MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Conor's Injury Revealed, UFC Saudi Arabia Recap, Ft. Mike Perry Interview | Full Ep | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Luke and Brian are back in studio to react to a huge weekend in MMA. First, Conor McGregor has finally revealed the injiry that kept him out of UFC 303, a broken toe. The guys react to this news! Plus, a full recap of UFC Saudi Arabia as Robert Whittaker demolished Ikram Aliskerov in the middleweight. Aliskerov took the bout on short notice and was unranked, so what really did Whittaker prove with this win? Alexander Volkov outclassed Sergei Pavlovich in the co-main event of the UFC's first event in Saudi Arabia. Did he show you he can win a UFC title? Also, Mike Perry joins the show LIVE to discuss his fight vs. Jake Paul and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. I've got my vape. I've got my energy drink. Unbelievable.

I've got diarrhea and Brian Campbell's here. That can only mean one thing. It's time for Morning Combat. Hi, everybody. Wow, wow. Is this Miami? Because all I see are vices over here. All these early exit options that Luke has chosen.

I'm getting my Ryan Garcia on. You know what I'm saying? Wow, wow. There you go. Hey, we probably have a really good show for the people today. We have a great show for everyone today, so let's get to it. We have... Randy Couture at noon. Yeah. Ha, ha, wow. There you go. Hey, we probably have a really good show for the people today. We have a great show for everyone today, so let's get to it. We have... Randy Couture at noon.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That got me. That actually got me. That's a great bit. That's a great bit. Hold on. Let's be serious for just a moment. We're going to have Mike Perry here at noon.

That's Ocean's Daddy. Ocean's Daddy, Florida's finest. He will be here. We'll talk to him at noon. That's Ocean's Daddy. Ocean's Daddy, Florida's finest. He will be here. We'll talk to him at noon. But before that, UFC Saudi Arabia talk, Conor McGregor reaction, BC's feces, have you seen this shit? All that fun stuff.

Even your DMs, the whole nine yards. It's going to be a fun one. So if you're watching on YouTube, thumbs up on this, hit subscribe. Thank you for joining us. I'm Luke Thomas. That's Brian Campbell. I love that you got texted already.

Hey, you probably shouldn't vape in here. I didn't vape. I didn't vape. Yeah, I know. It was more artistic theater than anything. But you know what? You will vape, though, because vaping is for closers. Vaping is for closers.

Luke Thomas once said, that stuff will kill you, though. I don't know why you're bringing that. I mean, Adesanya will tell you himself how evil that stuff is. You know what I mean? Really? You don't remember when he did this? Oh. Come on. You're like, I think he just doesn't don't remember when he did this. Oh. Come on.

You're like, I think he just doesn't like energy drinks. No, Luke. He just doesn't like- I forgot. No, I forgot. Fighters do lots of silly things that I don't understand, and I try to block it out. I had forgotten that he had even done that. I have decent shit.

I won't boast that it's a next level batch, but like a solid BB plus is what I'm going to give you. Now, how many Hawk Tua references? Oh, there's a whole segment. Now, how many Hawk Tua references? There's a whole segment. There's a whole Hawk Tua. You got to spit on that thing. There's a whole mini segment.

Hey, that chick got some dog in her. Right? That chick. Wow. Yeah. Some raw dog in her. You know what I'm saying? All right, Osborne. It took me a long time to get off the train.

Right? There you go. Okay. I tell you what. I don't know who that girl is. She seems like a fun time. girl is she seems like a fun time right she seems like a fun she's gone mega viral yes yes the only thing is though for like everyone that she's gonna now date the expectations are gonna be through the roof they're gonna be

like this is false advertising what i mean you know come on baby finish what you started you know all the rock songs in the 80s were about women not bringing men to climax in reality right pour some sugar on me you know i mean like it's all related it's all lumped in a lot of dudes just not getting that dude everyone got ass in the 80s that's true cocaine was yeah are you talking about like maybe they didn't get enough yeah imagine craig jones in the 80s that'd enough. Yeah, imagine Craig Jones in the 80s. That'd be great. Craig Jones is in the 80s. He just brought it with him.

So we're happy to be here. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. You can get some merch. We don't have any on. I got a hat on that looks great on me. Get the hat on. There we go.

You can get 10% off because we just don't take that shit down ever. Yeah, so why don't you reach out to morningcombat.store. Tell RJ Dunkel Gangbanger that we're back. RJ Hawk Tua. Yeah. I mean, RJ can't print the shirts fast enough, okay? Can we get an MK spit on that thing type of thing? I mean, actually, we're behind on way too many designs that should already be MK products.

There's a million of them we haven't done yet. We did get Jerkins out there. I mean, the thing is, I don The thing is, part of me wants... You're ashamed of this, and I'm like, I'm really not. Part of me wants to really push it, but think about what I'm pushing. Your family doesn't listen to the show, right? Accidentally, they did the other day,

and I caught an earful. Did you really? Yeah. Wow. What did they say? It's a topic for another podcast at another time you know the one where we're fixing our family no no everything was fine i still look like that's dad's entertainment outlet we're gonna keep that that stuff topic

that stuff is is separate i mean i'm at i'm in i'm in the stage of denial now because tuki obviously isn't old enough to even get on the internet so yeah so she has no idea i wonder what it's all going to be like when she actually is able to and then she sees her dad is a world-class moron yeah i'm sure tito and jenna used to have those same talks you know what i'm saying right yeah you're on fire this morning oh yeah i'm hot as a pistol hey there you go shout out all right so that's that you can email us at morningcombat at gmail.com hey thanks to everybody who tuned in for last Friday's show, the impromptu show.

People seemed to like it. Yeah, unfiltered or whatever you called it, right? Uncensored. It was. Declassified. There was no North Korean censors blocking our stuff. I did hold back my Building 7 material, which is real lengthy. Not when you send me DMs, you don't.

Would you say I've got a hard five on 9-11 alone or what? I've never seen someone who's got more 9-11 humor than you. I'm really trying to get to that level where I can stand and deliver for our next documentary. Like Jaime Escalante, right? That will never get recorded. Stand and deliver. Seriously, there were people that came to our London show that were

interviewed by MK Donk cameras back in in february of 23 will that footage ever see the light of day i'll say yes i just don't know if it's going to be this year i'll say yes though all right we got a backlog speaking of the crown we got a backlog of promises here that have to work by the time it's like completely irrelevant yeah and the crown will be yours yeah all right we got to move the show along because we actually promises here that have to work their way out. By the time it's like completely irrelevant, it will make your time. And the crown will be yours, yes. All right, we got to move the show along because we actually have a lot to get to.

As I mentioned, Mike Perry will be here at noon. So 9 a.m. in the West. By the way, did you hear him and Jake on the aerial show? They went down some crazy ass roads to promote that fight. Did you hear the topics? Something about like Jake was going to give Mike a reach around. Yeah, that's where it started, but it kept going. Look, it kept going.

It kept going from there? Yeah, it did go a little bit deeper. I kind of checked out after that. It's like, I don't know how trash talk turns into, we're going to have sex with one another. Well, that's what our audience has demanded for years if we could ever get to that 200,000 plateau. Guys, you made a deal. It's time to bang. No, not like that. All right. We have a lot to get to so fun monday here bc if you're ready we can go go ahead and get topic

number one started please all right let's begin topic number one well we will get to ufc saudi arabia but we have to talk about the news that happened on friday actually after the show that we had done we had reacted to the ryan garcia news and some other stuff, but Conor McGregor basically came out on Friday and revealed something that we had heard, but not confirmed that it was a broken toe that kept him out of UFC 303. Specifically, it was a broken pinky toe. He actually showed the x-rays. You can see the picture of the toe. It was all bruised and banged up. And then there was a clean break in the toe. One of the bones there. I don't know the toe, one of the bones there. I don't know the name of the metatarsal, whatever.

And so that is what had kept him out. I still think there's a lot of unanswered questions about all of this BC, but he has stated his reason he is out. So let me just pitch it to you. What do you make of the injury, that injury being the reason for pulling out of the vent. And then also, which we'll talk about, the subsequent PR tour he has gone on a little bit to kind of repair the damage of all of this. I think it's a big red flag. I know that this is a case where Conor's almost trying so badly to defend himself. Like, no, guys, I'm not arguing with the UFC for money. I'm not afraid to get into this fight.

Here, in fact, I'll show you. I'll show you the medical. Then we see the medical and then you start to go, given his reputation, isn't that something he normally pushes past? I'm not saying, you know, it's hard for, it's always going to be hard for us as keyboard journalists, as basement operators here to try to speak into

what a fighter should tolerate in terms of pain or the fact that they're always injured. But let's remind ourselves that alex perera had a similar broken toe heading into ufc 300 which he came in on short notice and kind of saved the day and won he injured and broke a second toe which now he's turning around on two month notice to save the same card that connor pulled out of let's go habib nurmagomedov do you remember ufc what it, 249 against Justin Gaethje? His final fight when he came in with a broken toe on his left foot,

a broken right foot, and he had like measles or MRSA or something ridiculous during the training camp as well. I'm not saying this to say, look, Conor, you should be tougher or I would have done the same thing. I wouldn't have done the same thing. But

there's a certain amount of shit that any employer will tolerate as long as you are still providing ultimately the basis of why this relationship started in the first place. So if you still sell at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's UFC or your local job. If somebody can still do the job at a higher level, they'll get privileges that others won't in terms of their behavior. And the UFC has allowed Conor a lot of these privileges in the second half of his career. He can come and go as he pleases. They will do an ultimate fighter, but then still wait another year to hope that he's

ready. Well, he had gotten himself, he had backed himself, worked himself into a shoot, whatever kind of cliches you want to use to the point where it was now time to stand up and do at the end of the day, what you do and the reason why you're here and the reason why you get these extra chances because you deliver, you do business win or lose. And at this point in his career, it's not really about winning to be fair. It's about showing up, being reliable and delivering.

And he didn't do that. So we have Connor sound that we're going to throw to, to kind of get his side of it. But did you see that Dana sound in particular when they talked to him in, in Saudi on Saturday afterwards and almost with disappointed dad, he was response. He was just sort of like, you know, when asked if Connor, can you, can you rebook Connor in August or September? That's what Connor had said publicly. And Dana's like, yeah, he's not gonna be ready anyway. Like, I don't know. I have no, almost like,

I think he said, is he going to be ready? How about, how about October? He goes, he's not. How about October? He's not ready. How about September? That's what Dana said. So whatever you want to argue on the tone, what it showed to me was that Connor now broke the last straw. He broke the cardinal sin that you can't mess with.

The relevance of why you're here. To be on time and to move that product. They built a whole cart around him. They let him take forever to get through Roadhouse and all that. This is where you got to back the promotion. We come hard against the promotion. But in this case, Dana's right on because now Conor has lost his usefulness because he can't be reliable and timely and work through something that,

based on his history, based on what champions are willing to do, based on how many of these fighters are so badly coveting being in that 1% where they don't have to worry about the money anymore, where they are willing to take title fights on last minute notice and fly across the world just to make way all this stuff. And now Connor couldn't be relied on something that seems to be small in the injury scheme. To me, that's just a monster red flag that there is a lot more going on that have to do potentially with the rockstar lifestyle that he's got outside the cage or just the full idea that the same thing that could get him through losses and get him back into the eye of the tiger

that's gone that's gone this is to me is a major red flag you know let's let's hear the sound let's interpret ourselves but what this tells me based on all the facts that we have based on the fact that the diagnosis was quick but we didn't hear about this for two weeks which i said didn't never make sense at the time there was a full court press put on to where at the end of the day the guy chose not to do business and when you break that oath that's the final one when you break that that to me is the company going okay well we're done with you not not done for life but we're done letting you call any element of this you know what i'm saying like you're you now owe us now come. Gaff, let's hear the sound if you can.

A few times under similar circumstances and for what? You know, okay, if I was in a different part of my career and as I have done, as I've proven,

I made the walk, I've taken those chances. And then at times when I probably could have just taken a little postponement, a little build and give the fans what they deserve.

The fans don't deserve to see the fighters walking there hindered and then hear about it after so you know i want to get my training camps correct and i'm getting them very very close i'm telling you this was a minor just a little lapse in concentration where we didn't put on our protective gear and the training around the cameras got a little bit uh you know elevated and a little injury happened it's very very fixable and i'm like i said i'm very close to getting this perfect and the next time the fans will see me will be 100 conor mcgregor and i'm excited to show and i'm extremely confident to show luke what's your bullshit meter

telling you on that because for me it's there's there's sirens going off i mean it's bullshit and it's not right so like i i actually had the good fortune of a uh and i was able to verify their identities in both cases i had a medical doctor reach out to me to offer an opinion and then uh i was able to contact another one that was sort of associated with a friend to just get their opinion now people are like oh what are these doctors are diagnosing connor from afar no they're not diagnosing the diagnosis is pretty clear he has a broken toe there's not there's not really debate about that like he has a broken toe that There's not really debate about that. Like, he has a broken toe. That's the diagnosis. The question is what you want to do about it. And both of those doctors were like, yeah, he probably could have fought with that.

That isn't to say that he wouldn't have gone in there hobbled to an extent, that it wouldn't have necessarily, could it have enhanced his risk? All of that is true. I mean, it's one of these questions where the diagnosis is a broken toe. Now the question is, what do you want to do about it? And fighters are going to have different responses based on, to his point, where they are in their respective careers, exactly how bad it is, what the recovery looks like, all that kind of stuff. But I can understand now a little bit better why there wasn't an immediate action taken when he got injured to your point the broken toe right again have I had a broken toe no I have no idea what

it's like but I can only tell you that these two doctors told me you can tape it up with a week of rehab you're not going to be back it takes four to six weeks to really go back but that you could basically compete with it you know you can get cortisone shots, and you can manage. You can manage. You can win. I leave that to them. Just to point out this idea, like the medical, like there's one medical consensus, and that he had to pull out is really not true,

at least not for people who make a living on active competition schedules. It's not really true, but this is the bigger point to me. I actually feel like what he says in that video is fairly fairly right hold on let me make a point here hold on when he says I have made that walk injured before he's telling he's telling the truth when he says I'm in a different place in my career now that is true he doesn't have the same thing but here's the point that I want to make and what really occurred to me if he if connor 2024 was the opponent for connor 2016 connor 2016 would eat this fucking guy alive because connor 2024 wouldn't accept the fight we just saw what happened

but more than that chandler's not giving it to him. Conor 2016 would mock this dude mercilessly. Exactly. That's why when I say, what's your bullshit meter? It's got to be beeping and going off on the alarm. I want to get ahead of this because I haven't had a chance. I want to say that all the fans, Conor's fans, are going to be like, well, he's making a more appropriate decision to maximize his competition. He doesn't have the leverage to do that.

Okay, but I'm saying just in terms of preserving his health to give himself a maximum chance, that's fine. But the point I want to make is this guy built not just a reputation for taking stuff. He built an identity. This is what, in 2016, he would say, this is what I I do I don't give up like these other guys I don't take shortcuts or low roads not low roads per se but easy easy outs I don't do that kind of thing I am the show when I show up it everything happens because of me this comment that he made here tells me he might go and fight chandler and he might even win 2016 connor mcgregor is dead yeah we said that last week we said that last week there's no but this this was to me was the funeral okay this to me was the ceremonial here's why you can't

justify the comments even though in a vacuum those comments he said are reasonable fans deserve a fully healthy guy blah blah blah it's not just the history to compare to that. Connor said himself about what should be acceptable for guys at the highest level. He doesn't have the leverage to do this. If he was an aging champion, who's talking about the grind and saying, well, I only have a few of these left. It's maybe similar to what Steven Thompson did, right? Where the guy where his opponent missed weight, was it Michelle Pereira?

And he was just sort of like, I don't want to fight another guy that missed weight. I'm not going to give you that advantage at his age he's he was a quasi title contender when he said that you're like okay maybe he could stumble in right connor doesn't have that luxury now because he hasn't been active and the ufc has done everything to bend over and try to fit into his timeline you can't do that two weeks out of the fight for a broken toe you can't do that you can do that six months out of the fight for a broken toe. You can't do that. You can do that six months out of the fight. You can do that a year into this process, not three years into his comeback here. There's no, now it just screams red. Look, when a, when we see an aging slugger in there, get hit with a shot and then almost look like he doesn't want to come forward would be like red flag, red flag that

he's the last one to know that it's past him. To me, this is a different, but similar red flag. It's not only a red flag which led to dana from a business standpoint just being disappointed like i don't know what to tell you guys we can't rely basically what he's saying is we can't rely on him anymore i think even for connor the bullshit meter went off when i heard him say all those things because he's saying it not to convince us he's saying it to justify and convince himself and that's what i feel like i'm not i'm not saying you got to come back and you got to win. I'm just saying you got to come back and do the very basic, which is fulfill your end of the bargain.

This did not seem comparatively historically like an injury that would force you to try to protect this fight so bad. At this point, we just need to see you. The promotion just needs your name out there at this point. There's no leverage you can lean on. You're not protecting an unbeaten record. You're not protecting a title streak. Nothing. They just want to see you back. You should have been able to fight. The red flags are going off left and right. And by the way, the red flag should have been

going off to us even more, even though every time we played Conor videos in the last three years, we typically would add in a snarky, well, it kind of looks like he's been up all night. It kind of looks like this and that. Can we stop with the kind of looks like, can we just grab the evidence that we have over the past three years? It's not the same guy, not just because he's older, not just because he's cutting corners. It doesn't have that same eye of the tiger. It seems to me like he is, you know, Vince Neil 1986 on the outside of his life looking in. I don't know that to be true. That's what it seems like.

How could we ever expect forget success? How about even consistency and health? It's hard to burn it at both ends, Luke. It is really hard. I'm getting that picture from this whole scenario that it's much more than the toe. In reality, the toe is the blinking red light in Amsterdam that got you questioning your morals because it's regulated. Also, the logic. I mean, should I? She's waving me on.

It's regulated. They do make eye contact with you. I know. That's what I hear. But, BC, this is why, again, I go back to it. People keep pretending like they don't understand this point. If the toe was broken like that with a clean break, right? a totally clean it wasn't like it was half broken they're like well what's a clean break which you know again you can make that that's the diagnosis how is it possible it took so long for them to

come to a situation where they were then moving on everyone's like oh it took almost two weeks for them to find the replacement no it didn't it. It took 48 to 72 hours to find the replacement. Everything else was hemming and hawing. So to your point, was there a full court press when the UFC being like, yeah, dude, you can fight this way. You're going to be a little bit hobbled, but you can do it. And then Conor backing off and saying, I don't want. I am of the belief, BC, again, that it's possible for him to have done this, to have competed. Again, at what cost, we'll never know. But now we're on the other end of it, where he has asked for extra time. He will obviously now get it. Whenever they rebook him,

we'll see what that is. And now if you lose even asking for the extra time, it's not like a loss would be great in either circumstance, but you would at least understand it a little bit more. If he had gone on their hobble. Now he's saying, I'm going to go in there only when I'm fully prepared. If you lose, then what does that do to any kind of evaluation about who you are at this

point in the fight game? But it's not just the PR in my opinion, that he's losing by executing this intake, letting it play out the way that it has, right? With the big secrecy and now him coming out and really not looking like the tough warrior of old. It really starts to make you question some things, a lot of things on how the message was delivered,

whether, I don't know. I just, I got a really, I don't know. I just got a really weird feeling. It's the opposite of, dude, like he used to be defiant and aggressively defiant. All the rules that keeps you bums

grounded on Earth, I defy. Now he's justifying. Now Icarus has flown too close to the sun. He's become a different person and he's descending back to Earth. Now he wants to be like, well, now I gotta make smart decisions about my health and blah, blah, blah. It's like, dude, this is the opposite of how you got famous.

Well, answer me this. It's not just a PR hit. This has to bring down his number of what he's going to get paid when he does come back and seemingly fight Chandler, right? The UFC can't. In terms of like pay-per-view. In terms of the guarantee. That's probably already contractually locked up. I don't know that that's true.

There's got to be leverage lost in that regard. And this is the point, too. It's like, dude, I've said it a million times. We know the story. If you're this famous and you're this successful as a fighter, it's hard to know when to quit. I understand it. But this is the point I'm trying to make.

He has already beaten the game, and now he's trying to justify an extended tenure past that. It might work for whatever purpose he has left, but it doesn't look like it's working and now we have ever more reason to doubt that it ever will i'm not suggesting that i know for a fact it won't i'm simply remarking we're in such a different place than everything that boosted his appeal to begin with okay final question on here because the big bad taste in my mouth, there's two things. One was my sort of fear that Conor's just sort of going through the motions

and trying to, you know, take the piece of gum off the side of the dam that's in place in a new spa in that regard. But the whole idea of like the message being received and how weird it was, and there were two weeks of us doing all these conspiracy theories. In hindsight, is it safe to say

that the reason why this was handled so cryptically is because the UFC was so anxiously trying to keep alive hope that they could convince Conor to take the fight or is it because in general they there's certain things that they really don't want to come to light because it may paint you think of what Chael saying about Conor Chael matter of factly saying on his ESPN show that Conor's in rehab I'm not sure if it's true but it's sort of like a rumor that's out there. Is this UFC sort of doing PR damage control on any future Conor payday? I didn't see UFC doing anything. By not releasing the news on it, by keeping everything so close to the vest,

is it instead of this being this thing against MMA media or whatever, however you want to frame it, is it more just them trying to protect their asset? They don't want the full story to come out so that we're not sitting here speculating I think that again this is a hunch you're asking me for a hunch my hunch is that they felt like this was a bad look for Conor and they were at least willing to prevent that from going as public as it sure could have been yeah he ended up taking it public I guess in rage about what Chael sonnen had said by the way he also responded to daniel cormier did you notice that he didn't mention him by name

but he mentioned that chandler was going to get 10x with him what he would ordinarily get and if you go back to the episode where chael and dc are going back and forth chael said the rehab thing and then dc was like chandler should move on because he could you know he'll get more money and he'll be able to do more staying active than he will be waiting and then connor responds to that so i guess dude i'm not even kidding i think the guy woke up and saw a good guy bad guy or whatever the show's called and then just fucking rage tweeted about his health situation which to your point they were trying to at least i'm not obscure but keep damage control yeah just keep a little bit of damage control to avoid any broader inquiry about

it. Strange times, strange times to be alive. Indeed. Wow. Worthy of topic. Number one is with this Connor saga and scenario continues to play out topic. Number two, though,

brings us back to where the UFC was this Saturday for the first time ever Saudi Arabia and a debut fight night card that, you know, had certain elements to it. That felt like a little bit more. And boy, can't wait for have you seen the shit when we watch the budding bromance here between one Turkey Al-Ashiq and Dana White. But in the cage is what mattered most. Patchwork main event, but we're excited about it. But former middleweight world champion Robert Whitaker,

despite taking on the dangerous Ikram Al-Askarov, an extreme last-minute scenario, looked very much like the living legend label we've been giving him of late. He needed less than a round, and he really needed little time at all to put together brutal combinations. The uppercut, the first-round knockout, the first loss of Alaskarov's UFC run, but bigger than that, Luke, did robert whittaker prove most with this resounding victory saturday afternoon on abc you know it's a great question

and i'm going to say it like this he could have fought potentially let's say someone else ranked inside the top five-ish kind of space a nasur dean imov of a brendan allen even a you know somebody else on that in that space and he probably would have won i'll get to that in just a second and maybe he wouldn't have got as dramatic a victory although it's possible but let's just say he hadn't let's just say it had been a little bit more pedestrian the whole way people have said well what does it really mean that he beat an unranked guy well sure if he had beatenhovov over the course of five rounds, four rounds to one, that would

have proven more about how worthwhile the victory is. But to me, that really misses the point here. What Robert Whitaker did was let everybody know, number one, there's levels to this. I mean, holy shit, there's levels to this. Number two,

there's people who have worn the belt or are currently wearing the belt at middleweight, and then there's everybody else. I don't know if he would have done the same thing to Hamzat Shumayev. I don't really have any interest in watching that fight because there's four guys at middleweight, DDP, Izzy, Whitaker, and I think you have to put Strickland in there as well.

Those four. It's those four. It's the four horsemen of one 85 and then everybody else. And what Whitaker did on Saturday was, I mean, in bulldozing, Alice Scaroff didn't make it close for a second is not just a reminder of how exciting he can be and how good he can be.

He has not lost in any capacity, the thirst and hunger for a title. And he reminded us he is just as dangerous, if not more than one, when he won the title, I should say when he had the title four years. And now I think nine months ago was the last time he basically had it. He's as good as that, if not better, still wants it just as much. And in dispatching this guy, the way he did stamped a ticket at a bare minimum for a Strickland Whitaker co-main on the 305 card. I know he said he would fill in. I think that's a waste of his time, but if he wants to do it whatever he is still capable very clearly bc of winning that ufc middleweight title when you get rid of a guy like that on by the way everyone's like they both had

camps yeah but they each had to fight each other with very minimal preparation for that specific opponent look at what whittaker did diagnosed him within 90 seconds and put him the fuck away and you gotta you gotta factor in the unknown of what Alaskarov brought to the table for Whitaker, but to hear Whitaker so defiantly afterwards, because by the way, he got shellacked by the Russian speaking media. Did you see that? No. There was sort of question after question that needed to be translated, of course, to

him that eventually the spirit of the question was, hey, great win and you're a great fighter, but you were preparing for this monster. And Shumayev, does it take away from your win at all that you know you had an easier fight? That's like sort of just suddenly pissing on what Alaskarov brought to the table and what, you know, what Whitaker had to do in the face of that a couple of times was to bring out the levels and really put out that. But what he said was, look, I was prepared for 25 minutes of hell, of war with Chimaev. So when you know the dedication that he put in,

because he's at that point, was he 33? 33. He's at that point where any given night, he's either going to give you a tease that he's getting old or he's going to do this, remind you that on any given night he can beat anybody in the division, which he can. That is without certainty. But for a shitty situation, losing such a big-name opponent, Chemaev,

he really played it best case scenario pick you know got the right guy that would justify him fighting like an unranked guy because at least alaskar was coming up and we suddenly were like wait has whitaker taken too much damage in general is he walking into a buzzsaw and then to beat him with the dominance that he did he actually can in this situation entertain a conversation that he may have cut to the front of the line and it's like this division is already like the best soap opera division in the sport right now. It is like the most must-see TV in the top end players.

Anytime you match them together, tactically, the fights are close. There's a lot of history at stake whenever Adesanya and Whitaker, former champions, are getting involved. DDP's there. Strickland's rising. I mean, you got Bo Nickel and Joe Pfeiffer and the new generation coming behind them. But what Whitaker did in winning this, I think just added like another curve and storyline into this division of what we're doing. And look, they say what the rudest thing you can do is bring

flowers to a funeral because it suggests that you didn't bring those flowers to somebody when they were alive. I don't I don't want to be that guy that misses it. So every time we say Robert Whitaker's name, we got to add living legend after it. I mean, it was certainly a circumstances of illness and the reality of 10 rounds of fighting Yoel Romero that sort of wounded Whitaker at times and he lost his belt, ran into a tough opponent historically in Adesanya, although I do believe he won the rematch

and no one wants to talk about that anymore. But think about his losses. Think about his losses. Yeah, he got one-sided and railroaded by DDP, but look at how he's bounced back from there yeah he's got two losses to adesanya but it's still in play that they could one day fight a trilogy and that it would matter for a title uh i hope whitaker gets the selective treatment that a form your champion this popular gets because he is in that poirier max holloway portion of his great career where it's like he's still here

and can win back the title and start a new chapter. Yet I feel like we have to treasure what we have here. One of the greatest, most well-rounded, durable, thoughtful fighters that we've seen in this era. And it's like, every time he gets this type of win, it reminds me of Poirier going in there and head kicking BSD of like, damn, Max going in there and doing what he did to Gaethje. It's like, man, this guy still got it.

What is the path though, to get back and get that chance when you look at the players in this division, what is that path to get his opportunity? So it looks like UFC 305, which will be in Australia is going to be Izzy and DDP. And Whitaker said he would be the backup. And Whitaker said he would be the backup. And by the way, that could be very relevant.

We don't know how, who the hell knows what could happen by the time we get there. So Whitaker could easily just slide in that direction. A lot of people have said, what about Whitaker versus Sean Strickland as the co-main? I got to tell you, I wouldn't hate that, BC. But should he have to climb another one? He beat Costa in sort of a, okay, where are you at check-in? Yep, after being brutally finished by DDP.

But this is a big power move. This might, like, I'm not, not like if strickland got the next one after this based on what happens and then look it has to be based on because if izzy wins back this title in the thriller they probably go to a trilogy with ddp well the thing is strickland fought costa after losing and won so did whittaker and now whittaker has added alice scaroff on top of it and by the way don't lose sight of something he He was in the main event of UFC Saudi Arabia. When Hamzat fell out, Whitaker contractually had the right to be like,

I'm done here. I'm not going to compete. I'm going to wait for that guy or whatever. He could have easily not stayed on the card. He chose to stay on the card. They gave him an unranked guy who, certainly I don't think that was the best version of what Alex Kirov can be or will be, but certainly a threat and fucking Whitaker.

Let me ask you this on the demolished part, because what did I say in the, in our Friday special show to tee this up? Like we haven't seen this guy get a stoppage since 2017. Is it asking too much at this point in his veteran career to make a change and be more offensive and go after it? You heard this comments afterwards from here on out, I'm only going after and going after the finish. Now look,

it's one thing to say that, but on the elite level against Izzy, that's hard. There's a reason why you don't see a lot of finishes on that level. Did this, though, even though he fought maybe the perfect Alaskarov on the short notice and just really showed him the levels. Is this sustainable? Can he be more offensive minded where he can be this dangerous? Dude, I will tell you what, man, this is a true story about life. And Whitaker just really exemplifies this. And I mean this with absolute sincerity to the extent you or I,

or anyone watching this has spent any amount of time in their adult life, trying to get good at something. There is one lesson that you inevitably pick up that you really can't lose sight of. Progress is simply not linear. It is not like this. It's this and back and all kinds of MK, it felt like that for a while and then last year happened. And then it was Malaysia Air the last six months. But now listen, they found the wreckage and we're trying

to put the plane back together again. But I won't eat your ass to live. I won't. Like that soccer movie? But you get my point. It's not linear. It's not linear at all. There are all kinds of setbacks. Sometimes big, sometimes small. And he has done nothing but stayed the course. And I want to make a point about his game if I can.

What I really love about Whitaker's game, which I did not always love to begin with because it wasn't fully there. Now it's fully there. Robert Whitaker is well-rounded. Like he can do basically everything, but he can't do everything all that great. Nobody can. He's got strengths and weaknesses too. But what I love about his game, BC, you know, and you see this a little bit, I'm not going to say they're identical, but you see this in problem solver boxers. Like Tank Davis is a problem solver boxer. He can diagnose what the situation is and he doesn't have to have all the skills. He takes his existing skill set, makes a read and then acts upon it based on the the direct stimulus that his opponent is giving him and then runs him over that way he

problem solves everything in his game is smoothly interconnected there's no there's no inefficiency to how it all works together tyron woodley to fair. I wouldn't put Woodley on this level. Sorry. No. Easy, Dana. In terms of the striking, no, definitely not. Definitely not. The way he put the whole game together,

diagnosed the problem of his opponent, forced you into one lane. I would say Whitaker, I'd have to go back and look at some of Woodley's footage to give a better answer. But certainly, certainly, that is what carried him forward in this fight and he has just he has relentlessly tried to stay on this non-linear path back to the title and i made this

point on saturday bc which is you know i remember when rich franklin lost to anderson silva and we were like all right that was really bad which time yeah and then he fought him again and it was also really fucking bad remember dude he came this close to beating Izzy in the rematch and I know he's had some setbacks So as is he since that time as well, dude, it is absolutely possible to point Oh, we say oh he can beat anyone on the division any day. No Whitaker might actually be the best guy in this weight class. I know he just got fished with DDP three fights ago Are you really gonna count him out? Are you really going to say he can't do it?

Are you really going to offer that up? I have such admiration for a guy who has had this and then this and then goes back and then this and then goes back and continues to refine, continues to get better, and then you see results like that. Dude, he has earned the biggest possible opportunity at middleweight, and it's a life lesson for how building yourself should should look and bobby knucks is just that dude though like i've always respected how he never really cared in interviews it's hard to like get

a great bobby knuckles interview like because he's always just sort of been like yeah whatever mate you get a lot of mate throwing at you almost like i could rip you right now mate but instead i'll just kind of speak down to you it's a lot lot of passive-aggressive shit. It is, but yet, like, I don't know. There's just something about the aura and what he represents that, you know, it's, like I say, like, Dustin Poirier is an American hero. This man is an oceanic hero.

Good old Bobby Nugs. Let me ask you, what would it mean if you got the title back? How remarkable would that be? I mean, it would be remarkable because of the gap between it. And look, like, it's like one of those things where it's like, you know, I could argue that he won the Izzy second fight, and I can argue that the first fight, man, was he really physically compromised.

Although, look, that version of Izzy is probably going to... That Izzy was not going to be stopped that night. But he went through, like, legitimate pitfalls that would send someone in the other direction for good, Luke. And it's not just the physical... You know, remember when the Gastelum fight got canceled and he was going through that stretch where physically his body just wasn't staying together. It was also like the mental stuff he had to get through. I mean, he was very open about,

you know, the depression he went through in certain times of that, getting the highs of winning the championship and then losing it when he really wasn't a hundred percent for him to endure and now still be when the division is this deep in argument that he may be the best. I can't wait to see what the sequels bring us. It's like sort of looking at this Dune franchise. Now they want to do a third one? Man, I can't wait to look at it. Are there three books?

Well, there's a lot of books, but there's only the first three are the hardcores, like Web Scream, Christos Christoforos. They get bad at a certain point. But I want to see the ending of it. So with that in mind, if we know the next movie in this middleweight championship picture is what you mentioned, uh,

is he trying to re trying to win the title for a third time against EDP? What are the next two fights after that? Like what are the coming attractions? What is the lineage of the, of the middleweight championship going to look like in your opinion? I mean, it's hard to gauge. It's hard to gauge because everyone, except for Whitaker and Strickland to each other,

everyone has a relationship with the other one. this Chimaev never get there who not like this dude Chimaev I want to say this if you're Whitaker it is an insult to give him a fight except anybody either for a title or for number one contender and even the number one contender is a little iffy yeah it is a or is he because of history, but now he's got a title shot, so it's a moot point anyway. Fine. Okay, there's a little bit of history there, but again, former champion is sort of what we're talking about here. Dude, you just go down the list like Imavov. Is that a waste

of Whitaker's time? Yes, it is. You could go down to Hermansen and Allen. These are not bad fighters, but these are a waste of his time. The only one that would have made interesting sense is what we talked about, the possibility of Bo Nickel. Now that we know what we know about the version of Whitaker, would Whitaker have effed him up on the feet? He would have stifled the wrestling, I think, enough to then light him up on the feet. It wouldn't have been like this, where he just lit him up to begin with, I don't think.

But, dude, it's a waste of his fucking time. It's a waste of his time. It is either Izzy, DDP, or at worst, Sean Strickland and nobody else. Do you think the smart cage said that same thing to Randy Cooter each of the last two weeks? Randy, you have missed two morning combat interviews. It's a waste of your fucking time.

Do not show up. Somebody get Hardy up in the bullpen. This strike was delivered at 17 miles per hour. I'll just say this. One thing about Hamzat Shumayev, 30 years old. I would say the first half of his prime did not go great. It didn't go poorly, but it did not go great. He still has the second half of his prime, which you can still do a lot with.

They said maybe Abu Dhabi in October is a potential timeline for return. I guess we'll see but coming out of this fight even though alaskarov got run over there was no part of me that looked at this and goes oh they've got to make that fight with hamzat they have to run this one back right it's important that these two settle this no no no no whitaker's on to something else and hamzat has some building back to do. They're in very different places. That's another guy they can't trust.

Five main events, and he hasn't been able to physically get there. Okay, but his situation appears to be much more dire. Oh, for sure. Existential in terms of a professional career. For sure. And he can't fly everywhere, which is becoming a... Dana said the same thing about Shara Bullitt. He's like, no, no, no.

Let me ask you about the Shara Bullitt thing very quickly. If Dana is... And I'm asking here. I'm actually not declaring. I am asking. Okay. bullet he's like you know let me ask you about the short bullet thing very quickly if if dana is and i'm asking here i'm actually not declaring i am asking okay but if dana is saying hey we can't bring this guy to the united states because he won't be able to get a commission to license him based on his eye injury how is it not commission shopping to do what they're doing oh so the commission shopping based on government they self-regulate in saudi arabia they self-regulate based basically in in our in dubai the only restriction is you can't fly to the u.s based upon your relationship with with no i think his

issue is he can't get regulated because of his eye oh okay then that is shopping that's commission shopping right i was i was thinking i saw mma fans be like why can't he come over i'm like holy fucking shit guys they're not saying he can't come in the country that i'm aware of what they're saying is they can't get licensed because of his eye do mma fans serious question in 2024 do they know it's regulated by the government i honestly don't know if they know that or not no i told you that my dad up until two years ago still thought it was bare knuckle no rules he's like right brian like we used to watch in like 93 right like same thing like no rules i can just kick the guy in the crotch hold on gaff can you get on the mic very quickly so the audience can hear you people need to hear what's going on yeah i'm right here gaff is it not commission shopping if they're keeping

him there because they can't bring him to the u.s that is exactly commission commission shop okay can we talk about one other thing related to char bullet Bullitt? Yeah. He fought Mackenzie Dern's husband on like a three-hour notice. He's a little bit overrated. You were right, but it's worse. You were questioning whether the ground game would equal the ferocious striking and the fact that he sort of plays this character of this foreign villain with the red hair. I love the package. The package looks great.

Nice package. But he only won this fight because his opponent was not ready for 15 minutes of war. And because he grabbed the fence relentlessly, Luke, in key spots to avoid getting taken down and was barely warned. Pump the brakes on his upside. Yo, this guy was like a walking corpse by the end just waiting to be hit. Also, he seems like a bad person. He was the one. I don't know about that.

Oh, he kicked the guy at the jujitsu tournament and isn't this also the guy that got in the couple's face in russia because they had the audacity to kiss on an escalator this guy oh i didn't know about that as well then everyone's like oh he's fucking awesome he's fucking awesome i'm like dude you know what's interesting awesome is a strong word the difference between us you know nothing when it comes to MMA fighter power couples and they're married, this fighter or this trainer. You couldn't be bothered. You don't want to know about Merle.

Is it her fault that Peloton moved on? It's not up to you. But you know every public slight, every foreign dictator that every fighter could be linked to. You know everything. There's a lot of it. There's a lot of it in this sport. My dad was asking me about it. My's a lot of it. There's a lot of it in this sport. My dad was asking me about it.

My dad was looking into it. He was like, he had found out that when Bolsonaro fled Brazil after Lula, he stayed at Jose Aldo's house in Orlando. He's like, Jose Aldo was an MMA fighter? My dad doesn't know anything. I'm like, well, not just an MMA fighter. One of the fucking best of all time. And then he had heard about, I forget who it was. He was running for some, was it Overeem in Parliament?

Somebody in Europe had run for office from an MMA background. He's like, I don't think there's any other sport where people go from fist fighting one another to then, or no, sorry, from like active competition to trying to run for office as much as MMA, or at least to be like, at least to be like. Boxing too, though, boxing too. Pacquiao, Eric Morales. Yeah, you're right. boxing too who Pacquiao Eric Morales yeah you're right there's been a few you're right you're right it's weird though

combat sports makes people want to like be government adjacent or well I think in some of the other country the second and third world countries when you get to that global level level of fame you become you can do anything you can do anything yes yeah can do anything, yes. You know what I mean? All right, very good. We're going to be joined in 15 minutes, allegedly, by Randy Couture. No, I'm teasing. Mike Perry. Which is a great get, by the way, Mike Perry this week. By the way, how fucking hilarious would it be if it's actually Randy with Mike Perry? That would be great.

We do a dual interview. Wow, wow. We can ask him about the dumb cage, which, by the way, did anybody watch Bellator or PFL this past weekend? Did anybody? I watched Paul Hughes. I can't watch the replays on Max. So I out a solution to that yeah can i give it to you just don't watch yeah i got it's how we get around all this bill shit just don't watch guys i got it

here's my pfl coverage it doesn't exist yeah if you if you're gonna miss it and when you see the thumbnail pop up ahead of time add it to to my events or my list. Okay. And then you can go back and then find it on your list after it's over. Because I tried yesterday to go and search Bellator Dublin. You can't find it. But then I clicked under my list of stuff, and it was right there. So that's a way to get around. Okay.

All right. It's a great deal. When I think about Max, I think of enduring movie franchises like Night Eyes with Shannon Tweed and that guy Stevens. I saw that andrew stevens i saw that civil war movie over the weekend that has nothing to do with night eyes one two or three i know i just want to change the subject i find you boring all right let's go topic number three if we can bc yes very quickly how about this one your guy had a big win in the co-main event at ufc sa Alexander Volkov basically routing Sergey Pavlovich.

I think one judge gave him one round, but that was really about it. So let me ask you, in this big co-main event win in Saudi Arabia, did he show you with this performance and what he's done up to this point that he can win a UFC title? It's still matchup dependent,

but yes, he took that step forward. It wasn't as big of a step as I said, could happen. I said, what if he walks in there and stops Pavlovich Pavlovich coming off a fight that would have put him in a title fight or an interim one against Aspinall, or maybe it was for the interim title,

Luke. But the whole point was if he had gone in there and done that, it would have been such an explosive, explosive move for straight wins over some relative names in there too. Didn't get the stoppage, but Luke, I wonder if he did more to potentially convince you. And I say matchup dependent because it's not without flaws. Somebody with speed can still light him up. Somebody who can wrestle can still make it a problem, although he has worked on his takedown

defense and he is strong as shit. But am I riding the Volkov train only because Sasha and I look alike, Luke? Because you've told me I look like a dime store, dollar store version of Volkov. I'll still take that because that guy's a badass. Has he not evolved his striking with the switching of stances, with the level changes? There's a lot more in there, wrinkles. Look, at the end of the day, there's still distance you have to cross to score on him that he can make you pay with big counter shots,

with heavy leg strikes. He's still a physical force in there. Elite guys that can package in the speed of the wrestling, it's going to be a problem. But I'm watching a guy now with four straight wins, and you got to think about the level of danger that Pavlovich brings, where he was really never in danger in this fight.

He did take a couple clean shots, but he took them well. I mean, this was masterclass against an elite heavyweight. Not all heavyweights are made the same. They bring different, you know, it's why styles make fights, but tell me this guy isn't angling toward a title fight. Now when we consider, we may never see John Jones again after the steep a fight. We, yeah,

there's a dream scenario of Alex moving on to fight John champion versus champion. Who knows? But if Aspinall is ready coming out of the whole John Jones scenario and he needs a a dangerous title shot you could do a lot worse than Volkov because I think he does bring danger to the right matchup I would say this I think that might be one of the best performances I've seen from him comprehensively um it was an excellent job maintaining range, making adjustments,

because he actually started out orthodox and ended up staying in southpaw the majority of the time. That added the distance between himself and Pavlovich. And he was tearing up that lead leg. Tearing up the – how about the kicking to the body, both in keeping the backhand of Pavlovich holstered, as well as getting underneath the elbow there and cracking his ribs. He was doing all kinds of great kicking work. So I'm going to say this.

I have been, there's sometimes fighters have performances in fights, and it may not really matter long term, but it can end up like affecting how you look at them. And I remember watching his fight with Vitaly Minnikov back in 2013, a long time ago. In Bellator? Well, here's the thing. He was a tall guy at that time in 2013. If you were not watching MMA, you won't appreciate this. There are now a lot of tall guys in MMA

who actually do a pretty decent job of fighting tall. But 2013 was the era of Stefan Struve, where there was a bunch of tall guys. He kind of exemplified it. There was a bunch of tall guys, none of which who fought tall. Volkov does a really, really good job in MMA context of using his frame to his advantage, tactically, strategically. There was such a good job by him. I really have to give him credit. So to answer the original

question I asked you was like, did I see someone who can beat Tom Aspinall or Jon Jones? I really didn't, to be honest with you. I did not. Remember, Tom Aspinall defeated both Sergey Pavlovich and Alexander Volkov combined in less than a round. I just didn't see anything that makes me think that that would change. I don't take away the Aspinall stoppage. But I'll say this. I don't know what the future holds.

This is why the guys have to fight the fight. Four-fight win streak, and then to do it as thoroughly as he did here, where he even took some big shots, and he didn't lose bearing. He kept on the game plan. The game plan overall worked tremendously well. He beat the shit out of him, too. He beat the shit out of Pavley. His blood was smeared all over his face.

So, to me, has he earned a potential title opportunity? Yes. And whoever has the belt has an obligation to defend it, whether or not you think those individual contenders have a shot or not. So it doesn't really matter, actually, if we think he can win. No, I don't think he can beat Tom Aspinall. But you keep putting performances like that together, and you look as, again, I'm not comparing him to Robert Whitaker,

but a guy who has really put together a game that works for him in this context, you are entitled to the riches that come with that kind of achievement. So could he have a legendary Polish power, Jan Blachowicz-type run? Now, doing the late 30s thing is not as surprising at heavyweight where you can do that, but could he go on this run where he essentially

raises his game to the next level? Maybe he's in the midst of that run now with this four-fight win streak where every fight you're seeing him a different fighter than he was before in earlier versions. Because he's come up for air a couple times where you thought he was ready. You thought he was legitimately ready to make the move. The Aspinall one was humbling because it was like, damn. It was so quick.

And remember, he gave Blades, I think, some fits as well. He rallied back. Blades was able to get the takedown and whatnot, but he was bent, never broken, and so really gave Blades some problems. So it's hard for me to look past those, even though obviously the Blades one was very close in that sense. I just feel like the wrong question to ask is,

oh, is he the new guy in this weight class? That's not the right question. I think a better way to look at it is, we are finally getting heavyweights who are developing mature skill sets and in particular tall ones who are showing how to compete tall and then doing that against dangerous ass punchers

along the way. That is a remarkable thing. I'm telling you, in MMA, maybe Semmy Schilt, you could say, was doing it back in the day, but absent Semmy Sch shilt tall guys dude i remember watching tim sylvia's fight against dan mcgee anybody show of hands anybody remember dan mcgee these guys don't care about you at all right this is my point we have come so far from that almost on own, I find that more remarkable and frankly a little bit more charming.

Yeah, I'll give you that. You were probably charming in your day. I didn't know you in your prime. I've only seen this after Mark. I've had a few Hawk II encounters in my time. Spit on that thing. Hey Luke, let's take us into topic number four. Top of the hour, Mike Perry will be

checking in with us. But deeper on this UFC Saudi Arabia debut card, we go to the light heavyweight division. Johnny Walker. Wow. When it goes great for Johnny, it does. When it goes bad, he's looking at the stars flatlined on the ground after Volker Oztemir, former title challenger, wore him out.

That's a second brutal KL loss in a row. Luke, the evolution of Johnny Walker at SBG in Ireland, John Cavanaugh has seen a move toward the ground game, seen some things we like, seen some things we haven't liked, but that's two straight brutality in a row at a key point in his career. What the heck overall has been the lack of connection here of him not getting, you know, essentially evolving to that true title contender level. He keeps hitting the walls whenever he gets there.

Dude, they have turned Johnny Walker into a defensive fighter with bad defense. So you're saying let him cook. Let that weirdo cook is what you're saying. Well, it's one of those things. It's like with John Jones, right? Like Greg Jackson actually used to get, people won't remember this. So Greg Jackson used to get a little bit of shit. And it's not your fault if you're, you know, born 1997 as luke likes to say that for all people you know i

mean i the i like your material when it's fresh well you know you not the reheated pizza rolls from the freezer although those were good back in the day too but the point i want to make is bc i remember when greg jackson got a little bit of shit because john jones was throwing stephen bonner this direction and then spinning back elbowing this direction and he was telling people i've i've learned how to fight off of youtube that's a real thing that used to happen and it was dynamic and it was crazy greg jackson took a look at that and said okay that's cool that he can do that but we have to give him a more fundamental skill set the difference is john won a fucking title doing that and then basically went undefeated doing that,

right? It may have made him a little bit less dynamic and a little bit less flashy, but it cemented him as at worst, the best light heavyweight of all time. And maybe the best fighter of all time. What the fuck can you say about what they've done to Johnny Walker? He go back and watch the fight against.

I watched it on Kali fight again. Cause I was like, how did that one go? He, go back and watch the fight against, I watched the Ancalaya fight again, because I was like, how did that one go? And then I rewatched this one against Uzdemir. Dude, he gets backed up off guys who get close to him, off strong boxing. He leans all the way back. He moves into power. Yeah. He doesn't have, dude, a guy that long, how does he not have the best jab in the business?

We didn't put him on the rundown, but I want to say something about D-Rod. Look at the jab he had against Gaslam. Wasn't enough to win the contest, but it kept him in it. It kept him competitive. And you can see the value in the jab. How does he not have that? They've made a, they turned a guy who was this explosive person. And people said, go back to that. I don't know if that's the right answer either, but I can for sure say making him defensive as a sort of posture and then not giving him good defense with that style, this is the result. This is what you get.

You get backed up by guys who want to be in boxing range, close range. They trick you to what they want you to do. They move you into the power or whatever, get you backing up straight, and then it's curtains for you. Dude, I've said it three, four fights ago, and I mean it. He's not going to learn the things that he's missing. It's too far gone.

He's not going to learn the natural defensive reactions and sort of like, I like the idea at first of trying to utilize his size and aggressiveness and add some ground game to him, and for a while, it looked like it was working, but I've always come to the same conclusion when I watch him reach up and step up to another level. And now this is two straight fights where he tried that and got flatlined is look at

the end of the day, he is who he is, Luke. And his spots mean that he's crazy. He likes to throw down. If he's not being as dangerous and risky and, and, you know, irrational as possible, then it becomes, he becomes a little predictable. And then the deficiencies defensively and head movement, I think, jump out even more. I don't think he's somebody who can execute this change

and be expected to go out there and throw a no-hitter and not put himself in a spot where he's going to make a big error and leave himself open. So you might as well let him go out there and be as dangerous as he can and possible. Now, I'm not talking about dancing to the cage and getting BC to say, get off my lawn, and you you got to grind everybody at the uh at the harley davidson prep point i mean maybe he's just trying to set up for later build some material so to speak but

luke this is at a point in his career now where you can become a punching bag pretty quickly in these big explosive fights and credits of vulcan for never going away right things had not gone well for him after he destroyed that patron in a Fort Lauderdale bar and eventually got a title opportunity. Also, don't forget, Yuri put his lights out. Yes. But this was a sort of interesting comeback win in the idea of like, okay, this guy's still one punch

away from maybe making the... It was a great performance from Uzdemir. He did exactly what he wanted to, did exactly what he was supposed to. No time, baby. No time. Walked him backwards, put him into the left. The left hook landed like five times before he put him away and that with that last one and then rocked him over and by the way so let's go through it the jamal hill loss the uncle i have lost the i think cory anderson when he was going to get john jones after that yeah and then this loss here against uh uzdemir those are not just four knockout losses those are from four brutal fucking knockout losses and you add that to whatever he's done to himself in sparring

or everything else it's like i don't even i don't even know what to say and again maybe it's they're they're trying to show him different things at spg and he's just not taking to it so maybe that's the case all i can say is who he's become since being there, I don't think has materially improved him in any noticeable way. I don't know what that is. You got to let him be him, and you're going to get mixed results from that. It's going to be feast or famine, Luke, but that's sort of who he is, right? You can't change that. Also, Uzdemir, I didn't think he was ever going to get a title shot

after losing to Cormier. I thought, oh, that's an interesting guy, but came and went. He's not too far from one. Not too far. He's lingering. Onkolaev is ahead, obviously. So he's still probably. Anthony Smith by elimination, just by everybody else getting sick,

is like one win away from another title. Just keep showing up. Just keep showing up. But again, we'll see what happens with him at UFC 303. But for the case of Uzdemir, I had kind of forgotten about him as a potential title contender. He has reinvigorated that with the guskov win and now this one back to back both stoppages i think inside the first round granted against compromised opponents or otherwise not on the level but great

wins i'd like to see him against jamal hill next but maybe jamal's being promised something a lot more or how about this vulcan uz Uzdemir versus Carlos Olberg. Sure. That's a fun fight. Sure. That's a fun fight. Let's do that. BC, before we move on to, I know we got Mike Perry coming up here really quickly.

Can we talk about Kelvin Gastelum? Please. So I went through and I made a list of this to talk about his weight misses. Dana not happy. Dana not happy. Okay. Gastelum missed weight all the way back against Nico Muscogee. He missed weight by three quarters of a pound. He missed weight against Tyron Woodley by 10 fucking pounds.

Whoa, 10? They still let that fight go on? He loses that one by split decision. That's the only one he's lost. 10 pounds? 10 pounds. Gastelum didn't even attempt to make weight against Donald Cerrone at UFC 205. Remember that?

It was weigh-in day. He didn't even do it. And that fight got scrapped from the cards. That's three times. He was fined for how he weighed in against Darren Till at UFC 244. Remember, he got fined by the New York State Athletic Commission because they claimed he may have been leaning on Rafael Cordero on the scale. Oh, just hold the towel. DC showed us that in Buffalo.

The towel was in front, but he came in at 184 when he thought he was going to be 186. And they fined him for that. Again, that's not proof. It was more like you may have been doing it, but okay, didn't look good, and then missed weight basically this time by 15 pounds. 15? Well, he's supposed to be a welterweight fight against Daniel Rodriguez. What do you want to say? Oh, so we never really got a –

We never got a – So you've got Musoki, Woodley, Cerrone, Till, and Rodriguez. Five times this has happened. Five times. BC, add up all the advantages that have been conferred upon him for doing this and how much problems it has created for his opponents. How is that not worse in aggregate than biting someone? And Average Joe Art rolled out some sweet new merch to have that happen.

Then again, there's no curse because he got the win. The guy bit another guy. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been written off the island. Fine. You bite a guy, you're fucking out of here. How is that worse than all of the aggregated trouble that Gastelum has caused his opponents? I can't defend him anymore.

And the best thing he did was win, obviously, because at least there's some... Sort of like when Chemayev missed weight by 38 pounds to fight Nate Diaz. They gave him anymore. The best thing he did was win obviously because at least there's some sort of like when Chemaev missed weight by 38 pounds to fight Nate Diaz. They gave him Holland. Well, at least he whipped up on Holland. So you're like, okay, well, we can't get too mad. But this is going to hurt leverage business-wise

for Gastelum. Dana, when Dana's not happy, when you're trying to be that aging offensive guy with a name, we can plug you into key situations. He essentially just closed the door on Walter White, it felt like, right? Also, the thing is this. Right? Doesn't it feel like that's over now? Yes. I mean, also, he did not look bad. I thought he looked, for the most part, pretty good.

But when you're talking about not having... If he knew far out that this was how it's going to go and then he just doesn't make that hard cut, what does he get back in terms of that ability in round three to be able to hang in there and move? Well, what I'm saying is I think he'll retain his employment for as long as it lasts with this contract or whatever.

Sure. But what I wanted to say was he looked good against Daniel Rodriguez. I'm not going to sit here and say he looked poor. He did not. No, his boxing was crisp. He looked fine. But my point is this. He just got smoked by Sean Brady at 170.

This was supposed to be back at 170. Now it's at 185. Do you see him realistically winning a title in either of these weight classes? I do not. He's not beating Robert Whitaker. I know they fought already in Whitaker 1, but it's not happening. He couldn't beat Sean Brady. He sure as fucking beaten Shovkat Rachmanov.

Remember, they were supposed to fight. Rachmanov would have done unspeakable horror to him. Yeah, he got lucky that he got out of that fight. So this is my point. It's like he looked like somebody who could be valuable for the UFC if he could be relied upon to fill in here, take this kind of fight, you know, stay active, win some, lose some, but you're a good fighter. But if they can't even count on you to make weight properly,

and you've missed it, or I should say had five different instances. And he got tapped by aftermarket Weidman. Let's not forget that. No, I thought he beat Weidman. Did I invert that? I forget. I have to go back. I know.

That's the only win Weidman had in a stretch of otherwise losses. Yeah, Weidman submitted gas on UC Long Island. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, I bet you Long Island Luke Noseda was there. I bet you he was. Gambling. Yeah. Chuck tossing dice.

I was there with Luke at that time. Oh, you were? Oh, shit. Dude, you guys are hardcore motherfuckers, man. Yeah, so Gaff, are you a member of the Mile High podcast? What is it called? The Main Card Minute? I'm a regular guest and co-host.

I am the BC of the Main Card Minute. Oh, yes. All right. Yes, there you go. A lot of this going on all over the broadcast. Just to wrap up on this, he's a fine fighter who can do some things in the sport, but if you

miss weight or have a, I should say, have some kind of weigh-in issue five different times through the course of your career, you are lucky to be holding on to your job. You are lucky to be holding on to your job you are lucky that that is happening for you i would agree with you on that regard luke and i and like you know i've defended him for a long time it's past that point i don't know what's left for him luke

outside of uh doing the company a solid and probably fighting a hammer coming up right uh yes all right what's the story with mike perry running a little bit late but he will be here shortly okay so do you want to do topic five or do you want to wait? Let's get into it. Let's get into it. All right. Topic number five, if we can here, BC. Let me close my notes here. All right. It's what's going down this weekend, Luke. The big one.

UFC 303 this weekend. There is no Conor McGregor, but there is Poetan. BC, all eyes are on Alex Pineda as well they should be. BC, I almost don't even know what to ask you about this guy. We've kind of talked about how interesting this card is now that he's replaced it, but given everything that Connor said on Friday and how much of a contrast there is, how important to the UFC is Alex potato in 2024. And the question I would ask it to opposite of that is i'm not saying he's the biggest star he's not is he the most important a-list guy they have yeah you have to say the truth the answer is yes just on recent history which was bailing out ufc 300 which for all our money if we ever get

the inside on another roku special that may have been the card that was supposed to be chandler versus mcgregor for all we know originally and then maybe the roadhouse stuff pushed it off it might explain why ufc seemed to to bank the final elements of that card extreme last minute, but who was there? It was Poetan broken toe and all got the job done, defends the title in that second weight class again. Well, now he's coming back with an additional broken toe two months. And Luke, I talked to him in an interview.

I'm hoping to be able to get finalized and get out there this week on, on our morning combat channel. But a big part of what he said was, you know, the window is short. I know where I'm at in my age. I know the opportunity that I do have. He said he was lucky that he was healthy each opportunity. So he said when he looks at, yeah, he's like, I can't lie to you. I'm getting paid well.

I'm getting paid very well to come in here and save this last minute. But he also thinks based on the matchup, it's a fight that he can win. He feels great. And I think it's his idea of, he said himself, when he joined the UFC, it wasn't a thought process of like, you know, can I make these quick moves and then end up backdooring myself into the GOAT conversation? But think about where he's actually at.

Now, look, he's got to beat Prochaska, which this fight can go anywhere. It's going to be an absolute dangerous shootout, and that's what we want out of it. But, look, if he wins this, and we've already thrown out the ideas of him going to fight Jon Jones for a third title at heavyweight, and I brought that up to him, and he said, look, I'm the one who came out on TV and told the UFC,

I want this heavyweight fight. They wouldn't give it to me yet, but he's like, I'm ready to do that now because I know how good I can be. I know the window that I have. Yes, he's been huge for them. I think he's got money in the ready to do that now because I know how good I can be. I know the window that I have. Yes, he's been huge for them. I think he's got money in the bank to ask for what he wants. Look, things have to fall his way beyond just beating Prochazka to even get the Jon Jones fight.

Jones has to defeat Stipe. And then somehow they'd have to F over Aspital worse than ever before and be like, sorry, Tom, not only are you never going to fight Jon, but you've got to wait an additional fight and keep defending that interim title. Because if we get a chance to do Jones Poetan, you got to do it in a fucking football stadium. Like you got to do it. Look, he literally could go into that fight

being the guy who would have the chance for the first time to be a three division champion. But if he beat Jones to do it, you can literally bill it as the go against the guy who could take it. Would you have ever, ever, ever guessed? Because it's what, 10 fight career he's had. We can play up and brag about what he's accomplished, but think about it.

It's not just what Poiton has already accomplished in this short window. It's the chess playing that he's putting himself in position. I don't know if he even gets that opportunity. But what if I told you that nine months from now, he's in Allegiant Stadium in Vegas against Jon Jones and has a chance to finish that fight as the greatest fighter of all time. You need happenstance to go your way for that even to have a shot.

You also need to be unique and next level and special and not only the villain at the end of the movie, you also need to be the hero, and Poetan's got all those elements. I can't even believe he's that close to potentially entering that point. So what can I say about him? Yeah, Luke, we've never seen anyone author the exact run that he's on and the company couldn't need him any more than they do. And he couldn't have used that opportunity the same.

I always talk about my last few years at ESPN before I went to CBS. You at ESPN used me because I'm on TV making no money and can barely pay my bills, but I use them, Luke, because I banked that experience. Poetan has used the UFC over the past three years to hopefully build the financial empire that won't end for his family. But holy crap, he's on the verge of some insane shit. So yeah, he's arguably the most valuable star they have. And if he gets to this level we're talking about, if a Jones fight in the third division is even possible,

or maybe it's Aspinall, maybe he's got bigger balls than we think. Maybe it's Aspinall that he does this against whoever. We got a shot here. He's got a shot at like extreme intergalactic royalty, immortality in this sport. Yeah. He's the most valuable guy they got right now.

Because he stands and he delivers. I'm Esascalante style. He's Donald Cerrone, except he can actually win the big ones. It's the reality. Wow, that is the difference. He'll do everything that Cerrone will do, except he'll basically win the big ones. He'll knock your favorite guy out. He'll knock the fucking teeth out of that guy.

And he'll steal your beer. He's very like Mike Perry. Like, you know, come to the party, steal the beer, take the women, and go home. Knock you out if you get in the way. I think we got him here. I think we do. Can we bring him in? Can we bring in BKFC's finest? Can we bring in the combat sports pay-per-view superstar

and morning combat favorite? That is. There he is. Holy shit. A platinum appearance. But Mike, we had to drop everything. Mike Perry can't wait to talk to you because Red Panty Night, Mike, get fired up in

the Perry household. July 20th, the Zone pay-per-view. Not the bare knuckle ring, the boxing ring. Jake Paul, like, this is the Super Bowl. This is the ultimate lottery ticket. And oh my god, you have a chance to do this shit. You have a chance to knock out the guy that everybody hates. Mike Perry, how you living, bro?

I love the introduction. I'm doing very well. I appreciate it. It's the platinum panty night. I am the money fight. I've been saying this. My wife's got a drawer full of them platinum panties, if you will. We wear them every weekend. All right, Mike. You can follow up if you want on the panties. I'm going to let that one be.

I respect it. Mike, I talked to Jake briefly. He told me there was no rematch clause for this. I'm a little surprised by that. Are you? Well, you know, when I beat him, we can ask for a rematch if he wants it. And I don't know if he will.

I don't know where he goes after this. I could care less. You know, I might just go on a little vacation after this. That's what I might do. I've been fighting, been winning, and might go spend some of this money with my family. But I don't know if it's quite enough yet. I might have more work to do before the year ends. I won't have that multi-million dollar mansion on the bay with my yacht dock in the back. I need something to compete with the Lamborghini yacht that McGregor's whipping around.

Shout out to McGregor. I was just talking about him. He liked a couple of my reels this morning on Instagram. Wanted to make sure that I knew every time it reloaded, Conor McGregor liked two of your reels. So I appreciate that. And everybody's watching. King Ryan tried to troll me a little bit, I think, at a funny moment in my mint video with my boxing coach. He asked real quick for a quick slip and left and and my left missed

a little bit and i think ryan was trolling me a little bit on that missed left hook but if it works don't fix it all right mike let's talk about boxing here a little bit all right and specifically the what you see if you do any tape study on j Paul. Imagine I'd never seen him box before. What would you tell me about what he's good at and what he's bad at as it relates to boxing? Footwork. He's good. He'll move. He'll run. He'll back up. He'll go side to side, whatever. And I'm interested because in the last two boxing matches he had, he did put pressure on those guys and came forward,

but those guys didn't, I don't know if they had anything in their back pocket for him. And I will. And, you know, the mission I've been on since leaving the UFC has been giving the fans the fights they want to see, owing it to myself that, you know, no matter what happens in there,

as long as I come forward and I go balls to the wall and I bring it, um, you know, I can be happy with that. As long as I bring it, I brought it and, and tried to attempt to beat this guy every second that I, I had the opportunity. The fight is won in the gym. You know, so I've been getting my training and just enjoying my life and, you know, making workouts out of it. I had the family on the pontoon yesterday while I was on the kayak. And, you know, my babies,

they were all cheering me on while I was paddling down the ocean. And Jake's boxing, you know, I said footwork. He's going to push with the jab. He's going to look to set up that big right hook or uppercut. And, you know, I'm going to try not to get hit by it. But if he does hit me with it, I will enjoy it thoroughly and ask for another. And, you know, I'm going to hit him back.

I'm going to hit him, and he's not going to like it. I'm going to chase him around the rink. I'll make him tired. I'm going to keep that pressure on him. You know, to me in training, it's not about what they do. I don't watch tape. I really don't. Maybe some of my people

do um if i watched anything it would be the highlights of the tommy fury versus jake paul fight where tommy fury beat him and it was a close fight but tommy fury beat him and it seemed a little amateurish that fight there and um you know tommy's tommy's defense wasn't great he got hit a couple times but he took them shots well i believe i will take them even better and uh and land better shots back uh tommy boxed him he backed up and moved and you know we'll see depending on my speed and my footwork on that night but i'm looking to come forward uh cut angles get to the side and then uh punch him straight down the pipe it's about what i do not what he does yeah fair enough if i may uh mike i wonder what you make of this like i feel like

one huge difference between you guys and i'm glad you brought the tommy fury fight up which is if you watch that tommy fury, he gets hit a little bit, Jake does, and then kind of gets rattled, right? He doesn't keep the same game, and he kind of, you know, he takes bigger risks, and he's lunging further, and he's looking down more and whatnot. Whereas with you, there's been times where you get hit, and there's no difference in your demeanor.

There's no difference in how you look at the fight do you notice that as well from him um maybe um i know i did it to him when we sparred that you know as i i started making him land into some shots when he tried to dodge them. You know, and he just gets back on his bike and moves, and I'm going to have to cut him off with better pressure. And all I've been doing is pressuring folks and bringing the fights. And I'll be there, you know, to, you know, if he swings, I'll try to make a miss and try to make him pay. Or I'll roll with the blunt of the blow and just keep coming at him. I expect him to be on his bike.

And once I put that pressure on and I keep it and I stay in his face, if I can keep the gap closed, you know, I got to, he's going to grab me. Boxing is, is a little different from BKFC as to where we can work more in the clinch. Don't know how much they're going to allow work in the clinch. You know, Ryan Garcia fought Haney. They got some work off in the clinch when he fought Gervonta. He tried to punch him when they were in arm's reach and and uh you know MVP when I fought MVP he grabbed on really well which was something that I didn't anticipate he held on to me tight and and tried to you know slow me down that way and and he also did something every time we the ref would come in to separate us, he kept shoving me.

And I was getting pissed. So then I started shoving him back. And then the ref's, like, fighting us in the middle, trying to separate us. And we're both just pushing into the referee. So, you know, if, you know, Jake's already said some things. I hope, I don't know, I hope I'm super angry that night. I love to fight off passion and anger, and I'll have plenty in the gas tank to just let it all out.

Well, Mike, can you come clean for us on what may or may not have happened? We love a juicy backstory. I know you guys don't love talking about what happens in a sparring session because of sort of what goes into sparring, but people are trying to clown you by showing videos of you congratulating Jake and essentially telling him that, you know, he got the better

of you. What should we make of that? What year was the sparring? What can you tell us about it? It was three years ago, I think. It was a week before I fought Daniel Rodriguez. I was about 179 pounds. Jake was maybe 195.

I don't know. And he hit me with a couple sniper shots in the second and maybe the third. But I took those quite well. His team was all there cheering. I had my son, who was maybe a few months old at the time, and his little Duna. My wife was there. That's who I went to the gym.

Jake had all his people there, some security or whatever, and they were cheering for him a little little bit but then those cheers kind of died down uh after he hit me with a couple of those sniper shots and i i kept putting the pressure on him and i just get angrier and angrier if you hit me and um you know anger is where i'm truly happy you know i really enjoy being pissed off and know, I'm looking to be because I'm already excited about this fight. And and this is an opportunity. I think it gets to be me who gets to do this to Jake and prove that, you know, these I'm kind of on MMA side here. Like, I'm kind of fighting for the MMA guys that he has. There are two that I respect, T. Wood and Anderson Silva. I respect those guys, but I just feel like I've brought something different as an MMA fighter in boxing. I feel like I've always been a boxer that had the most success in the MMA octagon.

And, you know, it's just a day at a time. And we're fine-tuning the details. And I think I'm going to be too much for this kid when it's time to step in the ring. God, I can't wait for this fight. July 20th, the Zone pay-per-view. Well, let me at Tampa, Florida. What about the BKFC factor? You've got the King of violence championship over your shoulder. Some other memorabilia behind you.

You're the face of a burgeoning combat sports pay-per-view promotion at the moment. Are you going into this fight in business with them? Are you allowed in your contract to sort of step aside and take a big opportunity? How did that conversation work out? It was an interesting way that you worded that question there, Brian Campbell, and I got to be careful

with you. I know how you like to ask some funny shit. I regret some of the things I've asked you in the past, but now I feel like we respect each other more. No regerts, brother. No regerts. We live how we go, and in the past but now i feel like we respect each other more you know yeah no regards brother no regards we we live how we go and uh you know sometimes you gotta let go and let god and uh um i really don't understand what that question was but yes i mean i'm in business with them i they understand what they have here with me

i am promoting already this fight better than any one of jake paul's past opponents i don't know if they were afraid or or what's going on but you know i just just having fun with it post a little video here talking a little shit letting jake know that I'm coming for you and you know I'm putting the weight on myself as to where when it comes time to get in that ring that that I do exactly that someone I talked to someone yesterday right we're on a boat dock we're having a nice meal and getting ready to go work out on the on the water and someone says he goes because you know how these people are in the comments he goes you know what i want to see when the fight starts or whatever i'm like what do you want to see and

he's like oh i want to see you figure him out take your time i said what the fuck i'm taking my time right right now we got all this build. By the time that referee says go, you think I'm going to wait a little bit more to see what he's got? It's a right and a left. I'm coming after him, and I'm going to get him as soon as this fight starts. I'm not wasting no time. I got eight rounds to get the job done. Why would I sit back and wait?

Indeed. Indeed. Get after it. Question stylistically for you, because I think the biggest style question is the size difference. If we know you as a 170 or an MMA, you've been boxing at 185 with BKFC. Jake has been lingering in that upper cruiserweight area close to 200.

I know he's been trying to become a heavyweight for Mike Tyson, so he's going to come down a little bit. You've sparred him, though. What is the physical difference in weight between you in terms of like what you're up against? Is it the clinch that it matters? Is he a heavier puncher than the 185ers you've been bare knuckling against? How do you sort of prepare for that? Well, bare knuckle is an interesting type of hit. And, you know, people think that my power won't carry over, but these are 10 ounce gloves. I'm stopping people in the gym with 16 ounces and headgear and 10 ounce gloves, no headgear. Jake's got a long-ass chin and a crooked-ass nose. And, I mean, with those little paper-thin 10-ounce gloves and a big old boxing wrap

in between, so there's no space in between that glove and my fist. It's just all casted and pressure. I'm hitting them with a brick. And, um, don't worry. They'll be checked by the commission. Everything will be signed off on. It'll be fine. And, uh, you know, his I mean, I got to watch out for his punches, too.

You know, you can hit a little harder with a boxing glove rather than bare knuckle. But I don't know, because I've hit people just fine. Bare knuckle, knock their teeth out. I've been thinking, you know, with the boxing glove, I'm hoping that I can knock some of those teeth loose on Jake on July 20th on that pay-per-view. So make sure y'all check out Dazon's pay-per-view on July 20th. But, yeah, you know, I just kind of get lost in my head thinking about how I'm going to punch on him.

And that's really just, I just keep circling back to that. So I kind of forgot what you asked me. I was just talking about the weight. We can say it's a big weight difference. Is it an actual major difference for you? That's right. I'm sorry about that. That was my fault.

Yeah, I'm not worried about the weight at all. I'm up 200 pounds right now i think i might i'm gonna continue to grow a little bit uh i feel it too when i'm sparring and training i feel the weight like i have tons of energy i put it on correctly um i might even cut a little bit to get down to 199 for this fight so i'll be like 205 or so and then cut down to 199 and I put it on really well I still got my abs and um I you can see it in my shoulders and my upper back and my upper body um and I'm pushing people around in training. I take the hits. Like, now it's, like, not even a paper cut. Like, it's like a piece of paper got thrown at me.

And the way my body weight, just even with a couple of pounds, the way I'm pushing people around, they're getting tired of dealing with the pressure. And I'm just kind of walking around in the ring like I could do it all night long. So, and I don't believe he was 230 ever. We never saw anything where he got, I don't know. I know he posts lots of videos that I don't see. YouTube here or whatever other media platforms that he does have.

I just see what I see. But I never saw anything where he got on a scale. They were saying he was 230 going up for the fight. If he was on juice, if he was not on juice, I could care less. And, you know, I think he'll be maybe 212 in the ring with me. And I'll be about 196. And we see what I did to Luke. Luke had 20 pounds on me. I was one, one 88, one 89 in the ring with Luke. Luke was two Oh five. Uh, so fair enough. Uh, Hey Mike, sort of a different question here like you talked about like

enjoying to compete out of passion and maybe a little bit of anger as well and i'm wondering about something which is if you keep on succeeding the way you've succeeded and the money gets bigger and the accolades get bigger and you really begin to build i mean you already have but continue to build a life that you always kind of wanted for yourself i've seen some fighters i'm not saying you're like this as well but i guess i'm asking i've seen some fighters go down that path and they actually win so much that they don't have that kind of anger to compete anymore and it makes them not compete the same way or not compete at all so i guess my question is do you worry about using that as fuel where if you keep

winning it actually undercuts the reason for the fuel being there to begin with no i'm pissed all the time dude for no reason i'm just so pissed off all the time and and i um you, it's a, it's a constant battle. Men's mental health awareness. I know Sean Strickland talks about it. And, you know, that's, he spars all the time. I do too, but maybe not as much as Sean. But, you know, I like to take breaks. I like to try to go back and be a human being, a father, a husband, you know, I try to have fun with it, make jokes about it, laugh at myself sometimes, and, you know, having everything, everything has changed, because I do have everything, I am very comfortable, but I like to get down and dirty to the nitty-gritty, I like to get like to get you know back to my roots and I never forgot where I came from and um you know that's kind of the thing I've been thinking about a lot is like when I was on the MMA hour and I told Jake you know you're going to be terrified and and you know he kind of backstepped on his own words because he said, he told Ariel, he was like, you know, there's always this feeling on fight night when you, you know, and he was talking about nerves and being nervous.

And then when I said, you're going to be terrified on July 20th, he said, what is there to be afraid of? Well, you tell me why you're always afraid when you're about to step in that ring. You know, you are and me i it changed from being afraid to just receiving all this greatness and energy and and everything and like like my last fight man i was so pissed off before I even like that morning and when I went downstairs I got ready I went downstairs I went to grab a bite to eat I sat down with my wife and I noticed all these people all these people in this hotel lobby and everyone was leaving me alone and I knew that they all knew that I was the main event tonight, but they were leaving me alone. And it just made me, like, grateful.

I was happy that everyone came out to support the event and support me and my goals and my journey as being this fighter. And I knew what I was up against as far as, you know, getting punched in my face bare knuckle. I might get split open. I caught a little cut. I didn't even feel it. You know, the adrenaline in that ring is such an incredible honor to get to feel that, to get to feel that, you know.

And I earn that every day and training and throughout my camps and and that's why i've earned this fight and i get to be the guy that puts this kid in his place and shows him that he's very green and not as you know a lot of these guys even the ones that had experience this was the topic of conversation yesterday in our training was practice doesn't make perfect perfect practice makes perfect and that's been a goal of mine uh since since leaving the UFC you know is that I make sure I do all my boxing everything has to be correct technically and physically and mentally and all that other stuff I just kick to the side and I stay focused tunnel vision on what it is I'm I'm wanting to do I will say this though Mike if you end up beating Jake Paul I can't think of a single victory or walk a win. I can't think of a single victory that anybody could have in the sport that

would get boxing fans and MMA fans to love a person as much as they might. If you end up beating Jake Paul, have you thought about that? Like people want to see him lose so badly, which is obviously part of the appeal. If you actually pull it off, dude, it can be like transformational for your career. Could it not? I feel

like Andy Ruiz. Hopefully you feel like Andy Ruiz before the Joshua fight, not after the first one when he ate all that sushi off the naked ladies. I felt bad because he got big for the second one. All the sushi off the naked ladies? I felt bad because, you know, kind of, you know. He got big for the second one.

Yeah, he did. But if I had sushi and nude women as an option, you know, as a young champion. But I'm serious, Mike. I'm serious. Like, this is a, I mean, this is why the no rematch clause blows my mind. Because, like, if you do them up, holy shit, man, the world's going to be your oyster. You might be fighting McGregor in some organization if you win this. I mean, it's like nothing is off limits crazy nothing is off limits mike anything is possible anything is possible brother yes absolutely um yeah i i have lots of ideas i'm

focused on on this one but like you know yes the sky's the limit uh but you know i also think that the fans the the the new fans that i'm seeing or getting you know i try to focus on the support and all the people who already know that i'm i'm in this to win this and uh they you know that they got my back and they're with me and and then there's other types of comments. But, you know, it's a win-win and a lose-lose either way for either of us. A lot of my fans know what I bring to the table, but they still, you know, it can be iffy. We're still not sure. I mean, we didn't expect him to do what he did to tyron woodley

and um i'm remembering that during my training you know that i can't that can't you know i won't allow myself to do anything other than you know bring some pain to him. He got to feel it. And I got an entire life's worth of pain to bring to him and show this kid, man. Just, I'm getting kind of heated right now. But, yeah, thank you. I appreciate it, man. I love that Talking about him

Is annoying me And it's getting me hyped up And You know it's going to be a long night that night Because we're the main event People are going to have to wait for it Who knows how long My walkout's going to be

His walkout's going to be I'm trying to set those things up too and put on a show for the fans. But most importantly, the fight is the event for me to make sure everything is perfect or as it can be close to perfect when I'm in the ring and they're about to say, you know, knuckle up or whatever it is they say with those little pillows on. So, you know, what else? What else can I say, man? Emily Arena, Tampa, Florida, DAZN pay-per-view, Main Event, Mike Perry vs. Jake Paul, the

Platinum One. That's Ocean's daddy. July 20th, DAZN pay-per-view. Mike, thank you as always for joining us. We've been down since day one. We've been down since that time he wanted to kill me and he probably had the right to, to be fair. Yeah, Mike, congratulations on this opportunity, man.

Really can't wait to see what happens July 20th. Thanks, guys. Enjoy the show, man. I appreciate your time today. Shout out to all my sponsors. Shout out to Morning Combat. Shout out to the MMA community. Shout out to everybody rooting in for your boy and and fuck all the haters bro yeah that's what i'm talking about yeah there he is there he is

mike perry love it wow always such an inspiring friendly fella you gotta seriously you gotta the the fire that burns in him how do you not cheer for him though you know i mean this is self-made you know like the first half of scarface before it got really out of control and awesome The fire that burns in him is no joke. How do you not cheer for him, though? It's no joke. I mean, this is self-made. You know, like, the first half of Scarface, before it got really out of control and awesome, like, it was kind of like an American hero, like an American classic story of, like, you know, the guy comes from another land, and he builds his business up. It took a turn towards the end there. But this is where Mike is at, where he gets, like, the mansion, and he's just, you know, looking at everything that he's created.

I'm happy for him. I will say, though, getting rich like that and having contentment in your life, it will soften you. It will soften you. Your stool or just your personality? It could harden your stool. Either way, you're standing.

That's all we know, right? All right, let's remind everyone, we got a great partner here at BC, do we not? UFC 303, when is it? This Saturday. This Saturday. IF to the W, baby. You can get in on the action with our partners

for UFC 303 with the DraftKings Sportsbook, the official sports betting partner of the UFC. BC, banger card, of course, with the return of Alex Pineda. We got Yuri Prochocka. We've got Anthony Smith. We've got a bunch. Oh, we got dude, how about Brian Ortega and Diego Lopez? How come no one's talking about MVP

versus Ian Gary? That's another one. So here's the deal, BC. If you're new to DraftKings, check this out. New customers who bet $5. You mean after they download the DraftKings Sportsbook? Yes. I've already said that.

Yeah. Luke Thomas not listening. $5. Get $150 in bonus bets instantly. As BC indicated, all you got to do, download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use what code, BC? MK. That's it. MK, $150 in bonus bets.

Put $5 down. What do you got? MVP by decision over Ian Machado. Gary, that's an interesting bet. Your new customer using that code MK, you can get the $150 in bonus bets. And if sports betting is not yet available in your state, do not worry, folks, because DraftKings is the one-stop shop for all things daily fantasy, where you can join in on all the fun and have your shot to win cash

prizes. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app today. MK, $5, $150 bonus bets. Remember folks, the end of the day, that crown,

it's yours. Lopez or Ortega, don't tell me who you think is going to win. Does it end in submission? No, it ends in knockout. Yeah, I think it ends in TKO. I think there will be jiu-jitsu in it, but I think it ends in TKO. I wonder, you know, you asked Mike Perry an interesting question about essentially domesticizing an animal.

Yeah. You know, and it's what any— Domesticating? Domesticating. Wow, I can just really go into the wrong territory of my brain there. And it's a thing anyone has to deal with when you're in a sport so violent, whether you're an NFL star or a boxer. They built movies on this exact thing but luke can brian ortega's happiness now with marriage and you know and he's you know he's got his kids back in his life and you know he's probably had to put that black

book away he's probably had to put the black book in the triangle and tap it out can he be that same wild man in the cage is it time luke is there still yes or no is there still a window that brian ortega comes out here and doesn't win caveman style in a wild fight? But do you remember the guy against Korean Zombie? Now, I know the hand speed and foot speed was a major factor in that matchup. But do you remember when he came back, shaved head against Korean Zombie, and just looked like a tactical, smart fighter?

Yes. Wasn't like against Max when he was just willing to go fight to the death right there. Will we see a return? Is there still time in his career? Lopez won't let him. Lopez is going to be in his face. Korean Zombie didn't do that. By the way, I did a breakdown for that fight.

On your personal channel. Yeah, well, hold on. So after that, one of his main sparring partners wrote me and asked if I had been given information about what had happened in his camp because I had nailed it to a T about what they were trying and what he had done in the fight. He was actually, like, blown away. Ortega's people? Yeah.

They were blown away that you diagnosed his game so well. Yeah. See, I've been diagnosing the potential of his personal life before this marriage. Ortega himself didn't reach out. It was a training partner, but yes. Dude, we got to get Ortega back on the show, win or lose. Remember that interview he gave me on MK? Yeah, I haven't interviewed Ortega in a long time.

Where he was like, the phoenix will rise from my loins. You know what I mean? All right, we still have to do DMs from donks. You want to do it real quick? Well, do you want to finish talking about 303, or do you want to give the people a special 303 preview? I think we should do a special 303 preview. Are you talking about another bonus episode?

I think we have to. It's a UFC pay-per-view. We kind of have to. It's chowder. We're going to bang eat chowder yeah we're gonna bang eat chowder all right so if you were coming here hoping for a detailed ufc 303 international fight week preview you're gonna get it later is it friday i think we'll probably do another one on friday yeah all right if you guys are prepared for the fist we'll turn it you know we'll get that in there and just turn it right

right we don't we'll just so like yeah well. All right. All right. Let's do the DMs from dogs. All right. Yeah, hee-haw. Let's hit it. I mean, just. Yes. You know what? That donkey's getting that Hawk Tula treatment right there, buddy.

Oh, yeah. Some other donkey is letting it be known. All right, BC. Oh, yeah. Let's get to it. From Kev J. Math. Yes. Do my Oilers win tomorrow?

Have you followed the story at all? I am not following the Stanley Cup playoffs. Boys in the back, am I right that the Oilers were down 3-0 in the series and have battled back? It's now 3-3 game seven. Gaff, can you confirm that? Is that right? Am I right back there?

Yeah, dude. So the last time we saw this was when the Red Sox played. 2004. 2004 against the Yankees. I was at the Bloody Sox game in game six. People forget that. Except for that red, who's that red haired chick that watches this show? The snarky red ginger?

Yeah. She hates me because I was like, Schilling fought like a man in that game. You know what I mean? It was a great performance by him. Yeah. But in any case, do you think they can- I don't care whether they live or die, but what do you think? I don't care.

I think Oilers, I think Warren Moon. You know what I mean? I think Oilers. I think that girl with the tatas. Remember that? She was flashing. Remember that? I said it to BC.

I'm like, we should put this on. Have you seen this shit? He's like, well, we actually can't. We can't do that. Yeah, we can't show those. So we've shown Dong accidentally. We've shown Death accidentally, by the way. I don't know if we can show Tata.

Well, actually, we did. Remember the star of Mandalorian, Gina? Gina Carano. Thank you. Oh, right. I don't know we did. Remember the star of Mandalorian, Gina? Gina Carano. Thank you. Oh, right. I don't know. I don't follow enough hockey to know, but I would love it if the Oilers did win. That'd be great.

Shout out, by the way, to Bernie Barmazel, publicist of the Stars, for getting us in touch with Mike Perry. We appreciate that. All right. Question number two, BC, from Nate the Great Lux. I mean, how great is Nate, right? Let's be fair. Probably decent.

Probably decent, yeah. Is the middleweight division, in the words of Gervonta, mediocre. Yeah, mediocre, mediocre. He's making fun of white people when he says that. I'm here for it. I know, I know. Is the middleweight division becoming the new lightweight division in which the old guard refuses to lose to the young up-and-comers? Good question.

That is a good question. I said that it's sort of becoming the reality TV division at the moment that there's so many storylines and rivalries that I'm keen on. Does it have the depth at the moment to be in this conversation with Bantamweight and Lightweight as sort of the de facto deepest and best divisions, which part of what makes it

best is the fact that the old guard refused to go quietly, right? So you're going to constantly get these cross roads, bang out matchups is it there yet i think it's the best division this year i don't even call it old guard i think izzy izzy is 34 rob's 33 i think both ddp and sean stricken what 32 or less i think they're just coming to all in their yeah exactly it's not quite the old guard if you're at 35 like ddp was excuse me like dustin poirier was a little different would you agree that it's the best division right now at this moment?

It's the best division in the sport. What? Middleweight at the top end. Are you out of your fucking mind? It's so good right now. It's definitely cool to have those four guys at the top. The rest of the division is... You holding out for women's strawweight?

That's you. They do have a history. Holding out for women's strawweight. That's you. I resemble that. I'm not even reading this motherfucker's name. Come on. You can put up a question.

You can read it. How about read this fucker's name? At Dookie McPoopish. Exactly. With contenders like Tetsuro Taira. That's brilliantly dumb. Brilliantly dumb. Ray Saruya and then Kai Asakura.

How likely is it that the UFC gets its first Japanese champion this year? Unlikely. I think the United Nations has said I should not comment on this question. Well, Kaya Sakura is not best in class, and Rei Tsuruya and Tetsuro Taira are very. Taira's maybe at flyweight. He's a maybe. The problem with both of the other guys in Tsuruya and Taira

is not that their talent is any question in BC. They're just young. They're green. They're not quite there in terms of becoming who they will be. Sure. So it's like this year, do they get it? That seems unlikely. But 2025, but 2025,

2026, that could be a different conversation. It's totally different one. All right. I don't want you to get you canceled. What did I do wrong? All right. From,

uh, what the fuck? Fionn, Fionn, Radford, McGovern. Okay. Do you guys favor MVP? Oh,

good question. Do you guys favor MVP to beat Ian Gary, considering it will more than likely play out on the feet? If not, how do you see Ian Gary winning? He could win via takedown, right? I feel like this is like a majority split decision that Ian Gary will out-suave MVP, but it'll be like a real heated chess match.

It'll be a real, could come down to one clean punch down the end. And if Gary passes that test and does it against somebody that's so hard to hit but is also so different and elusive i think he goes to another level on this on this build and on this rise ian gary is like a little bit of an outside kickboxer so that won't really work all that well against mvp i think yeah it will work a little bit but not enough to win i think honestly the clinch might be a really interesting part i think the mma community owns owes his wife an apology for the awful things that they said about the ex-husband living in the house. You mean all of the complete fabrications about the individual lives of people? Did you see that video that she put out a couple months ago?

No. I've watched it a lot of times. It's interesting. I've not watched it. I've not watched it. I've not paid attention to it. I just know. We like the same sport but for different nobody is more concerned about how fighters are using

their dick i thought you saw i thought you saw it was the most put the camera on me i thought you saw it was the most concerned about what fighters were doing with their dicks no no it's it's a certain amount of mma fans and a certain amount of mma personalities what is everyone doing what if i had 24 7 vada access to just knock on the door be like dick inspection i've never ever once been concerned about what he's doing with his dick sorry we've been in your dm sir it looks like something's about to take place here we are if you've got hawk to a treatment going on you're not watching other people's dicks. Right?

That's how that goes. Okay. All right. Last but not least. I've just never seen. What's up with that guy's dick, man? What's he doing with that thing? The fuck is wrong with y'all?

All right. Worst kind of people think about that. All right. Art underscore Lopez 85. Will Luke finally admit? What the fuck the mexican food the basketball he just put the mexican food is the superior latin food now that's a very interesting claim i've been told peruvian food is the elite south america it is the elite i know

mexico is not south america but in the general food is the best in south america by by a mile yeah mk viewer our guy Lee, shot me out and taught me that, and I've had it. But Mexican food is my go-to in this area. Make a case for someone else. Make a case for Serenade. Well, he's saying Latin food. Or Guyana.

These are not Hispanic cultures. Okay, how about Uduguay? Uduguay? Yeah, I tried, right? Uduguay. They were Uduguay each other's ass when they crashed into a mountain. They were from Udegway? Udegway? Yeah, I tried, right? Udegway. They were Udegwaying each other's ass when they crashed into a mountain. They were from Udegway. That's where they were from.

That is true, yeah. Okay, so anything Latin would be what? Mexico down to basically Argentina. Why don't you tell me? I mean, is Belize Count Luke, or are you going to do the... Belize is not quite the same. Are you going to Latin Fauci check their blood? It's not quite the same.

Not enough mitochondrions. It's not about the blood. It's about just what kind of culture is there. Dude, Mexican's up there. It's not quite the same. Not enough mitochondria. It's not about the blood. It's about just what kind of culture is there. Dude, Mexicans up there. It's of course up there. Mexicans up there. It's up there. I'm talking about not Americanized Mexicans.

I'm talking about when you go to the authentic places. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where you can get real mole or something like that, right? Yeah, or that elote. Elote? Yeah. That Coco Limonada. Remember Coco Livio, one, two, three, one, two, three. Elote one two three is really really really really good um

i'll say this oh man i don't know it's not better than peruvian it's not it's not better than it's really fucking good it's amazing it's not when tupac saying when he was like number two it's number two when tupac was like, and weekends were made for Michelob That he was so early On really understanding the class and quality Of beer, with the craft revolution That came after that, that Michelob wouldn't even have been Shout out to Michelob

You get to peel the paper off Those were pretty cool I'll say this, Peruvian number one, Mexican number two I'd probably put Argentina number three Alright, you want to see my shit? Maybe Brazil too Do we have any more of these DMs? Peruvian number one, Mexican number two. I'd probably put Argentina number three. All right, you want to see my shit? But maybe Brazil, too. Yeah, let's see your shit. Do we have any more of these DMs? That's it, we're done.

All right, I scoured the globe yesterday for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between. In the worlds of combat sports, you're usually beyond. We're probably about to look at a bunch of dicks, considering I just insulted other people. Could be some elder abuse, too. This one's called, you seen this look it didn't take long for hawk to uh to take over the world we got merch would you wear this hat in a minute spit on that thing yeah give them that give them that that i mean the oh

i mean classy that woman is iconic she is we need to add what she said to our intro have you seen this shit he goes but instead of lunch okay we've also got uh truck decals if you're interested probably in florida you can get spit on that thing on the back you can also get the full political sign on your back window there oh this guy appears like a fucking loser okay all right luke we've also got new shirts would you wear this on mk if they'll send you a free one if she don't hawk to uh i don't talk to her it's not bad and can you special edition rate that hawk to attack and spit on that thing can you rate that tat, Luke? That's a 10 out of 10.

That's a 10 out of 10. Wow, Mr. Hibas getting the shaft once again. Someone's getting the shaft. I was thinking about that, right? Yeah, somebody is. Hey, Luke, it's UFC making its Saudi debut. Look at the passion of the Reaper. Dude, he looked so awesome on Saturday.

But I love these moments when you see the real come out of him. That's the pent-up aggression. Look at that. Look at that. Yeah, dude. He had prepared his ass off for Hamza Chemaia. He must be a passionate lover. You know what I mean? We don't talk about that enough, right? Okay, once again,

not interested. Luke Robert Whitaker took advantage of the early finish by announcing he's about to finish early. You, you, you. Yeah, I'm done now. I can just go upstairs and go back to doing what I was doing before. Just hardcore masturbating. That's literally me to you on every single work trip. What if Rob was one of us, Luke? Just a slob like one of

us, alright? Also, Kelvin Gastelum picked the wrong week to leave this kind of evidence on the internet ahead of Missing Weight. And this is why, as you can see, I have a whole buffet. This is why it's called Missing Weight with KG. We about to eat this all up, and we ain't going to make weight.

We're going to miss the weight. How prophetic or pathetic was that? Also, in fairness, you would say buffet in Spanish. All right, we're not going to pick apart the – that guy gave half of his life at UFC 236. Can we respect him on that regard? Okay. Also, that video had like,

maybe people have watched it since, but like as of like Friday, there was like 2K less than 2K. So that video just came out ahead of this. No, no, no. No, I think it had been out for a little while. It was like a month ago he did it. Okay. It still looks really bad. Dana's pissed at him. I feel bad. I don't feel bad. I don't even feel

slightly bad. You know who's still upset is Pavlovich. did you see afterwards when former sparring partner volkov tried to congratulate him oh shit you know what he's just frustrated this is what i always say this man like i don't really judge guys immediately after fights it's on sportsman liking shitty you shouldn't do it but i you gotta wait wait like six or seven hours and then see what they're saying if they they're still saying shitty things, well, then fuck them. All right. Hashtag fight forever.

Nicholas Dalby and Rinat Fakhrednikov. Look at what they gave us for the last 10 seconds of their three-round war, Luke. Yeah, this was, you know, I'll say this. Phone booth. Phone booth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoa, helicopter arms. Look at this guy. This is what it looks like in my car wash.

I like Nicholas Dalby, though. He's a good dude. So, Luke, Saudi Arabia brought us that action, but it brought us a brewing bromance between Dana and Turkey Al-Ashiq. Here's evidence number one when Dana named Turkey the new BMF champion. Luke, belt looks really good on him, right? Nothing like profanity in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You know what I'm saying?

Number two, Turkey tweeted this video, and it was shades of, what's that guy's name? Wow, look at that, Luke. This is Turkey, but honestly, you know who can shadowbox like this? Tukey. Oh, Tukey can. Shades of Ron Stander. Remember former heavyweight title challenger Ron Stander? Terrence Crawford would fight in Omaha, where Ron's from.

Oh, yes. And then they'd show him ringside, and he'd be all crimping. He'd be throwing. That's kind of what Turkey looked like. But I respect it, because that's my move, Turkey. Whenever I get excited about a fight, just involuntarily. That's every guy waiting for the shower to heat up. And then he literally led Dana through the country by the hand.

Luke, what did you make of this video? So this might just be some kind of cultural thing. I'll never forget. Obviously, the only common denominator is the fact that they're Muslim countries. When I was in Turkey, dudes would walk arm in arm together at various ages, too. Not like older ones. Yeah, it's 2024. No, this is 2014.

So this is a while ago. But they would kind of walk arm in arm like that. So I think it's just a cultural practice. So the internet thought it was like him making a statement to everybody that I have ownership over this man. If they wanted to do that, they just bone saw him. Well, Turkey took the bromance to the next level on the ESPN broadcast. Let's listen in. This live event went so successfully here tonight.

I want to have a meeting with him and the director, Zack Snyder, he's a friend. We want to talk about doing big movie about the UFC, like a Cinderella Man, something like this. I will try to convince Zack Snyder. He liked the idea and convinced also Dana. Look, they're going to do a Cinderella

Man style movie about the, I'm going to guess, the odds and obstacles that were overcome in the creation of the UFC. Was the promoter in any way the hero in Cinderella Man? No, no. The poor fighter who fought through the depression. The guy who was basically eating shoelaces to live. The guy who was working the docks to try to keep money on the table.

I'm like, I'm not sure you can do that one unless the UFC is the villain in that movie. Okay, if there was no symbolism in the video of Turkey guiding Dana by the hand, what's the symbolism in Turkey posting this picture? What the fuck is that? Well, my first thought was it's a Connor party, and I'm like, you know, where's Craig Jones when we need him,

right? No, but does that show that Dana's arrived in the desert in Saudi and he's getting his hands dirty and, you know, Dana's like, let me tell you how much I hate the media, Turkey. I feel we can bond over this, right? You know what I mean? No.

Oh, that's hilarious. There's a couple guys I've wanted to bone saw. Yeah, there we go, but that's interesting. Alright, confirm or deny, Luke, fans of your live chat have said that you audibly farted on air this week let's see did i let's listen and move this in the integration of a really developed smart game it's all there as well and i gotta tell you like i don't know where

your appetite is oh my god that's how weird i don't know i might have i might have since we've been normalized i actually don't i'm being 100 serious i don't remember. I might have. I might have. Since we've been normalizing. I actually don't. I'm being 100% serious. I don't remember doing that. It could be an AI fart. But since we've been normalizing the idea of shitting your pants as an adult, maybe you can normalize that move. Because I ate on the air and people won't let me forget. They won't forget.

Well, you just sound like a fucking barn animal. I look like Tyrone Woodley in that movie, right? So I didn't realize I might've farted. I might've farted. All right. KFC highlight of the week. Luke, watch out.

If you're a referee trying to stop a fight early. Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, wow. Dude. What the fuck?

He was like, I smelled that deli meat and hooch. Is that Keith Peterson? No, it's not. Look at even Feldman getting involved, man. All right.

Tough ass sport. Luke, you know I love when real is out there recognizing real, right? Check out this. Two goats, Fedor and Boney. What do you think they talked about? Why is John dressed like? What do you think they talked about? I'm going to guess this was maybe at that.

When was John in Saudi for one of the big boxing matches, right? Did they fly him out for the PFL one or some shit? Oh, that's right. Wasn't he there? Yeah. Yeah.

That's, that's, uh, yeah, it must've been because that Fedor has to have wearing the Bellator gear and it was Bellator versus PFL. Okay. He might've been there for that.

If you're mad that the UFC is allowing this old guy fight with steep a to take two years of our attention out of 100 what are the odds that the ufc would be willing to give fedor one more call to fight john before he retires zero that's a zero you'd give a brock lesnar jones match in 2024 ahead of that one yes interesting all right uh real recognized real luke in vegas after benavidez scored a big win on pay-per-view when El Monstro and Dana White caught up. What'd you think about this? Hey, I would love to hear what he... Do you know

what he says? Just Dana said how badass Benavidez is. I mean, I'll say this. I realize people are kind of down on him based on that performance at 175, but I was... Down on him? He was hurt. I'm not saying I was. I'm saying people have been. But if there's one guy who's guaranteed action, in general, it's David Benavidez. I get why saying I was. I'm saying people have been. But if there's one guy who's guaranteed action, in general,

it's David Benavidez. I get why Daniel likes him. Well, Roley Romero walked by some boxing royalty in public against Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. And look, they're working on carving up that game a little bit, sharpening up the edges. Does Roley speak Spanish? Barely.

I mean, his dad's from Cuba. His dad's of Cuban descent. So he has. He can get by. He can get by, I believe. What do you think about this mentorship? What do you think they were talking about? Bitches or boxing?

A little column A, a little column B, maybe. All right. You asked for more parkour hell, Luke, involving white folks. Let's go to that. I mean, that's just the only kind. European edition. Oh, yeah. Hold on. Let. European edition. Oh, yeah. Hold on.

Let me see this. Oh, no. P.F. Elidor. Hold that. Speaking of Europe, P.F. Elidor was in Dublin, Luke. How about Zabit Magomed Sharimov's brother?

Hassan. Hassan improved to 5-0. There he is on the right. Looks a lot like him. Just styling on these hoes. Wow. Look at him. This styling on these hoes. Wow. Look at him. This is like video game stuff.

What do you think? Do you think he could become what Zabit never was, Luke? I don't understand the graphic. Featherweight male, 145. Is that what they're doing? Yes. I can tell that they're males. Well, yeah.

Do they love putting graphics on the screen that no one needs? Luke, future Irish star Paul Hughes made his long-arrated PFL debut in Europe. Here he is giving Bobby King the TKO finish. This is not Bobby King Green or Bobby Green, King Bobby Green or whatever the fuck. It's not Bobby Green. But, yeah, Paul Hughes looked pretty great.

Took him a little bit to get going. Took, I think, a couple of big shots in the first round. But in general, pretty strong. After the win with Conor in attendance, Hughes gave flowers to the man. Let's hear it. What do you think of this? Of course, it's a huge occasion. You know, Bellator debut.

We're here in Dublin, this incredible arena. Your man Conor McGregor over there watching, paying attention, giving you a round of applause. I mean. Probably wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for a man like that to inspire me to come from this island. Was the first man to ever show us young lads

it was possible. And that breaks down a lot of mental barriers. And people talk shit, but this man changed the game and changed all of our young fighters' lives. So shout out Conor McGregor, because that guy, he's the man. And always will be the greatest to ever do it.

Thank you. Well, Luke, unfortunately, if they're talking about you in those terms, it usually means because it's over. They're almost saying, remember what this guy used to be. I hate that we're there. I hate that we're there. And it's inactivity that got us there. A little more than that. White lightning. White magic. All right, let's keep it going hey ryan garcia can't box for a year but he showed up on the celebrity poker live stream annoying jimmy butler namar is he gonna chug that whole

thing all right all right nothing but a diamond would be insane Fuck. That's Jimmy. Oh my god. A diamond would be insane. I'm different. Damn. Low rolling him. I'm gonna see, Garcia's. First you banged your head.

I don't see Neymar anywhere. Tell me how you're feeling with this table. It feels great. I love Jesus and I'm a star see you It feels great I love Jesus and I'm feeling great Are those pants just falling off I'm happy the money went to you He slept with be. Diddy. He had massive sex with him. Then I beat his ass and he sues me. He had massive sex with him. So apparently he was up big,

but then he told on the live stream, everybody that he had to make that comedy debut with Chris D'Elia, which actually happened. And he didn't tell any jokes. He just stood there and drunkenly talked to the microphone. So I was told that he just started losing hands on purpose. And then he was asked about boxing and he said, I can't box for a year,

but I've been begging Dana white for a fight. And then during the stream, I was told he was asked what his MMA game would look like. And his response, I'm going to drop loads in these guys' mouths. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have gay sex.

I don't know. Like, I feel bad even putting these clips in there anymore mouths. Yeah Yeah, we're gonna have gay sex. I Don't know like I feel bad even putting these clips in there anymore I don't this is only going to you know, what just drives me nuts is he's obviously a fucking disaster and this is gonna end badly I don't know. I don't know when but it's going to end badly I hope not but it's the hit the people online cheerleading this motherfuckers descent into nothingness. Yeah, we're getting there It's like they do it looks like fun and games. Well, we got a video of him exiting the poker room, looking across the street. Oh, shit!

Who's videoing this? Is this in Greece, or is this? I don't know, but your boy is sideways after that. Wow. All right. Let's go to UFC Louisville. I'll say this. I'm glad there were no cameras on me when I was 25.

Yeah, indeed. No Facebook either. Let's go over to UFC Louisville, Luke. There was a good-ass crowd fight in there. What are your thoughts on this? Let's see. Oh, shit. Oh.

Oh, pop it off. Take that. Dude, again, it's so rare that you see someone win a fight from a... From the lower ground? Yeah. You always want to be from an elevated position. Didn't we learn that in Return of the Jedi? No, no, because remember UFC?

What was the last UFC they were at? There was one guy who won. You played it last week. Yeah, but didn't we learn that from Obi-Wan? You got to get the high ground, man. Yeah, you got to get the high ground. Especially if you're doing the old pow-pow. You got to get from an elevated position.

Look, you ever go to a golf match, and as soon as somebody hits, they're like, get in the hole! Or something real aggressive and male. I don't go to golf matches, but yes. They got new rallying cries. I love about this game, the honor and integrity of each player's half.

I just shit my pants! What are you saying? I just shit my pants. Once again. Play it one more time. What I love about this game, the honor and integrity these players have. I just shit my pants! We're just normalizing it one clip at a time.

Hey, smoke them if you got them, Luke. This is three ounces of weed it took to do the Ronald McHotbox. Could you stand the pain inside of there that this man is undergoing? No. But I wouldn't try to stand it. I would just let the smoke take me. Well, this is what he attempted here. This is aggressive. Three ounces it takes to do this. He's coughing violently. We are currently

not running the audio, but it is aggressive. Two-turn, Tony? Oh, hell yeah. Oh, wow. Just a dream ending right there. Dude, you would be so fucking baked. Well, Luke, it's almost July 4th, and Squirrel Bait was back honoring America with both his shirt and this

immense watermelon bong system. That's right, Luke. What do you think of this? First of all, it's patriotic. I mean... this first of all it's patriotic i mean so squirrel bait said shout out to squirrel bait first of all he said us and our crew are welcome anytime in the greater la area with him and his boys what is the what what language is that i maybe it's south southern it's like half spanish half portuguese or something that's right that's his catchphrase no aha pomona oh i don't know who's posting that i don't know who's getting off on that

but speaking of watermelons what do you think of this meme a little aggressive alright let's keep it going Luke this next one brings new meaning to the term lunch lines you ever see those at school casually having a couple of cheeky lines for lunch my man's even wearing a sweater

in the UK they just get Craig In the UK, they just get... Craig Jones should move there. They just get after that all the time, Luke. Australia and the UK, these white folks, they just love it. It ain't just them. Wow, indeed. A couple more for you, Luke. Raul Rosas has really turned this into a juggernaut.

What'd you think of the cut? Kiwis! What'd you think of the cut? Chee-wee-wees! I mean, Luke, tell me you wouldn't buy a Chee-wee-wees headband. I would not buy a Chee-wee-wees headband, right? How about undies that just said Chee-wee-wees in like a half circle around the ground? I would also not purchase these items. All right. Luke, let's go.

My kid, by the way, my son just got it. My son Chris just got his license. Driver's license? This week, yeah, I took him. Learn kid, by the way, my son Chris just got his license. Driver's license? This week, yeah, I took him. Learner's or license? The full license. Sorry, late last week. So I got a driver on the road.

I'm going to have him watch this video. So I just got fired for literally no reason. My boss said it's because you're on your phone too much. You're too distracted at work. Oh! Well, we got one more. Constructed at work. Well, we got one more. I'm hoping guys like that die because it's such a great version of natural selection.

It's a great bit. Yeah. We got one more for you. We love America. We love white folks and we love trampolines. So we combine them. Hell yeah. Someone's about to break their motherfucking legs.

Watch this shit. I've never even seen this and I know. Look at this fat motherfucker. Oh, shit! Gav, you better play that one more time, motherfucker. Look at this hefty piece of shit. Chub Rock. Cripple for life, asshole.

Wow. Just like his hero FDR. There you go. Yeah. We're wow. Just like his hero FDR. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. We're going to put you in the same place, this time without the polio. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about a new deal.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. Oh, what a show. This is the stupidest two hours of your week. Hey, I have to give a shout out to somebody. Saul Milton, who is one half of Chase and Status. Oh, I love that man.

So, shouts to Saul. Saul was in D.C. for a Chase and Status show. I think it's in U.K. talk. In Brit speak, it's pronounced status. Status. Yeah. Fair enough. Went in Rome.

But anyway, Saul was like, hey, let's connect. You want me to come to a show? We could not get a babysitter in time. You're like, needs more Vikings. Well, here's the thing. He didn't go on until his show. We could not get a babysitter in time. You're like, needs more Vikings. Well, here's the thing. He didn't go on until 1 a.m. Yeah. Saul, we're 46 years old.

I'll be 46 very soon. His set was 1 to 2.30, and I was like, oh, dude, I mean, we just can't do that. Shaq Majore would have loved that. But I promised him next time I'd make some room for it. Anyway, we did link up. We got some drinks, and we hung out for a little bit before his show at the hotel. Dude, the nicest man ever. The nicest guy.

And it wasn't pitched to us when Dan Hardy brought in his friend to our locker room before our London show. It wasn't pitched like, here's this awesome, famous guy who watches you. It's just like, oh, yeah, my buddy Saul's here. He's a big fan of yours. And that's how he treats it when you're with him, too. He's just a dude, but he's cool. So shouts to Saul. We did get to meet up with him.

And his show in D.C. was sold out, too. Damn. I asked him how the American crowds were. He was telling me 10 years ago. This is what he told me. I didn't know this. He told me like 10 years ago the American crowds were nothing. Skrillex.

You know Skrillex? No. Skrillex is like Gaff. Gaff, how would you describe Skrillex? Gaff doesn't know Skrillex. How would you describe him? I don't know if Gaff just works here anymore. Say that one more time.

Do you know who Skrillex is? Of course, yeah. How would you describe his music to Brian? EDM. But also, it's like dubstep a little bit, too. Anyway. Sounds a little dub-tee as well. Well, here's the thing.

I'm not a Skrillex guy, but apparently he was like the first major version of this kind of music here to hit. He said after that, it completely opened the doors. And ever since then, ever since Skrillex became really popular, he's just been able to come here and sell out shows. So shouts to him, man. Saul Milton. Good dude. Love that guy. Big, big shout out to that guy.

Can't wait. A lot of guys in the extended UK universe, MK universe, Luke, who have shown us the love. But, you know, we got to catch up. We got to meet Oteel. That was amazing. Yeah, he was cool as shit. I want to feel this love with our other people. Like Big E.

Oh, I meant to tell you. So I was riding. I want to feel you, Big E. I was riding bikes with the Tukester yesterday in the neighborhood. Yeah. And we went to the park, and then we came back from the park,

and we're riding our bikes back from the park. And one of my neighbors, I'd never even noticed this. They saw the workout video with their house in the background. No, no, no, not even. They had a Grateful Dead sticker on their car. Wow. And they have a DC. Well, it may have been Virginia.

I can't remember. But they had a vanity plate that had like a version of Deadhead on it. And I was like, I'm not even. I don't even like this band like you like and i've seen them at the sphere pussy did you be like yo you know you have a hair o'teele that's my motherfucking that's my motherfucking brand bitch yeah yeah did you talk dead with them no they were not in their house but i'd never seen that actually they passed away but you know ironically the car was collecting pollen but i'd never seen that in the neighborhood so i was like huh interesting all right so we'll be back friday friday friday friday show fridays

are free free fridays i mean it's a busy schedule we might as well give the people what they want they asked to have us treat them this way to just physically overpower them yeah and while it you know it's quite morally questionable at times you know ethically too but the good news is we're not getting paid to do it so yeah it's all it's all gratis you know i ethically, too. Well, the good news is we're not getting paid to do it. So, it's all gratis. You know, I keep saying we need to get Jean Jalel in the studio. Do you think it would be a train wreck or it would be just comedic gold? We'd have to smoke cigarettes with him. Yeah, that dude loves parliaments, I'm sure, you know?

We'd have to smoke cigarettes with him, but I think it could work. Okay. Luke, people have commented that they've never seen you happier of late in this MK journey than right now. This is the time to be the least happy in MK history. What is fueling your thunder? I mean, I apologize for trying to be happy. Probably the drugs. Probably the antidepressants that I've been taking.

Drugs win, the drugs war once again. I mean, the thing is, honestly, it's obviously, dude, the amount of stress that we've been under, I'm not saying it couldn't get worse. It could always get worse. But, like, in terms of, like, the processing I had to go through to get to the place I'm in now, I kind of went through not all of it, but a lot of it.

Should I keep worrying about all those things, or should I just fucking try and let it go? No, you've got to get to the next level. This is why, from the beginning this stupid show has been relatable yeah you know it just documents the the growths the journey the ups and downs of men and the uh you know i mean i guess women are allowed to right kind of like suffrage at some point they're like we got a lot of men right you know it's great all right on that note on that note um that's brian campbell i'm lu Luke Thomas. Follow us on all the socials and shit.

You can put that graphic up there. Gaff. By the way, shouts to Gaff. Round of applause. Gaff came out of MK retirement here to throw us some. Hey, if you used to work with us and you've been fired, you can work with us again. Yeah, yeah. For free, usually.

No, no, no. So there's that. There is that. But we have to get out of here. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks to the whole crew here at Middle Ark. Thanks to Gaff.

I don't have any shoes on, but we're going to have to go toe-to-toe one of these days, Luke. All right. We're going to have to go for it. And listen, if she don't hawk to her, we ain't going to talk to you. We out.