MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Curtis Blaydes, Max Rohskopf, Fight Island | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 48

Episode Date: June 22, 2020

On episode 48 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian break down everything that happened this weekend in the UFC, including Curtis Blaydes win over Alexander Volkov. The boys also preview a big July of UFC fights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

This is Morning Combat. It is Monday, the 22nd of June, 2020, and it is time, ladies and gentlemen, for Morning Combat. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. The gentleman on the other side of the screen is your other host. He is the, well, my partner in crime, the conspiracy to my theory. You know him from CBS Sports, among many other check cashing opportunities. It is the one and only Brian Campbell. Brian, how was your Father's Day weekend? Oh, fantastic.

Fantastic, Luke. Good times. Great oldies. A lot of son. A lot of children. Great stuff. You know, fired up as heck. You know, know at a long

a long battle with this guy right here but i've put him back together as i have my own feelings and mental health over the weekend so uh like naz all i need is one mic i'm ready to go a little change of the scenery back here channeling my spirit animal you want a champion because like her we both have a bone to pick with you luke and and we're savages. So let's do it. Let's get fired up. What did I do to you? I didn't do anything to you. I don't know. I don't know.

All right. Well, very good. A couple housekeeping notes, as always. Thumbs up on the video. We appreciate that when you do. And hit that subscribe button. Donks. It's free.

What have you got to lose? Tons of content coming your way. And we also have to thank the people who make this show possible. Of course, Malka media and showtime. If you would like to try showtime, you can have a free trial. Very simply go to showtime.com 30 day free trial.

If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go pound sand. But if you do keep it Thursday, you can check out morning combat strike force classics, BC. And I,

we speak to Scott Coker and Mauro Ranallo. Watch some Strikeforce fights. Get some backstory and some analysis. BC it's a good time. Yeah that's one of the most underrated shows since Freaks and Geeks Luke. Believe that. We're doing big things with the MK rocket ship so please

don't be like Christy McAuliffe and the 86 crew. Get on board. Stay on board. Too soon? Stay on board stay on too soon too soon stay on board we're going to the stars all right click that subscribe all right it's free please don't make me drop more awkward 80s and 90s references all right and all right and like and like freak nick it's not going to be here forever so get it while the getting's good bc hey luke um sorry to interrupt here but you you were kind enough to ask about my father's day. You know, you're a young father.

You're an old man. You got old balls, but you're a young father. Did you and the beautiful little girl enjoy your day? Did you call up old angry ass Rob Thomas and have a 3 a.m. reunion? What was it? I saw my dad and my family for the first time since the pandemic started. Can you believe that? It had been a long time since I'd seen them.

February for some, November for others. So my dad got to watch his only grandchild walk around. He hadn't seen her since she could walk. So it was a great day yesterday. I appreciate you asking. It really meant a lot. So it was awesome. I'll follow that up with an out-of-line question.

Abuela and Rob Thomas, any fireworks, any sparks? You're a weirdo. The answer is no. And I'd like to start the show, please. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, very good. We go to topic number one, BC, and there's no better place to start than the show that was on Saturday night, UFC on Vegas three or UFC on ESPN 11 BC, let's go to you first on this one. Curtis Blades defeats Alexander Volkov via unanimous decision in the main event. So we're judging in there where some of the judges had it 48-47 for Volkov. But okay, we all know that Blades won. And in some parts he looked good.

Gassed a little bit kind of towards the middle third, or I'd say the final third of the fight from the middle then a little bit on but he got the job done still at the post-fight press conference bc dana white buried him said he looked stupid for saying all those things early on in the week and those were things he said to you by the way that was where all the news came from he said if you're going to talk all that stuff about money about ragdolling people and then you fight that way you look dumb bc does dana white have a point yes under the grounds of the game that dana white makes the rules he does have a point i interviewed uh curtis on the cbs sports state of combat podcast last week and you know i i i didn't necessarily stir up the the ish or poke the bear just served it up.

Fighter pay. What do you think? Look, he went off. He went off a lot saying, don't talk about wrong timing in the quarantine. The money is there. Either pay us or don't pay us. But stop lying to us. Tell us outright if you don't want to pay us.

So Dana's got a point on this. If you are going to, as Dana said, talk shit, right? You do have to back it up since it's Dana's sandbox. And in Dana's sandbox, the real way to make a splash is to walk people down and knock them out. Now look, three-fifths of that fight, as you mentioned, was fantastic from Curtis Blades. He showed why at 29, he's becoming arguably the most complete heavyweight and has a very bright long-term future.

The problem is, you know, he didn't really finish strong. He lost two of the five rounds on two of the judges' scorecards. He gassed a little bit. He told me in that same interview, if I'm 50-50 with a guy on the feet, but I know I can dominate him on the ground, why am I going to take that chance? Why am I going to get hit in the face and play into his strengths?

I'm not here to say, like, don't wrestle, entertain us. But that's what Dana's here to say. And you have the most leverage in these situations, Luke, after a big win. It's been some of the criticism that people have given Masvidal and others that are saying, like, the stuff you're saying, the stance you're taking is great. But when it doesn't come immediately after a giant win where you have leverage in that moment, it doesn't mean much. Blades should have, in some ways, been talking this-ish after the win, maybe after a little

bit more of an impressive win to sort of land the big boom, because here's what he's trying to do, Luke. You could say that this plan is crazy, or you could say it might happen. He believes D.C. Stipe III in August, both guys retire. And he believes that if he defeated Volkov, which he did, he'd be getting a vacant title shot against Francis Ngannou coming up later this year in December. Here's the problem, though. You lost twice to Ngannou, so you need the leverage to get into a third fight.

Now, not only did you not achieve that leverage by getting a knockout, you've also pissed off the boss and given him a reason to keep you out of that fight so under the rules of how UFC politics work this was a failure of a weekend for Curtis Blades but put that aside for a second for three rounds he looked absolutely fantastic he is a legitimate heavyweight title contender shout out to him but yes you lost the Dana game I think there's a number of points there you made. I would not disagree with it all. So let me just add two more to what you already laid out there. I wouldn't call it a failure of a weekend, but you're right. I mean, if you've, and you mentioned he lost to Francis Ngannou, that's true.

He didn't just lose. He got stopped twice. And then the second time in the rematch, even quicker than the first time. So trying to leapfrog him or even just be on the same place that he's in, it's going to be really, really difficult. You want to do that, you got to go out there and put your stamp on a guy irrespective of the pay comments. And as you noted, you put the pay comments on top and you just boxed yourself in in a way where it's going to be hard to get out of that. Now I will say this. Number one, I like how he is kind of leaning into the fact that sometimes people boo him when he wrestles. He sort of said, I'm the heel.

He was kind of laying it all out there in a very naked and obvious way. But if he can find a more interesting way to continue this, I don't think that's the worst way to market himself. Like, F you. I'm going to fight in a way to directly piss off the fans. Fitch never did that. He was sort of noncommittal about whether it upset them or not, rather than I like angering you.

So that could be something he could use to his benefit. The other thing I think I would say is in Curtis Blades' defense, and again, you got to play the game smart as you can. It's worth knowing here and realizing Volkov is starting to be the guy who's hard to look good against. Right? Because Derek Lewis got a win against him, but it was a Hail Mary after getting tuned up, basically, for the better part of three rounds. And you look at the Verdum fight. Now, Verdum lost that one, but he was kind of winning.

But it's hard to pass his guard. It's hard to land a big shot on the ground a pound. And even when you tag him on the feet, he doesn't really go away. He's really, really hard at this stage to do a whole lot with. And so I think what you saw was he's got good survival instincts.

He's tricky from underneath in a surprising kind of way, even though he doesn't have a dynamic guard. And obviously on the feet, he's a force to be reckoned with. And so all of that combined makes him hard to put away. Dynamic late, again, the Lewis fight notwith all of that combined makes him hard to put away, dynamic late. Again, the Lewis fight notwithstanding.

He can just be hard to look good against whether he wins or he loses. I mean, that's fair. I'll just end on this, BC. It was a confluence of events where, yes, did Curtis Blades play the game as best he could have? Probably not. Are there pieces going forward that you could see maybe he could surf on yes and let's understand he fought a guy that even when you beat him it's just hard to look really super dominant against yeah i mean look let's give volkov his

due that fight looked like he was underwater for three rounds and he turned it around he's six seven he's thick and he may be russian but he's certainly not in a hurry there luke so we saw some exposures with blades committing to that style of trying to ragdoll him and then you know you saw him afterwards he couldn't even form a sentence in the post-fight interview he was so fatigued okay credit to him that he didn't have a debacle right he didn't get screwed on the cards because he gave up the last three rounds but back to blades is common about if i'm 50 50 on the feet i'm not going to go after a guy go back and watch those first three rounds Luke He was like 80 20 on the feet against Volkov

He was absolutely lighting him up and he had really established his dominant takedown ability to set up even more strikes Again under the Dana white rules of how you impressed the boss This maybe could have and should have been an opportunity where I think he could have stopped Volkovff yeah he'd have to open himself up to eat some stiff jabs counter rights of kicks i'm not in there taking the shots i understand that in some ways you can argue the safest thing to do against a guy you can't look good against is survive in advance because during the quarantine and in general luke you know the quickest path to a title shot is availability in the ufc be in shape be by that phone be willing to go whenever they call but at the same time dude you did talk ish and you gotta come back with the bang whether you care about dana's rules or not you do i feel

like he could have stopped volkoff at the end of the day luke we went back and and saw what he did to to verdum and what he did to JDS ahead of this fight. I think he could have done it. Yeah, there's certainly a case where you probably should have, because the last thing I'll say is going back to those Francis Ngannou pairs of losses. One was his UFC debut. Okay, fine. You know, that's a tough way to make your debut.

But then the rematch in China, it just went even worse for him. And so you think to yourself, how does Curtis Blades get ahead here? What can he do to really stay at the forefront of this division? Okay, winning will put you there, obviously. But in the minds of fans, we need to see what else he can do here. You have to, not reinvent yourself, you have to reframe how the fans think about you. You have to tell them, you have to give them a reason to go, okay so this is this is new this is exciting this is different this is fun i need to see how this can be used in other different context or maybe the same context

redux as long as j or excuse me as long as francis is in front of him he's in a tough spot and you can't play the rich frank franklin card where he was a really big middleweight who could go to light heavyweight to get some big fights the chuck ledell fight chief among them he can't really play that he's a huge heavyweight he's kind of stuck where he is so winning is going to be great as long as you win it will keep you at the top of that division it did a long time for john fitch as a welterweight but then when you start to slip dude they will hammer you they will hammer you so uh making a big statement if you're gonna make big statements in the press is kind of key yeah and dana will screw him if that opportunity for a vacant title comes up you know dana's gonna screw him luke very quickly gun to your head could that version of curtis blades or let's say the

version that comes after right he said openly I need better cardio for five rounds could that version defeat Daniel Cormier, Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou in a third fight in your eyes? I don't know about DC it doesn't really matter because he's probably not going to be around no matter what right do I think he can beat Stipe yes I don't know if I would favor him but I would take his shot at I, I would take his chances at doing so very realistically at beating Francis. I mean, you lose to a guy twice and quicker the second time. It's hard to say yes, but there, there is this part of me about Francis and his trainers tell me it's come a long way. We just haven't seen it. Cause he keeps knocking dudes out in five seconds. How good is his wrestling in cardio since the stipe fight how how much has francis improved i don't know if curtis

will be the guy to test that but curtis has some of the abilities you would think if he can survive early that can test that it's just hard to say i don't really know let's not forget he had success against francis in that first fight which was his ufc debut meaning curtis blades he was much more test that it's just hard to say i don't really know let's not forget he had success against francis in that first fight which was his ufc debut meaning curtis blades he was much more raw second fight i mean this is what it is he got he got sent to hell let's roll on because jay very upset in my ears okay all right well this is to me the biggest story coming out of the the weekend well it could be the co-main event which we'll talk about in a second i want to make sure we give josh emmett his due and we. But first things first, you had Austin Hubbard.

I believe this was the opening fight on the card, taking on Max Roshkoff. His name is spelled weird, but I believe that's how you pronounce it. A great wrestler out of NC State, five wins in his career, trains with the very, very talented and highly decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor, undefeated MMA competitor as well, in Robert Drysdale. So here's what happens. At the end of the second round, and this is not the worst beating I've ever seen, but BC, I think you'd probably agree, at the end of the second, that whole five-minute frame, he was getting tuned up. So he goes back to his corner, and he is

telling his corner multiple times, I think it's like nine or ten times. He says, I want out. Now, Robert Drysdale eventually gets on social media and says, well, okay, at the end I actually did say to call it. But you hear Roshkoff over and over and over say, I want out. And Drysdale is basically ignoring it, trying to cajole him back into it. And eventually an inspector alerts the, or maybe the ringside physician alerts the referee. The referee goes to Roshkoff, says, do you want out?

He says, yes. They wave it immediately. So that's how it went down. OK, BC, one more time. Lead us in. What do you make of the cornering controversy here? There's a lot of wrinkles to this specific situation that I believe is much different than the thomas

gifford situation when he got sent back out to get slaughtered or when you know rocky pennington got forced into a fifth run against amanda nunes you do have to understand the full concept here uh ross goff or if i'm butchering that i'm sorry showed you in the first round that like at five you know he has like the goods he has long-term potential maybe before this type of exit to really be a great fighter i mean he looked friggin fantastic against a guy who had a lot more experience than him he got the fight on 10 days notice you heard dana after the fight saying the manager was all over dana saying look this guy could be like the future so this was a major opportunity to really get noticed we can argue all we want

whether he should have been in there given the lack of experience yes we can argue all we want on the idea that if a fighter says he's done he's done and look by like the fifth or sixth time ross koff said he's done the fight's over end it i do to a small degree sympathize with the coach because even though the second round was one-sided even though raskov was getting lit up with big shots it didn't necessarily look like you know if he went out for a third round he was gonna he was gonna perish right and you you did understand the coach saying look go out there and lay on him take him down you're the better wrestler steal the decision here given the circumstance of this fight you can argue maybe Pennington's circumstance was greater

because it could be the only time she gets a title shot. No, Pennington was beaten up and destroyed. In this case, I'm not against the coach pushing back a little and saying, look, you fought so hard to get to this point. This is your opportunity. You're a better fighter than Austin Hubbard in terms of just pure skill. I believe all that. Yes, it went too far by the fifth or sixth, no.

But I think in general, these situations can be different, so we can't lump them together. Is there a larger conversation about the pay structure in UFC that the win bonus plays a lot into the trainers getting more money? And sometimes people believe coaches are pushing their fighters back out there for the freak chance that they rally for a big big win and then the coach essentially doubles his purse yeah there's a lot of conversation to have on that as well i do think in this instance it wasn't really all that bad until the fourth fifth sixth plea and then look you just got to wave the fight off the guy

doesn't want to be there doesn't want to be there and luke we give dana a lot of crap we try to praise him when it's when it's right dana White's comments after the fight in this post-fight press conference were dead on, top to bottom. He gets it. He understands it. If you don't want to be in there, get out. No one should ever be ashamed in any circumstance for quitting, okay? In boxing, we have way too much of this macho culture where if you can get to that 12th round and go the distance, you have earned something. No, you've earned a beating.

You've earned taking off time at the end of your career. You didn't earn anything, okay? I like, actually love, that on MMA, you know, you can get yourself into a choke and tap out. You can quit with dignity. I have no problem with the quit. Really, it's the coach on the hot seat, and I say up to a certain degree, I'm not going to kill him. I heard Dana White's comments, and I echo your praise of them.

I had the exact same experience myself. I got out of the Marine Corps, and I was looking for a challenge. And I went to a pretty good MMA gym, and I wanted to see what I was made of. And I found out I'm probably better than the average bear, but I'm not like those guys. And it was eye-opening. I don't know how many people have ever tried to figure out who they really are when you get physically tested by people who you can tell they are built for this. And I was not that guy, and I know I'm not that guy. So to me, I always looked at training as a way to stay in shape,

as a way to maybe defend myself if the situation ever came to it. But I knew pretty quickly I met who the Billy Badasses were, and I knew that wasn't me. So when Dana White said that, I completely understand. And I do think you raise a very fair point about the coach pushing back a little bit. You notice that he said that I knew he wasn't hurt. I bet he was frustrated. I had people who had trained with Roshkoff reach out to me over the weekend and tell me he has a bit of this sort of element where he does get frustrated sometimes when things don't go his way. So I suspect that Robert Drysdale was really sort of keying in on that. But Robert Drysdale's defense of his actions was what really alarmed me. He had said that, you know, to the MMA media, you know, if you've, he goes, I don't lecture people about quantum physics because it's not a thing that I know I know fighting okay fair enough Robert's

win for example over Marcelo Garcia at ABCC it's one of the most spectacular combat sports wins I've ever seen and obviously he had a decorated career to a degree uh in MMA but the reality is this I would challenge Robert Drysdale and I, Robert, how much direct training by formal institutions, whether those be training courses or an athletic commission, have you had in terms of the responsibilities and roles of cornering? I don't mean just on the job training. I mean, formal training. And I bring that up for a reason, BC. I do not think Robert Drysdale is a bad person. I think he's a very smart guy. And I think. And I know he cares very deeply for Max Roschkopf. But I found out something over the weekend. I did some digging.

You cannot find language either with the ABC or any formal institution in combat sports about best practices around cornering. You can find language about what their potential role is and where they have to be, like how many corners can you have for a title fight versus non, how many get to be in the cage between rounds, can you throw a towel or not, right? There's some things like that, but they don't actually tell you how to do the job correctly and what you consistently see. And this is a thing I learned from speaking to commissioners over the weekend, the fighters who become cornermen, they consistently say, oh, I know what I'm doing, but they, A, never had formal training,

and B, in terms of being a coroner, and B, as a consequence, they fail to realize that part of what you're doing is being a health advocate. Now, I grant, BC, it's complicated because you're putting ice on a guy, you're cooling him off between rounds, you're giving him strategy, and then you're sending him back out there to fight, right? I mean, how can you be a guy's health advocate if you're doing that? Because at some point, you have to be aware that you cannot cajole them and Tony Robbins them into victory. At some point, the fight is over, and now what you have to assess is their long-term health, their long-term viability, and what the realistic chances are here. And I bring this up, BC. Look at what Roshkoff did. He goes back to the seat. His head is facing

his face. He's looking down at the mat. He does not have an alert body. There are times when a coach can say to you, hey, man, fire up. Do what you're supposed to do here. Get out there. And it can motivate someone, but not when they have body language like that. And he says, I was trying to tell him to be his best, and I would want a coach to do that. Dude, if he is telling you nine or 10 times to call it, and he's looking at the mat, he is no longer listening to you. Your speech is not working and you must have recognition about that. And you note it. And I would agree like Tony Ferguson heading into the

fifth round was taking a way worse beating, but Tony Ferguson is in a super elite lightweight. Here you had a guy with 15 fights at Austin Hubbard against the guy with five. And by the way, Austin Hubbard had to fight Davi Hamos and other killers when he first got to the UFC so to me it's like do I know fighting like Robert Drysdale no I do not but for 15 years I've been listening to good boxing corners and commission officials tell me what good cornering is and it's paying attention to body language it's understanding your fighters responses if the first thing he does is when he gets asked by the referee, are you done?

You say yes. He wasn't listening to you. You've got to have recognition for this. Because if you don't, even though the beating in the second round, BC, was admittedly not the worst beating I've ever seen. If you're not up here, dude, to go it was going to be very bad for him yeah and raskov was gassed out obviously he was mentally defeated that he didn't he wasn't able to sustain the success he had the first time and look the way that he sat dejectedly in the

cage afterwards i think source sort of doubles down on what you said that he could be somebody mentally who gets very hard on himself and can can pull out of a fight so look it's it's like there you know it's like a scale here it's like i do understand a coach wanting to rattle that beast out of him because he had a chance to win a very important fight again rocky pennington round five down for nothing did not have a chance to submit or knock out amanda amanda newness it just was what it was in that spot but yeah there are limits to the amount of no's you can ask for at that point it didn't look like he was looking out for his fighter's best health interest. Luke, Jay wants me to move on, but do you think there's anything to the follow-up sort of debate on Twitter that UFC matchmaking purposely matches younger guys

with great potential way too hard too early as a way to draw loyalty out of them because once they lose they have no leverage and they're always fighting to get back up the ladder that seems highly conspiratorial if you listen to Dana White I mean I'm not saying that never happens or it's never happened but he listened to Dana White and I believe this his his manager who's Brian Butler who's one of the more successful MMA managers apparently was always hitting up Sean Shelby to say to this guy hey look we have a new kid and he might be the next big thing and as you mentioned in that first round and even parts of the second to a degree you could tell he's got some serious skills to be reckoned with if he can figure out the other parts of the

competitive challenge and so they were probably saying hey let's just get him out there as quick as we can. You don't make a lot of money on the regional scene, blah, blah, blah. But I just think in the end, people don't realize how good Austin Hubbard was because he had an 11 and four record coming in here. But if you look at the guys he had lost to in the UFC, they were absolute savages and he had performed quite ably against them. He had had way more experience and he had come from lfa i just think you know listen they're just trying to make the people believe that their guy is john jones there ain't that many john joneses man there ain't that many guys with a handful of fights that can come in there and beat andre guzmao it just doesn't really exist so i understand the

pressure but yeah it's not early ufc days when you can go in there you know with no pro fights and just but you have a background in one specific martial art and try to mix it up I would like to see whether it's UFC officially adopting their own minor leagues and they kind of kind of have with the Dana White contender series and obviously they're very close with LFA which in some ways is a feeder league but you I would like to see less of you know people even like the m&m guy chase hooper getting rushed in there against that quality of opponent at 19 when it's really not worth it all right we move on now to point number three jesus i i gotta tell you this is one of the most um what an amazing fight to me a fight of the year contender easily. So Josh Emmett in your co-main event at 145 pounds,

he eventually stops Shane Burgos. I think it was the third round. Wow, dude. What an unbelievable performance, BC. I was so blown away. So the question is, now after he wins, where does Burgos fit into the title picture? So the picture at 145.

So if you look at the rankings, BC, he was at eight or nine. You mean Emmett? You mean Emmett? Emmett. Sorry, what did I say? I said somebody else? Sorry. Josh Emmett.

You said Burgos. It's fine. Sorry. I apologize. Josh Emmett. If you look at the rankings, again, prior to the fight, Emmett was sitting at around eight or nine, which is probably fair given what he had accomplished and everything else. But I just think there's some realities about Josh Emmett that people need to wake up to. I think what he'll get out of the win is somewhere in or just outside top five.

It depends how a couple other things shake out, which means he's at worst maybe two more wins away from a title shot, maybe even one. But the reality about Josh Emmett that folks really need to wake up to is he is a little bit older than some of the other sort of talents out there at 145 pounds. But with that has come a lot of wisdom. His game has transformed over the years because he always had good wrestling, which folks forget about. And he always had pretty decent movement, great cardio. He can go the distance. And he had that setback against Jeremy Stevens. But folks forget he was winning that Jeremy Stevens fight before a controversial knee and then everything else that happened afterwards.

Beyond that, he is a Mack truck of a power puncher. He has a modern game. He doesn't rattle the media cage, BC. But Josh Emmett is easily perhaps, no'm just gonna say it he's the most underrated guy at 145 pounds just yeah he did come after the media a bit in his post-fight interview which i you know i give him the grounds to do it because he felt he was counted out so much uh look like to echo what you said absolutely badass fight and why i loved it even more than your average sort of brawl where you're like fight fight of the year contender, is that it really wasn And man did both bite down and go for it.

You got to give Burgos all the credit. Even if Dana White butchered his name and called him Burtos for the entire post fight press conference. Emmitt kind of is a featherweight Shane Carwin. You know like more skilled. But he's got that intimidating vibe. And can load up and land the big power shots. He also might have the best tats in UFC. And Luke that's saying something. There's a might have the best tats in UFC. And Luke, that's saying something.

There's a lot of really bad tats in UFC. I'd take that package of tats if I wasn't fear of needles, maybe over anyone else. But look, about the full well-rounded game. Yeah, it's his time. It's his time. It's a little bit, I want to say disappointing, but it's not.

The featherweight division is suddenly so frigging loaded. You're not only going to get Max Volkanovsky too, but it's like, what do we do with Ortega zabit uh you know korean zombie i mean you know on and on there's yair rodriguez there's a few other killers in there he certainly enters that group with this win i'd agree with you that it's probably a win or two more before he would get that title shot but this is where i stop and say guys are just wired differently right um to to have the damage that he took to his left knee in the first round the first minute of that fight and look I didn't see afterwards was it a torn ACL was it just something got stretched out I don't know but to

be able to block that out still use that leg be effective the rest of the way be so mentally tough stay in his game plan while he was getting lit up at times against a much longer fighter with a very accurate boxing game. This was a hella impressive performance from Josh Emmett. This was a, hey, if you thought of him, you better know him now because he has evolved into something very serious. He's a title threat against anyone, Luke, and he has that bite- down toughness that seems to

be just next level from the regular group burgos kind of showed you the same thing and defeat he's still got you know a lot a high ceiling on where he can go too but yes i want to kind of get josh emmett fast-tracked into a giant fight next to make a statement because he's ready in every single appearance luke knowing that his window is a little bit smaller than the others and knowing that he kind of went through hell in the aftermath of that loss to Stevens, that he's going for it. He's going to go for the damn title.

And you know, Dana loves that. You know, the fans love it. And I want to see how far he can go with that menacing style because shout out to his well-roundedness. That's how he got here. But his meal ticket is to walk you down and knock you the hell out. And it's going to be fun to see him against the other elites. I mean, no one appreciates someone daring to be great more than UBC,

which is exactly what he's doing. And to be honest, sometimes when the fighters call out the media, I'm always like, I just sort of roll my eyes. I did not roll my eyes at this one because I knew what he was talking about. First of all, disclosure, I get him as right as I get him wrong. I'm 50-50 on all these. But I did think Josh Emmett was going to win, not that anything against Shane Burgos, but I just sort of have been watching what Josh Emmett is up to.

The fact that he has the power punching, the chin, as you saw, even after all the damage he's taken from the Jeremy Stevens, I won't call it debacle, but calamity is sort of in its own right. And then all the other pieces of fainting, in and out movement that he's got. Dude, he's got one of the best games at 145 pounds. And I just thought, man, he's going to be a hard guy to deal with. Plus, you knew from like the Michael Johnson

and the Ricardo Lamas fight that dude, I mean, he can thump. Now you see yet more evidence of that. So I always thought he would do it. But here's what I mean about the chip on his shoulder. He was right to note that he's been looked over, because he not just by the media but the media sort of as a proxy for the larger fan base I don't think a lot of them have woken up to that reality either so the media and the fans are guilty together in this I think and if you can take a chip on your shoulder and convert it into competitive fire if you can take it and make it useful for you, which is what he

appears to be doing, knowing his, as you indicated, his window is not as big. He's not 25 years old. He's not Sean O'Malley, but he's underrated and he would like to be recognized. Dude, he is going to make you remember his name. He did the thing. Granted, he had a bit of a dance partner that kind of made it exciting as well, and Shane Shane Burgos but he did the thing we were talking about Curtis Blades maybe should have done right he actually went out and did it so when he calls out the media for not giving him some love after the things he's been through and after the things he's also accomplished I don't have any issue with it at all Luke here's what's interesting I don't know what he made or what both of these guys made for this fight. I just didn't check. Did you happen to check what they were disclosed for pay?

Not yet. Okay. I'm sure it's underwhelming in a lot of ways. They were the co-main event. Everybody knew coming in that this was going to be the firecracker. This was going to be the fight that would win the weekend. If we can't fix the pay structure outright, if even if you don't love the idea that you can double your salary with a win and that you can get a bonus i'd almost think one change luke is make

that fight of the night bonus like a lot of money like that i think would be a a little change to things that everybody would love because we know dana and company and the ghost of joe silva and i'm sure you've probably even got a bad story of him vital, violating your human rights. They want knockouts. They want you to be a savage. So instead of a $50,000 savage bonus to an already pretty low salary for a, you know, co-main event opportunity, uh, why don't we just like triple or quadruple that? Because that's what UFC wants in the end. That's what fans want in the end. I know that style isn't for everybody. That's why if you've got a Curtis blade style, you may just go up the ladder and see if you can win the championship and that's how you get paid. But for these other guys to see Shane Burgos fight the way he did and knowing he's only got

the show money plus a bonus, um, I'd like to see him get like a $400,000 bonus. Luke, I'm not the one signing checks, but maybe if we just put, go all in on that, maybe everyone else can win a little bit more because there are savages. There are fighters out there like Joanna who will pour out the entire jug at any time. And I think above all, those are the people that deserve the type of payment even more Luke in an already broken payment structure. I would agree. I mean, maybe it it does or it doesn't incentivize fighters to fight in that way but to your point at least it would reward the ones who did i like i like the idea it's pretty cool all right so let's move on now to the weekend not so much ahead but the

weeks ahead we'll come to the weekend ahead in just a moment but first let's talk fight island bc so we had a bunch of announcements related to this. There's so many different angles to get to. The place I'd like to start on this is the middleweight fight that was announced, which is one of the headlining fights for one of the Fight Night cards, so the ones subsequently following 251. Darren Till officially back in action against Robert Whittaker. BC, what is on the line for these two?

You know, potentially a rocket ship to the title after we sort out the Adesanya-Paula Costa situation. I mean, it's that big of a fight and it does echo kind of what we love about the UFC, that Robert Whitaker could lose his championship by knockout. He could go through some very personal sort of hurdles to get back into a situation where he feels comfortable fighting and oh no there's no get well fight there's no you know here's a veteran cowboy serrani type to dust you back up it's you're going there against darren till and you know with high risk does come high reward i mean if robert whitaker knocks him out he's right back at the doorstep of a title opportunity it is a badass fight

in a badass summer of fights thank you ufc for basically sorry i burped right there for basically putting the quarantine in a americana or going north south on them and and no dental dam just going for it right just freaking going for it um this is i mean look we're gonna talk about poirier and friggin hooker i mean these fights are ridiculously good i love me some till whitaker it's gonna be bananas till has a chance in that fight to prove to you that he can fulfill all the expectations that that ufc had for him from the very beginning luke sign me up this is gonna be a great summer all the other sports they can't figure it out sometimes for good reasons but uh UFC still they're bringing the big stick and they're banging Luke well I mean when Daniel brags about how they have figured it out and the other sports

haven't yes but it's sort of like saying I got my bicycle to work and you haven't figured out how to build a car yet I mean one, one task is difficult, very difficult. The other task is insanely difficult. So they're not equivalent tasks, but okay, fair enough. They've got the machine operating and running in a way that their other combat sports peers certainly couldn't do. And I give them credit for that. As it relates to Till versus Whitaker, BC, I don't know how you could, this fight is amazing. It's really amazing because we have this situation with robert whittaker where he not only lost his last fight he got stopped lost his title he had a bunch of time off due to injuries then the fight he was supposed to be in fell through for a lot

of different reasons but we find out later that it was predominantly related to just burnout basically and here he is saying he's on the other side of this and he's ready to get back to who he once was. I'm very curious to see what that looks like because I remember when Adesanya beat Whitaker, I thought he would, not the way he did. But I also said to myself, this cannot and certainly will not be the last time

these two face off. So does he get right back on the horse and get another fight? Because you have to imagine, if Dana wants to do a full crowd, which you can probably do in New Zealand, we'll see how things go, you could do a rematch between Adesanya and Whitaker there, provided he gets past Costa. That would be a huge fight down there, and it wouldn't interfere with pay-per-view here

in terms of how the timing of the card might work. So that would be huge. On the other side, you talk to English media, they'll tell you Darren Till is the heir to Michael Bisping's throne. And what I mean by that is, who is the fighter coming out of England now that can be what Michael Bisping was? Which is, obviously he won the title,

but the most important celebrated MMA fighter of his era who most media would know, or MMA fans would know, who's the standard bearer for the flag? Darren Till is supposed to be that guy, and he obviously had his stumbles. Now, he rebounded against Kelvin Gastelum, and that was huge, but he's got to build on this and if he can dude look out the sky is the limit for that we've talked about it on the show in boxing dude the UK is the king of boxing right now on multiple levels whether it's the size of the crowds in the arena whether it's the showmanship whether it's the number of good athletes whether it's belts across weight classes, they are the reigning kings

of boxing. And if Darren Till can tap into that enthusiasm on the MMA side, I'm telling you, I'm not saying he'll do everything that Michael Bisping did, but he's got an opportunity to build on a place in time where British boxing is maybe as hot as it's ever been. So there's a combat sports fever and he can be the standard bearer for his era for mma and and really do something very special as a talent and as a box office draw yeah no no doubt about it luke and and you know i i did do a little bit yay the ufc right there because i mean it from the standpoint of how loaded this summer is and DC Stipe, sorry, three, a big part of that.

But we do have to talk about, look, we call it like it is. We praise you. We'll tear you down too. Did you see that Fight Island promo they ran over the weekend? It was weird. It kind of looked like one day Dana White's probably going to run for president or governor of nevada or something it kind of looked like a rally video for to gain momentum um i think people rightfully

had issues with this the first 45 seconds to a minute of the video is about how everyone ain't doing anything and all the things were stacked against dana but he carried the flag up the hill and again in some ways he did but that was an old battle. That was the three month ago battle. Can we put this back on the road? You won that. All right. That already happened.

Remember Jacksonville? We already Tai Chi Palace. We already there. Now we're sort of keeping that narrative alive for fight Island. And we're actually showing fighters standing on the edge of an Island, looking out at the water. I'm sorry. Fight Island island ain't a real island we've already been through this it's going to be in an arena dana made fun of us for believing dana you all right we thought that by listening to you this is your fault but um i i do agree that uh if you're of the belief that ufc has worked too hard for its own advantageous reasons

to keep dana and the ufc brand as the face of of the whole promotion rather than individual fighters although obviously there's been times where mcgregor or rousey or whomever has has catapulted above the the marquee um this is a great example of that right that's how they keep the fighters down and stiff armed and keep them in line because dana is always the draw and watch that video the draw ain't gilbert burns versus kamara usman i'll tell you that much the draw is that that maverick dana white for better or worse yeah it's funny uh it was so weird it's because if you look at the slate of fights we we mentioned Till versus Whitaker, which is just a great fight. But if you look at these cards, man, up and down, there are some amazing, amazing bouts.

Two fifty one completely stacked. And yeah, there's some filler in there. But OK, you know, I mean, if they're not doing it better than anyone who is, I don't know. So I'm not here to complain about Fight Island other than it was silly and whatnot. But the promo, it was like, dude, you can just tell, man. Dana says to the media, I don't care what you think.

You clearly care. It clearly bothers him. It clearly is a thing that really gets under his skin. It's why certain media members get blackballed. It's why they make promos like this. And of course, it wasn't why certain media members get blackballed. It's why they make promos like this. And of course, it wasn't just the media that he was up against.

It was a series of other forces. But you're right. I mean, whatever the merits of the battle on April 18th, those weren't the battles fought in early May, and they're certainly not the battles being fought now. BC, Matt Frivola got removed from the card before Saturday, and we're not even talking about it. And the whole thing was related to COVID

because they've got, it seems like, now we never know for 100%, but it seems like they've got, as we said last week, really good safety protocol in place. So no one's hammering them for it. It seemed like an unnecessary victory lap that's really what it seemed like but i look at the at the core we're not having something to talk about on this show unless dana was that proactive and aggressive and crazy and some of

it is his nature some of it is financial you better believe that but here we are and i am glad we are here okay i'll deal with a freaking promo video all right i'll do all right all right very good i mean it's not gonna get me to watch or not watch we're gonna be there no matter what Here we are, and I am glad we are here. Okay, I'll deal with a freaking promo video, all right? I'll deal with it, all right? Very good. I mean, it's not going to get me to watch or not watch. We're going to be there no matter what. If Jay keeps chirping at me, by the way, I'm going to bring Uriah Hall on this show, and we'll get him his, you know, we'll, you know,

it's going to be justice served via spinning back kick. Can I get to the fifth point, please? All right. Fifth and final point. Sorry, you have other jobs. Go for it. Fifth and final point next week. Well, I should say not even next week at this point. It. All right. Fifth and final point. Sorry, you have other jobs. Go for it. Fifth and final point next week. Well, I should say not even next week at this point. It's Monday now.

So Saturday is going to be UFC on Vegas 4 or whatever the hell the nomenclature is. But all you have to know is that main event, ladies and gentlemen, is damn sensational. Dustin Poirier is back for the first time since his loss to Habib Nurmagomedov back in Abu Dhabi, speaking of which, he is taking on Dan, the hangman hooker. Okay, BC, what is at stake for the winner between Poirier and hooker? This is a bad-ass fight in the most baddest ass division in the history of MMA at one time. Seriously, look it up. Luke, this summer is friggin' loaded.

There's no fight this summer that means more than DC and Stipe. But this is the best fight of the entire summer. I seriously mean that. Fighter versus fighter, I defy you to find one that is better. I can't friggin' wait for this. Look, if you not only win this fight, you're in that upper core of, again, historically deep and loaded division

with Habib on top, with Justin Gaethje knocking on the door, with Conor lingering, with a few other killers rightfully in need of a major fight. But if you win this fight spectacularly, you might get on that rocket ship. You might get something out of this world massive

as your reward this is a big boy fight this is uh as good as dan hooker has looked as much as we've liked him bounce back from that loss to barbosa everything he's done as of late has been golden uh this is the deep end of the pool and you know could he catch Poirier on the wrong night on the wrong time in his career long layoff coming off a surgery coming off a one-sided loss uh yeah you're getting plus money on Dan Hooker you know I'm not a big betting guy but this this is this might be the right angle to go this might be the right time to fight Dustin Poirier but either way I love how they match up their striking styles I love everything about this if you win you're you're going up if you win big you might parachute in Luke I'm not

saying you're going to get Habib next or whatever but you may you may push the others aside uh the winner of this certainly isn't going to be demanding Conor money I don't know when and if Conor's ever going to fight again you might be able to slide right in and get a massive opportunity. Is there anything when you look at the sort of X's and O's of it that has you leaning either way right now, Luke? I have to think more about it, but what makes this fight so great, as you indicated, are the stakes, are sort of the two guys who are quiet except when they're not and when they're not, look out kind of vibe, and the contrast in styles. Because you have a guy who can do it all but is a little bit more kickboxing-based in Dan Hooker. You've got a guy who can do it all but is a little bit more boxing-based, obviously, Southpaw as well, in Dustin Poirier.

Poirier, pound for pound, might be one of the harder hitters at 155 pounds. Hooker, on the other hand, very quick, makes snappy decisions, throws a lot of the knee coming up the middle, so sort of unorthodox things that a lot of other guys don't throw. And so for those reasons, you're like, wow, man, this is just a hell of a fight. Plus, both guys have shown a tremendous chin at 155. Now, 145, when they were both badly depleted, not so much. You move them up a weight class, and they're hard to put away,

even when you land on them. So there's just, I mean, an enormous amount here to like. The last thing I'd say about this BC, it's also worth mentioning, Dustin Poirier has never lost two in a row, ever. It's never happened. So if you lose two in a row, I'm not saying it's the end of your career, of course, but it would certainly mark something that's never happened.

He has been defined not merely by some of the good fights that he has been in or some of the great fighters he's defeated. He has also been a function of how much do I bounce back from adversity? And the answer is routinely quite well. The last time he had a loss prior to the Nurmagomedov fight was the Michael Johnson fight. And after the Michael Johnson fight, he went on the best win streak of his career. And that's where he in fact claimed the interim title. Dan Hooker is looking to build into something like that, having first defeated Paul Felder. And now if you can get the Dustin Poirier scalp,

dude, you are going to be on that shortlist. And again, we go back to it. New Zealand might be a place where they can have full-on arena shows. Well, what would be better than a show with city kickboxing and they've got Brad Quake-Riddell, they've got Israel Adesanya, and maybe some Dan Hooker as well. They would tear the roof off that bitch in Auckland. So it's a huge opportunity for a lot of different players here.

I picked up something in what you were saying there about Poirier. This is certainly not comparative equally to, let's say, the position Tyron Woodley was in going into that Gilbert Burns fight we just saw, where that was a legitimate crossroads fight. You will tell us which direction your career is heading by how you perform would you say this is a sleeper crossroads fight for Poirier there's some elements in that Luke where he's not devastated with a second straight loss against another elite guy but he's also at that sort of turning point where you become a celebrity

name or you or you keep going back up toward that title yeah it's a little bit of that right because one he's never lost two in a row as i indicated two you know at lightweight you've got big names kind of sitting at the top right you've had them there for a long time your connors your khabib's your tony's and tony is still up there but he did lose and uh justin is now sort of asserted himself there. And here's what I mean. It's like we keep talking about Bantamweight, right? How great Bantamweight is.

I don't know who's going to win that title come 251 or who's going to fight for afterwards. And it'll be Sterling, I guess. But, you know, who's going to win? I can't predict who's going to be the Bantamweight champion two years, BC, because, Jesus Christ, like, they're just going to keep asserting themselves on one another in a very competitive way. There's a lot of parody at the top there. I believe

even with number made off, this might be true, but certainly outside of him, there's a ton of parody there. There are guys who are bad matchups for Connor. Connor's a bad matchup for some of them. I still think Tony can beat elite lightweights by the way, Dustin Poirier, as I mentioned, never coming off of second loss, um, a Dan Hooker, here he comes out of nowhere to start stomping on fools. If you lose two in a row, it's not just a setback, but all these new faces and names start to claw ahead. And so how much harder is it to then get back? Because you're not competing against the old names that were up there when you were kind of up there it's the old ones but some of them are gone there's a bunch of new ones now the turnover is so high that any loss is really consequential especially two in a row yeah yeah

that's true uh luke you want to update the people on your aerodynamic haircut by any chance yeah i got the old barracks cut from the wife you know could use a little help but i'm doing the best we can i gave myself the fourth quarantine fade uh wife hates it but you know whatever yeah we're doing listen it's dc didn't uh hit phase two until today and i was looking like a shaggy dog i needed some help i'm not sure how much help i got but i'm not gonna complain it was free you get what you pay for bc you get what you pay yeah you do and since i'm a voice a man of the people i want to be the voice of the people on the show. A lot of people wondering what your what your

COVID mask of choice, what's the design on the front? Do you have the DC flag? What do you have? A picture of your daughter? I don't know. No, I actually I think I have one hang on I, um, so I saw that, well, I don't know if I have it on me

I thought I had some well, the answer is hold on, ah, damn it I saw that... I don't know if I have it on me. I thought I had some. Well, the answer is... The answer is I saw the folks at... My favorite sports team is Real Madrid. They are in Spain. They have all their gear outfitted by Hugo Boss when they're traveling

and then Adidas when they're in training gear. Adidas makes a Real Madrid mask designed for this current moment. You can actually go to adidas.com and get one. So I got a pack of three black masks for Real Madrid slash Adidas. How about that? All right. Viva football.

Go ahead. All right. Well, with that in mind, BC, it's time when we have to answer to the people. You ask us questions every Sunday on Instagram at Morning Combat. So let's get to them now, BC. It is time for DMs from dogs. All right. BC, this comes to us first from at rodriguez works with a z

what was harder for blades the fight or the interview after yeah that was rough look at that was rough in terms of uh in terms of great moments in interview history he he had trouble uh i there was one point where i actually thought he was going to gas out of the interview. I thought he was just going to be like, that's it. That's it. So I thought Mazzagati was going to jump in, and that would have been it. You know what I mean?

Okay. Or Keith Peterson. Why does this smell like hoochie bitches? I'm going to defend Blades a little bit. Yes, he was tired. Okay. He does have a speech impediment. It's not bad, but it is noticeable.

And he texted my producer yesterday. His whole lip is stitched together. It wasn't as bad as the Overeem lip split to Rosenstruck, but it's not money, and it's all swollen and shit. So between some of the speech challenges, which I'm not making fun of him for, it's not easy, being dog tired and your lip being not together.

I'm going to cut him a little bit of a break, BC. Okay. Raruto. Raruto. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Alright, so next. From Jack with three K's, which is never a good look, and then an underscore. Who would win in a fight, BC? Your wife or mine

uh well my wife does have the uh the old school uh irish uh side of her uh but what's the what's the tail of the tape how tall is she five seven okay that's pretty that's pretty tall for a woman uh you want i thought it was going to be who could win between me and my wife. It might be even money at times. No, just kidding. But Luke, not to completely stereotype people, but your wife's a spicy Latina. She's a beautiful woman.

I'm sure that she can tear an eyeball out. Am I racist? No. No? Yes, you are racist, but not for saying that. Also, my wife trained jiu-jitsu for years. She's pretty talented, actually. So for that reason alone, I would say maybe my wife.

But I will say this. If your wife has a stiff jab, my wife is only 5'1". She's tiny. Okay, okay, okay. So if she can pop the jab in her face, you know, I might like her chances. But if it gets on the mat, my wife would probably win. That's interesting. This is an odd – even for my standards, this is an odd conversation.

I know. Jay picked – I guarantee you that fucker Jay picked this question to be like, I'm going to sow dissension in the ranks. Yeah. Jay just can't – Jay is just itching for a live mic so he can tell us about that time that he rolled with Uriah Hall, right? All right. So next we go to.

Jay looks really mad. Can you see Jay there? He looks really mad. Well, he's not wearing his white glasses, which can only be a coincidence. It's like, dude, was Jay the guy in that band LMFAO? Party rock is in the house tonight. Yeah. What was the name of jay's band no escape yes yes which was which was the reality of uh do you think he had a sugar daddy a lou

in his life who uh you know you know uh yeah he only wishes he could have been abused. That's the kind of sick mind that Jay has. All right. At Aurelius92, who is your favorite TV show dad slash husband? This person writes, mine is Kevin James from King of Queens. BC, I have a good answer for this one. All right, what do you got? Hit me up, hit me up. It's got to be Al Bundy from Married with Children.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Let me explain this to you. Married with Children, you think Family Guy or American Dad is edgy. It's not. Married with Children is a show they could not make today because it's a failed man

who hates his life. He hates his wife. He hates his kids. They all hate him. He wishes for divorce and he makes fun of his, I'll just leave it at this, his eccentric neighbors,

and the self-loathing, the outwardly loathing, and the retreat to beer. It's one of the greatest shows ever. My dad and my mom had a very contentious divorce, and I'll never forget this, BC. My dad does not watch television. It just does not,

it does not happen. But the only show he would ever let us watch when we would go and stay at his house is married with children. It is the only American sitcom or whatever you want to call it that I ever saw make my dad laugh. And it made him gut laugh. It's the only one. Yeah.

We watched it as a family. And I remember in fifth and sixth grade, I was the only kid in my class who was allowed to watch it but uh great stuff my favorite tv dad of all time is uh dan loria who played kevin arnold's dad and dad in the wonder years which i think just like encapsulated so many of the dads i grew up with like come home from work so damn angry wife waiting there with the with a mixed drink as he grabs it you can't talk to him for a couple hours he only speaks in grunts but that show is my favorite show of all time that's a classic show do you remember specifically luke when uh when kevin's dad took kevin with him to

work at norcom that day and got completely undressed in front of his son by his boss and just had to take the l it's one of i mean there's so many great episodes in that show's history that that could make me cry that could you could bring out a lot of emotions. Seeing the dad have to take that L in front of the son, that was a tough one. I did not see that one, but that sounds not awesome. Is there any dad we're forgetting?

Jay's trying to jump to Bill Cosby. Jay said Bill Cosby. Of course he did. Is he talking about Bill Cosby or Cliff Huxtable? Which side is Jay's support here? If there's anyone Yes, of course he did. Or is he talking about Bill Cosby or Cliff Huxtable? Which side is Jay support here? Yeah. If there's anyone else, I'm not sure. Yeah, all right. So next one from Liza or Liza underscore Razoo.

What is the best snack to eat along a six-pack of cheap beer, BC? This person writes, I personally think nothing beats nachos. There is, yeah, no, I like the spirit of this question because obviously, you know, there's certain snacks that go great with wine, with a top shelf IPA, but if you're drinking a cheap American lager,

you know, I think Cool Ranch Doritos certainly matches up very well with that. Luke, I don't know if you get down like that. Chicken wings, uh chicken wings have chicken wings in american lager ever gone bad together i mean come on no that's a good that's a good tip i always feel like you can't go wrong with i don't know meats and cheese like with beer right um i guess it depends on the kind of beer he says cheap beer okay so let's say what you know beast beast, something like that.

Oh, God. I'm going to say. How about Bush Heavy? Bush Heavy is a solid can. If I'm going can, if I'm going American Lager can, I'm going Bush Heavy, all right? Or just PBR. PBR is an easy option there. It's probably the same recipe. I would say you can't have a burrito because that just sits in your stomach.

You got to have finger foods, right? Like nachos, their point. You know what? I like fries. Some nice, salty, greasy fries, I guess. Something like that. Something you can pick individually, piece by piece. Not like a giant burger or a giant burrito.

I got it. I got it now. What is it? I didn't have this until theth the year of our lord 2019 so all of our west coast fans are like yo but what are those uh those fries you get in la that uh carne asada fries you know what i'm talking about you mean carne asada is a steak i know but carne asada fries where you basically get a container filled with fries beef cheese onions it's just like a smorgasbord of hell and it's it's sloppy and disgusting and there's gravy it's like it becomes so wet at the bottom that it forms like

this thick gravy of all the ingredients in there that is probably the perfect uh everything the perfect so it's another it's like it's like a it's like an la version of poutine exactly and you get it from like a you know a truck on the side of the road. Exactly. I can't believe I lived my whole life and didn't have that. I've been to Rochester. I've been to John Jones country. I've eaten the garbage plates, which is one of the greatest sloppy food inventions ever.

Luke, have you ever had a garbage plate? I've not. It would change your life. It would change your draws because you'd be, yeah, yeah. Have a garbage plate luke it's basically they serve it on a paper plate and they put like beans mac and cheese fries a couple burger patties cheese i mean they just basically take everything that's great about gas station food and they serve it on a giant paper plate and you buy it for like 12 bucks and you're

like oh i'm gonna eat this whole thing and then halfway through you're you know there's there's stuff coming out of all orifices it's classic americana uh last thing on this you ever had tachos no so it's nachos but there's no corn chip it's tater tots and then you put sour cream cheese you know whatever else you want to put on there and then you eat it with a fork t tachos, it's pretty money. It's pretty good. Okay. Yesterday for Father's Day, I went to a restaurant. I've learned, Luke, and developed that blue cheese on a burger is,

like, I can't believe I didn't do that my whole life. Like, you can have a gourmet burger with whatever you like on it, and that's fine. But when you put blue cheese on it, Luke, you go into the... I think I get high while I eat it, right? I think I have a food orgasm. I think things happen to me, right? So I got to give my brother a shout out.

We went to his house yesterday. Again, first time I saw my family since the pandemic. Although, dude, you all think I'm hard-ass about COVID. He wouldn't let us go inside. We had to sit on his porch. I'm not exaggerating. That was a real thing. Oh, come on, Luke's brother. What is wrong with your family, Luke?

That's what I said. That's what I said. I was like, dude, we can't. He let us go into piss, but we have to have a mask. I'm not shitting you. I was like, okay, dude, whatever. Did you have to take your shoes off too? No, he actually didn't make us do that because he had the dog there. But I will give him credit for the cooking. Remember, my family closed their restaurant right before the pandemic. So my brother can cook his ass off. He actually bought short ribs, pulled the meat, and then ground it himself, and then used that to make burger patties. Whoa, dude.

It was awesome. It was awesome. I was very impressed. So you got to give a little to get a little with him. How do we hang out with this guy? Is he a good hang, your brother? If you like eating burgers and smoking a trash bag full of marijuana, sure. Can we sign off, Luke?

Can we get by the fire with this guy, please? I mean, come on. Let's do that, dear Luke. You'll have to sit outside. You may have to wear a mask to go pee, but it's a good trade-off. Okay, okay, great. All right, we got one more. Are we going to wear those donks?

We got one more. We got one more. By the way, verified blue checkmark here from Ben Schnetzer. My vision is fading. Ben Schnetzer. Okay, so BC, there's six of these. You got to just pick one at a time. Ready?

Let's go through them. Number one, Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore? It doesn't hold up as well, but Billy Madison. The answer is Happy Gilmore. Two, Tommy Boy or Black Sheep? Tommy Boy for days. Agreed. Tommy Boy is the right answer.

Number three, The Mask or Ace Ventura? Although that is the, the, the mountaintop moment for Cameron Diaz. Like the, like the, that's Everest for her. The answer is Ace Ventura.op moment for Cameron Diaz. Like, the, like, the. That's Everest for her. The answer is Ace Ventura. The answer is Ace Ventura. I agree. All right, number four as we move along here.

The Mighty Ducks or The Sandlot? That's a great- That's a great- That's a great-ass question. That's a tough one. All right? I hate to scale the fence. The Sandlot's the better flick

but the mighty ducks is more rewatchable that's my personal take okay if i gotta pick one sandlot sandlot it's classic it's just so classic and pure sandlot is is timeless and so sentimental and just perfect uh number five, Encino Man or Biodome. Are you a Pauly Shore guy or a, what's his face? Who fell off the fucking earth? I saw Son-in-Law on opening night. Remember Pauly Shore and Kelly Kapowski were in that movie? That was great.

I'm going to go Encino Man. I feel like this guy's serving up to us. No one's going to pick Black Sheep over Tommy Boy, right? It's like the bootleg follow-up, right? I think Biodome, to me, is like a bootleg follow-up of Encino Man. Brendan Fraser is his name for Encino Man. And then number six, last but not least, and this is an important one. Are you a Friday guy or a Wayans Brothers production?

Don't be a menace to South Central while drinking your juice in the hood. Shout out to the Wayans, of course. That one time that I had when Showtime sent me to L.A. in first class and I had the bed on the plane and Damon Wayans was behind me and Flavor Flav was two seats to the left and I slept. And the waitress, stewardess lady, cleans your area while you're sleeping, gives you a back massage. I mean, I was like, we got a hot dog and a hand-o here, too?

You got to go with Friday. Luke, I don't think there is a back massage, Jay. I'm not kidding. I know Jay's the master of points. Jay's got another documentary coming out. Yes, Jay, there is no back massage in coach where they ship your ass. But for those of us who get to ride at the front of the plane. I'm saying this.

Not only is the answer Friday, Luke, that's one of those, like, I'm not sure you can, even if you've watched it for the first time this year, I'm not sure if you could realize how culturally significant and hilarious that movie was unless you were in those times in the 90s when it came out and you saw it in the theater and instantly every line and situation became a catchphrase for like the next five years of your life uh yeah it was a it was a a light mocking of of movies of that era but the answer is friday friday is a classic friday is timeless friday spawned multiple sequels, some of which sucked, some of which were okay. But it is a period piece and

you can't understand the 90s without Friday. It's not possible. The answer is Friday. Shout out to Debo. Tuck your chain when Debo comes through. Okay, BC. Your turn to steal the show, my friend. What do you got for us? Yeah, alright. Here we go.

Hit the animation. Hit me with the horns money. You know what we do, right? We scour the globe for the good, the bad, the highs and lows. In combat sports beyond, it's have you seen this ish. And, Luke, we always start with legitimate combat sports. This past Saturday in Mexico City, Top Rank had a card on ESPN. By the way way they served up

emmanuel navarrete a champion in the main event with a guy with a 13 and 13 record so f that but on the undercard did you see sergio santo sanchez send this man is this the left hook is this the left hook yes it is great call by bernardo asuna and wow fuck that's it yep that's it that's it there it is you don't need fans in attendance to realize how great that is luke look i mean just right on the chin just yeah yeah and he was looking down too oh little check hook magic remember the one floyd mayweather hit ricky hatton went in face first into the ropes love it all right let's move on to one championship kickboxing luke i've never seen this. I've seen a body shot knockout. I've never seen a body shot knockout cold.

Did that really just happen? Pink hair putting it, kick this guy to the liver, and I think he's out. How is that biologically possible? You tell me. Weird things happen in one championship. Yeah, they lose hundreds of millions of dollars. They should have sent a press release about this i think that guy's wow he's not coming back luke he's out cold on a body shot wow all right yes hey let's move on from one to uh sand fighting luke this is probably the greatest knockout in sand fighting history. Oh, he's testifying. Look, he's testifying to the congregation.

He testified in church that the Lord Jesus is. Yep. Oh, wow. Can you explain what the setup here is? What is this? Is this turkey? He dips to his. This is what Kelleher hit Azure with.

Watch him dip left. Well, I'm not talking about the technique. I'm talking about your Armenian brethren. Is this like a neighborhood boxing match in the sand? Bro, Armenia, you know, people I'll tell you what, it might be the first official Christian nation in world history, but they

are not about turning the other cheek over there. They are savages. Why is the one guy in the shorts and the other guy is dressed like He's going surfing in cold Pacific waters or something. I was going to say, he's dressed like Roxanne M uh he's going surfing in like cold uh pacific waters or something i was gonna say he's dressed like roxanne moda furry can who can wear the most clothes in one

fight look at that all right i know she has knee wraps ankle braces the whole shit i mean my kids when they go swimming they wear less than that i mean come on and they you know yeah all right hey let's move on from here let's go to drinking That's what we do in the summer, right? Here's a flaming mose shot gone wrong. Look, no, sorry. I think we switched one there. All right, we got, well, we'll move on. We'll go to the next one. Hey, here's a toast for Abuelo.

He's crazy. We love him. He's been through a lot. It's Father's Day weekend. Just be careful. Don't stand behind him, right? We love you, Abuelo. You're the patriarch of this family okay celebrate salu

to you and yours oh yeah all right what tradition is this i don't know i don't know i think this is uh in doha this is your these are your people okay you know what if it's in doha that might have been actually intentional this might be that colombian uh you know isha isha misha that you do and then you throw it all right let's go back to that one jay bring it on um luke i'm all for doing shots i'm all for celebration and all that but if we're gonna light shots on fire and go Flaming Mo style, you deserve what you get in this situation.

Okay. Okay. Luke. All right. This kid's like 14, by the way. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not in on that. Luke.

I'm not in on it. All right. Um, you ever smoke wet in high school? Where people spray it with bug spray? I don't get down on that either, okay? I don't smoke wet and I don't do this, okay? I wish his friends wouldn't have put it out. Yeah, that's great.

That's great. All right. Thank you, Abuelo. Can we move on to a real drinking legend? Jay, can you get us back on track? It's the Donnie, Ronnie Deutsch part of this, the drinking legend. Luke, he is raising the bar with this, with his Charles Barkley throwback. The great Ronnie Deutsch is going to try a six pack of mixed alcoholic drinks with a poa on his shoulders right dude that is gross

he's got the sweet the hard the hard sweet tea whatever you want to call it and then what is that like we gotta get this guy in the show and talk talk to him because this is like this is next level when you're mixing i mean you've had like a Zima or some kind of spiked thing. It gives you indigestion like a mofo. He's mixing that with beer and different things. He couldn't get the last one in one go. Yeah, he's like Dale Senior on turn four here. He's struggling. He's about to go on the wall, Luke.

All right, he did it. He did it. But, oh, wow. What do you think happens next after the camera turns off? He's probably going to, those two are going to, you know. All right. Okay. Shout out to Ronnie Deutsch on that one.

Let's go to the football field, Luke. Sometimes you can get a little too into it. You can get a little bit too hype. Check out this coach in the foreground with the white thing in his back and the gray switch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fired up. Great play.

Yeah. You got jacked up. you got jacked the hell up uh come on son i mean that oh that is awesome first of all that's a large man jesus oh yeah look at that oh and the thing is he's hurt he's down he's down for a while there by the way that's great all right uh you know he's celebrating of course a big while there, by the way. That's great. All right. You know, he's celebrating, of course, a big play there, an open field tackle. Let's go to an open field dog tackle. Check this out, Luke. You got to be careful in the backyard when you wind your dog up because they might come around the corner and send you to hell.

Look at that. Oh, yeah. Dude, you know what? You got to call the dog for clipping. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That is You know what? You got to call the dog for clipping. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That is illegal. That is not legal. But wow, I think the head hit the ground, too.

That's a KO right there. All right. See, that's why you got to get it. You have a dog, right? How big is your dog? I got two of them. I got a big German Shepherd Doberman mix, about 70 pounds. But see, German Shepherds are smart.

This mutt is just you know running into shit because he's stupid yeah but like the first snowfall when I let Molly out there in the backyard she would do this to me she would take me out out of excitement you know yeah I said I got one dog who's like less than 20 pounds and the other one is uh afraid of uh you know the lightning so yeah I don't have to worry about this very very Luke Thomas like with the COVID all right hey Luke you ever been at a party and there's that jerk who refuses to give his keys and he's drinking too much and he's trying to start the car and we're like, how do we corral him?

Look at this guy right here in the striped shirt. He's, come on, guy, just give the keys. You're not going to get away from us. There's no escape right now. Oh, God. What? He's celebrating. Look at it. He's celebrating look at he's telling oh now now the reality comes in you you've got shards of glass inside your soul that was worth it all right at that point i'd let him drive home look you know i'm speechless is that paul felder who is is that? I was going to say, very Paul Felder-like there.

Yes, yes. Where's Barbosa with a spinning back? Come on, yes. Or maybe it's Paul Craig? Yeah, could be. The Bear Jew? Very well done there. Shout out to there.

All right. Wow, my man is taking drinking games to a different level with that shit. Let's go to a classic UFC weigh-in moment. You know, I sang on Do What You Like, and if you missed it, I'm the one that said, just grab the boss by the biscuit. Is that ABC Nation Amanda Cooper? What is she doing? How many dudes has she done that to at the bar?

I mean. I'm a little bit surprised the boss, uh, you know, tried to block that. I'm just, you know, you know how they get down there, right? Just whatever. Let me ask you something. Not that I'm saying we should report her to HR, but is that sexual harassment? Yeah. Yeah.

It's certainly not. It was certainly not legal in my company, Luke. So, uh, yeah, you know, I mean, I'm morning combat. We can do anything, but yeah, this is, this is, uh, this is a step shy of the morning combat. Uh, handshake is an old fight, though. This is, what fight is that? They're on FS1, yeah.

Claudia 2, yeah, so that's 2016, the weekend of UFC 200, the sale, all that. Look at Joe Silva right there. You got any Joe Silva stories, Luke? Yeah, he called me up irate one time. Okay. Did he ever call you angry? No, but one time I was out drinking at UFC 199 weekend, and Sean Shelby was there, and I didn't know what he looked like.

I only know the name. And we'd been drinking for a while, other media there and whatever, and I really pissed him off because at a certain level, I looked over and I was like, oh, hey, so you work for UFC 2? What do you do? And he didn't like that. He didn't like that. I've actually had,

I've actually had a number of conversations with Sean. I've had a pretty good relationship with him. I got nothing against him, but he did not like that. I was asking him what his job was and who your father was and what does he do for a living? Yeah. He would not like that. Yeah.

No, Joe called me one time real bitter. That was it. Okay. I mean, you know, look, a lot of people might not be wrong.

He did do his job, right. You know, he played that role to the, to the I mean, you know, look, a lot of people might not be wrong. He did do his job right. You know, he played that role to the T. But, you know, he did send a few people to hell. Okay, let's roll on here, Luke. This is a pretty good knockout, but it might be the worst celebration of all time. Jay, hit me with it. I don't know what league we're in here, but what is this creep show? This is Combate Americas.

I mean, what do you call that is that like the uh what he's doing the dance they did in teen wolf yeah it's the t-rex okay all right but how do you do the t-rex has no arms or very short ones anyway and you just knock the dude out with your hands wouldn't you that doesn't even make sense yeah if you're gonna be a t-rex at least eat as he'd eat part of them right eat a soul stomp you know if you want to be a stomp or something you know yeah advise them to get better tattoos do something right help them with his taxes i don't know i don't know what that's all about but uh all right hey look remember uh we just launched morning combat merch right show.store.com sh o to check you know you can outfit you know your father you know a little post father's day gift get him a sweatshirt

get him a hoodie um we have a very creative group of fans we've shown some of this stuff in the past but uh we our fans are so creative and there's the link by the way store.show.com to get your merch i think some of our fans want to be merch creators. They're basically like, look, we love your merch, but we want to go even broader, next level. I want you to rate each of this MK merch attempts by our people.

Give me a, you know, give me a good, bad, or ugly, a yay or a nay. Here we go. Luke, this one is first from at squarepunchescircle on Instagram. That is pretty good right there. here we go luke this one is first from um at square punches circle on instagram that is that is pretty good right there what are my choices good bad and weird yeah good bad and ugly i'll go good okay i mean jay has pointed out that i look like david ortiz on the left and we're both wearing a shirt that says tip yes maybe maybe we're big fans of an atlanta rapper that is true that is

true all right let's bring on a show legend web scream right our boy christopheros the greek legend he's playing up on the um on the mortal combat mixed with our donkage what do you think about that luke would you wear that on a t-shirt would you put that it's okay you put that on your kids bib maybe maybe it's okay all right here's the all-time classic from sammy q 0h9 089 excuse me on instagram um that that may have to join the line that's your winner that's that's your that's your clubhouse leader right there that's fantastic showtime can we add this to the to the mix please all right let's go on from here dominic valando turned us into into simpsons characters luke i'm a big fan of this one, okay?

That is amazing. That is amazing. Holy crap, that is good. Wow. Now, I look like a creeper on the right, but they nailed you. That is you, Luke, all the way. Yeah, I just look like the sad guy in The Running Man, who was the security forces for the game show host.

Yes, great call right there. All right. Here is my personal favorite of the group. This is from Eric Becerra. He might have a future on the store.show.com website. Yeah, right? I kind of look like Michael Bisping on the right, but yeah, nailed it, right? God, who do I look like?

Michael Dukakis or some shit i look terrible he even has the the morning combat sun logo in the in the in the in the letter o there i love it yeah and in the eye he's got the fist i appreciate the letter the the tail but it looks like we're amputees uh you know yeah rubbing nubs or something it's a little weird all right uh you saw this one because it blew up instagram recently from at life in comic sans sans s-a-n-s uh yeah that's uh that's so good grip to grip luke grip to grip right there i like how you look like i am molesting you you see that face it's like i It's like I've conscripted you. And I'm also wearing, apparently,

my dad's shoes. And you're wearing a shirt that says Cannibal Corpse on it, and I'm wearing a shirt with two hot dogs touching tips. I mean, this is pretty good. This is pretty damn good. This is great, actually. It's not bad. It's not bad. I actually liked it a lot.

We usually close with something weird. Luke, I found this picture in the archives. All these 90s music references I make, I bet you're wondering, what did I look like when I was in my 85 Chevy Celebrity dropping out of college and listening to those songs?

Check me out in September of 1997, Luke. Sweaty, blown, washed high, and not getting girls during this stretch of my career. I can't imagine why. Maybe the facial hair. Maybe. Maybe.

Could be that fucking crater-sized zit on the top of your forehead. Couldn't be that. I was 19 here, you know, thinking, you know, I should just drop out of college. I should just drop. That's probably what I was thinking right there, you know? Also, the facial hair. I mean, I've had my run-ins with bad facial hair, so I'm certainly not above it.

But, you know, listen, it takes time to figure out things in our lives, BC. It takes some time. And then by the time... Jose, here's what I've noticed. I threw it out to a curled under. A curled under loop. Girls don't like that.

Here's the thing, though. By the time you figure it out, that's at the point where you stop caring and then it doesn't do you any good anyway check your leader girls don't want to hear that shit you know what i'm saying um yeah they basically told me check you later after that one time i passed out at a live concert remember that band and uh shannon rafferty lit that that thing on fire not a good moment in my life all right thank you thank you wow also you know what very good of you to be mouth breathing yeah yeah okay hey have you seen any of that luke i know it wasn't our best okay i no it was good it was good i liked it obviously with that in mind let us transition we have odds

and ends what are your odds and ends for today uh yeah i got a few of them this week uh what's what's that guy's name no i forgot it the the ex-ufc fighter turned boxer uh it is clay collard clay collar clay collard clay collard uh we remember we played him on the show a couple months back when he before the quarantine when he had appeared on a pbc undercard and knocked out a young prospect he did the same thing again only this time it was a i think it was a split or majority decision on the top-ranked card last Thursday against the guy he was sending there, in theory, to lose to. Clay Collard is a tough bastard here.

Is that a morning combat tattoo on his shoulder there? I doubt it. Mortal Kombat? Yeah, it's a Mortal Kombat. Shout-out to Clay Collard right there. Look, he brought it. I thought he won the fight a lot wider than the scores indicated. You got to give this guy a shout. I mean, he's transitioned to boxing after a failed UFC run, right? He lost to Max Holloway

back in the day. And now he's just knocking out potential contenders, maybe pretenders left and right. Here's the problem though. Look, we've been kind of ragging on these top rank on ESPN shows for the lack of matchmaking and particularly this card the main event fell apart with a covid uh one of the fighters coaches got caught covid and that fell apart but i don't know if you saw the fighter pay for the entire card and again these matchups sucked on paper clay made five thousand dollars for upsetting that kid on national television. I never thought I'd say this.

You might want to go back to the UFC and make your seven and a half to show seven and a half to win because that's awful. And I get it. I understand the situation we're in, but hey, boxing, we got to do better. Meaning quarantine right now,

Dana's kicking everyone's ass. I know it's a different setup, different system, different financials, but it's time to start making some good matchups. It's kicking everyone's ass. I know it's a different setup, different system, different financials, but it's time to start making some good matchups. It's time to pay people. And Luke, a little birdie told me that we could be seeing a big time boxing

announcement from our friends at Showtime this week about the future schedule for the rest of 2020, when they will return, how they will return against who against who against who uh it's gonna be pretty good it's gonna be pretty gonna be pretty damn solid all right we could be back in business in this sport all right and that's no and i'm like i'm not stiff arm and bob arum and company i'm happy that they're getting out there and making it happen as well hopefully golden boy matchroom sport everyone else will do the same but uh pbc showtime

big news coming a couple things I would add. That same birdie told me about some of the fights that Showtime might be announcing. Got to say, there's some of the fights on that list. I'm looking forward to maybe if Showtime likes us and COVID is not kicking America's ass, we can go cover some of them. That'd be kind of fun.

I'd also add, by the way... Would you wear a covid mask on air like the uh today show announcers do do they really i didn't see that do they really yeah would you have like a showtime boxing logo maybe an mk logo on there yeah i'll put the mk logo on yeah you gotta listen you gotta promote the brand uh i would say this real quickly clay collard you mentioned only made five grand here's the part of the story that people forget he actually signed with the pfl to fight in march of 2020 and then the whole thing got just pushed until i think with the i'm not even sure when they're coming back not until next year right something like that so he had to go make money somehow so he just went back into boxing uh so that's why he's sort

of in the position that he's in also was a six rounder they're not going to pay you much for a six rounder right so no i mean look i'm not saying like anytime we talk about ufc pay that the lower rung of boxing pays well it doesn't on the lower end but this was a televised somewhat featured fight i mean five grand is tough luke that's tough luke that does i don't know your specifics you might make more for a showtime appearance than that guy did for trying to send a guy to hell you know what i mean i can neither confirm nor deny that i'll say this my odds and ends very quickly um i got more odds and ends luke i know you go ahead finish finish finish finish all right real quick you saw john jones's tweet or instagram whatever uh to mike tyson saying you know, let's talk about it. I'm listening.

I'm not here to tell you that this John Jones, Mike Tyson boxing match should happen or will happen or all that. I mean, it's kind of weird. Tyson was doing an Instagram live with somebody else laying on a bed. He actually gave a pretty honest take about the reality of pay for UFC stars, right? He pointed out that somebody like Conor McGregor had to go to boxing and go into a spot in which, you know, the odds were against him to try to make real money right like a hundred million dollar superstar money and Mike put up a great point he said Conor could never make that in the

UFC in fact even if he was bold enough to challenge Jon Jones he still wouldn't make that money and then Mike said you know if Jon Jones wants to make this type of money he's gonna have to fight me so of course that got everybody going oh oh, my God, are they going to box? We know Mike's trying to come back. Luke, it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. But I did want to play with you for a second. Weird, I know.

Just what if it did happen? A boxing match. 53-year-old and suddenly in shape Mike Tyson who, you know, in the first minute, first three minutes, maybe it's going to be as dangerous as ever against a six, four rangy John Jones, who has no pro boxing experience, but certainly can throw punches a little bit. What if that was a three round boxing match? What does that look like? Trash. I mean, you know, it's like, what if they had to kick each other but they had to fight walking on their hands like how would it look and i'm like no no seriously because john said you know i'll box you if you agree to an mma fight but i'll take it lightly and nobody wants any of that

it's not going to happen but people would buy it to see what those first three minutes look like when mike comes out john john would do john do what he always does, which is hang on until the guy gases and hang on him quite literally, like wrapping him up, right, using his stiff arm, having him just get tired and then start working him. That's it. It would be fairly straightforward. All right. Yeah, you did just squash my dreams, but I think you're right.

I think you're right in a lot of ways. It would be fun to see if Tyson could land that, but it would probably be gross and John would work from distance distance and he is defensively responsible enough to probably not get lit up but uh yeah let's not do that and also to close look i know you don't care but the pro wrestling industry in the last few days blowing up on twitter hashtag speaking out is it really exposing particularly on the independent scene how bad the treatment of women has been in that industry, sexual abuse and harassment and all that.

There's starting to be some bigger names, not big names, but big-ish names that are getting called out, some even getting let go. I'm happy to see this because it's a rough industry, the pro wrestling industry, and I'm sure there's skeletons in the closets even as high as WWE. I'm assured of that in some ways. I don't know if it's going to get that far in terms of people bringing it to light.

But this is good. This is good to see this happen. That's a rough industry. A lot of bad things happen to a lot of bad people, unfortunately, in that. And let's get crap cleaned up. It's 2020, Luke, okay? We don't need nooses in the NASCAR hall or like enough of this crap, please. All right?

Let's bring up. Luke, you can't keep those sins in the closet. They will come to the forefront, even for you, Luke. Okay. Your, your sins against my people. Okay. Keep it up. Thank you. Who are your people? I don't know. I just felt like stirring it up a little bit right there. What do you got? Uh, speaking of, uh, well, I don't know if there are people or not, but two interesting fighters are going to clash on August 29th. Anthony Smith is going to be back in action against Alexander Rakic at 205 pounds. I think the date is August 29th, as a matter of fact.

I'm not sure what the event is going to be called, but that is a really interesting fight because, one, both guys are coming off of losses. Two, Rakic has all the potential in the world it appears he did lose a split decision I think to Volkan Uzdemir in his last contest but you could tell he's got a lot of ability and Smith we know has a lot of ability but it's coming off of that really bad sort of beating he took to Glover Teixeira where he got his teeth dislodged that was all the way not too far back in may so he'll have about three months maybe a little bit more between early may and late august bc i love the fight on paper i love what it can do for either guy but uh i gotta tell you anthony smith coming back that fast surprised me what

did you make of that yeah i mean but that's sort of been who he who he has been right he comes back very quickly and sort of takes big chances. Look, I want to interrupt this Anthony Smith conversation and say, look, we're journalists. We're supposed to be, like, you know, partisan or whatever and not cheer for – but everybody's got, like, favorite fighters, especially when we interview and meet them. I love me some Ioana Champion.

I love me some Tyron Woodley, some Rose Namajunas. I think Anthony Smith is your favorite fighter. Find you a fighter you love as much as you love Anthony Smith. You love that guy. I do. I think he's very, very talented, and I think he's bright, and it's always a pleasure to hear, you know, even when I disagree with him or whatever,

when he talked about, like, explaining the lack of a corner stoppage in his last fight. You know, I don't think he comes to life without, or comes to life without, or comes to positions without giving them some consideration. And he's had a really interesting, unique story here. And I'm not saying he won't win. Listen, these are things that are very hard to predict.

But if you had told me at the end of that fight in early mid-May that Smith would be back in late August, given what had happened, like right after it was over, I would have been very surprised to hear that. Now, again, you're right. That's sort of what he kind of does. Still, that is, I mean, from Teixeira to Rakic, that is a, that's all. That's a lot to ask, is what I'm saying. Yeah, that is a lot to ask.

Do you have any other favorite fighters, Luke? You never talk about this. You never talk honestly, but that's what we do on MK. You know what? I mostly, I do have some favorite fighters, but these days, I'll be honest with you i mostly enjoy uh talking to coaches these days i like talking to coaches that's a little boring luke that's a little boring all right i'm not saying yeah it doesn't i'm not i'm not saying i get the most amount of like traffic out of it but i get the most amount of valuable information out of it do you still interview

fighters on your radio show right i'm just i'm just getting used to your radio show through my wife's car but um do you see i mean there's got to be when you see a card coming up you see a name point out and you're like oh i got to interview that person it's going to be great like mike perry i just emailed the ufc i need me some mike perry all right i need that in my life yeah i don't have the same sort of zest for that i had jim miller on because that was his 35th ufc fight we didn't even talk about him and after that great and then i had gray maynard on given some of the uh sort of discussion he was having on social media about fighter pay i think those are the only fighters i had on last week so i'll talk to him it's not like a thing but i don't really seek it out the way i used to hey maybe this year luke you

and i will get back out on the road, cover a fight together, grapple, hang out with your brother. Let's do it, all right? Let's live our lives, okay? Here's the only question that matters. If and when we get together sometime this year, which I suspect we probably will, I'm going to remain optimistic, right? It's only June.

We have time. Are we going to do the grip to grip and then put it on social media because if we get together and we don't do it i feel like we'd be letting people down well here's the deal we've been stuck around you know he's sitting on 714 we've been stuck at like 46 48 000 subscribers on youtube for a while we've already put the stakes out there get us to 50 get us to 75 get us to 100 and you'll see maybe even gross things i ain't gripping to gripping you unless there's something for our people to do to get there okay it's a fair point i will say that that's a probably a better option than any tip to tip or anything in that category all right or we

can do the grip to grip and then we can say the photo exists, but we won't publish it until you push us over the finish line. That kind of a thing. As long as the camera doesn't have to be on my face. Like, you can't pick the right face for a grip-to-grip shot. What's the right face, Luke?

I don't know. We have to figure that out in real time. I don't know. Okay. Okay. All right, BC. Well, with that, we're just about done here as a reminder give the video a thumbs up hit subscribe please and also we have social media uh things to

tell you about so bc and i are on insta we are on twitter you can check those out uh they're gonna put the graphic up here ostensibly and then of course morning combat is at the channel as we mentioned if you want to participate in the DMs from Donks, we put the post up on Instagram every Sunday, usually mid-afternoon. You can go check that out. And then the folks here at Malka pick the best of them. Okay? All right.

Well, for my good friend BC, we appreciate you all watching. Thanks to Malka and Showtime for making this possible. Of course, you want to check out Showtime, you certainly may. You can go to Showtime.com, get a free trial there. You'll like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can bounce. But if you keep it, you can check us out. Morning Combat Showtime, excuse me, Morning Combat Strike Force Classics every Thursday, 10 p.m. on Showtime Extreme. BC, any parting words? Extreme. Great documentaries on Showtime Extreme. BC, any parting words?

Extreme. Great documentaries on Showtime. Worth subscribing to. Showtime boxing announcement coming soon. Bellator is going to make a comeback soon. We're going to have a great year, Luke, okay? Throughout all this, we're going to have a great year. Support us, and we will support you, okay?

You show us ours, we will show you a lot. Believe me. All right. BC always finds a way to make it weird, which we appreciate because that's what he does. For Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.