MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor vs. Dustin, Rose vs. China, Bellator 257 | Luke Thomas' Live Chat, ep. 72

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Today on the podcast, we'll discuss the blow up between Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier over charity donation, Rose Namajunas's comments on communism and Zhang Weili, preview Bellator 257 and their 205 tournament, discuss Jimmy Fick's retirement from the sport at age 30, the reality of Ben Askren's open workout, Jake Paul's future in combat sports, UFC's main event between Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum plus more. --------------------------- '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

Okay, so last week I messed up and no one heard you. I'm sorry about that, okay? Owl? Owl? Show them all the words you can say now. Say eagle. Eagle. Say cow.

Cow. That's pretty good. How about tiger? Tiger. Yeah. How about lion? Lion. Cow. That's pretty good. How about tiger? Tiger. Yeah. How about lion? Lion. Broccoli. Broccoli. Oh, snap. Got the broccoli down thing. Can you say your own name? Violeta? Baby. Not quite.

Do you have a message for your fans? Owl? Horses? Horses. What's some other words that you know? You know a bunch of words. Owl. We read the books all the time from the zoo. Monkey.

Monkey. Oh, what's your time from the zoo. Monkey. Monkey. Oh, what's your favorite movie? Coco. Coco. Do you like Hector in the movie? Hector! Yeah! Very good.

And you like the alabrije that follows Mama Imelda. Pepita. Pepita. Pita. That's right. Te amo. Te amo. That's gibberish. I don't know what that means, but I do love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you back. That's how she says it. And, yeah. Oh, let's look. It's Pepto Bismol on daddy's desk no mas can you say please okay te amo you don't love me? No

Okay, well on that note I made up for last week Let's get things started, shall we? Here we go Yeah Say me a more Tell me a more Oh yeah, yeah

Okay There we are Had to make up for last week Because I know it was a Oh yeah, yeah. 15th of the month. I don't know if it's a paycheck week or not. I hope it is for you. The volume might be a little bit low, for which I apologize. I can turn it just a little bit. Is that better? A little bit better. Because I had to.

So this is what happened yesterday, or two days ago even. I have two different systems here. I have a Mac here, and I have a PC here. The PC I use for streaming. The Mac I use for just most daily functions. That's not quite true. I use both, but some differences exist between them. I use most of my video editing on my Mac because I use Final Cut Pro. So I have two different SM7Bs that go to two different systems. I have a audio interface here and an audio interface there, and they have two different cables. So I know you're like, oh, why are you listing all that? Well, both cables to both systems died on the same day. I don't know how that happens, but that is what went wrong, and that was why I had so many issues before. Anyway, I fixed it. A little bit more, a little bit more So there we are

As for today, subscribe, thumbs up What else are we going to get into? We have Bellator tomorrow, we have UFC over the weekend We have Askren returning against Jake Paul In this terrible boxing match they're going to be in But it's going to do big numbers for sure Yeah, whatever you want to talk about, we can get to that Best place to do it, of course, is going to be on youtube.com

Slash morning combat, the day before Sometimes the morning of, I post a picture, ask for questions People fill it up, people give it a thumbs up And then I react to what they liked Okay? Alright, so let's turn this off Let's see There There we go

And Yeah, that's my daughter Violeta She knows a lot of Spanish words too But There. There we go. And, yeah. That's my daughter Violeta. She knows a lot of Spanish words too, but my wife speaks that with her. Okay. Everything looks good. Yeah.

Let's go to the questions. So, let's see what you donks have for me. Alright. Got 158 of them. Boy. Okay. Okay. I remember on the MMA beat you would actively hold yourself from swearing

You don't seem to do that on MK No, sure don't Did MMA fighting ask you to censor yourself? Yes They didn't like it when you cursed They got real bitter Even if you didn't even curse If you

That's fine Like I disagreed with it But you know That's not the way I disagreed with it, but, you know, that's not the way I would have handled it, but that they handled it that way is not some scandal. It's just a difference of opinion. But yes, they did not like it when there was any kind of cursing or, you know, sexual innuendo or anything like that.

They wanted to keep it very, you know, I think, brand friendly and consumer friendly to a degree as well. What do your wives think when you and BC talk about big that you put Latino? I wouldn't be looking at nothing's anything wrong with that but it's not for me looking at big bouncing Latino booties. I certainly would not claim to have done that to any kind of significant degree, but you're asking about Latino booties because of the thing on the show. Are they pretty cool about it all? They, listen, let me explain something to you. And this is true of the Thomas family and then my wife.

Listen, maybe your family is different. I don't know. If it is, in a good way, God bless you. If it's more about like what I have to deal with, it's also not the end of the world. But when I first started making my way in MMA media, things were going, you know, incrementally pretty well. And they always happen. I've always kind of leveled up a little bit along the way. But I remember when it first started happening, like I got on the radio and then I got written up in, you know, the Washington City paper, or Washington Post would

ask for my, you know, opinion and put it in an article, and then I got my own radio show, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In those early stages, I remember I was like so happy and so excited, I would send it to people, and sometimes you would get a positive response. But what you realize pretty quickly is, dude, if your experience is anything like mine, and I'm not saying you have to be in MMA media to have this experience. You just may do something in your life, whether it's an occupation or a hobby, that I just can't stress this enough, my family doesn't give a fuck about. They don't watch sports ever. And, you know, my brother will watch really big fights,

like Conor versus Floyd or, you know, UFC 200 or something. Like, for the really big ones, you know, he'll ask me about it a little bit. But short of that, like, nothing. They don't watch sports. They don't watch fights. My friends, you know, they don't give a shit about fight sports really at all. I got a couple who do, but you know, my really, really close friends that I talk to on a daily basis. No, not, not really. Um, and my wife likes boxing and she likes MMA. Okay. Particularly the women's side of it, but you know, they don't, they don't care. They don't care. Like they really don't give a fuck. So it's hard to go to them and be like, Hey, you know they don't they don't care they don't care like they really don't give a fuck so it's hard to go to them and be like hey you know um did you see this great achievement i had so i learned or you know not a great achievement but like something i was proud of let's say so i stopped

sending shit to them pretty early on and i thought this would be like you know not like a fuck you to them but they would see like oh, I wasn't keeping up with all of the things Luke has done, but that didn't change anything either. They just, they just don't care. So to answer your question, they don't watch the show. They don't listen to it on podcast. They don't, it's not, you know, my dad will call me up. Hey, you still got a job. Great. Click. You know, um, my sister will be like, oh, did you get over 100,000 subs on YouTube back whenever that happened? You know, they'll check in for stuff like that, but you're asking, like, are they into the details of the show that I have

related to primarily mixed martial arts and combat sports? No, they don't listen at all, and it's fine. Like, I used to get really upset about it. I used to be, they don't listen at all, and it's fine. I used to get really upset about it. I used to be like, am I not doing something relative? I mean, I don't know other people in my circles that are doing some of the things that I'm trying to do here. Are these not at least somewhat, a little bit, maybe just a little bit impressive? It's not really about that. It's not really about that. It's just hard to get them to care about MMA and you know I'm destined

to have a daughter who I'm sure is like gonna love pro wrestling and I'm gonna just have to grin and bear it because otherwise it's just not gonna be I'm not gonna care about it either but I'll try to be a little more supportive

What are some dream matchups between UFC fighters and other promotions? Christian Lee looked really great last night I think him versus any top 10-ish 155er would be great. I still think he's got so much

room to grow but already he's pretty formidable. I still think he's got so much room to grow, but already he's pretty formidable. I mean, this is not a hard question to answer, right? It'd be interesting to watch some people from other sports come over. Kyle Snyder from wrestling. Gabby Garcia. She's done some MMA, obviously, already. That's one of the circusy side of things.

Kyle Snyder would be a little bit more legitimate in terms of what he could do as a competitor. Obviously, Pitbull is a big one. There's going to be some PFL standouts this coming season, for sure, that you would want. These are not a special. This was a much more thorough question 15 years ago. So in 2006, we're post-Ultimate Fighter.

In 2007, i would say because that's when you had like ifl elite xc you had strike force you had ufc um this was a pre-prides collapse although in the absence of pride you got dream and sengoku and some other stuff but there's also these like really weird japanese promotions like slap girl and jewels um that had some interesting fighters along the way this is a much much more fun question back when there was rumble on the rock and icon sport super brawl you know where all these little shows had you know little by comparison anyway had you know a number of world-class fighters in them ufc had probably closer to like you know 40 maybe% of the world's elite talent.

You had a whole shitload that were outside of their purview. That's much less the case these days. They're much closer to 75 or 80%. So you still have a decent size elsewhere, but they're splintered among a lot of different groups. So, yeah. What are some of the things you effed up in your life that you would want to guide your daughter with?

Grades. Grades. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. I did not have poor grades. I had what I would call good grades. But I did not have poor grades. I had what I would call good grades. But I did not have excellent grades. So the way I was able to navigate academically was I had good grades, not great. And I had really strong, I just did, I'm sorry, I did really strong testing on AP tests PSAT, SAT

anything where you could just take an exam and get past it I traditionally had done quite well and so the combination of the two was how I was able to get most of what I wanted academically but I will tell you that it was a major regret, not that I needed to be a valedictorian or something, the guy who married me

was a valedictorian my valedictorian is my best friend in the world. And he spoke at my wedding. And then another one who was a salutatorian is also a great friend of mine. And he lives in DC. And he also spoke at my wedding. So I was surrounded by these really high achievers. I don't know that I was looking for that per se, but it's like making your bed. It's not so much that if you don't make your bed, sleep will be bad in it or something like that. It's just that the habitual act of routine maintenance in the case of making the bed or in the case of homework, the habitual act of scholastic preparation, whether you feel like you need it or not, it pays dividends for your other habits in other parts of your life.

You don't know a lot of people who, I mean, if someone's like a genius genius, and they don't have to do any prep of any kind, and they can get four O's, well, that's one thing. But for the most part, think about somebody you know who's like a really, not even necessarily a high test taker, but someone who's like a really good student. Their homework came in on time. Projects were presented well. They really thought about doing a great job. They took pride in their work.

That translates to so many things beyond academic work. If you have that kind of a worldview, and you can execute on that report card cycle after report card cycle after report card cycle, then you're probably going to be organized. You're probably going to be good at time management. You're going to be good at asking questions. You're going to be prepared.

You're just going to have so many things. And I never took that seriously when I should have you got to develop these habits early and because I could kind of fake it with okay grade you know good grade whatever like fine and then I could just kind of fake it with the tests I was like that's I don't need to do that but it's not really it's not about whether I could show that I could get an A in Mrs. Smith's English Lit class. It's not what it's about. It was about, of all your efforts, are you doing the kind of routine, habitual, scholastic preparation that you need to? Because if you can marshal those skills and develop them,

I think they have so much promise for other things. I will tell you, man, you know, as somebody who wants to hire someone like in the future, yes, I would want to see a high achiever or something like that. You know, yes, you want someone who can do and dazzle you and, or whatever, whatever, you know, you, you, you might say in terms of that, but I'm going to take somebody who is, um, more the model of the honor roll student than the high test taker, if I ever wanted to hire somebody for any kind of work. Because I can trust, you know, am I hiring Einstein?

Maybe, maybe not. But of course, it might be quite bright too. They're not mutually exclusive. But I know that if you can consistently deliver, because you have all these other life skills that you have put toward a particular project, academic or otherwise, that to me is just infinitely more valuable. And I really, really regret that I didn't do more of that. And I'm not saying if she doesn't get A's that like,

oh, this is the tragedy. But what I want is the effort. I want the consistent, habitual, routine effort. That's what I want. Why does it take 24 hours plus for Morning Combat content to be uploaded onto audio streaming platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc. after Aerie? Yeah, this is a question I've been asking for a very long time. The answer is there's a lot of moving parts behind the scenes. Like I'm hired by CBS, but I mostly work for Showtime, although not entirely. Decisions,

and there's a third entity, Mulcaa, which produces the show and they're separate from Showtime. So there's all these moving parts about who has rights and access to the content, who puts it up. We've tried to streamline the workflow. We've gotten a little bit better about it. I think we can be much better about it. The answer is it could be up quicker, but not, excuse me, it couldn't be up quicker without going through the proper channels. In short, morning combat is kind of a bureaucratic mess, if I can just be honest about it. I mean, I love it. It's the best thing I've ever done, but all the moving pieces and all the things that have to be in place for people to do what they want to do it is very dmv like so i apologize for the delay

it's just an unusual circumstance like when i used to do for example my live chat on mma fighting mma fighting i don't i mean i think that they cared about the live chat in the sense that they let it exist but they never you know they never put any effort into it, like nothing. So everything was up to me, but that's easy because I could just do whatever I want, upload it as long as I want to talk, and then I would just pull the audio and fire it up. It was just a one-man thing. You're asking why can't that be done? Because there are rights restrictions, there are personnel restrictions, there are access restrictions, and it just takes time as a consequence.

That's it. Do you miss BC? Yes, although I've been talking to him every day. And the obvious follow-up, how much? This is where BC smiles at you right before a dong joke. Yes, a lot. I've been talking to him every day. He's been vacationing.

BC says hi, by the way. He's been vacationing, but I would have liked him to vacation to a little bit more. I tend to think that he's been a little bit too invested in work in his vacation, but he's ready to MK all day, nearly every day. He's about it, about it. So yeah, dude, listen, Rashad's great. I mean, I couldn't have asked for a better situation than I've got with him when BC's gone. But, you know, listen, I think it's also fair to say that me and BC have something a little bit unique.

And that's going to be really hard to reproduce when he is gone or when I am gone or whatever the situation is. Or when we're separate versus together. You guys have seen the difference in the studio shows versus the ones at home. So, yeah, I miss BC a lot. And I'm looking forward to him getting back, but I wish he would have, you know, I like talking to him, but I wish he would have vacationed a little bit more, like just tune us out, but he didn't. When are we going to get a fight companion with you and Brian?

Where you guys are drinking and perhaps smoking? Well, I don't know about the drinking and smoking part. But the fight companion part, there's a lot of chatter about that behind the scenes. A lot of chatter about fight companion. So, how do I phrase my love?

I am cautiously optimistic that there will be an opportunity for a fight companion relatively soon, but probably not with drinking and smoking. Probably just sober. And like Chief Keef, I hate being sober. All right. How do you think a fight between Blachowicz and Bader would go?

That's a great question. That's a great question. Man, I'm making up for lost time on Blachowicz I have watched so much tape on him 49 times 50 times whatever you want to say it is I have watched a absolute shit ton of tape on him because I'm

behind on my personal channel of getting the study up from his winner Adesanya he's already got a new fight booked that's how behind I am but I kind of wanted to make sure I did it right and one of the problems I had going through the Adesanya fight the first couple of times with Blachowicz was I was like, I don't have really a baseline understanding of what he does. I mean, yeah, on a very basic you watch it, I watch it, I can kind of tell you what happened thing. I don't mean that.

I mean, like, what is his journey as a fighter? What are his bread and butter weapons? What are, like, historical holdovers for issues that he has? What are positions where he's strong? What are positions where he's weak? How does he time certain kinds of offense? I don't mean in the middle of a setup, but I mean, like, in the five minutes on the clock. You know, there's so many questions I was not really able to answer very effectively. I could do that very effectively for Max Holloway, I feel like. I could do that very effectively for Israel Adesanya. I've done multiple tape studies on the both of them. I'd never done one on Jan Blachowicz, and I frankly, you know... I mean,

here was something I had pointed out. Like, he's got, what, like four losses? How many losses does he have? This was something that, like, if you are a Jan Blachowicz fan, you're going to be like, yeah, Luke, I know. Okay, I'm not presenting this to you as like, oh, this is very revelatory information. I'm just saying, if you look at his losses in UFC, he had two before, no, three before then. He lost to Sokuju back in the day, and he lost to some donks in Poland when he was fighting. But by the time he gets to UFC, he has, these are his losses, okay? Jimmy Manoa, Corey Anderson, Alexander Gustafson, Patrick Cummins, and then Tiago Santos. Now, what does that tell you? You could make the case that in at least three, maybe four, the reason why he lost was not because he was desperately outstruck.

Anderson wrestled him to a large degree. Gustafson only won that fight because he wrestled him, and you all know what Patrick Cummins does. The Manowar fight, I say he was outstruck, but it wasn't like some major ass-kicking. It was relatively close throughout the course of the three rounds. I think maybe even, he might have won one of them. But, you know, okay, Manuel was better and it was on the feet,

but it wasn't some dramatic whooping. Okay, the Santos one was. He got, you know, he ran into a series of punches and Thiago Santos made him pay. Here's my point. Of the five losses that he has in the UFC, only one explicitly has to do with a devastating moment in striking. In three of them, it was just because he was out-wrestled. Another one was pretty close. It hadn't even occurred to me. It hadn't even occurred to me. So if you'd asked me why he lost, I would have been like, oh, he was out-wrestled here. He was outstruck there And yes, there's a little bit of that, but it's pretty pronounced.

For the most part, what he's lost has been a function of wrestling. So, you asked about Ryan Bader. Bader might be an interesting fight for him. Because I tend to think that Blachowicz is going to beat guys that Bader won't. But Bader's wrestling could prove a little bit difficult for him with that top control, as you saw in the last fight against Machida. Fucking Bader's got heavy ground and pound. Now, if he couldn't put away Machida, there's a question about could he put away Blachowicz.

But I would say a couple things. One, as long as he got him down, he was going to stay busy enough to win the round. Two, they should have thrown the towel in on Machida. And then I think three, I wonder to what extent he regulated that just to make sure he could get the safe W. So I might favor Blachowicz to win because I think one of the things he really does is,

you're going to see this, he is an incredible rhythm disruptor. He is very much looking to pull you into traps and then switch timing. Timing for him is a big thing because he's very, very patient. He's looking to disrupt your patience. He does it in your timing and your rhythm. And as a consequence, there's a lot of time that will elapse in a round where not a lot necessarily happens. And then we'll have a big moment. And he's obviously a devastating finisher. So I would favor, I think, Blachowicz on the feet, maybe overall. But I do think it's worth

considering that Ryan Bader and the particular way in which he could, you know, that fast blast double. And that's been something of a historical weakness for him. Not so much on the fence anymore, but in open space. Could get interesting. Thoughts on Rose's better dead than red comment and the rest of her Cold War era tirade when asking about John. Yeah, this was not one of her more enlightened positions. I think it's probably fair to say. I mean, look, look at the timing on it. When was Lithuania liberated?

91? Was it the fall of the Soviet Union, 1991? It had to be, right? So she was born, when was she born? I don't think she was born under communism. Directly, anyway. The wreckage of it, maybe. Which is, you know, bad enough.

But let's just see here When was she born? Rose Namajunas was born in 1992 So yeah So the Soviet Union fell on what day? Fall of Soviet Soviet Union fell on what day? Fall of... Soviet... That was...

Yeah, that's when all of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and then Georgia, Russia, Moldova, and Ukraine all became autonomous. It was in 91. 25th of Christmas, I guess. 1991. Or I should say the day after Christmas, the 26th. In any case, she was born after the fall of communism.

So it wasn't like she grew up in communism. But still, that's just a year separated from everyone who probably did. And so I can understand why someone in that kind of circumstance might have very hard feelings about you know um communism and uh the pernicious effects on society and families and democracy in your country that one might have i think that's totally understandable but it's like on you know how on earth is this any kind of issue of first of all china's uh government and um the way they've arranged their economy is just radically different from the Soviet Union.

The overlaps are not, you know, as distinct, I think, as she would like to imagine. Certainly there comes with it, and this is, you know, pre the current situation, but, you know, there is some territorial, what do you want to call it, annexation that doesn't really belong to them. So there's a little bit of overlap there. But it's not really the same in that kind of a sense. Yes, there could be in the case of China.

You guys know I've been very critical of how the NBA has handled that. Horrible. I mean, just absolutely the worst. Human rights abuses as it relates to the Uyghur Muslims. But I mean, there are meaningful, real, considerable differences between the two. And even if there weren't, what's that got to do with a person who had no agency about what she was born into? And you might say, oh, well, you could just leave, but this is not Europe. You don't have, I mean, there's all kinds of differences, right? Like, the communism that she may suffer may be oppressive,

but there might be a cost-benefit analysis where she decides, do I really want to leave my family in totality over this, or do I just want to suffer under somewhat of a heavy-handed government? She is, you know, she's, I think, part of the Han Chinese sort of ethnostate there. And so, for some kind of like achievement in democracy, do you want to leave everything you know behind? Some people will do that, some won't. It's a similar kind of question you could ask about Cubans. Many, many, many, many Cubans flee, but many don't. Certainly, I would argue that there's a lot of places in China that are much more economically advanced than Cuba, although they're suffering under crippling sanctions for

many, many years. The point being is this, it's like the idea that the same reasons why, or the reasons why Lithuanians or any of the Baltic states would want to have emancipation from the Soviet Union, many of those dynamics may or may not be in place for your ordinary Chinese, and by the way, there's a billion of them,

they're gonna have a wide range of opinions, and some of the economic liberalization of it that's undertaken has made it, I think, to a degree and for many people, a little bit more hospitable of a place to do business or to live than maybe, you know, the last vestiges of the crippling and crumbling Soviet Union.

And even if it's not, she doesn't have a say. Yeah, you could go and be a political exile somewhere else, or you could try and leave. But these are costly. These are difficult. They take time. Unless it's urgent, which I think for many Chinese, it is not necessarily urgent, although they probably would prefer to have their freedoms. I would imagine that's the case. And if she speaks out, there could be public retribution. If anything, the way to... I would imagine she would be sympathetic to Zhang Weili. Because you can be proud of being Chinese

without being proud of having a communist government that oversees things. And moreover, if you acknowledge that the Chinese government is even to its uh you know non-muslim populations uh oppressive to at least some degree which i think all of us would agree with then you acknowledge that jang wai-li is a victim not a not an agent of the state to my knowledge she's not she had she said the word china power but who knows what that means that might mean the people not so much the government. I mean, who gets out there and is like, yeah,

dude, my fucking government rocks, bro. I love my government. People don't do that in democratic states, much less communist ones, especially if there is retribution that's in order for making statements like that. So really the reality is you should be able to view Zheng Wai Li as something of a victim to a degree of this oppressive government under which she's in and an extension of some kind of awareness of that, of sympathy for that.

I don't see Zheng Wai Li as some kind of Manchurian candidate to borrow the term where she's coming in here and trying to convince us that, you know, the Chinese government is just the greatest thing since sliced bread. She doesn't do any of that shit. She comes in here and lives her life. She does media and asks questions according to what

she's asked, and that's it. She only tries to put forward, I think, the cause of herself, maybe her family, her teammate, and maybe her people to a degree. But have y'all gotten more sympathetic towards the Chinese government by virtue of what Zhang Weili has done or said? I certainly have not. In fact, I wish she had more freedoms to enjoy like we do. So that was a weird one. I mean, if you want to have angry feelings about communism, I'm not going to step in your way. By all means, do it. But you have to direct that anger at the agents responsible for perpetuating it in actual terms. That's not really Zhang Wai-Li. In fact, it's not Zhang Wai-Li at all.

So she missed the mark on that one. How excited are you for the rise of Impaasanganai now that he's at 170? Okay, so he's obviously a very good athlete, and I don't take the loss to Joaquin Buckley as some kind of ultimate, oh, you'll never recover from that. I think he will. I think he will be good, but the problem I've had with Mpukasanganai is not that he is not quite obviously talented. I think he is. And I kind of understand why he rushed the UFC. Those guys who were trying to make a living during the pandemic when they were on the regional side of MMA, man, you had some tough choices to make.

Because even if you weren't quite UFC ready, and some were of course, but if you were on that bubble, you would have liked maybe one or two more fights on the regional level before you got that call-up to the Contender Series. You kind of had to fast-track all of that because you didn't have an option. You just had to go. So there's a lot of guys under pressure. Here's my point about him. I think he's got a high upside, too.

I want to be very clear about that. I don't want to mince words at all. But I also think he's very green. Very green. And he will get better all. But I also think he's very green. Very green. And he will get better rapidly. Let's see how he looks. You're right. This might be a great weight class.

We'll see. But he didn't have a lot of fat on him before. But I also feel like he got into the UFC too early. Which isn't to say he won't work out, but it may take him a little bit longer because he didn't have that smooth off-ramp from regional onto the high-level pros. Did you have a hard time keeping it together

during the Jimmy Flick interview, or are you more removed when you're in person who's in a professional setting? I was crying like a schoolgirl pretty much throughout. Yeah, that was a hard one for me. I had a moment there where I almost not lost it, but I was like, I began to feel the weight of what he was telling me. I had to just block it out. In fact, it was helpful because you guys, when you're watching the interview or you're listening to it, you have to hear his voice. Okay. So in that sense, if you're listening to it, it's the same, but I'm thinking about the next question.

I'm thinking about when he's going to pause and actually my screen is here, but my camera is this right here. So I'm just looking at the camera and I'm just trying to focus. That's it. That's all I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to focus. And, um, afterwards, as soon as the interview was over, I had to go and talk to my wife because I was a little bit disturbed by it. You know, you hear a lot of stories. You know, MMA is interesting, right? Because you guys missed all this. When MMA was still not legal everywhere, post-Ultimate Fighter, and you were trying to convince people that MMA was something worth watching.

Dangerous, yes, but certainly acceptable and worth watching. There were a couple of arguments that the UFC rolled out at the time, and one of which is, like, you know, a lot of our guys have college degrees, which is true. By the way, if you don't, that's not some kind of sign of, you know, that you're a lesser person. But I think what they were trying to combat was stereotypes. Oh, these are all, you know, street guys who dropped out at 13 and missing teeth and blah, blah, blah.

They were trying to be like, no, like Rich Franklin is a math teacher and Chuck Liddell might have a Mohawk, but he's got a degree from Cal Poly in accounting. And there was more that they rolled out. But I think, you know, when they had Matt Hughes, who was an All-American, like they really leaned on that kind of NCAA background. And it was really important to do that. It was really important to get people who had been to noteworthy universities or had done noteworthy things at university and to get them in front of people to speak. It was really quite important. You saw a little bit less of that by the time they made inroads in New York.

And then it was just like, hey, let's get Rhonda, who was Olympian, who was a nice-looking young lady, that kind of a thing. But it was a big push. Like, how many of our guys have degrees? And there are fathers, and there wasn't any women at the time.

But all the things you would imagine, they have moved away from that to a strong degree and now they tell a lot of the opposite about how hard everyone's life is which is a little bit more actually what boxing did from the beginning i bring this up only to say after that shift when i was just you know you watch contender series it's hard luck story after hard luck story after hard luck story you get a a little bit numb to it. And then a story like that comes along and he can't talk without, like the pain he was experiencing,

you couldn't deny it existed, nor could you deny it was mild. Or sorry, rather, nor could you assert that it was mild. I mean, this was a tough person who was hurting bad. And he was hurting bad by virtue of, I mean, I don't know all the specifics of his situation, but based on what he's telling me, Jimmy Flick was abused and neglected. And it lingered with him. And fighting couldn't solve it.

Frankly, I think he made the right call, at least for now. Maybe he'll have a different opinion later on. But, you know, and I certainly am no expert on how to handle a family member with a drug addiction. It's so far beyond my purview. But I would say that making a choice to live for his daughters and his wife and his own life and making a choice to not pass on the pain and not directly. He wouldn't abuse his daughters in that way, but he would just reform it into some other kind of burden for them to carry, that he's moving away from that, I think is really the smart call, the right call.

I think he's a decent guy. I think he's an honorable guy. And when you hear about the state coming to separate you from your parents, man, something's going very, very... Dude, let me just say it outright. Children, right? Children should not know suffering like that. I do think it's important for every stage of life to be challenged, to have difficulties,

to have trying times that sometimes you don't even understand. But children should not know abuse and neglect like that. Never. Never in this world should they ever know that. And sadly, it's all too common. And I was talking with a friend of mine, my friend Raphael. We were texting over on the phone. And I was saying, you know, as bad as Jimmy's situation was, and it is fucking bad. Can you imagine Big Francis' situation?

Like, we don't even know half the details of that. And I'm not here to compare, like, oh, that one's bad. This one's the goat of bad. It's not even a contest. I'm just not here to compare like, oh, that one's bad. This one's the goat of bad. It's not even a contest. I'm just saying there's like a lot, a lot of pain with these guys. A lot of pain. I mean, this is what I mean when I try to tell some of you guys, like if you show up to the gym, like you can train at these gyms and you can be, if you're just an ordinary average person like me, you know, we are average people by and large, right? You can go to these gyms, and you can better yourself, man. You can legitimately make something of yourself in these places. You can work through your demons, and you

can lose weight, and you can work on your self-confidence, and all those things. But then when it's time to lock up with dudes like Jimmy Flick, you know, or Francis Ngannou or somebody else who had some kind of an upbringing that makes, that wires them in a certain way, you're not ready for that, man. You're not, you're not, you're not those people. You are not, you are not. Can't be clear about that. You are not those people unless you have, you know, you have an identical kind of background. But I had a... Listen, my parents had one of the... I've seen other kids with divorces.

Of all the kids I ever knew who had divorces, my parents had by far the worst. Man, I spent from third grade to eighth. Maybe not that much. Seventh. Seventh grade. In and out of courtrooms. Constantly, constantly watching your parents attack each other in court. And I didn't have it.

Like not even 1%, not even 1% of 1% of some of these guys. And you can feel their fire when you lock up with them, man. And I get it. There are some dudes who are normal. They have great parents. They just like to compete. They're good athletes.

And you get the same result. Great. But I'm not a great athlete either. And I don't have that major desire to compete. And you can see it, man. Fuck. You got some junkyard dogs out there. And I hate to say it, but it really is true. It often comes from horrific life circumstances. Doesn't have to, doesn't always, but it does routinely. The difference for Jimmy is that his were, they were paralyzing him and they were creating problems for other people.

Like if he was single, maybe he doesn't make this choice, you know, but he wasn't. So afterwards, when the whole thing was over, I sat there and I thought to myself how awful I felt about Jimmy's situation and like, I feel like I've known some pretty bad pain in this world. I don't know that I've felt that pain. That was bad. That was really bad. All you want for these guys is just to feel better. To just be happy.

That's what I mean. It's like, dude, if you can... If you can... If you can find a little bit of happiness in this world, take it. Because it's not that easy. Do you believe in ghosts? No.

Have you had any paranormal experiences? No one has. If you saw it, what did you make of Askren's open workout? I saw a little bit of it on social... Listen, guys. I'm not really all that... I think I have to watch the fight for work. So I'm probably going to watch it.

You know, it is what it is. If people like it, great. If not, you know... It's not worth getting upset over, but I'm not going to deep dive on Teofimo Lopez, who's going to light his opponent on fire or this thing. It's just going to be what it's going to be. I think the stuff that I saw, it wasn't a lot, but I'll say this. It looked like punches had improved since his MMA days. Saw that.

And, listen, here's the most important part. Askren is saying it's the best payday of his life. Triller as an app that competes with TikTok. Excuse me. I don't know what his future is. I think it's very much hard to determine. And this Triller thing that they're doing now where they're like they bought out Fight TV and they're trying like that was what you would call vertical integration

where they're trying to control every portion of the product and the sales and the entire line and everything in between, right? And they own all the assets in between and everything else like that. That will last a little while, but that won't last forever too. Triller is spending so much.

This is a hard concept for folks to understand. The pay-per-view this weekend, the Askren pay-per-view with Paul, it's going to sell well. Like, I don't know what the number will be, a million, million five, whatever it is. It will be a high number, but I guarantee that their costs are

so enormous. Plus, they're not going to have a gate, right? So their costs are going to be so, or not much of a gate anyway. They're going to be so enormous. Plus, they're not going to have a gate, right? So their costs are going to be so, or not much of a gate anyway. They're going to be so enormous that there's no chance they make money. That thing will not last. But God bless the guys who can get the money while it's there. Thoughts on mainstream media not reporting atrocities being committed in Myanmar yeah well there was a coup I don't know I feel like the Burmese or the I'm not sure what Myanmarese I'm not sure what the word would be Myanmarian I don't know what the word is it's all over my timeline maybe that's just the way I curate the news, I guess. But I feel like I've seen a fair bit of it.

I don't watch cable news of any variety, so I don't know what they're saying. My guess is probably not a lot, but that's ratings-driven to a pretty strong degree, so they're never going to have an incentive to focus on something like that for very long. Yeah, there was a... God, who sent it to me?

Who sent me that? I, who sent it to me? Who sent me that? I forget who sent it to me. I don't listen to it normally, but there's a podcast called The Daily. I think it's a New York Times podcast. I don't listen to it very often. But they did one on their long-time Myanmar correspondent,

and she explained the situation and why it had deteriorated in the way that it did. Basically, it's an old general hedging his bet about his future and he didn't want to put it to chance. Obviously, it's much more complicated than that and the leader of Myanmar was somebody who was seen as a sort of democratic symbol of freedom in the future in that area and then she had kind of capitulated to the security state at some point where she had

lost a lot of credibility for it but they apprehended her and it's a whole thing but I don't know it's hard for me to answer because it features quite prominently in the stuff that I read but if you're asking like why don't ratings driven cable news channels cover it? I mean, the answer is in your question. I can't say this enough. Do not watch cable news, ever. Ever. The one, okay, the one exception. The one exception. And you can pick whatever one you want.

You want to watch on election night to see when news organizations are going to call things, even though you don't have to watch. But if that's what you want to do, and you want to see what the results are as they come in, fine. You can watch on election night, even though it's a waste of your time, but that's not so bad. But anytime else, there is no good reason. There's nothing you're going to get from there. You couldn't get better and more informed elsewhere.

How many resume reviews would have to end up in defeat for you to admit that it's cursed um you would have to see but see that's that there's question begging there uh your okay so let's look how you've look how you've worded the question how many resume reviews would have to end up in defeat for you to admit that it's cursed? First, you have to prove that curses are real. And then you have to show me how multiple losses of resume review would fit into the curse. There's no such thing as a curse. So you have loaded the question in a way. I know you're like, oh, Luke admitted it's cursed, but it's not really cursed. We're just using words. No, I don't talk like that when I can avoid it at all. I don't, you know, I'll indulge the existence of Santa merely for my daughter or the Easter bunny, not for my audience.

There are no curses and you know there's not, and you don't live your life according to them unless you're a AAA baseball player who's been there for five years, you know, trying to Kenny Power your way, Kenny Power's your way to a league other than Mexico. They don't exist. And you know they don't exist. And you don't, none of you live your life like they exist. I grew up for all my life until whatever year it was, as the Red Sox can't win, the curse of Bambino. Dude, Yankees fans, if you're overseas, this will be like, I don't know, I don't know what the equivalent would be, but in soccer or something. But, dude, whenever the Red Sox and the Yankees would play, you would hear the Yankees fans taunt them.

1918, 1918. And this will go on for decades. For decades this went on. And finally you realize it's just bullshit. It's just, yes, it was unusual and the timing worked out in a way that seems a little bit hard to understand at times. But in the end, there is no force guiding these things in this way. None of you, me, you, none of us are that important. It just is what it is.

There are no curses. There are no jinxes. There's no nothing. They don't exist. Someone says, I demand VLF at the beginning of every live chat from now on. Provided she's not asleep, we can try. That's a weird question. Not weird, but what advice would you give to someone who wants to read more regularly? I don't understand what the challenge is.

Do you mean you don't know what to read? Or do you mean you don't have time in the day? Or do you mean you don't have the interest? I don't know what that means. The easiest way to read is just to start with stuff you like. But then you have to make it a habit. You are the sum of, who is it, Aristotle? I forget who said it, basically,

but you are what your habits are, essentially. I'm not sure what the exact quote is, but the general idea is whatever your life becomes is simply the totality of your habits executed over time. So, excuse me, find something you like, start there, and then just commit to finishing things. Someone's got a question

that's probably better for a Patreon if I ever set up one, which is, take on my values. You'd have to ask me a little bit more a little bit more specifically for me to give you any kind of answer there.

I'll come back to that. I might answer that separately. Alright. What's your current UFC Justice League team? I would go Superman equals Stipe. Batman equals Dominic Cruz. That's funny. Wonder Woman equals Amanda Nunes. Flash Sterling. Aquaman, Jan Blachowicz Green Lantern, Adesanya Alright, let me see if I can go through here Superman I would go Francis

Batman, see Batman's rich, right? So I'm going to go Connor Wonder Woman, I'll go Amanda as well That's fine Flash That's a good one I'll go, you know what? I'll go Triple C.

How about that? Aquaman. Who's sweaty? Who's like a really sweaty fighter, you know? People think everyone sweats at the same rate. No, they don't. No, they don't. Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis is Aquaman. He probably hate that I call him Aquaman, but he's Aquaman. And then Green Lantern. Who can just invent

shit with his mind? With the technology, anyway. With the ring. You got Adesanya. Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably go that. That's decent. That's fun. Do you have any thoughts on Cormier's detail series on ESPN Plus? I do not. Not many, anyway. It is similar to Dissected and Tech Difficulties.

I think only Kobe does detail better than Cormier. Personally, I find it to be quite good. Yeah, I would imagine. But I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to breaking down film, and you're more experienced with film studies, so I just wanted to get your thoughts on the series. Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly what his process of preparation is, and so without having more understanding, it'd be hard for me to say, but

what I can say is, from the stuff that I've watched, and I think I've seen like two? Two, maybe? It's quite good. It's quite good. You got to remember, what do I always say at the beginning of Monday Morning Analyst, tech difficulties dissected, any of the ones that I've done, I always give you the disclaimer to check out what other analysts have to say because it is inevitable that even your best analyst is going to miss things or spotlight one, not have time to get to another so you want to get as many

looks as possible obviously dc has fought an incredibly high level he knows a shitload about the fight game he is a um he is a talented uh orator and i think he's a smart guy generally and so you're going to get those and he's got the power and the push of espn technology and and the library so you're going to get great stuff. But as good as it is, what I recommend just watching his stuff, do time to time. You've got to go and look around other places. The Modern Martial Artist I think is great.

Weasel is great. BJJ Scout is great. And I'm leaving out a ton of guys who do all kinds of stuff. So by all means, take it in. Enjoy it. Get better as a... Why do you watch those things, right? You get better...

You become a better fight fan. You know what I mean? Like you understand so much more about what is actually happening here. Like, you know, part of the reason I try to learn a little bit of Spanish and I'm no good at it, but part of the reason I try to...

It's because you don't like sitting in rooms and everyone's having a discussion around you, if you're me, and you don't know what they're saying. Like, I would like to bridge that gap a little bit, and I'm never going to become, I don't know, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but I can get better than what I was, and so I can then enjoy this other world that has been walled off from me. It's the same thing with fighting, to a degree.

If you don't know anything about what they're doing, there are ways to just sort of understand a punch landing being pretty effective and then seeing it coming or something like that. But to really get down to the details, to really understand the fine details, dude, if you're watching Habib, dude, you're watching a master of his craft. I want to know more about that. I want to know more about why he operates the way that he does and the little details that he gets from that. Obviously, a guy like Cormier, I would imagine he's done some Habib tape studies. You're going to get good stuff from that. You're going to get really, really good stuff from that. So from what I've seen, it's quality. Just as an always reminder, even the most brilliant minds like DC and other ones, they're going to miss stuff.

So get as much of an opinion as you can from, you know, like a doctor, right? Get a second opinion. If Kelvin Gastelum beats Whitaker on Saturday, that would leave him and Marvin Vittori as the top contenders to the title. And if I'm not mistaken, they're also training partners. Both trained with Rafael Cordero. Do you think they'd fight each other? And if so, who do you think wins? Vittori.

I think Vittori would fight his own mom, dude. I mean, that dude is... He's ready to go, huh? So... Yeah, Vittori. Whether they would fight each other, I don't know In fact, I'm sure other people have brought this up But I hadn't seen it

And I had to bring it up, it's actually quite interesting I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right, that's a good point Well done Is that a Sean P statuette in the background? Yes Do you have any top lyrical artists or an album you would recommend? Yes, Monkey Bars by Sean Price Monkey and then Bars is spelled with a Z

B a R Z it is Extremely good But you have to be into like emceeing You know Listen, I'm not telling anyone that I have any fucking idea. What's cool today. In fact every time I turn on Modern music I was watching a video from Pooh Shiesty. I was like,

Jesus Christ, this is terrible. So like, if you like that kind of stuff, you know, what I can tell you is nothing I have for you, you will care for. But if you actually like emceeing, you know, it's hard to go wrong with Sean P. This was made by a guy. There we go.

This was made by a guy who, first of all, here's the gorilla. If you know anything about Sean Price, not just the album, but he had a lot of monkey imagery in his artwork. So here is the monkey. He's just sort of like, and it's a street he's been stepped on. They put the number of the model on it. P is a thing he used to always say. And you can actually customize this. So you can actually take off the arm.

There's a different arm you can put. It's like a normal arm. There's one one with a microphone you can change out the head but this is the Hulk version and so you put the Hulk version in here boom and you get this pretty fucking cool pretty fucking cool he made one the guy who made this uh made one method man ray kwan uh he made one of um i think he did like a black elvis um who else did he do uh method man ray kwan i'm not sure who else he has done, but they're all just incredible. Oh, he did a Ghostface one. Incredible. Just all incredible stuff. You're going to see the new Mortal Kombat film when it releases. Yes, of course. Where do you see MMA meta in the next few years? Are you bored with

the current one? I'm bored with parts of it. I'm bored with the lack of a guard play. And I'm bored with the reliance on the wall for takedowns. Some of this is beginning to shift. So it's less of a complaint now that it may have been more germane maybe a couple of years ago. A little bit longer than that. So it's shifting. But these positions where it's understandable that some positions are going to be more common than others, particularly when aggression and pushing out forces people

to the fence line, but making better use of it or underneath just standing up rather than some use of the guard plate to threaten to stand up, I think you're going to see some more of that. I really do. Where does Dominic Cruz rank among all-time greats in MMA? Certainly among bantamweights, he's ranked pretty close to the top of the list, if not directly at the top. Among the other ones, Cruz has been interesting because he's been highly unique, successful. He's been something of an innovator, a model.

But in terms of his actual accomplishments, while they are high, I don't know that it qualifies him, you know. I mean, maybe somewhere all-time top 25, something like that. Somewhere in there? Are you worried that Rumble versus Cuban Ninja Turtle will end up being a Lewis and Ganu fight? Ooh, that's interesting. Obviously I hope that that doesn't happen, but

given how much of an insane fight I keep hearing it hyped up to be and giving myself vibes of there's no way in hell Luis Ngannou goes to the judges, with Rumble not having fought in four years and Yoel's last fight, I really hope it's just not five rounds of just feeling each other out. You might get it,

especially with the tournament, because you lose this one, you just, you can't fast. I mean, this is the interesting part, right? With the matchmaker model, you know, if it was no tournament, matchmaker if you lose this one you could end up fighting for the title the very next fight if the promoter wants you to with this one you can't you are you know this is an injury you're quite literally forced off of it so um and even then they might have someone else sub in on the case of an injury so there's just a lot of ways it could just not go your...

Or I should say where it could affect your cost-benefit analysis where moving on is so important. I mentioned that with the Bader and Machida fight that you just go a little bit more risk-averse just to get to the next stage. There probably is some of that. I do suspect you are going to get a Rumble who's going to try and wrestle a little bit.

I'm cautiously optimistic not that the fight's going to be some kind of crazy barn burner back and forth but that you're going to get very, very fun, punctuated moments or exchanges. Like when it's over, you'll be happy that it happened. But I do think your concern is well placed.

I don't think it's an idle concern at all. I've seen your Cannibal Corpse and Nile gear. What are your top five heaviest bands you listen to? What's in my thing right now? Man, telling someone the other day who was it i was telling us about like going to the i went to the cannibal corpse show in philly at the uh at the living arts theater something like that theater of living arts tla bro that was like being in the corner ropes covering up and some boxer just you know beating the balls off of you as you cover up in the corner and the ref ain't saving you. And I mean it in a sort of a good way. It sounds like I'm, like you're just

beaten to death by sound. They fuck you. That was one of the most, no, not even the most, one of absolutely the most punishing metal show I've ever been to. I've seen Opeth in concert, you know, a gazillion times. That's a very different kind of metal. It's like, what is it, black metal, almost doom metal-y. And a lot of their newest stuff, it just sounds like Jefferson Airplane, for crying out loud. But their old shit was kind of heavy.

I saw them, and it's a bunch of nerds sitting down. It's nothing like it. I've seen Down in concert. They were with Phil Anselmo at the front they were brutal I've seen um I've seen Slipknot although they were this was years ago uh this was in 2000 and they were on like a side stage but they were fucking brutal um who's that I've seen Rage it's not really metal metal but you know they were good too. Discarnate, which I think is an English band.

Or maybe they're Scottish, something like that. They're heavy as fuck. Cattle Decapitation is a good one. I'm trying to think what else I have in here. Pantera is obviously, you know, just, you know, my apex predator. Oh, Six Feet Under is a good one to listen to. Gojira is okay. They're okay.

I got my music here. What else we got? Yeah, something like that Something like that Will we get Rashad on the live chat? No, no, this is my live chat Love Rashad, but no Were you a DMX fan? I mean, at first

I remember hearing him and thinking he was very, very different I didn't really warm up to him until... I loved his big hits. I'll leave it at that way. I loved his big hits that I was aware of. I heard him early, liked it, didn't become a huge fan or anything. But then, you know, he had so many hits from like 98, even before that, but 98 on. It was, you know, what are you going to say?

You don't like Up In Here or... Whatever his hit was. They were everywhere. It was just... It was amazing. Favorite album's got to be... It's Dark And Hell Is Hot. Favorite song... Who We Be I've always kind of liked.

I know some people don't like that, but I kind of like it. Even though it's not on the same album, but there you go. All right, I'll tell the story. I don't give a shit anymore. All right. Someone asks, as a DC native and frequent visitor of Camelot and Stadium He's talking about strip clubs, basically. What is the story of you getting kicked out of Camelot show bar? Alright.

I didn't do anything, just to be clear. So, it's like 9 o'clock at night and it's like 9 o'clock at night, and it's like 2005 maybe? 6 at most? Let's say 2005. I get a call out of nowhere at like 9 o'clock at night, and I was living in PG County at the time, which is right outside DC. It's in Maryland.

Because I had just moved back from New York and, uh, a buddy of mine calls me and he had just gotten back from Iraq. Now this savage is what this gentleman is what we called high speed, low drag. Okay. I mean, he was, he volunteered to go to Iraq. So he was a reservist who volunteered to go active duty just so he could go fight in Iraq. I mean, he couldn't wait to go. There are some guys like that. They're not very many of them, but he was one of them. Um, he was a smart guy too. He had an engineering degree, although he was enlisted like I was. And, um, but he was just a, the word we use is hard charger. He was a fucking hard charger.

Like, you know. He did everything that was, anything you think tough guys do, he did. Okay? He was a legitimate tough guy. But he was a nice guy too. He was not, at least up to that night. Up to that night, he was not so terrible. But I haven't really, we spoke a few times after this,

but this was a really dividing line in our life. He was in, he had gone back to the reserve duty. So he had spent like a year in Iraq. And then he had done what's called TAD, temporary active duty. And he had just gotten back to DC. And you know, he was fucked up as most of them were when they came back, at least to some degree. And he calls me up drunk. He least to some degree and he calls me up drunk he was by the time he called me up he was hammered

and he calls me up and he says hey i'm in downtown dc come meet me and he called me a pussy and everything else i apologize for saying that but he did and uh i'm like i don't want to he's like if you don't come i'm going to get in trouble and you need to be here to separate me from getting in trouble i just got back from iraq i have a ton of money i have saved because you got all this hazardous duty pay all you have to do is come down and drink with me so i said okay all right so i drove down to dc uh yes that's right. I drove down to D.C. And I met him. And the first bar we went to, I maybe had a drink. And then he looks at me and he goes,

Let's go to the titty bar. And I'm like, dude, it's like 10 o'clock at night. What are we doing? Can we just not do that? Can we just drink? I haven't seen you in a while. Can we just drink? And he's like, no.

So we go. And for folks who may not understand things, M Street runs through the heart of like the business, or I should say part of the business district of, it starts essentially right off Connecticut Avenue. After that, it becomes, it starts before that, but the real big part of M Street starts there. And it goes from the bottom of Connecticut, and then it extends. It's the main artery all the way through Georgetown, okay? So Georgetown's like your rich, foofy area. It's the main street right down the middle of it. This is what we're talking about here. This is a little bit before Georgetown, but not far. It's 18th Street, and Georgetown starts something like that so 26 maybe um so we go we go to camelot and uh we walk in we were not there long we were not there long so basically the way it works in dc is i don't know how it is anymore especially after the pandemic but at the time you can't touch in these strip clubs you can only look right so uh they we walk in and um i'm looking around for like a place

to sit and i'm like uh because they've got like a main stage then they got like a little smaller stages everywhere you're just trying to figure out where you're gonna sit and i remember out of nowhere i feel like someone reached on my arm and like fucking yank it like oh like they yank me over to the side I'm like what the hell and it was this huge bouncer. He was way bigger than me Okay, this guy must have been nearly 400 fucking pounds 686 now he was a giant man. All right And he goes yo you and your friend need to fucking leave now. I'm like dude. We had just Walked in I'm not kidding. I didn't put my jacket down. I didn't sit down. I didn't order a

drink. I didn't even get to the bar to order a drink. Nothing. I'm like, what? What do we do? He goes, get outside. So we get outside and he goes, yo man, your fucking friend is trouble, bro. Don't come back here. And I'm like, I turned to him. I go, dude, what the fuck did you do? What are you doing? He tells me that, um, one of the cocktail waitresses was walking by and he grabbed her. Right. He grabbed her just a no, no off the beginning. She apparently like jerked her arm free and was like, don't touch me. And he had said, hey, we're looking for a good time. Another problem to which she had said, we don't do that here, rightly. I mean, I don't know who this person was. I feel bad. To which my friend

at the time, I don't even want to tell you what he said but he reinforced in much more vulgar terms and I do mean significantly more vulgar terms no no no no you don't understand me and I think threw like a 20 in her face we're looking for a good time but I want to be clear he said much worse shit than that at that point and this happened like almost immediately

she went and got the bouncer and he chucked us out. But the night wasn't over. I've actually never told this story publicly. I'll tell it to you now. We'll end here. You'll love this part. So I realized I've got a degenerate on my hands, but I also realized if I don't chaperone this guy, he is going to end up either in jail or someone's going to punch his fucking lights out like he is a disaster he's a mess and um he was like hey i got a fucking hotel suite let's go drink at the hotel fuck these broads blah blah blah blah blah and i'm like all right how bad could it be this hotel room fine whatever you know i'll just drink there he's got like a you know tons of beer on ice in the fridge. Fine, whatever.

We get in the cab, and he directs the guy to go to, at the time, a known area for prostitutes in the city. And I'm like, where are you staying? And he was staying near actually Independence, and we were going towards K, which they're not too far from each other, but they're not that close either. Like, it's a walk. More than that. K, which they're not too far from each other, but they're not that close either.

It's a walk. More than that. It's several subway stops, metro stops. And he picks up, you think I'm exaggerating this, I'm not making this up. He picks up two obvious prostitutes. The cab driver is very uncomfortable with this, but he just goes through with it, which I was very shocked by. And then when they get into the car, so I'm sitting, there's a driver, there's them two. He's next to me, I'm behind the driver.

As he then gives the directions to the hotel where he was staying, he proceeds to start negotiating with the prostitutes for the sexual services that he wants to enjoy when we get back to the hotel room. Which, by the way, he never told me we were going to do. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? No, no, no, no, no. I'm not. I was like, you want to do it on your own time, bro. That's fine.

Like, I'm not about it. You know, especially since you just probably committed a crime picking him up off the street. Like, what are you doing? And when I tell you he's negotiating with them, I don't just mean like 24 like like 104 to both of i don't mean that i mean like he is going graphically through the checklist as if you were like looking up pornography search terms in the in the car and i'm like oh my fuck i'm like dude i am like oh my fucking god what am i gonna do here i don't want to be a part of this and i don't like how am I going to extract myself from this till, till finally we get to the hotel, you know? And, um, they go first, you got to pay up front.

Otherwise we can't go to your room. And he's like, I don't have any cash. And then like a light bulb went off on my head. I'm like, oh, oh, I can get, and he couldn't find his, I don't know if he couldn't find his wallet or... There was some kind of issue. He didn't have cash. And I asked the people in the lobby. I'm like, is there an ATM? They're like, no, no, but it's down the street to the right.

I'm like, perfect. So I go to my friend. I'm like, listen, buddy, I'm glad you're back. I didn't say this to him. It made my mind. I'm like, I'm glad you're back, but I've gone as far along with this ride as I'm going to go so I'm like I'll get your cash and uh I walk out the street I walk down I cut a right to where the ATM was and then I just fucking I booked it I ran like my life depends I was like I don't know how to get out of this but I'm just gonna get out of it I just left and I

hailed a cab and they took me and my phone phone was just ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing. He's calling, he's calling, he's calling, and the messages are getting angrier and angrier and more desperate and more desperate until finally he called me back the next day, and it got worse for him because he brought them to the hotel. I left, and then he couldn't get his money for whatever.

I forget the reason why he couldn't get his money he didn't have his card or it was in his room or some shit and their pimp came and then their pimp came and threatened them because he brought them all this way and didn't have cash so they

took some of his jewelry and his cigarettes which he was very upset about and they went on his debt they didn't hurt him or anything and he went back to his jewelry and his cigarettes, which he was very upset about. And they went on his death. They went about, they didn't hurt him or anything. And he went back to his room and he was fine. But yeah, yeah. That was one of those moments where I was like, yeah, dude, we, no. I don't, this is not acceptable risk management to me.

I don't do things this way. And by the way, if you think that's like a really nasty story, depending on your preferences, I don't know things this way. And by the way, if you think that's like a really nasty story, depending on your preferences, I don't know what they are, I could go way worse with some other Marines that I had some encounters with. Like that is very tip of the iceberg, super tip of the iceberg. It's like, don't get me wrong, I will always praise the troops for their heroism and their service and the value that they bring to the country. It's truly one of the great honors of my life.

But if you think that they're not in their personal lives, absolute dirtbags in many cases. Ooh, you are living under a certain amount of delusion. Let me assure you. Let me assure you. I'll never forget that cab ride. I think it was actually we were on Constitution trying to get on to Independence. And he's like, yeah, but what about to do this

and like, would that be 50? What about 70? What if the both of you did it at the same time? And I'm just going like, oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. But your boy thought on his feet and just dipped out on my buddy. Sorry, sorry, dude.

What do you want me to do? I wasn't, I wasn't, he was not listening to sound. You understand, the whole time I'm not being quiet. Like the whole time I'm like, dude, we can't do this. This is a terrible idea. Ah, fuck you, we're going to do it. No, I don't want to pick these women up. I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.

Ah, stop being a bitch. Okay, alright. Have fun with this pimp. And he did. Alright, that's it for today. There's a fun little story that I had. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Appreciate everybody watching. Morning Combat is back tomorrow

And yeah, we'll do some previewing We'll do some chatting We'll do some other stuff there as well Send this to somebody who hasn't seen it And yeah I'll talk to you guys tomorrow Appreciate you watching and until then