MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dana White On Lightweight Title | UFC Fight Island | Anthony Joshua | Ep. 103

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

On the newest MK, Luke and Brian are back to talk all things combat sports including the news that the UFC will have limited attendance at UFC Fight Island events. Plus, the boys discuss Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship's recently announced 'Knucklemania' event and Mike Perry's son being born. Also, Anthony Joshua says he has 5 more years of boxing left, what should we make of that? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. 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. Buggery, buggery, donks. Yes, it is Friday. You know what that means. BC running the show. This is Morning Combat. Friday, January 8th, the 2021. In your face hole, Brian Campbell coming at you, CBS Sports. You know what I'm saying, right? This is the is the life this is what I do this is my passion I have a partner in crime though three days

a week live and this might be the best day because BC on the controls the orange background no J let me bring in a hairy bastard the nation's finest from the nation's capital he's the best in the world at what he does his name is Luke Thomas thomas of cbs

sports luke it's a crazy time to be alive i appreciate the the the seria the seriosity that you put forth you put a good faith effort on your thursday live chat to solve the world's problems and i appreciate that how are you holding Just what? Two blocks away from the craziness there in D.C. Well, not quite two blocks. More like two miles. But remember on Wednesday, I even said on the show, I was like, oh, today's going to be a crazy day. And even I didn't think it was going to be as crazy as it was.

But mercifully. I thought you were Luke Fauci-ing me when you said that. I'm like, oh, how crazy is it going to get, Luke? Okay, really? Pretty fucking crazy, it turns out. But all's well that ends well i guess so uh everything's fine i think i'm good i'm happy to be doing the show today i can say the latest reports though is the guy with the with the horns on was smearing poop

on the walls according to the orlando sentinel inside yeah apparently they call him the q anon shaman i guarantee you he's an mma fan that I've blocked on Twitter at some point. So, you know, it's close to home. Well, you know, it certainly wasn't easy in D.C., but Luke and B.C. certainly making it look easy today. Plenty of headlines coming your way in the world of combat sports, some fun segments. It's Friday, right?

There's nothing to preview for this weekend, but take your pants off just the same. By the way, very quickly, very quickly, BC, speaking of taking your pants off, you fucking no-sold it, but I have to give a shout-out to all of the commenters on your video interview with PVZ. All of them are about what a low-key,

maybe even high-key horndog you are. They were hilarious, and I was guffawing as I was reading them. A couple of them were correct. When she did use the word tripod, it was very hard to not break down and be like, well, yeah, well, indeed. Indeed. All right, then. Nice fighter.

Great guest on our show. More on that to come. Here's the deal on this show, though. It's morning combat. It's the best thing going in your life. You know what you should be doing in your life if you live in the lower 48? Parading around in our merch. So please, head on over to store.show.com Put on this little bit of a dad hat here.

Get a nice it's cold as balls out there. Get a nice beanie here for your Uncle Felipe everyone in your life. Luke, you wear that green hoodie almost as much as my wife does. I do. Also, I still have not received my All the Smoke jersey

or hoodie, whatever, that Showtime swears is coming. I'm beginning to think that they're playing games with my emotions, BC. And notice Bellator did not send you any merch. Just saying. Just saying right there. Speaking of Showtime, folks, there's no other place you'd want to be, right?

You need that app on your smart TV. How about you try it for 30 days for free? Go to Showtime.com. Here's what you're getting. Big time Showtime championship boxing, of course, as the fights are coming together, about to be rolled out for this year. You get great movies. You get great docs. You got to check out that comedy store doc, Luke Luke Thomas included Brendan Schaub showing up in that doc

he's a full time professional comedian Luke why wouldn't he right you can do your bits and skits we can do the show whenever you're ready I don't have any kibbles or bits Luke bits and skits BC is your new name

or you can as Luke would say go F yourself if you don't like Showtime. So there's that. Also, please like this video. Subscribe to what we do here because we're coming. We're coming. We're coming. Believe me. And if you thought 2020 was a, you know, you know what I'm saying?

2021, there's going to be some violations going on. Okay. So shout out to Luke. Shout out to MK. Shout out to Kalo. I mean, the finest. Luke, if you're going to drink hemp-infused seltzer, you got to drink Kalo. Am I right?

If you're going to drink hemp-infused seltzer, yes, you have to drink Kalo. I drink this stuff all day, Luke. All damn day. What does it do for you? It makes me feel really happy. You know? I don't believe that. I love the taste, too.

Love the taste. All right. All right, Luke. Maybe we should get into the show a bit, right? Do you have any weekend plans? Look, this may be the last weekend where there's no major fight for as far as we know, right? This is like the last time. You want to clean out the garage?

You want to, you know, what are you doing this weekend? I haven't seen my dad in months. We missed Thanksgiving. We missed Christmas. We missed his 80th birthday. So I COVID tested up and hopefully that, you know, I didn't quarantine, but, you know, I haven't been out since then. I'm going to see my dad tomorrow.

So I take my daughter to go see him. That's about it. Other than that, probably, I don't know, normal living. You? What would a conversation for five minutes between your dad and i sound like uh i don't think he could last five minutes with you before just walking off you know how my brother no sold you with the dms my dad would do that in real life all right all right thank you thank you very much me and the history of my life with

the thomases uh there you go right there uh That's all we got for crap to start off. Let's get into the headlines. There are plenty of them across boxing. I know your favorite sport listeners, viewers, and MMA. And we start in boxing here. This kind of came out of nowhere yesterday on Mike Tyson's Hot Boxing Podcast. He had Jeremy Piven, the fine actor, on. And he also had one young Ryan Garcia.

And, Luke, I didn't even talk to you about this, but this got weird and crazy really quick because Ryguy showed up in a bow tie. He was talking to Lil' J, Lil' Junk, about our guy Gervonta Tank Davis. And you know what Mike Tyson said? Get on the phone. Get Tank. Let's do this thing. We've got a little bit of tape I hear in my ear.

Can we throw to it, Maniche? Anybody who steps in that ring to me, they will go down. I got Tank on the phone. You want him? Yeah, Tank. Oh, my God. I love you. This nigga talking mad shit over here, Tank.

Look at this nigga, Tank. Two rounds, baby. Two rounds. Two rounds. You're going to sleep. Maybe the listeners can hear this. I don't know. He got jumped by somebody that can't even hit.

Oh, don't worry. You can, hey. Hit me with that shot. You're going to need a stairmaster, boy. Yes. If I would have hit him, you know I would have killed him after that. Hey, key word. Key word.

Would have. If. Can your next fight be with this nigga, man? Talk to the world tank. Yeah! I'm gonna fight him next. I'm not gonna fight no nothing. Fight him next. You're gonna fight all shit the whole world man.

It's set in stone now baby. Luke so if you didn't hear I think people heard that but the quick summation is Ryguy was talking ass. Mike dropped the N word a ton talking about Ryguy, but in the end, Tank Davis said, yes, I want that fight next. Garcia predicts a second round knockout. He talked a lot of game about his five-inch height advantage.

Luke, do you have any kind of confidence here? And let me just say, after this interview, Tank Davis went on the LESecBack ESN News and said and said yes i want that fight next do you have any confidence we get this in 2021 no of course not don't be stupid you know full well we're not getting this fight anytime soon we'll get something close to it and then afterwards they'll still be doing this game uh where they just keep the audience stringing along i do think think, like, we went over this a bit before. I do think eventually these guys are going to fight each other. But, like, the idea that it will be next is crazy.

Although I will say, BC, someone asked me yesterday on the live chat which fight would be more lucrative. Spence versus Crawford, like a bigger pay-per-view. Like, forget everything else, just a bigger pay-per-view. Spence, Crawford, or Garcia versus Tank Davis. BC, my argument was Garcia versus Tank Davis. BC, my argument was Garcia versus Tank Davis. I think Garcia is a bigger known name.

Maybe not a pay-per-view proven draw, but Gervonta has been on pay-per-view. Spence is probably the biggest pay-per-view commodity in terms of the ability of proven drawing power, but I think Garcia is much more popular. I think Davis is right behind him and so

those two together whatever those whatever Spence versus Crawford might mean for boxing I do think Garcia versus Davis is a bigger box office attraction do you agree I do agree and there this is there's a good debate here let's just jump right to it let's go right to it because you brought it up uh Ellie Sackbeck who I love and respect regardless of what you think of him uh when when he was interviewing um Tank after this you know he made a comment that at first you laugh at he goes tank look i think if you guys fought next and you did it on pay-per-view it would do five million pay-per-view buys now look luke when you hear that you're like good god i mean you know connor floyd did 4.4 right you know uh manny and manny and floyd did like reportedly 4.4, right? You know, Manny and Floyd did like reportedly 4.6.

So slow the roll there. But what Ellie's point was, was that Ryan Garcia has 7.8 million Instagram followers. We don't see that from a fighter. Tank has, you know, when you add up his social medias in the low millions, and Floyd Mayweather, who is Tank's promoter, and, you know, certainly right now has a big imprint on everything Tank is doing, has an obscene amount of Instagram followers. So, Luke, the idea of where we're at in their rise, meaning Ryguy's never been on pay-per-view yet.

Tank's had a strong debut, not overwhelming, but strong in that Leo Santa Cruz one to show you that there's a bright future. This was the right time to send them there. The thing is that typical boxing climb the ladder, people might look at this and go, they're young. How much are they in people's households? I'm not sure. Maybe it would do 500, 600, 700,000 buys

if it was well promoted. But I do think what Ellie said is interesting. We're not used to having fighters like Ryan Garcia who have eight million instagram followers and are attracting a different kind of non-sports non-boxing audience if this role was rolled out in 2021 when it was a showtime or fox teaming up with the zone and golden boy and making some kind of crazy fight happen what is the legitimate ceiling given the unknown here yeah i mean the the point

is correct which is normally the way in which you climb this ladder a little bit slower you go from you know uh sort of a small let's say show box card to showtime championship boxing to then pay-per-view right you sort of climb the ladder you gain followers along the way you do slowly bigger and bigger podcasts or shows and there's this gradual process but ryan garcia blows all of that up. He's 22 years old. He's got nearly 8 million followers on social media or just one channel. I think he's got like half a million on Twitter, you know, a significant amount, but not huge. And he just jumps the queue totally. I told you this before, dude, it's not scientific, but it is a good kind of shorthand to see who's really popular. On Sundays around, let's say, 3 p.m. East Coast time, 4 p.m., 5 p.m. sometimes,

get on YouTube and look on their trending page and see what's up there. And for Ryan Garcia to have three videos, plus Devin Haney to have one, plus Luke Campbell to have one, all as a function of the win that Garcia had over Luke Campbell, right? So it was giving life to all these different versions of it. For all of them to be in the top 10, top 15 trending, and for him to be number one with like seven, eight million views, dude, that's only what UFC A-listers pull. That's only what like the pay-per-view A-side pulls in UFC.

Nothing short of that ever comes close. So for me, I'm not saying that means, oh, he's going to draw like Conor McGregor or John Jones versus Cormier. I'm not saying that. I think you're right. Four, five, six, maybe even 700,000 is possible. If they booked it, if they promoted it right, if they did a tour to promote it right, the whole nine yards, yes, I think it could be huge. But the idea that Garcia has to wait his turn, get on a TV first, then be the co-main on a pay-per-view, I don't think you have to do that. If you wanted to, under the right circumstances,

put him in a main event on pay-per-view, under the right circumstances, BC, he's ready to draw now. I would really want to see this experiment play out. Not only do I want this fight next, I think it would be great for boxing to capitalize on the recent momentum of both and do it now rather than the traditional boxing get uh imprint of well they're on different sides of the line let's slowly build to it two and a half years from now no f that if we did it now five million ellie's thing's not gonna happen but could it do a million and a half could we be overwhelmed and surprised luke by what having a large jake paul

like following only as you pointed out multiple times ryan garcia is a professional jake paul he's an actual really great fighter on top of that he just happens to have a very large self-made audience could that equal more business than we ever imagined now it's it's worth the thought and we don't i still think don't you think a million and a half is high i think if you hit a million that would be amazing it's real high in fact you know you can name the fights that have reached a million and a half and you're you're gonna you know you're gonna get to the end of your fingers pretty quickly right it's it's it's like floyd and manny's biggest ones in a couple tyson fights and that's it so it's certainly not a uh easy to

do i'm just saying here Tank already was a guy we were praising for bringing in a younger urban market crossing over into hip-hop having celebrities showing up wherever he goes you mix that with what Ryan Garcia is doing and the momentum both have uh it's an interesting idea now let's let's end it by saying is it realistic though well here's here's the thing. Knowing boxing's recent strategies, it's probably not going to happen this year. But Luke, here's what we always say about fighters getting a chance to talk about their next big foe in boxing. When you get that chance, we kind of ripped Errol Spence after he beat Danny Garcia. He didn't grab the mic and say,

Terrence Crawford, where are you at? You're taking everything I've worked for. He didn't do that, and we kind of got on him for it because he did the typical boxing thing, which is to be, you know, he's got to come to me. Who's he? That kind of crap. You want young fighters to do this. You want Ryan Garcia to go on the damn Mike Tyson show,

look into the camera and say, Tank, you're too ugly to be champion. I'm like Muhammad Ali, which is what he said said by the way and um i wonder if that changes things because that's something we even criticized manny and floyd during the five-year soap opera we went through then which is we're not hearing enough of those two saying screw the promotion screw the network screw any hurdle between us i want to fight you you want to fight me make it happen luke i do believe if more fighters acted like this the fights would happen because you have to look at promoters and advisors and networks as your employees they're working for you if you're a big time star rather than the other way

around maybe you know we'd be naive i think given boxing's recent history, to think this could happen this calendar year. But you did just hear Tank get called out on a giant platform and called really bad names, and he said, I want it next. Can a man be as good as his word? Can Tank Davis go to Al Heyman or Steven Espinosa or all of the above and say, I don't care, make it work, and we just do that? Is that possible, Luke? Possible, yes.

I mean, Al Heyman, endlessly powerful. Showtime, obviously, disclosure, we work for them. But still a big viable player in the boxing world. I think they could find a way to work with DAZN if there was really that kind of effort behind it. The question is, is there really that kind of effort behind it? I will say that you're right. I will always, always, always prefer what we got with Tank Davis and Ryan over what we got

with Spence and Crawford, which is, you know, I don't know. They're not on my level. We'll just see what happens. Or even, you know, Anthony Joshua, you know, whatever the fans want, whatever the fans want. Motherfucker, you know what the fans want. Stop playing games. You know exactly what they want. And so, you know, if in the end it doesn't result in anything in any kind of meaningful way, I guess it's six one way, half a dozen the other. But I tend to think, BC, over time, you got to do the kind of thing that gets people interested in watching those fights. Not just the big winning, but Chael Sonnen did a pretty good job of both demeaning his opponents and picking fights with people who you thought were better than him. So at least you thought, wow, he's got a huge challenge in front of himself. Can he

actually do it? By Garcia and Tank going after each other, yes, they're both attacking one another, but they're both signaling to the audience that this is a foe that you need to see me overcome. This is a foe worth taking seriously. This is a foe worth putting down some money for when this fight really eventually gets made. Now, when that will happen, your guess is as good as mine, but I would always, always, always prefer that to the alternative of I'm going to secure the leverage in my negotiating position for a fight that will get made far too late. Man, fuck that. Have these guys go at each other. I loved it. Anybody watching this, fuck that. And if you're watching this and you're an MMA fan,

you're saying, where's the timestamp so I can skip ahead because I'm sick of talking about fights that probably won't happen. Let's talk about fights that will happen like Conor Dustin. Here's what I'll say to that. If you're boxing right now and you're a power that be, you have a chance with these four kings, as we mentioned, or throw Shakur Stevenson in there. We should call them the four princes.

That's what they are right now. They're still princes. They're not quite kings. You making a reference to, what's that awful band? I don't know. I want to princes that adore you. Oh, Spin Doctors. Spin Doctors.

God, people fell for them in the pop grunge run. They were really watered down. Believe me. Will I jam out to them on XM and the car? Maybe, but that's another topic. The whole point here, Luke, is we got five foundational future pillars. If they don't fight each other soon, it's not going to matter. This gives boxing a chance to say F the Manny Mayweather era

where we had to go through these hoops. Let's start doing it now. Let's have these guys fight Let's start doing it now. Let's make, let's have these guys fight each other round robin now. Let's give the power back to the fighters. That's an injection into the sport, Luke, that could have such huge exponential growth. But you know how boxing is. It's a bunch of greedy cooks in their own kitchens in a lot of way, hoping that, you know, hoping that somebody comes from across the street into their kitchen and doing it their way. I want it that way, the other way, Backstreet Boys, okay?

I want it the MMA way. So maybe this is the beginning. Tank, Ryguy, you're watching this? Let's do this, okay? You want me to promote this? I'll promote it. Let's do it, okay? Hashtag, let's do it.

All right. Fired up to start here, Luke, okay? Your thoughts on Mike Tyson dropping the N-word a lot? Nothing? We probably should have warned the viewers that he was going to do that, but certainly a time machine is not available at this point. All right, I'm not going to tell him to stop, but it was unsettling. We move on to our second topic of the week, Luke.

UFC announcing, this is very interesting, given our bet, our Dr. Luke Fauci bet, that BC said February 1st 2021 we would have full arenas in combat sports you know i i have come to look a little bit like a jackass for for being that optimistic against your constant pessimism but here's what ufc has announced those three fight island cards it's going to kick off their return starting next week, January 16th. It's going to have limited attendance, Luke, inside the Etihad Arena. Yeah, Etihad Arena.

There's a bunch of Etihad arenas all over, or stadiums and shit. Arsenal plays in an Etihad, but yes, Etihad. I saw a tweet from my favorite Canadian journalist, Aaron Bronstetter, who said tickets for UFC 257 went on sale on the Etihad website. They're already sold out, priced between $200 and $1,300. Luke, how many people will they put inside this arena, and how close are we really at, given what we've seen in boxing with the 10,000 to 15,000, to see this on a regular basis,

full arenas, and it being safe to do so? Full arenas, I just don't, I mean, I still have no idea what that's going to look like because, you know, vaccine rollout is underway, but it's uneven country to country. It's a disaster in this one. It's unbelievably slow. So I don't, I have no idea what it's going to look like. Certainly not here. Other parts of the world probably going to have that done a little bit quicker but um you know will you have low enough community transmission to have you know the safety in place to have a fuller i mean i just don't know but what i can say is this kind of thing is obviously already pretty doable in fact ufc might have been first back during the pandemic

but they're actually one of the last ones which i think was actually pretty prudent on their part i don't say it in a pejorative way but they're one of the last ones, which I think was actually pretty prudent on their part. I don't say it in a pejorative way, but they're one of the last ones to get back to doing this kind of thing, which is have a giant arena and then a relatively small control crowd. You mentioned Aaron Bronstetter. He also posted some of the rules that are in place. I mean, just to get to Abu Dhabi, you're probably going to have to have a million health screens and COVID tests. In fact, to get into the arena, and this is the first I've seen of this, not only do you have to have a mask, which I don't think the mask thing is going to really work, but what I will say is you have to have a COVID test, a PCR test, not an antibody one. So this means up the brain swab or back of the throat where

they're actually trying to test you for, do you have that shit in your body right now as an active sort of virus. And it has to be 48 hours current, and you have to bring it with you to the stadium. If you don't have it, you can't get in. I got to say, you know, listen, I'm not a big fan of these shows where there are giant stadiums and small crowds because people just tend to just ignore the rules no matter what. So it's not my favorite. But the UFC, I'll give them them credit is doing it better than I've seen anyone else do it by virtue or maybe it's Abu Dhabi government hard to know but this UFC show is at a bare minimum requiring a greater health screen than the other stadium shows

including NFL for example than I've ever seen so if you're're going to do it and it's legal, this seems about the best way you can given the circumstances. Yeah, there's a long list of rules that you mentioned that Brownsteader tweeted out. Some of them were all contactless payment for drinks and food and you have to order from your seat and they'll come and deliver it to you. By the way, do you use Google or Apple Pay? I have used Apple Pay on my phone before. I use it all the time now.

It's actually pretty handy. I like it. Yeah, I had forgotten my wallet once on the way down to the Orchids of Combat for when we used to do the show, Luke, back in March before we shut down. The last episode was the first time I downloaded it and tried it. It was great, except for the subway machines at the World Trade Center didn't take those, Luke. So I had to have a cop pay for me. So shout out to the finest of this nation.

All right. Fun. Yeah, thank you. Luke, involved in this is they're going to pull this off, which is great. And we were mentioning the cards that were going to kick this off, right? The 16th, which is going to be on ABC with Max Holloway, that Wednesday morning one with Chiesa in the main event, and then obviously that Saturday one following with UFC 257.

We saw some announcements break out with the cards. They seemed better than we were saying at the time. Did you get a chance to look at these? Well, the Cater versus Holloway card is not money, but I did not see the other one. I want to pause you on that. Here's the main card for the Cater-Holloway. Cater-Holloway, your main event.

Carlos Condit, Matt Brown, your co-main. Ponzinibbio's comeback against Li Jianling. Joaquin Buckley's fight against Alessio DiCirico. And then Poonali Soriano going to go in there against fellow contender series guy Dusko Todorovic. You got Phil Dawes in the preliminary card main event. I don't hate this, Luke. Phil Hawes, yeah.

Yes, that's better. Condor Brown as your co-main is good. The return of Santiago Ponzinibbio against the Leech. Punele Soriano throws big punches. So there's some interesting parts around it. The reason we were kind of poo-pooing it was the way it was written previously had Omari Akhmetov versus Tom Breeze as your co-main.

And I was like, well, that's not awesome. But now it's been relegated to the preliminary card, so no big deal. The Kiesa Neil Magny card, which will be the Wednesday morning one, that's far less loaded, Luke. Far less loaded. You're going to get Worley Alves against Munir Lazay in the main event.

Lazay. Lazay. He's actually a pretty good prospect. I mean, that's great. But you got Isaac Villanueva and Vinicius Mordeda. Roxanne Modafari's fight against Viviana Rujo. These are not fights, Luke, that are going to move too many needles, including the one I'm sitting on.

No. You do get Danger Matt Schnell against Tyson, including the one I'm sitting on? No. You do get Danger Matt Schnell against Tyson Nam on the prelims. That's pretty good. Mike Davis is back, who, by the way, is a tremendous athlete. He's back as well. And then, oh, here's the one. The man with the best traps in all of MMA, Dalka Lungiambula,

taking on the guy who does the Joker bit, Marcus Perez. Yes. That'll be a fun little fight between weirdos. Luke, we don't have this in the rundown, but I should bring it up while we're talking about the strength of cards. Have you seen how loaded March 6th UFC 259 location to be determined has become now that we have Amanda Nunes, Megan Anderson, Jan Blachowicz, Israel Adesanya, and now Peyotre, Jan, and Aljo added to that card.

Three title fights atop it. And then you also have Rokic against Maheta. You got Joe Benavidez against Askar Askarov. You got Islam Makachev in there against Drew Dober. Tim Elliott's back. This thing's freaking amazing, Luke. Yeah, I mean, there's no way they're not putting this on Fight Island, I feel like. And then they'll have fans at it like they're going to do for 257. They're probably waiting to see how 257 goes.

Did it go smoothly? Were there issues they didn't anticipate? You know, just kicking the tires on it, crossing T's, dotting I's a little bit too, probably along the way. And if it goes well, and I suspect that it will i i've just no doubt in my mind they're going to put that one there because again if you're going to do a show with a limited crowd in the stadium in a pandemic that's the best level of screening i've seen anywhere so why not but luke true or false if that if that main card plays out the way i just

described it that's like uh ufc 200 uh UFC 200 New Year's Eve type of layout, or MSG type of layout. The whole card is amazing. So you mentioned the three title bouts and some other ones as well, but let's just go through them very quickly. You got the Rakic versus Tiago Santos fight, two hammers at 205 pounds.

Yordos Medic, a guy who's a decent standout on the Contender Series versus Alon Cruz. Okay, it's a fine little bout. Randy Costa, Trevin Jones. Fine, whatever. But Benavidez versus Askarov, right? Which, of course, I think was indicated previously. I didn't even mention Dom Cruz.

Right. Dom Cruz versus Casey Kenney. Jake Matthews versus Sean Brady. Makachev, Dober. Elliott, Espinosa. And they may add another one or two along the way. Dude, that is a sick card. Super sick.

And to close and circle back, you had to believe Connor was never going to come back to an empty arena, right? So this had to be in play the whole time. Now they've just figured out how to employ it. Right. You're right. Do we know the number? I thought he would. And maybe if it was a necessity, they would find a way, but they found a way to do it the other way,

and I think it will. Honestly, listen, if they can find ways to do this with a lot less of COVID concerns, I tend to think this will be very, very easy to do, so no problem. And it's not a surprise that when they did try to bring Conor back, they did it at Fight Island where you have to believe the site fees, Luke, are going to attempt to make up for the lack of crowd. It's got to be.

They've got to be throwing insane money. I mean, anybody who can get a Conor McGregor fight, they're paying for it. As a consumer, site, whatever, you're going to have to cough up some cash for that. That's what it is. All right, Luke, really troubling news that came out in the last 24 hours from the UFC involving Bantamweight Erwin Rivera. He was arrested Thursday on two counts of attempted murder

against his sisters. And here's the creepy details. This took place in Boynton Beach, Florida. He stabbed his 22-year-old and 33-year-old sisters while they were sleeping and was quoted as saying he did it because it became his purpose after being told to do so by a quote higher power luke this is not a high profile name but this is as uh you know i mean this is as scary warm

machine ray caruth style as we've seen in the UFC side of things. How do you react to this, Luke? Good God. I don't, except to say he obviously is deeply and profoundly, quite literally, and I'm not saying this as like an insult, he is psychotically troubled, right? And I saw the UFC statement. I actually thought their statement was pretty good.

They didn't cut him. What they said was, you know, this is serious and troubling. We're not offering about it this time. We are in contact with his management as well as, you know, law enforcement to see what's going to happen and what they're going to do. And that they were interested in him getting, you know, I think a psychological evaluation and treatment. Now, that treatment might include some time of incarceration. I don't exactly know what's going to happen next. I don't think anybody else does.

But when you're saying things like that, and there was a news article that indicated he may have had a history of this kind of thing, that maybe at times he was able to put at bay through medication or who knows. That's a real breakdown of someone's mind. And if you're stabbing people and you're a trained, high-level MMA fighter, only bad things can happen. So I'm glad to hear his sisters are, I guess, they're okay. They're in critical and stable condition. They didn't die.

With stab wounds all over their body, though, including their head. I mean, this was really bad. This was intent, obviously, to commit murder. And I don't, you know, like he wasn't, 31 years old, wasn't a name that jumped out to me. The Beast, 10-6 record overall, most recently lost in September, a split decision to Andre Ewell. He's split wins and losses the last four, Luke.

I don't remember this guy fighting. You? Prelim card, yeah, but not especially a standout. Good fighter, not great. Still, if you're fighting in the UFC, you're doing something right for the most part, and that is a troubling, troubling, troubling thing to hear. Yeah. His last tweet, by the way, unrelated, though, was putting up the 100s emoji in favor of Dana White's video slashing the media.

As I mentioned, unrelated. So maybe he hates Brian Campbell. Who knows? Speaking of that video real quick, Luke, do you have any response to the fact that Dana has taken it down on Twitter? A lot of buzz the last couple of days on that. Yeah, I don't know what to make of that i mean it was full of lies and total half-truths convincing only to people who are completely uninterested in anything even resembling facts or what the truth is of a situation or things that actually matter in the real world so i'm glad to see that it's gone although this point doesn't really matter the

damage is sort of done but it is curious about why that's down i don't i don't quite know what to make of that did you see the timing we found out about it right after the folks rushed the capitol are you gonna connect yeah i mean i mean maybe there's some kind of connection where it's like you put stuff out like this you know and um maybe he's like i can't back trump any longer i gotta get out of this maybe that i don't think it's gonna do with trump it's like, I can't back Trump any longer. I got to get out of this. I don't think it's anything to do with Trump. It's like, dude, you keep putting stuff out like this. I think for the most part, we're fine. But somebody is going to attack a reporter if this kind of thing is kept up. Fomenting deep animosity towards the media.

Again, I don't think that it will result in anything per se right now. But a sustained campaign of it over time probably would so probably in their best interest to err on the side of caution and uh even though the damage is done at this point not exacerbating tensions further in hindsight did mark raymundi deserve more by maybe being added to that video because he asked the original legitimate question when the crowd booed him and so did aaron bronstetter aaron bronstetter asked them a question to me like oh you don't care about the coronavirus and you know dan i don't give a fuck about coronavirus uh there was a lot of both of those guys work for their their their uh you

know their their stations their their tv stations that they have yeah but those don't they also like they also put yeah exactly they also push the boundaries uh relative to what other media did even by doing their job for the most part in that case. And so there's a lot of people, myself included, who I would have thought would have been much bigger targets for that kind of stupidity. But I guess not. I guess not, BC. You still unfairly targeted. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Luke, let's roll on with Dana. We got more. He did a Q&A on ESPN,

and I'm not sure if it was on ESPN or UFC social media, but it was with Laura Sanko, and ESPN's Twitter account picked it up. And in that Q&A, Dana was asked about the Conor-Dustin UFC 257 rematch. Will there be a title at stake? He said no, Luke, but he said, quote, probably that the winner of Conor and Dustin will get the next shot at the UFC lightweight title. And Laura

said, look, is this because of your meeting coming up in Abu Dhabi with Habib? And he said yes. So Luke, this isn't a revelation in terms of news, but it's interesting. This should cancel out the idea in theory that if the meeting with habib goes bad for dana and habib sticks to his guns which it seems like he will unless dana

offers him something he can't refuse and vacates the title we just all assumed you'd put a vacant title at stake for connor and dustin but if you don't if you do what dana is teasing that is being done this is almost like a quasi lightweight tournament and what Dana is teasing that is being done, this is almost like a quasi-lightweight tournament. And what I mean by that is you have Conor and Dustin going January 23rd. You got Michael Chandler and Hooker on that same night in the co-main. And you also have, there's rumors that Charles Oliveira looks headed to be fighting Justin Gaethje shortly after. So not a tournament in the sense that winners face off, but you could look at those three fights and say,

maybe the two guys who look the best in winning will get the nod moving forward. Do you take that same summation from Dana's most recent comments? Sort of, but I mean, it's hard to know what the pecking order is. I mean, my view is more it's like, well, isn't this just an interim title fight basically I mean if the winner of this one is either first of all first of all there's still time for them to change their mind on this there there's still time for them to say you know what uh Khabib could

vacate it between now and then like in a very official kind of way and they could just say fuck it we'll just put the title on the line for that it's still possible they could just add I mean they could add the interim title literally whenever they want, right? I don't know that they need to here, but they could, and it wouldn't be that big a deal. But to me, that's sort of the more way I look at it. I look at it less like it's kind of up for grabs. Everyone is starting from a relatively similar position,

and more that this one is very much at the front of the pack. Obviously, Justin Gaethje coming off of a loss. Oliveira surging, but still has a fair amount to prove against the elite of that division, even though he had a tremendous, tremendous win over Tony Ferguson. So to me, it's still a pecking order more than like a meeting in the middle kind of scenario. But it sounds like you think a little bit differently.

I mean, I see the potential here if he's not going to reward that fight. But then again look from the beginning i've said there's no chance ufc 257 main event will go off without any form of title at stake and i even offered up my liver on the black market at some point luke and i think i still stand by that because look dana's obviously got something he's going to offer habib that he believes will crack this stone facade of, I gave my word to my family. And every time Habib has talked publicly since giving his word after the win over Gaethje,

he's stayed the same. I'm retiring. So obviously Dana believes he's got something he's going to offer Luke that's going to change that. But if it doesn't change that, I don't see why the company would not want to give Conor McGregor the the chance to become the champion again isn't that like the best case scenario for them is there a fear for them that poirier would win and they don't want him as champion which wouldn't really make sense poirier is not on the wrong side of history in any form no i don't know why you would model citizen for in terms of fighters oh absolutely and then on top of that you can argue you can argue it right

that conor and dustin are the most deserving at the moment in the pecking order to get that. Look, I know people are going to say, how do you say that about Conor? He fought Cowboy at freaking welterweight and hasn't fought as a lightweight in years. You know, I get that. But still, all things considered, Dustin coming off of that win against Hooker and Conor probably the most deserving out of that group, given that even though Charles Oliver is red hot, he's just getting into that super elite conversation. So I still don't see that fight happening, Luke.

I mean, I think an interim title would make no sense. I don't see that fight happening without the actual vacant on it, unless we just don't know the tricks Dana has up his sleeve to get Habib back in there. Yeah, but I've seen Dana say, I've got tricks up my sleeve and it worked. And then I've seen Dana being like, if we want it, we can get it. And I saw the whole Fedor thing not work either. Dana has a history of failure with elite Russian fighters

who are somewhat wary of continuing to work with him or working with him in the case of Fedor at all. So keep that in mind. This idea that it's a done deal and Dana gets what Dana wants, sometimes that's true. of continuing to work with him or working with him in the case of Fedor at all. So keep that in mind, right? This idea that it's a done deal and Dana gets what Dana wants, sometimes that's true. I'm sure he is very, very persuasive. But he's not, you know, omni-capable of everything all the time.

Some of these guys really have different principles and different views and different things of what they want to do with their life. I will say, though, BC, he's probably got a fighting chance to get it done, number one. Number two, the UFC social media account to promote this fight was DMing people who follow them saying, you know, are you ready for whatever when they fight for the title? The DMs, it was an automated DM, okay, but still, in that automated DM, it had indicated that the fight between Poirier and McGregor was for a title.

I would imagine, you know, is Poirier really... I think even he said to me on For Morning Combat, you know, he just wants some clarity. Is it going to be for one? Is it not going to be for one? Are you going to strip or are you not going to strip? But you have to imagine, Conor doesn't want to fight for nothing. I suspect he wants to fight for some hardware too. So there are a lot of forces in play, yes, to get Habib to fight St. Pierre, which is obviously what he wants, or I should say Dana White wants.

There's also a lot of forces in play to get Habib to give up that title and to have that go to Conor or Dustin or some way to be arranged for the fight. Dude, as far as I'm concerned, Habib's already given up that title. And then when you add in the only logical fight for him to actually come back to would be gsp and doesn't seem to make sense that lightweight only because it doesn't seem any more like gsp is focusing on trying to make that cut it seems more like that's a super fight for the mythical goat title and all that and and i don't know what is there anything dana can offer that we're not thinking of can he offer you know contracts to all of Habib's fighters?

I mean, what the hell? They're already all fighting for the UFC, right? Yeah, it would have to be something like that because, yes, you could offer Habib a ton of money. I'm sure that would be nice, but I bet he's been paid a bunch of money. He will probably be able to make money as a star of Islamic sports in that region, I suspect, for quite some time. I don't think that that's going to be too hard for him to do.

He'll have plenty of offers to make money, but creating some kind of a pipeline to leave a lasting legacy for that region, for all the other fighters who come behind you, some kind of an agreement with that organization he bought and then renamed Guerrilla Fighting Championships or whatever it was, creating some kind of

a lasting legacy beyond just your own accomplishments. Maybe that might be interesting to him. That's certainly something to consider as well. Maybe UFC offers that to be the direct pipeline. Remember. We'll air your fights on Fight Pass, all that stuff. Fedor ultimately didn't work because they didn't want

to co-promote with M1 and fair enough. We talked to Scott Coker. He's got some awesome stories about M1 that are hilarious that he did on our Morning Combat Strike Force Classic show. But the other part was Fedor, I think, also wanted all of his buddies signed. And maybe Dana would have given in to that. And it probably did. Well, Vadummi got in the way a little bit too, right? Vadummi.

I forgot that they called him that. It's so funny hearing coker blast him all these years later but uh yeah but dummy let's get going yeah uh so yeah just put the damn title on the line for that one either way great time to be alive gonna be some lightweight wars coming up all of them are gonna matter in some form anyway uh luke get fired up because february 5th we knew that that was the date for page van zandt's BKFC bare-knuckle debut. We now have the full details surrounding that card. It will be Super Bowl weekend, February 5th, Lakeland, Florida,

which is a very short drive from Tampa where Super Bowl LV will take place. Is that 55, Luke? I've forgotten Roman numeral math. Is that where we're at? Which one? LV, Super Bowl LV. That's 55, correct? I think so.

I don't fucking know. Yeah, F the Romans, right? Come on. I mean, seriously. It's going to take place at the RP Funding Center against Britain Hart. Luke, they're going to call the pay-per-view event Knuckle Mania. Dude, it's Knuckle Mania every time i sign on to red tube uh yeah uh wow all right uh luke uh the pay-per-view card will feature page in the main event johnny

bedford and dat nguyen in the co-main you got chris lieben against quentin henry and look you know we sometimes we make rightful jokes about BKFC. It does deliver. I mean, there's a lot of people that watch those and are like, they're pretty badass because it's just raw, in-your-face, sort of early UFC-style fighting. With Paige on here, do you have any kind of expectations, predictions? It will be Super Bowl weekend.

I don't know if they're going to attract a lot of attention because of that. Do you think this will do well? I am totally uninterested in her and her career, but what I can say is I'm probably on the outside looking in in that sense. I do believe that she is a draw. I do believe that people will care. I do believe they will tune in.

Do we know the price of the pay-per-view? Because that to me is a big deciding factor here. I want to say i saw that it was 30 luc i want to let's assume for the sake of conversation today we could be wrong don't kill us for dead wrong we could be wrong and say it's 30 that to me is probably for a lot of people especially if she gets out there and individually promotes it like she has been a very attractive option for uh for purchasing I really believe that.

I think that that would do something really, really well for them. She is somebody that people have wanted to see. I don't think that the end of her UFC run probably went the way that she had hoped, but we've talked about it before. When someone establishes a real base of popularity, in fighter world anyway, it often takes a long time for that to really erode.

It hasn't been a long time. And there's reason to think that she still has a lot of possibility in terms of winning in her future. So, yeah, I think that, you know, I don't want to put numbers on that. I don't really know what internet pay-per-views. I'll tell you what it is.

I'm on the Fight TV website. It's $39.99 to buy on there, Luke. $40.00 still. That's less than the Jones and Tyson. Granted, that was Jones and Tyson. But still, a very doable price point. It will sell well. I don't know exactly what the number would be,

but I am confident they'll be happy with their returns when all is said and done. It'll be a socially distanced event. It's in Florida. People don't care about much down there. It'll, a ticket starting at $55. No information on how many people will be allowed. Luke,

we did have Paige Van Zandt, which you teased on morning combat this week. All right. BC went into the chair and took on the challenge, Luke. And yeah, we did talk about things like nudity. I mean,

it's worth, it's worth a watch. I'm sure Luke, I, I, I was on my best behavior. We do have a little sound bite to tease. If you haven't checked this out yet, when each can we, can you hit it up? What's the biggest misconception about you in your own eyes? Gosh, you know, I think that for a long time, people can consistently ask like, when I'm going to quit or when Hollywood's going to take me or when I'm going to because I have had a lot of success outside of fighting but I think what people don't realize is I'm a fighter first that's where my passion lies fighting is what I do it's my identity and I absolutely love it I am going to continue to take other activities outside

of fighting and just because I can get these things and I can do these things doesn't mean that's taking me out of fighting. It just means that I get to do other opportunities that other people don't get to do. And, um, it's exciting. It's a big deal. So I think that obviously now with this transition, people, I think we'll see that I'm in fighting because I love to fight. Obviously I'm going to because I love to fight.

Obviously, I'm going to the most barbaric known sport of bare knuckle boxing. And I'm not doing that to prove a point to anybody. I'm doing that because I want to. I think it seems badass and it's awesome. Luke, I did want to give her the chance to sort of explain herself because, you know, we sort of criticized this decision. She seemed to be doing it more for money than anything and the opportunities that bk fc are giving her uh her family didn't want her to do it i could you know you could see why with the damn bare knuckles but what she said right there is you know the biggest misconception is that that i am a

fighter i do have a fighting heart i'm not in this for celebrity it's the opposite i'm in it because i love to fight do you take that as genuine i know you don't care luke yeah no i really i truly don't care do i take it as genuine i don't know i mean the only way to really know look you know this as well as i do it's one reason why i'm still hesitant to do these interviews with a lot of these guys is because they might say something that they mean and then circumstances change in six months and their priorities change these are still young people you have to imagine. Still their world is changing around them and with it, with different opportunities and different realities, things just begin to shift very quickly. It's hard to have a formed hardcore identity that early into your life, even into the 30s. I mean, it's why, for example,

Nurmagomedov being as sort of hardline as he is, you can understand it, but it's pretty rare, actually. You don't really have those kinds of things until later in life. Anyway, so we'll see. We'll see. There's just no way to know. I think she's probably right that you can do some of these other things, especially depending on the level of competition you're facing, but we won't know until she executes or doesn't on that vision, and that will be the only way to really get a clear sense of things. Yeah, look, you know, a loss, probably disastrous here. But I do respect the gamble she's taken.

She's betting on herself. She believes she was worth a higher price tag. She's going after it. Hey, look, again, you were right in saying a lot of people will care about this. I am very intrigued, even if it's, you know, maybe from like, I hope she doesn't get cut up perspective in checking this out. So it's very interesting. We did get into throat tattoos, Luke, throughout the rest of that interview.

Oh, was she against it? So her husband, Austin Vanderford, the unbeaten Bellator middleweight, he was against her doing bare knuckle. She was as equally against him getting a throat tat, Luke. But now she loves it. She can't imagine her man without it. Well, I have thought about getting throat tats. I'm not there yet, BC, but maybe one day.

You really have? You have not thought about it. Not here, but here and here, yes. Not so much here, but here. Yeah, yeah. All right, Tommy boy. Thank you. Interesting stuff. She did drop one comment that was funny, yeah. All right, Tommy boy. Thank you. Interesting stuff.

She did drop one comment that was funny, Luke. You know those nude pictures they put out. She's like, you know how married couples do. We walk around naked all the time and do our thing. She must be shortly married, just recently married. That's not how married couples get down in the Bible Belt. No comment. No comment, bro. Wow. married just recently married that's not you know that's not how married couples get down in the bible belt you know no comment no comment bro oh wow you're wow all right yeah woo all right let's just let the awkwardness just just just let it simmer like a fart in a closed car thank you thank you all right enjoy knuckle mania luke uh let's close uh with a couple more here

anthony joshua your unified heavyweight champion luke gave an interview to sky sports and said he believes at age 31 right now that he's got five years left ahead of him he's talked about uh the next time you see an olympic cycle come around after the 2021 games that we do for the makeup for last year, that he'll be ready to be on the way out at age 36 and we'll have, you know, completed and achieved all of his big super fights. I mean, there's not a ton to react to that. It does give us an opportunity to sort of look at where we're at in the heavyweight division right now. Also in that story, which boxing scene picked up, Luke, they're in active negotiations, according to that story.

Fury's camp, Joshua's camp, to make a two-fight deal for this calendar year. The Usyk mandatory is still in place if they have to, but if they can pay him the step-aside money, the idea is that the first of the two fights, because of COVID, would be either in saudi arabia or singapore luke so that they can have live crowds um this looks like it's gonna happen this year what's interesting here is that um you know we we all sort of believe fury would win but we gotta let it play out but last time i checked joshua still has the best heavy

weight resume of all of them at the moment, Luke. So what are you asking me? I'm just saying stuff. I'm just putting stuff out there. Are they having full stadium shows in Singapore? That's not my understanding. I was going to wait for your reaction to that. I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, they've done a good job for the most part of controlling the virus, but they've had a series, I believe.

Again, you can dead wrong me if you want, but I believe, I believe that they have had a series of subsequent lockdowns by virtue of, granted also their government is a little more accommodating of lockdowns than ours, but I believe they've had a couple of them since then, since the initial lockdown or the initial spread. So I don't know that Singapore is an option in that sense. It might be an option because you could get some kind of wealthy, I don't know what you would have called it, benefactor or something

to offer up a huge site fee. But I don't think that's a place where you can do 20,000 people sitting in a stadium. I could be wrong about that, but I'm fairly confident that's true. Look, I love to hear that they're working on this fight, trying to make it happen. It's interesting. Do you get any kind of misgiving when you see fighters who are still in their absolute prime talking about a potential end date? Does that sort of push you towards, well, he's already got a quarter of a foot out? Because no one ever holds up. Everyone's always said,

well, I plan on retiring before i get too old no one does it habib's like a complete outlier here luke gsp i still want to know why he walked away luke you know after the hendrix fight did you see dude he was i i told you this i interviewed him in that that hendrix media cycle he was so burned out, uptight, angry, pissed off. He was done. Done with the UFC, done with MMA, done with the industry, done with the rigmarole, done with the media. He was done, done, done. That to me was the least surprising thing of all. But coming back, I guess we can debate that a million times. I don't know.

I don't know how I feel about these retirements. I'm like you. The retirements, they last for like two years. It's always a sabbatical. I always look at retirements as like sabbatical. I'll retire then. I mean, you might have a sabbatical then and then come back a year or two or three later.

Floyd's had a few of them. So I'm less than committed to the idea that these are like lasting things or real things. You know, when you look at the resumes, I do believe, you know, part of, again, what makes the Fury Joshua fight so huge, Luke, is that, you know, the winner is going to be the guy of the heavyweight division now and probably of this era. You know, they probably have the two best resumes going against each other. Fury's resume is much more limited because of the time off and some of the soft touches in between. But, dude, Joshua's got a sneaky great resume. We forget that a lot because we've seen him get knocked out before.

But, you know, the last time the heavyweight division was really good before this was the tail end of, you know, Lennox Lewis' run there and his retirement in 2004. So the winner is sort of the, you know, I mean, Vlad's run there and his retirement in 2004. So the winner is sort of the, the, the, you know, I mean, I, yeah,

Vlad's run right after that, but because Fury beat Vlad and then Joshua did the same, the winner can sort of claim this whole period as theirs. I know that doesn't matter to some people, but it, you know, you look back historically at the chapters in the heavyweight division, it's certainly important to have owned one of those. Um,

this isn't social justice Wednesday, Luke, but we do have a quick throw to a little tweet exchange yesterday between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury. Here's AJ, Luke, getting out early with a great modern-day fighter who will be able to compete in any era, and it was a good excuse to put up shirtless pics of his 6'6 frame. Luke, you got to give him credit.

His body is a wonderland, right? Bro, he is, what do they say? Peeled, yoked,ed jacked bricked up i mean all that shit bro he is he is uh as they said i one time i saw who was it jimmy lang i told you went to a jimmy lang fight at the then patriot center and there was a dude on the undercard whose nickname was cut up from the butt up bro Up. Bro, he is cut up from the butt up. That's up there with Rock Hard Mighty, Mason Menard, and what was the best nickname? Juan Lascano had the Hispanic Causing Panic as his nickname in boxing.

That was fantastic as well. Don't fear me. Fear the consequences. Yes, yes, that is true. Fury gave a nice response response here to aj can we play it here maniche he came back with uh a great question mark my arse you got ktfo'd by a chubby kid who had three weeks notice you are great at looking good on pics i must say wit woo xxx uh hilarious luke that's what he does he's a troll see that's what I'm talking about Tyson Fury understands I'm gonna get out there and do this in your chest in your face constantly until I get the fight that I want that's what I'm talking about BC that's my kind

of boxer that's my kind of that's my kind of dude right there you know my kind of thing is what they're doing talking about a two-fight deal I love that I love that that you know, that means no matter how, you know, if the first one's great or controversial, we get it right back again, supposedly, right after. So we'll see what happens there. Final bit of news, Luke. Shout out to Mike Perry and Coach LaTorre down there in South Florida, Luke. And at Miami Hospital the other day, Coach LaTorre gave birth to Ocean Michael Perry a happy healthy baby above eight pounds uh Luke Mike Perry's been through a lot of bad headlines but including

24 hours before this birth when we saw on his Instagram live still don't know what happened him laying in a hallway bleeding but um Ocean Mike Perry has entered the world luke your thoughts well i wish them nothing but the best because being a parent is as you well know bc it is not easy it can be a delight in fact it usually is but it is often quite difficult um not sure about the name but you know people mispronounce my kid's name every day so what are you gonna do uh and um i hope that mike is okay what the fuck did mike do where he was bleeding like a stuck pig on the floor of some shit i don't know he he ended up putting up a video on his live thing that has been you know a sense evaporated of him in the uh er getting uh getting i don't know there was a

glass door with a with a hole through the glass, and then his ankle or his calf muscle area was badly cut, Luke. By the way, you want some breaking news? Not MMA related, but kind of important. Is it more important than Ocean Michael Perry entering this earth? No more, no less. But as one person enters the world, another one leaves. Legendary Hall of Fame Dodgersmmy lasorda has died

oh i love that man i love that remember his slim fast ads from the 80s and 90s yes yes i do yes i do um i saw him in a really weird sequence uh brett okamoto and i were at uh ufc 199 in la and we got back to the hotel lobby, you know, drunk as a skunk. And I was sloppily looking for some food. Uh, Phil Murphy of ESPN was there as well. And Luke,

I led us into the only place open in the lobby, the pizza, which had some really gross, like left out for a long time slices. And they were like, no, we're going to go back upstairs. I'm like,

dude, I'm going to eat the crap out of this. And you're not going to stop me. Guess who was in line behind me? Tommy LaSorda with a handler. He was getting the same meal I was, Luke, all right? And, you know, tip of the cap there to the old skipper, all right?

God bless him. 93 years old. He had a good run, dude. He had a good run. He had a great run. He had a great run. I still hate him for the 88 dodgers beating the mets but uh what a what a great run that man had all right he was fat the whole time even with the slim fast commercials i know he never really got thin but then he'd take his shirt off and like throw from the mound and that old bastard still had a little bit of mustard on those things you

know what i'm saying like tommy tommy could still do what he needed to do. Yeah, Tommy like wingy. Yes, indeed. All right. Luke, let's transition out of the news cycle there. Shout out to Ocean. We wish you well. Actually, seriously, we know a lot of guys, Luke. Maybe you're one of them who maybe were crusty a-holes for a lot of their life, but they had the first kid, and they figured out what was important,

and they got nice. They important. And they got nice. They got soft. They got referential. Is that a word? Reprehensible. No, they got... Referential towards what? I don't know.

They had perspective on life, Luke. They had a word we used to say in the factory, omerta, Luke. You know what I mean? I've worked in factories. What factories have you worked in? Oh, many, many. So I just grew up with the smoke all around me luke okay uh so you know luke uh i i do hope that ocean changes a man and i hope this kid has a fighting chance all right

luke let's get into uh things we're not always correct about each week and luckily we have plenty of this segment is dubious but we we will see. Let's see. Let's see what they got. We have plenty of trolls who will tell us each time we are, in fact, dead wrong. I was actually doing the song dead wrong. You're doing smoke on the water, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. Fire in the sky, Luke. All right.

That's not a 90s reference but you know just the same uh remember we used to have that little thing at the bottom that was that was a good time yeah dude they gave up on your 90 although you have moved away from like incessant 90s references when we did one day a week you do the 90s references like it was a fucking you know you were breathing but you kind of moved away from it a little bit i think it's it's that the quarantine led me into a vinyl addiction, and now I'm just swallowing 70s records. Look, what a time to be alive in my office with the record player over there and the collection I've built, you know, a couple hundred. Oh, it's so, you know, I got some Boz Skaggs in the mail the other day,

some smooth-ass jazz pop. Oh, it's so good, Luke. You know what I'm saying? It's probably not a good advertisement for my cool level. The only way you could be whiter is if you jumped off your roof without a shirt on into some kind of table full of glass that you broke for no apparent reason. Or if I smeared poop on the walls of the frickin' Capitol. Luke, what is, like, here's the deal, Luke, okay?

You know, I don't tweet out when massive bad things happen. I don't go on Facebook and give my opinion. Like, you know, I'm a little more reserved like that. I certainly have opinions, but, you know, whatever. I'm not looking to get—I mean, how many times, Luke, do you go on Facebook and see your high school classmates getting into brawls over Republican versus Democrat in the comments? It's like, good God.

And certainly I was upset like you were not as upset because you were in it when all that happened but seriously when i saw the tweet that they smeared poop on the wall look that was that was too much for me all right that was dead wrong okay i'll tell you what last thing i'll say on this because i know we want to get to have this dead wrong supposed to be a fun segment but i used to go to this so there's this museum on third street right you guys can look this up you can get on google Maps and you can look it up. You can look up, it's a museum. Actually, BC, if you ever come to DC, I've never been.

I've heard it's a good museum, but it's a museum strictly devoted to the history of the Bible. You get tons of religious groups that go in there all the time. Next door to it is a Gold's Gym. I'm no longer a member there, but I used to go there all the time. And I used to love working out there, BC. For one, it was an okay gym, not great. But it was metro accessible. But the other part was,

I would go home on 3rd Street. 3rd Street, right there, between Independence and Constitution, you can look this up. This is where those guys crossed over. No, BC, hold on. Hear me out for just a second. Hear me out, please.

I'm being serious for just a moment. Especially if I worked out at night, when I drove past, you drove past with the Washington Monument on your left and then the Capitol building on your right. And it was always lit up at night and always looked spectacular and beautiful. It had a grandiosity to it that would kind of, I don't know, inspire you, make you feel warm, make you feel good. It was just cool to see and to know that those you know absolute vermin went in there and did what they did it really is just incredibly you know beyond tragic and bad for national security disheartening to say the least oh god I'm angry Luke I will say

for I didn't go on like an eighth grade field trip to D.C. like everybody else in the East Coast and, you know, did all the things I think I've only been to. One time I was with a family when I was a kid and we were driving. We went to vacation to Busch Gardens. I was like, you know, in the backseat with them and we stopped in D.C. and we went to the Lincoln thing and the damn penis thing. But that's it, Luke. I haven't seen D.C. I don't know your city, right? The only other time I've been there was the 2001 NBA All-Star Game

when I bought fake tickets and got chased away by a scalper because I tried to tell the cops about him, Luke, out of anger, right? And then I had to drive home and I got pulled over in Silver Spring, Maryland by an African-American police officer. Officer, I am white. I do not deserve to be treated this way in this city. No, this is what happened. He pulled me over and his African-American officer said,

why are you here? He's like, this is not safe for you. I'm like, Silver Spring, Maryland, isn't that where Steve Francis is from? What's wrong with this? And he's like, yeah, yeah. Dude, MPDC, they're funny, man, because I'm not saying that they don't have their own biases or failures or something like that.

But anybody who lives here will tell you, if you drive over the bridge and you go into Virginia, dude, those cops there, they'll pull you over for jaywalking. Or not pull you over, but stop you or ticket you. I mean, you go three miles an hour over the speed limit, they will fucking hammer you. I call them the Fairfax County haters. They're just unbelievable fucking hall monitors, snitches, that kind of a person. And MPDC, bro, they don't give a shit if you've got a hostage in the car. They got better things to get to.

This wasn't like reverse racial profiling where he was like, hey, honky, let's mess with you. It was like, this is not a safe area for you, so get out of here. I understand. This is what I'm saying. Like, these dudes, they're all out of fucks to give about what the normal protocol is or whatever they just they got shit to do that's much more important you can absolutely speed in this city and they will not pull you over run a red light they don't give a fuck they just that's not their thing but uh that's funny to hear that's funny to hear the point of my inter my you know interlude here into dc is that the first time I go and really get a taste of it, Luke, and get some culture, some history, it's got to be with you.

Luke, can I hire you as my DC guide here? So what we'll do is when you finally get down here, when we can do it, we'll bring the camera crew. We'll do BC's guide to DC. It'll actually be your guide. You know what I'm saying? I'll show you some stuff, but it's got to be your interpretation of everything. A look in BC, dunking out in DC.

We'll see all the monuments and what's left of the Capitol, but we'll get burgers at Duke's Grocery. Yes. Son, I'll bring my kids up. Son, this is where the man with the bullhorn hat put poop on the wall at the Capitol. This was great. They're not going to let you in that fucking place.

Maybe I'll storm it, Luke, okay? They've already... I guess it's for the inauguration. They've already got a barricade up on 3rd Street now. All the way back to 3rd Street, there's a fucking giant fence that's all the way up. Again, I'm guessing because of what happened in the inauguration. So alreadyuration so already it's just out but dude we'll go get hot dogs at la cosecha we'll go to duke's grocery we'll go get drinks at little miss whiskeys i'll show you that

shit bro i'll show you that i'll show you a good time like there's where i i knocked out the guy and a wife beater on the sidewalk at one time when i was bouncing no but i will say this last story i got married uh near capitol. I got married near Capitol Hill. I got married at the Jefferson Memorial. Really? Yes. That's pretty badass. Yeah, it was pretty cool. $50. $50 was all it cost. There's a rule there where

you have to work through the National Park Service and you can only have it for like two hours and you have to set up. And that includes set up and take down. All of it has to happen in two hours and there's rules about what kind of music you can have but if you do it in enough advance they'll give you a permit so they gave us a permit for it which was fucking awesome and uh later on we had a dinner and then we had an after party at this bar called little miss whiskeys we rented out the top floor and this person came and just tried to bust into our party

and i'll never forget one of the bouncers was this crazy woman, literally picked her up by the collar and then the pants like a cartoon and threw her down the stairs head first. I'd never seen anything quite like it. And she got up like nothing had ever happened. Dude, get this woman. Remember that Best Buy girl who was like blocking out

everyone trying to steal then dana hires her for security you i'm sure that lady is amazing get this lady who tried to jump into my party who got chucked down the flight of stairs because she has the chin of fucking prime mark hunt god damn it it was amazing to watch very similar to that scene in get shorty where travolta throws the Sopranos guy down the stairs, right? And then Delroy Lindo says, you don't know me. It's been so long since I've seen that. You only think you do. So, Luke, yeah, can't wait for DC.

Let's make this happen. I had another joke. I forgot it. Crap. All right. There we go, Luke. That's that. Do I have it?

We got it dead wrong. I don't have it. We're in dead wrong. All right, Luke, we start off this week. BC, that's me, said on Wednesday that Weili Zhang and Ioana Jungjacek had the fight of the year in February. Turns out I was dead wrong, Luke.

It was actually in March, and you agreed with me in saying February. That's why you're linked to this Dead Wrong. It was the co-main event to the card headlined by Adesanya and Romero, March 7th, 2020. Okay, I'll take the L. I'll take the L. I was there, though.

I was certainly there, but I'll take the L. If you had, honestly, if you had told me that wasn't the same card as Stylebender and Romero, I would have said false. No chance. Wow. I totally forgot that. Can you imagine if Stylebender Romero was even, like, remotely memorable

compared to what happened? That would have been like, oh, my God, UFC 236 all over again. Number two on the dead wrong, Luke, which you corrected me in motion, so shout out to you. I'm not sure why this is on there, but on Wednesday I mentioned Ireland as part of the U.K. We know that Northern Ireland is not regular Ireland, and we saw many a comment of people on all forms of social media praising you really in reference to how much

Ireland does not want to be part of the UK. Luke, this is a drop in the bucket, a factoid in my mind. Tell me why Irish people so badly do not want to be part of the UK. Well, I don't know exactly what all the political reasons would be, but they like their independence. They have their own history, their own language. By the way, the difference would be Northern Ireland, as you indicated, that's where Belfast is. That's sort of part of the contiguous United Kingdom. And then the Republic of Ireland, which is Ireland,

is its own separate little island. And they want to stay that way, player. They like what they've got going on there. It's a good thing. And God bless them. Irish, I'll tell you this much. Less so on Twitter. On Twitter, I don't think this quite comes across.

But in person, the friendliest people in Europe are Irish. Fact. Total fact. Especially when you're... Have you been to London before? No, Luke. I really haven't been to too many places. Bro, the English?

Kind of cold. They're not that friendly. I mean, they're kind of friendly. They're not mean. Sounds a lot like Montreal, Luke. I've been there a lot. People are not nice. Not nice at all.

Yeah, the Cubbecois, they're not that nice. The English are not that nice. The Irish are super friendly. They can't tell that I'm one of them, that I'm a French Canuck like them. They look at me, they go, oh, he's Lithuanian and Irish. Well, because you're eating hot dogs like Kobayashi, they can tell you're American. That's the issue.

Yeah, or they probably saw the places I was frequenting on St. Catherine Street there, Luke. The old rub and tug. Okay. Yeah, we'll hit it up via Patreon one day. All right, Luke. Yeah, that was all. Oh, so Northern Ireland is on the same damn island as Ireland,

but it's part of the country called the United Kingdom. This is correct, right? So let me look this up before I get into trouble here. I'm probably dead wrong in myself. Hang on just a second. Whereas Ireland is its own country. Yeah, so Northern Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland in terms of, you know what?

I'm actually totally wrong. Hold on. You know what? Perfect segment to be dead wrong. I had it in my brain the wrong way. There is the whole country of Ireland or the whole island of Ireland. The northern part of it is Northern Ireland.

That is part of the United Kingdom. But part of that island is the rest of Ireland, Dublin, the whole thing. And that's the Republic of Ireland. So my bad, Irish people. I had something happening in my brain that wasn't working. But at least I corrected it during Dead Wrong. So if you're from Northern Ireland, if you're Carl Frampton, right? And you're from Belfast.

Your native country is the United Kingdom, but you're Irish. Like, he's as Irish as Conor McGregor is, right? I think that's how it works. Remember when Reebok got in trouble because they made this Irish MMA shirt or something, and it actually had carved out Northern Ireland, and all the Irish people got super pissed about it. Even John Cavanaugh had said something about it. So I definitely feel like, I think they're citizens

of the UK, but they definitely consider themselves culturally, which you can understand, Irish. So I want to apologize to everyone in Ireland for getting that wrong, including the Northern Irish. I fucked that up. I apologize. I corrected myself, but Tyson Fury Fury, obviously of Irish descent, born in England, Irish traveler, all that.

Got it. All right, Luke, let's roll on here. You went pretty hard on multiple episodes about how only losers wear weightlifting gloves. In fact, Luke, you said your specific quote was that no professional bodybuilders ever wear gloves well we had a viewer chime in and say hey luke perhaps the greatest bodybuilder of all time ronnie eight time mr olympia ronnie coleman always wore gloves big old gray was dead wrong oh and he says coffee and stevia while blasting face the pain is life. Okay. First of all, I can find just as many clips of Coleman lifting without gloves. Number one,

no one else from his era or this era uses gloves, not blendia, not big Rami, none of these fucking guys. In fact, I can't find anybody on fitness Twitter or fitness Instagram that uses gloves. He did use gloves on occasion. That is true.

He is the only one. Let me consult the good book here, Luke. He is the only one. Schwarzenegger didn't use gloves. Fucking Franco Colombo didn't use gloves. Nobody uses gloves. It's so fucking wrong. Coleman got away with it because he was such a ridiculously good bodybuilder.

He was the only one, the exception that proves the rule. Y'all can lick on my bees. How about that? All right. Well, another, a second viewer wrote in and said, Luke is dead wrong that there isn't a reason to wear gym gloves. And here's their response. Nickel allergy is one of the fastest growing sensitivities in Western nations for unknown

reasons. Nickel and other cheap metals are often used in lifting and gym equipment, and that can cause reactions to people with nickel allergies. All right, listen. If you have spina bifida or you have nickel allergies and you have weak constitutions, yeah, maybe gloves are for you. For 99.9% of people, they serve utterly no purpose so stop being wrong wow so this is a reverse uh double cross dead wrong back on the viewers so bc bc seriously just google top 10 power lifters

top 10 weight lifters top 10 body lifters i don't give a fuck what comes up go find their instagram and show me them one time using gloves. It doesn't happen. They don't use gloves ever. Straps, yes. Figure eights, maybe. Gloves, no. Ball and gags, yeah, probably afterwards, right? Remember that really weird clip in that Arnold documentary where he was talking about, like, you know, like, explosions and stuff?

What was that all about, Luke? He's like, when I'm at home, I'm with my girls, and I'm coming all the time. And then I go to the gym, and I get a pump, and it's like he's like when i'm when i'm at home i'm with my girls and i'm coming all the time and then i go to the gym and i get a pump and it's like i'm coming there i'm coming all day long and i'm like wow that's quite graphic arnold you could just say you enjoy going to the gym wow all right yeah wow okay uh luke let's continue with the dead wrongs they're coming after you uh you you gave a nice shout out to fm doom passing away which you said happened over new year's i countered by saying i never heard of fm doom so i'm not going to speak badly

of them i wasn't dead wrong for that what mf when you speak up yeah i said mf doom what do you think i said mnf money that football what are you talking about? Oh, you said FM? Yeah. FM Doom? Yeah. All right. So what are you telling me? It's FM Doom? It's MF, Metal Face. Okay, thank you.

Some guy wrote in and said, Hey, guys, love the show, but just a quick correction here. MF Doom did not die on New Year's Eve, as Luke mentioned. He died on Halloween. The news broke on New Year's Eve as his mentioned. He died on Halloween. The news broke on New Year's Eve as his wife denounced it but he died on Halloween. I can't say that this person's wrong BC because I have to double check but I'd be very surprised

if I did not put a qualifier in there because in the post on social media that was announced by his family through his account it even says transitioned on October 31st 2020. Yeah 2020. Maybe I got that wrong.

I'm not sure. There's the, here's the deal. I'm being straight up. The guy's dead. Okay. Well, whenever it happened and we do this segment to, to be transparent, to have a little bit of fun, but okay. Steve Irwin didn't get bit by a croc.

It was a damn stingray. The guy's still not here. Okay. Going back to the last person, going back to the last person, if you put Stevia in your coffee, chances are you stormed the Capitol and smeared feces all over the wall. I mean, that's the kind of person you are. You go to a QAnon rally with a bear hat on.

We got one more, Luke, and guess what? You're dead wrong again. You had mentioned that Jaime Escalante taught calculus in South Central LA. It turns out he taught it in East LA at Garfield High School, Luke. That's fair. That's a fair correction. I got that wrong. Okay. Good to know.

I'll let them have it. They got me. They got me. Touche. Touche. Touche. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's it. That's it. That's the dead wrong for the week. We normally toast tips, Luke, but I know you got a tight schedule you want to get out of here. We didn't really plan well. You listen to anything good, Luke? What am I listening to these days?

I'm listening to, it comes as a big surprise, I'm sure, I'm listening to a lot of Vinny Paz. I'm listening to a lot of Vinny Pazienza. All right, all right. I'm balls deep on Joni Mitchell still right now. This is something I didn't expect, Luke. I avoided her because she's a weird and uninteresting person to me, but it turns out she's an absolute genius.

And I know I've said that before, but for a Dylan fan like me to put her in the same category, there's something special going on, Luke. Well, I'll just tell you this. I don't mind you listening to Joni Mitchell or virtually anybody, but if you come on this show being like, I'm in a bit of a Yoko Ono phase, you're getting replaced. I'm just

letting you know now. Hey, I'm rocking out to some Prime Alice Cooper records. We could meet in the middle on that, right? Or no? Fuck Alice Cooper. He sucks ass. I have no chance listening to him. My wife likes him. Fuck that. That's a dead wrong on you and shout out to Mrs. Thomas for

being solid, okay? Alright, Luke. I don't have much more. In fact, I got nothing left. You got anything else? Are you doing anything for the weekend? You didn't tell me. No, I don't think so.

Maybe get a hike with the family. That's about it, Luke, okay? Just relax. Just chill out, okay? And then get ready, because it's coming, Luke, okay? It's coming. Hey, I heard a rumor that you and I might be getting back together for another documentary, so if you're a fan of this show, get ready, because it's coming, Luke, okay? It's coming. Hey, I heard a rumor that you and I might be getting back together for another documentary, so if you're a fan

of this show, get ready, alright? Maybe. There's maybe something to that. I guess we'll have to see. See what the future brings in the tea leaves, okay? Alright? Shout out, yeah, to everyone. Thank you to Maniche for producing Gaff as well for being in our ear hole. Jay will be back on Monday with a rebuttal to his

you know, if we don't end up taking the Malka crew, Luke, and tracking down those two other jobbers that he attempted to get famous with for No Escape and doing our own VH1 behind the music on No Escape and maybe hiring the voiceover guy, if he's still alive from that, to finish this, Luke, it's got to have a sad ending for all three of these guys, right? I can't believe that they named their boy band after like a a threat you know what I mean like uh like this

those are the words you hear from someone who's tied you up and throwing you in the back of a car for a kid named Ron Johnson yeah thank you Ron Johnson for stealing their money and we never saw their talent really hit the full the full front fulcrum. I think, honestly, we should do this to Jay. If Jay wants to be on the show, he needs to dress and do his hair exactly like it used to be in No Escape. I'm going to just guess that he still has that outfit. He still owns it, right? You got to believe.

I bet if we went to his house, he's got it framed. You ever go to a Hard Rock Cafe and they've got memorabilia on the wall that's framed and shit? Yes. I bet he treats No Escape and a clip from the student newspaper where kids wrote for free for an internship on articles. He's got that framed on the wall and shit. This was that time I performed at a Starbucks on the corner of 3rd and Smithfield. And I got booed out, but I wanted to preserve these shoes and pants because I was really cutting a rug there on the floor

love it check out our interview with Paige Van Zandt on YouTube also we did a sit down with Rashad Evans I did on Tuesday to sort of look ahead early preview of all things UFC 257 Dustin and Connor worth your time as well and the Luke Thomas live chat getting very anti

Q&A oh that was my question, Luke. When we go to D.C. and make it look easy together, can you take me to QAnon pizza over there at the Cosmo? Schaub said he's eating there. First of all, you should respect these people because they've been fucking traumatized by what has happened. You mean Comet Ping Pong, which is the most ordinary, well, they do have Ping Pong there,

but the most ordinary pizza joint ever on earth yeah we'll go there you know why because it's a normal place for normal people who aren't idiots so if you're not an idiot which I don't think that you are you'll enjoy the pizza there and if you ask the staff about fucking conspiracy theories they're going to chuck you the fuck out because they're

sick of it so such an angry bastard did you see that the MMA roasted guy got a comedy special on UFC Fight Pass? Did you watch it? Actually, he had a joke about, not on the comedy special, but on Twitter about me. Did you see? Actually, I thought it was pretty good, actually. So he was doing this bit where, his name is Adam Hunter.

And yes, I did see that. But he was doing this bit where he was like, anybody just name a name for like the next 12 hours and I'll do a joke about it. It was just like this contest. Like, you know, you're freestyle. It was just this contest. You're freestyle. Pick the topic. I'll freestyle. And so people were doing like Yoel Romero, Luke Rockhold,

Bellator, Scott Coker, all the names. Someone mentioned my name, and his joke was, Luke Thomas is hated by 50% of the MMA fan base. The other half don't listen to him. Not too bad. Not too bad not too bad not bad not bad i'd like to see a uh like a rap battle joke off between him and in big brown that could be could be some entertainment there all right they don't do the same kind of jokes i don't think all right all right that's fair that's fair um i'm gonna i've retired from comedy ever since

the whole risen situation luke all right yeah not worth it. Yeah. Dice Clay. I don't think it quite. Yeah. Brian Dice Campbell. I don't think it quite worked out for you that well. Not worth it, Luke. Not worth it. BC's like Risen.

Hickory dickory. The whole bit. All right. Hey, you want to wear this Masvidalian cap here? Head on over to store.show.com and support what we're doing there. I guarantee the quality will blow your mind, and it will be very comfortable and make you look pretty hip as well. We're going to get some new merch rolled out for this new year,

and the rumor is the next line of merch, MK Merch 2.0, will have international shipping. They have fixed the glitch. They're going to figure this out. Good news to come on that. You want to try Showtime? Why wouldn't you? 30 days free. We don't want anything else from you. Just try it. Okay? You try it? This is what I tell my kids

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Okay. Support it. Please. Uh, give Luke ideas for the future of his career. When CBS fires in one day, uh, for Luke Thomas,

my name is Brian Campbell. We love you guys. Thank you for watching what we do. I've only got two words left. We out. We love you guys. Thank you for watching what we do. I've only got two words left. We out. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.