of effect

on his cardiovascular capacity, which as a professional athlete is going to be very relevant? Is it altogether something different? I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what he has, and I don't know if those are connected. What I can say is the guy has been sickly

for a professional athlete the last four years in ways that are disturbing, but I think we all need to pump the brakes a little bit. He looks bad. I mean, real bad. Like, I saw this and I was like, whoa. But I don't know what he has. I don't know what it means.

And I think without that information, it's a little hard to say. I mean, it absolutely is. It's hard to play armchair doctor from, you know, one or two pictures here. But I hope the best for him, Luke. He's a really something that could be bright and big for this sport, for this promotion, for the division he operates in. But, you know, you got to have the health tied up. And I, you know, I mean, look, it's scary for anyone.

I don't want to dig back into the pandemic and all of the stuff we went through, but like a lot of people still have been lingering issues from those days. And it's tough. I mean, COVID's back big right now, Luke. It's taken out everybody in my area. Kicking people's asses. Yeah, I don't know what he has. It doesn't look like that, but whatever it is, it ain't great.

Yeah. So between that and his inability to travel to the U.S., it's like if these are recurring things, then that doesn't portend great future for him. No, no, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, Luke, I got to take an L here. Although we'll do dead wrong on Friday, we're actually going to push fan subs to Friday.

So get ready, because I've been told. So, look, we kind of screwed up here. We kind of rushed the year-end awards. It was our fault in terms of not being fully prepared, and we got caught up in the holidays. But we did roll out our year-end awards. And you know what? Maybe we rushed part of it and we missed it, and we're going to take an L here, and I'll tell you why in a second.

But you can send your dead rungs on Friday. I think some people thought, and maybe I led people to believe this, there would be one more fan subs to close the year where you can do your final sort of bid to become Donk of the Year or in contention of it and all that. Um, I, I left out, I omitted a big one here, Luke, and he called me out rightfully. So on social media, um, you know, we can't name everybody a MK donk of the year or a nominee or even an honorable mention, but Christian DeGarro deserved a lot better. The amateur

sensation on the rise in MMA, he's a warrior to begin with but i mean he puts our show he supports us so much he not only trains with tony ferguson by the way wearing mk gear he puts on morning combat on his ball sack and he goes out there and he bounces back and he's still an amateur fighter but he took it down he came back and he won this savagely by finish there it's been a great year for him, Luke. I follow him on Instagram. Great kid. One day I hope to coach Latore him still. But this guy could have easily been in contention here for dunk of the year,

and I want to tip the old cap, tip-to-tip style to him. I mean, Luke, that guy's a badass. I know. We fucked that up. He should have been on that list and arguably should have won. So, Christian, I'm sorry. We are sorry. You're a great guy, a great brand ambassador that we pay nothing to.

Yeah. But at least we can pay lip service. Yeah. We can make out with you if you're interested. That's what Luke's saying there. But we love you there. Shout out to Russell from Georgia. I mean, you know, you can't put every, not everybody.

Luke can be top 10 pom for pom at the end of the year. Okay. There's only 10. That's what it is. There's only 10 slots. There's just 10. Yeah. Love all our, our fans and folks out there. here's what we're going to close with though uh dead wrong will be friday but we're going to dead wrong ourselves now in a funny

bit so we did our predictions for the new year but luke everybody said why didn't you guys go back and revisit your 2023 predictions to find out how horrible you two are at not only making bets in okay bad and luke ending up at a hippie show but really and shout out to otl luke he published the uh the podcast episode on comes a time that i did with him love otl verbridge look he wants you on his show bad badly all right bad you'll find out all right otl does yeah he wants to talk about life liberty in the pursuit of happiness with you. Hashtag team vibes. We did go back and find those predictions.

Mikey dug them up and we'll find out if they look pretty. Here we go. Let's revisit your 2023 predictions. So look, we did them division by division. Let's start at heavyweight there for the UFC. Luke Thomas predicted that in 2023, John Jones would fail to win the heavyweight there for the UFC. Luke Thomas predicted that in 2023, Jon Jones would fail to win the heavyweight title.

Yeah, 0 for 1 right there. Luke, I said, well, I guess this is worse. I said Frank the Tank and Ganu would re-sign with the UFC. Now, there's a bold prediction, and go on to win Fighter of the Year honors. Yeah, wow. Okay, there's a bold prediction, and go on to win Fighter of the Year honors. Yeah, wow. Okay, there you go. Let's go to light heavyweight.

Luke Thomas said up to three of the current top 15 at 205 will retire by year's end. All right. Wow. BC said the winner of Glover Teixeira versus Jamal Hill is going to get hammered out by Ankalayev. Jesus, we whiffed on that one. Okay, middleweight. Luke said before fighting Jon Jones at UFC 300, Robert Whitaker would reclaim the middleweight championship. Good Lord. good lord uh bc said poeton would knock out adesanya in their mma rematch

damn it's getting lonely up here can we get a winner let's go to welterweight luke thomas said shavkat rakmanov would end the year in the top three at 170 pounds luke you're good on that one you're good on that one by the way you have already boldly said he End the year in the top three at 170 pounds. Woo! Luke, you're good on that one. You're good on that one. By the way, you have already boldly said he would end this year as champion, didn't you? Yeah. All right, we'll find out.

We'll find out. My welterweight bit was Hamzat Chermayev would win the UFC welterweight title. Way off. Okay, let's go to lightweight luke thomas said islam mahachev would finish the calendar year as lightweight champion but not fighter of the year according to luke nope nope nope nope gotta gotta give it to sean all right uh bc would say the top five at lightweight would undergo a complete overhaul besides Mahachev. I'm doing Olivera, Gaethje, Poirier. They're all still around.

Yeah, it turns out I don't know anything. All right, let's go to featherweight here. Luke said Volkanovski would end the year as champion. Okay, okay. That's three in a row for you, Luke. Okay. Not bad. That's all right.

I don't think I've gotten one yet bc said brian ortega would make a big run in 2023 and remind us of his greatness i was talking about his sex life luke oh right right i'm sure he probably did make a big comeback yeah wow that was gross. Yeah. All right, let's go to Bantam. Here we go. Henry Cejudo, according to Luke Thomas, claims the Bantamweight title. Dude, he got close.

He got close. He got close. BC said, Chido Vera stays being Sean O'Malley's kryptonite. Ooh, too early. That's too early. I guess it's an L. Is it a push or is it an L? It's an L or is it a push?

It could be a push. I'll give it to you as a push, but it's definitely not a yes. Okay. Bantamweight women. Luke Thomas said Nunes, Shevchenko 3 will happen. Lord, Luke, come on. But BC said Amanda Nunes would have two trilogy fights in 2023 oh boy yeah she didn't have any luke wow we this is why we didn't do this apparently let's go down

to men's flyweight luke thomas said devison figueredo would move up to bantamweight uh dude he looked great too in that debut he looked awesome yeah he did was it fun he bought he fought fine yeah boxed him and wrestled him too like he did great yeah uh i said three different fighters would end up being ufc flyweight champion in 2023 oh is that true that was figurato Moreno and then Pantoja. Yeah. Good call. Good call.

Yeah. There it is. And Luke was talking about women's 125 flyweight. Erin Blanchfield earns a title shot in 2023. Dude, you know what? That's not true, but that is very close. That's very close. Here's why I don't think it's a push and why it's a loss.

Not only does she have another number one contender fight now scheduled but she got effed in my opinion by the noche fight being a draw right yes or let me or did she let me ask you because shevchenko should have won that fight by split decision if not for the 10-8 round in round five do you think they would have done grasso shevchenko trilogy next or would they have gone to Aaron Blanchfield next in line they might have done the trilogy no matter what because of the Noche thing so probably I think Blanchfield was kind of screwed no matter what but I got close with that one um I got real close all right BC at women's 125 I said flyweight would begin to rival strawweight as the best women's division in mma that is true yes take that interesting all of a sudden a lot more dings when we get to the women's side pants around the ankle

that's not true luke all right it's my editorial responsibility to be following so many people we got to get the general lee thing we got to get the benny hill the benny hill music playing at all times that'd be great uh finally luke we have my favorite division women's straw weight luke said the champ stays the champ zhongwei lee will hold the title to end the year nailed it nailed it uh she had one fight luke but she was dominant against amanda lemosh who i still don't think should have been in there. But BC said Rosnami Yunus would reclaim the championship by beating Zhongwei Li in a trilogy fight in 2020.

All right. So, Luke, technically there, you got five right. I got two right. So you clearly win that battle but then we said what are we paying attention to in the new year so these are more softer predictions luke said ma uh magomed and kalayev would end the year as champion fail bc said at heavyweight Curtis Blades will get a number one contender position he could have if he hadn't lost the fight against Almeida

yeah you're right and he's kind of entering a soft number one contender fight against Jalton Almeida if they fight for the interim Luke Thomas would say Bellator's Vadim Nemkov would establish himself as the best 205er on the planet it's a push right i mean no i think he's gonna right all right now i still think it's fair to

call him that so he said a top 205 or not the top 205 or if that's the case then it's definitely correct yes it's correct as a top but even if you said the top i still, and if that's the case, then it's definitely correct. Yes, it's correct as a top, but even if you said the top, I still think you argue it. I still think you do. Okay, very good. I'll take that then. BC boldly declared that Fedor would not be done after his CBS rematch with Ryan Bader.

Dude, I cannot believe Bellator put that fight on fucking cbs maybe he fights francis luke do you okay let me ask you this if they did not do fade or bait or or maybe it was fader bait or two let's say they just didn't do it it didn't happen would fade or be in the running to fight francis for his first mma fight with the pfl probably probably would you have picked it outside or would you have been like let's roll the dice dude i mean he would he would murder fedor uh it'd be real ugly and sad but yes that would be a thing all right luke said one championships anatoly malik anatoly malik and maybe the most underrated fighter in the game

today would defend both of his titles in 2023 yeah he didn't do that but one had a really weird year where they had barely relatively speaking barely any mma fights they were just doing four ounce muay thai all year and they were burning cash left and right you know yeah and setting ratings records along the way look uh also an equatorial guinea it's like yeah you did well there congrats this is wild that malikin's gonna cut down to middleweight which like you said is 205 and fight five rdr for the middleweight one championship renee derrida who he just reneered derrida who he just violently knocked out for the interim heavyweight title right yes it's a really weird scenario but he's got no one

else to fight over there so what the fuck are they gonna do yeah that's a fair point uh your boy bc said vadim nemkov would defend his bellator light heavyweight title against gay guard musashi in 2023 all right uh luke said robocop gregory rodriguez would make his way into the top 15 at 185 that's a. He's a middleweight, right? I didn't make that up. Yes, he's a middleweight. BC says Johnny Eblen would end the year with an unbeaten record. That's a good one. That's a good one. I like that.

Although he doesn't have a division in the PFL, Luke. Luckily, he has one on the Bellator International Fight Series, right? Well, absolutely. BC said RDR Rene Derrida would retain his middleweight title at one one look i can't stop listening to my own prison album by creed while i work out every other day what does that say about me i mean seriously you know what i mean

you listen to that album when you lift yes i do no wonder no wonder you and your family wear lifting gloves no well i i typically listen to uh battle of los angeles by rage luke or uh dude i just want you to know like there's a lot of women who lift at my gym and i don't see any of them wearing gloves i just want i want to be very clear about that like why does it where you are email thing luke i i just like it's not i'm saying it's that's that's exactly my point like oh like though they want to protect their hands like dude like even the people who are maybe more image conscious than the men don't do that like throw those things in the garbage okay uh so luke the rdr retaining the middleweight title was actually a prediction by you that was

correct what i actually said was that we're gonna have to watch out for roman delidze because he's Luke, the RDR retaining the middleweight title was actually a prediction by you that was correct. What I actually said was that we're going to have to watch out for Roman Deleuze because he's coming on a middleweight. You know what, though? That's not. He lost. He still is, right? He lost. And so for that reason, you can't really claim that you were right.

But I do think the spirit of that is correct. Yeah, he's got a main event coming up, I believe. And a new baby that arrived, Luke. so shout out to uh him just the same and he loves to shoot off guns on his balcony on new year's eve who doesn't right him him and the taliban you know what i'm saying that's what i'm saying oh that's uh lou why is there so many one predictions here was this a non-ufc category we did luke says christian Lee does not hold on to his one championship. BC said Jorge Masvidal will end up with a last minute

title shot he doesn't deserve. Would BMFF have counted? Yes. I would let it count. Yes. It's a belt. Luke said Sage Northcutt never fights again. Whiffed on that one. Shout that one shout out to him that was a nice highlight real victory that he had i believe right i didn't make that up yeah he looked good right uh he didn't look

good for a bit and then look good yes all right it's like most of my life look right you know that bit was a long couple decades. Also, Brian Campbell said, Conor McGregor returns at welterweight, but only fights once in 23. Middleweight McGregor, Luke. He's coming. And Luke Thomas came back with, Usman Nurmagomedov will win the Bellator lightweight

World Grand Prix and not get caught by USADA. He didn't get caught by USADA. Who got him? WADA? The yeah you got well you got to screw up to get caught by the commission that that's for sure um bc said that good old usman nurmagomedov would be i'm sorry i skipped one here luke dustin porrier would become a big money fighter said bc and only hunt for big title fights which means not go up the wall the lightweight ladder big game hunter season for this guy luke okay uh luke thomas cornered with arnold allen would have a great year wow mikey's quick on that buzzer i mean i thought he was he was a guest on rsd i'd I thought he had a pretty good year. He was a guest on RSD.

I'd consider that to be a pretty good year. I think his loss to Max was actually arguably his best performance as a pro. Is that crazy? That's probably crazy. Like, he just impressed me. It's a little crazy, but he did look good, yeah. He did impress me. In the end.

And it doesn't really matter, right? That's what Luke always says. Luke and, is that Evan Essence or the other guys? Linkin Park, Luke? Which one? Who? Oh, no, Linkin Park. It doesn't

even matter one thing i don't know why right i was never a big lincoln park guy never no that was that was one of the worst stretches of rock and roll i basically say from like 99 through about 04 was like the dark ages of of mainstream rock and roll that's like where nickelback was on top creed you know the rap crossovers i will say though fuel does hold up a little bit you like fuel no she called me from the cold that's when i was low feeling short of stable yeah so i'll break at the bank that's that's a good ass song come on they got like three of them too, Luke, I'm telling you. All right, Luke Thomas also said, Patchy Mix would end the year as Bellator champion. Okay, that's decent, that's decent.

But then BC was like, you know what, that's great. But Usman Nurmagomedov would end the year as Bellator's pound-for-pound number one. And then Luke's all like You know what Fabricio Andrade Is going to become a champion in one championship Damn that's pretty good Luke But then you know BC was all like that's cool

But guess what Charles Oliveira Is going to turn into a pumpkin And get stopped a bunch of times. Here's BC. Here's BC a problem. Mikey, get the gun ready. Hey, do you want to dance? Do you mind if we dance with your dates? Yeah.

And then BC was like, guess what? Shane Burgos is going to make a run in the PFL, and it'll be kind of interesting. Yeah, right? What? He lost. What are you all talking about? He made the playoffs after they cheated that other guy who fought his friend,

Luke. Remember that? No, you don't get that one right. You get that one wrong. Sorry. I think I did. Then I was like, you know what? Ilya Teporia is going to end up in the top five at his division at

Featherweight. Oh, and then I was like, you know what? Jose Aldo is coming back at Featherweight. But then I was like, how about this? Aljo and Marab, they're going to stay friends. They ain't fighting. Okay. And then I was like, yo, Coach Cain Velasquez,

he's going to train people at AKA wearing a low jack. I mean, it's true. it happened right but i also said this is the last one brandon roival will turn the corner and put himself in position to get a title shot oh nice one nice call great call that's a good one raw dog raw dog yeah we should he should just change his name to i hate condoms that's what it should be uh oh i'm sorry we got a couple more general predictions to close this out i just wish mikey could do that buzzer ding technique during the whole show luke just be like i agree yeah i agree then we'll probably hate him more all right there we go general predictions here uh bc shot down the idea that jake paul versus nate diaz in boxing would happen at all yeah that one happened and then bc was like yo tank versus ryan it's gonna do over a million buys

oh nice one yes very good call and then bc was like anybody related to james kraus is gonna get hammered out by the ufc and never appear on your tv again i think that was me i think i was right i think that was me not you all right all right well i came back luke and was like you know what women's boxing is going to have a huge year in 23 uh look at these to be okay uh did it have a huge year kind of right because the two katie taylor versus if we have to ask that it didn't no no it did i think it did because then serrano had a huge year it did not have a huge year no yeah we still need do you think that serrano versus katie taylor too is still the biggest women's boxing match you can make?

Or are you starting to enjoy the trash talk between Clarissa Shields and Alicia Baumgartner, even though they're like four divisions apart? Dude, they're trying to fight each other. Serrano Taylor, for sure. For sure. All right. BC, I think, said Habib Nurmagomedov would be the coach of the year in 2023. He stopped coaching. Look, look all together it's great but then also i was like yo you know what this slap league power slap it's gonna end before it even starts i had the right to say that back then though luke after wife slept i mean it was i wish it

had and i wish you were right it's the dumbest shit ever but there we here we are and then luke said boots ennis would invade boxing and take over in 2023 not real i mean i he didn't get the fights he wanted or that he looked good in his last fight looked really good in his last fight but i don't know all right that's the predictions that we did in that uh yeah there you go um that was fun luke wow day one two hours two hours and 15 minutes maybe this isn't the ideal length of this show luke but you know when you've got let's wrap it up let's just want it right look you know what i mean put on the workout gloves and flaunt it right walk around with it just you know there it is all right that's it like an old man at the gym

just putting his shoes on first no underwear what is it about the gym i think that these old guys don't even work out i think they come directly to the gym locker room stripped down and then they're like what am i gonna do i'm gonna shave today oh no i'm gonna wax my balls today like dude and they're there for like three hours they don't i've seen i've seen those dudes drying their balls with the uh with the heater you know talking about you press it all right i'm like i'm like dude i don't know what your life expectancy is it's probably like friday but i hope i hope you expire soon sir yeah that's the end of that all right we will be back with a live show on

friday more announcements to come in our future but let me tell you guys it's going to be bright it's going to be great thank you to mikey more miles cbs sports our great uh merch maven rj dunkel bagger you can go to morningcombat.store right now to wear our fine merch shout out once again to average jo Joe Art, your 2023 Donk of the Year. You can check out his merch line, the crossover collection right there. Did we forget anything?

I don't think so. Alright, dude, I'm waiting on the PBC. Let's make some announcements. Let's get excited, right? It's a new dawn. Let's go. Let's get this thing in motion. Let's bang, too. Alright, call me. Here we go. Alright, that's it. That's the show. We'll be back in a couple dawn. It's a new dawn. Let's get this thing in motion. Let's bang, too. All right, call me. Here we go. All right, that's it.

That's the show. We'll be back in a couple days. Enjoy yourselves. Take care of yourselves. We love you, and we're out of here.