MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dana White & The Media | January UFC Fight Island Cards | Nunes vs. Anderson | Ep. 98

Episode Date: December 23, 2020

MK is back and the guys have a ton of MMA news to breakdown. Luke and Brian react to Dana White's recent rant about MMA media (5:15) and preview what's to come for the UFC in January with a massive Fight Island 2 event that includes Holloway vs. Kattar, Edwards vs. Chimaev, and McGregor vs. Poirier 2 all in a 7 day span (28:00). Plus, Anthony Pettis is now a free agent (37:37), Michael Chandler vs. Dan Hooker is in the works (42:32) and Amanda Nunes vs Megan Anderson finally has a new date (53:30). Also, Jermall Charlo says he will go up to 168-lbs to fight Canelo Alvarez. Is that the fight to make (1:01:00)?  --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

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.

It is Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020, and it is time, diggity donks, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. I am one half of your hosting duo, joined by the most infamous man in all of MMA media. He is the King of Connecticut, my friend and yours, also from CBS Sports, if I didn't mention that already, the one and only Brian Campbell, BC. Good to see you, buddy. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, to echo the great Dana White, what the hell have I ever accomplished in this lifetime, Luke? All right, but happy Hanukkah to Jay just the same. All right Alrighty then. By the way, day before Christmas, have you done all of your Christmas shopping? Well, yeah. Day before Christmas Eve, I should say. Sorry.

I have a fantastic wife who's handled most of that, Luke. Okay? So, yes, I have. Wait, does she buy? Don't. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before we go another step, don't you tell me that she buys her own gifts for herself from you normally no this year i had some travel the last six weeks oh wow you know it may have went down like that all right it may have happened like that because if it didn't happen like that you know where i'd be

right now not in this chair luke okay you got the balls to tell me you have family time at night? You charlatan. You liar. No wonder Dana White fucking skewers you like a fish. You deserve it, you heathen. Does this look like the kind of face that would try to take down MMA in general, Luke? I mean, come on. A hot dog from Cumberland Farms, maybe. MMA?

No, I don't think so. We have a lot to get to today. Of course, Dana White putting out the world's dumbest video, which we'll react to here in short order. Plus, we have Anthony Pettis, who apparently has left the UFC. We have some fights that were announced. Some fights on Fight Island that were announced. Or at least, yes, some of those were announced, not all of them.

And some other pieces of the puzzle to get to today as well. No SJW, but we will do Dead Wrong today, and we will get to fan art. There will be a Friday. Say again? We got a batch of fan submissions. Okay, great. I mean, we got to lift these suckers up, all right? And then we do have a Friday show, but it won't be live.

It'll be a prerecorded special for you guys. Still, nevertheless, Friday, Christmas morning, you can crack it open, and you'll have some MK4 you're ready to go on your Christmas day so uh as always please give the video a thumbs up hit the subscribe button uh let's see if you want to try Showtime who makes this show possible you certainly can you can go to Showtime.com right now get a 30-day free trial if you want some merch you can get that too I don't think either of us have any merch around do we no i don't think that i do but uh you know who does is showtime yeah there it is you can go to store.show that's sho.com and you can get some merch i don't know if you can get in time for christmas anymore

but maybe new year's something like that and if you live in five counties in la or new york that's it but otherwise you know it's good to go. It's a good Kwanzaa gift, Luke, okay, if you're into that. I don't know how Kwanzaa works in terms of the dates. Do you know? Is it like Hanukkah? I don't know. I think there's candles involved, but I'm very ignorant to that

in really most things in life. Yeah, well, I would join you on that one as well. I shamefully know nothing about it. But all right, well, there are some things we do know about, maybe, ostensibly. I don't know.'t know depends who you ask let's start things off on monday after the show which was perfect because we had to sit for 48 hours without being able to react to it ufc president wait wait look look i'm surprised you didn't react to it on your personal channel would have been a great time right i mean really oh don't don't think i didn't

consider it uh but actually the reason why i didn't was because I was not featured in it, and I thought the guy who was is my partner. He should probably get the first word. So just to set it up here very quickly, Dana White, UFC president, put out a video, looked like a political campaign ad in terms of its styling, on Monday afternoon on Twitter. It got some decent traction, I thought. Some pretty widespread awareness. People who liked it are the ones who basically don't take

coronavirus seriously. People who didn't would be the MMA media but in it he slanders MMA media attacks them and says they were critics then they were wrong all along in terms of the UFC's ambitions during the coronavirus. BC, you were featured, I would hate to say this

prominently in this, which is fucking hilarious because you lightly, lightly criticized them maybe a handful of times. You mostly supported what they were trying to do, and they nevertheless chucked you right under that bus. What do you got to say, sir? Look, I'm the MVP of that video. I guess, you know, no headlines or bad press in this case, right? It's all good in the end.

It's amazing the emotions you get in the 24-hour period after this. Like, this is a freaking joke, right? Like, first of all, because I'm not the guy. I mean, look, you were texting me that day. My phone's blown up. I'm at Walmart trying to buy stocking stuffers. My phone's blown up. Luke's like, I wasn't even in that shit at all.

You should be the enemy, Dr. Fauci. But instead, it was me. And look, sadly, it was our guy Brandon Wise from CBS Sports, the fine combat editor who had joined me on a couple podcasts pre-Luke morning combat merger. And I think all of this is pulled from the one episode back in the tight Tachi Palace disaster where us and everyone else was like,

God, what's going on with Dana here? He's out of control. So look, I know what you want me to do, right? You want me to come out here and be like, fuck Mobb Deep, fuck Zufa Boxing, fuck Dana White as a label and a crew. Don't one of y'all got sickle cell or something? I know you want me to do that, right?

And I have, by the way, researched how other people in the past have responded to being unfairly attacked by Dana White. So, you know, last warning, this is not how Eskimo brothers should talk to one another, Dana. But look, the reality is, very overblown here, Luke. You talk about fake news, and this is essentially what Dana White's trying to do, right? Almost Trumpian in this way. Let me interrupt you very quickly. It's not essentially fake news. It's straight up fake news, but go ahead.

Yeah, so he's responding to fake news with fake news. Dana White's still pissed at whoever wrote that New York Times piece, right? And he's pissed that somebody apparently called the governor of California right ahead of the Tachi Palace disaster, and some people think that led directly to Disney, Governor Newsom, ESPN being like, stand down. And also Senator Dianne Feinstein out of California as well. And that may be all connected, and he can hate that one person, that's fine. But like, everybody rightfully so ahead of the Tachi Palace fight,

which if you don't remember the timeline, it was the originalc 249 card dana was trying to rush it out when all 50 states commissions had said no live events no sporting events so do you want to talk about what when was that the right time to question him of course to make matters even worse dana's saying none of us use facts and we're just trying to go click baity. Do you remember Dana White's response during that window? It was, I'm not telling you guys anything. I don't owe the media anything. We were reaching out to him trying to understand the

protocol of what the testing would look like knowing that it was controversial that the UFC's last card pre quarantine in March in Brasilia did not have COVID testing and somewhat controversially went on. And of course, you know, Jacare, we've been down that road before. Was that the right season to question Dana White in which I, somebody pulled out a context from my state of combat podcast,

RIP me using the word reckless. Yeah, that was a pretty reckless time if you ask me, Luke. And by the way, somebody pointed this out on our cbs team shout out to whatever low-level ufc video editor where dana got on the phone was like find a get on campbell's podcast and find that out they had to swim through them dick jokes to find that okay so shout out to whoever that person was you know who pulled brandon wise out of the stack and put him up like a mug shot along next to me okay it's like the scene from south park where cartman is trying to show what's his face chat roulette he's like there's a guy jacking off there's a guy jacking off there's a guy jacking off sorry go ahead so look i'm not the enemy because i questioned dana

like everybody else during that season but like everybody else i said once you get this approved by a state commission and we can do it the right way with transparency and testing, I'm all for somebody being first, somebody clearing the way. And if you remember, Luke, early in the morning combat in the quarantine, when you were somewhat rightfully like, oh, my God, what are they doing? I brought up the question and said, hey, Luke, is there a chance that Dana could end up being a hero during the quarantine if he can pull this off? And you were like, no, no, no, no. In some ways, he has. I owe a lot of my 2020 and the success of this show and my bottom line and me being able to go to Walmart and afford Christmas gifts to Dana getting out there and making this happen, which is why I've spent most of this calendar year saying this guy is, you know, the quarantine MVP. I don't say that

in a Robbie Barstool type of way or a Schmo or anybody else. I'm just like, look, that's the facts. Why was I nailed in this? Probably, Luke, because you heard that Bob Arum sound in that. That Bob Arum sound came from my interview with Bob early in the quarantine. I wrote a story on it. So this is where Dana was actually right. He said, you know, the media is just clickbaiting. Yeah, that's a clickbait move. If Bob Arum comes Dana was actually right. He said, you know, the media is just clickbaiting. Yeah, that's a clickbait move. If Bob Arum comes on your podcast and calls Dana White, you know, an arrogant asshole, your website's probably going to write that story. I put my byline on that story.

That's probably why I was looked at as a, you know, a villain or a threat. When in reality, I had Dana White. I interviewed him on CBS Sports HQ the month after that. Not only did we get on great, I challenged him. He answered my questions. I got messages from UFC PR after that interview saying, Dana loved it. You challenged him, but you were fair. Blah, blah, blah. So I don't need to

clean my name and prove it. I did feel bad for Alexander K. Lee. All these dudes who are good guys in our business who are just like, idiot, loser, whatever. I'm surprised you didn't call any of them virgins virgin yeah what have you ever accomplished like this is the most like how do i fight fake news let me just put on the most self you know aggrandizing you know like

you know you talked about it on twitter no prominent features of fighters who were the ones who are you know risking everything um not enough enough about the UFC staff, by the way, PR, everything, top to bottom. They've been great. I love those people. They've helped us out, whatever. They have had a great year. This was all about Dana. Nobody can prove me wrong. Nobody can hold me back. And again, I'm somebody that respects what Dana ultimately pulled off. But was this a ridiculous low blow? Could you imagine David Stern or Adam Silver or, you know, Paul Tagliabue or Bud Selig or something doing something like this? No, you couldn't. Maybe that's going to always be the difference between MMA and this,

but I'm not going to come out here and drop bombs and say that Dana would still be a cardio kickboxing coach in Boston in his late 40s if it wasn't for Lorenzo. Not going to do stuff like that. We're definitely not going to say that out loud, yes. But Dana, I'm not your enemy. Do you know what your enemy is, Dana? You got a big enemy over there in Waikiki, Hawaii, right?

Wapana Beach, whatever you call it. How do you pronounce that, Luke, from that Beach Boys song? Waikiki? Wai-N-I? Something, I don't know. Wai-N-I Beach. Remember that cliff that you stood at the top of all right dana let's pause this conversation real quick remember in that video where you slant

where you you were you roasted me and you said nobody at ufc lost their job during 2020 you know who did lose their job rachel ostovich you know who jumped off that cliff on that video at wapanae beach ray still ostovich so shout out to her shout out to that i'm not your enemy your enemy is that cliff that you bitched out on or the moth via that banged on your door that time trying to get money and you ran to start the ufc great life great career dana i love you but i'm not your guy all right so that that's what i gotta say all right that's funny. Yeah, I mean, you know, I almost question about whether or not it's even worth saying anything

because the answer is yes, it is. But look, there's a group of people that are not going to look into any of the claims that he makes. And even if you do look into the claims that he makes, which I did, I had a long Twitter thread, but I went through every single article that he lists in that video. And literally one of them is from Brian Campbell from June, and it has the word epidemic in the headline,

but it actually has nothing to do with the coronavirus or the UFC's handling of the coronavirus. It has to do with stars wanting more money, and they just threw it in there and then threw Brian under the bus. Yeah, pause on that. Remember that same week that Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, and Henry Cejudo all announced their retirement.

So I wrote an obvious reaction column like, UFC's got to figure out this fighter pay thing. I think in that story, I actually praised Dana's handling of the previous few months. It's ridiculous. And I think, actually, I went back and reread it, and what you had argued was basically that, like, listen, money's going to be hard to come by.

And you and I debated whether or not that was true, but that is not an anti-UFC position. Far from it. It's actually quite sympathetic to the situation that they were facing at the time. Or at least that's certainly one, I think, reasonable interpretation of it. But I mean, here is the basic point. Like, if you're open to the idea that evidence matters, you should keep listening. If you're not open to the idea that evidence matters, then you can go ahead and downvote this and you can say that this is all nonsense. I'm not the guy for you. But if what you actually care about is what the truth is, then I encourage you to have just two minutes of patience with me.

I don't care, for the most part, what people believe in this world. Sometimes you believe things because that's what you were taught. Sometimes you believe things because you learned it that way. Sometimes you believe things because you learned something a certain way and then you were convinced otherwise. But if you believe something, and in particular, if you really strongly believe something, you should be able to argue on behalf of that. The funny thing about this video that he put out is that rather than actually showing that the journalists were wrong, it actually does the opposite. And what is so cowardly about the video is that he doesn't even have the willingness to run on the actual record. So let's talk about

the record for just a second if we can. Here is the record. In the second week of March, virtually every sport globally, certainly in North America, had shut down. March Madness, canceled. NBA, indefinitely suspended. NHL, MLS, you can go down the list. Following all of that, the UFC still went down to Brasilia,

which, by the way, was having its own issues closing everything down. And they still did a card and they did no COVID testing for it. Dana White goes on ESPN and tries to justify, by the way, those ESPN anchors at the time, total cowards, never brought up the lack of COVID testing. Dana defends it by saying we always go above and beyond. And when it comes to things at that point, not including COVID, that is certainly true. But they held a show when the rest of the world shut down without

COVID testing. Let's just be absolutely clear about that. Then, you can go and double back on it. They had a show in London that he had told Aaron Bronstetter they were still going to do. When Bronstetter asked if they were going to do COVID testing, he did not answer the question. Then, they try and go to do the show at the Tachi Palace where they said they would not reveal what

the safety protocol was just trust us we're not going to reveal what the location is at this point the association of ringside physicians had said there is no event that should happen California was not only shut down the commission for April, but also all of May, New Jersey shut down, and I believe Nevada was shut down. There was no existing commission protocol on how to handle COVID. Kevin Draper of the New York Times eventually puts out an article that I think got the attention of Gavin Newsom, Dianne Feinstein, whatever happens. They make a call to Disney. Disney and ESPN shut them down after that i put out a video on may 4th when the ufc decided that they were going to go to florida they were going to

work with the commission eventually the new york times had published their safety protocol the ufc had then gone back to the association of ringside physicians and said we want to work with you on this to get you a better understanding of what we're trying to do. Then Association of Ring-Sided Physicians puts out a note saying, okay, it can happen, but only under the strictest guidelines. They do the Florida show. You can make an argument that the Florida show then helped precipitate the return to Nevada, but Nevada up the level of a stringent, let's say protocol, and then Fight Island on top of that.

You want to ask what the journalists were saying. They were saying, if you're going to do a test in London or Brazil during the middle of a pandemic when the rest of the world is shut down, you might want to do COVID testing. And in fact, in the video, they bragged that they had done 28,000 COVID tests. Well, I can tell you that doesn't count UFC Brasilia because there was a whopping zero at that event. It only starts after that fact. It only takes place once the criticisms and the public pressure force change upon

them to work with a state actor and then to have transparency about what they were doing. I'm going to give it right back to you, but your point is right. You know what the media ultimately did? Force Dana to do what he did, which was put the right testing and sanctioning in to make it work.

If it wasn't for media pressure and checking in, which is their job, to ask questions and report. I mean, it's so ridiculous. Does he really want us all to be like Schmo in it? And I love the Schmo, by the way. He's great. But you get what I'm saying right here, okay? I'm just saying, here's what

the record shows. All that criticism, and you can look at my thread on Twitter. All of those things he points out, they all come from that March, April, and then a few of them, one of which, by the way, BC, they included Jay Mariotti calling Dana a snake. Okay, I do not think Dana is a snake. And also, who gives a

fuck what Jay Mariotti thinks? The most irrelevant figure in all of media. So they put this out and include it as part of this broader thing. You notice when the criticism stops. It stops when they worked with Nevada. When the safety protocol was public. When everything was

transparent. It stopped because what are you going to complain about at that point? All media was asking for was wait until a major commission has put together protocol, follow it, and then we can be done. That's it. That is all they ever asked for. The Florida show was a little bit gray because I'm guessing that the UFC did the majority, if not all, of the heavy lifting and coming with the protocol. And Florida rubber stamped it.

But when the state rubber stamped it, they are now on the hook for its safety to a degree as well. It adds an imprimatur of sanctioning that going to Tachi Palace while the California Commission is shut down doesn't have. So in the end, it's like, dude, did the UFC have a good year? Yes. God fucking bless them. It means the rest of us had a pretty good year for the most part as well. The media layoffs as well. Once they went to Nevada, the criticisms all stopped.

All they wanted you to do was, hey, you talked about running towards regulation for 10 years. You gotta keep doing that. I know it's difficult. We know that you have to get a certain amount of shows in to get the money from ESPN. You had to reach a certain amount of inventory

and losing those weeks fucking sucks. We know, we know we know but we're asking in the middle of a pandemic when we don't know anything is still go to a state commission with a state commission that has updated protocol if that makes journalists bad well then it makes journalists fucking bad i don't expect applause to do my job and nobody else should either and look like no slander at his espn disney bosses for for you know the actual reason he got shut down but you know that he destroyed ariel and you know we don't talk to ariel a lot on this show but like i get that they've had a bad history but

he pulled ariel's comment completely out of context when ariel was actually being fair and like almost complimentary of them i mean it's ridiculous look this i mean some people texted me hilariously that this was like a scientology uh training video or whatever you know propaganda russian propaganda video it kind of takes his uh his uh his awful video remember when he went after loretta hunt like 10 years ago and just dropped like like i mean it kind of takes that video off the hook for the moment but um your thread you had on Twitter, I thought rightfully just nailed it in terms of just like picking such a small pocket of criticism and making it as, you know, everyone held me back.

When the reality is he just pulled people that doubted him initially. And you know who doubted him initially? Joe freaking Rogan. I put that video on Twitter. I ended up taking it down, Luke, only because my mentions became a MAGA graveyard of zombies tracking me down.

Joe Rogan was the guy who was like, I don't know how they're going to pull it off, and I'm not going to be there if they do. That was all of us, by the way. I thought it was largely hilarious the whole way, but I did... People hit me up going, you're crying. Stop crying. You're salty.

I got salty when I went on Instagram and saw the victory lap that all celebrities were taking. Tom Brady, Shane Victorino commenting, being like, yeah, Dana, get him. Like, yeah, our hero. When it got to that level, Luke, I started to get a little angry about how I was being characterized there. We're all just re-litigating COVID again. There's a bunch of people during that time that didn't understand what the big deal is about COVID and why did they have to stop shows.

It's like, dude, if you're going to brag you did 28,000 COVID tests, which is a fuck ton, which came as an enormous inconvenience and expense, I completely get it. But if you're going to brag about it and you're mad about the criticism that came when you did not do that, there's a problem. If you are going to brag about it you and you and you're mad about the criticism that came when you did not do that there's a problem if you are going to make an argument about your success

make it about the facts run on the record and the criticism comes from all of the things he did before the changes all the success he notes last thing on this bc all the success he notes comes from after the changes. You're welcome. Yeah, Dana, you can do what you want. I don't need Tom Brady and Shane Victorino dunking on me. All right, so get off my porch on that. And also, look, if you're going to spell our name right, at least,

if you're going to shade me, put some morning combat up there. Get Luke Fauci up there. We don't need no state of combat. Don't fall in love with a podcast that no longer exists, Dana. All right? That's not even a thing anymore. How bitter were you that I didn't get absolutely crushed in that video? I wasn't.

I felt like you were almost. Like, you were almost like, damn. Like, didn't I do anything to get a mention here? I mean, you were the guy that was straight up opposing anyone coming back, for right or wrong. And I'm not slandering you. How did I become the poster boy for this? What the hell's going on here? Because, I don't't know i don't want to read into someone's motivations i can't tell i mean i'd be speculating but i'll just say it's like dude

this is why you can't win in media right this is the last thing i'll say either you we have three choices right so one is you can just be uh totally against them at all times and blah blah blah that's a choice you can make. You can try and be in between, which is sometimes I'll praise them. Like when they made those changes, dude, after they made those changes, they fucking killed it. They absolutely killed it. There's no denying that they killed it and good for them.

It makes it better for the industry worldwide. We're going to talk about them being on ABC. That's amazing. Or, but you can mix it with some of the things they did before that, which was totally out of line, or you can just bootleg the whole time but it just goes to show unless you bootleg unless you are absolutely reflexively kind to them at all times there's no safe place for you to be it doesn't really exist so i'll just say this he talks about the video talks about negativity on the media side you know one thing that doesn't get mentioned in the video

is there's no thanks to the fighters. There's no thanks to the coaches who had, you know, older people in their homes or people who had immunocompromised conditions and they still, through quarantines and lockdowns, still have to go out there sometimes training in garages or training in shutdown gyms. No one ever thanked them for making the year happen. So I will do what Dana did not do in that video,

and I will say thanks to the fighters and the coaches and everyone else in those gyms who took risks upon themselves, in many cases got COVID, just to make sure that the train stayed on the tracks. We salute you. Right. And he could have done this video so much softer and we would have been like, you know what?

Take your victory lap. You deserve it. But instead just throw in such unnecessary darts. I know that because we benefit and survive in some ways off of the UFC being in businesses like yelling at Santa Claus, right, for like taking a nip out of the bar on his way back up the chimney. But it is like that. So shout out to you for that Twitter thread.

Shout out to Ben Folks of The Athletic this morning for putting out a fact check piece, just really assaulting that whole thing and taking it out. But I mean, look, it's like reality at the end of the day, Dana the whole time was like, this has nothing to do with money. It did have to do with money. The parent company's not getting the $750 million, Luke, from ESPN for the guaranteed minimum of shows unless they do what they have to do to get all those shows on the air.

Credit to Dana. He figured it out. He didn't give up and put his head in the sand. Well, he kind of did because he went to Abu Dhabi and then he pounded some sand. But you get the point, Luke. He made it happen.

But don't try to act like you did it out of the kindness of your heart. The fighters did it because they have no other income. You did it because the parent company, Endeavor, would die without this 750 million so just be transparent about the whole freaking thing and we can all move on good lord that's it i don't have anything else to say any final thoughts or is that the final thought bc you old bitch i'm going into your playbook here all right all right well enough of

that let's move on to some happier news that we can put that behind us here, at least for the time being. All right. So, B.C., we move along from that. Hold on. Let me get my notes up here. Jesus, there's a shit ton of what you call it, fan submissions today. Let's get to the return to Fight Island. Sorry.

One more thing. Jake Shields, don't be dunking on the media, too. All right. I got a laptop you can try to take off. It's right here. All right? It's right below this camera Hey, he switched off the laptop and went to the cup of coffee Get the record straight, okay? And I actually asked him about that and it was fucking hilarious

So, you know what? Jake Shields gets a pass for one day in my book Alright, we go now to UFC starting in 2021 Now that they have everything figured out And they have a good system in place And the fighters are making sure that that system runs the way that it's supposed to shut lo and behold they got a lot of good things on the horizon which includes but not limited to in an eight-day span bc january 16th which is a saturday january 20th which is a wednesday and then the big one which you already kind of knew about ufc 257 january 23rd which will be back on a Saturday. So it's technically an eight-day span.

Not eight separate days, but, you know. Well, yes, eight separate days, a seven-day span. But the point being is this. Holloway versus Calvin Cater, January 16th. That'll be the Saturday. Leon Edwards versus Kamzat Shemayo, January 20th, that Wednesday. Poirier versus McGregor, January 23rd, that same Saturday. Or the following Saturday, I should say, for the pay-per-per-view buddy they are opening up in a big big way lots of extra details here at BC

but you know I put out a poster about this and sort of you know semi-announcing it yesterday your reaction I mean and just to add on to that just sprinkle on top right back to our regularly scheduled reporting of praising data for filling up the calendar uh in that connor dustin 2 pay-per-view it's looking like the co-main event right is michael chandler versus dan hooker so i mean good lord this week is badass it's very reminiscent of that initial fight island launch in july luke and also you're seeing reports that this max holloway calvin cater saturday january 16th fight night card could be on ABC, which is really even if it's a one off or not, Luke, or a test the water and see that's great for the sport,

putting it on frickin, you know, old school network, plug in your TV for free TV. So shout out to that. Look, that's all killer, no filler. And this is why we need to praise what UFC has done. They obviously have a different level of control compared to boxing, which has had a really largely forgotten year, but this is killer. This is frigging killer. I mean, look, if they end up doing Chandler Hooker as the co-main to this, as we've talked about in the past,

when somebody like Conor fights, you know the pay-per-views are going to sell like hotcakes. They typically don't load that card at all. Having this as a potential co-main and a main event fill-in if either guy falls out. I mean, we're spoiled. Edward Shumayev, I mean, there's so much we need to see and learn from that fight. And that's your midweek Wednesday appetizer. It's huge.

Dana? It's huge. I'll say this. What have I accomplished in my life, Dana? Not much. Okay? Not much compared to what you just did for that week. Okay? I'll I'll say this. What have I accomplished in my life, Dana? Not much. Okay? Not much compared to what you just did for that week. Okay?

I'll give you that one. All right? Well, I'll just say this. I mean, you could have just done Poirier versus McGregor for the month of January, and it would still, the entire month would have a big fight feel if they put out enough assets and there was enough interviews and blah, blah, blah floating around, right? You would just have that like, wow, dude, Conor McGregor is back. You know, they gave Conor McGregor his own date,

I'm sure in conjunction with various football realities around ESPN in terms of, you know, not having too much conflict if at all possible. But on top of that, they've given him a big appetizer. Now, you remember when they used to do three shows on back-to-back-to-back nights? They stopped doing it because it was just too much. But if you space it out a little bit, and part of this might be due to COVID to like make sure that everyone has enough time to get everything straight

and you don't overlap everything, it's just a nice way to set up Conor McGregor Fight Week. The week before you have an event, it's the first one back, right? From now until that 16th, whether it's on ABC or not, there's going to be no UFC fight. So it's your first one back.

You're setting up the Conor McGregor fight. You have another one on Wednesday as like another kind of reminder slash celebration. And then it's the return of Conor McGregor. It's a really smart way to do it. It's a really fun way to do it. It's going to be honestly a great week. Again, we'll call it like we see it. It'll be a great week for MMA media. They're going to get a lot of clicks on that week, but just more importantly, it's a great way to kick off 2021. I mean, if Dana and the company did learn anything, and I think every sports leader at this point, NBA, NFL, whoever, you can't take the security of normalcy for granted.

You don't know what's going to come. So if you're going to start 2021, you want to leave 2020 behind, I'm not saying I couldn could think of a better way to do it but this is a damn good way to do it what a fun start and BC to be back on ABC I don't think being on network TV means as much as it used to but it certainly is a great sign for the health of that organization and the relationship with that company yeah and it's not the first time right it was the uh the Cain Velasquez Junior. Dos Santos free fight on Fox in 2011, the same night as Pacquiao Marquez III that kicked off we got, what was it, Eddie Alvarez in RDA on Thursday night, Ioana Quagia II on Friday night, and then a loaded UFC 200.

That's excessive, Luke. In fact, that UFC 200 card, even though it didn't play out as expected with John falling out and everything, top to bottom, that was probably the most ambitious and loaded attempt to even put the prelim fights as, like, must-see ones. But we don't need that. But good God, I'll take what we're getting to kick off 2021. Well done, Dana and Mick and Sean and Chino XL and, you know,

everyone else, Bad Boy and, you know, I'm going with that. Do you like him being on ABC? Do you think it's a big deal or not? I mean, I get what you're saying. It isn't as big. It's not as big as when they went on Fox in 2011. It's not as big now in the streaming generation. But I think it's still a proper step.

And it shows the ESPN commitment. And it shows that if they end up doing a monster rating, and obviously, look, Max Holloway is a good name to put as sort of the trial horse on this um if it leads to more specials it's it's great for the i mean it's great luke it's it's more nostalgic than than strategic in some ways but it's also look there are a lot of freaking old people who grew up when there were only three channels and those old people's lives right now still revolve around those three channels. I mean, look, ask anybody over 60.

Do you know what they do with their time? They watch CBS. I don't say that because I work for CBS. It's true, right? How do you think shows like Murder, She Wrote ended up making so much damn money? Old people love that crap. You can slip a little UFC in on them.

You know what I mean? Sorry, you know, good God. Matlock will be delayed tonight because we got to slip in Max Holloway, Calvin Kidd. You never know. You might get some of those old bastards money down the road. You never know. Don't you slander Angela Lansbury. Right?

It's like, do I get more Geritol or do I buy the Connor pay-per-view? They're going to have to debate that after that Max fight. Yeah, it'll be fun. I mean, it'll be just curious to see. Like, this is what happens with college football right you'll get you know your bigger games on espn on the weekend and then maybe your sec championship or your national championship or something like that on one of your bigger network uh broadcast channels and that's that's great but you know it's like we've seen we saw strike force on cbs we saw ufc

on fox um i'm sure I'm missing something. I think even PFL had the one event on regular NBC. We've seen it. It definitely is cool. It's more about what it signals rather than how it changes the sport. Like the sport changes and then gets the designation. It's not that the designation then raises the sport to new heights it's a little bit more the former than the latter but still yeah i mean there could be more it could be more

of an ad revenue move too i mean do you get do you get you know yeah so whatever whatever at the end of the day we'll see so trojan condoms are going to be getting a lot of shine on the 16th of january i'll tell you that much manscape in the house luke yep Manscaping the balls. Okay. Now, speaking of somebody who won't be on that card, or not any UFC card probably ever again, Anthony Pettis apparently is a free agent. Now, UFC has not commented on this. I don't know to what extent the reports have been corroborated, but we knew in the Alex Morineau fight from Saturday

that that was the last one on Anthony's contract. And you thought, well, what's going to happen next? He puts out a tweet yesterday with a graphic and then a letter with like letterhead on it. It looked pretty official saying goodbye to the UFC and thanking them. It was not in any way angry. It was nothing but heartfelt. I thought very classy from him. And he says he's on to different things. Didn't say where, but that he is done, at least with the UFC for this chapter of his career. BC, do you like the move from Anthony Pettis?

Yeah, I mean, it's a continuation of what we sort of talked into existence on Monday's show. It's a great move for him at this point in his career. There's still some juice left in the tank to make fun fights. It's not out of the question that he can win a Bellator title, which would really be a nice capstone on the resume his brother's already there it just makes a lot of sense i'm more interested luke in your thoughts specifically on either the

bellator lightweight or welterweight uh division and title picture are there specific fights you really want to see i mean no one's going to turn down him and benson henderson three as sort of a nostalgic needle to stick in. But do you think he can? I mean, would Pitbull fight him at lightweight, for example? Yeah. Why wouldn't you? I mean, that'd be a great fight.

It'd be a great fight. A small lightweight, a great one in Pitbull against a big ass lightweight in Pettis. That'd be great. So, I mean, there's a lot of different ways you can go here. As we mentioned, Pettis' younger brother, Sergio, is already over in Bellator, and he looks to be doing quite well there. If you're Anthony Pettis, you do have a lot of miles on you. I don't know how you could argue you don't, but you could fight at 170.

You could fight at 155. I don't think 145 is, you know, in play. So you have two different weight classes, a lot of different opponents you could go with, a lot of different big fights you can go with. People know his name. I don't even think it's out of the question that he could get a belt in Bellator, although I don't know exactly how likely that is.

But certainly it seems possible. So again, we talked about before, being a champion in WBC, UFC, and Bellator, it's pretty special. It's hard to do. Plus, if you did go to Bellator and you did fight at 155 and you took it off patricio freda

you'd be beating the best bellator fighter ever in order to claim the title which is also pretty special because that guy knocked out michael chandler obviously inside of a round so i just feel like you know there's also pfl in play and that's a good one too because it's a rory yeah well there's that that would be at 170 i don't know if they're having a 155 tourney coming up or not. But the point being is, you know, you could do a relatively short ish route to a bigger paycheck. That's certainly a possibility. I don't I don't know. I just tend to think what he wants is to use what really maximizes what he's become, which is he is a name. He has a fan friendly style and he wants to be in the kinds of right fights that accentuate what he has left. The best person to do that is probably Scott Coker, and then second to that,

I would argue, is one championship. Does he want to take those risks with travel in a COVID era, even though the vaccines are starting to make their way around the world? Maybe. Hard to say. It just seems to me like Bellator is a foregone conclusion at this point, BC. It is, and look, aside from the Benson Henderson trilogy, wouldn't you love to have him fight Koreshkov, Douglas Lima for the title? Who else am I missing there? That's just, oh, MVP.

I mean, look, if you're at this point in your pedestal, I mean, you know his style the last few years. It's probably the reason why he's flipped wins and losses so regularly. He gets in there. He just kind of Fs around sometimes right and just goes for it and that's fun and this is probably the right promotion for that where you can employ that style and you may accidentally get a title like you may you may stumble into one so it's perfect it really is luke okay it is thank you uh so i like it too by the way what is the age of Anthony Pesce? Was he 36? Is that right? I think that's right. Yeah, that's 34, right? 34?

Jesus, he's only 33. Now, in fairness, he'll be 34 in January, so that's soon changing, but still 34. God damn, that is wow. That's a lot of miles he's had, dude. That's a lot of miles. If you look at Bellator's lightweight rankings,

I'm going to pull up here their 155ers. Let me do this here very quickly here. Let's see. I'm going to pull up their lightweight guys. Sorry. What are some names beyond just the Patricio name you could get to? You have the Benson Henderson trilogy, as you indicated. You have, wow, not a whole lot more than that.

Oh, let's see. Well, I guess Roger Wertz is kind of gone. Miles Jury is at 155, which would be a fun fight you could do. Georgie Karakhanian is certainly up there. Rustam Habilov is up there. There's a few fighters you could make some interesting moves with, but I honestly think he'd probably be much better suited in terms of using his star power for 170.

Well, Luke, you know what should follow this? And this has been a trend now. I mean, look, Bellator just got Rumble. They got Romero. Now they have Pettis. And there's a theme here, right? They're guys with names who have a little bit left, but UFC thinking, we'll let you go.

In this case, he fought out his contract. The other cases were a little bit differently. But it's just saying, look, we want to reinvest back in the youth. It's cheaper, blah, blah, blah. The Diaz brothers, you have to think inevitably they're going to reunite with Coker and do the same, right? I don't know. It's a great question because Coker would let them do the kinds of things that they want to do. But where is your highest earning potential?

Probably still UFC. Like, what's a fight, honestly, what's a fight that Bellator could make, however much the Diaz brothers might butt head with UFC leadership, that could get them the kind of money that a trilogy fight could get for Nate and Conor III. Oh, yeah.

Certainly with Nate, who seems to have a little bit more in the tank, of course, that makes a lot of sense. Maybe more Nick, because Nick obviously has the specific Coker history. And sorry, I'm burping like crazy during this show, Luke. OK, I hope I'm not dying. But, you know, yeah, maybe a little bit more for Nick.

But I don't know their contract situation. You just get to a point if you want to fight stress free and you want to have your own dude wipe sponsor on your ass and you want to just kind of be treated the way you feel like you want to be treated i feel like uncle scott can you know could make that happen certainly i would agree uh okay which takes us to something you kind of alluded to so let's circle back to it a little bit now this part is definitely not confirmed in either direction but two fights were reported announced announced, something in between. Let's start with the real one first. When we say real, I mean between two real fighters and a real bout of consequence.

Michael Chandler and Dan Hooker. You had alluded that might be the co-main event for UFC 257. This would be, if it's true, it was a New Zealand outlet who reported it first. If it's true, it would be Michael Chandler's UFC debut. It would be Dan Hooker coming off of the loss to dustin poirier bc i mean is there any way to say anything other than this fight is awesome uh luke i am currently uh rock hard with emotion right now i've got a phoner you know somebody answered you know yeah yeah wow uh luke it is this look this is a more difficult debut than even eddie Alvarez going in there against a still primish Donald Cerrone.

I mean, this gives Chandler a stamp at instant, you know, instant I'm a title contender. I mean, look, you could even argue, look, I know there's more people in the spots above them, but you can argue the winner of this is like right outside looking in to that title spot um it's a great great fight and uh i don't know if you can favor chandler though i don't think you can but it might end up being the perfect fight for us to find out right now because this you know it's the tail end of chandler's prime but he couldn't be coming in here at a better hotter moment than blowing away benson henderson and all that. I know he got knocked out by Pitbull. It was quick, all that, but you get what I'm saying. He's ready right now.

He's fired up. I want to find out how great he is. This matchup's even more than fighting Kevin Lee's tattoo artist. This matchup would tell us right now how good this guy is. I'm ready for it. Why do you think they did not go with Chandler versus Gaethje? Gaethje has fought more recently than Hooker, who needs a fight, maybe, right? Yeah, but the fight that Gaethje was in was not particularly rough.

He didn't take a ton of abuse. And it's a little bit closer to the title, and Hooker did take a ton of abuse. Now, he is a Wolverine and heals in an amazing fashion. I'll give him credit. But still, I don't hate the fight. I'm just trying to understand if you had one in the pocket, why would you go to this one? But I guess maybe the answer is they didn't have that one in the pocket.

I don't know. You're putting two things up there that are great. Pick which one you want. I mean, come on. Tell me any reason that this is not a five-round classic. The only way it's not a five-round classic is if one of them gets stopped. Chandler could knock him out on the feet. It's possible.

He could also take him down and ground and pound him. Or Hooker could piece up Michael Chandler a distance and then close the show. But if that doesn't happen, they're going to kill each other for 25 minutes. That part, I wouldn't call it a guarantee, but insofar as that condition is met, it's got...

I'll tell you this much. I would be very surprised to see it go to decision. Super, super surprised. That one's got finish written all over it, one way or the other. Look, unfortunately, I love Dan Hooker. I love what he stands for. I love his fights, that one's got finish written all over one way or the other look unfortunately and i i love dan hooker i love what he stands for i love his fights his ability he's gonna you know he's gonna end up

getting to that point quicker than he should meaning that point where he's like a little washed because he puts himself so willingly in the line of fire and relies on his chin to try to maximize his chance to win the damn fight and do it excitingly but it's I think it's one of those things that you just sit back and enjoy it enjoy the ride as long as he can carry this on yeah I think that's right I think that's right um you know he is certainly tough as hell but he will he will he will fall on his sword if the bout calls for it and he will never complain about it either so pretty incredible guy in that regard the other one that got announced and he will never complain about it either. So pretty incredible guy in that regard.

The other one that got announced, and now we're seeing that the announce could be Fugazi, I'm not sure to pronounce it properly, which is your best friend and your favorite combat athlete of 2020, Jake Paul, who apparently wants to have a boxing match with the man who literally had a hip replaced, Ben Askren. BC, I know you love absolute dog shit. Sell me on this.

Oh, how dare you? Well, first of all, just to sort of, you know, put your skepticism out there, Ariel Hawani of ESPN and other outlets have said this is not a done deal. That Triller is looking to bring back Jake Paul March 28th for a pay-per-view. Askren is among, excuse me, wow, among mma names that he's looking to match himself against um it was only broken because chael sonnen and front row brian aka the fight oracle luke your biggest fan who are both noted friends of askren put it out in the ethos uh so look let's just play as if it happens right god that's smart matchmaking for jake paul he wants

to continue this momentum of showing that he's a quasi celebrity boxer against other names and you really should go after a retired guy in mma who doesn't have stand-up i mean this is perfect right and rewatched and had a hip replacement yeah rewatch the Damian Maia fight. That was some sad-ass barroom boxing, and not in the best way, Luke. It's really perfect matchmaking. There are other guys in this greater category where you could say, okay, maybe that's a trap fight for Jake Paul. Maybe he's going to get himself knocked out. Because I saw Ben Askren's quotes in that video he put on social media

where he's like, look, I'm a world-class athlete. I'm an Olympian. I might not have the best striking, but this guy's a clown. And I think the reality is Jake Paul's a young, strong, athletic clown who has taken boxing pretty seriously, has brought in pro trainers. And if you're not at that level of seriousness, you could get sent to hell. And I don't think Ben Askren will get Nate Robinson. Nate Robinson, according to all reports, only put gloves on for the first time like three

months before that fight, Luke. So this was more like Nate Robinson thinking, oh, I'll get in there and have fun. I could probably, you know, beat this guy. And he just got humbled and served. But yeah, I still think even with that, this is a bad matchup for Ben Askren, Luke. And you know what? If they're going to do it, I know you were like, I texted think even with that, this is a bad matchup for Ben Askren, Luke. And you know what? If they're going to do it, I know you were like, I texted it to you last night, and you were like, get that shit away from me.

I mean, you basically did a Dana response video in reaction to it. But in reality, Luke, you don't hate this. You would watch this. Look, your disinterest or hate is not going to stop that train from getting to the station. So show up at the station, sit next to me, and we'll watch it together, all right? Yeah. No, I won't be watching it. I mean, I will agree with all of your analysis for the most part, right?

If you're Jake Paul and you're trying to do what he's doing, and we can describe it cynically, we can describe it however you want, but whatever you want to call what he's doing, getting Ben Askren, who was in some big UFC fights, has, in terms of his pedigree, you know, the video that Askren put out, you're right, Olympian, two-time NCAA champion, you know, champion in mixed martial arts in multiple organizations, blah, blah, blah. Like, it checks all the boxes, and then the guy's retired, has a hip replacement, and, you know, I don't think this is exactly an insult but I think even he would tell you he probably did not have the best stand up in all of the UFC even when he was active in there and so it just it's the perfect fight

to do the kind of dumb shit that Jake Paul is doing so I will agree that the matchmaking is clever if they end up going this direction for what the, for what the effort is. But you know, listen, folks, I'll just say this. I will not deny that this is a profitable thing for which there is a market that is just incontestably true, but you can't look at something like this and be like, isn't this good? No, dude, this is good to a certain segment of the population and that's okay. Not everything has to be for everybody but this shit ain't for me dude i don't give a fuck i don't give a fuck if one guy gets viciously ko'd or they fight to boredom it doesn't it doesn't do it's like listening to a

taylor swift album i'm like and it doesn't look remember remember in the movie the naked gun when they're watching the highlights on the band debate on the screen at the stadium and the guy in the outfield was going to catch the ball and a car drove by and hit him and then a lion came out on top basically you're like if these guys get in the ring and like a hole falls through the middle of the floor and the undertaker pulls them in and eats their flesh that's on them i'm okay but here's the thing um there's three letter acronyms to describe legends like that guy FRB, front row Brian. He hates you.

He calls you Puke Thomas. There's a different three-letter. Very clever. There's a different three-letter acronym of a man, an MMA veteran, a legend who might be the only guy we should bring out of retirement to potentially try to end this Paul brother fiasco. I'm not talking about Ben Askren. I'm talking about a man, a legend,

who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and his name is Bloodstained Lane. Can we go to the bullpen? No, he doesn't live in Brooklyn, you fucking jamoke. He lives in Ozone Park, which is Queens. Sorry, in Queens, in Ozone Park. Can somebody go down to Ozone Park, grab the legend BSL, Bloodstained Lane,

the reaffirmed legend, the changed man who's about the Lord these days, and I respect him to a full degree. Can we bring in that guy from the bullpen, that right-hander, and end this Jake Paul thing? Who you got right now? Jake Paul versus Bloodstained Lane. No, I've actually seen real footage of bloodstained lane sparring maybe he was actually outright oh i think it was a smoker at mma no i mean i don't know what kind

of shape he's in i mean i couldn't tell you today but back when i saw that video he would absolutely fucking annihilate that guy he's the king of queens he's got hands he's got real hands he's a legend all right uh yup remember he used to do that whole bit that was great um all right uh yep remember he used to do that whole bit that was great um all right well if you like that kind of thing good luck there's a lot more of it coming your way so enjoy i can't take it away from you nor would i try that being said bc we do have more uh news and notes to get to uh very quickly amanda nunez has a fight scheduled with um with, God, her name is now slipping me. I have the notes here. Megan Anderson, the tattooed one.

Jesus Christ, what is wrong with me? But I think it's going to be in March now, BC. In fact, I believe it's going to be UFC 259. Good thing you stopped at JC, which was offensive enough, and you didn't go the extra level there, Luke. You know it's not real, right? When you die, you just rot in the ground. There's no nothing after that. That's it. I know that, not real, right? When you die, you just rot in the ground. There's no nothing after that.

That's it. I know that, man. The Book of Luke is actually a fraudulent book in the Bible that the scholars don't believe in any way. Anytime now, Lightning. Anytime, please. That guy right over there. Again, for people who like facts,

maybe I'm the guy you want as part of your audience. If you have a demand problem where you want to be lied to all the time, I'm not your guy. Wow. It's bad enough that you've already set off all the political right-wingers. Now you're coming after my people. I don't stand for that. Your flesh will burn one day.

Listen, turn the other cheek. UFC 259, March 6. ESPN reported it first. Megan Anderson and Amanda Nunes. They will fight, BC, a little bit later than normal. Again, I think we sort of went over this. Who does this benefit? Probably it's going to benefit more Megan.

But the question is, does it benefit her enough to make you think that the fight is more competitive this way? Dude, I think there's questions. Let's be honest. Amanda didn't look great in beating Durand and me in the rematch. She blew away, I guess, Felicia Spencer. I'm just saying I don't see the crispness. I don't see the killer of a couple years ago.

Maybe there's boredom built in. Maybe it's because she's doing more important things. Her and Nina just had their first child. Maybe it's whatever. Or maybe she sends me to hell and comes back and destroys Megan Anderson. But I just think the future, and I've said this before, would be better served if she picked a division.

If she just said, look, featherweight's easier to make. You know, I can defend it against whomever. Let's open back up the bantamweight one. Because I don't think it's fair that other champ champs had gotten stripped instantaneously for business purposes. I get that there's not a ton out there, but yes, this would probably be the right time. Fresh off a big family moment where Amanda was being a little bit more domestic than being, you know, prepared for combat in all things considered with the quarantine that that Megan would have a best chance. I've said it before that I think she's got a sneaky chance. I'm not going to pick her. She's, you know, whatever, but she's a live dog in here. It's not horrible. She's improved. She's big. She can go on the ground, but, um, yeah,

she's coming back. And also doesn't Nina have a fight too coming up against two though. I forgot. I'm not sure, but getting back to the point about Amanda Nunes your theory is interesting which is to say if Amanda has retained any version of what we've seen I don't really know what chance Megan Anderson has but there's a question to be asked about whether or not what we've seen is maybe still there I thought she looked pretty awesome in the Felicia Spencer fight the Durandamy fight was tough but she gutted it out also Durand, I think, certainly a lot more decorated as a combat athlete than Megan Anderson. And I think Megan Anderson wouldn't take issue with that. I mean, they call her the Iron Lady for a reason because of her background and everything. But yeah, I will say that the time off, I wonder what it does.

It has not done necessarily anything discernible to male competitors who have had kids. She actually did not carry the child. It was actually Nina who did so in that sense there's not really historical precedent to say there's reason to think that she might decline but you wonder if this kind of dominance over time how hard is it to maintain from a competitive edge standpoint it's an interesting question and also uh I just looked it up Brett Okamoto had been one of the people who put it out there. April 10th, they're targeting Nina's return from childbirth against Mackenzie Dern. Luke, that's great matchmaking because Nina has somewhat wrongfully retained

a very high ranking in that division, even though she's been inactive for so long. This really gives Mackenzie Dern a chance to catapult into that top, basically that top five, potentially, with a win here. Luke, this is a really good matchup. I love that. Yeah, that is a good one. And we talked about it before, dude. Yeah, we talked about it before.

Mackenzie Dern, I think there's some issues with the intentionality of some of her strikes and the overall amount of weapons that she has. But dude, she doesn't mind taking a shot. Like, she doesn't mind getting hit. And for a lot of jiu-jitsu players, particularly of her pedigree, that's off on a hill they can't overcome. I think she's overcome it.

Now, there's still some other problems behind that, but that one major obstacle, I don't think it's real for her. And Nina will have had all this time off and blah, blah, blah. It'll be interesting. That's interesting. That's a great piece of matchmaking right there. Look, what about the intentionality of her uh accent uh uh that gets you so for some reason look you got certain triggers you live in a world you live in a world every day where no one has an accent right my

mother had an accent hold on hold on my mother had an accent. I mean, English is a second language accent. My mother had an accent. My wife has an accent. My in-laws all have accents. Like half of my life is people who just have accents. I actually understand what it means to have your languages shaped by the people you're around and to what extent you speak them and in what ways. And these donks who just live in their mom's basement, who have never had enough interaction with anyone

and how hard it can be to learn a second language in another country and blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff. And I realize Mackenzie Dern's situation is different. She learned English and then had her English kind of reshaped by the people who speak Portuguese in her life. Don't re-litigate it. It was a joke. Shout out to Uncle Felipe. I'm just saying I've got a joystick here with different buttons,

and when I press them, Luke, I know which ones, right? There's a USADA button. It's fair. There's a Canadian journalist button. There's a Arby's curly. That one you care about. I don't care about that one. Arby's curly fries button.

There's a lot. I just press them and just sit back, Luke, and just enjoy it, all right? You know who you are? You're a button masher. That's what you are. You just take your finger and you're like zip all the way across on the fucking xylophone there. Fucking cocksucker. All right.

Yeah. I mean, what have I ever accomplished in life, Luke? You know what, Luke, though? I would have jumped. I would have jumped off that cliff, bro. I would have done it. Because it was five feet high. I mean, Matt Serra could like, you it was the difference between him and the water was

the was the matt sarah height it was nothing that camera crew had to change out three batteries over that six hour day luke okay yes can you imagine being on that crew being like is he gonna fucking jump what what are we doing here we get all getting sunburned watching this goof stand on the edge of nothing all right would he pass a USADA test right now, Luke? Maybe, maybe not, but I don't care. I don't care about that shit. Y'all care about that stuff. Wow.

Let me add that other button. That's the, you know, on the Xbox controller, there's that, like, extra button in the back. That's the... Well, you know, we should put people in jail. Hey, maybe we shouldn't. You have outrageous opinions. Oh, do I? The guy who says we shouldn't put people in jail?

Okay, all right. Hey, show off that tat again. Great work. Can we shout out your tattoo artist what's his name oh yeah can we his name is john setzer uh he is at civilization tattoo like straight up no joke that's that's great work that is that is craftsmanship all right well hold on there you can see yeah and you said the wrist was was agonizing correct yeah so the uh the globe here was not so bad and everything any the way it works is whenever you get a tattoo think about any body part thigh you know arm whatever anything in the center is not going to be that bad so if you got

a tattoo like here or something it wouldn't be that bad. I mean, tattoos don't feel good, but you'd be like, whatever. But the further you go towards the extremities, it hurts. So these wings, I don't know if you can see them, these wings by the elbow, I'm trying to see if you can see here, they hurt, and then the anchor by the wrist. Oh, buddy, that was spicy. That did not feel awesome. That actually really fucking hurt. Did you have anything

in your system to help with the pain? Diet Mountain Dew. Alright. And a whole lot of suck it the fuck up. Look, I'm an old bitch with that. I can't do... I can't, you know... God, you should have saw me get those COVID tests the other... last week. Good lord.

See, here's the thing. You don't want the COVID test. Like I wanted this. So it's a little bit different, but okay. Last but not least, we have at least one boxing headline on our show before Christmas Eve day, BC. Charlo, Jamal Charlo making some interesting noise. Is he not saying, you know what? Fuck it.

168 pounds. I'll move up. I'll fight Canelo. Now, BC, we talked about Charlo on the night he fought Derevyanchenko the last time we had, I think, was that the last time we saw each other or close to the last time we saw each other in person? And we had said, you know, if he looks good against Derevyanchenko, who knows what it could set up? Well, he did look good against Derevyanchenko. It was a very tough fight. One of the better fights of the year, but Charlo showed he was a real Class A opponent for anybody in that weight class.

But it doesn't look like Canelo has a ton of interest in going back to 160, although he could. Do you like the move, although it feels a little desperate maybe, for Charlo to say, I'll go to 168? It's not desperate. First of all, you were dead wrong. We saw each other for the Dongumentary for Tank oh yes yes yes tank davis uh but look no this is smart it puts it out in the ethos that he wants it because right now you're right everyone knows canelo's the he's the a side of

the whole sport you got to come to him he prefers to fight at 68 because it's easier on his body and he has shown us that he can handle whatever he has to handle at 68 jamal charlo's already a big-ass middleweight who probably has to struggle down to 160 a bit. So this just makes a lot of sense. And with Canelo being a promotional network free agent at the moment, this should give him some enticement of where he wants to go. Luke, I don't know if Canelo will do one-fight deals moving forward or if it's more advantageous from a storyline building standpoint to do

multi-fight smaller deals what i mean by that is you beat a guy and you set up the storyline on whatever network you're on that you're going to face the next guy you can say that doesn't matter but it does help you know especially if you sign with the pbc and they have deals with showtime and fox and every fight they have or nfl broadcast from now until then you're going to keep telling that story. This should put another sort of drop in the bucket of potentially, hey, what does the PBC have to offer? Yes, there's Caleb Plant if I want to unify. There's David Benavidez, a former champion who could make a fun ass fight, all Mexican war, so to speak. And then there's Jamal Charlo. And there's

some people, I saw a great tweet from Cliff Roll, the respected boxing writer. He thinks, Luke, tell me if you think this is crazy. Okay? The Charlo brothers just made their pay-per-view debut. It did good numbers, right? It didn't do a million. I mean, but it did good numbers for a debut. Cliff Roll believes that Jermall Charlo, if they build to it the right way, could be Canelo's biggest pay-per-view fight since Floyd. When you say build to it the right way, what does that mean exactly?

I guess that means, you know, let's say Canelo did sign a couple fight deal with PBC. Let's say we started to put it in motion, and whoever they fought next, they would talk about fighting each other, and you would do something big in the interim. Plant is a PBC fighter, right? Yes. So you could do the Plant fight next, and then what would you do?

Well, maybe then you do... The whole idea is this. Look, Floyd versus Canelo, which was Canelo's pay-per-view debut, did like $2.4 million, or $2.2 million buys, right? Which was massive. Since then, Canelo has done just over a million twice with Golovkin and $900,000 with Cotto. The idea is that could Jermall Charlo be built up enough as a star, as an unbeaten, brash American,

to really fill that B-side hole and really put... Because, let's say it, Golovkin, before those two Canelo fights, had kind of bombed on pay-per-view previously with David Lemieux and his debut. It sold like 175,000 buys, which at that point was just disastrous. Could Jamal Charlo be that B-side? It's an interesting thought. I am of the belief that the Charlos have significant star potential, but they're just not there yet. Like, they deserve to be on pay-per-view.

That's not what I'm saying. Like, I don't disagree with that call. But what I'm saying is to get the most out of what they could become, because they sort of represent like this, like, let's be real about it. There's a huge portion of the audience of boxing that's African-American. And these guys are young and they're brash and they got tons of swag. They kind of representative of that portion of-American. And these guys are young and they're brash and they got tons of swag. They kind of representative of that portion of the market, but they have not, like, what was the big deal about beating Derevyanchenko?

That was the first time people could say he beat like a real opponent. There was no bullshit about it. Like that was a real sort of coming of age moment. But now you got to build on that a couple of times, I feel like before folks can really understand, like how many people would list Charlo, not boxing fans,

just casual fans, or at least, you know, semi-casual fans who know who the Charlo's are, who could name and rattle off four or five fights that they've had. They're just not quite there yet. So to me, it's like,

do I think that they have in them the kinds of ingredients that if nurtured to your, to the sky's point could be something more than what they are. No doubt about it, But I don't think you can just shove them to the front of the line and get it. In fact, I think if Canelo fought them and let's say he beat Charlo kind of handily, which he might, you kind of

ruin all of that. So to me, it's like, let's figure out who their next couple of chess pieces are and then we can get to that one. I mean, Canelo is only 30, right? We don't have to rush that one exactly. No, no, you don't. But look, like, you know, Triple G, you sold that fight because of what the potential was. But Triple G can't sell a fight with his mouth for the most part. Jamal Charlo potentially could, especially if they, you know, if he mixed it up a little verbally and tried to get out there.

It's interesting. And obviously, look, ability-wise, Jamal Charles is a live dog against Canelo. I've said that from day one. I agree with that. The one thing you don't see Canelo going out of his way to do is fight people with really quick feet, right? And that's why I've always given Caleb Plant much more of a chance than other people would.

You know, if he's the quicker man, he's probably going to get you, right? And I know when he was at junior middleweight, he was a big junior middleweight, and he did do that against guys like Trout and Lara who were quick boxers, and he had trouble, and he just barely won. Jamal Charlo, who can also punch, by the way,

is really athletic and quick. It would be a very interesting test for Canelo. I love it. I love the idea. Yeah, down the road, I would absolutely love to see it. Next? Not so much next um okay with that in mind bc it is uh time for us we you know we killed dana at the beginning of the show but now it's time for us to get killed by the viewers it's time for your and my least favorite but most important segment it's time for dead wrong take it away good sir yeah it's kind of for some

accountability right that's what we do here in mk land we'll take the l like i got so many maga heads uh by the way i'm not even like like like like totally like f you right side maga i'm sort of like you know they can be my people too but i got people just saying just take the lbc just shut up and take the l all right we'll take the l right here okay look here we go uh we'll start out with this. Luke, you were dead wrong during Have You Seen This Shit on Monday when the English soccer presenter was putting her hand up to the graphic. You said that Theo Walcott plays for Aston Villa or Burnley. He plays for Southampton.

I mean, okay. Yes, I was wrong. It's like, wow, this semi-irrelevant figure doesn't play for this shit team or that shit team he plays for a different shit team okay all right fine i yeah all right but unlike dana you'll take the yo because here's the thing dana dana dana put together that hit piece of all people saying he couldn't do it by the way and left out joe rogan um dana also could have put on that hit piece remember that really awkward interview he did with aioli back in like march where he was like if the coronavirus is gonna get me come and get me corona come on like it just

like he did the uh harold howard thing yeah just absolutely just ridiculous like at that point just bonker yeah all right whatever all right luke uh let's take another l here on dead wrong it's me brian stated that luke's new tattoo falls somewhere between kevin lee's head tat and darren elkins tattoo that reads danger across his chest luke i was dead wrong elkins absurd writing in blood actually says the damage the damage yes which is. Which is a hell of a tattoo. Danger Darren Elkins. Yeah, that is a heck of an idea, Luke. I already said if we got to a million subs, I would get an MK tattoo. So let's flip the script here for just a second.

What would it take? No bullshit. Like if it really came down to it. And obviously it would have to be something glorious. But what would it take for you to get an MK tattoo? And when I say that, you know, a tattoo of your choosing, a size and location, like you've got to put it wherever you want, that sort of thing.

So it would have to be an MK-inspired tattoo? I would grant some license, yes. Like, for example, just basic on my, outside of my bicep, just do like the Morning Combat logo. Yeah, or you could do two guys pushing their fingers together or something. Or I could take the fist in the Sphinx. I mean, sorry, the sun rising here. The logos, you know, and put that somewhere on my body.

Yeah, something like, I mean, it has to be like a little bit clearer than that, but what would it take? Well, I'm an old bitch when it comes to needles, so it would take a Dana White apology video. No, it would take. You'll never get a tattoo in that case. It would take. No, what is it?

Because you put a million. I look, dude, a million subs is like who has a million subs of people that are relatively in our sphere? No one, right? Marcos from Fight Hub tv is kind of close oh wow okay what about like an ellie seck back who's been doing this forever probably close i mean but he just you know he ever seen his setup i mean ellie's a nice guy but he shows up with a camcorder and then a potato and is like well he's reporting you know he's the original gorilla i got nothing bad to say about at leasturback. Love that guy.

We're closing in on 100k in reality, right? We're getting there. We'll have 100k probably first quarter 2021. 500,000 YouTube subscribers to Morning Combat. Would I get a tattoo? Would you get a tattoo of the imprint of my balls in ink i actually would kind of be down with with the whole with the whole two logos here right maybe like yeah yeah yeah that's actually that's a cool yeah i like that actually that's a cool

idea you could get the sun on one shoulder and you could get the fist on the other shoulder. You'd be like a real fucking man that way, you know? All right. 500,000 subs. A million subs. 500,000 YouTube subs. Yes. Yes.

I will do that. Yes. All right. There you have it. There you have it. What else are we dead wrong about, good sir? All right. All right.

Luke, you do this dead wrong a lot, and we don't always call you on it, but on last Friday's show, during the Cheeto versus Aldo preview, you jose aldo's first ufc loss at bantamweight was to the champion marlon maraish when marlon was never a ufc champ i think i've done that like three times yeah he's a former world series of fighting champion he fought henry suhudo for the vacant title and lost it but you have claimed look you're dead wrong i'm so fucking wrong dude that's like one of those things where like you ever get a word in your head and you have misspelled it and for some reason your brain won't allow you to to not misspell it like you're it just the word order is just a letter order is just stuck in your brain

i can't get out of my head that marlon morice actually was never a ufc champion in my brain it is fucking stuck i am dead wrong i'm dead wrong so he he's he'll be bruce jenner in your brain forever is what you're saying something like that yes all right well our final dead wrong of the week goes out to both of us well specifically me this has been the most responsive comeback from our audience to how badly i was wrong on monday's show with during have you seen the shit when we showed yet another double tip on tip from a celebrity this time from sakuraba and i jokingly made the notion of wow maybe we started this trend luke no i didn't think we actually started the double one. I assumed something was up with that. But, Luke, it is back and full on in our face

that the people, our viewers and listeners, supposedly people that love us and know us, were like, bro, how do you not know that's Dragon Ball Z? Oh, God. Not only do they expect to see us doing this together soon don't don't first of all don't don't be like how'd you guys miss this anime like come on come on like seriously like come on you know i know it's like i can't i can't really bad mouth anime because a lot of people who like us like anime and israel adesanya is way tougher and way cooler than me and he loves anime.

But with the exception of Adesanya, it's fucking for dorks. I mean, I don't know what you want me to say. Adesanya gets a pass because he's the coolest fucking guy that is basically out there right now. But all the rest of you fucking jamokes, you know. Yeah, so we're actually not wrong. Not knowing what that is makes you right, makes you cool. Knowing what that is makes you right makes you cool knowing what that is makes you dead wrong audience you see i may not know much about dragon ball z but you know what i do know

what about i know how to throw a spiral i can tell you that i know that i'll tell you i think i had dragon ball z by about the second needle during that surgery good lord look i mean right in like the you know that line between the two, that's where they put the, oh my God, three, three needles. They get you, they get you at the fissure, huh? The little space. The, the, the equator of, yeah, right at the old, uh, wow. Right.

Not the tropic of Capra balls, right? Not that side, right down the middle, right on. And not, not the rock of your balters either. And by the way, other people's doctors were like, oh yeah, sure, I'll prescribe you a pill to take beforehand that'll make you loopy when you come in and kind of not with it.

No, my 75-year-old work once a week ex-Vietnam veteran doctor that I didn't research at all and chose was like, come on in, sit down, be a man. We're going three times down there, bro. Three. Luke, to even joke that I am still emotionally scarred from the experience would be a joke, Luke, okay?

Is that all we're dead wrong about? I was dead wrong for getting that surgery, Luke, by far, okay? And by the way, everyone, their brother emailed that to me as well. And listen, I hope that the anime dorks, which is what they are, and virgins, understand we we're just joking i don't know that i'm better than you i mean i'm probably better than you with the exception of it looks like i think better than me yeah you know but i do know how to be seen look when you turn the microphone off you're like i'm better than all those people i know that but look luckily a lot of these dragon

ball z nerds create great fan artwork and submissions. And let's transfer to that segment. Luke, we have a loaded one right here. Woo-hoo! Let's do it. This is your Christmas and Boxing Day combined fan submissions, Luke. Here we go. Gary P. going to kick it off saying,

I just wanted to say thank you guys for everything through these difficult times. Keep up the good work. Check out Gary P. with a hat and sweatshirt combo, Luke. Look at this heterosexual, huh? Killing the guy. Yeah, damn right. That guy don't know what Dragon Ball is. Look at that guy.

I love that guy, right? You know what? He has the twofer. He's got the hoodie and the hat, so fuck your life. Gary P. is the new president of the country. That's what I said got the hoodie and the hat so fuck your life gary p is the new president of the country that's what i said you know what the p stands for pussy because that's what he's getting with that with those clothes on right there okay thank you gary we love you uh let's go to one of our favorite people at least one of mine bill from bill and jen's rv

adventure just to remind you amazing is that al amazing. Is that Alcatraz? They're the best. They sold their house. They jumped in the RV. They work from the RV, and they just travel our fine country wearing MK merch. This is Bill at Alcatraz, Luke. The Rock, baby. By the way, The Rock. Is that not an incredible movie? Maybe Nicolas Cage's best movie, would you argue? I still haven't seen it.

I know. Oh, my God. You've never seen The Rock you want to do that for homework next week yes fuck yes dude we'll circle back on one The Rock is legitimately one of my favorite bad movies

it's not a bad movie but it's like whatever kind of movie but it's one of my favorites is it Con Air The Rock the movie The Rock bangs Con Air's girlfriend in front of Con Air and makes eye contact with Con Air, the rock, the movie, the rock, bangs Con Air's girlfriend in front of Con Air and makes eye contact with Con Air while doing it. That's how good the rock is relative to Con Air. Well, I can't tell here as we continue the slides of Bill from Bill and Jen.

I don't know if Bill only owns three T-shirts inside of his camper and it just happens to be MK's one of them, but I love this man wearing it uh gaff can we advance to the uh to the next slide please yep here's here's uh here's bill on the alcatraz baseball field uh over there by uh first base i think luke have you ever been to the rock no i don't think i have all right me neither can we go to the next one and here's also bill uh hanging out Yes on the island there Shout out to great people that support our show very well done. Luke. We've got a video coming from Daniel W

I have no idea what it is. Let's check it out Good morning fellas from the jungles of San Diego Rocking the Black Friday purchase. You two are awesome, man. Keep it up. And Luke, fuck you, bitch. This means I love you. These are double horns.

You get it right, dick. May all your gains be loyal and stay frosty. Thanks, fellas. I love that guy. First of all, it's hilarious. So is this really I love you in sign language? I have no idea, but that was hilarious. I have not seen that ahead of time.

They did not prep me with that. Wow. You know what this means? You know what that means, don't you? Yeah. You know what? That was a good roast, though. I appreciate a good roast. i appreciate a good roast that was a good roast i like yeah thank you for supporting our merch daniel m uh love it love it you know he might he might that guy might have a firearm on him while he recorded this luke you know

he looks like the kind that just sort of takes one to waffle house for no apparent reason yeah probably all right let's move on hey ben s Ben S. has given two of our MK's youngest listeners some nice MK merch. Yes. Very cute. I think we have two slides here. I like that the shutter speed is not so great, but okay. The sizing. Do we have kid sizes on the MK clothes?

Probably not, Luke, right? We can't even get one to Canada, so I doubt that i doubt that we have you know what and i would hold on and i would kill this guy for the state of his living room but uh my toddler does this as well so i can't talk shit i'm sure uncle felipe is not that organized either all right no no no actually he dude actually he's like super organized oh wow shout out to that guy shout out to ben s and family rocking the MK. We love you. Thank you very much. All right, we have an obsolete opinion with this Luke Thomas meme coming up. I have no idea what that means either.

I can't see it. Gaff, can you read what that says? Can you take us off the screen so we can see it, please? Gaff, can you go full with that? Yeah, just go full screen. Okay. This is from obsolete opinion. Yeah, maybe you can readjust.

This one is dying on the vine here pretty quickly, BC, for a live show. Yeah, well, it's not obsolete opinion's fault. It's not your fault. It's not my fault, Luke. It's probably Jayay's fault so should we just take a nap while they figure this out or did i make a joke about banging santa claus's wife or mom yes you did yes you did luke okay i don't recall such slander and I will not acknowledge it all right

let's move on uh shout out to obsolete opinion sorry that got so butchered Scott M Rizzo Luke he is all over us lately check out this new movie poster Luke and Brian go to White Castle from the director of dude where's my car, Brian Campbell, Go to White Castle, Fast Food, High Times. You know I've never seen Harold and Kumar go to White Castle? Dude, you need to watch. I haven't seen the second. No, I have seen the second one. The first one is great. Look, it's not as

good as Half Baked, but it's in the same ballpark. I told you I saw the Christmas special and that was like, okay. It was fine. Yeah, it's okay at best. This one's good. This is a good-ass funny flick. What is your fast food go-to when you get high?

Well, back in the day, it was Wendy's. But if I have a lot of choices, I mean, look, dude, I'm a Taco Bell guy, ride or die. Yeah, Taco Bell is your number one go-to right there, I feel like. Yeah, one time we used to do that, Luke, and then go to Wendy's, but wear whatever we were wearing. So one time I had pajama pants on, some winter Christmas slippers, and a lumberjack jacket that you would see a construction worker work in, like a winter hat.

And we went to Wendy's and we ordered. We used to go to the value menu at Wendy's and be like, what are you going to order? And we'd go, I'm going to order $9 worth. No, I'm going to order $10 worth. And I ordered $11 worth, OK? I had so much ketchup on this cheeseburger, right? That as I was biting it, Luke, just this glob was going to fall down on top of me. And I stuck my hand under to catch the ketchup in midair. So I got a burger. I got a handful of ketchup. I'm

wearing a lumberjack coat with a winter hat and pajamas. And I look up and I hear my name being called. And it was like the chick that i had like the biggest crush on in high school and this was like in college and um i was like yep this is where i am in life right now so it's great it's great to see you again gotta go right and just continued to plow through the food look it happened i uh when i when i did when i finished rogan show where i identified you by name several times I had not had I think I'd had maybe like half of a muffin that morning and I didn't have anything to eat for lunch then we go in there and I didn't we got out of there like 5 30 in the afternoon and so I all I had all day was a muffin

and I was a little bit drunk so I would go back to my hotel room and I ordered and I'm not kidding 35 with the taco bell I didn't end up eating half it, but I just had one of those moments where I had to shovel food in my mouth. And I ordered like 10 quesadillas or some shit. What a waste that was. At some point, are you eating on the toilet at some point? Because I bet as you get to like the $7 point of ingestion, your body's like, I got to bail, bro, right? I don't think I did that, but I've done that in the past. But I didn't do it that day.

Yes. All right. Hey, let's roll on here. Tasos the Greek has another creation for us, Pulp Fiction inspired. Luke, cut it out or I will. This will teach you to brutally colonize me, Doc. I don't get it. Maybe colonize?

Gaff, what does it say in the bottom left corner what does it say in the bottom there since we can't take this full screen cough cough okay alright it's weird they love talking about butts and balls on this show so yeah

alright alright well done well speaking of Pulp F fiction our guy sean is checking in with something here let's see if we can read it oh look at that does he not look like a serial killer look at this fucking guy he's got the pulp fiction vhs tape right and he's got the the morning combat t-shirt love the combo combo right there. Yeah, this dude is definitely, you know, he has worn people's skin as an outfit a couple of times. He's a veteran of retrieving the lotion from the basket, actually. That's right.

All right, Luke, another friend of the show checking in. This is Jariah P., and he says, Went to a Christmas light show, and my girlfriend wanted to have a nice romantic time on the Ferris wheel, but I made her take pictures to show off my great new t-shirts for the show she took it in stride and even went tip to tip also I don't have a shitty soul patch that's just a scab Luke he anticipated your comeback and also he has a woman with him that's that's fairly fairly rare wearing our merch prepared to go tip on tip all right yeah yeah yeah yeah impressive well i'd say you know what thanks to this lovely

young couple for supporting the show very good looking couple shout out to jiraya p right there all right hopefully he found the p as well uh luke wilfredo m is going to check in from downtown Detroit yes little self tip on tip action Luke and also it's the fist from the comm the KOM this is Detroit that is shout out to Wilfredo Wilfredo M I'm surprised no one is hitting him with a glass bottle Francisco yes alright Todd M checking in with BC the trash panda Luke

oh you and those curly these this is you think this is Photoshop this is a picture this is a picture of BC and his lunch friends enjoying this is who eats arby's it's you and divorced dads that's and then raccoons that's well i got a lot of dm's saying yeah you're right

luke has no idea how great the art yeah you got dms from fucking idiots you didn't get dms from anybody who knows anything about fries look we need to grab a camera and create a new thing not not food truck diary shout out i heard that's a great franchise starring brendan shop i'm talking of fries. Look, we need to grab a camera and create a new thing. Not Food Truck Diaries. Shout out. I heard that's a great franchise starring Brendan Schaub. I'm talking about maybe like Gas Station Diaries or something. You and I hit up an Arby's. We go to Cumberland Farms. You know what I mean? We already have our own diaries.

Can we not call it diaries? We could just call it like fast food fuck off or something. Fast food diarrhea? How about that, Luke? Here's the thing, BC. Did you have a job in high school? Did you work in high school? Yes, I worked at McDonald's on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 6

a.m. hung over as shit. Yes. OK. I worked at a Chick-fil-A in high school and it was a good job and I was glad to have it. And I got fired and that's OK. But the point being is you got the waffle fry is the king.

I used to work the drive through, but I would take the headset with me to the bathroom and drop bombs and like do sound effects through it it was great you were doing a gun bit where you're at the urinal just urinating and farting constantly exactly hey ryan r has uh he says since luke loves the song 12 days of christmas so much i thought i'd make a 12 months of of COVID Combat Edition. Merry Christmas, guys. Let's play it, Gaff. Oh, God. Oh god. Oh god. Okay. Pounding salt. Not quite. pounding salt not quite three damn needles

so good oh wow wow shout out to all the people who we didn't react kindly to their thing because we couldn't read it but everyone's work is so great let's continue here luke um that's really well done it's apparently time for dickles to take over luke and it starts with misa horny disney after dark luke shout out to the gungans did i not make i think i made some kind of like jar jar binks joke and then you came on instead of me so horny like two live crew you did me or did i do that who did this one who did this probably both of us it was a collective group shout out to dickles he uh his email got bounced back last week so we're gonna get a full batch right here next up is uh me and my cat zoe luke who

made her first appearance on morning combat that time it's so true she's a great cat but she does injure me a lot luke she will bite down to the bone out of like go from kissing to just murder out of no just just like that luke all right you have relationship with Dana. Yeah, and my wife, too. Well done. All right. Yeah, that's great. Okay, Luke, moving on here. Dickles also has a video about your new tattoo.

Check it out. A lot of tats. A lot of tats. Yeah, yeah. A lot of tats. Okay. Tits for tats, Luke. Okay.

And I'm actually getting a tattoo coming up here very soon how about that all right My name is Luke Thomas. Women's boxing is not especially exciting. In fact, it's usually fucking boring. Well done, Dickles. Luke, that's fantastic right there. Yes, co-host. That's the tattoo you'd have to get is co-host.

I like the one on the back with the two tips and the full logo. Well done right there. I like how everyone treats my assessment of women's boxing as a hot take. No one full well in private conversation. Y'all all tell me the exact same thing. But okay, y'all can pretend. Y'all can pretend. Luke, how about that back tat on the outside of my arm at 500,000 subs?

That's not bad. I think your wife would legitimately hit you over the head with a garden rake if you did that. Zoe the cat would bite the shit out of me. That's for sure. All right. Dickles has another one here. Here's a play on the famous meme with Luke. I mean, he's not wrong.

Not wrong. He's not wrong. What can I say? Guilty as charged. Not wrong. Not wrong. Here's another one from Dickles called The Four Stages of Luke's Dead Wrong. All right, Luke, let's get on to a segment that makes you increasingly angry week by week.

It's called Dead Wrong. Those words never came out of my mouth. And I didn't even cosign it. I just let it rock and go onto the ether. I was studying something else. So two times the audience wants to nail me to the wall. And two times they got... All right, Luke, let's get on to... ...me to the wall.

And two times they got it totally fucking wrong okay do we hear this guy you fucking ape why don't you go finger paint with your your kitten coco go fuck yourself who are you osama bin laden that's an osama bin laden so it can be both of us being right actually is not true it's a totally a totally incorrect way to think about it. But you know what? Doesn't really matter. You fucked up. You're dead wrong.

Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. Who the fuck eats at Arby's besides raccoons? Go fuck yourself. BC, I can't believe I didn't win friendliest in high school that is very surprising does does dickles know us better than we know ourselves right now i mean what is going on

honestly honestly if this is my dad i wouldn't be surprised actually i would be because he wouldn't put that much effort in but he certainly has the same sensibilities about me as dickles all right dickles is not done yet now let's get into the christmas spirit with bc and his bago porn it has happened at many many a stag and by the way luke i have seen that the sandals are really yes i. I have presented that item to so many different auction, or what do you call it? Not auction, raffle tables, and I've seen it selected ahead of golf clubs, a PlayStation,

bottles of expensive liquor. Luke, the old guys go right frigging for it, okay? Thank you. Oh, dude, the sandals are just too much do you wear socks with sandals do you wear like crocs and shit when you go to walmart are you like no i you i won't lie to you though when my kid so so you know you might know this already when my kids were really young you know how you go through that early like fat dad phase you know what i mean and like you're taking life seriously because you're a dad for the first time. So you stop caring about things like your presentation,

but you care more about other things. Yes, I would go to Walmart with Crocs and socks until my wife was like, don't ever, ever leave the house like that again. And if you do, don't come back. Yeah, so thank you. I threw away all Crocs. I don't own any anymore.

All right. We have two more from Dickles. Luke has Santa Claus coming up here. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. Luke, I have a 90s counter. There should be a Luke two-handed eyeglasses adjustment counter, right? Yeah, I agree.

It's a bad tick that I have. All right. And to close from Dickles, who I think is the new web screen at this point. I love myself some web screen, but Dickles is on a run here. Finally, Mary Tipmas from Dickles. Is that urine in the snow? I think that's a Christmas card, Luke, of the previous two pictures. I think this is the Morning Combat Christmas card he wants us to send out.

Mary Tipmas. Got it. All right. Well, very nice. There it is, Luke. There it is. Shout out to all, all Mary Tipmas. Got it. All right. Well, very nice. There it is, Luke. There it is. Shout out to all, all of our people. Even the people that got no sold.

Shout you out for your effort on there. Thank you very much. That was good. That was really, really well done. That was a very good episode of fan submissions. By the way, if you want to send those fan submissions, the best place and the only place to do it is not my DMs. I ain't going to do anything with it. Morningcombat at gmail.com. That is where you want to send those fan submissions, the best place and the only place to do it is not my DMs. I ain't going to do anything with it.

MorningCombat at gmail.com. That is where you want to go. And, of course, you can DM Brian if you want. But really, make it easy on everybody. Send it to the Gmail address. MorningCombat, all one word there, at gmail.com. Brian, we will have a Friday show for everybody. It won't be live.

It will be recorded. But do you have any Christmas wishes, any things you want to say to the audience before we sign off here? Yeah, look, it's the holiday season where people get nicer. You think about the things that you deep inside actually care about. Thank you. We said this during Thanksgiving, but I mean that the whole idea of even joking about a tattoo at 500,000 subs. We're nowhere. We're nothing nowhere without all you guys so i i can't tell you how much i appreciate the dms the the tweets the the submissions of art buying our mk merch and putting it on your kids i mean like this is one amazing dysfunctional happy family that we built

here luke i always wished i could be on a show that that would people would care this much about that that would have this type of outreach. And this has been a year and a half of just joy. And it's because of the people, Luke. It really is. I mean, I love Jay and Gaff and Maniche and and Matt S. And all the, you know, daily, all our great people that help put the show on. I love you, Luke. Don't don't get that twisted.

But our people, they fuel me. Sometimes you think they fuel me too much. Sometimes you think, Luke, I'm willing to live and die for them in order to spite you. And you might be correct on that. But shout out to Mikey Morms as well, another one of our great producers. Everyone putting it together,

right? The people behind the scenes, the fans clicking like and subscribe, and you and I putting this crap out, MK, all day, nearly every day. Luke, I could not be happier in life right now, and a lot of that is because of two letters, right? MK. So thank you, people.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Happy New Year. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy Boxing Day to Aaron Bronstetter. Yes. Thank you. Yes. All I will say is, I mean, I couldn't say it better than BC, so I will just add holidays can be, you know, great time for many. It can be sometimes a bit of a weird time for others. So please don't drink and drive drive if there's some kind of issue you have out there call somebody uh take precautions there's no need for anything bad to happen that is preventable and some things i suppose in life or not but many of them are please don't text and drive don't drink and drive don't do anything like that take care of yourself 2021 is not going to be i think

the easiest year but i do think it's going to be better than 2020 and probably by a considerable margin. Certainly for this show, we have big plans. So I would echo everything Brian said in terms of thanking the audience, thanking him, thanking the crew that makes this possible, CBS Sports, Showtime, Malka, the whole everyone in between.

But also take care of yourself so you can be with us on this journey as we keep going together. It's not me and Brian. It's all of us together. And we, of course, want everyone to be happy. And it's part of as much of a part of that as they can or want to be. So I would just add that as well.

So just to reiterate what you said, get ready for Friday on Christmas. If you get a little break from celebrating with the family, you want to take a take a dump, you can turn on the MK. We'll have a bonus Q&A episode built off of your questions. So thank you very much for sending those in on the Apple Podcast Reviews. Luke, do you want to tell them about episode 100? Not yet. Not yet. We're still trying to figure it out, but we have big

things planned. Big things planned. So stay tuned for that. In the meantime, if you want to try Showtime, maybe during the holiday season, you can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, keep it. If not, go about your merry way. If you want to get some merch, maybe for the new year, not so much for Christmas at this point

but still, store.show.com Like and subscribe to the video and of course we are on social media as is the MK stuff. It's Morning Combat everywhere. YouTube, Gmail, Instagram, Twitter and then of course you can follow me and Brian right there. Take a screenshot if you need to and then of course you can follow me and brian right there take a

screenshot if you need to and then give us a follow and subscribe so thanks to everyone who has made everything up to this point uh possible we appreciate you take care of yourself we will talk to you guys on friday with our little q a episode thanks to all your questions and until then merry christmas happy hanukkah happy kzaa. May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.