MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dana White | Gervonta Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia | Anthony Joshua | Ep 393

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

On Episode 393 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian react to the Dana White news. What could this mean for the UFC? The boys also preview Gervonta Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia. What should we be watching for on the undercard. Eddie Hearn reveals his 2023 plans for Anthony Joshua to have three fights. Do the guys believe that happens? (10:30) - Dana White (43:00) - Gervonta Davis vs. Hector Luis Garcia (66:20) - Anthony Joshua (74:00) - Quick Hitters (83:00) - Fan Submissions Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, 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 Yeah, it's been a fun start to the year, huh?

Wow 2023 off to a roaring, just incredible beginning. Hi, everyone. Maybe this show is off to the same kind of beginning. My name is Luke Thomas, and it's time for Morning Combat, your Wednesday edition, the 4th of January, 2023. I join you from the capital of the status unidos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my friend. He is actually, you know, he's looking pretty good today looking pretty good it's brian campbell what's up king of connecticut thank you luke i got a haircut you know which uh was cost both cost effective and makes me feel young again and you know we i know what the people want so i am here to report

that yes uh just like jacob stitched her in dana White was never my friend, Luke. Glad we see. Glad you clarified that. What a show we have for you today. So we'll talk about the fights coming up this weekend, but we obviously have to get to... Do we have any good news? Do we have any good news, Luke? We don't think we do.

Dylan Danis withdrew from his fight against KSI due to being unprepared. Is that good news? Is that good news? I don't know. All my heroes luke or it's funny news how about that it's at least worth a chuckle which is more than i could say for the rest of the news i mean how many how many giant stuffed bears can george corpse grinder get out

of a machine and donate to charity to make up for all this shit in combat sports this week luke you know you see you got your your your guns trained on the wrong target corpse grinders is your man it's everyone else so can beat this guy back. So all the good he's doing into the world to offset all this nonsense, Luke, outside of his I Come Blood narratives. But hey, enough of that bullshit here. It's great to be back with you. Luke, dressed in flannel. Shout out to

the 90s, Long Island Luke. Can we put that on the counter right there? Love it. My wife got me this shirt for Christmas, so I was like, I'll wear it. Why not? You know the 90s are back, Luke. I went Christmas shopping in all the young people's stores. The 90s trends are back, brother. All right?

That's not a great thing. So I've changed without changing at all. Okay? You know what I mean? All right. Thumbs up on the video. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit subscribe. If you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, do be so kind as to leave us a nice

review. We really appreciate that when you do. And yeah, let's see. Showtime.com is the label that pays. You can get Showtime.com 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Plus, for the first six months, you can get $3.99 a month for those six months.

Now, of course, just as a clarification, if you buy the pay-per-view this weekend or any other Showtime pay-per-view that would not be included in this deal. That would be Showtime.com slash PPV. But if you want the rest of Showtime, which includes championship boxing, which, by the way, includes BC doing, I think, in like a week or two, doing Showbox, you can get that. When is Showbox? Friday, January 20th, a tripleheader involving six unbeaten fighters, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the home of Corey Minici of MK and Malka fame, Luke. So I'm looking forward to going back to where, you know,

Corey was made a man, right? I'm told that the, that the favorite activity of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, aside from previously making steel was to do meth. So you might enjoy that down there. It'd be kind of fun. Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to it. We'll be fun to kick off the year. And don't forget Luke,

in addition to Showtime pay-per-view coverage this saturday you and i call in the prelims how about that we got a triple header i'm excited brandon on it veto milnecki juniors on it it's gonna be a lot of fun i'm a little sad i guess they're gonna be on the portion of the prelims prior to us i'm a little sad we can't call lamont and anthony peterson's fights Yes. They are going to be on the card. So for folks in the DC area, that's kind of a big and important detail, but nevertheless,

still pretty excited about calling the fights just the same. I want to remind folks as well. Let's see. We have Showtime, the email morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan sub, Friday's dead wrong or to reach the show. Morningcombat.store for some of the merch.

I don't know if we have any new deals, but we have good deals, just the same, over there. I talked to RJ Ballbanger this morning, Luke, and it's great to catch up with him. There will be some deals to come, but for now, just get the finest of all podcast merch. I mean, it's high quality, Luke. That's the best thing you can say about it, right? I mean, it looks good,, Luke. That's the best thing you can say about it, right? I mean, it looks good. It feels good, you know? Yes, it does look good and feel good. I agree with that.

It'll look good on you. How about that? No one's ever said that before. And then I want to remind folks, February 8th, we're going to be in London for the live show. You can get your tickets there at the QR code on the screen if you're watching on YouTube, or you can go to pod-live.com for tickets. For the live show. You can get your tickets there. At the QR code on the screen. If you're watching on YouTube.

Or you can go to pod-live.com. For tickets. Now Luke. You know that I'm. I'm normally against the idea of meet and greets. Not that I'm against meeting our fans. I just always say. Look. If we're going to do something fun with our fans.

Let's do a live show. Which by the way. We happen to be doing. So it should be super fun. For those who are making the journey. And buying the tickets. And. But you know Luke. I'd love to do some type of meetup because there is,

I've been touched by how many fans are going out of their way that don't live in London, that have to take off work, fly, get a hotel room that are literally, you know, like going to see your favorite band perform live. They're coming to see MK. So if I can do anything, Luke, a couple, you know, hugs, hand pounds, all that stuff to stuff to the good people that come out and say, hi, I'd love to. All right. Short of donating my organs, which could be inevitable based on the, you know, the rabid nature of our fans. I mean, you have to take that risk going into this, right? You have to risk losing a kidney in a bathtub in a London motel. Do they have motels in London? I guess they do. I'm not sure. But yes, you have to risk it for the biscuit. All right, BC, last but not least, as we kick off the new year, I want to remind you all about our favorite sponsor,

Money Lion. We created the hammer of the month to spotlight undercard fighters who aren't getting the recognition they might deserve. Aaron Blanchfield was our first winner in November. In December, it was Ilya Toporia. Of course, he won with his dominant winner, Bryce Mitchell. So remember to tweet us your nominees all throughout January using the hashtag hammer of the month, or you can use holy hammer, so we can reward someone for their incredible performance. Go to moneylion.com slash morning combat to learn more about how to enter. All right? All right. BC, let's get this show started. Topic number one. Jesus Christ, what am I supposed to say about this? All right, let's stay the facts and I'm just going to pitch it to BC. So a news report came out from TMZ two days ago showing UFC president Dana White in New

Year's Eve, excuse me, in Mexico in a nightclub slapping his wife. Now, of course, she slaps him as well. It's a bit of a back and forth, ugly situation in the report, which, by the way, clearly TMZ had tipped Dana off ahead of time in order to help him out, right? So they have all, everyone's got these press releases ready to go and everything else. He comes out and says, no excuses. We were drunk. It's the first time it's ever happened.

His wife put out a statement saying something to that effect as well. Brian, I will pitch to you first, man. There's a lot of ways to parse this. How do you want to start? I mean, look, seriously, you know, we've lamented the whole idea in general, the news headlines

right now in combat sports from Gervonta Tank Davis's ordeal to the Phil Barone news to Yuri Okerskamboa to Dana White and his wife. It could not be darker at the moment and in less need of levity and jokes to kind of, you know, further play up this Dana versus the media, you know, beef or anything like that. It's it's disgusting. It's disappointing. It's all of the negative emotions that that video produced from the reaction of everybody else to the reaction of Dana White in a public setting. Maybe he didn't know there were cameras on. That's fine.

But in a public setting, his natural response to an unfortunate situation was not only a counterslap, but grabbing the wrist, stepping in for a second shot and then either pushing down or maybe even stomping. It's hard to really tell in the video what happened there to make a already dark and unfortunate situation much worse. So this isn't about, you know, the MMA media versus Dana or us or anything like that. I mean, lump everyone together right now of where we are in combat sports. We've got a fucking problem here. It's disgusting. So Luke, you know, or maybe not Luke, how about Dana? How about looking to the

camera and say this, uh, Dana, we, we played off that whole four minute video media hack job thing you did when you took the victory lap on the Taichi Palace incident and took everything out of context. And, you know, we try to have fun with the repeated times you dismiss us all as nothing more than scumbag MMA media who have the nerve to do their actual job, right? No matter how uncomfortable it is of asking the hard questions and questioning authority and holding people accountable. And again, it's not an easy task for us, but it's the cost of doing business, which is something, Dana, that you know a lot

about, right? Because of how rigid you are at things like preventing Endeavor's EBITA from taking an FALL, even if that comes at the financial expense of the very athletes who have a penchant for risking their long-term futures for some kind of short-term gain, that has made you very filthy rich in your family so there's one thing that the rest of um the other scumbag mma journalists either don't have the balls to say or can't because in this day and age of modern combat sports media and the relationships that certain networks have with certain promotions or partnerships. You know, people have fears about going publicly in ways that can offset maybe their own financial freedom that they get from covering this job and full exposure.

As we always say, when we do praise Dana for the great successes, he has the success of the UFC and covering it as a big part of the food that I put on my table for my family. But Dana, there's one thing that the rest of those scumbag journalists haven't said consistently. The video that we saw Saturday night, it's a fucking scumbag move straight up. So congratulations. We're all equal now. I'm not here to, you know, judge you unmercifully or make jokes or act like any of us haven't

had our own, you know, really dark moments, whether there's been cameras on it or not that we completely regret and want to change from and grow from so i'm not here to i mean i'll just interject real quickly i've never hit a woman certainly not my wife or anyone else i'm 43 years old it's not boy am i not justifying that believe me so i'm here dana not to come at you in in a personal sense but to ask you what's next what do you do with this? How do you fix this in ways that go beyond privately repairing things within your own family, which I hope does happen. You know, there's children involved. There's a long marriage and relationship involved because you've got a responsibility in the platform that you're on right now.

It's different than that of the fighters, but also not different. I'm lumping this all together, whether it's Geronimo Davis, Jon Jones, or War Machine. I mean, this is some fucking ugly shit. But this was a very human moment out of you. And the big question for me is, will this lead to a human response in terms of your actions moving forward? Because the only thing Kevin Aioli's egregiously

and non-self-aware puff piece got right was that this headline will be with Dana forever in his legacy. There's no question about that. It's, it's disgusting. And there's a video that goes with it. And, uh, will you continue to be the aggro ruthless maverick bro who steps on others and turns away from the very human struggle of the athletes that you promote that are so willfully underpaid? Or will you use this moment. As a teaching moment. Not just for yourself. For your family.

But for the culture of combat sports in general. Of which you play one of the biggest roles. Right now. As the forward face. Of this entire sport to be fair. Because the only thing worse than the video. And what we saw there. Was the reaction that it got from combat sports.

Not everybody. But a nice cross-section that went well beyond race religion political backgrounds whether you're in boxing or mma whether you support dana or you're against him it superseded all those whether people love you or loathe you and this reaction has centered upon a lot of dinosaur concepts of she had it coming or his wife swung first as if this is some kind of fucking star wars debate about if grito shot at the cantina before han did and george lucas edited it out dude the the she swung first crowd these these are people who i mean not critical thinkers not because like dana i'm not

trying to be better than you here you made a huge mistake that happened to be a camera on but we're all lumped into this group right now as MMA scumbags because you're the face of this operation that my family's financial future depends on. You're the most powerful voice here, as I mentioned. Is this just a domestic incident that went

too far and is going to get swept under the rug? And we all need to mind our own fucking business? Or is this an opportunity to you to set a new tone that goes beyond MMA and combat sports in general with the platform that you have? This is a shitty situation and you had a very human response that was negative. But so many in these parts have justified this

as a fuck around and find out situation. And fighting, as you say, has always, you know, it's always been in our DNA and we found a way to legalize and celebrate that art form when it's done safely in the grounds of a cage or a ring or relatively safely but it's never belonged in the union of marriage and a family and a committed relationship and to paraphrase another of your classic quotes what we saw in that video is also fucking illegal and it's an indictment on this entire mma culture as we know it so how do you want your time on top to be remembered from here on out for exploiting

the health of your athletes to make a buck for constantly shitting on the very journalist whose job it is to ask you these hard questions or launching a no defense slap league in which head trauma is the single goal, not just the price you pay for being part of this business. Or do you want to be remembered for creating something positive in terms of change and reacting as humanly as possible to a very human mistake that too many in the space consistently already make or even worse, justify as part of the culture? The choice really here is yours because I can sit here and be upset at what I saw in that video, but the reaction from so many, whether they be journalists, fighters in public settings or just no name egg avatars on Twitter has been a lot of, well, OK, that was gross to see.

But, you know, she kind of had it coming first. This is fucked up, really. So come down to our level as scumbag MMA journalists and let's fix this. And Luke, you know no none of that bullshit step up man up and fix this the best way you can with the responsibility that comes with your platform and educate your own fighters and the community around you and maybe change your legacy moving forward after a very human mistake in a moment that um no we're not going to forget anytime soon i would say two things have been really on my mind about this the last couple of days. One is that ESPN was asked for comment and they basically referred, I think it was Trent Rainsmith from Bloody Elbow at Slash the SB Nation who reached out.

They were like, yeah, go talk to UFC. We don't have a comment about it. It's like ESPN is the broadcast partner and the rights holder and they don't have a comment about it. Well, that doesn't seem right to me. It seems like you guys had a comment about Tai Chi palace right right right and then by the way they have plenty of comments with roger goodell says something wrong or plenty of comments when dan snyder does something wrong whether it's a league commissioner or a team owner or anything else

they have plenty to say then they don't have shit to say now yo it's chicken shit chicken shit super chicken shit to do something like that same goes for endeavor too they haven't said a word about the slash wme they they basically are banking on the fact that they think mma fans love or he is polarizing even inside mma fan bases but they're basically banking on the fact that they know a lot of people really still like dana he's a central figure and that they just wait it out they won't have to say anything everything can go back to normal we can pretend that nothing happened here right that's that's really what they're banking on cowards dude cowards super cowardly to do something like that that's the first thing i want to say here's the second thing i want to say bc give me a moment to just get this out if i may i'll make it as succinct as possible i know there

are women who watch this show but i'm not talking to them right now talking to other men particularly young men you have to understand something and it might take you a while. Like it took me to figure this out. I don't think I've got it all figured out, but I'm telling you this as someone not on their moral high horse. I'm telling you this as someone who has made every one of the mistakes I'm about to identify. Okay. Listen to me, young men of the world. Yeah. Hating women is bullshit. It's bullshit. Right. And I don't mean bullshit like I'm so mad at you. I mean bullshit like it's a lie. It's not real. Right. All of these ideas that you have about claiming women, subjugating them, thinking that they are inferior to you, they should be a thing to be controlled or in some other way. These are all lies. They're not true things.

The reality is something happened to you along the way in interacting with women or some message you received and it has warped your perspective about it, which you now think is normal and that the women are the ones who need to change. It is the exact opposite. And I say this to you as someone whose mom beat me in a way that was probably illegal, right? She probably beat me so bad that she probably should have been prosecuted by the law. I got fucked up as a kid. She took her own life.

I've had epic, I mean, Chernobyl-level romantic failures. Like, you don't think I've had bad ideas about women in my life. I've had super fucked up ideas about women in my life. Now I never hit one, but nevertheless, the ideas that can germinate and lead to something like that, I had all of them. And what you begin to realize is when you unpack all of the pieces of your life that led to this worldview, you, you believed lies. You believed lies that they weren't your equal. You believed lies that they had done something special to you and that they are a special class of people who are in need of control, who are in need of corralling, who are in

need of subjugation, who are in need of some method of oversight that only you are properly able to give. And it has to be firm and heavy handed. It's young men of the world. It's all a lie. There's nothing to it. It's not true at all. And if you don't find a way to confront this, to really get to the bottom of it, that something hurt you and you are incapable of dealing with it in adulthood, you will continue to have all of these issues. Because we're going to talk about Gervonta in a minute and you are incapable of dealing with it in adulthood, you will continue to have all of these issues. Because we're going to talk about Gervonta in a minute, and you mentioned it. It's not just the Dana White situation.

Look at this news about Phil Barone, who has, again, allegedly, allegedly, been arrested for murdering his girlfriend. And the alleged details are he beat her to death. He beat her to death. You know, when you add that into what Dana did, into the defense of Dana, like, I wish a woman would hit on me. You are a bully who is in need of an easy win, which is why you you say that what you say, not because women are in need of your firm hand, but because you wish to deliver it punitively because someone hurt you at some point previously in your life and you have simply not dealt with it yet. Hating women is bullshit. Hating women is a lie. It's a lie.

And all you are doing when you accept those worldviews, when you accept those messages, is you are holding on to the fiction that whoever hurt you needs to be retaliated against. Whatever toxic message you received about them, this is a thing that now needs to be built into some kind of control mechanism against them. It's all a lie. It's not real. It's not true. None of it is. But what is true is your unresolved bad ideas, your unresolved hurt, and nothing good can happen in your life. You don't start living life. Truly, I mean this, and I can tell you from personal experience, this is true. You can't start really living your life until women, how do I say this? Your life doesn't really begin in the full, broader sense of the community you can have

until women are treated as your equal. Not because you are being subjugated, but because you are being lifted into a space where you actually understand the healthy relationships you can have and what they can do for you and what they mean and what they tell you about the previous messages you had and everything else. Your life doesn't begin until that starts. Your true fulfillment does not begin until that begins. And so I would just lastly encourage everyone to take a step back. In combat sports, we are filled to the brim with young men. And in certain cases,

older men, Dana's not very young. We, who have nothing but terrible ideas about women that are lies that are not true, that are fictions you have held onto and they need to go as soon as possible. No, that's well said Lukeke and i and i can already

feel you know the reaction of people go well luke if they're as equal as you say shouldn't they be you know equal grounds to strike back i mean come on dude was his safety in danger was his safety well that's what i was gonna get out of here i was gonna get to this i know everybody's mounting up hey is this morning virtue combat no this is morning life right now. So what we saw in that video was not self-defense. What we saw in that video was a natural reaction in the circumstances of what caused it, of course, but it was what she did first. Okay. Hell no. There's, you know, issues there that hopefully they can work out. Or if not, I don't know if it can be worked out. Look, that's their business. That's the part that is their business, right? But when you have this platform, membership breeds responsibility. And that's why I think the best thing you can do is just say,

let's frame it as a whole. Let's not go us versus Dana and let's not go, well, what, what's the difference between Dana and Gervonta or anything like that? I mean, I could distinct some type of difference that fighters are a different breed and, and, and a lot of times are younger and make mistakes and come from awful backgrounds, but that's also to some degree massaging it. It's a fucking horrible situation. And the response of the whole sport in general has has saddened me to be to be fair uh what what's on that video isn't right under any circumstance so uh maybe there's a lot of people out there who do need to rethink uh you know the the bro code or the life code or or whatever you you know whatever you roll with and i'm talking about fighters too luke i'm talking about fighters

and i am talking about that kevin aioli response column which is just i like kevin a lot but that was really bad it was really bad i mean what do you what do you I'm talking about fighters. And I am talking about that Kevin Aioli response column, which is just. I like Kevin a lot, but that was really bad. It was really bad. I mean, what do you say about that? So we're going to play up how busy and successful this man is, and that may have been the problem. And, oh, let's not forget about all this charitable acts.

But, hey, I mean, really? You see, let's have a go ahead. I'm naming to cut you off. I mean, so my question is, like, if people are looking at us going, okay, great, great rant, but what are you going to do? What's have a... Go ahead. I need me to cut you off. My question is, if people are looking at us going, okay, great, great rant, but what are you going to do? What's going to do next? What should happen next? That's why my rant is aimed at Dana. What are you going to do with this? Because I'm not saying, oh, go take three months off and then we'll forget about it

or, hey, Disney, remove them from their TV. No, I'm not saying any of that bullshit. But how are you going to fix the responsibility of the platform you have and what this says about you and what this says about the sport, really? I mean, damn Luke. And it's not one incident.

It's, it's Baroni to, to, to five other ones that are going on this week. And they're not all related in a sense, but in another common, the common denominator is, is the,

is women. And again, are your virtue signaling, please take your fucking fourth grade understanding of politics that is just culture war bullshit and save it for someone who gives a fuck please because this ain't the show we don't give a fuck about your culture war bullshit i'm telling you we don't we don't we don't like there is such you there is a clear documented line all the way through all of this where the common denominator

is how we mistreat women it's not the only problem in combat sports but it's a big one it's a really big one and it can't come from an attitude of all having a healthy view of their role and their agency and everything else it all stems from having a fucked up world view it isn't possible to engage in that behavior without one. So I just want to just be very clear about this. If they don't like that, trust me when I tell you I don't give a shit. Don't give a shit at all. BC, but let's forward the conversation just a little bit,

which is, what should Endeavor and ESPN do? What will Endeavor and ESPN do. Not about the slap league, because that's a TBS thing, which appears to be dead in the water at this point. I guess we'll see. I mean, first of all, how is it not dead in the water when it's called the Dana White Power Slap League, and he's on tape power slapping his wife?

And I don't say that to be funny, and I know everyone's made the same joke on Twitter. Hey, you win, guys, okay? Everyone has the same fucking joke. But think about that. If you're the power slap people, like you're not UFC, you're not Danny, you're the power slap people at TBS, you're looking at this, and all the discussion around your brand is about that.

Like that is the number one thing people are talking about. That thing has to be dead. Well, I want to ask you the question you asked me and put it like this. You were on Dan Lebitard's show this morning. I did not get a chance to listen to it, so I can't reference what you guys talked about. But Lebitard had a great take that was getting retweeted around yesterday, which is essentially saying, look, here's a guy who knows the ESPN culture. And by the way, Luke, I was at

ESPN for almost 12 years. So I also know the ESPN culture. I've experienced times when larger narratives were forcefully shut down and you were told what you can and can't comment about different things. I mean, look, I've been through it, okay? But with Dan Levitard's biggest question was, who's Dana's boss? Like, whose job is it now to step in and do something, even if that's something, talk about virtue signaling, even if that something is just to show the people that we've done something, right? What I always said about Dana rewarding Conor McGregor for the Dolly incident with the biggest fight ever and him saying, well, he paid enough legal fees. He's fine. Even what does that image show you of

what you did to your own employee who attacked other employees, you know, off, off the, off the time clock right away from the thing. What is like, whose job is it in your eyes? Is that Ari Emanuel in an endeavor, Luke? And by the way, I'm not asking for them to necessarily suspend it, but there's gotta be a discussion here. Levitard's biggest question was, is Dana White too high where there's no boss that can step in and tell him, yo, you fucked up. We got to fix this. I mean, look, we never thought Vince McMahon would step down from the WWE until the day he died.

And that happened in the past year, which was mind blowing. I got to spin that back on you because I don't know the answer to your question. I want to know what should happen and who's the adult in the room that's going to carry out whatever will. Right. Well, here's what I'll say should happen. Because Dan did ask me, should Dana be, you know, what should happen to him? I don't know if removing him is the right idea. And I mean that generally.

I literally don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, it's like it seems like it's a great idea. On the other hand, it seems like it's a really poor idea, that there's just a lot of other factors at play, but beside one incident, although I will say like, you know, both of Dana and his wife putting out statements, being like, this is the first time it's ever happened. It's like, dude, the first time it's ever happened, he got caught on camera. I mean, who believes this? Like you have to be very gullible to believe something like that, but be that as it may, we only have the one documented incident.

So I don't know if removal is or isn't the right answer. If they did it, I would understand it, candidly. What I told Dan was, I do think a lengthy suspension is in order. Yeah, I do think, at a bare minimum, he doesn't need to be involved with the product for a little while. And you might see that as,

depending on the nature of it, right? Because Dan Snyder's been suspended here a million times and, you know, kind of always had his hand in the product. How useful is it? I don't know. Here's what I will say. They can't do nothing, which is what they're trying to do now. What they're trying to do now is like when they're asked for comment, they're not giving anything. They're not saying anything. There's virtually no coverage of this on ESPN's website, hardly at all. Virtually no coverage of this. Can I pause you there and say this? And I'm not against ESPN. I had a great virtually no coverage of this can I pause you there and say

this and I'm not against ESPN I had a great run there okay I had some difference everybody's got some differences when you leave a company right but they hammer they hammer the NFL they hammer the NBA and they won't say shit about this look do I wish I got paid more and it was treated with more you know hey we got a future guy on our hands yeah okay but that's not enough for me to hold a grudge in this case ESPN's coverage from just a headline standpoint dana white apologizes for you know incident with wife not even you know like that that's the lead that's the fucking framing job here like as you said gutless dude step up and handle this step up and give this the roger goodell attention um so what i would say is i think a lengthy suspension is where you start

and then you go from there. But here's what I think. Remember, I was a two-parter when I asked UBC, which was what should they do, what will they do? I think they probably will try to let this pass without much of a say and then just go back to normal. He might miss an event or two where Johnik control john anik will be at the dais or they'll get someone else to speak at the post-fight press conference or something

let it all die down and then just rotate dana back in i think if they can do nothing they will and here's the deal on this and i want to say this firmly and clearly like the reason why i say i don't know what the right answer is because i do think we are in a a treacherous spot as a culture of of the you know the offense culture and cancel culture and like you know people are just waiting to be upset about something and then you know how big can we make the the group of people with the pitchforks and the fire banging on the doors going do something right I don't want to lead to that because Luke that's why I framed my sort of rant around the idea of being human like i hope i don't ever make a mistake like this and it's not

i don't i hope it's not in my dna by the way but we all make mistakes and you know some of us are unlucky enough to have that happen on camera in major situations but i don't want to always see just the natural reaction to any egregious moment a bad tweet right saying something on air that's inappropriate it's just automatically no f them fire and fire him throw him in the fire yeah cancel fucking culture no because there are ways of of growth uh you know there's there's a lot of ways that that i believe more in grace and giving a person a chance to make a mistake and then you know prove us wrong and i mean think that's that's the human experience that's a more rewarding result than just fuck you you're fired not asking for that but if nothing happens here what the hell does

that send as a message that that this man is untouchable really dude i've been saying this like to me there isn't a sport that allows for the general espousal and declaration of what I'm going to call retrograde worldviews, like totally backwards bullshit and doesn't do anything about them in terms of the behavior. Like there's no sport that is more, I should combat sports in general. So let's, it's not just MMA, but we're talking about MMA at the moment. There's no sport that is more forgiving and allowing of that kind of a thing. And so you get to a point where it's like any kind of pushback on this

becomes like, oh, this is going to be cancel culture. But I just really want folks to understand something here. People try to make the argument, well, well, Luke, you're not right because look at soccer, right? They held all these human rights abuses and they tried to put the world cup in

Qatar and the world just went along with it. And that's true. There's a lot of corruption and top down pressure that made that what it is. But within the soccer community at the various levels, the fans, the club teams, the club organizations, and so on,

the charities involved, there's just a lot more resistance to that within the sport itself all the way through. That doesn't exist in MMA, right? At every level, from the fan base to the media to an extent as well, by the way, to the fighters to now the leadership of the organization, there are all these views that get espoused that directly lead to horrible fucking outcomes like this, however bad you want to say it is, it ain't fucking great. It leads directly to this, and there's no civilizing force inside MMA.

One of the big things for me, BC, is we all thought that when the UFC got out of the Spike TV deal with Fox Sports and then certainly with ESPN, that cozying up to the mainstream would have this effect of like really sort of leaning on these guys to police some of the more obvious bad conduct stuff, right? And it's done the opposite. It's done the opposite. All it has done is enabled it to the most profound degree. None of it is ever.

Look at what I mean. Again, Charles Strickland seems like a troubled guy and a good fighter, and I like his coach very much. But look at the stuff he says. It is impossible to imagine an NBA player doing that and getting away with it. It is impossible to imagine an NFL or NHL or any other major sports league player doing that and getting away with it. And when I say getting away with it, I mean, yeah, like you should be allowed to express your opinions. You should not be allowed without consequence from sponsors, certainly, to be able to maintain associations while saying horrible

shit about people along the way. Now, I also agree that if you can't fight in the cage and you can't fight in the ring, I don't know what you can do in this country. It's not so much about losing your job, but it's about civilizing forces bearing down on the sport so that we reign in the more obvious bad conduct stuff. None of that shit exists. And so you just get to live with this the way that it is. And it's fucking gross. It's gross as shit. Rarely am I speechless Luke in response,

but it's like, what else do you want us to do? What else do you want us to say? I mean, you know, we already got people on Twitter responding and saying, you know, guys, you know, know great rant but he did nothing wrong all right then you know what like unsubscribe please yeah don't watch the show i really don't

want you like it's fine that's great you know that's great okay we may run into you on the jan 6 steps friday that's fine but don't you know don't don't but don't you know i mean jokes aside no fucking no jokes aside like this is this is... Dude, how can they, just going forward, like, what happens if this happens with another fighter? What could they possibly do to him? Like, remember, Luis Pena, and again, there's also wins and losses, and so, like, if someone has, like,

a coming off of a loss, and then they get arrested for hitting their girlfriend or whatever, yeah, you can cut them because it's a little bit easier in that sense. But, like, what are they supposed to do when this happens? Because it will happen again. I mean, this is what happened

in the larger population anyway, but what's going to happen when this happens? Because it will happen again. I mean, this is what happened in the larger population anyway. But what's going to happen when this happens in a high-profile way and they want to rain down on the person? Like, what are they going to say? Like, they can't. There's, like, no moral authority, no ethical authority, no nothing to do anything about it at this stage. And you might say, well, they didn't already for Jon Jones,

but that's complicated because there's always a lot of moving parts there. And, yeah, to some extent that's actually true. But I mean, how do you claim to be able to say like your organization cares about women if you're in no capacity to do anything about like domestic violence from your organizational leader all the way on down? It doesn't compute. It puts you in a spot where you can't do anything about it at all while being taken seriously anymore i really don't know what they're going to do i really really don't know did anything about the the tmz like you know the way that this hit the news cycle just feel like i don't know like dude it was so staged the whole

thing yeah i guess that's the word the whole and look i don't i don't know you made reference to i don't actually know. Did TMZ get word of this and pitch it to Dana, or is it the other way around? I don't know. I'm just going to use conjecture, but I don't know for a fact. That's my opinion. But my opinion is that they got the footage from someone,

and then they hit him up and said, we're going to publish it. Why don't you give us some kind of media release in conjunction with it so it all comes out at the exact same time dude effective pr is effective pr right he came out with a statement his wife came out with a statement at the same time as the report which was worded very softly by the way to begin with and so what you got was like okay guys we were sorry about it right up front right up front there was a there was a right up front a way to like minimize the damage of this that was in my opinion clearly done in an orchestrated way to help his interests here that a lot of other folks wouldn't get the benefit of

and by the way this ain't the the ufc on fuel tv era like the stakes have changed when you're a publicly traded company when you have the not a espn deal you have the esp not a ESPN deal, you have the ESPN deal. I mean, look, them signing that ESPN deal is arguably the biggest headline in this company's history. It's the full circle turnaround. I mean, they're already on national TV with Fox, but like, you know, remember where we were in MMA in 2008, 2009.

It's why when ESPN first launched MMA Live as like this digital show, it was like, oh shit, they're actually kind of taking it seriously. Would you ever imagine that we are here? Well, we're here. UFC is actually, you know, one, one thing Dana White pitched out a long ago of one day, you know, UFC MMA will be considered among the big four. It pretty much is at this point. So again, the stakes have changed the, you know, the consequences change in this regard. You know, whatever think tank is going to get together and say, how do we deal with this moving forward? You better, you better do it the right way. think tank is going to get together and say, how do we deal with this moving forward? You better you better do it the right way because it's going to set a very interesting precedent for the future. And, you know, I don't care. I don't care about, you know, does the punishment equal the outrage we feel of watching it? It's not about us at the end of the day, but it is about how you're going to use this to make positive change to the culture in general, to combat sports, which is already, you know, it's already murky and it's already the red light district and all those great quotes.

And some of us to a certain degree, and maybe I'm guilty of this too, at times it's just sort of like, well, it's fucking fighting. So, you know, you're going to see more arrests and more gross comments and trash talk. And, you know, I'm not trying to clean it up completely. This though, what we saw has nothing fucking at all to do with what we see inside the sport on a regular basis, outside of the fact that this negative culture is just everywhere and rampant. And you saw the reaction to it. Yeah.

I mean, listen, last thing on this. MMA, combat sports, boxing, it's always going to be rough around the edges. Always. You're always going to get characters, certain cases from the street. You're always going to get competitors saying horrible shit to each other. Like, it is going to be rough around the edges. I'm going to say it one more time. If you can't fight in a cage or a ring in this country, I'm really not sure what you can do.

Like, the barrier to entry to that should be low. And because it's low, you're going to get some rough characters. That's how it's going to be. But when you start committing crimes, which, by the way, hitting her and she hitting him, too. Be fair about that. It's fucking crimes, man. Those are crimes. Like, when you start getting to that him, too. Be fair about that. It's fucking crimes, man. Those are crimes. Like when you start getting to that level, all bets are off at that point.

Now, BC, let's get to it now. Speaking of which, we go from the frying pan to the fire. Gervonta Davis is going to be fighting on pay-per-view this weekend in Washington, D.C. BC, I'll go first with you on this one. I want to talk about the fight itself and some of the storylines. We will in just a second. Because, by the way, it's a great card here, D.C. BC, I'll go first with you on this one. I want to talk about the fight itself and some of the storylines. We will in just a second. Because by the way, it's a great card here in D.C.

on Showtime pay-per-view. But Gervonta Tank Davis, two previous run-ins with domestic violence, a hit-and-run incident for which he has a jury trial in fucking February with multiple felony counts along the way. And then he has this one where, yes, the woman in question came out later

and then said, A, shouldn't have called in question came out later and then said she a shouldn't have called the police and be actually no uh giovanni didn't put his hands on her now you can believe that or not you know i don't know what the fuck to believe anymore bc how how do you assess this situation how do you assess it in light of what happened to dana what do we say here yeah i mean it's equally in some, just disappointing and a bad look overall, though it's not necessarily like apples to apples in the overall comparison. And that's not just from the standpoint of should a multi-million dollar exec, you know, know better or be different. I don't know.

Again, we're all human at the end of the day. In Gervonta's situation, though, Luke, those other aggressions he, you know, did face arrest and the public scorn and the, you know, removal of the benefit of the doubt already in terms of his reputation and name. That's why when this news hit, you can really do nothing but shake your head and be disgusted. And, you know, and some people did write, you know, the columns and saying like, look, is boxing enabling him? I think that's all interesting, normal topics to have in this situation. In this situation, though, specifically, you do have sort of that unknown, that gray area. He spent a night in jail, posted a thousand

dollar bail for a misdemeanor. Now the person in question says it doesn't happen. I don't know the facts, Luke. That's the thing at the end of the day. And I cannot stress enough that the benefit of the doubt is gone in this situation from a young man who's uber talented but has had multiple egregious uh you know uh transgressions here um i do know that there were legitimate discussions and debates of should the fight go on and i certainly think it's a fair discussion whether on this show or in barber shops or whatever for fight fans to go should that go on at the end of the day a decision was made i get it based on the circumstances in front of you is there a larger conversation about tank davis the direction he's going in his life not the boxing career in his life and how these major scares and warnings should hopefully

uh create major change yes for for a young man who came from very tough circumstances but i'm not going to use that as an excuse um even even if this situation didn't happen at all and it was a misrepresentation i think in general um you know there's some expectations moving forward of how he's going to behave uh you know to still be allowed to headline pay-per-views like this let's ask it like should showtime be in the tank davis business right i mean we have to ask these questions we're gonna ask him about dana we gotta ask him about tank it's not so clear it's really i don't know like i said with data i don't know what the right answer is yeah um they're the one big difference to me is that there actually are legal consequences or at least some perceived legal consequences for tank uh not the jury trial stuff but this

incident as well so like that does make it a little bit different but dude he's had multiple run-ins he's had multiple chances you know like there is like i we can't we don't get to make these decisions we have talked to some of the people who are decision makers they feel that um there are going to be some circumstances moving forward that will make tank look in a better light i guess we'll have to see about that but you know i don't love that shit either to be quite honest with you man i don't think anyone really does i don't think anyone yeah looks at the situation and should feel real good about it. Well, look, in some degree, at the end of the day, because the fight is going on, whether, you know, whether the person out there can judge for themselves if that's the right choice.

And by the way, again, look, you have to do look at the facts. It's very gray. We're not sure about this specific situation. But you do have to some point separate the headline in this situation from the fight itself. The only thing I think that's worth talking about in putting those two together is what impact will all that negativity have on the fighter and the fight himself as we move forward to Saturday's pay-per-view card. Because Luke, already, even though this fight is framed for Gervonta Davis as, you know, potentially a tough last step on the road to this Ryan Garcia super fight that's been proposed for April,

it was never an easy bout to begin with, considering Hector Luis Garcia used last year as a monster coming out year to win a world title, 130 pounds, to upset Chris Colbert in such dominant fashion. This is already a sneaky good fight on paper, but you do have to look closely at the person, Gervonta Davis, and ask, what effect will this have as we point now toward the actual fight? Yeah, yeah. I guess the last thing I'd say on this is we're covering the event. I love working with Showtime. I think it's very fair for me to say this and human for me to say this.

I am conflicted about it. I really, you know, same with MMA too. Like, you know, people ask me if you have all of these moral reservations about it, like really, you know, same with MMA too. Like, you know, people ask me, if you have all of these moral reservations about it, like, why do you keep working in the industry? And it's because I fucking love fights, man. It's not a great answer, but it's the answer. Like, I don't want to let, I don't want to let this part of my life go. This part of my life, the fighting side of it, you know, as a spectator, obviously, um, has brought me more joy than anything else outside of my family or something like that, right?

Like, BC, don't you feel that way? Like, this is... What is the great love of your life? It's fucking fighting. Like, that's how I feel. But I do feel conflicted about working on a Tank Davis car, dude. And I don't think I'm unfair or I don't think that's wrong to say.

You know, look, this is an ongoing battle when you're a combat sports fan, when you make a living in this space as we do when a fighter has the chance in boxing unfortunately happens more than we'd like to remember or talk about when somebody can lose their life and you know in the ring or in the cage and fortunately that hasn't happened on the you know super elite mma level in the states or anything but it's always in play and it's this dangerous that there's always going to be those conflictions in those times when you do check yourself. And I do agree. This is my favorite form of entertainment across the board and in relation to sports. And I do tend to take a lot from this game that inspires me, the human struggle, the overcoming, the

rallying, the persevering. I mean, I'm attracted to this game first and foremost for seeing that portrayed in such a very real way in the entertainment bubble of sports. And I don't want to change that, you know, when done safely and when here. But yeah, this is another thing, like you say, that sort of makes you question that. But damn, in this case, Luke, the fight will go on and and i get it i get it in this situation and uh is there conflictions yeah to a certain degree but um uh there's always conflictions in this game that's the most honest i can say luke there's always times you're asking there's no way i'll say this bc from our vantage point maybe you agree there's you can't work in

this business and not get a little bit dirty or as i mentioned like you're going to get people because the barriers to entry are and should be low like there's just no way like and also i'll say this too well i'm not sure if i can say that because i'm not sure how factually factually true it is but just in general like forget about this situation or any other like as you go through the course of your career you know you're gonna like all the fights in saudi arabia right like as to what extent is any of that ethical you have to make choices about the course of your career, you know, you're gonna like all the fights in Saudi Arabia, right? Like, to what extent is any of that ethical, you have to make choices about that, too. All of it is very difficult. And we are not paragons of virtue. I hope folks really understand that we're not making that argument. But you at least have to be honest about the

stakes, right? You got to be honest about the characters, you have to be honest about the stakes, the audience can make whatever choice they want to make about it and they will and um i hope that we've tried to do that today i hope that we've tried to do that uh bc let's talk about this fight as best we can here because there is a card do you mention it is going to happen and by the way the card's great separate from my employment with showtime and the fact that we get to call the prelims and host the way-in, and I can't wait. BC and DC, MK on the road. It's going to be great. Separate from all that other stuff. Damn, dude, I really want to see what this looks like.

I watched the All Access episode. It really plays up what is the true theme in this. That's separate to Gervonta's rise, which is what gets you in the building, right? There's the final step before possibly that Ryan Garcia super fight. Dude, there's this human arc and story of Hector Luis Garcia of the Dominican Republic who fought in the Olympics in 2016, but did not medal and has come in with, you know, over 300 to 400 amateur fights in his background, depending on who you ask. And just went from nobody a year ago in this game to somebody pretty damn big, a reigning champion at 130 pounds,

who's moving up in weight with his unbeaten record because this chance, this opportunity to prove yourself against one of the 10 or 12 best fighters in this game, dude, this is a hard ass fight on paper. All these circumstances around it. I don't know the role they're going to play. I want to find out. But Hector Luis Garcia is coming the hell on to have his moment this has from a boxing standpoint to be a very interesting collision saturday night i'm really

telling you this is a very good fight on paper uh it's a fantastic fight on paper again i don't want to trivialize what tank has been arrested for but rather you have to acknowledge the real world impact right the impact which impact, which is Jesus Christ. This is not a tough guy moving up a weight class. He's, you know, we've talked about it before, kicking Chris Colbert's ass in a very surprising way. He was an Olympian. I think he's undefeated as well. All the things you've said.

BC, how much, like, we didn't even know if Tank Davis should even take this fight. Forget what happened a week or two ago. Like, this is just a tough-ass fight. Like, it's not, and I even asked tank davis should even take this fight forget what happened a week or two ago like this is just a tough ass fight like it's not and i even asked him why did you take this fight he's like because it's tough like we all agree it's tough how much will this chaos that he has invited into his life how much will that determine the outcome well that's what he's gonna have to show us because even though he passed the test uh you know four or five years ago of what at that point was his biggest opportunity to date for Tank when he was on the co-main event of Mayweather McGregor. Right. A huge opportunity to show people that he's the next thing.

He blew weight on the scale. Right. Remember, he missed his title, didn't look great in that fight, was able to hold together, get the stoppage, get the victory. He's grown as a fighter so much from that point. But what's interesting is how these narratives lay out, which is, again, separate from the legal stuff outside the ring. This was supposed to be Tank's chance to step out of the shadow of Floyd Mayweather, Mayweather promotions of the people who, from the very beginning, you know, did a great job in building up his career and showing people that he's the next big thing. Well, this is now Tank stepping out on his own.

And oddly enough, he's going to have to show us really one of the key, incredible ingredients that made his former boss, Floyd Mayweather, or former promoter, maybe not boss, such an incredible, sustaining, long-term force in this game, which is why Mayweather's in the discussion among the 10, 12, 15, wherever you are at, best fighters of all time,

because Mayweather was unflappable regardless of what was going on outside the ring or sometimes even in it, if you remember that Zab Judah brawl with the trainers and Zab and all that craziness. A lot of that Floyd brought on himself. He had his own major missteps outside the ring, including a 2012 jail sentence for domestic assault. Um, but he was always able like in that very same aspect of being able to you know roll

with the chaos and and not only not let it affect him luke but maybe in some ways embolden him um you know it's not going to erase everything outside the ring but it's going to show you that what we're looking at here is is a potential all-time great in the making from a boxing standpoint. And this is going to be a big test, X's and O's wise, but maybe even deeper from being able to keep that focus, roll with the punches. Because if you ask me layman's terms, if someone said, BC, I never saw Hector Luis Garcia before.

I didn't watch him beat Roger Gutierrez for the title last year. I didn't watch him give Chris Colbert his first loss and just break him down and destroy him. What's he like? Well, here's the deal. Garcia can actually do it all. He has a like real legitimate amateur background. He said on the All Access show,

he spent his whole early part of his career just being a pure boxer. And then when he turned pro, he turned into a reckless, aggressive, walk you down, go after you guy. He's found a way at the elite level to marry those two things together. Meaning Hector Luis Garcia gets into the pocket, sets up shop right in front of you, leans on his daring nature and his good chin and lets his hands go at volume.

Never recklessly, never out of control, never irresponsible defensively. But like I said, he does lean on his chin to hold that ground and he brings the fight to you. He never gets tired. He never stops throwing. And the key to when he's allowed to post up in front of you at close range, he has so many variations to his craft of how he throws his shots. He throws uppercuts, sidearm hooks. He throws all kinds of different weird shots from weird angles that really gets a hard time fighters picking up his rhythm and his variance there. That's a legitimate test of what Tank Davis

can do against him here. Obviously, Garcia's chin is going to have to be in a condition like it's never been before because Tank is a bigger fighter and a bigger weight class with, you know, life-changing power here inside the ring. But Hector Luis Garcia also has a few potential avenues that could really test Tank from the idea of game planning, adjusting, counter-punching, all these things that Tank really does great, but doesn't always get the credit for because he's such a potent offensive

knockout threat. Dude, Garcia is the real deal. And while he's going to have to bite down on that gum shield to win this fight, he's willing to do that, Luke Thomas. And if shit goes sideways, he's willing and able to make this a point fight from the outside. Dude, this is a good, again, this is a good-ass fight that Tank's going to have to be on point in more than one way. I don't have anything to add to that. You have succinctly stated it.

This is a real test. I think Gervonta has only raised his own difficulties levels by virtue of the chaos he has invited into his life, whatever happened with that particular situation. And also, he will face the media tomorrow. There is a press conference tomorrow, which he will be in attendance for. A media workout. Oh, yeah, you're right. Media workout today. Today's the workout. Tomorrow's the press conference tomorrow which he will be in attendance for. A media workout. Oh yeah, you're right.

Media workout today. Today's the workout. Tomorrow's the presser. Yes. You and I will be hosting that along with the weigh-in on Friday, Luke, so you'll be seeing a lot of us this week. Not today's workout. BC and I are not hosting today's workout. I don't think there is a host, but if there is, we're not part of it. But tomorrow, there's the presser. Friday the weigh-in, Saturday the fight, so we'll see how that goes. Also on that card, BC,

speaking of that, now we can get to like the really good part, the good news, like the no extra baggage shit. Jerron Ennis. Jerron Ennis, ladies and gentlemen. I've been saying this name, man. BC, I remember where I was.

Do you remember where you were when you saw LeBron James on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was still a high school student and the article was written by Grant Wall? I was my senior senior year in college a buddy of mine in the fraternity house was from Ohio he's a big ball player he loved uh LeBron as a high school athlete and he showed me he's like dude this is the next Michael Jordan I remember that very very very very vividly now I don't know if Jerron Ennis is going to be the Michael Jordan of basketball or something but

I hope folks can remember this name and remember the moment. Jerron Ennis, folks, is headed for big-time shit. He is headed for big-time titles. Taking on Karin Chukadzian. Go ahead. Yeah, and that LeBron comparison is like, I maybe not remember as much of that story coming out, or I did watch his first early high school games on ESPN,

but I remember his pro debut at Sacramento and making that night an event and then just watching a kid walk out there and do man stuff. That's a feel of what Ennis brings to the table. But the question is, like, will anybody be able to actually give him some type of pushback? Is it this fight against Karen Djukadzian? We don't know yet. Look, Djukadzian is fought largely, you know, outside of American television in the spotlight to get to this point where he'd be fighting for an interim IBF welterweight title. But the key here for Boutsenis is what this victory

pulled with him already being Errol Spence's mandatory contender, I believe in the WBA, that the elites cannot sidestep him any further. So Boots Ennis' father came out, and I forgot who he talked to, what outlet, but basically said, after this fight, if Boots wins, they believe the understanding is that Errol Spence has 120 days to, you know, announce a fight against him with Ennis as the mandatory challenger or give up a title. Now, there's a few different things that can happen, right? Spence could announce a fight with Crawford, and to some degree, the sanctioning bodies could give a pass, given that's an undisputed fight to him and to have to defend against the winner of this fight later,

or Spence could give up a title or boots could be paid sidestep money for a big fight to that, for that to happen. Or maybe Earl Spence is faced with that decision of face boots after this fight next to keep his title. Or like I said, give it up. He can't be avoided any longer. Jerron Ennis, if he gets this victory over Karen Chikadzian. So look, we're going to crush tape and we're going to get up to speed completely on

where Chikadzian is at. We're not lying from the standpoint that he's a largely unknown in these parts in the American boxing circles, but this is a platform here in the co-main event of a pay-per-view for Boots to continue kicking the TV screen in and letting you know that he's that rare talent that's coming on but luke after this they can't avoid him he's going to be able to fight for a world a full world title in his next fight um it's just going to be against two right who's going to say yes to that who's going to stand in there and take it um i can't wait to find out how great he is and and we'll see if there's the type

of pushback that that gets to show us that extra gear. Because look, I talked to him a few weeks ago. And of course, people can check that interview out on youtube.com slash morning combat and said like, you know, how, how much do you think you've shown up to this point or had to have shown? Because look, I was ringside when he, when he blew away Thomas Delorme, right? Like less than a round, just like, holy shit, just fruit ninja, just sliced right through him. And he was basically like, not much. And you know, you could, that could be a cocky young fighter saying, no, no one's put me to my breaking point. They haven't had to show the dog in me yet. Go back and watch his highlights up to this point, Luke. And by the way, he has faced some, some fairly legitimate, you know, Lippin Yates Clayton on the way up. Guys that could have potentially tested him.

No, he sliced right through them. Just something super special there. A guy that can switch stances. A guy that has all the extra video game buttons you can press to do all the crazy shit. This is a big fight, though. This is a big fight, Luke. Spence is going to end up with a very tough decision. I'm very interested to see how the overall Walter White title picture plays out. Spence put out a cryptic tweet that said, April,

does that mean that's when he comes back? Is he going to fight Keith Thurman or is he going to be pushing in the direction of this or maybe making a fight with Terrence Crawford? We do know what was just announced is that Virgil Ortiz Jr. has agreed to fight Staniosis, who just had the big victory over Raja Buttaia to take one of those secondary welterweight belts. But we're narrowing it down. We're getting closer. And, Luke, this is what we teased when we did the 2023 preview a couple weeks back. I want Spence Crawford more than anybody, even though we're running out of patience for that matchup. But if either of those guys gets replaced by Buttenis, that conversation is still just as potent, brother.

Okay? Okay? It really is. It really is. It really is because we're about to find out what we have here. I just want to remind folks, I can't add more to the story than what BC did, but just as a final note on Jerron Ennis, you can see his, look at the way in which he's able to pick his punches, how quickly and effortlessly he makes decisions,

switching from Southpaw to Orthodox. And by the way, like fully can fight in Orthodox,. Switching from Southpaw to Orthodox. And by the way, fully can fight in Orthodox. Fully can fight in Southpaw. These guys can't last more than a round or a couple of rounds with him. He is powerful. He is athletic. He doesn't take much damage. Guys, I am just telling you now.

We've been banging this drum for a while about Boots Ennis. There's a reason for it. He is incredibly special. I tend to think, BC a guess we don't know what they don't tell us these things I'm gonna guess that Boots is gonna win on Saturday and that he's not gonna get Errol Spence next Spence probably gonna fight because again I don't think Bud Crawford really wants to fight Spence at all that's my personal opinion I just don't think he wants it so I think it's gonna end up being someone like Keith Thurman or somebody else

but but either way end of this year or certainly the beginning of 2024, the Boots-Ennis experience is going to be in full effect, and it's good to get on the bandwagon now. Do you echo me in saying that short of getting Boots versus Spencer Crawford next if he wins, or short of him getting Thurman, which would also be an interesting fight, do you think your Dennis Ugas, like I do, is that perfect next test if Ennis wins on Saturday? Yes. A defensive slickster who, if you're not careful and you overcommit or you get too aggressive,

he can really light you up. But a guy who is as clever and as athletic and as just quick thinking as a guy like Boots Ennis, can he crack that code it would be the most elite opponent he would have fought and then at that point if he wins uh defeated yes majorly majorly in favor of something like that any kind of test where we can know sort of what we're really getting here with boots i think would be really valuable you know absolutely bc one more note on this card rashidi ellis is on the card but the other one that to me caught my attention, of course, and yours as well,

Boo Boo Andrade is on this card. Demetrius Andrade taking on DeMond Nicholson. How big of a deal is it that he's no longer on DAZN? I guess he's PBC now. What does that mean for his future? It means the potential for big things. Look, it was a failed experiment. He tried, he went with Eddie Hearn in Matchroom Sport,

went over to DAZN. They promised the ability to finally getting him into the big fights across multiple divisions that he was looking for. And, you know, it didn't work out. And Eddie was straight up about that. It didn't, it didn't work out. Look, he's always been a, you know, high risk, low reward guy. He can stink out a fight if he has to, but he also can fight exciting when he needs to. Long arms can, you know, Southpaw can switch around, can just so slick, so many great things, but he's getting older into his 30s. So it's time now to find out. And when you look at the landscape and we talk about how

168 pounds is already arguably the most fun division at the moment. And next year, especially if Canelo Alvarez comes back to it and Jamal Charlo potentially moves up, and then you got Benavidez, Plant, David Murrell. I mean, dude, it's getting fun up in there. Adding this guy to that discussion overall, this is the best path for him. DeMond Nicholson is a fight Andrade should win, but not a safe, easy test by any means. So this will be a good test of exactly where he still is at, by the way, in a new division 68. Always said he would do it and move up there for a big fight, but had won a title before at 54, had won a title at middleweight. Now it's time to do it, and I think it was a good business move.

Let's find out for the Rhode Island native. Luke, I don't say a lot of good things about Rhode Island coming from Connecticut. Rhode Island's like the Connecticut armpit, right? But shout out to Boo Boo Andre. This is the right path. This is the way, Mandalorian, okay? Demetrius Andre Andre, and Family Guy, the two greatest Rhode Island exports ever.

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. All right, BC, topic number three. Oh, do you ever go to Newport? Luke, Newport, Rhode Island is legit. It's a

great time. I've never been to Rhode Island. I've never been. Oh, it's got so much history. It's worth your time if you ever get the chance. Yeah, I'd rather just get Ebola. Alright, topic number three. Anthony Joshua's got 2023 plans. So here is what he is doing. BC, BC will pitch to you in just a

second in April he wants a top 15 opponent in the summer he wants either Dillian White or Deontay Wilder allegedly and then in autumn so the fall he wants Tyson Fury or Deontay Wilder here's what Hearn told the DAZN boxing show our boys Akan Barak quote Anthony Joshua and Canelo are in the works to announce the first slate of 2023. You're talking to two of the biggest names in boxing in Canelo and AJ. AJ is fighting a month earlier than Canelo, so he'll be pretty much ready to go with an announcement in a week or so. We know his date. We're down to three or four opponents that we're talking to.

Rumors of his new training team, and there will be a full announcement from Anthony Joshua on that. He's in a great place and ready to start camp actually I believe this week the camp will begin honestly I couldn't give Anthony Joshua an opponent he would turn down it's more about the training team BC your reaction to all of this news I hope I hope you know I hope that he's going to be this ambitious with this schedule and come back and fight three times and in big names and and I like that even the April immediate comeback, they're saying, no, top 15 opponents. So, look, there's still a window here

where Anthony Joshua can right the ship and maybe even improve in some ways or at least try to hide further whatever deficiencies are there. And there are. He was always a guy who, you know, was an athlete and came to the sport late and is trying to lessen his typical robotic,

powerful ways into more that of the smooth boxer. But what was evident in the Usyk fight, particularly the second one, in my opinion, was just where was that flip of the switch to say, OK, I can't out-chest this chess master, right? I mean, Usyk is a rare breed in every sort of way. So let me lean on my strengths and be that destroyer and try to walk him down. And we were hoping the union with Robert Garcia would, you know, would produce that, you know, Mexican-American trainer, that Mexican style, go to the body, walk down. No, no, that wasn't,

that wasn't fully there. There wasn't a full commitment there. And you saw that, you know, rather regrettable, but understandable to a degree, emotional meltdown of AJ after the second Lucek loss where he you know was the drunk guy at the wedding doing the the unnecessary speech and and commandeered the microphone but if he takes a you know the hardest of hard looks in the mirror and realizes that in one to one degree he has done this before he has reinvented himself before after disaster which was not just the loss to Andy Ruiz but if we remember all the chaos going on around him and his personal life heading into that u.s debut as well which there was some legit stuff

remember when his father went after eddie earn in the ring after i mean there was some some chaos going on there is still time but he has to look at his strengths and weaknesses uh in the in the most honest way possible and say okay okay, what can I realistically change? There's only a couple super elite, world-class, pure boxers in this division. Fury and Usyk, right? I mean, there's a couple others that can dabble and box for sure. I'm not trying to be a jerk here. But you can't outbox either of those guys, AJ.

But the B-plus, the the B level guys, you can. So it's got to be more of right temperament, right game plan at the right time. I don't know if Robert Garcia is the right pick. I don't even know if they're still together, Luke. I'm not up to the speed here. But I do think AJ has the right temperament to put Humpty Dumpty back together and to still be in play for huge fights and title opportunities. I mean, imagine a world, Luke, things would have to go perfect in 2023.

But imagine a world in which the first third of the year, Fury and Usyk fight for the Undisputed Championship. AJ comes back against a decent but tough test. And maybe Wilder fights Andy Ruiz on pay-per-view to make you fired up. And what if the second third of the year sees Joshua and Wilder finally have their pay-per-view dance? And what if the final third is the either culmination or the beginning of the banging of the drum to finalize this?

We would already in that situation have an undisputed champion of the winner in Fury Usyk. But I think we can all understand that Fury versus Joshua is still the biggest fight you can make in this division. We could still end up there, or at least on the way there to close the year, but AJ's got to be as ambitious as Eddie Hearn is saying, and he's got to go out there and improve and win these fights. Luke, I still believe he can. I'm harsh on him when it's necessary, but he's a courageous dude who has persevered in the past, gotten up off the canvas. Like, dude, Anthony Joshua can fight. I don't know if he beats Wilder but you might as well go back in that direction and make

one more run at it you know what I'm saying it's possible for here's my thing like I am skeptical that they're gonna do all of this it seems a little bit too ambitious in part because they can't control everything as powerful as he is as an a-side you know you just don't know if your b-side is gonna get injured or you know factors are getting involved and it could get in the way there. They've, they've planned out a lot that even with the best of intentions are going to be hard to pull out. But I'll say this, the one thing I do like about ABC, you kind of hinted at it, but let me just sort of state it a different way, which is I think the second loss to Usyk really hurt him, you know, mentally it hurt him hurt him which is understandable he gave everything he had and it wasn't enough twice he licked his wounds and he's now recharged to claim something

back after the hurt and the loss and the difficulty he's still motivated he still wants to do something big and grand and special and the kind of thing that gets you the adulation and the personal sense of accomplishment like he still is once more into the breach dear friends with his attitude i love that i love that he has regrouped put a plan in place i want to do these i'm going to set out i'm going to declare it like when you make a plan for yourself you have to write it down you know you have to kind of like what many people do anyway it's like a way to like bring it into life you know sign it into existence so to speak he's done that here so you know does he fight Deontay Wilder in his second fight of the year I am skeptical that happens but he's got him on the radar he's out there trying he's back at it let's see what kind

of effort he produces but for me as someone who is an observer here who is neither a fan nor a critic of AJ in any kind of substantive way, I do like that he is putting the losses behind him as best he can with this full-throated attitude of, let's go get what's out there to get. I do love that. I respect that. He's only 33. We do have to remember that, okay? Yes. And he's already accomplished a lot.

I mean, you know, I just want to mention quickly the resume of like who he's actually beaten. Dillian White, in which he rallied back after being hurt. Sir Charles Martin to win the belt. Prince Charles Martin, Dominic Brazil, Vladimir Klitschko, in which he got up off the canvas. Joseph Parker in a unification outboxed him. Andy Ruiz in the rematch. Kubrat Pulev. I mean, he has fought and beat the majority of the great names he's come up against. And there's still a chance, there's still a line for him to put himself in a spot to fight for the Undisputed Championship and repair everything. I mean, look, I've always compared him softly to Lennox Lewis from the same country, more or less, same size, not the same fighter, but the greatest thing Lennox Lewis ever did was come back and beat the two guys who knocked him out in title fights by knocking them out in

the rematch. So he beat everybody he faced and didn't duck anybody. Now, could he have rematched Vitaly Klitschko after that final fight? I would have liked to have seen it, but he still won that fight. He still walked away. AJ can have that type of resume. Maybe he never ends up beating Usyk and maybe he never ends up being Fury, but he can still add to what has already been an incredible resume when you consider, again, he learned on the job. He's not a guy who grew up in a boxing gym. This guy probably should have been playing American football when you look at it. Or rugby or something. Yeah, but come a long way and do just some slight adjustments i mean just for the record by the way i didn't score it that close but he did it was a split decision in the usic rematch he was close to your point he gave everything he had

under that mindset of how he thought he was going to win it i just think he's got to make some slight mental adjustments just me just me all right fair enough bc we'll do some quick hitters here very quickly uh dylan dennis has pulled out of his fight against KSI which was scheduled for January 14th KSI is looking to uh reveal a new opponent this week apparently according to uh I guess one of the guys who's involved with Misfits Boxing which is the promotional arm of this whole thing that uh Dylan Danis was unprepared not on weight not ready for it boy I gotta tell you can we finally put to bed dylan dennis like he's clearly fucking with everyone he's not serious about doing any of this shit he never has been he probably

never will be you know mma media i give you permission to stop giving him headlines right bc yeah i mean i i did actually watch the entire lengthy in-studio interview with ariel and and you're such a sucker man I mean Ariel fucking came at him at times you know maybe sometimes but I'm saying like you're a sucker in ways where I'm like yo dude you're still you're still talking to a fighter right there uh in person but no seriously um and I wanted to give him like a remaining thread of the benefit of the doubt when when Dennis talks about the knee injuries that kept happening which kept him out of the cage and yeah he's a joke but I I'm going to be honest.

I was a sucker at first, at least for his persona online. And as Conor's, you know, boy and, you know, master magician, BJJ guy who can help get him up to speed. But yeah, it's been sad since then. And seeing him now pull out of this fight after purposely ducking the press conference and the excuses he gave Ariel about that. Yeah, dude, good riddance. It's over.

I want him to be a thing, Luke. I think he's fun to watch, but it's long. He's now, you know, like when your favorite rock star, you know, can't play arenas anymore, can't play good theaters anymore, and then they're playing the Terryville Fair for free. That's where I saw Dickie Betts. Everyone talks about his grappling game,

and it is good bc but like he hasn't he hasn't won a major title since brown belt i don't know if folks understand that he at brown belt he was one of the very best in the world and like one of those guys who was clearly going to take over at black belt had he stayed on that path but folks forget marcelo garcia the nicest man in all of jujitsu told him and his buddy, Manchur Khera, to go pound sand, kicked him out. He went over to Unity BJJ, which is like a Murillo Santana event, or a gym, which is actually a very good gym. But nevertheless, like, he's just been all over the place.

He's been a media hound for taking Ls. Like, guys, you don't have to give him any coverage anymore. You don't. The days are over where he is a figure where this is a thing. All right, BC. Also, I don't know. I haven't heard anything about this on the Jake Paul side, but Mike Perry apparently tweeted out a picture of a signed contract on his end

to fight Jake Paul. Yeah, but did he create the contract himself? I was unclear by looking at it. Probably. Probably used, like, DocuSign or something. And then just got, like, a fake. You can buy those things that like staples right you can buy those contracts and just like do mad lives with them and fill them in and then you can sign them up i mean you shot down the idea of of uh cowboy serrani juicing up and fighting jake and i do echo what we said in the past of like jake was

too good against anderson now to see him just continue to fight welterweight mma guys mike perry is a different story because of the personality but do you care would you be into this is there a market for mike perry versus jake paul i like that one a little bit more than serrani i like that one a little bit more than serrani um he's unrefined as a boxing talent himself, right? And he's still young. He hits fucking hard. He will have a... Dude, he won't have a boring fight. He just won't. He's had a pro boxing fight before.

I mean, but the size difference, though, Luke, it's big. It's big. Yeah, but he wouldn't be cutting weight. It wouldn't be too, too bad. I'll say this. It's not my preferred choice, but I don't hate it as much as the cowboy one. be too, too bad. I'll say this. It's not my preferred choice, but I don't hate it as much as the Cowboy one. All right, all right.

And then last but not least, here is some good news on a day where we don't have a whole lot of it. Per Brett Okamoto of ESPN, Shavkat Rachmanov is going to fight Jeff Neal. That fight had fallen through for the next couple of weeks. They just pushed it back, BC. They're going to have it on March 4th at 285, UFC 285. Now it sucks that we have to wait that long to get it, but at least he's back on the

calendar. If nothing else, he's back on the calendar. And we knew, man, listen, when Neil fell out of that bout and Rachmaninoff was left on that card, dude, getting anybody to fight Shavkat Rachmaninoff is going to be difficult, especially on short notice. They were going to have to pull him from the card no matter what they did. I don't love it, but I definitely don't hate it, you know? Yeah, let's see it. Let's find out how good this guy is, Luke, because he seems to be the goods. He seems to be the fucking, yeah, he's the goods, Luke.

All right, BC, I want to remind everyone, our next partner, I don't know if you have your AG1 in front of you, but, you know, it's something that we use every day because we have to. And when we don't, we pay for it. But Athletic Greens, you want better gut health. You want more energy. You don't want to take a bunch of vitamins and pills. You want just something that is naturally good for you, takes care of you in one glass of water. Folks, you can't do much better than AG1.

It really is. No, no. And look, how about you try to cut some corners in a good way? Look, i'm trying for this new year i need these liver numbers to get better so sometimes i ask myself what are the micro habits i'm doing that have big benefits how am i starting my day i'm starting my day with a scoop of this into water eight ounces or so mixing it up and that that's you know non-offensive citrus feel of that taste i like it but it's more about how it makes me feel to start where,

you know, 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, whole food source, superfoods, probiotics, adaptogens. These are things, Luke, that aren't always in my diet to start the day. But I know if I start at the AG1 way, Luke, I may end it. I may end it in a good way, you know? No, there's no doubt about it. It can't end in anything but good things. Of course, as you mentioned, the 75 high quality vitamins and minerals whole food source superfoods probiotics adaptogens and of course it's going to support your gut health your nervous system your immune system give you energy recovery focus and help even with something like me which is the aging aging factor and by the way bc you know what look at them and doing it right here you can do it on live stream days you can do it when you travel when you come down to DC. I think you're leaving tonight.

Bring some AG1 with you, bro. Yeah, I will have an AG1 party. Lifestyle friendly for whatever you got going on the side. Keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free. One gram of sugar or less is what it contains. No GMOs, no nasty chemicals, no artificial anything. I told you about the taste. How about the price? Listen, $3 a day. And if you're waiting in line for that cold brew each day, you already know what you're spending. How about you make that slight little change for the new year that could be a new you? And it's one thing to listen to two washed 40-year-olds, Luke,

but there's 7,000 people that have already tried it and put five-star reviews out there. Ferris, Gervais, Rogan. So right now, time to reclaim your bowl that's right in campbell your health and art that's right an arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition especially heading into the flu and cold season just one scoop and a cup of water every day that's it no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health and luke to make it even easier your first purchase today at athleticgreens.com slash morning combat.

And the reason why that slash is important is how about the bonus of your first order, five free travel packs that we talked about and the one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D the drops. It's perfect. Put them in your drink. You'll feel better. Uh, Luke athleticgreens.com slash morning combat. Um, do you think, uh, remember when Connor beat Eddie and he's like, if I fight again, I need, I need a piece. I need stock. Do you think uh remember when connor beat eddie and he's like all right if i fight again i need i need a piece i need stock do you think my reads have been so accurate honest and enthusiastic that maybe i can get some of that ag1 stock and be a partner luke stock i don't know but you might be able to get some free product how about that all right i'm actually running low

so if anyone from ag1 is watching i need more. I think you can afford three bucks a day. It's just my personal take on your financial portfolio, Luke. It could be true, but I don't want to pay for it if I don't have to. All right, all right. Luke, you know what we do every Wednesday? We just didn't do it last week. We allow the fans to invade our home and give us their artwork and put it on our fridge and take pictures of themselves in tight T-shirts.

And, Luke, it couldn't be any more of a fertile time to hold fan submissions by unleashing our email address of morningcombat at gmail.com. Right into Mikey Moore Miles' in-hole. And I know there's always debate about censorship in these parts. And damn, 2022 ended with a tie for Donk of the Year. Was that the right choice? Will there be a face-off? Will they fight to the death luke i don't know these answers yet but i do know that people like danger mouse yes him

jay paquette uh appy these heroes luke they're willing to share their art with the world just to make fun of us so i'm here for it this one's called fan submission this is normally if you see where i would pull out my vape, but I'm not vaping right now. Dude, is that a... Because that provided so much comedic help in 2022. But we want to see you take a health turn.

Is it over? Is your relationship with vaping done? I can never say that it's done because I'm not totally on the other side of it, but I haven't vaped in a while and I'm no interest in vaping, so... Don't do it. Yeah. Don't do it. Yeah, don't do it.

We've got male viewers and a few female ones. So shout out to all of them. Luke, we have a bonus fan sub to start from one of our female viewers. It's Jen. Remember from Bill and Jen in the RV, Luke? We don't have a photo to read,

but remember when I called out for a wellness check to hear how they're doing? Jen heard that. She heard that call, Luke. She reached out to Mikey Morms. Here's what she said. Hi, friends. It's Jen here from Bill and Jen's RV Adventures. I know we've dropped off the traveling scene for a while, but we've been hanging out near Philadelphia, and I was hoping you would do me a small favor. Sunday, January 8th is Bill's birthday. He's turning 47. Luke, she wanted to know if we could shout him out,

and she also said, side note, Bill wore the Skull Luke Thomas Dead Christmas T-shirt over the holidays, and I just got him the Fight Club tee for his birthday. Oh, maybe I shouldn't have read that out loud. Well, Luke, he may have merch in his future, but Sunday is big old Bill's birthday. Do you have a nice message to show one of our original fans? Because, Luke, you know when you open a restaurant

and your first customer comes in with that dollar bill and you frame it and you're like, those are my first motherfucking customers. Like, for me, like, web screams, like, capital P1. He was like our first. Bill and Jen were like OGs in that regard right there. Day one shit with us, okay? So, yeah yeah happy birthday bill

feliz cumpleaños bill feliz i mean he's 47 does he have hope to turn this around luke no he's washed he's finished yeah he's washed his shit but uh bill and jen thanks for being a part of our extended family here we have a lot of love for you hopefully we'll get back in the rv and hopefully luke will wave out the jersey city studio window like he once said but but he won't come out and see you. Okay. But if your world tour comes by our address sometime, Luke will wave to you. Thank you. Let's start our real fan subs here with Peter. Peter, he says, hey guys, happy holidays. I'm sending in two pictures this week of me rocking my MK Christmas sweater. First is a pic of me by the tree at my friend's ugly Christmas sweater party. Oh, wow. The second is tree at my friend's ugly christmas sweater party oh wow the second

is uh me with my friend marissa wearing a sweater with candy the female performer and lee wearing the black santa sweater i of course wore the ugliest sweater i could find while still being able to spread the good mk word congrats on all your achievements here's to a successful 2023 luke that ugly christmas sweater on the right is a 10 out of 10 brother hell yeah i gotta say all three of those are actually pretty good ours being the worst of them but nevertheless still decent the black santa is tremendous and i gotta say the barbie on the stripper pole yeah about it about it long island luke can we zoom in for cable management purposes but oh that stripper on a pole is like you can touch it it's like it's like a physical thing is that a barbie on it yeah it looks like it's some kind

of barbie uh it's all well done this is an excellent this is a group of three excellent americans right here dude i didn't even know we sold that sweater in the middle that sweatshirt that christmas one yeah it's kind of goofy which is perfect for this occasion yeah i love hey peter thanks for representing and shout out to your friends there marissa and lee so well done there um let's go to manual hello brian and luke here's proof that not all mk fans are jan sixers this is me the big and tall one right in the front of the tree and my family trying to do our best nate diaz pose shit even though they have no idea what's going on or even what is on their t-shirts luke you're not the only one with a family that does not care about mma but luke p.s forgive my

esl level ingles what does that mean esl ingles uh english is the second language uh uh he's saying his english isn't great oh look at this so this is like that time that that asian fan of ours went to that deli, right, and had the host speak in another language. Bro, you know, who looks the hardest in this picture? First of all, my man on the far right can barely get his hands together. Dude, that looks like odd job. No, no, no, no, no.

He's not the hardest looking one because he can barely get his hands together, but he definitely looks like he's, like, bounced at a few clubs before. Yeah. It's Abuelo in the middle. Yo, look at the heart and milk on this clown dude abuelo in the middle knows where the bodies are buried yeah i mean my man my man in the middle has quietly seen some shit you know what i'm saying yeah yeah he's a he's a survivor that guy uh by the way shout out to jeremy renner surviving that snowplow accident luke i read about that

renner versus fucking legs dude dude. That's not money. Got himself in a real-life hurt locker. Did you see who found him? No. One of his neighbors found him. It just so happened that his neighbor was a doctor and did immediate trauma shit on the side of the road to save his life. Oh, yeah, like a tourniquet with a shirt or something.

Yeah, that's great. Manuel, thank you for getting your family involved and looking good this holiday season. We love that, even if they don't care. Let's go to Ben. He says, what's up, you two wash POSs? I love the show and listen every week. Here's me enjoying a cup of Joe as you seppos,

which he says in parentheses, look it up. Is that a slur, Luke? Did he call us a slur? I don't know. I mean, my man's life is satire. I mean, look at this. Call it from my MK camp mug while I'm actually camping for Christmas

with my wife and daughter down here on the west coast of the South Island in New Zealand. BC, your lack of knowledge regarding All Blacks and the haka proves you really are a petrol station hot dog eating scumbag. And you guys really should do a reaction to some All Blacks highlights. Keep up the great work.

Your fresh takes and comedy have made you my number one since day one in the podcast game. Keep feeling those margaritas. Wow. I got to say, are you camping or is camping another word for being homeless i don't quite know the difference here this is i think i'm being yeah i think i'm being told that he called us a slur luke and i read it out loud so apologies to everybody on that maybe it's just aust maybe it's just australian slang but um yeah um uh wow look at his setup there luke um now is he camping or is that where he lives?

It's a... Are you homeless or what's the deal here? We got a lot of... It's a very involved outdoor event, whatever this is. There you go. Do you think he has camping sex, Luke?

I've heard it's fucking intense. My neighbor told me that dad joke it's decent right it's not bad not bad i had to sell it but it's not bad okay okay thank you uh to my neighbor there uh big big fan of uh anthony all right let's keep it going here uh this is k hey i go by k i doubt bc can pronounce my korean name kangion i watched the colts get boat raced by the giants but at least i was also repping mk new year first fan sub dude how about this guy k right bro loving the jacket shit is amazing sorry about your colts but uh at least you look like a fucking baller shot caller 20 inch rims on the impaler you look like a fucking baller shot caller. 20 inch rims on the Impala. You look

like Raffi on Stotson. I look like a badass right? Damn. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about there. Let's go over to Anthony and 20 inch blades on the Impala rims. Is that Sean Price Luke or no, no, no, that's that's what's his face. That's Bushwick

Bill. No, no, he is from Texas, but it's it's not fat his face that's um uh bushwick bill no no he is from texas but it's uh uh it's not fat pat it's um wanna be a bowler shot cowler 20 inch blades on the empower little troy little troy as mikey looked up for us uh i think bushwick bill was actually from brooklyn luke even though the ghetto boys were from Houston. Oh, right. Fair enough. But, you know, you get the idea. Yeah. This one's from Little Anthony and his wife, V. He says, Hi, MK family. We wanted to send a quick video to express our gratitude for the Donk of the Year nomination and per BC's request, provide a life update.

Happy New Year to our adopted MK family. Take good care. It's Little Anthony and V. let's hear from him luke hey guys hey luke and bc uh you know who we are uh it's anthony and v uh anthony from chicago we wanted to send you a quick video to wish all of you guys a happy new year and an amazing 2023 we also really appreciate you nominating us for donk of the year we didn't win but the nomination itself is amazing and it was so nice meeting you guys back in july bc asked for an update v do you want to tell them what we've been up to we're still engaged still engaged she hasn't rescinded um

her yes yet i cut my hair off a few weeks after Vegas. So happily engaged. We're looking to buy a house in the first quarter of next year. So we're really excited about that. And as promised, we'll be sure to take you guys along for the ride. So thanks again for the nomination. It means so much to us to be a part of this family. And we'll talk to you in the new year.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Dude, that was wholesome as shit, right? That was way too wholesome for this segment. I'm used to elder abuse and Photoshop's of me vaping in a men's room or something. It was a pleasure to meet them in Vegas. One of our greatest fans, the duo there. Not the fake Saul. That is the fake Saul, not the real one.

Shout out to Saul, by the way. Big fan of that guy but no little anthony look that they've from the beginning they've made mk a part of their family journey so congrats again on the engagement did you like how she had the one fit the one uh nail painted red that had the the ring on it and every other finger was painted white luke did you were you down with that i don't know what that means all right maybe the red had it was like was like you know heart maybe it was a representation of love and that's why the ring is on there because little anthony put that ring on there all right could be could be do you think you could take joe rogan in the poster did i go too far with that probably okay okay uh big fan of those guys hey let's go to jp we know jay paquette from mount uniak i think is how they say it over there in nova scotia uh proposal from jay i'm already

married jay but you know i mean you know i don't i don't swap i mean i'm just saying uh proposal with the closest donk of the year race ever. It's time to separate the true legit donks super fans from the others. Sure, we can all mock up graphics, memes, and videos, but how well do you actually know the show? Who has put the time in? It's time to put down your crayons, shut down your AI modules, and close the lid on your guitar case, my fellow donks. Wow, that's a subtweet at Appy, right?

Featured during the live show february 8th morning combat trivia showdown aka donk off for the true legit and undisputed 2022 donk of the year hope you folks will entertain this seeing as we'll have dm Appleton and myself there. It would be pretty epic, says Jay. In the true holiday spirit, I present Bad Morning Combat Santa. Love you guys. Keep up the amazing award-winning show. All right, let's first check out that first one here. He has two memes.

Luke, the first one is the Jeopardy one. Can we slide back there, Long Island Luke? So Luke, his proposal is some form of trivia showdown in London to truly decide the donk of the year. I would ask you if you like that idea, but you have told me before that as much as you love our fans, you actually don't care if they live or die.

True or false? I don't know if I said I care if they live or die, but I feel like Showtime's probably going to say this is a no-no. You know, that's just me thinking out loud. He put Danger Mouse up there, too. Who do you think would actually win this trivia challenge, Luke? Appy or JP?

JP. JP. He looks like he's got, like, psychotic details memorized. Are you down with Luke Trebek here with the vape? R.I.P. Luke? I mean, what are we doing with the vape? And by the way, I've got the vape on backwards put the you got to put the other side in my face but whatever uh let's go to the second meme here uh from jp bad morning combat sand blow it up

jesus with the margaritas yeah i'm feeling these margaritas brian campbell uh this is pretty good mikey appleton fan sub editor more mile that's pretty good too why does mikey look like he sells fucking you know shitty jewelry somewhere in the diamond district i mean what is why does he look like that by the way his uncle does that for a living i bought my wife's engagement ring from shout out to uncle harach yes uh brian factory town dead liver campbell donka oh look at it is that appleton as a baby with me holding him as an elf yeah it's questionable but quality over quantity lads yeah what's the right turns only reference down there luke where next to the uh uncensored sticker uh i don't oh it's luke's christmas oh yeah yeah remember my uh my

and by the way the remote wasn't even that cool it was just a single button it was a fucking single button on a fucking piece of shit remote yeah that's what it was god that is a sad memory jp does not miss when it comes attention to detail luke no it's pretty good I have to admit also bad Santa BC I cannot believe you've not seen it yet yeah I still need to get on that I get a lot of DMs from the donks out there telling me I should

hey let's go to Danger Mouse Luke I'm sure he's going to be upset with us people would argue that he has a right to first of all before I read his message did Danger Mouse get shafted true or false a little maybe I understand I understand the complaints i don't think they're crazy all right here's danger mouse uh i'd like to wish luke the

crew and all the regular mk donks a happy new year not you though campbell after that shitty donk of the year piece you did you can in the words of mr thomas suck my balls i gave you seven months of week after week fan submissions totaling over 100 individual pieces. So many, in fact, I was given my own allotted slot at the end of the fan subs. The donk who gave you your best-selling piece of MK merch, the Hub t-shirt.

Dude, that was a Danger Mouse original? Are you serious? Luke? I didn't realize that, but I guess it is, yeah. I'm the only donk who luke feared to quote from the wednesday show following his drunken live show antics when he heard my name oh god he is gonna kill me all that and i got an honorable mention it's okay though because the mk fans in the chat know who the real donk of the year is and lit up my screen with my name so thanks to all you guys they did go to bat to him, Luke,

in that racist and misogynistic sewer that's called our live chat, the real P1s, Luke. They went to bat for him, right? As for you, Campbell, I was nice to you last year. I don't give you anywhere near the abuse I give Luke. Well, bitch, Campbell, I'm putting you on official notice. Gloves are off, no quarter given. The People's Donk of the Year is coming for you.

Oh yeah. And there's another, here's another money lion winner meme and congratulate gins to Ilya to poor you. Pretty good. Pretty good. You know, Luke,

he brought receipts. BC. I got to say, you got some big ass titties. Yeah. All right. P meatloaf. Oh, you haven't seen fight clubies. Yeah. R.I.P. Meatloaf. Oh,

you haven't seen Fight Club yet. Unbelievable. Unbelievably. Yeah, I do. I've got a nice rack there, Luke. I will say this.

It was, I love our people so much. It was really hard to narrow to five nominations. And we had actually some like spirited debates about that, about who should be in, who should be out. And, and I,

I apparently missed Alan W's artwork until i was reminded of that so i forgot that danger mouse did do the uh the the uh the mk hub idea as well luke that actually became a shirt that you can still buy there's the gross link below which is our best seller in the history of our merch website which says a lot about our friggin fans uh but you know i'm the ringleader luke so i gotta stand up and own this yeah i guess if i could extend it to a sixth nomination luke the people have spoken i got it wrong all right danger mouse for life dm you know you know maybe maybe i was a victim of of of you know he didn't have his best stuff at the end of the year and i I forgot, you know? So maybe that's on him, Luke. A lot happened last year, and we washed a lot of it away with Delta-8 gummies, so let's just be mindful of that.

We did our own version of sports washing on a regular basis. Let's go to Jesse. Hey, lads, it's a P1 from New Zealand. Been meaning to send in a fan sub for a long time. Finally got around to it, inspired by the great film shot here in New Zealand. Love the show. Congrats on all your success, you old wash cucks. Much love. It's Jesse.

Wow, Luke, look at this lord of the vape. We even got Chuck involved. And they got Alien Ioana in there, too. Oh, God. Yeah, that's pretty good. I like how Mendenhall's back there. Is that Jake Paul, too, next to Dana? Oh, it looks that way.

But I got to say, I'm trying to take away the vape jokes, trying to clean my life up. Well, let's not ever let the jokes die. Let's just prevent you from dying. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Let's keep Jesse in our thoughts, too.

Well done, sir. Let's move on here to the aforementioned Alan W. Happy New Year's, gentlemen. I've decided to go arting over the New Year weekend. The first one is a post-impressionist piece dubbed Lucas Van Gah. Jesus, that looks good. That does look real good.

I'm not nearly that handsome. You know what this is? They put the Van Gogh thing, they put the Van Gogh painting behind, which is what,ry night whatever one that is they put it behind uh the lensa app you ever use the lensa app uh no so everyone was paying they had to pay like 10 bucks and you could use this app and an ai uh like engine would like render you like artistic work with your likeness in it. And I'm guessing he paid for that.

That's well done. His second one is a surrealist piece dubbed BC Dali Inception. Now that is fucking awesome. Damn, dude. Salvador Dali had like, and he got butterflies and mariposas on the end of that shit. Look, dude, your eyes look like you are in a fucking emo band in the 90s or some shit. I don't know what's happening there.

And I'm having a great hair day too, right? Yeah, your hair is looking. I think they used the lens app for that one too. I mean, I could be a member of The Cure looking like this. Yeah, boys don't cry. Yeah. Boys don't cry. I mean, Friday's on.

Yeah, okay. Our third one is Brian Lisa's smile. He loves his gas station junk food food but he knows his fatty liver is rebelling this is this is very true oh it was a mona lisa's smile uh brian lisa yeah yeah oh that is fucking awesome that is great dude my daughter discovered cheetos the other day she discovered cheetos and now it's all she wants to eat is cheetos yeah yeah she's um yeah yeah i mean they're great luke i don't want to make any cheeto finger weird jokes or get the reddits after us but they're fantastic cheetos

they are delicious yeah they are they are all right luke finally we've got david a you know him as the co as for at least for now the co-donk of the year for 2022 but we're still revisiting ideas uh david app says, hi guys, following Friday's award show, I felt you may be interested to know the rollercoaster of emotions I went through. At first I was ecstatic as evidenced by my victory speech. So look, apparently he said in a victory speech, which we, I don't know, there was a failure of communication. We didn't read it. All right. But he says, however, when it started to sink in, I realized I was a mere co-donk. I'd been betrayed.

Man, people hate me. Forget the 10-point must system. You boys are giving out 10-10s now. Added to that, your blatant snub of Danger Mouse led to a near riot in the MK chat, taking the shine off my victory. But there is still hope. I accept the challenge of a donk off with JP. And why not Danger Mouse by popular demand as well

on February 8th. But as you'll see here, you boys nearly lost me. Here is a gentle reminder of why I should have walked away with the title on my own. The choice of song is a private joke between me and the seven other dogs who listened to BC's live chat. Okay. That was a good one. Let's hear the video. Here we go. Why be sad if you don't know the value? It ain't no use to look at Luke and cry Be sad if he's not listening anyhow I wish there was something you could do or save me To try and bring me back to MK

But Luke never answers my DMs anyway So don't think twice, make me shy And it ain't no use saying Danger Mouse does great moves Just after leaving him up close I don't think he's a worthy successor to Web Screams But little Anthony, were you guys pissed? I once loved a podcast, an award

winner, I'm told But I didn't win outright, so I turned into Riddick Bowe I gave you my art, you threw it back in my art hole Turned into a boat I gave you my archie Threw it back in my armhole Don't think twice

You've heard the show I am content to be The co-donk every year I ain't done with the show yet How long is this? I thought so hard on moving on But I can't share my title With JP and Dawn So on February the 8th I'm gonna be coming on

Just get ready Sorry, JP, Dawn, Danger mouse it's just business uh look luke although you lamented about the length of it uh that's damn that's brilliant i mean that is so good it's pretty pretty good it's pretty good i'll have to admit a little long like you said you know gonna tighten it up a little bit there but it was clever i don't know if this means our 2023 fan sub you know submissions which play do play a big part in the in the donk of the year voting i don't know if that means we're already on fire to start the year or maybe this competition is still going, Luke.

Are you willing to take part in any form of this, even if we can't do it at the live show, Luke? Yeah, of course. Again, for the live show stuff, it's not my call. That's a Showtime call. Well, to be fair, we only have 90 minutes on the live show.

We're expecting to present some quality guests and it's going to be hard to make everything work and we're, we're expecting to present some, some quality guests and, and, uh, it's going to be hard to, to make everything work. And we're still in the planning stages in many ways, but, uh, we'll figure it out. And, uh, man, I, dude, I hate ties too. I hate 10, 10 rounds. I hate when people kiss their sister, Luke, especially open mouth. But if these guys just showed you today again, why they are who they are and yes i was wrong on on danger mouse so much love out to him and alan w and everyone else but um now when he says i'm coming on february 8th that i do i'm a little fearful of that coming out of appy's mouth right yeah

he is a wild card you know but i guess if he can make it across borders. So that should be the test. For anybody that has misgivings about Appy, if he could get through customs, all right, then he's cleared by me, right? Yeah, basically. If Interpol doesn't stop you, I guess you're okay. Yeah. Carmen Sandiego over here, Luke.

That's all the live, sorry, the fan subs I've got. MorningCombat at gmail.com if you want to take part. Mikey Mormel will be your censor. Because, Luke, as always, JP sent other stuff, and they had to ban that shit because it was so aggressive. It was like the movie Porky's mixed with the UFC strongweight division. Oh, I saw it. I saw it.

Not great. Not great. Not great. So JP gets remembered as this wholesome husband, which I'm sure he is. Great guy. But, you know, that guy can go in the gutter too, like Appy can, to get good content as well. So thank you guys for being our P1s. We love you all very much.

Don't kill us. All right. Well, there you have it. That was today's show in Epic One, just the same. BC is going to be, are you flying down today? What are you doing? Yeah, I'll be flying down at some point this calendar day, Luke, and tomorrow morning, or tomorrow, was it afternoon?

No, I think I just got a text. Tomorrow morning, I think we're going to do fighter meetings at like 9 in the morning. Okay, yeah, you don't have to share our itinerary publicly. I was basically saying there was already an announced scheduled time for tomorrow's weigh-in that people can watch on the Showtime Sports YouTube channel. That will be you and I hosting. I'm not the weigh-in, excuse me, the press conference,

final press conference, Gervonta Davis, Hector Luis Garcia, Blue Tennis, you know, everybody on this card, Demetrius Andrade across the board. So yeah, Luke, hopefully we'll get some MK turnout here and we'll continue banging the drum for these very good fights. But, you know, we dealt with a lot of hard topics today, Luke. Not everybody's going to agree, and that's fine. But I hope people think about some things, okay? You really got to look inward. All right. I hope they do as well. Reminder, of course, if you see all the things you said there,

Showtime.com slash PPV for the pay-per-view. But Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial if you want to give it a go. You get your first six months for three ninety nine right there. Of course, Morning Combat dot store for the merch house, so to speak. Got tons of good stuff there as well. Morning Combat at Gmail dot com is the place to reach us, reach the show for anything that might be valuable that you need to reach the show for, whether it's a dead wrong or anything else.

You will see BC and I tomorrow at the press conference. We will be there. You can catch it on the Showtime YouTube channel. We'll be there. Showtime Sports, I believe. We'll be there for that. And yeah, and then of course, MK Live from DC on Friday. For Brian Campbell, for Malka, for CBS Sports and Showtime,

I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you guys tomorrow. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.