MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor McGregor's Future, Paul vs. Askren, New UFC Middleweight Matchups | Ep. 111

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

On the latest MK, Luke and Brian discuss Conor McGregor's future and debate whether he can make the necessary changes to compete at the highest level (07:48). Plus, they breakdown some newly announced Middleweight matchups, with Darren Till facing Marvin Vettori on April 10th and Robert Whittaker taking on Paulo Costa on April 17th (27:45). Also, Jake Paul is fighting Ben Askren (37:42), BJ Penn got arrested (47:47), and Joe Joyce will fight Oleksandr Usyk (55:10), which could mean good things for a potential Fury vs. Joshua fight. ---------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, dawgs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. It is Wednesday, the 27th of January, 2021. A lot of 20s in there. Hi, everybody. But as two guys who are not in their 20s, this is Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. And the man across the screen is also from CBS Sports. Also a man not in his 20s. Also a man who, like me, has been nursing a hangover that didn't even come from drinking. It just came from being on the road.

It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. How are you? Luke, I'm old. I'm a little washy. But you understand that art takes no days off, brother. Right? The Picassos of punch talk are back days off, brother, right? The Picassos of punch talk are back at it.

Okay, bro? All right. You think I'm going to take a day off? You think I'm going to stop doing what it is I do? You think that there are faces left out there in the combat world that have yet to be arted upon? Let's make this shit a verb. Let's change lives, Luke. Okay?

It starts right here in your office and in mine, bro. Great to see you. Feeling really good about how we ended, right? Didn't start great. Feeling really good how we ended, though. Hopefully the people will eventually get to see that in the doc. But, hey, Wednesday, hump day, no J. Let's do it, all right?

Let's do it. What did you do yesterday uh yeah i wrote i wrote a story for cbs sports and i laid down a lot luke all right i just i basically took time i took different intervals of the day grazing in the in the fridge uh and then telling my wife how tired i was. That was really my entire day. I didn't do... Well, that's not true, actually. I did a ton of tape study. Actually, for today's episode, we actually have some fun topics to get to. There are some leftovers from UFC 257 that we're going to get to here today. Plus, we have some news of the wacky and weird

inside the fight game, which we'll talk about as well. Some boxing updates on potentially some huge fights, so we'll talk about that. some boxing updates on some potentially some huge fights so we'll talk about that plus we're doing the wheel of death today which people seem to love i think it was what your idea and people have gravitated to it very quickly we'll do that plus bc i i did not look at them individually but i looked at the slate like how many there were we have something like a hundred fan submissions today happened? Well, we took a week off last week because you were traveling. And not only that, we've got a lot of them. We've got, hey, spoiler alert, it's going to close with a bang, okay? So if you can sit through them all, we want to definitely throw love

to all our folks out there who do us, right? Keep doing us. Well, anyway, you already said it as best. I'll just reiterate it here very quickly which is thanks to everyone who made last week you know a couple of hiccups early but feel like we finished the race pretty strong and a lot a lot of good content they got out there a lot of good ideas and seeds that got planted for future kinds of content so we're actually really happy with how everything turned out and still more content from that week as you indicated

to come first things first of course beyond, thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe on the channel. Welcome to all the new subscribers. This, of course, is our Wednesday show. On top of that, we got to let the folks know who makes the show possible. If you would like to try Showtime for free for 30 days, you can have a trial. Go to Showtime.com and you can set all of that up plus as you can see bc ever so suavely um that's not why it doesn't make sense actually so that means soft uh ever so debonairly modeling clothes you can go to store.show.com we've got hats we've got mugs cups condoms posters we ship to every state in the union every country in the world i swear it'll work just well um so go check that out please and uh what else bc what am i forgetting anything else

well i did have a talk about you know merch 2.0 about where the hell has it been okay so hopefully that stirred things up okay on the showtime side let's get it let's put our our clothes on our people okay let's do it here all alright? And before we get going... You know when they got a rowdy school, Luke, in an inner city, and they're like, I know how to clean up the behavior here. Let's put everybody in uniforms. We have the same mission

for the fight fans around the globe, alright? You don't see people wearing DC and the Canadia guy sweatshirts, but you will see MK all day, nearly every day all right what's your speaking of canadians what shirt are you wearing is that a brock lesnar shirt that is a brock lesnar uh ufc 200 shirt what's awesome about it is there's all this graffiti over his face all these motivational quotes about what he's going to do nowhere does it say inject horse steroids but

uh you know hey well done just the same at 200 there brock all right and by the way for folks like he's not canadian he's american he walked out with canadian uh gear uh fight kit and posed with a canadian flag for that fight so please suck my balls okay with that in mind bc let's get this show started topic number one here on the wednesday rundown this was one that really made the rounds on social media. And I'd be curious to know what you think about it. Now, here's what's funny, BC. Because McGregor has so many fights that are relatively short,

the one against Diaz the second time went five. He's got the four-rounder, three and a half, I guess, against Tabib. But in general, his fights are pretty short. So I actually did this last night. You're going to laugh at me, but I really did. I went back and I watched all of his fights, certainly from the UFC on. We talked about them all on last week's program. But I went back and just re-watched them because there's a claim being made

that maybe the reason that Conor McGregor lost is, yes, Dustin Poirier has improved, had a great game plan, was dialed in. All the things you can say positive about him, none of that changes, but that something has changed, so the argument goes with Conor McGregor, that his style is not what it used to be. He used to be wide open, karate styling, lots of kicks, working at much further range, and with that, he had more weapons,

he had more command of range, he was much more dynamic as a fighter. He sort of, so the claim goes evolved into something of a boxer with not much else behind it and that's a big key contributor to why he lost the what do you make of that claim you know it's not it's not off base it really isn't and i get a you know i saw a lot of the backlash to what we said on monday show which is you know these freaking click baiters these these bailesses of mma they try to talk us into connor heading into this fight and now they're quickly saying the sport might have passed him by well look what we said coming in was the evidence we had in front of us you know

40 seconds of cowboy serrani and some really good pictures of him in shape and some really good interviews and i think from that you know we we we bought into that we're going to get the very best Cerrone and some really good pictures of him in shape and some really good interviews. And I think from that, you know, we, we, we bought into that. We're going to get the very best of what's left of this guy. So it's phrase I repeated often. I just think at the end of the day, is it 60% Dustin Poirier is just that good and an all-time great? Yes, it is.

But let's not look past when you do watch the video a couple times of McGregor just seemingly being, you know, a step behind and just not having the same adaptable abilities and the same just bite down toughness, Luke. All things considered, it just didn't necessarily look like the same guy. Certainly not a guy, you know, who has benefited from activity and looked fresh. And I think if you do the math and you do the work like you do so many great times on a former program we had on here, which was a ratings blockbuster called Dissected, right? MK Dissected. Good God, where would we be without that one, Luke? I will say that you can look and see, I mean, from footwork to everything. I feel like he was trying to catch up for everything he missed in the course of that fight.

And again, it's not like he didn't have moments. It's not like he wasn't maybe one big punch away from finishing Poirier. But I don't think it's wrong to say that, you know, he hasn't benefited from the time off where we really weren't sure. The proof was going to have to be in the pudding there. And it was at the end of the day I'm more interested in the things that you see with your very keen eye Luke in terms of um has the change in boxing for the big camp with Mayweather has that really changed his footwork you know what I mean is he not is he back too far up I mean what kind of things are you picking out for the fact that, let's be honest, the sport is evolving every month, man.

And, you know, Conor's got to try to keep up here. So are some of the changes you saw him making, him attempting to do that and just coming up short? What are you seeing here when you do the math? Yeah, so again, I went through every single one, and I went through it in order, too, right? So I went from Brimage on to, who was it after that? I forget, but then it was Brandau eventually, and then Poirier, and then Seaver, and blah, blah, blah. I went from Brimage on to who was after that uh I forget but then it was Brandau eventually and and then Poirier and then Seaver and blah blah I went through it all you know you can't get a whole lot out of the Jose Aldo fight but even then I wanted to see what stance did he

at least open up with and it went all the way through until Saturday here's the things that I picked up on if you just look at let's say BC the Diego Brandau fight and then you just look at, let's say, BC, the Diego Brandao fight, and then you just look at the fight from Saturday, you might notice some pretty significant differences. I think that part is true. But the story is a little bit more complicated than that. Here's what I picked up on. First, he opens up in both Diaz fights a little bit pretty at distance, throwing a lot of kicks, especially in the first Diaz fights, a little bit, you know, pretty at distance, pretty, you know, throwing a lot of kicks, especially in the first Diaz fight,

much less in the second Diaz fight, right? So the first thing is, I would say, if you're looking for a turning point, to me, the real turning point is the second Diaz fight after his first UFC loss. That is when a lot of the real spinny stuff, the high amplitude stuff, I'm leaving my feet to throw,

I'm just going to be really diving in from range, a lot of that went away. Obviously because he had gassed himself in the first one and he wanted to get rid of it. So the first thing I'd say is, if you're looking for where the change happened, the Mayweather part might be another change, but to me the first real change that I can pick up on, it happens right there. That's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is when he gets tired, he goes from being wide open where his hands are down around his waist to up here boxing pretty quickly. Go to any fight where he gets a little bit tired and you'll see he's flat footed, trying to counter, in the pocket, hands around here, not around his waist. So this idea that like, oh, what he was

doing is a deep aberration from what he's always done. No, it's a deep aberration from how he has started at certain times. He eventually, when he gets tired, ends up into that kind of a position. Third, I'd say all the stuff about I'm going to touch, touch, touch, you know, bouncing, touch, touch, touch, that's against right handers it's not against southpaws at least not as much a little bit in the first ds fight but again that went so off the rails he tried to correct for it by the second one but when he fought southpaws you hardly see any of that again relative to the other kind to the point bc i was like how did he start against habib habib again a right hander you know how he started at distance wide stance touch touch

trying to dive in from what from well he went back to the way he was before which is why you did not see some of these claims in the Habib fight why weren't why weren't people bringing this up because you just never saw it it was never a part of the conversation and plus wrestling it's also different in fights Luke here's a guy who you know 80 of his fights, he's dictating the terms. Even fights he lost, like the first Nate Diaz fight, he's dictating the terms of that fight until it went south. Really, Mendes, Habib, and now this Poirier fight, even though Conor won the first round in a lot of our eyes,

he had to do it by getting up off the canvas. We sort of saw his original game plan shaken and turned upside down, that's sometimes luke when when that happens when you make that first adjustment we're gonna you know sometimes you throw your technique or your plans you know away because it's fight time you're in it so that certainly can change some of that okay but the last one is this so i think i think it it's you know the idea that he never boxed that way before is not true he did when he got tired the idea that he boxes the same that way before is not true. He did when he got tired. The idea that he boxes the same way or strikes the same way against Southpaw versus Orthodox, I don't think that's true. I don't think you can really detect a major significant change

until the second Diaz fight. So these are the things I picked up on. And there's one more, and this is where Poirier really played a significant role because he was Southpaw. Nothing you can really do about that, but that's sort of a nature of the condition. What would be the difference between Nate Diaz, who was Southpaw, and Dustin Poirier? I will tell you. If you go and look at the first fight, excuse me, the second fight between Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor, here's the major difference. I was looking at his old fights, BC, and I noticed they were much more dynamic. There was constantly, there was just a lot of activity.

There's a lot of something happening. Even if he's fainting, there's some kind of just, these guys are in motion all the time. But the key is, he landed a lot on opposition, and they didn't land a lot on him. In the second Conor McGregor, excuse me, second Nate Diaz fight, Conor landed 34 of 68, excuse me, of 58. So he attempted a bunch and landed a bunch. As we indicated in the Dustin Poirier rematch, he only attempted 34, excuse me,

only attempted 37 and landed just 17. But this is the key. Nate Diaz landed 25, which is a lot, but of 73. Conor was just much more active, one, because Diaz was missing a lot, and two, because Diaz wasn missing a lot And two, because Diaz wasn't really landing a lot Either, I mean a lot of those 25s are just

Pitter patter, dude when Poirier lands He lands, and I think it began to Deter Conor a little bit So you had a guy who was harder to hit Who when he hit it was much cleaner Who was a southpaw, this stage of his Career, blah blah blah, you add up all the pieces You get what you get.

I'm not here to say, BC, that there's nothing to the idea that maybe he's gotten a little bit more one-dimensional. Maybe that's true. But I think the idea that he has totally abandoned everything that got him here, maybe from a work ethic standpoint or maybe just other things he could be doing, but the idea that this is a complete and total aberration from the Conor we know, I don't think the facts bear that out, man. I really don't.

Well, look, to that point I just made before, it's not that he has not had fights in which he's had to rally, right? Let's give him credit in the Mendes fight. Let's give him credit in the second Diaz fight. But for the most part, when you have a front-running style, you have a bully style, it's easier to do the things you mentioned in those early fights,

which is be more active, set more traps, constant activity, because you're exuding a certain level of threat and mental fatigue on your opponent because you're so dynamic and you're dictating the terms. Under that guise, if you believe in that, that has a fighting style, a little bit of a front-run fighting style a little bit of a front run a little bit of a bully when that's taken away from you you said what's the difference between nate and poirier and dust in connor's reaction well poirier a little bit more threat of a takedown something he landed early as well that's going to put connor much more in a defensive

stance where he's reactionary where it's more about one big punch coming back than trying to do the things that better set up his finishing strikes so this this may be a function of the matchup and and the flow of where it went again let's not forget connor did have some moments here second half around one some moments even in round two before the tables turned but i think that's why you're losing so much of his volume is tied into him being ahead in the fight and setting the terms. I don't think that's crazy, Luke. I might be a little crazy. I don't think that's crazy.

If you ask how did he fight in the first Poirier fight, right, where they landed so quickly, it's true. He was much further away. In fact, if you think about that final sequence where he dropped him, what was it? It was a double jab, which you use to close the distance, and then it was the left behind it. So he was actually standing far enough away where he needed that kind of a thing. But at the same time, Poirier was not exacting the same kind of threats to make Conor feel that way.

That was a Conor that was, you know, in his mind, invincible. I really wonder, does Conor feel like he's invincible anymore? You know, I seriously doubt it. And the one who fought Poirier the first time thought that, I mean, he just probably thought he could not lose. And so to me, I don't think he thinks that he can't win i don't think that's the case but like he has to be does he have to be more careful i bet he wrestles with that and that might be impacting his style as well i think no that this is all legit stuff where you

know when when i'm when we make comments like maybe the game has passed him by yet he hasn't evolved his style up to that standards. He hasn't been as consistent and busy to keep everything loose and up to possible speed. That all is part of it too, but a lot of it is the mental game, Luke. Can he be the same fighter if he has to rally in fights as a baseline? I mean, look, we have three fights of evidence of him in the UFC at lightweight. Where do you think his power stands?

Because he lives and dies by the threat of his power. Can you give a proper referendum up to this point? I mean, how much does his threat of being a bigger man that can knock you out dissipate going from featherweight to lightweight? Obviously, there's a change. Do you think it's more dramatic than we realize? It might be. Because remember, he went from the Aldo fight, 13 seconds,

just like no one had ever done that to Aldo. And then he went and did that to Alvarez. And Alvarez had lost, even lost kind of badly before. But that was like a humiliation. I mean, it was just crazy what he was able to do. But when you go back to both of those, the timing on the Aldo one was just, I mean, the most impeccable. Plus, you know, to what extent was Aldo exercising enough restraint?

We've been over that a million times. And the Alvarez one, he was just catching the guy when he wasn't seeing the punches, you know, which we talked about before, which is when they land the most. But like straight up power. Now Poirier did acknowledge in this contest, he got hit with one that really kind of buzzed him a little bit. So I do think Conor can still knock out guys at this weight class. But the idea that he'd have the same dominant left, I think that needs to be revised.

And I want you to keep going, but I wanted to say, I think it was that right hook Conor landed that was the big one. He set it up with a left cross, but do you remember he came up with a right hook and Dustin almost did a dance for a second? I think it was because it was a shot he didn't see coming. It came off of a hard left hand. So, you know, that's the perfect type of shot that you can get somebody in trouble with.

That's still in play up to this point, but is he a threat to just buzz you with one and end you there? I don't know. I don't know. And also, here's the other part. Like, if he went back to the other stance, sort of the open style karate stance or whatever, further away, again,

as fights went on, he kind of abandoned it, first of all. And then second of all, it's like, yes, there are ways where if you were further apart, you could move out of the way of leg kicks, but you might still be vulnerable to them if you're sort of wide-based and hunkered down a

little bit that's still a way to get absolutely drilled with leg kicks that's not per se the antidote the bigger distance might be but like every style's got pluses and minuses I think the argument is if Connor is out at distance and he's throwing kicks and he's using all of his dynamic tricks dude he's a handful and there's no denying he's a handful. But that thing that he tried, and maybe it was because of 170, but the way he did that, it really fucked him up against Diaz, and I think he learned a hard lesson there. The one thing I will say, BC, that is missing,

like, is Conor, like, a radical departure from what he was? No, I don't believe that. But there was some stuff missing. So, for example, what did you see in the second Diaz fight you did not see a lot of here? Again, southpaw and southpaw. One, you saw a couple of the outside low kicks, but he was hammering Diaz with those. And by the way, he was hammering Poirier for as often as he threw them, but it was not very much. But it was the other one. It was the front push kick, the teeps to the gut. Those have always been a big part of his game. They were big against Alvarez.

They were big against Nate. And they were nowhere to be seen in this fight. So to me, it's like that's a big key weapon he used to keep distance, to hurt guys, to slow them down, set up all kinds of offense. And he just went away from it here. And I think if people want to point out what's missing, that was a big ingredient that i think was missing in retrospect yeah look he also had uh you know beautiful sort of lead jabs to the body in that second diaz one which is almost out of the mayweather school of you know as your

attacking opponent is coming in just timing perfectly constantly put him in a spot of backing up you know we didn't see any of that and maybe that is is a combination of poirier being more of a threat to take him down it's's worth debating. But I want to quickly do the talk radio reaction with you here. You know, if an NFL team loses in the championship game when they had Super Bowl hopes, Monday morning they're going to be, you know, debating whether it's a call for the coach's throat, whether that's fair or not. So let's talk about this. Conor McGregor's been with, you know, SBG from the beginning, right?

It's been a great camp for him and a great group of coaches. But it's not abnormal, especially in boxing, but even in MMA, for a superstar fighter to hit a rut and then change camps, get a different perspective, you know, add some tools and tricks to the trade. Is it time? Is it time for Conor McGregor to say, I'm not firing you guys, but what about if we bring in Coach Whitman

as a consultant right here? What about if we do two weeks of camp at Jackson's? Are you thinking any of that is not necessarily in order from a panic perspective, but from a, you should really think about this to try to evolve your game? I think he already did that, right? He brought in this sort of guy who played a role in his life earlier.

Then he brought him back, the guy who was from the boxing club. Hey, youth boxing coach. That's great, okay? Youth boxing coach is great. But there are genius minds out there. What if we sent him down to your boys down there at old City Cackalack? Come on, guys. I think Trevor Whitman, even like a

Henry Hooft, like a guy who's got a real offensive mind, you know, like hard kind of... I'm not saying it's a direct... Henry Hooft is the example of the Dutch style and he's nothing else. But I mean, you know, someone's got a little bit of that Dutch mentality right in there. Something like that I think would be quite beneficial for him.

Yes, you know, his jiu-jitsu got better after the Diaz fight, you know, when they brought in I think would be quite beneficial for him. Yes, his jiu-jitsu got better after the Diaz fight when they brought in, I think he had him in there maybe even before, Ryan Hall trained with Conor McGregor. Folks, forget that. He was brought in, and then eventually Dylan Danis. So those guys have only done good things for him. I think getting another mind in there,

who's got a real, is Jon Kavanaugh the best mind for everything in MMA in every phase of the game? I don't know. No, I don't think that's a reasonable statement. I mean, obviously he's quite talented, but is he the best guy or the only guy to give Conor looks in striking? You know, bringing in someone who's got some real modern ideas

like a Whitman or somebody else, how could it hurt? I just don't understand. We're talking about a guy who we are deeming as his career has gone on to become a little bit too one-dimensional the problem is that one dimension was great luke right if you're an absolute dirt hole if you're harvey weinstein and you're one dimension for years of picking up women involves an empty office a couch and you going from zero to ball bag as soon as the door closes. And it keeps working for you for a long time. That becomes good and bad, Luke.

The bad is eventually you're going to end up in jail and be a laughingstock after ruining many women's lives. But you don't have to evolve your game to pick up women. Connor was too successful with that one side of his game. God, I didn't even move. No facial expression. What a hell. That's a hell of a no-sell from Thomas right there. What if we didn't try to make him a wrestler to round him out but to to the point you made about hoofed or somebody like that make him a kickboxer again because that was a calling

card for the first third of his ufc run he was unpredictable he would open fights with spinning with fake spinning wheel kicks i mean you really never knew what was coming. Luke, it's a yes and no panic situation. It's a turning point right now. We're at a crossroads commercially and in terms of whether he can be elite in terms of where McGregor's going. He's young enough. He doesn't have a ton of damage in recent years. So it's not panic time but you got to get somebody in there who's going

to take a strength he already has and develop it and let it bloom and i love those guys in there at sbg man they look like great 1930s uh barbers for the uh mayweather fight right it was a nice fashion choice but uh either either this guy's not listening or they're not coming up with anything creative let's let's shock the system if you're in Team McGregor and try to do this over. Look what Whitman did in one camp with Usman, Luke. This still stands out to me. And, of course, all the work he's done with Gaethje when Gaethje decided to make a change after a loss as well.

Well, Rose, ahead of the first Uwana fight, when he turned Rose into a championship boxer, basically, I mean, that's incredible. Yeah, and they always say win or learn. Okay learn okay well it sounds like it's time to learn that's what it sounds like it's time for me so i would love to see it so again you know did connor change his style there are some things to me that have degraded but i also think there are a lot of circumstances here between the stance of poirier his ability to land and get out of the way blah blah blah that make it not as much necessarily as people want to make it out to be. All right, let's go to topic number two.

The middleweight division is on fire. Now, it turns out that the champion in that weight class is going to go up in March and try to become another champ champ. But in the meantime, while the champ is away, the contenders will play, BC. Two fights that were announced a week apart one on April 10th and one on April 17th I want to give both away then we'll talk about each individually and then how they match up together but first things first on April 10th Darren Till will fight Marvin Vittori on April 17th Robert Whitaker versus Paulo Costa let's start with the first one then we get to the

second and how they match up together Till versus vittori your your initial impressions love it love it for so many reasons vittori look luke if adesanya stays the champion he's gonna have a shorter path to get to the title shot i believe because of the history of him having given izzy a close fight but either way that big win he's coming off of really screamed let's get him into a top five opponent let's get him in there with a name let's give him the platform to make a statement and truly prove that he is elite this is that fight and it's also kind of uh you know i mean look how many more of these darren till high and low moments looks good in one fight gets beaten another before we sort of wonder whether he ever was that dude this is one of those important fights in his run where he's got to beat vittori and he's got to beat Vittori,

and he's got to stay relevant in this title discussion here, Luke, because he's young enough, and there's a ton of ability there. I just haven't seen the consistency of it. This is such an important fight for both of them. That's when you breed the hunger. That's when you make great fights. I cannot wait for this one, Luke. Tell me something about it that you love.

Yeah, I mean, Till has had some nice wins, but he's had a lot of reputational boosting that needs to be married by wins. We need to see some real wins. And, of course, he's had some wins recently as well. But, you know, coming off of that Robert Whitaker fight, that was a very, very, very, very close fight. But, obviously, he did not get his hand raised there.

And Whitaker is going to be, you know, he's the number one guy in that weight class, obviously because the champion is unranked. So we're going to see, you know, okay, well, you couldn't beat Robert Whitaker. That may not be that big a deal. Maybe you are still the future contender in this division, or maybe all along, as we've just said, maybe it's Marvin Vittori who started out a little rough around the edges,

but also 23 years old. I think he's, what, 27, 28 now. I mean, he's barely even entering his prime. Here he is in the top five. I think Till is ranked fourth. And he's going to be fighting for basically the winner of this. Either has to fight one more or is going to be the next contender behind the winner of the other middleweight main event. So you've got, you know, Till needs to prove that he is who we think he is.

Vittori can absolutely shatter everyone's impression of who he thought he is. And that fight against Adesanya the first time was no fluke, even though he was very much an undeveloped product at the time. I love this contest. And you've got Vittori, who I think has some real skills. Don't get me wrong. But Till is supposed to be a little bit more the finesser of the two. So it's a little bit of brute force versus finessing. It's a little bit unfair, but there is something to that.

So I love the style contrast. I love everything about this fight. i can't wait to see it look at the matches vittori's corner would you even though you need to be well-rounded to get to the top and win a title he's so fun and aggressive and powerful when he fights like sloth from the goonies would you just keep unleashing them on people i think he's got enough smarts where you don't have to i don't think it's really either or. I mean, if it came down to it, and there was a round that you had to win with the guy,

and you said, listen, guy, you need to just bite on the mouthpiece and go this time. This is the time. I would trust him to be that guy, and I would trust him to do well. But I don't think you need to play that card until it's absolutely necessary. And that's true for a lot of fighters, I understand.

But I mean, if you needed him to be the bite down on the mouthpiece guy, that's not a hard departure for him. That's not a huge, that's not a deep recess in his mind. He has to like will himself to go. I think he can flip that switch pretty easily. But I also believe, you know, working with Rafael Cordero, dude, he has worked on his game. He's got interesting setups.

He can strike a little bit. He's well-rounded. He's big and fucking strong for the weight class. Dude, he's a handful. I can't wait to see how he does in this fight. Now, it leads me to the other one, BC, which is a little bit more interesting. Sitting at number one is Robert Whitaker. Sitting at number two is Paulo Costa. Both of them have a loss to the champion, so they're going to fight each other. Your sense of Whitaker versus Costa? What do I do, Luke, back in the early 2000s when I show up at a stag or a bachelor party, Luke? Bag of porn?

Yeah, somebody get me a brown paper bag, some really gross magazines, and a giant Sharpie so I can write bag of porn on the outside. Luke, outside of how important this fight is, this fight is going to bang. I love the shit out of this matchup. But obviously when you sprinkle on top the sauce that is, the winner is probably fighting for a title. And if you're Costa and you go in there guns blazing and you lose to, you know, arguably the best middleweight in the game here in Whitaker, who's in that discussion that's two in a row against the two best I mean that's a

somewhat damaging turn of events for you and just the same for Whitaker you know trying to rebuild and get back into that rematch without Asani after such a disappointing way of losing that fight whether he was damaged goods during that run or not or whether that was a straight up fight um you got to beat an animal who is looking to come at you after laying an egg. Look, this thing is going to be freaking explosive. And even though Whitaker has certain advantages

in IQ, technique, he may have to just... In everything. In so many things, right? Outside of maybe just explosive force, good looks, and his body being a wonderland over there in Brazil. I still, you know, he still might have to fight like Vittori to win this, right?

And that's what you want. Oh, God, this is a fight night main event. This is a free fight. Luke, strap it on, brother. Let's do this fight, right? I got to tell you, it's like imagine being the guy. You lost to izzy and you lost pretty thoroughly remember he got dropped in the first round by izzy and then he got just

completely finished off in the second uh adesanya ended up making it look kind of easy in the end and you had to get a road back to the title now i realized some of this was before that but in the end before you were ready for a second fight with izzy on your resume resume, you had two five-rounders with Yoel Romero. I get that happened before the Izzy fight. I'm just saying it's part of that. And then to get the rematch, you had to beat Paulo Costa, the guy who beat Yoel Romero, who's a physical beast. After beating Cannoneer?

Bro, after beating Cannoneer? I mean, this is a run right and until until um it's crazy it's crazy he is i mean he's doing things at middleweight you thought what adesanya i mean listen adesanya's run is the best run for all the reasons that we know but boy i gotta tell you this is not as much of a distant second as folks might imagine i mean that is a remarkable thing if he gets through Paulo Costa. Excuse me. At that point, number one, you could never deny this guy a title shot.

I mean, at that point, you have to give that guy a title shot fucking immediately or whenever he's ready. And then number two, dude, put some fucking respect on Robert Whitaker's name. Because if he wins that fight, you got to remember, people were, I think, somewhat rightly worried that he was a little bit banged up after 10 rounds with Yoel Romero going into that Adesanya fight, looking all fucked up, especially with the time off. Since the time off and getting right after the loss with Izzy, he's had certainly some tense moments here or there, but he's found a way to gut it out. He's looked pretty incredible. He looks smart, and he does not look brittle. I think that's the key. Folks thought he was kind of done physically. Boy, that is not true at all, but a guy like Paulo Costa with any kind of

physical weaknesses, he's going to tear your ass up. On the Costa side, BC, i want to see what like lingering if there are any lingering mental issues about frankly a pretty humiliating defeat and then the champion took to social media in every interview possible to degrade you afterwards are you worried a little bit you know he also rode your ass after he beat you too right i mean this is like yeah we we really could see a an absurdly dangerous and destructive. And look at that picture right there. We went from handsome to angry with one move of his mouth, Luke. This guy is ready.

Look, it's all part of what makes this fight so great. And when we're talking about Whitaker, Luke, maybe with the exception of Jon Jones, would you say Whitaker is the best fighter in the UFC who is currently not a champion? Wow. Would you say maybe Max? Maybe Max. Yeah, I mean, it's a tough call. But certainly, if you're making a top three, them boys are on it.

You know what I mean? Yeah, damn right. I mean, look, you've got to favor Whitaker here, but you're favoring him saying, Sir, I know you're used to this, but you're going to have to walk through hell to win this fight. So good luck to you, all right? Dude, can you imagine the resume on that guy? What are you going to say? Oh, he didn't fight the best of his generation. Motherfucker. He fought him a few times. I mean, it's crazy how good his resume is going to look win or lose to be quite honest with you. And if he wins, oh my God. I mean, dude, I, you would have, if you didn't have respect for Robert

Whitaker and what he's been able to do after losing to Wonderboy at 170, then going up to 185, and yeah, he stumbled against Izzy, no doubt about it. Izzy's a generationally special talent. But then to go on a rebuild campaign like that. BC, we talk about it all the time, man. The guys who really want it, they'll stumble. And then that rebuild campaign, there are no easy fights. There are no easy outs there's nothing and they still find a way to just one rung at a ladder at the time

climb up like that dude he's got that Dustin Poirier in him you know what I mean yeah very similar to your career path after that show with Craig Carton ended you know you're looking where you are today Luke okay yeah I wish I wish I had those paychecks again good lord they were nice uh all right so we go from the most legitimate end of the sport to perhaps its least legitimate end. Topic number three. Jake Paul is supposed to fight Ben Askren. I guess it's not an exhibition from what I understand.

It is a real boxing match. I think it's eight rounds. April 17th on Triller. These are the folks who put on the exhibition bout between Roy Jones Jr. and Mike Tyson. Okay, BC. Listen, man. Here's the thing.

If people want to watch it, people are going to watch it. I don't really know what to make of it because I could see a case where Jake Paul absolutely starches him. I could see a case where maybe we kind of slept on Ben Askren a little bit, but probably not. But who knows? I don't really know. I legitimately don't know. And I'm being honest about it. I legitimately don't know. And I'm being honest about it. I have no idea what to expect,

but I just cannot fake interest in this. Where are you? Not even, but not even morbid interest. Not even, I know this. No, not really. Not really.

This rotating piece of meat. You've got a, you've got a YouTube troll who is living out a false identity against a guy who, in his prime, you know, Ben Askren, what are you going to say?

Dan Hodge, trophy winner, Olympian, two-time NCAA. But the guy, he had to retire. He had a hip replacement. Striking was never his thing. I don't know. I think that adds to it. So here's the deal. Let me be upfront.

Does it add to it? Okay, am I circling this on the calendar compared to real fights? Absolutely not. But I get asked this all the time on, you know, radio or podcast appearances. You know, you're a hardcore boxing guy. What do you think about all these YouTubers moving? And I always say it. Look, boxing is such a beautifully ridiculous platform

where it does kind of lend itself to this kind of celebrity bullshit. It's fun as shit to see two guys go in there and fight and see what happens. As long as it's not on the same card as real fights and it's a separate attraction thing and in this case it's not even like on the zone or anything it's like on a separate entity all together i would kind of rather jake paul do this against somebody i know and kind of have you know an emotional interest into a certain degree in ben askren then that guy who's that guy ann easton gibb i don't know that guy is okay i don't know, who's that guy? Ann Easton Gibb. I don't know who that guy is.

Okay. I don't know. Who's the other guy? Some YouTuber. I don't know. I'm not on YouTube. I don't know this bullshit. Give me at least a guy who's a pro athlete, a combat athlete, who's kind of competing

again in a skill set that's not his strength. Luke, this is actually pretty good matchmaking. I'm going to be really honest with you. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to be into the weird trash talk that we're going to see heading in. I'm not going to go overboard and crazy, but I don't know. This doesn't suck to me, Luke.

Okay? I'm sorry. What would suck to you? And I'm being serious. How bad does it have to be before you're like, okay, this sucks? Well, I mean, this is close right but I'm just like you know all things considered am I going to be the guy who's like don't watch that bullshit no did you watch the Nate

Robinson fight it was pretty damn fun I mean come on we all sat there and watched that weird Tyson card with Snoop Dogg it's fun in the have you seen this shit way not in the I'm going to pump down 50 bucks that's where I'm putting this okay look to be with you, this is where I put BKFC. There's a place for it. There are times I tune in to BKFC, and I'm like, you know what?

It's not that bad. There are other times I tune in, and I'm like, you know, can these hillbillies? I mean, you know where I'm going with that. So that's that, Luke. All right. Sorry. Here's my feeling. It's like, dude, I'm not making any of these apocalyptic claims.

This is terrible for the sport. We've been over this. It's like, dude, I'm not making any of these apocalyptic claims. This is terrible for the sport. We've been over this. It's really not. I don't buy that at all. At least not. I mean, there's no evidence right now that that's the case. I guess if things change, we can reevaluate at that stage. But for now, there's no evidence.

You know, and it's a guy in Jake Paul who is trying to be detestable and finding ways to do it, pretending he's a pro fighter, maybe even thinking one. I don't really know what he thinks internally. Listen, if people want to buy that, okay, go buy it. And he's got a big audience and it's fine. I don't, this is not one of these, you should not do this because it's bad if you do arguments.

It's not what I'm saying. But I just feel like, it's like, dude, how can you, if you're me and you watch a Holloway versus a Cater, or we just talked about Whitaker versus Costa, or whatever, we just saw what Dustin Poirier did. To me, it's like I don't even know how your brain can process the idea that a Paul versus an Askren boxing match is something you'd want to see. I'll tell you what I would be in favor of.

They're trash talkers, Luke. They're trash talkers. And that matters to me how much. You know, again, if it's for you, if it's for you, it's okay. It's not for me. Well, if you were like, hey, BC, did you hear the news?

Conor McGregor is going to sign up for the ADX BBC grappling finale in Abu Dhabi. It's the best grapplers in the world. And oh, that movie star from those martial arts movies is going to be in it too. Dude, I'm fired up for this. I'd be like, Luke, you know, it's not best grapplers in the world and all that movie star from those martial arts movies is going to be in it too dude i'm fired up for this i'd be like luke you know it's not really my thing you know i don't know you know it's like do i want to see lebron james bowling no i want to

see him play basketball i don't need to see conor mcgregor rolling around on the ground but this has like i mean askren could get knocked out by a youtuber there's interest there just like there's interest in seeing uh that in seeing the YouTuber get beat up. I don't know, Luke. I think you would care more. What does it say about us? I won't say you, but what does it say about us that Ben Askren might get knocked out by a YouTuber is an intriguing thing? I mean, you've got to be, I mean, the bottom of the barrel you're scraping there for that one.

Yeah, but it's fist fighting at the end of the day. It's boxing. It's something I like, right? They're not going out and doing something that I don't care about, so I kind of care. I think you should too, Luke, because, you know, Ben Askren's a character. You should be into this and on Team Askren going, you know what? End this charade, okay? Knock this guy out.

I mean, maybe if this was the guy fighting in Bellator who was running over Douglas Lima and Kerechkov, I might feel differently. But the dude retired. Striking was never his thing. And he had a fucking hip replacement. And I know he's feeling better, which is great. Certainly I wish there would be no degradation to his quality of life.

The knockout loss to Masvidal was obviously pretty bad. But in general, it did not take hardly any punishment in his career. Again, the sky is not falling. It's's not falling i'm not suggesting the sky is falling but it's like on some level do you like watching good movies or bad and okay sometimes you can watch a bad movie but speaking of bad movies there's tyron woodley yeah yeah but it's like dude i'm not gonna call transformers a good movie i'm'm just going to skip it and let 13-year-olds go watch, which sounds pretty similar to what's happening here.

All right, Luke. Well, speaking of the Paul brothers, can we transition to the next part of this? Yeah, this part I didn't pick up on, but apparently you're all over this one. So what happened with the other Paul brother, Logan Paul? Logan Paul, Floyd Mayweather, is still supposed to be a boxing match, and it's still supposed

to take place February 20th. Now, just for understanding there, there's competition that night. That's supposedly the comeback bout for Adrian Broner on Showtime. It's also top ranks got a hell of a good all-action fight with Miguel Burchell and Oscar Valdez that night on ESPN. Clarification, clarification. Is the Broner bout on pay-per-view or just regular Showtime? Regular Showtime.

He doesn't have an opponent yet. The first guy fell out, according to reports. Now, I don't know if that means this Floyd fight would happen in Asia or something during the day, but this is all getting weird. There's been a lot of chatter online about, like, is this fight even happening? We're not hearing anyone talk about it. So Logan Paul did an interview.

I'm not sure with which outlet, but here's the interview, okay? Logan Paul laughed at the narrative that the fight had been delayed due to lack of interest, citing the fact that attention has been on the bout for a while now. Here's his quote. There hasn't been a fight that's made this much noise for the whole year. Bro, just releasing this shit went viral as fuck. He went on to explain that there are complications fighting someone of high caliber, but that the match is very much still a go.

The complications are that when you're dealing with someone like floyd who is the most desired highest paid fighter on the planet and he operates at a certain caliber and the people around him want to make sure their talent is performing at a certain level there are a lot of hoops to jump through but yeah no i'm still going to beat the shit out of floyd mayweather maybe he's going to beat the shit out of me. Who knows? But the point is, it's still going to happen. Look, that's not an encouraging response where I come from. What is he talking about that certain athletes of that caliber need to, is he trying to say that both guys need to cycle through a handful of horse tranquilizers?

What is happening now? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. I don't't know there were reports coming out that it had been canceled to your point to your part and so he had to address it i remember when they announced it remember like oh if you buy the pay-per-view now it's cheap and then the closer you get to it it'll get more expensive and that was a little bit curious thing we'll see how that goes and i remember folks asking me it's like wow did they change the game again and i'm like well we don't know we have to see what the results are like and then once the results are in we'll make an evaluation as to whether or not this was a successful model and by the way even if that model works out one time you got to see it a bunch of times before you can say whether it works or

whether it doesn't i don't know what the reason is three weeks out we're dude we're three weeks out and the only promotion for this fight has been, like, Floyd putting out an Instagram thing saying it's going to happen, right? Like, where's the press conference of those two arguing? Where's the footage of them training? Where is information on what network and where it's going to be held? Like, dude, you don't wait until three weeks before. Like, what?

You're telling me this thing's happening? Like, can I get a little bit of proof here? Yeah, and also, it's like maybe that business model where you buy early and then it gets more expensive late doesn't actually work. Again, we don't know. We have to see. But at least in this particular case,

maybe they're not getting the returns that they thought they were going to get because maybe they thought they were going to get a bunch of money on the front end, and that was how they were going to pay themselves, and now they don't have that. don't know but i am um i'll say this much if it doesn't happen bc the the world will still keep turning tomorrow it is okay did you see that floyd was in the uh tmz headlines for having uh become engaged with one of his

dancers at a girl collection no i did not did not. If that's the case, congratulations, Floyd, right? Sure. All right. Topic number four, and this is a bad one. I don't even know what to say about it anymore.

I mean, the guys had a number of issues, but BJ Penn, the former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion, has been arrested again and has been arrested for DUI, or allegedly DUI, obviously innocent until proven guilty. But there's video of it. You can see him.

He was driving a truck, and I guess he was on someone else's property, and then they called the cops on him. You've got to remember this guy is involved in a fraternity suit. He's got a number of other issues related to crimes resulting from violent action, resulting from drinking, fighting in public. He was arrested previously on suspicion of DUI when his car was crashed, I believe. So he has got, I mean, his life is a mess. I mean, let's just call it what it is. His life is a mess. And the guy needs help. Now credit to Eric Jackman, New York Rick is what they call him. I believe he was

a long time producer for Ariel Helwani. I think he does work at ESPN, but whatever the case, he was trying to take to social media being like, does anyone have any ideas about what we can actually do to help this guy? Because this is a slow motion train crash, BC. What can you even say about it at this point? That this transition to regular life is is obviously going horrifically and if it doesn't end soon from the standpoint of stepping in it's going to end

soon and that's sad so um we don't know obviously what ufc has attempted to do behind the scenes and they could be doing great attempts that have gone nowhere but if they haven't it is one million percent time ufc jumps and this is one of those situations if he doesn't want help what can they do you're right if he doesn't want to have help at the end of the day he's a he's an adult he's a grown man he's going to deal with the repercussions of of the laws he breaks and all that but when we talk about how they've paid certain fighters in the past even spencer fisher getting a you know behind the scenes hush hush monthly stipend this would be the situation where you take care of one of your all-time great warriors,

a guy who hung on way too long, and really, UFC kind of enabled that hanging on with allowing him to go on a run of like eight defeats in which everyone's saying, why is he fighting? And Dana's saying, I don't know, he keeps calling me, and it's just hard to say no. Maybe that was some form of charity from Dana to try to give him some paydays, but now it's the full-blown time to step in in a man's life. And, and, you know, if it's not the UFC, then those closest to him, because you know, it's going to end bad. You just hope it doesn't end bad. A and B, it doesn't take other people down with him. Cause we're at that point, Luke. I mean, look, I've, I've cracked a few nods

at, uh, you know, his unbeaten run in the parking lot of uh hawaiian establishments right now getting into fistfights but that's insanely sad that that is even happening i mean that that's you know that's where we're at here and now you get into dui territory you get into um look you get into the potential end game luke that is not uncommon in sports that have high rates of CTE, which can be suicide or murder. So let's try to get a handle. Or just crashing a car. Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of ways that this goes really bad. But now is the time to not fear anything.

And if you're close to him or if you're the UFC and you have an in, get there, get him, get him the best you can cleaned up and taken care of and provide some type of, you know, positive transition out of the fight game into the rest of his life. Because this seems right now, you know, maybe like some kind of avoidance of that, which is natural for anyone who has had such a high-profile run in something in which they're defined by that, and then it comes to an end. And, you know, I don't want that headline to pop up but we're at the point luke where it's it feels inevitable so uh uh yeah shout out to new york rick is there anything any of us can do i mean seriously like is there anything

like this guy is one of our heroes rightfully so like a an amazing foundational piece in what we do today right in this sport so please if there's anyone out there that can't do it, do it. I would add two things. One, I remember when, when these problems first began to emerge, it usually was revolved around fighting like fist fighting. And I remember being like, this is just how Hawaiians are. And it's like, yes, there might be a bit of a culture of, especially among the youth of men to, you know, handle disputes a little bit differently. But the idea that like doing that as a grown man after fighting, probably intoxicated, catching it on film,

because he's had a number of fights outside of strip clubs, outside the Lava Shack, which is just embarrassing to say. That's not what Hawaiians do. That's what dudes who are in trouble and have substance abuse problems do, number one. Number two, I remember when he had the fight, I think it was the rematch against St. Pierre, and it made for a killer sales line, which was, you know, birds fly, fish swim, I fight. And it was like, this is what I was born to do, this is all I know how to do, this is what I'm good at.

It's like, maybe in retrospect, I don't blame UFC for using it, it's not what I'm saying, but what I am saying is, maybe in retrospect, that was a bit of a red flag. If you define your identity as this is all you know how to do, you have a hard course correction coming. And you are looking at that in real time now. He does not know how to transition to any other part of his life and clearly has deep, profound issues of all different manner of uh who knows and also i just feel terrible for his kids you know as a brand is a relatively brand

new father you're a dad as well you know those kids need him in his life and he needs to be in their life and i'm sure on some level that he wants to be but in this state you really can't be you know it's just a it's a it's It's a tragedy. It's a legitimate tragedy. You're damn right. And I want to make a statement here. Me being close with Rashad Evans, having done a podcast and worked with him for years and such a genuine guy,

the stuff he says about the effectiveness and impact that psychedelic drugs can have on you from a medicinal standpoint, for PTSD, for all that, I mean, he's gone deep on it, whether it's been on Rogan or at times with me in the podcast, or if you just talk to him off camera. He's right on so many things.

You know, Rashad has been very open that what has made him successful as a fighter in his prime, Luke, was a lot of times suppressing pain from your youth, right? I mean, look, we always say fighters are different people, right? They're warriors. They're willing to go in there and, you know, risk danger and enjoy it and welcome it. And sometimes that's just, wow, there's this person who's really good at this one skill

and they want to test themselves on a world level. Then other times it's, you know, maybe they're a little sick or maybe they're running from something, you know, and Rashad to be able to say the level of humility and peace he found from going through that you know we're starting to see these type of uh you know controlled medicinal drug tactics being done with war veterans and with you know a lot of different people look fighters are war veterans in their own way so if this is something bj penn hasn't tried i know dana white has spoken out in in support of you know even ufc going in the direction of embracing this type of healing for

their ex-fighters, this would be a great time for that, Luke, because obviously there's some level, as what you said, some profound pain that may have ended up fueling BJ Penn's greatness, but certainly now it needs to be dealt with. Yeah, now it is. I hate to say it this way, BC, and I hope it doesn't come to this, but as it stands today, as we speak right now, it is expediting his demise. So I hope we can avoid that and have another course correction on the positive side. All right, last but not least, BC, this is a topic I know close to your heart because you still believe in the foolishness of boxing and its architecture. Joe Joyce is apparently going to fight Alexander Yusik.

Now, this is a big deal for a lot of reasons, not least of which, BC, which you can tell us is it has grand implications for your mega fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. Help set this up for us. So look, after Anthony Joshua won his mandatory defense against Kubrat Pulev to end 2020, you know, we were like, man, I cannot wait. Let's make Joshua Fury happen. But we didn't echo the same positivity or optimism that Eddie Hearn and Bob Arum had. Why?

Because they both had mandatory opponents in front of them. It looks like the powers that be are starting to work together to clear this up. Now, let's sort this out. The most immediate mandatory that was going to get in the way of this was the fact that Anthony Joshua needs to defend his WBO title against Alexander Usyk. If you don't remember him, he's Ukrainian. He's in the Lomachenko camp. He's a former decorated Olympian and amateur, and he won all four cruiserweight world title belts before moving up to heavyweight. He looked really good in that tough fight with Derek Tresora that he won, which was his first real heavyweight step up. Usyk has agreed to step aside, getting paid X amount of money to do that,

and part of his step aside plan to allow Anthony Joshua to defend the WBO title against Fury, which would make the first time a heavyweight championship fight in the four belt era had all four belts at stake to give us an undisputed champion. What Usyk would do is fight Joe Joyce, the unbeaten British heavyweight who had that long-awaited victory over Daniel Dubois in their fun fight a couple months back for the vacant or interim or whatever bootleg secondary WBO title which would essentially amount to they still have next this is a fantastic development now Fury still has a mandatory against was supposed to be Dillian White right But then White got knocked out by Povetkin.

There was some uncertainty of their rematch, which has been since postponed to this spring. Would the mandatory be at stake? It looks like that situation is clearing itself up as well. Luke, there were comments in the last 24 hours from Frank Warren, who's the co-promoter of Tyson Fury, along with Bob Arum, and from Eddie Hearn, who represents Joshua, that we are looking at June, maybe May, but most likely June, for the first of what would be a two-fight deal.

Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, all four titles at stake, and the sites, most likely the Middle East. I heard Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and some other places are in talks. And also the, quote, Far East. Now, I did hear at one point that Singapore was in play for this. Luke, if they can find a COVID-friendly place, if they can even model what UFC has done in Abu Dhabi, and they can find a spot where you can have X amount of fans, there's a generous site fee being paid from these countries saying, come get us.

Luke, it's time to make this fight. This is very encouraging news. We're almost in February. If this fight is three, four months away in May, dude, this is what we've been waiting for, right? This heavyweight renaissance of fun, playable characters who all want to fight each other. Well, now we're down to the finals of this tournament, and it's

Joshua and Fury. I think it's going to happen, Luke. I think it's going to freaking happen. So why don't you get off your boxing sucks soapbox, alright? And why don't you get ready to enjoy this, Luke, okay? I'll tell you what, if it happens in May or June, even let's say summer, I'll grant summer,

I will dial back some of my cynicism about boxing. The sport itself is wonderful the architecture is a mess I was thinking about it the other day BC part of the reason why I've been like what do I want for fighters in MMA do I want the Aliak to be extended

do I want a union is because you're trying to figure out what's the best remedy for their situation and I don't know what the answer is in totality but I have to tell you based on some of the things that I've been experiencing in boxing as a return to covering it, I am more and more leaning towards getting a union because you would still have the ability for the UFC to make

the fights in conjunction with the fans' interest. You start doing the things that boxing is doing, it's going to get pretty hard, I feel like, over time. So, with that being said, you know this better than I do. By a million miles, I would never suggest otherwise if you think it's going to happen in june great but it has this entire episode has forced me to

rethink what kind of industry we should have in mma and i think fans should think about that as well and one more thing if you remember a couple months back when luke and i first had this talk about after the joshua win of could this fight happen what are the hurdles one other thing i said luke was hold on joshua fights DAZN last time I checked, right? Fury fights for ESPN. That's a male and female end that don't connect. One's pay-per-view, one is streaming. But I think we saw when Canelo made that comeback

against Callum Smith on DAZN, and they secretly sort of announced that bundle pay-per-view plan, which was buy this pay-per-view for regular price, get four months of DAZN with it it showed you that that's a smart pivot by DAZN knowing that yes they still want to be this they're not doing the we killed pay-per-view anymore right that was that was kind of uh ill-advised but they're still doing the streaming model but they were allowing themselves to be able to work with

other networks to do the two network pay-per-view deal which again was something you know for the last 20 years that outside of like Lennox Lewiswis mike tyson and mayweather pacquiao was something that just wasn't done you gotta be happy luke that we've seen it done now with uh fury and wilder in the rematch and if we can see it done here with fury and joshua hopefully this really makes things like spence and in uh crawford not fighting uh you know just close the gap on that shit let's fight get the network all right luke enough talk about bye people already have the time stamp so they can skip past this part you know what oh all right before we get into the wednesday uh wheel of death very quickly i wanted everyone to know the biggest sporting spectacle

of the year is nearly upon us we know everyone loves making their picks no matter if you're a diehard fan or just tuning in for the big game. So we think you'll absolutely love this opportunity. Enter the CBS Sports Football Props game for your chance to compete for the $1 million jackpot. That's right, $1 million if you answer correctly all of the questions and a guaranteed 50 grand to the winner and you can win all that money without risking anything football props is free to play just visit cbssports.com slash props plural to download the cbs sports app to enter wow so if you get them all right luke you win a million but somebody's gonna win at least 50k not bad that's a little bit of cheddar luke i know you're you're swimming in it these days i've seen you uh order copious amounts of takeout and not even touch it so uh

you know that's not a factor for you but uh our fans our listeners here can really cash in luke okay uh that's certainly true all right time for the wheel of death bc take it over all right this is what we do uh when you have an ornery co-host who only wants to talk about the things that he wants to talk about once a week you can pin them down put them in the electric chair i mean we make the rundown collectively together every single episode but okay you can feed the audience lies that's fine so here's how the wheel of death works we spin the black circle five times every week there are 10 categories it's all random what we get here. Luke does not know the questions coming his way.

Can we look at the 10 categories for this week's Wheel of Death? Blah, blah, blah. I love the new animation. It looks good. Yeah, we got talented fools on this show. I love it. All right, Luke, your 10 categories this week are used car salesman wrestle fuck back in time sneaky sneaky virgin eyes oh lord uh we have the full screen there

i've lost my uh i've lost my spot on the notes butt stuff luke okay but used car salesman's gonna be one of them what are we doing here put the wheel back up uh hold on yeah my my notes are uh not well organized here luke if you can just give me there we go virgin eyes ketchup on steak young jay check and And Latin or Hispanic. Also, Luke, French-Canadian lips. And a return for the third straight week. Butt stuff. Yes, Luke.

Yes. Take the plunge. Spin the black circle. It's time to die. All right, let's spin this bitch. Let's do it. Come on, butt stuff. I hope it ends up on Latin. Used car salesman.

Used car salesman right off the bat here. All right, Luke, here we go. Let's say you're Luke Thomas, okay? You're 21 years old, Luke. You're just fresh off an Olympic gold medal in boxing at the Tokyo Games, but you're you. You're Luke Thomas, all right? You announce that you're

going to turn pro which boxing promoter would you personally sign with and why luke oh 21 it ain't gonna be golden boy i can tell you that there's oscar de la jolla of golden boy eddie hearn of matchroom sport bob arum of top rank um you got you know Al Heyman of the PBC, although not really promoted, but a managerial group that uses different promoters. You've got Frank Warren in England. I would probably go, I know Bud Crawford would laugh at this. I'd probably go old-ass Bob Arum because of the ESPN connection. I feel like for Teofimo Lopez, it's been incredibly helpful at this stage of his young career

to get the kind of exposure that he's gotten. It would depend on who else was in the weight class, I suppose, you know, what kind of fights you're going to get. But between Arum sort of understanding, I think, you know, he knows boxing. What are you going to say? Bob doesn't know boxing? And the ESPN connection, i would go that direction i know that sounds crazy but i would i would do it bc i would do it yeah they have well look they got one of the best tv deals and

they have the old school top rank matchmakers which i mean look they they are experts you know whether you're talking about bruce trampler call moretti brad good and brad jacobs i mean these guys uh have raised many a guy oscar de la joya floyd mayweather and beyond you know they know how to match them they know how to prepare them so that's an interesting one i thought you were gonna go eddie hearn for you know because he's the slickest of the used car salesmen these days he makes you want to buy that lemon right no no i like him but he's you is so... Bob is like, Bob will just tell you uncomfortable truths to your face, you know? Hearn still kind of likes to lie for fun.

I'm over that. All right, all right. You can get high with Bob, too. All right, Luke, let's spin it a second time. Really hoping for butt stuff here. Here we go. Spin that bitch. Come on, Latin. Oh, fucking hell. spin that bitch come on latin

oh fucking oh sneaky sneaky luke over the past two years it seems as if the calf kick has become the most dangerous and fights changing strike in mma that was seemingly beneath our noses this whole time it makes you wonder what other seemingly innocuous strikes could potentially be as game-changing to start a new revolution luke i want to ask if you think there's a strike that hasn't been elevated to this level but i want to give you my i want to throw you out my take here luke how about the heart punch? I mean, you know, we've seen it before in pro wrestling. We haven't seen it.

Look, five years ago, I said, Luke, the strike that's going to change the world is going to be me kicking you on the outside of your calf. You'd been like, yeah, right, brother. All right, it's going to be some Uma Jaga here. Can we throw to the tape? There has been a history of success here with the heart punch. Can we, Maniche, can you fire that up? Look at this guy, a young, mean Mark

Callis who went on to become the Undertaker. Luke, when he would raise people's arms and land a pointed shot right to the heart, Luke, they almost died. This was a punch that was outlawed in pro wrestling back in the Ox Baker days. Well, Luke, this is a little bit more thematic and ridiculous here.

Is there something to it? What if I line a guy up right in the damn ticker and punch him as hard as I can? Won't that throw off the rhythm of the night? I mean, won't that do anything? No? This is the saddest shit I've ever seen. Look at how they react to that. Oh, yeah.

Look, you get that hard off schedule, right? You're going to F up somebody's body. It's going to be... I mean, look, as ridiculous as that sounds, the left hook to the liver in boxing and sometimes in MMA is an equalizing shot, is it not? Yes. Okay.

So give me something here. What have we not discovered? The liver is surrounded by nerves in ways that the heart is not. Plus, the heart is protected by a series of muscles and other kinds of both soft and hard tissue. Plus, the heart isn't even really here. It's much more towards the center. Would you let me punch you in the heart as hard as I can on camera to prove this theory? Yeah, you don't punch very hard.

I don't mind that. All right, in all seriousness for the spirit of this question, Luke, is there something that really hasn't been exploited yet that could change the game on the same level? Think about it. Boz Rutten has sort of believed

that rather than going for a left hook to the liver, you go for a right hook to the spleen, and that that might actually be not quite as damaging, but you could do something with it. I tend to think that rather than strikes, people use the guillotine for a long time, and then it came out of favor, but then they figured out how to do it better,

and it got back into favor. There's been things I've seen like that, but I don't have enough striking prowess to know about the hidden Dim Mak fucking strike of the ancients to bring it back. That's a little bit beyond my pay grade big guy all right all right i don't know it's it's really interesting luke i mean we've seen john jones get away with those little short kicks to the knee that some fighters think is just

kind of immoral will we end up getting to a point where people are really willing to risk ruining their opponent's career by just straight up side kicking them in the side of the knee luke i mean this is a longer debate to have but if there was a lot of evidence that that kick did that then you would want to outlaw it but the evidence doesn't really make you conclude that so there's no reason to all right i'd like to see andrage start a new revolution of pile driving people on top of their head that's a pretty tough thing to get past i think that is actually illegal all right now you don't want to get to the the 12 to 6 drop on the pile driver. Got it.

All right, Luke, let's get back to the wheel before the segment disappears for the rest of our show. Let's see here, Luke. Come on. Give me something good here. Spinning, spinning, spinning. Oh, Jesus. None of the categories I wanted. Wrestle fuck time, Luke.

After Habib Nurmagomedov and kamaru usman right now who do you think is the best functional wrestler in all of mixed martial arts uh that's not the question below us i can tell you that all right here there we go that one up all right after we just yeah um frankie eggers pretty good he's pretty good um obviously in his time saint pierre was fucking amazing uh who am i thinking about here it like bantamweight who's like a really good functional wrestler um so hudo when he needed it which he didn't really he didn't have that identity as such but when he needed it it was really there for him i mean that was one of the big reasons he was able to defeat demetrius johnson folks forget that it wasn't strictly strictly a matter of the attacking

on the feet um oof uh logan storley's pretty good, I'd probably go something like that. But Cejudo's kind of retired, isn't he? Oh, you know what? Maybe Curtis Blades. Curtis Blades gets out there and makes some shit happen, doesn't he? That is a great point. He uses it, leans on it. Do you throw guys like Demian Maya in there who are more submission grappling,

but their whole game is still to take you down and keep you there? Yeah, but it's not really wrestling. It's a little bit different. It's, you know, in the end, they want similar kinds of positions, but it's not, it's just hard to call that wrestling for that reason, so I would go with Blades.

I mean, I still go back to Blades. Dude, that finish he had of Overeem with those elbows on top, oh my god, I thought Overeem's career was going to be over after that. Those were hellacious. Obviously Volkov was able to withstand it, but yeah, dude, people sleep on old Curtis Blades. Curtis Blades will wrestle your shit into the dirt.

So I'll go with that. All right. Luke, two more spins of this ridiculous wheel left. Here we go. If we don't see Latins on this, I'm going to be super fucking bitter, but go ahead. Hey, it's a random chain of events here, Luke, okay? We don't know what's going to come up next. Back in time.

Oh, back in time. Great documentary by one Jason Aaron. Luke, get your gigawatts ready. It's time to jump into the DeLorean, but I want you to take me back not to 1985, to 2016. The moment Conor McGregor knocked out eddie alvarez became a simultaneous two division champion and then walked away from the sport in the peak of his prime luke let's say conor mcgregor had never gotten the floyd mayweather fight and let's say after pausing for the birth of conor jr in the spring of 2017 that he came back to a regular fighting schedule what would his 2017 to 2019

have looked like can you take me back here luke what's the best guest on potential opponents weight classes results what do you ever sit down and think this guy walked away when he had the most potential money in the bank so to speak from finishing people getting any fight he wants he's on top of the sport what happens next luke man it's hard to say exactly i definitely feel like i i believe there would have been a correction on him no matter what at some point like he was on a hot streak that culminated ufc 205 that was not gonna last no matter what it just wasn't gonna happen but if he had stayed there um i don't know exactly would he have tried to go for

a third title in a third weight class i honestly believe that he would have tyron woodley would have been your champion at that point in 17 and they did have history backstage at that way in that one time who woodley remember woodley and connor had they mouthed off face to face backstage at a weigh-in and connor's like you know keep it up I'll come up to your weight class and take your title too so I think he would have tried for that probably would not have gone well but I think he would have done it um but I think he would have had some nice wins over everybody else too you know it's just eventually if you would stay at the top you were gonna fight Habib and you were never gonna beat him he was just way way too advanced for his skill set as it relates to everything that we know already.

So to me, it's like he would have played around with the BMF stuff. He would have played around with weight classes. But at some point, you were staring down the barrel of a Habib gun. You were going to eat that one no matter what. Well, here's what's interesting. When you and I were going through his career in the resume review clip we last week is that the the moment he finally toppled the featherweight mountain against aldo his next move was to like you said f around and try lightweight and go up and try to fight rda which led to two welterweight fights against nate um let's not forget that when connor

got the eddie alvarez fight habib got. In fact, that's when he publicly was like, maybe I'll move up to Walter Wade, or maybe if the UFC doesn't give me the title fight, you know, I'll never fight in Moscow for them. I'll never help them bring MMA to Russia. I mean, look, this was like a, you couldn't deny Khabib any longer is really my point here, Luke.

So could Conor have saw that end game? Or would he have been riding such a high level of success that in his mind, who the hell's Habib? I'll knock him out too. I mean, I don't know. Could you have seen him fighting Woodley next and losing, and then maybe going for a trilogy with Nate, and maybe staying out of that lightweight title picture, and getting stripped, and seeing Habib fight Tony in an alternate universe and start his run? I mean, I don't think we would have had the dolly through the window.

It would have been a completely different ride, Luke. But your point is key, though. Eventually, Habib's standing there, whether you're going to give up the title or fight him. Habib, excuse me, Conor was always about escalation. It's a great point that Chuck Mendenhall has always made, which is why in some ways maybe the fight with Mayweather was some kind of weird inevitability. It sounds crazy to say, but where do you go after winning those two

titles? So if you take out that as a possibility and he would have had to stay in MMA or something like that, where else do you go? You go another weight class, you go, Jesus, I don't know, co-promoting with fucking Bellator. I mean, I don't know where you go other than just crazy extremes on other ends. But, you know, to the extent you wanted to maintain any relevance at lightweight, you were going to have to fight Habib. And it wasn't going to go your way. It's just the reality of things. Some kind of correction I do think is and was inevitable.

That it went the way that it's going now. And, you know, we've always talked about it. All he knows is escalation. Can he de-escalate to then rebound? That's sort of the predicament he finds himself in today. Very interesting debate and chat there, Luke. One more time on the wheel. Let's hope for big Latina booty.

Is that on there? I'll take Latin women for one. I didn't see that as an explicit category, which I feel like is racism for me. Oh, Latin or Hispanic would be in your wheelhouse if you can only land it luke god of course not of course i got none of the fucking categories i wanted there's always next week luke if this segment survives uh we'll let the people decide luke this is very easy i want to talk about your origin days as an mma fan what was the first ufc

fight that you can remember watching what was the circumstances give us your origin story here luke this one's very easy there was a blockbuster that was on barracks row in washington dc it was one of the summers i was living with my father and uh we had a family friend who was like hey you're never going to believe this there is a um there's this brazilian guy who's choking everybody out he was a he had his own martial arts school of something in you know a korean martial art and uh he's like let's go to blockbuster and it was this one it's just it's now a grocery store right on barracks row but at the time it was that so we went there we rented a bunch it was ufc4 ufc4 was the first one i saw

um and then i went backwards all one two and, two and three. And of course, you know, not all of those were went Hoist's way because of the chemo fight. But in general, that was how I started. And then I had a long skip, but then picked it back up again, a little bit in the Marine Corps, trained in the Marine Corps martial arts program, which is not that great. But you know, it was something to get busy again. And then I did a little bit of judo in college not much and then when i got out that's when i uh and i moved to dc after living in new york for a time that's when i decided to uh to eventually uh begin to train in a more serious way um and then at that point this was 2004 so this was pre-ultimate fighter but i sort of kept up with a little bit but ufc4

ufc4 was the first one luke that's also my first ufc because of the ridiculousness of the joe son keith hackney fight got my grandfather to laugh until he cried and i'm like i gotta see what this crazy cage fighting thing is all about um do you where were you in terms of your knowledge or respect of like martial arts at that point were you like what i'm saying is when you tuned into ufc4 and you rented that video was it just was it for the same reason i was that like i was watching faces of death the week before and now you're gonna tell me that there's organized fighting i just want to see somebody lose an eye were you in that mold or were you like oh i gotta see if the jujuts can beat the uh one glove yeah i mean faces of Death was the biggest letdown as a kid ever.

All those fake, phony deaths that you're like, this is supposed to be real, and none of them were ever fucking real. I hated those movies. I kept trying to find a real death, but you never got one. So yes, it was that stage. And I mean, listen, we talked about this. You grew up in that era where I think I was around 14 or 15 at the time. You grew up in the 80s. You grew up around the Van Dams and also action heroes like Schwarzenegger,

but then the guys who bridged them like a Seagal. All that stuff was big and popular at the time. Mortal Kombat had been out. Street Fighter had been out. Street Fighter II, I think, had come out at that point as well. There was just a real culture of fighting in terms of entertainment for young men. And then this came out out and it was like, you know,

you just, it was no bullshit about it whatsoever. And for me, the real big key was the guy who was telling us this had done a little bit of grappling, not much, but was a trained in martial arts. Like that was what his life was about.

And even he was like, you got to see this guy. So I had this like validation from somebody who was in the industry, so to speak, but not a part of that particular world. And even he was like guy is a sight to behold so i just had you know one of those real red pill moments where you watch hoist choke out some you know giant fat fuck and you're like oh my god this is amazing well i'd love to push you with for more questions on rob thomas's history of viewing ufc but we don't have time we have too too many fan submissions. Just know, Luke, at the end of the day, you're Blockbuster.

I'm Netflix, brother. Did you see Blockbuster's stock today? No, I did not. It's up like 600% because of these donks trying to bankrupt the minority owner of the Mets. All right. All these homeless cats. Yeah. Okay.

Let's roll on here. Let's move on, Luke. We can't. Let's do it. Time for fan submissions BC What do we have on this lovely Wednesday This is what we do We open up the DM's We open up the email

It's morningcombat at gmail.com Is the preferred destination Or you can DM me We got artwork, we got fan pics We got all that good stuff This is a bloated loaded edition. Let's do it It starts with somebody on Instagram who calls himself art is not a crime. Yeah, it's a guy after my heart Luke This is not a picture or anything. This is just a message you DM me

He says on the latest room service diaries you mentioned third bassist song the gas face Which is off their first album the cactus album he this i did not know this look this is illuminating he says that track features zev love x from kmd zev love x went on to become mf mf doom not fm doom as bc would say who you had no idea about meaning me when we were talking about it uh Passing on MK. Just thought I'd point that out. Doom is next level. You should check him out.

Love the show, BBC. Luke, that's wild. Full circle, right? That's cool. Well, where's the fan submission? The submission was the illumination of that fact, Luke. It's not necessarily a dead wrong. It's just, you know, you and I could have been hanging out long, like years ago, you know? I mean're you love this guy p.m dawn or whatever his name is and he was singing in one of my favorite

tracks luke okay so take that all right let's get to the actual artwork wow sorry luke's got another job to get to uh lee c says hello from taiwan took me two months to get this shirt via texas and tokyo but here's a picture of me and Luke behind me. There was no room for the co-host. Stay frosty is what Lee C ends the message with. Luke, this guy, you know, he fills out that shmedium pretty well, right? And also Taiwan has beaten COVID like no one has.

They have open air concerts. You can do whatever the fuck you want over there because their government is actually a functioning and responsible one. So shoutouts to this maskless man he gets to enjoy the covid war of the years without having to worry about covid must be nice so you're saying if lee c was named french canadian mayor for a day you would be willing to uh to kiss him on the mouth because he's covid free right uh i wouldn't go to that length but you know maybe a nice dap okay all right let's go over to callum b he says attached is a picture of my holidays mk routine over the holiday period i

started drinking martinis and i timed it to when mk would go live so cheers guys congrats on all of the success this year and happy new year callum b in the house luke uh my man's got some drinking issues which i consider to be in this particular case adorable but don't let him get out of fucking control jesus christ is a martini a manly drink in your eyes luke i think knowing how to make a martini is okay it's got like old world like like uh you know 1950s new york city vibes right yeah the problem is now they've got like you know cucumber teenies or apple teenies and those have turned into you know the kind of drinks that annoying girls that you dated in high school uh or you know i guess not in high school but you know or whatever. That's what they order. But I think knowing how to make a real Manhattan is a legit skill.

All right. Our friend Mateo W. is sliding in. He says, no better way to celebrate my 21st birthday than going tip to tip with my girlfriend with a view of the Sydney Opera House. This guy, Mateo, yes, right? And they got the matching robeses this dude is living the life right here I mean he's going tip to tip with the beautiful specimen he's he's enjoying MK life he's looking out at me we call is that what we call women now this beautiful you know specimen

creature for a copulation this vixen yeah no that's no no no her too okay her too all right shout out to mateo and plus one plus one brother all right anthony s is here luke luke your front yard gym inspired my basement gym being a hillbilly in the arctic hell of wyoming i built a power rack bought mats and found weights that were used got them for less than 500 into everything and have about 400 pounds in weights your thoughts Luke my man is doing it right that's a real power rack you can do a lot with that um is it wood it looks wood or just stained in a wood looking color yeah if it's if it wood, I don't know exactly how sturdy it is, but if it's steel or something close to it,

or I guess it depends on the kind of wood or whatever, he's got it right. He's got safety bars on there. He's got a real barbell. He's got, I mean, you dude, with this right here, if you know what you're doing, you can do just about every exercise

you could ever need to. Well done, good sir. We have fans in Wyoming. Shout out to that uh wilfredo m is here he says luke thanks for the suggestion of the thomas pink shirts they are awesome i feel like i should pay homage to brokeback mountain so introducing brokeback combat from wilfredo here luke your thoughts bro i had so many people reach out to me who got like crazy deals on Thomas Pink shirts. They tried them all on and they loved it.

That has to be one of my best tips, BC. Would you like to see Mateo's lady in front of the opera house wearing just one of those Thomas Pink shirts? You don't have to be weird. Every episode you can choose to be normal. Just asked you a simple question, jerk. All right. At River Kitty Ransom on IG, he shares a morning comeback merch post. He said it's been tough to get out with the vid, but he bought the MK shirt.

He's got it on, and he went out and has been, you know, we say, tell your friends. He has been passing on the love of MK. He got a bunch of his friends to watch our 257 reaction show, spreading the word. We've seen his cats before on this show. But shout out to River Kitty Ransom with the MK merch. Love it. Love it. And NBC.

He's got the mask on above his nose and over his mouth. No ball condoms on this good, sir. And he's an Asian fella. And he said he's not mad at me over the JMMA debacle. So shout out to that guy. I found one that wasn't. All right. Peter R. has a selfie with a recently purchased Morning Combat beanie.

Looking good, friend. I know, but could you put more accessories on that phone? Jesus Christ. Looks like Roxanne Malafari's fighting gear. Yeah, what is going on here? Dude, he's got like a credit card holder, the little thing that you use to clip between your fingers, some other, like a case and some other bullshit on the front.

Like, my man, just have a phone. Big fan of Peter R. He's a regular in these parts. Yeah, I love it. Love it. Nice shirt as well. Nathan V is making his first appearance here. He had a UFC 257 party over the weekend, Luke,

and to get fired up for McGregor's return, he had morning combat on the big screen there. You got to love that. That looks, dude, the studio, man, I'm telling you, it was such a different vibe. I was so glad to get back there, and I think the fans really appreciated it as well. So, shouts to this good dude. Luke, I believe there are talks being had of, you know, how do we get back there, Luke?

How do we get back there? Because the chemistry was so next level that the people above, they realized it, Luke, okay? They realized it. How could you not, is what I'm saying. How do you think Nathan reacted to Conor's loss here? I mean, he bought balloons for this fight. Yeah, the tricolor ones as well. He probably had a bit of a meltdown, but that's okay.

Yeah, he was probably drunk. That's great, though. Hey, Ben C. says, I, he only learns from the best. I don't know what that means, but Ben C. and his buddy, Luke, they're touching tips here, bro. This is an MK-approved handshake. Yes. Yeah, we have really unleashed stupidity on the world.

This is our fault in every way imaginable. All right. Thank you, Ben C. Appreciate that. We have three posts from a fellow named Alex K. The first one says, Brian, long-time MMA fan as well as weekly morning combat viewer and avid supporter, had the blessing of my first child brandon lewis klein and i was watching max holloway's awe-inspiring performance on the

same day in the delivery room of course i did all of this in my ungodly comfortable mk shirt my wife got me for christmas long live the mk throne long live us donks. Here are a trio of pictures of Alex K and his lovely wife who gave birth to Brandon Lewis Klein. Luke, what a way to bring somebody into this world. The miracle of life, MK in the house, Holloway cater on the screen, Alex K living large. Incredible. I remember this day when my daughter was born, like it was yesterday. It's a beautiful time. I know my man Alex is not sleeping right now. I can tell you living large incredible i remember this day when my daughter was born like it was yesterday it's a beautiful time i know my man alex is not sleeping right now i can tell you that but um you know to be that kind of a fan of the sport of this podcast the show this movement and for his

wife she appears to be in great spirits as well congratulations to them folks man they're doing life correctly bc yes thank you very much. A lot of names were in play he could have named for the child. Ocean was one of them. He goes Brandon Lewis. Very strong name, so a big fan of that. All right. Luke, got to bring back our friends, Bill and Jen's RV Adventures on Instagram.

Luke, they hit up Hollywood. Not only did Jen wear the MK t-shirt, but she went tip to tip with the sign. That's on brand, brother. Dude, these people are living the world's best life. It is out of control how awesome their life is. Shouts to these fine Americans right here. They tried to go, and you can follow them, by the way, at Bill and Jen's RV Adventures if you care.

They tried to go to the comedy store yesterday, Luke, but it was closed, unfortunately, because of COVID. But hopefully they can watch The Doc for 30 days free on Showtime. Brendan Chobb's in that. Luke, also Bill and the Dogs had a nice pick. If we can advance the slide, Maniche. There we go. This guy always looks great.

He did want me to let you know, Luke, that he is retired. Okay, I know you were speculating of his job situation here. But he takes care of the RV. The wife wins the bread. Everybody's happy okay that's a great that's a good i'm telling you they're living this is this is how it is done right here these two have figured out the key to life god bless them love you guys thank you so much all right oliver 46 underscore 2 on twitter on twitter came in he says if luke thomas and

brian campbell was a couple this is what they would look like. She's Brian, and I'm Luke. Also, I'm showing a little shop love with the fighter and the kid hat. Hey, well done here. Dude, what? I mean, they're in a place where people are like, man, fuck COVID. I don't give a fuck about no COVID. They're at a Proud Boys reunion here.

No, just kidding, just kidding. Can you hear my daughter screaming bloody murder? They're at a Proud Boys reunion here. No, just kidding. Just kidding. Can you hear my daughter screaming bloody murder? Yeah, she's probably not a fan of Oliver's tattoo, but I love this guy. Wearing the MK merch, representing Schaub, and he's got a fun little bit going with the wife. We got great people that watch our show, Luke. Certainly do. All right.

Matt S. is back. He says, Brian Campbell finally gets a gas station sponsor for his trilogy bout with Luke Thomas. After getting slept in the first five seconds of round one, Brian would go on to land a commentating role for rival promotion Risen. Look at this little thing here, Luke. What is going on? This is my advertisement? So obviously I'm Roy Nelson. Which one are you?

Is that JDS? Is that JDS? With the hot dog in your right hand? Oh, yeah. Always makes time for a premium shell hot dog. Let me ask you a question. When was the last time, be honest, when was the last time you had a legitimate

footlong hot dog? It's been pretty long. Like, legitimate. Like, ordered the damn footlong. Been pretty long, Luke. I don't even remember the last time. I get the little ones. It's probably like the last time I went to, like,

a minor league baseball team game or something like that. Great call. I went to the Dunkin' Donuts Park in Hartford. They got the damn, what do you call them? The damn goats. The Hartford Yard Goats game. Went got the damn, what do you call them? The damn goats. The Hartford Yard Goats game. Went with the wife and kids. Got free tickets.

Bought the footlong. You're damn right I did, Luke. Okay? Yes. All right. What is she yelling, Luke? She wants to see her uncle who's downstairs. And he's busy with work.

And so she's just saying, Pepe, Pepe. Uncle Pepe, thank you. All right, all right luke we're gonna keep don't be racist uh luke uh we eduardo's back uh filming this he took our have you seen the shit bit from monday and added your lt serious rant meet bc's ball jokes there it is look it's just like every time like fucking clockwork you just come barging Ah, here's my balls and dicks. Let's talk about it right here. I've learned to get out of the way of art, Luke, and just let it happen. Yeah.

Is this art or is this just drunk rednecks? Which is it? It's close. It's at Tachiki on Twitter. T-O-C-H-I-Q-I. He's back here with BC the Artist. Ooh, look, is that art? Are we art?

And you have a beret on, and I'm some sort of phallic object? That sounds about right. That's pretty well done there. I guess I'm Bob Ross, right? That's, well, that's, yeah. Probably both have the same things in our... By the way, my wife had never heard of him. All right.

I put on Bob Ross on the TV. I'm like, this guy's amazing, right? She's like, why are you watching some white dude with a fro from the 70s? I'm like, you don't know who Bob Ross is? She's like, never seen him in my life. I'm like, holy fuck. You got to watch it. So we watched a full episode.

And she was like, so he's just a guy who does a painting per episode? I'm like, yeah, but the care and the delicacy. He always comes out with something nice. She goes, are any of his paintings in the art galleries i go no so she just left she'd be a much bigger fan of my art luke i believe that all right i don't i don't think she's a fan of your art but go ahead we got a message here from muhamer and he says luke put me through the ringer during the last Dead Wrong, claiming he never said Ronaldo. Oh, my fucking God.

That is not the phone. No. Dude, these people do not have listening comprehension skills. It is out of control. You'll have your chance to speak. He says, even though I sent the exact timestamps to the producers where he did so, he did not seem to accept it. Therefore, I have decided to produce a little video

and see Mr. Thomas' reaction to this. Tell Karen not to swear as much in the future. Thanks a lot. Let's see what Muhamer has to say here. Here's the defense from one of our viewers. Luke says Ronaldo or Honaldo, I guess as they would say in Brazil, as if trying to imply Ronaldo is Brazilian the Brazilian fucking dick I never said Cristiano fucking Ronaldo was fucking Brazilian no fucking

way no fucking fuck you fuck you to whoever wrote that with this bullshit that I don't know Cristiano Ronaldo is from fuck Fuck you. No chance. No chance, Lance. Pronounce it as if he was from Brazil. I've never, I've literally, in the entirety of my life, BC, I have never called Cristiano Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo has, or Ronaldo, I guess as they would say in Brazil, has 253 million.

Yeah, he'd have a shitload. In the entirety of my life, BC, I have never called Cristiano Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Ronaldo, I guess, or Ronaldo, I guess, or Ronaldo, I guess. Here's the defense from one of our viewers. Look. Okay, hold on.

Two responses. Hold on,. Okay, hold on. Two responses. He does shit on you. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You said I'd have a chance to speak. Let me speak. Two things. The original charge was that I said he was Brazilian, which was obviously manufactured, total fake news, not real at all.

That's not what they were saying. That's not what they were saying. Look at the bottom of the screen. BC, BC, please let me finish. The bottom of the screen said,, BC, please let me finish. The bottom of the screen said, Ronaldo is Portuguese, Luke, as if I am confused about his nationality. I think that's Mikey who did that.

That was an incorrect lower third. Mikey fucked that up, because obviously that is so not true. The second part is, I'm going to do this. I want to see, go back to the timestamp, because he cuts it off real suspiciously. I've never said he was Ronaldo. As if he was Brazilian, they cut it off here, edited it selectively.

That's not the full clip. I am not confused about how to pronounce his name or where he is from. Y'all keep trying to do this and I'm going to find that fucking episode. BC, just do me this. Do me this solid. If I come back and I show you that he selectively edited it, will you finally agree that I'm the fucking king shit around here? Right now, you're squatting over an L right now, and it's penetrating you.

By the way, we can hear the echo. We can hear the echo. Echoes, Maniche. So, Luke, I mean, look, I think you're at best defense. You still need to take the L. Muhamer was right, but your best defense you still need to take the L but your best defense is to say I wasn't saying it's pronounced Ronaldo I was just saying if we were in Brazil

it would be pronounced that is obviously what I am saying that is so quite fucking obviously what I am saying okay that's fair you're back in the game there I'm going to find the end of that tape because he suspiciously edited the end there but we'll see okay you know for another day another day well done muhamer yes all right uh this is from stank face maximus on ig and this is bc finally getting in that choke, Luke. Tap or nap, bro. Your choice. Who is this being actually choked out?

I don't know. Who's black and jacked and has tiny nipples? Carlos Newton, maybe? Maybe. All right. Thank you. Luke, I like that. Thank you.

I'm going to frame that. Thank you. Okay. you um luke uh that's that's what that's i like that thank you i'm gonna frame that thank you okay raise muse on instagram in response to the discussion we had about the new four kings of boxing or maybe the five if you include shakur stevenson this guy raise muse is very talented here luke you put together this nice piece of artwork he's also now got this as an animated thing you can see shakur stevenson ryan garcia you can see uh teofimo lopez you can see all the guys here who we're talking about devin haney might have next gervonta davis uh i love that look i'd wear that t-shirt okay thank you it looks nice i agree yeah he's a talented fella

all right looks like paul felder in the upper left hand corner but it's lomachenko by the way did you see the post he put out on social media? Lomachenko, no. Yeah. He edited the fight with Lopez to make it look like he was the winner. He just edited all the parts he did well. And obviously he did well in long stretches of the fight. But all the people in the comments were kind of mixed.

It was like, yeah, you won this fight. And the other one's like, yeah, if you edit out all the times you fucking lost, of course you won. Well, there's going to be no defense for the fact that he gave away the first half of the fight but his point was that he thought the announced team and the compu box punchers and he got into a big argument with dan kenobi of compu box that they were missing the fact that he was just getting out of the way of the punches over and over as the announced team was like nice left hand from teofimo so i think there's probably a you's probably some level of what he's saying is correct, that maybe he didn't get hit with as many as we thought clean.

But, Luke, when you don't throw back for six rounds, you can't win, bro. Right. Yeah, of course. Yeah, all right. All right, this is a cover of a Bob Dylan album brought to us by 115th Dream on Instagram. Luke, this is supposed to be the cover of bob dylan's bringing bringing it all back home and it says luke in bc making it look easy love this love this thank you i am looking in bad shape here yeah you're a woman in a red dress so uh yes the probably on the yes

looking with a tank abbott face. Very true right there. Great work by our people. Okay, Kevin L. is here with a Mortal Kombat remake. What is this going to be? Baraka Combo. Not bad. I'm into this. I'm into this.

Tyler K. has a pair of them. The first one is Grumpy Old Men, MK style. Yep. All three are Luke Thomas, by the way. Yep, I noticed. And Grumpy Old Man. And the second one is The Dong Father. Fat Lance.

I would like to announce to everyone that I no longer wish to be called fat by the angry commentator, so I'm doing something about it. Thank you. You'll see changes, right? Listen, when we both lose the weight, they can SRDs, but we have to take our lumps until then. Yes, hold on, though it is. Okay, Manny came in, and he says,

Luke doing his best Rachel Nichols impression on the UFC 257 review show with his 40- minute long monologue. Apparently they're not used to the fact that I used to do these by myself for well over an hour. And by the way, what am I supposed to do if you're not around? But OK, make more stupid points. That's fine. All right. Nice curves, Luke.

I like that. OK, Luke, the insiders are here, and they say Luke has some competition. This is more have you seen this shit than anything. He's cheating on those hammer curls. Yeah, not quite full range of motion there, BC. That's not his front yard, but it is a public parking lot. All right. Tasos the Greek. Wow, another Greek fan.

He says, tonight's show was a blast. Thanks, guys. Can we go full screen, please, Maniche? Burps on air. Yawns on air. Savages. That was a very ill-timed burp, Luke. You, on the other hand with with yawns or any any part of your body you're just you just flaunt it luke yeah i think you were making a

point that i didn't care about but yeah all right i was probably asking you a very detailed question as to which you were looking down at your email and yeah all right uh richard email All right. Richard A. Richard A. comes back with Lucas Freddie Mercury here on this reface app. Oh, God. I mean, you thought Freddie Mercury was ugly before. At least he fixed his overbite. Wow. That is great. That is is fantastic there okay uh we got a couple more here pro magnin 85 on twitter has a bc and jake paul versus luke meme the left side says bc asking about jake paul versus professional fighters the right side is

luke trying to stay away from tabloid combat sports topics. And let me guess, that's some trollop putting her rear end in the air. Yes, yes, it is. All right. From Ann Vic on Instagram, Goldblum and Luke poop meme. Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop. And Luke Thomas, too. Luke, what is this about? I don't know. I don't quite get this. I mean, that was Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park. I don't know. I don't know what this is.

All right. We missed the joke there. Sorry from Ann Vic. At HeSpectJujitsu on Twitter, these are dictators roasting Luke Thomas' Twitter. Can we go full screen on this, please, Maneej? Yeah. Again, they cut off the tweet. The tweet was that when Twitter did that

purge of QAnon losers, overnight I lost like 300. I've gotten more than that. I've actually put on like 1,500 followers since then, but I cut out. The full tweet was, I've lost 300, but it's a condition by subtraction. Kim Jong-un sending you to hell right here, Luke.

I love it. I guess if you're a moron, this is funny. I'm a moron. All right. This is from at Needing Artwork on Twitter. Every time Brian Campbell tells Luke Thomas a story. This is good. If you can't read the bottom, what's in the google search box it's big bouncing

latina okay this is funny that's funny that's really funny all right a few more this is matt g he says here's a meme for you uh honey tie me up and do whatever you want honey oh and he's watching mk hell yes thank you very much uh if you don't like your marriage watch our marriage implode together uh todd m says congratulations on the next one luke uh i cannot read the script can you read it can you blow oh yeah this is an aerial lavish hired two ex-Bellator fighters as bouncers. Fuck Face Applesauce and Shlubber McGee have signed on as plus 400 underdogs, pending any altercations with former UFC championship champion BJ Penn. I feel bad that we're laughing about this, but it is a little bit on the funny side.

It is. It is. At Jonah Heat Ward. that we're laughing about this but it is a little bit on the funny side it is it is uh at jonah heat war by the way i gotta say i gotta say fuck face applesauce mcgee is a funny name that is that's very well done a meme from the movie 300 luke same energy bro oh i'm supposed to be the uh creepy iranian who was of a uh uh creepy arm creepy armenian yes, but the guy in the movie is Iranian, Persian. So he's Iranian. Jonah has one more. It's BC and Valentina Shevchenko in Showgirls, apparently.

This is getting creepy. This is getting creepy, yes. Super disturbing. This is too far. Take this off, please. Joe P. has a new episode of the MMA Beat, Luke. Did you find this meme funny yeah i mean no i mean the first 4 000 times maybe but yeah it's a little bit yeah it's a little

played out right but look at that dream team right there right who are they covering up danny danny segura yes yes i know this will never top the A-team, Luke, but there was some sauce spilled on that table during those days. DC, this is the A-team, you and me. Oh, yeah, all right. Alan W. has three of them on the way out here. Here's a play on the movie What About Bob? Dude, that is so... Is that not clever as shit?

It says Brian is a special kind kind of friend the kind that drives you crazy referencing uh bill murray in that 80s movie what about yes fantastic yeah dude that is that is that is a really well done piece of fan art i'm impressed well he has a dumb and dumber movie poster as well alan m letM. Let's see that. As we twist each other's nipples here. Not bad, not bad. Not bad, not bad. And he also has, finally, this is BC as Vanilla Ice.

Oh, that is on point. That is on point right there. Look at that. If you could have your hair like this, would you? Yeah, I think i can i mean i think i should is really what i think this looks a lot like that episode of saved by the bell where they had the fake band that they remember the uh the zach attack this looks like zach's ridiculous hair and that is that like a starter jacket that's also the star the stars and stripes i think so this is brilliant in fact i should go in this direction i should start shaving my eyebrows

just little little lines right there. Luke, we've got one more, and this may be one of the best we've ever seen. A fella named Gio Macaro has written and recorded a theme song for your boy BC called BC Big Dick Energy. Can we please play this one each? Here's the album. Last take. Yeah, yeah. Brian, come on.

B.C. We all know you're jealous of B.C. Come on. B.C. B. Brian Campbell with the Big Dick Energy. Brian Campbell with the Big Dick Energy. Brian Campbell with the Big Dick Energy. Brian Campbell with the big dick energy.

BC, B-D-E, BC, B-D-E. Look, see, that BC got that B-D-E. He be infected with it like a STD. That's drip, drip. DM on stiff, stiff. Smarter than you think. Quick, whip. Hit you with a quick quip.

Then hand you a drink. Don't leave your girl around him Should get her mental pounding He'll make her wear her seat When she feel that BDE The most style, the most class Put him to the test, he gon' pass A consummate professional, Luke he won't kiss your ass

Rip BC with the lights off That girl thought he was all black This whole rap is all facts We know BC is all that Producer, Krez, you get it, we get it If BC left, you regret it To the door, your fans beheaded, wouldn't work, forget it Brian Campbell with the big dick energy

Brian Campbell with the big dick energy Brian Campbell with the big dick energy BC, B-D-DE, BC, BDE. They don't get to where they are at unless that guy who was the closer trips the sauce out of the hose at the end, all right? He's the closer. Luke, you're looking at the closer right here. A guy with that BDE.

How great was that song, Luke? I've never once in my life thought you had bde but if there's another person out there confused about your station in life god bless you bc god bless you there were some detailed lyrics in there luke about you one day not realizing the art coming out of me and letting me go and then i just go on to much much bigger things so once again if you want to stoke themes of division, you certainly may. That's not really the wavelength that I'm on.

But, you know, to each his own. I will say that this weekend, once again, Luke, has brought us together. I hope. Not necessarily to the consummation station, but we are a unified front. Let's not let that guy break us up, but fantastic job on that.

I got to say, that was well done. At first, I was like, oh, this is gonna be terrible, but he had a little bit of flow. He had a little bit of something on it. Yeah, there were bars. There was a lot of truth. Here's the question. Have you played that for your wife?

No, no, no, no, no. Why not? I have BDE on this show, but not necessarily behind this wall, Luke. Okay? Yeah. All right. I'm going to play it for your wife the first time I meet her.

Oh, did you know that BC had a song about big dick energy? No? Let me play it for you. That's not nice. That's not nice. Luke, this has been a long and fruitful show. Have you enjoyed it? I have.

I have. I'm still recovering from the beatdown that last week was, but I'm rounding the corner as a pathetic 41-year-old man. And, yeah, we have a live chat tomorrow, and we have an episode on Friday. No big fights this weekend, though. So that's a bit of an unfortunate situation. I'll be chatting with a great MMA fighter today, so a little bit of bonus interview coming your way this week as well.

Oh, that's right. I saw that. I saw that. That should be good work. And I'm working on an interview for Friday. i won't say who it is just yet but if i get it it'll be nice and big so uh this is massive this is massive luke okay knock on knock on wood knock on wood if nothing's done yet we're still working out times but we'll see yeah all right mk we got we got the bde here bro we got all right all right uh want to remind everyone if you want to try showtime you certainly may you can go to showtime got it alright wanna remind everyone if you wanna try Showtime you certainly may

you can go to showtime.com 30 day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can go get some of that BDE from BC

let's see what else we got the merch store.show.com you can go get hats and fucking whatever and

oh we have to remind folks email morningcombat at gmail.com for Friday's Dead Wrong. So go get those in if you want. We are on social everywhere. It's Morning Combat consistently every place you go.

But for us in BC, or I should say for BC and I, it's a little bit different depending on where you go for Instagram and where you go for Twitter. That is it. That's Brian Campbell. We'll have some more content throughout the course of the week. Thanks to everyone. Like, subscribe, share with a friend, send us emails, morningcombat at gmail.com, and all that good stuff.

All right? So for Malka, for Showtime, for CBS Sports, thank you for tuning in. We'll catch you guys next time. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. On Super Bowl Sunday, CBS raises the hand of the champion while lifting the spirits of our frontline heroes. your gains. Be loyal. biggest game of the year at 6 Eastern, February 7th. Celebrate Super Bowl Sunday on CBS. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.