MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Davis vs. Santa Cruz | UFC Fight Night: Hall vs Silva | Bellator 250 Recap | Ep. 76

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

Morning Kombat is back as Luke and Brian preview the biggest combat sports events of the weekend, including the massive boxing match between Gervonta Davis and Leo Santa Cruz & the UFC match between Uriah Hall and Anderson Silva. The boys also recap Bellator 250. --------------------------------- '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

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

This is Morning Combat. Tag fired up for this Friday morning. Morning Combat back at it. It is Friday, October 30th, 2020. That's mischief time. Big, beige Brian Campbell sitting across from the cake to my urinal. Right? Right?

If you were beige Brian Big beige Brian Campbell? It's the triple B. The sperm to my whale. The dick to my tation. He's an ex-Marine Sergeant. There's no such thing. He is Luke Thomas a man. A big man. How are you folks? We, a big man, all right?

How are you, folks? Yeah. Hey, we got a big show for you today. It's been a fun week somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, back in, what do we call this place? It was Orchids of Combat? No one's ever called it that except you, and you're trying to make it stick,

and I'm not going to let it. It does get a little handsy, a little sticky in these parts. Big show today because it's the big loaded weekend in the combat sports game. We're going to get deep inside the matchups. Gervonta Davis, Leo Santa Cruz, Anderson Silva, Uriah Hall. Look back on the Bellator night that was Thursday night at 250. Middleweight title on the line.

All that and then some tall, pale, and handsome. The BBC has your back in the host chair today, Luke. And I know how hard it was for you to relinquish that. Just so everyone knows, it was my idea that he would host on Fridays because I think it might change up the energy a little bit. Already I think it's proven to be true. Second of all, cameraman, can you do me a favor? I forgot my glasses.

I think they're in a brown case at the top of the bag. Can you get this cane while you're at it over there? Yeah, I forgot to put them on because I am the stupidest man alive. You also wore that shirt yesterday, I think, Luke. No, no, no, I wore it on, what day is it today, Friday? I wore it Wednesday, and then I washed it in my sink last night. Yeah, like a true panhandler. Can you spot my front yard workout later?

Yes, it's always been my dream to spot you. Thank you very much. I want to shout out a lot of... If you zip open the side bag, it might be in the... Yeah, that's right, it's a live show, it's not a big deal. No, zip open the side bag, it might be in the... Yeah, that's right. It's a live show. It's not a big deal. No, zip open the side bag.

Yeah, hey, camera guy, get it together over there. Yeah, I mean, aren't you supposed to be doing your job and my job? There it is right there, behind the things. We want to thank Showtime, Malka, CBS Sports. It's been a big week for us. We're doing a lot of big stuff here. They're filming a documentary about our return to this spot right here. You should tell them about the podcast we recorded.

Pretty excited. And although we ghosted you on night one, it's a Luke Thomas fault here, we did do a fantastic room service diaries Thursday night. You'll be seeing that today on the YouTubes. Look out for that. I don't think we're going to lose our jobs, which is good. I hope not.

Or get in any fights. But, you know, we come real. We come original. You see, they're asking us to remind you that, you know, we need to thank Showtime and tell folks how they can get it. Yeah, that was part of the end of my spiel. That was when the baby comes out.

You can start a 30-day free trial right now. You want Showtime? Why don't you go to Showtime.com. What are you getting? The boxing, the great series, the documentaries, the movies. It's the only place where you can find Morning Combat Strike Force Classics. It's got its own folder where Luke and I join forces with Mauro Ranallo, Scott Coker, look back at the greatest moments in Strike Force history. And if you want merch like this,

well, it's not on the website, so you're not going to be able to find it. This is a collector's edition. And if you live outside the country, you'll be pounding sand anyway. But if you live in the, at least the lower 48, at least, you can go to show, actually you can go to store.shoshow.com, and you can pick up your own Morning Combat dad hat, winter hat, I know it's snowing in Connecticut right now today. It was windy as balls outside. Yeah, damn right. You can wear all that shit you see us wearing a lot.

Please support the cause, because your favorite combat show, if it ain't this one, it will be. It will be, bro. I agree with that. I'm telling you. All right? I'm getting in them on these, all right? And they're telling me, don't forget as well, morningcombat at gmail.com, morningcombat with a K, all one word, at gmail.com for what? Dead or wrong, for just to reach out to the show.

Fan submissions, right? Oh, we got a theme song. Check it out on, I think it's next Wednesday. We got another theme song attempt. Somebody trying to one-up the great Cal Matisse and shout out to Web Scream and all those weirdos. I love y'all. It's time to get into the show, Luke, unless you want to say anything else. Let's do it. Alright. Hit me with my

ISO cam here. Hit me with the horns, Monty. We are going to start off in the UFC. A little bit of news that hit out of nowhere yesterday. Less than one full week into our celebration of all things Habib Nurmagomedov, 29-0, who retired in the cage last weekend after beating Justin Gaethje and unifying, reunifying that lightweight title. Dana White showed up on the Zach Gelb Show, CBS Sports Radio, the national broadcast on Thursday. Had a little bit of a chat and oh by the way dropped

this can we play the audio of c here with us on the zach gilb show did you have any indication going into that fight that that was going to be his last fight no nobody knew not not even his coach um nobody knew wow so like how do you just process that i was you know i i wasn't i was sitting there going oh my god you gotta be kidding me but but i'll tell you this and i haven't told anybody this yet habib and i have been talking and uh you know he was completely emotional that night when he got through that fight. I have a feeling that he might go for 30-0. So you think he's going to be coming back is what you're saying? Yeah, I do.

I think that he's not going to retire. I think his dad wanted him to get to 30-0, and I think he wants to honor his dad's wish. Well, now let me follow up on that. Going into the fight, there was this talk of you having something special planned for him. What is that something special? Now, since we thought those plans were going to happen, and now maybe they weren't going to happen, now it looks like they're going to happen again, potentially, Dana, from what you're saying.

Yeah, you know, I haven't even told him that because, you know, he was going to retire. So I haven't even said it to him. So I'm not going to say anything publicly. Well, do you want me to relay the message to him? I'm sure I can get in contact with him. Oh, you're the best. Always looking out for me. Luke, the news is this.

We didn't even hesitate when Habib retired to open up any door and channel to say, you think he'll come back in a year? I mean, it's a man of conviction. Is this promoter speak, or do you think there's something to this? So the quote for folks who may have heard us talking over it was apparently that, I can hear everything they're hearing in the back, by the way, if you guys can mute the microphones back there. I would say it's apparently Dana white had a conversation with habib and that habib told dana that his father wanted him to go for 30 and

oh so while he had said at the end of ufc 254 that he had made a promise to his mother to never fight without his father on the other hand shouldn't he carry out his father's wishes to go for some kind of round number i I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think I shared most people's belief that when Nurmagomedov retired, everyone always has the same cynicism about retirements in MMA, that they're never permanent because someone wants the money or they get offered something they just couldn't turn down,

that they never got what they wanted. Or they haven't had a phoner in a while and they want to feel this. They haven't had that Jake Hager phoner. But Habib seemed quite genuine. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the experience. He seemed to be tired. He seemed to be ready for, at least for the time being, something definitely different.

So here's the question. Even if he decides to come back, does that mean right away? Even St. Pierre was saying this week that like, or no, sorry, Faraz Ahabi. Faraz Ahabi was saying, you know, we should leave St. Pierre and Habib alone. If these guys are actually done and they say they're done, then enough of this nonsense. Let them just have their peace.

So do I think he might come back for 30? Given what we know about MMA retirements, even someone like Habib is principled about that kind of thing as he is, I suppose even he will fall into the current's undertow. But I don't know if that means right away. I don't know if that means, you know, there might be a year or two break. That's the only part about it that I think is a little off. Yeah, we're less than a week into this,

so we do need Khabib to take a long walk, so to speak, and maybe Dana not share everything from the conversation. But this does open the door back up. And look, at the end of the day, would I rather have Habib around, you know, maxing out that legacy and finding out how great he can be rather than him go away? Of course. But I want him to do it on his own terms. And I want it to be, well, here's my question about this. If he's coming back, Dana went on in that same interview with Zach Gelb to say, it's not going to be for a boxing situation. We're not going to do, you know, Nurmagomedov against Floyd, okay?

Right. We know that it kind of would make a lot of sense for the company to do Conor versus Poirier, the rematch, and put the vacant title at stake. Here's the question. Is it still vacant? Is it vacant at all? That's a great question. The quicker you can get the belt potentially back on your biggest star, obviously, from a business standpoint, is something you would want to do. So that would lead me to believe if Habib potentially wants the 30-0 to please father, which no disrespect there,

GSP had been a big part of their conversation as father and son, as that is the goat in their eyes. That was the legend in their eyes that they hoped they would get a chance to fight for respect purposes, but also to beat and add that and put that as a cornerstone to the resume. UFC potentially, Luke, tell me if I'm wrong, they could have their cake and ate it too. They could have the best of both worlds. If they make GSP Habib

and make it out of catchweight and set it up more as what Javier Mendez said, the winner of that fight is going to have a strong case at being the GOAT, whether you love Jon Jones or not. So not worry about the whole idea of GSP cutting down to lightweight at 39 years old and could he become the first three-division champion and still having Conor and Dustin fight in that potential vacant title bout

with Habib saying, look, I'm going to go out on my terms, one more super fight, 30-0 round out, beat this legend who I want to do business with, who I respect, and you get one more big fight out of it, but you don't have as much at stake where it could hurt them business-wise if GSP just drops that bill. Yeah, I mean, here is what Habib's claim to fame is right now. To me, he does not have the most accomplished career for an elite fighter. He has the most flawless one. And so if you're going to continue to a 30-0 number,

you can't change the most accomplished part. It won't work because you still have, you know, three, four title defenses versus, what is it, 11 for John, 14 or 15 title fights generally and wins. There's just too much ground to make up. So John has more accomplishments, but he doesn't have the, in the narrow space in which Habib occupies, he has never been as flawless as that guy. If you're going to come back and fight and maintain what you're trying to maintain, you could do that against Conor. That's a thing you could do.

But the two problems of the thing you raised are, one, I don't think 165 should be a catchweight. I think it should be a weight class. But as we speak today, it would be a catchweight. And Dana just doesn't want to do fights between megastars at catchweights. I think that's silly. But your alternative is him not to fight again, in a way. So in that case, it's one big extra bonus that doesn't screw up your rankings. You really think this is going to be the one where he just gives into that? Like, if you make a 165-pound fight, then you know it can be made.

And if they end up looking pretty good and it's a great fight, people are going to say, we should just do more of this. He doesn't even want that conversation to get started. Okay? That's the first part. The second part I would say is, if you're Habib, while you could scratch the itch and maintain what you've maintained against Conor, does he really want his 30th fight to be against a guy

he doesn't even want to give the opportunity to? It has to be GSP or he has to go up a weight class and fight, I don't know, Colby or Kamaru or Jorge or something like that, which I also don't see that as likely. I'm just saying, given

what he's accomplished and what he wants to maintain, all roads basically lead to GSP, but it leads to it at 155. I'm imagining GSP is going to want time to get down there a little bit. None of this is imminent. The question only in my mind is, if Habib is not retiring, he is keeping the belt, do they still find a way to put an interim belt on the line, even though they just retired it again with Gaethje,

to Dustin and Conor under the premise that Habib's going to take some time off. If it was the WBC, we'd already have a... Regular, super, super regular. An Irish Lives Matter title or something, you know, whatever was going on there. Shout out to Tyson and Jones for their front-line title that they're going to have right there. Dana also said a couple other things he leaked out. He thought Gaethje was going to pull the upset,

given all the distractions Khabib had and the way he responded at the weigh-in, you know, looking up and all that. And number two, and this seems like it comes from the conversation with Khabib, which makes it seem more likely that Dana isn't just speaking. He said maybe Khabib was a little emotional in the cage on Saturday, a little extra emotional,

took it too far. I don't know. I saw a man of conviction give a pretty strong excuse, having promised his mom on why not to do it. I won't hold it against Habib if he changes course. Obviously, we'll get another big fight about it. You know, if he wants to fight, let's let him fight.

But there's no way that Dana's pushing something that isn't there, hoping Habib latches on. That'd be kind of a dick move right now, right? Would you put it past him? Hold on, here's the thing. I'm not even saying it in a nefarious way, like, oh, he's Gargamel, trying to get the Smurfs. What I'm saying is, as a promoter, is it your job to put on the best fights that people want to pay money to see?

Like, my name is at the bottom of that. No, no, no, no, the cut in the mug. Yeah, well, I didn't put my lips to it. It's fine. I don't care if you did. I would just still boil it and ask. Right, because the orange one's mine. We already knew that. All right, all right.

Anyway, point being is that you would only expect him to do that. Yeah, it would be nice if you weren't pressuring the guy. I'd just be surprised if he didn't. To me, it's not a question of, like, malfeasance or improper promoter. I mean, I've always said this. People are like, you know, Brian Stan should be the one to replace Dana as the promoter of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I'm like, why would you want to corrupt such a beautiful,

pure thing in the world? Well, same thing with DC. It's really like you need a chail. You need a street smart, charismatic person. You need a guy who's willing to cut corners. You know, you need a guy who's willing to be ruthless. And lie and be ruthless. And so I think it's just part of what a promoter does. A promoter just does the kinds of things that you wouldn't want a normal person to do.

So did he do it? Maybe. Either way, I don't really care. We spent a lot of time together in the last few days. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know? I've learned that your bark was loud, but your bite wasn't vicious.

You know what I'm saying? Based on what? Fuck me. All right. Based. Based on what? All right. Based on a few things. All right. Hey, let's move on to our next topic this week, staying in the UFC and looking at the welterweight picture as a whole and how Leon Edwards fits in there.

A lot of people hit us up and said, hey, you guys never reacted to this. Well, here's your moment. Here's the first half of this story. Leon Edwards got dropped midweek of this week from the welterweight rankings, leaving a lot of people to go, what the hell is going on here? Is he getting dropped as well, or is it inactivity? And then suddenly he got himself involved in discussions, Luke, for a fight I thought was perfect right now for Leon Edwards,

who is being kept on the outside looking in by UFC, presumably for his lack of marketing compared to the others at the top of the welterweight rankings, he came out and said, I will fight your golden boy, Kamzat Shemaev. And suddenly he's back in the rankings. What the hell's really going on here? Everyone wants to have righteous indignation about this. How could the UFC do such a thing?

Isn't that unfair to Leon? And my answer is, yeah, and? I mean, here's the thing. It's like, dude, you've been covering this game long enough. You've been watching this kind of thing long enough. I remember when they took Nate Diaz out for a time because Nate Diaz was having some kind of promoter spat and they couldn't get along. Oh, yeah, you can't. You're not going to stay active. We'll fucking take you out the rankings. And they did. In the end, it didn't have ultimately that negative an impact. Listen, can you make a case that Leon

maybe should have taken the Wonderboy fight? Because we talked about on this show, Wonderboy at the time was top five. The guy was looking for a top five opponent. He was supposed to get Tyron Woodley in this major career slump. I think it would have elevated him. The pandemic ruined that for him. I'm not saying that Woodley would have been the perfect

replacement, but it's a perfectly suitable fight, and he turned it down. So did he do everything in his part to avoid the situation? You could make a case that he didn't. But okay, really, it's just the UFC flexing their muscle. Guys, I'm going to keep saying this until someone decides to listen. The UFC is... So arrogant.

Well, it's just really true. Tell me this is wrong. The UFC is going to do what they are legally allowed to do, and they're not going to not do it until they're not legally allowed to do it. In other words, the only thing to get them to stop is not norms or expectations or what you think is the right thing. It's their rankings. They have total leverage in contract negotiations.

They have total leverage in how fighters should be paid. And they're going to do the things they are legally required to do and maybe not necessarily a whole lot more because they can. The UFC plays hardball with everything. So, like, am I supposed to be upset that Leon Edwards got treated in a way where he was used by the rankings and this sort of, like, pressure from the promoters? Hold on. To ultimately accept the that it really is not in his interest Everyone's like oh, it'd be great for me to be comes out, right?

But the whole point of booking him against comes out is that he looks bad in the end Yes, you can make a claim that he got done wrong here But it's the UFC show you want to change this kind of dynamic, by the way, this is going to happen again. Pass legislation, make a union or trade association, or stop crying. Because that's just what it is. Well, you know, I think it pushes him in the direction I've said he needed to go. You want the respect of the promoter who doesn't give you any? Go after the promoter's prize big next jewel. And I don't think he loses taking that fight.

I don't mean the win-loss. I mean, I don't think he loses. What would he gain if he won that? He would gain a lot. You beat a guy. Is Chemaev ranked? No, but he's so hot right now. I don't believe he's ranked.

I mean, you go through him. That seems to be do not pass go. Go straight to the title shot, right? No, they're not going to give you a title shot off of that, please. You're telling. Really? They're going to give him a title shot ahead of Colby? I don't believe that.

I don't believe that for two seconds. Leon Edwards? No chance. Let's see. Currently sitting at middleweight or welterweight is Chimaev ranked. Not that I see. No. He is unranked.

So what the fuck good does it do? Now, granted, I get you. It gets their attention. Certainly. Of all the unranked guys you could possibly give him, this is the best one in terms of what it could do for him. And here we are talking about Leon Edwards, and we normally don't. Still, the idea here is if Kamzat beats him,

which I think is their expectation, not only does he win, he might make the other one look bad in the process. So you took on an unranked guy, you lost, you're going to get dropped in the rankings. Not completely, but it's going to hurt your stock, let's say. And now, Chumayev gets to scoot right into the top three as a result. The division is crowded enough at the top that he's not going to get the title shot at Leon anytime soon. You're just not.

You're going to have to do the Max Holloway long game and hope eventually the door opens up. So make that door open. Kick that shit in. And if you are elite and you are a title prospect and contender, then you maybe should go in there and beat Chimaev, all right? So sometimes you gotta- This is you just defending promoter strength over their fighters. No, this is me telling Leon Edwards that it's not your fault necessarily, but you've been painted.

You've got the scarlet letter on you. So rip that shit off, all right? So what about that, BC? Do you think Leon should have been more accepting of other opportunities? Yes. I think he should have fought Wonderboy. I'm in on that. Staying on this comes out Chimaev, who will be his big fight.

You know, we've heard everything from Maya, rumored, to Chris Weidman wanting involvement. We know that Mike Perry, Robbie Lawler, intriguing, potentially washed-on-washed welterweight fight, is now off, it looks like. Lawler pulling out with something. I don't know. You haven't pulled out in a decade or two, but you know where I'm going with that. Interesting enough, though,

and we didn't get Coach Latorre's quote on this, Mike Perry wants as a replacement Kamzat Chumaev. Look, you could make any number of Chumaev fight here for his next one because it's going to be a big one because he's ready to burst. You can give him a legitimate contender like an Edwards, or you can give him a guy he can look great against or you can give him someone who's batshit crazy like Mike Perry that can make fun fights. Would you book this? I like Perry versus Chemayev a lot more than I like Edwards versus Chemayev. Yeah, I love that fight because, listen, comes out Chemayev, every time I love that fight because, listen, Kamzat Shumayev,

every time he shows you something, it's very impressive. But here we have a case where who was the guy who put the dead animal on his head last week from Kazakhstan? Rakhmanov was his name, right? Borat Sagdiev? No, he was the other one who had a great weekend from Kazakhstan. Rakhmanov, the guy who beat Cowboy Oliveira. Yes, yes.

Here comes a guy that no one, well, okay, hard course have heard of, but no standard UFC fan has heard of. That guy, Rachmanov, has already got a better win against a higher caliber opponent than anyone Kamzat Shumayev has fought, and there's no discussion about that. Now, I'm not saying that's because he's better than Shumayev or any of this nonsense. I'm simply pointing out, for all the interesting things that Shumayev has

done, man, you've got a lot of work in front of you before you should be fighting people in the top five. I'm with you on that. Mike Perry, for an unranked welterweight, is a very interesting— He can grapple. He's got sneaky grappling. Strong as balls. He's got a heavy punch. I love that fight.

Actually, I love that fight a lot. Make it. All right. I'd love to be the third quarterman for that. Oh, my God. If I could get in that dynamic, as long as he'll forgive me and welcome me back in, I'd love to be the third quarter man for that. I would love, oh my God, if I could get in that dynamic. As long as he'll, you know, forgive me and welcome me back in. And I'll carry. Would you slap him and do the Teddy Atlas bit?

But like, we're firemen. We live in the fire. Do you believe in ghosts? Can I tell you? No, you know, I'd carry the bucket for LaTorre. I'd really, I'd be the third. I'd be the, you know, I'd be the sauce to their meat in a lot of ways. You think you're the sauce for some reason.

I don't know why. All right, let's roll on here, Luke. Look, Thursday night was Bellator 250. We hyped it up big because on paper, great matchup. Vacant middleweight title. Former champion Gegard Mousasi, current welterweight champion Douglas Lima. The theme was that the smaller man, the red hot man,

was daring to be great. But Musashi succeeded in the end via unanimous decision of removing the potential excitement from the fight by relying on his smarts and, yes, even though the size was close come fight night, really being the bigger fighter and acting that out, using the first round to dominate with his wrestling to get a clear, seemingly clear decision in which, yes, some leg strikes late from Lima, but is this a Musassi night or a night in which the great Douglas Lima

just failed to impress, failed to do enough on a big stage? Douglas Lima looks to me like a guy who isn't sure that he's as great as even we think he is, right? I mean, he's got this situation where he'll lose to somebody, come back a second time. Like, he lost to he'll lose to somebody, come back a second time.

Like, he lost to Koreshkov once, came back a second time, and then even a third time. Lost to Rory by a finger. And then came back and then beat him pretty soundly. It's like he has to see, like, oh, wait, I do belong,

but by the time he makes that decision, it's just too late the first time around. So, like, if they rebook this fight a year from now, I might honestly take Lima that time around. Because here's the thing about it. I figured something out in the fifth round, right, when he came on? Even in the fourth round, I thought you could make the case that he won that round.

I mean, here's the thing about it. It's like, for as much as you want to beat up on Lima for being like, why didn't you do more, you know, earlier on when you could have? But I also think, BC, we didn't talk about this last night. We watched the fight together. I think the reverse is kind of true. You could say to Musashi, dude, you didn't do much at the end of that fight either. I'm not saying he was

as hesitant, but he was hesitant enough where the major problem with that fight, I think you would agree, it was super underwhelming. Well, it was super technical in a lot of ways, too. You can be technical and be great. Let me put a couple things on the table that I think are true that conspire together in

this. In the end, Lima both started too late and didn't do enough. He also was gassed in round two, probably for a big reason, because he was on his back for most of round one, fighting off wrestling, fighting off submission attempts, that I thought Lima surprised himself at being a little bit too winded from having to deal with a bigger man in that sense. He regulated his gas tank enough to have enough for that fifth round flurry. Now, in the fifth round, he figured some things out.

He laid kicks. It looked like Musashi was one more big kick away from crumbling. Yet that moment that he absorbed that last kick, he goes right in for the takedown, which is kind of what Khabib did. As soon as it looked like Justin Gaethje was one kick away from really giving him a problem, went right into that finishing mode that we talked about and finished the fight.

When Mousasi went into the finishing mode of keeping him away and down and leaning on him, the bigger man Mousasi didn't jump off the screen and impress, but in a veteran way, he leaned on his advantages, did exactly what he had to do. I think the story is a little bit bigger that maybe do you agree, maybe agreeing to your point that Lima doesn't even realize how great he is. Had he started in round two or three with that much output,

you know, he probably wins that fight. I think Lima is a slow starter. He's got a little bit of that Cowboy Cerrone in him. All right. But there must be some kind of confidence issue because when he decided to just be more, Cerrone in him. All right. But there must be some kind of confidence issue. Because when he decided to just be more, he didn't, like, what was the difference between rounds three and rounds four aside from the uptick in volume? Like, was there some dramatic shift in strategy?

I think in round three, Lima finally started letting that right hand go. And he found that he can land it. Right. But what I'm saying is, was there a major tactical shift? Was there some kind of like, oh, Stipe can land body shots with the left on DC kind of eureka moment not really he just did more he just did more in the end and so it's like dude if you had done that earlier like this would have been a totally different fight I do think that size came into play a little bit at least in the head maybe so to speak of Lima where you had

Musashi come out first round really take it to him in least in the head maybe, so to speak, of Lima, where you had Musassi come out first round, really take it to him in the wrestling and sort of grappling department. Didn't land a whole lot from a tremendous shot standpoint, but really was able to get the job done in that regard. And then it just looked to me like, was there a massive size difference between the two? No, not really. In fact, it was pretty small in ways. But that imposition early, I think, got in Douglas Lima's head, and I think that worked.

That's a pretty smart play from Mousasi. And the other part about Mousasi is those leg kicks from Lima are deadly on any weight class, I would say. But Mousasi just looks to me like the guy who, he's taking shots from heavyweights. Like, Douglas Lima can hurt him, of course. But, you know, when you've seen that kind of firepower, even though he was hesitant tactically towards the end,

I just don't think he was phased. Here's my only question to you, BC. Mousasi came into the Bellator organization from UFC, maybe at his all-time peak, at the end of his UFC run. Five straight wins in UFC to close it, and those last four were like, what? It was like Weidman,

Thiago Santos, all four by stoppage, by the way. Vitor Belfort and I forgot who the fourth one was. Okay, but he was on a super high. Since going to Bellator, he got the gift against Slomenko. He had the win against Machida. I think he had the win against Carvalho. He had the win over

Rory. And now the win over Lima and the loss to Lovato. Rafi Lovato. Okay, but here's the point. It's like you beat two welterweights and you beat Carvalho, who I'm not even sure is with the organization anymore. You should have lost to Shlomenko. I had Shlomenko winning that one. And then you

had the loss to Lovato, who's not in the sport anymore obviously from a different situation. Is he? Where's Mousasi in his career? I think he's leveling off to a degree, meaning he's not the same, but against a world-class guy, he leaned on exactly what he needed to do.

He's still got enough in the tank to win these kind of fights. The thing is, though, unfortunately, that because Lima didn't do enough, it almost takes away from that this was a really good win for Musashi. He doesn't really get much credit. If Lima had won this,

we're doubling down on how great he might be. He might be in your top 10 pound-for-pound worldwide. He might be this future thing. And I think Musashi just gets a move the chains win in the end. It doesn't do much for him legacy-wise, outside of getting the Bellator middleweight title back on his waist for a second time. But again, he didn't have to go through Lovato,

the guy that beat him, to do it. It was another night where we tipped the cap, though, at a great veteran. And Musashi has had 57 pro fights, a 17-year career, won titles in various organizations. To me, though, at this point, before he would win on overwhelming dominance of force through skill. Now, to me, he's winning much more on smarts,

which has required him to be a little... That Machida fight, he was super risk-averse. And he even said it in the end. He's like, I had to be, I had to be. He said the exact same thing at the end of this fight. He's dialing back his offense a little bit to be more judicious with it, and it has made him less exciting, but he's still able to win at a pretty high level. All right, if you are Musashi, are you moving up to 205 to challenge Vadim Nemkov?

Fuck no. No! He hasn't fought at light heavyweight now for something like six or seven fights. No. Dude, Nemkov, don't fuck with that guy. Corey Anderson wants that smoke. If he gets past Manhoef, okay. All right, how about this?

How about this? How about 35-year-old Musashi going back to heavyweight to fight Bader? Do you like that? No. Fuck no. No. Stay at 185. So no more welterweights coming up.

No more moving up there to be great. Just stay in your lane at middle. Well, I mean, how many welterweights can you fight before someone starts saying something? I mean, come on. Two in his last three fights? I mean, that's enough. All right. Real quickly, Jake Hager, the AEW pro wrestling star.

Your favorite. He seemed to find his match on Thursday night there. Was it you who was asking me, like, why hasn't Bellator pushed him harder? I think we found the answer. Yeah, so he hangs on for a disputed decision in which he kind of got his ass kicked. Brandon Colton, I believe, was the name of the guy, correct? Colton or Colton, yeah.

He didn't look as much like he came right from the meat factory as some of Hager's earlier opponents, but Hager got a questionable win. Scott Coker did say afterwards he was impressed, Luke. I guess impressed by the dogfight that Hager was willing to go through. I'm going to tell you, without really knowing, I'm sure he wasn't that rock hard with emotion after that fight. He hung on.

Probably not going to see him against Bader anytime soon. He was probably swollen and throbbing, but from the injuries. Yeah, yeah, more from that. He did show toughness. From the penis erection. Shout out to Higgs there. That'll wrap up your Bellator 250. Unfortunately, some of those fights fell apart last minute due to COVID there.

Yeah, they had a bunch of dogs get COVID. Let's hit the weekend. This Saturday, of course, in addition to the Showtime pay-per-view that we will hit in a second, you do have that UFC Fight Night card, which is very intriguing. A middleweight main event from Las Vegas. Uriah Hall versus Anderson Silva. What is being billed as for the final time?

Now, Luke, we went to a deep dive Wednesday about Silva's great career, about the legacy and impact, and really about that interview he had with Canadian star Ariel Hawane, where you really came out saying, you know, I'm not sure he's done. You know, whether UFC ends up giving him one more to complete the contract or he can get out of the deal now, not really sure. He still wants to fight. But we don't know if that's still going to be the case after Saturday.

He's got to potentially win this, and maybe he needs to look good. Let me ask you that, Luke. We know the number, one in six with one no contest in the last seven years. That's Anderson Silva in the UFC octagon. Does he need to beat Uriah Hall to have any chance at continuing for us to want him to continue? I think if you went to Bellator, they would just reframe it and use that as a refreshing moment for his career, in which case he would not necessarily need to win. I mean, here's the part about it. It's like, let's say

he does beat Uriah Hall, who's, by the way, a credible competitor. I don't mean to suggest that he's not by saying what I'm about to say, but it's like, given what Silva has already accomplished, it is a nice to think that this late in his 40s, he can still get wins against, you know, ranked or respected opposition. But, you know, his best days and what he accomplished, A, are not merely far behind us. They're at such a different level that beating someone like Hull, while impressive, it doesn't meaningfully add to his resume at this point. It doesn't really, it's not one of the other impressive feats you can stack along with

the other ones that were already there. It's sort of different at this stage. It's nice to see, but it's not majorly impactful. And so I don't know that it would really change a whole lot, especially if he wants to go to Bellator. If he wants to stick around UFC, I don't even know if they want him with a loss at that point. I mean, you're getting to BJ Penn level.

I've heard Dana in interviews. It sounds to me, even though Anderson told Ariel that Dana did not ask him to retire, it sounds to me like Dana framed this on purpose because he wants him out. He doesn't want him to have an unhappy ending. I mean, he's already, like you said, like I said, one in six in the last eight fights.

I just wonder what we're going to see out of him. And this is something you and I talked about on CBS Sports HQ this morning that I think is key. The lack of a crowd hasn't really affected too many of the fighters in this wild 2020 and the crazy quarantine, but Anderson so fuels himself off of the crowd in general and the adoration and love for his fans.

And yes, he'll offer journalists a chance to bring their significant other to roll around in a workout ahead of time there. He loves people. He loves performing for people. If there ain't no people, which there's not going to be at the UFC Apex, I don't know if he's going to be able to rally

the same spirit that we saw in him against Israel Adesanya a couple fights back, where he knew it was a massive opportunity. He also knew he didn't want to look bad and get sent to hell. So he gave everything that he had left, and it was a pretty fair effort and a loss. I don't know what we're going to get out of Silva, because

you made an interesting characterization this morning on HQ. You're not sure. You see a guy in Silva who's trying to win fights over the last six, seven years. And look, the Bisping fight might be a perfect example. A, you're asking a veteran to go five hard rounds, but that was a fight to try to get Silva back in the title picture. And even though I think we can argue two things, that maybe he should have won as it was on the scorecards,

and that you can argue that fight could have been stopped when he hit Bisping with the flying knee to end round three. But what I saw the rest of that fight was Silva just leaving the door open, doing Bruce Lee shit, and Bisping outworked him. I mean, do you think Silva can come in with the killer instinct again? Here's the thing.

You talk about that Bisping fight. So Bisping got dropped at the end of the third. Bisping's best round in terms of both volume and what was landed, right? So not just like pitter-patter shots, but like how much work did you do and what about the impactful portion of that? Both of those considerations mean his round four was his best one. So he got dropped in the third and you could tell Bisping wanted that win.

To your point, you couldn't really get a sense that like Silva was dying to get it in the same kind of burning intensity sort of way. And then taking Cormier on short notice, okay, you hurt him, but how much of a chance did he have to win that one? Not a whole lot. He got the Brunson win, which was kind of ho-hum. I don't think he deserved that. And then the Cannoneer was another kind of catastrophic. Here's what I think he's trying to do.

I don't think he's trying to lose. But I think he would rather, I think he would rather entertain in some kind of way. Rather have a chance at creating a viral moment to honor his fans. Rather than just like get, do what you have to do. Like Musashi is doing in a very calculated way to get the W. I don't think he's in that mind space at all. And the thing about Uriah Hall is we know he has underperformed historically, despite being very talented, but here's the thing while he's long in the tooth, respectively, not as much as... 36 years old.

Yeah, not as much as Silva, but he's not exactly young. He's with Fortis MMA. And he's with Saeed Saoud, who is just not merely a great coach, but a guy who knows how to get his fighters to get the best of themselves. To really iron out the process, minimize the weaknesses, really accentuate the strengths, stay on the straight and narrow, sometimes be conventional, don't go too crazy, but really do the things you need to do to get your hand raised. I think this fight, in terms of getting the win and the loss, if you had to ask me who

wants it more, I'm almost certain I could say Uriah Hall. Yeah, because look, if this was different, if this was Silva's go-away and he was saying in the interviews, this is my final fight, I want to honor the fans once more, and if there were fans, and oh, by the way, if it was in Brazil where it probably would be under normal circumstances, Luke, I'm going Silva all day because I feel like, again, he's going to find whatever's left in him and he's going to pour it out. Hall, even an aging Hall,

is a dangerous guy to go in there potentially with the mindset of, I'm Anderson, I just want to be nice to people. That's kind of GSP mixed in, but you know, I just want to Bushido and give you a good moment. You may get sent to hell. Here's the only thing about it. If you look at the numbers on this one, strikes landed per minute. Uriah Hall's at 3.31. Anderson Silva at three. So slight edge there in terms of Uriah Hall, but not much. Here's the big key. Strikes absorb per minute. Uriah Hall's at 3.31. Anderson Silva at 3. So slight edge there in terms of Uriah Hall, but not much. Here's the big key. Strikes absorbed per minute for Uriah Hall. 3.57. So number one, he's got a negative differential, right? He gets hit more than he lands. Two, this is the UFC career of Anderson Silva. He is still averaging less strikes absorbed, less than two per minute. 1.98. Let me tell you something,

folks. Look at these numbers all the time. If you see somebody who is how many fights deep in his UFC career at this point, and he's getting hit less than two times per minute, that is extremely good. That is very good. I'll say this. The numbers at least indicate, historically, he didn't get hit as much. His striking accuracy for Silva, 62%, defense, 61%. Striking accuracy for Hall, just 50%, defense, 53%. I'm not counting Silva out, to be clear, for these reasons, but it's just hard to believe that he really wants to get the W. Hall, a small betting favorite, 2-1.

I mean, is that small? Small-ish. Small-ish. You know what? I feel like what we're going to see here is a three-round decision in which Silva tries to summon a moment, doesn't get it, and seems content to go, I love you, I love everybody. How big would it be if he goes in there and smokes Hall?

He'd convince Dana to bring him back. You think so? Here's the thing. Let's say it is his last fight, BC, and he goes in there and smokes Hall. Does he still go to Bellator? I mean, look, it all comes down to whether UFC really has that one other fight option. If there's one more that they can hold him to and he looks great and he wants to fight, I mean, they did use the retirement angle to sell this fight completely on Saturday.

True or false? They did. Completely to sell this entire card and going up against a boxing pay-per-view and all that. You know, we talked about the Bellator option, and I'd love to see him in freak fights against a boxing pay-per-view and all that. We talked about the Bellator option, and I'd love to see him in freak fights against a Fedor. Is there anyone left in UFC, maybe separate from that Conor McGregor idea that I like that you didn't like, that you actually would like to see him against?

I'll throw Yoel Romero out there. I came around to the Conor idea only in the following way. When Dana was like, oh, I don't want this fight to happen, but at the same time Conor's sitting on ice, to me, if the choice is Conor versus Silva or Conor on ice, I'm going to pick Conor versus Silva 10 times out of 10. By itself, I don't love the fight, but for those reasons, I was okay with it. Another name, I mean, look, you can always,

especially if he goes in and he beats Hall, you could probably begin to think of a bunch of other matchups. I can do a Legends tour with him. How about we get the trilogy against Weidman in which he'll win that fight? How about we get Rockhold who's washed a little? We don't know where Rockhold is. Skepticism. He's probably handsome somewhere. He's handsome somewhere. That's a guarantee.

Is he going to be elite again? Very debatable. Breaking Chick's heart. Not calling him back probably. Right. I did ask him on camera one time what his DMs look like and he gave me a very disrespected look. It's funny because I've asked him that in person.

The 2015 MMA Awards, he and I drank a little bit together. Not for long. For like, you know, about an hour. You asked to smell his coattails at all? No, but I asked about his DMs. I got some stories. You know what? It's nice to be Luke Rockhold. It probably is. It's nice. It probably is. Good things happen to you a lot.

In any case, here's the thing. There's a lot of names you could put Anderson Silva up against. I don't have a particular, like, it's got to be this. Well, it's got to be a wash guy. It does. It does. Yeah, the Weidman one to me, my old producer on my old radio show, he's been singing this tune for a long time.

I actually love that fight. But short of that, I don't have, like, I'd entertain. Nate Diaz at a catchweight? You'd do all that weird stuff. Yeah, at this point, yeah. All right, let's close on this card, the UFC Fight Night. Give me a storyline on the undercard to care about. Gotta be the co-main, Andre Feely taking on Bryce Mitchell, who now has his camo shorts. By the way, Reebok still fucked that camo up. It doesn't look that good, but okay. They're trying. What are you gonna do? It looks more like a hunting type of setup, right? Well, it does look like, yes.

It looks like the kind of camouflage you might use in a tree stand versus, you know, digitized camo, which the armed forces might use. Do the Marines wear camo? Yes, but they have different kinds. Like brown camo? There's the sand camo, and then there's the sort of forest camo. You get very defensive when I bring up the Marines. Yes, because you know fuck all about them and you think somehow you're more

patriotic than me, which is amazing. I'm not very patriotic. Yeah, but you're more like, you know, you're a conspiracy theorist who kind of also gets teared up when you hear Lee Greenwood sing, proud to be an American. You know, you're a little bit weird like that. But okay,

point being is, what a great fight. All the energy right now is like, what's better? Lightweight or bantamweight? Don't forget about featherweight. Featherweight is this division that's sandwiched in the middle and I'm not saying it's as good as lightweight. I'm definitely not saying it's as good as bantamweight. But on its own, pretty fucking good. Here

comes two guys in Bryce Mitchell, young and Andre Feely. Feely was a guy who's had a bunch of ups and downs. We look at some of his losses. They were very, very close, especially the last one to Sadiq Yusuf. He was extremely competitive in that contest. I think very highly of his development. And Bryce Mitchell on the ground is an absolute animal. How about the rest of his game? I don't know, but I know Andre Feely is going to be a great test. This is a great test for where Bryce Mitchell is. He's given you some spectacular wins. He goes after submissions.

Look, he goes after submissions. Right? I mean, he goes... Yes. Like... It's a mindset. When he grapples, he does it with a certain mindset that allows him to find his positions. You ever go to spring break in a kind of crappy city? Like, I've done a lot

of Daytona Beach spring break, okay? The weekends is a lot of thirsty college kids, and there's probably bad rap concerts down at the beachside club. You ever go out on a weeknight during spring break? I'm sorry, I had that inverted. Weeknights is all spring breakers. The weekends is when the locals come out,

when the old guys at the club come out. You and me. And they are thirsty as all balls, and they go after the Pugnani, the young... Pugnani? With a passion that can only be compared to Bryce Mitchell's want to get that submission win. And let me tell you this right here.

If he gets one against Touchy Feely, that... You're now elevating him to another level in terms of the rankings and where you see him. Yes, that is true. But I would not be so ready to look past Feely. Here's the thing. I didn't look past him.

Bryce Mitchell is an authentic character. He has an ultra-aggressive, very fun style. And the whole camo shorts thing, it's a great way to stand out. Plus, he did the commercial talking about ripping off his own nutsack and the whole thing. That's a real thing. He did by the way Like he's just got a ton of personality in the way that Feely who's a little bit more I wouldn't call him corporate but sort of just sort of boys anti-corporate with the tats everywhere

Yeah, yeah, but he does he doesn't stand out in the crowd with this sort of bigger-than-life Identity in the way that Bryce kind of does more naturally But I think that feelings development is a little bit overlooked because a couple times he tried to level up and he couldn't. But every time he's tried that, he's been really, really close of late. And I still think he's young enough and good enough. I would not be surprised at all if he beats Bryce Mitchell. Did you see Touchy Feely's acting debut on that Uriah Faber produced

straight-to-streaming weed thriller? Did you hear my cameo in it? Are you in that? I'm in that. I watched the press screen of that. It was a good ass movie. It started off very like direct to video but then started evolving and got a little

nasty. I was the newscaster in one of the scenes. Are you sure? Yes, I'm 100% sure, yes. I'm in the trailer. My voice is actually the first voice in the trailer. My voice is actually the first voice in the trailer. Okay. I don't know if we're talking about this.

I didn't get paid for that. All right, all right. It wasn't a big budget production. Real quick on that undercard heavyweights. Maurice Green, the King of Crochet. Yeah, Greg Hardy.

Against Greg Hardy. Greg Hardy coming in well under the radar here. How big of a fight for Hardy's advancement is this? I don't know. Here's what I think. In terms of meaningfully

becoming something as an attraction, this fight means nothing. I don't think beating Maurice Green and the way that he's doing it means jack shit. In terms of developing Greg Hardy into the best version of himself, I think it's a perfectly serviceable fight because Greg Hardy, I thought, when he beat

what was the guy's, Austin Lane or whatever his name was on the Contender Series, he looked to me like he was shot out of a cannon. The athletic difference between this guy and the other one was enormous. And he's shown some growth that I think you just can't take away from him, even if you don't like the guy as the person. But there's also been something lacking about his development at the same time, right? And so I'm trying to see exactly where it is.

Beating someone like Maurice Green, depending on how he does it, could give us an indication of filling in that picture. Friend of the program Rashad Evans will be working Greg Hardy's corner on Saturday. Is he at Hard Knocks now? Sanford MMA, I believe. Oh, yeah, that's what it's called now. Yeah, wasn't Greg Hardy just at ATT? I'm not sure if he changed.

So, dude, no one knows the story here, or at least it's never been public, but Dean Thomas leaves ATT, Phil DeRue leaves ATT, Colby Covington left ATT, and Greg Hardy, I guess some other ones did as well. Now, people come and go from a team that big all the time. Well, King Mo stepped up. King Mo stepped up. Coach Mikey Brown. Brazilian Trek is there, Conan?

Conan Silvera, yep. So it's like, what happened where there was, not an exodus, but there was, it seemed to me, a little bit of a purge. A little purge. Okay. I did ask Rashad when he was on the Morning Combat Expert Picks pod last week,

had he ever cornered somebody before? I didn't know this. He said he was in Vitor Belfort's corner in the Jon Jones title fight, which is kind of some weird WWE, you know, bullshit, like, comeback, because, you know, obviously Rashad had the big feud with Jon Jones, so then he went into Vitor's corner to help him, and they almost got the submission.

Vitor was, he had a lot of testosterone in his system for that one. Damn right he did. Shout out to that. Still lost. Still lost. Jon's that good. All right he did. Shout out to that. Still lost. Still lost. John's that good. All right.

Hey, it's a pay-per-view week. Let's get into the main event. Showtime pay-per-view this Saturday. Halloween night, the Alamo Dome, 9 p.m. Eastern. Strong undercard on that main pay-per-view card, but it's topped, of course. 130 pounds. Gervonta Tank Davis going to bring his secondary WBA belt at 135.

Put it on the line at 130 against Leo Santa Cruz, the four-division champion, currently has the WBA belt at 130. We have nailed hard the storylines coming in, Floyd Mayweather's involvement, all that stuff today at 1 p.m. Eastern. Check out the weigh-in stream. We're going to see if Gervonta can make 130. Luke and I are going to be hosting that. We'll be breaking all things down.

But let's talk about the actual fight. And let's say Gervonta makes weight and looks great. Is it easy to just say that, or is that still the biggest stumbling block on how you handicap who wins on Saturday? Yeah, so here's my thing. He said yesterday at the press conference, which we hosted a stream for that as well, that he moved his camp

from Baltimore to Las Vegas to be closer to Floyd Mayweather, okay? And he said the camp has been 15 weeks. Now, we know he's had trouble making 135 and 130. This one will be at 130. But my thought is, BC, if you can't make weight, if you're really training

after 15 weeks as a professional athlete then not then you just should not be involved in that weight class under any circumstance so we're going to see what's up I tend to think he will make it he might struggle but I suspect that he will make it okay so if he makes it still the question is is in what shape is he going to be Leo Santa Cruz has said that the first five rounds are going to be where the storm is and then after that he's going to be really begin to take over. The conventional wisdom around this fight is maybe Cruz will do that, Santa Cruz will do that, maybe he won't, but eventually Davis, the big power puncher in either hand,

is going to find the mark and lay him out. I don't think that that's a crazy thought. Vegas believes that. Vegas believes that. I don't think that's in any way a crazy thought. I can see that logic, but to me, it's missing something, which is in order for a guy like Gervonta, who is not necessarily a rhythm fighter, but he is judicious about his shot selection. People don't talk about this. They only talk about him as an athlete and a big puncher.

But he's actually a very smart guy. But he is a little bit too deliberate. He has to make – I'm not saying – you can't play the volume game with Santa Cruz. You will lose. You're right. So you can't do that. But at the same time, you can't let him play his volume game. He's going to get some volume.

You just spot him that. But you don't want him to have free reign. You want to be able to push back on that just enough, which means you're going to have to slightly match his intensity. You're going to have to put out a little bit more than what he's doing. I'm expecting Gervonta to sit behind the jab a little bit more than he commonly does. I really think that's going to be key. Plus, Santa Cruz a little bit longer as well.

So really sticking that into his face and making him feel it, making him have to really work to push him backwards, I think these are going to be key. And I think that Gervonta, through a slightly increased amount of output, working behind the jab, if he does that, will eventually find it because it will never put him in a position where he's too far from ever getting back in rhythm, finding setups, creating reads, that kind of a thing.

But I honestly feel like if he sits back and says, I'm going to do the Charlo bit against Harrison, where I'm just going to spot you rounds and take my time. You're going to leave a gap and Leo will fill that gap. Leo will fill that gap in ways that Harrison did not. Leo certainly banking on gassing Gervonta Yao. And look, Gervonta, we think he's got all these boxing skills in there. Having a great trainer in Calvin Ford,

having Floyd Mayweather be a huge influence in your camp and saying that I got so much craft, I just haven't had to show it because I'm knocking fools out is one thing. You know, showing it is another thing. Vegas believes that it's either going to be his power or once they do match up, he's just the potential better athlete, better boxer. But the odds really don't represent the potential

for how close this fight could be. Leo Santa Cruz is a guy who's been hovering around top 10 pound for pound for years. Only lost once and avenged that loss against Karl Frampton, albeit at featherweight, but showed you that he can box from the outside just as well as he can flurry on the inside. Obviously, the later this fight goes, the better chance Santa Cruz has. What you're really going to be looking for is that you said that first half of that fight, the first five rounds, can Leo certainly take the punches is a big key.

But after that, can he bother Davis? Can he hurt him? I'm not, I don't know. He can certainly go to the body and try, and that's something Leo Santa Cruz does as well as anybody, but can he just flurry and be, you know, have so much activity that Gervonta goes, wow, I'm going to need another part of my arsenal on this one that I don't always use, and again, maybe that begins to tax him. That's where you like Leo's chances better to have a shot to win this decision. But for all this breaking down and all this, you know, are the odds too wide? It may not matter. He may go in there and prove, Luke, that he can set up his power shots at an even better, you know, craft than we'd seen before. And that power is the ultimate equalizer.

This is his pay-per-view debut. Gervonta's doing it three years earlier than even Floyd did back in 2005 against Arturo Gatti when he was 28. I think he's going to make a big splash. And I think that whether you think Leo's not getting the full respect or whether I can guarantee you that Leo's going to give us the five best rounds we've ever seen, he can still get stopped in that sixth round because Gervonta's got special fight-changing power,

and he's the bigger man. Yeah, the only thing I don't want to see is, obviously, the tactical approach that he had in the Gamboa fight is not relevant here. I don't mean that. And I'm not going to say he was lazy in that fight, but he was a little bit... I didn't get the sense that he had much urgency either.

And I'm not saying he has to have ants-in-the-pants urgency, but, you know, if eight rounds have passed and you're like, okay, I'll get him in the final third of this fight. I just don't, like, yes, that's probably true. Because, in fact, that's how he got Gamboa, right, in the final third of their fight. But I just don't like that as a strategy against Santa Cruz, who can just stay in your face, who can back you up. Another key here I think you would agree, BC. The more time you see Davis with his back along the ropes, the more that's bad for him and vice versa.

If Santa Cruz is on the ropes, Davis is going to work on him. So really where the fight takes place in the ring will also be very, very important. Yeah, very good undercard, a couple 140-pound bites. Regis Program. Regis Program making his PBC debut. I saw you guys put up on the bottom of the screen that you can order this fight now.

It's Saturday night. Showtime pay-per-view. Gervonta Davis, Leo Santa Cruz get ahead of the game. And, of course, check out the weigh-in special today at 1 Eastern. How come you didn't get invited to San Antonio? I think we had much more pressing business to do here in Jersey, all right? Is that what it was? We could have done that from there, too, you know.

I thought when we would get here to the top, we would be like in Manhattan. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know to the top, we would be like in Manhattan. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, the neon lights, you know, all that. We can see Manhattan across the water from here. They're like, hey, Jersey City is all yours. Take it all. You know, it's you and Bobby Hurley. All you need over there.

All right. Yeah, that's the fight this weekend. It's not all of boxing, though, this weekend, Luke. Some really good sneaky stuff going on. And let's start here in the heavyweight division. You're going to want to check this out. It's on DAZN. It's Alexander Usyk in England facing his second fight at heavyweight, but his toughest test to date. Do we have a picture of the weigh-ins? I don't know. We'll see in a second. I don't know if you've ever hosted a show before. Sorry.

Against veteran British brawler Derek Chisora. Now, let me tell you this. I know we have a lot of MMA fans here, Luke, okay? If you don't know who Alexander Usyk is, the Ukrainian, the Olympic gold medalist, here's basically what he is. He won all four cruiserweight world titles by beating one unbeaten killer after another, winning the World Boxing Super Series, jumping into our pound-for-pound list, and he's basically a Lomachenko of the higher weight classes. He is a guy who's now moved up to heavyweight, and if he is able to use his speed, footwork,

elusiveness, he's not a big power puncher, if he can do that and swim without getting wet and take the punching power of the big guys, Luke, it's in play. He's already a mandatory for one of Anthony Joshua's titles. It's in play that he could be a wild out, doing some of the same things Tyson Fury did, although he's only 6'3 and not as long. But he could be the Swiss Army knife that gives Wilder, Joshua, Ortiz, anybody problems.

The problem is he had an injury which delayed his heavyweight debut by a year. The first fight came against Chaz Withers, but we didn't learn much. We may learn a lot because Chizora makes you fight. You see this as knife slicing through butter and the skills pay the bills or do you think Usyk could have a rough night at the fights this Saturday? I tend to think very highly of Usyk. He was also supposed to fight former kickboxing star

Tyrone Spong. The Surinamese guy. And then Tyrone had some drug testing issues. Something like that. So like that, yeah. So they never made that fight, which would have been fun to see, although I think Usyk would have had his way with him too. From what I have seen of Usyk through his cruiserweight run, he is just incredible.

But you're right. This is really the first time at heavyweight where like, okay, you have to fight somebody who has been at the relative top of this game for quite some time in this division. Durable. Durable. Got power. Big power. Sort of a dynamic force as a personality.

To what extent that may rattle him, I don't think that it will, but there's always something to be dealt with there. So this is a great first real big foray into heavyweight. I tend to think that Usyk just has way more skill. I'm with you. and is a better athlete actually, but I guess we'll see. A little taste of what Usyk might be like at heavyweight came

in his last cruiserweight bout. He fought Tony Bellew who had come down from heavyweight. He retired by the way. I actually called that fight for Dazon and he sent him to hell. You were the doofus doing that. It was a beautiful set up and finish. Like I said, Usyk, the mandatory for Joshua. I think he's going to be spectacular on Saturday.

I think he's going to pick Chisora apart, and I think we're going to be talking. Is he going to stop him? I think we're going to be talking Monday. To stop him, it's going to have to be over accumulation of punches, but I think we're going to be talking about this wizard. How is he going to do against the super heavyweights coming up? We'll see. It's a great step-up, really, opportunity on Saturday there.

Also this weekend, I believe this was on ESPN. I'm not sure if it's on the plus, but I have Usyk number six in my top 10 for pound. You know who I have number two? The Japanese monster. If you're an MMA fan and you don't know who Naoya Inoue is, get learned quickly. He's going to be defending his bantamweight titles, I believe. He had just coming off winning the World Boxing Super Series at 118 pounds, going in there against one of the Maloney brothers from Australia.

So, Luke, I'm not super high on the Maloney's. I believe this is Jason, who he's fighting on Saturday. This isn't so much about the opponent here. This is a little bit more about Inouye, who had been fighting on Saturday. This isn't so much about the opponent here. This is a little bit more about Inoue, who had been fighting off of USTV, his initial rise. And he did kind of that Lomachenko thing. He wanted all the smoke early. He turned pro.

He fought for and won a title in, like, his fifth fight. He moved up in weight and won a title in his second division in, like, his seventh or eighth fight. Now he's a three-division champion. And he's coming off the fight of the year last year in the final of that tournament when the veteran Nonino Donare pushed him, broke Inoue's face in the second round, but Inoue survived that. This is all about Inoue coming to the States and top-rank introducing him to the people.

Is he as good as my phone or is telling you right now? No, every boxing fan was high on this guy, and I didn't know anything about him until the World Boxing Super Series, where he, of course, ultimately culminated in the fight against Donair and did what he did. And so that was my real introduction to him. So obviously I'm not as well-versed in the totality of his career, but from what I

saw, I mean, the guy is just all power, all action, in your face, still technical. And he's slick. Technical, yeah. Super slick. So he's not just a big bruiser who just gets in your face. He's got the full array of boxing skills. The only issue with him is while the WBSS tournament was good for raising his visibility inside the boxing and somewhat the sporting community, he still has not become that popular attraction. He's really not crossed over in that way.

Like the level of enthusiasm that hardcores have for him should over time translate to making this person a bigger star. Like they did for Lomachenko and Lopez. Like Chocolatito had a minute there where he became a thing. Exactly. Where he had Residente from. Cagliar Terese just shouting him out. The whole nine yards in a way needs that push. And this is really the beginning of that.

Well, you know, a guy who carried his power up and he he's starting to show you that there may not be a ceiling on the effectiveness of his power, and that's dangerous. Already a three-division champion wants everyone, wants them all. Why don't you tell me, tell the audience what you told me about Maloney's chances. Yeah, get your family to write your will

out. The old Mike Tyson quote, you know. I think he's going to send Maloney to hell. Even though he's a qualified opponent here, but this is more about Inoue. He can do it all. And the best part about that Donair fight, which we thought he was going to destroy Nonito and Donair in his late 30s, poured it out,

bro. Like I said, broke Inoue's orbital bone, like was hurting him late before he ended up getting dropped twice in a very close fight. He proved to us, Luke, that he's tough, that it's not all knockouts, that he can box, that he can adjust his game plan. The Japanese monster, Naoya Inoue,

number two pomfropon on my list, is the real deal. Hey, you gotta do it in the States, right? You wanna make it here? If you can make it here in Jersey City, you... I don't know. You can make it in maybe Hoboken. Yeah, you can probably make it in my factory town, but he's gonna have to make it in Vegas on Saturday, a new way. And that's the shit for the week here, Luke.

You want to do a little Dead Wrong? Let's do some Dead Wrong. All right, let's get into that. Your favorite segment of the week. Yep, this is where we look back and see, yeah, what we got the hell wrong there. Heavy on Luke this week. Wow. It's heavy on me every week because people don't police you

as hard. That's why. Alright, in last week's Dead Wrong, how meta was this? Yeah, this was a thing. I got was dead wrong during dead wrong. Yes, isn't that ironic, right? Don't you think? A little too ironic. I really do think, right?

Yeah, wow, right? You know it was Dave Coulier that she was banging that she wrote the You Ought to Know show. I know. There's certain women in life who are just, when it comes to picking the men in there, there's classic. That's Uncle Joey. Classic underachievers. Yeah, yeah.

Shout out to Atlantis there. Luke, during last week's Dead Wrong, we were talking about Rashad Evans, and you said he was the first tough winner to win a UFC championship. No, totally wrong. He had just beaten Forrest Griffin, said he was the first tough winner to win a UFC championship. Totally wrong. He had just beaten Forrest Griffin, who really was the first. So I think the, so, okay, so a couple things. One, sometimes I'm dead wrong, I just misspeak. It still counts.

You got to count it. But it's not as bad. This was one I just got the memory. Oh, wait, am I dead wrong? Look, I'm reading the stats. Forrest Griffin is who Rashad won the title from. Yes. But Matt Serra was the first ultimate fighter.

Did he win the tough? Let's verify that because I thought Forrest Griffin won it. Our producer Mikey has it written here that Forrest won his title in 08. Serra won his from GSP in 07. So I guess Matt Serra is the first tough winner to win a championship. If he even won. Maybe I'm dead wrong. Okay, but he had a career through UFC before the Ultimate Fighter

because Serra was on the season-notice comeback. Yeah, yeah. Whereas Rashad's gateway, Forrest Griffin's gateway. So I think Ultimate Fighter products, that would be Forrest Griffin. And also I think this was the fight where it was the first-ever Ultimate Fighter winner winning a belt off another Ultimate Fighter winner. I think it was Season 1 versus Season 2. So sometimes I'm dead wrong. I'll just misspeak.

It counts, but it's not as bad. This one I just totally fucked up. So, my bad. Is Rashad Evans dead wrong about all he said on the Rogan Show about psychedelics? I've never done psychedelics. Could you go through an emotional and spiritual cleansing that maybe you need if you and I were willing.

You think I need one, you fucking degenerate? Would you be willing to come with me, Rashad? He'll probably have to get a shaman. We'll go to like Joshua Tree in California. We'll lick toads and eat peyote and watch the sunrise. No, you can just give me some edible brownies and call it a day and I'll watch Family Guy. That's about all the spiritual introspection I've been for. I think this could be a turning point in your life.

I'm going to get Rashad on the horn. Maybe we can get MK cameras there. Maybe we can get Jay involved. Why don't you do it first? Tell me how it goes. All right. Also, Luke, you mentioned that Alexander Volkov had wings tattooed on his upper back before changing it to the Decepticon or whatever the hell that thing is.

He actually had a manta ray. Do we have a picture of this? I believe we do. It ain't wings. It was a manta ray. Okay. It is a manta ray. Do we have a picture of this? I believe we do. It ain't wings. It was a manta ray. It is a manta ray. I guess. But if you had not really paid close attention, but you had seen the tattoo, does it not resemble

a lot of the other ones who get wings across their back? I mean, dead wrong. It's true you were wrong. It is a manta ray. It is. Okay. All right. But, you know, go fuck yourselves because this was not exactly.

Now, this. Jesus Christ. My ultimate point was correct, which was there's that much black up top, heavy blacking on the tattoo because it was a cover-up, which you can see they made the helmet basically the covered-up part of the sort of samurai mask or whatever. There's a lot of people that think that we should be doing a weekly UFC tattoo segment or combat sports tattoo segment.

I'm not opposed to it. Either am I. Do you feel like every time you see Robbie Lawler fight, that tramp stamp area is incomplete? Like he started something and then it never finished? Yeah, I've been wondering when he was going to fill that in. And I don't think he's going to fill that in, man. All right. All right.

Shout out to Robbie Lawler. I'm getting a tattoo next month. Yeah, you're getting it on your forearm, right? From here to about here. What is it again? The Colombian flag? No, it's the Eagle Glove and Anchor of the Marine Corps. Sem about here. What is it again? The Colombian flag? No, it's the Eagle Globin anchor of the Marine Corps. Semper Fi.

What is it? Hoo-wah? Hoo-yah? It's ooh-rah, you fucking pogue. You nasty civilian pig. Why is every Marine I know is just angry? That's the way they breed us, bro. That's the way it's done.

I'd rather hang out with Rashad in the desert, you know? Yeah. Listen, I'm not saying I'm opposed to that. Listen, you know what I need? I need a couple of edibles, and I just need a relaxing couch, and just leave me the fuck alone. Yeah. Hot dog and a handjob, and just...

Really, call it a day. All right, all right. Call it a day. To close Dead Wrong, on Wednesday's show of this week, Luke, or no, maybe it was Monday, apparently I got into a little hot water. We brought up Curt Schilling. We brought up the bloody sock game, and I believe my quote was, you know what? I don. We brought up Curt Schilling. We brought up the bloody sock game.

And I believe my quote was, you know what? I don't have anything against Curt Schilling. And here's why, Luke. I know he's got controversial opinions. I love him. I love him as an athlete. I like that he kind of runs his mouth on the mic. I don't.

Hold on, let me read this. I had to stop watching Morning Combat because Brian Campbell playing slash being the anti-science bro is just not something I find enjoyable. I do just let the YouTube video run on my Chromebook, though, because I want Luke Thomas to succeed. So the snarky ginger went on an assault. I never said I respect him. Of course, B. Campbell respects Curt Schilling, and I didn't need him to actually tell us to know it. I just said I have nothing against him.

I love him as an athlete. I think it's funny how he riles people up. This is like one of my top supporters. She is like endlessly forgiving. She kept coming. She kept coming. Oh, really? There's more to it?

Yeah. Can we advance the slide? I told her basically you don't know me there from the great Get Shorty clip, and then she says I know the character you get paid to play. Do I hope you know Curt Schilling is a piece of garbage who has committed fraud and at... And is at best adjacent to racists and bigots? Yes.

Does it matter when you go on a platform and say otherwise? No. I went on to defend myself. I don't believe everything Kurt Schilling believes. I'm just like, I got nothing against him. He's just funny to me. He's just a character. He's a fucking moron.

Alright, so my dead wrong is that I represented, apparently, that I respect and believe in everything he says. So, yeah, I'm wrong. All I was saying is I don't hate the guy. I was a big fan of him as an athlete. He named his son Gehrig. That's kind of cool, right? Is Gehrig the leader of QAnon?

He never frauded me. I don't really read his political views. Who was the other player? You know, look, we can love the art but hate the artist, right? Sort of. I mean, there's limits to it. But I would say, you know, all these MMA fighters don't share my politics. I still like them, you know.

Okay. You got to learn to separate at some point. Shout out to the snarky redhead Ginger. I followed her to try to be nice, and then she said, don't follow me. And then she did that thing where she unfollowed me from her. Which I think you do it through blocking and then quickly unblocking. It makes them no longer follow you.

All right. Well, shout out to the people who think I'm just the Skip Bayless anti-science bro of this duo. Is he anti-mask? I don't know. Luke, I just bring it, all right? I just put myself and I smear it on the screen right in your face. By the way, we have room service diaries coming out where Brian goes into detail about how he's the ketchup.

That's who you think you are, ketchup. Yeah, I'm the sauce. You know, bro, you're just a – in the end, you're an important piece of meat, but, you know, you're an unseasoned dead animal at the end of the day, all right? How is it that I've managed to have a significantly wider audience than you by being boring? Luke, is it quality or quantity? Okay, what if I told you in the history of my life, you know, for example, if I was like, well, I slept with these three gorgeous women throughout my life, but then you're like, well, I slept with these hogs, baby, and, you know, I'm a more man than you. I'd be like, take your gross dick elsewhere, right? Dude, you need psychological counseling way more than I do. I spent a lot of time with you in the last few days, right? Dude, you need psychological counseling way more

than I do. I spent a lot of time with you in the last few days, Luke. Yeah, I'm not telling you to bang heifers. What are you talking about? That's all you. Hey, no tips this week, Luke, okay? You want to give any tips on the way out? Any instructions? No, but we should say something because we're in the studio here and

candidly, I don't think it's going to be another nine months before we're back. But I don't know when we're coming back. Could you see a future in which we're live Monday, Wednesday, Friday, great bonus content clips in between, the dissected maybe, the live chat, the MK hardcore bankrolls? There was no live chat yesterday because we had to do a bunch of stuff, including extra projects around the brand and for Showtime. So the live chat will come back next week.

Just to be clear about that. Hopefully Dissected as well. I love Dissected. Dissected, I don't know. Anyway, do you see a future in which Mondays, though, are still right here? I will say I can't wait to come back to this studio regularly on Mondays.

I really can't. What do you think went down on this table during the six months we weren't here? Does Jay touch himself inappropriately by sitting or standing? I could see Jay producing the show bare-ass sitting around here and just having us think he's professional from the aircraft carrier up, you know? Yeah, maybe. All right. I don't know.

But I also had the window unit air conditioner. Another No J Friday here, by the way. Shout out to Gaff. Shout out to Maniche, our boys holding us up here. Big Meech. Yeah. Larry Hoover. I don't know what else I have to say here, Luke.

Check us out at 1 p.m. Eastern today on the Showtime YouTube channel. The live weigh-in for Gervonta and Leo. Can we hit up the social on the bottom, please? The socials. Follow me at a few different places there, okay? Yeah, we're on the tweets. We're on the Instas. Yeah.

Give us a like and subscribe, by the way, to the video. Did move a whole lot of units in that regard this week. Not every week can be a big winner, but October has been a very good month for us. My interview with Regis Progray is still out there if people want to check it out, all right? How many views does your boxing content get? About 100,000. Is that what it gets? Yeah.

Dude, we put out boxing content as like a favor to boxing. And I don't think boxing loves us back. Just putting that out there. It's a different audience, Luke. Okay? It's a different audience. Serious question. Are they as online as MMA fans?

No. They're not, right? No. I don't know anyone in boxing that does big podcast numbers. I'm serious about that. I don't think that's a big avenue compared to MMA or NBA or whatever. Different sports have different groups

that are different ages or different tendencies in terms of the online culture or podcast. I don't see that as much in the box game. MMA's hot. Pro wrestling's hot, for example. All right. How much are you going to miss me?

What time does my car pick me up today? Like three. Yeah. Check us out at the 1 p.m. Eastern live stream The Way In.

We'll be sitting right here at Orchids of Combat. It was a pleasure, though, Luke, this week to be in your presence. Some would say we wouldn't have a show

without all your social followers, all right? Well, thanks for watching. Enjoy your Halloween weekend. Don't spread the COVID. Thank you. For Luke Thomas, I am Brian Campbell.

Big Ben. We'll be right back. you