MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - DDP Hurt, Title Fight With Khamzat On Hold UFC 317 | Jake Paul Fight Announcement | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

The guys are back together in studio to discuss who will headline International Fight Week with everything in flux. Plus Dakota Ditcheva speaks out on PFL frustration, Jake Paul announces June 28 return vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and more!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Reveille Reveille look at us now tip to tip. Oh Jesus. Do you want a margarita? Yes! My God! It's us doing what we love. Two, three, two, three! It's time to bang. Oh, yeah! Goodness gracious!

Ass is bodacious! Hey, we're back from vacation. It's morning combat. We are here to party. We are here to. Hey, we're back from vacation. It's morning combat. We are here to party. We are here to bang Monday, April 21st, 2025. I'm the cohost is with the most is your boy with that BBC, with that BDE Brian Campbell. That is Luke Thomas from the nation's capital. We have a hell of a show for you today. Live and direct from metal art studios Studios here in the NYC.

Thank you to everybody listening in your ear hole, watching on YouTube, or maybe watching on the DraftKings network. And a reminder that today's episode of Morning Combat is brought to you by DraftKings and with DraftKings. The Crown is yours. LT, fresh off the bird from the Crescent City. That's right. You feeling refreshed? You feeling ready to bring it today? I am not feeling refreshed because I got up at 2 50 this morning. I'm still on West Coast time. I'm f'd up. Yeah, but New Orleans is a great place. Oh wow. It is an amazing place. How was your vacation? It

was it was really nice. San Diego is except for the 6.2 earthquake that my family and I got indoctrinated into. It was such a fantastic Joshua tree national park. What a, what a time to Josh tree national park is, is a treat. So many of my favorite musicians have died of morphine overdoses there. It's just such a great time, but very happy if you're going to dive a morphine overdose. It's a beautiful place. I w I did drive through 29 palms and did see the sign for your beloved Marine base Am I right about that city or the city that that side of the road?

Yeah, horror town. Yes. Yes. I couldn't believe do motherfuckers live there I mean I'm not talking about the Marine Corps base the city out the city a little village outside of it, bro It's the land that time forgot. It definitely is I forgot about it already, but I am fired up to come back. You know what I did because I can't sleep because I'm on West Coast time. Last night, I watched seven consecutive morning combat documentaries into this morning and I was reliving the good old days. We used to be fun. Yeah, we used to be fat. We used to be like high on the hog.

I mean, we had a showtime budget. We used to be a different show. I think we could be that show again one day. It is possible because even though we always like, well, we need a studio. We need the RSD. We need the it's true. Yeah. It's still just you and me. Yeah. That's not that. I mean, those things are nice. It's nice to have them, but we don't need them. We don't need them. We do have a fantastic show for you today. As we look look ahead only what 68 days out from IFW UFC 317 I cannot believe the biggest card of the summer who the hell is going to main event that we're gonna debate that look at the latest News and get into that we got some PFL talk

we are going to look at Jake Paul's recent announcement of his new opponent and Check out some other announcements DM some donks. Have you seen this shit to follow? Finally, we're back together. But I do want to thank the great Chuck Mendenhall who filled in a week ago. Admirably, I was watching that from Vacation, you and him. Recap UFC 316. Fun and games. It was good. It was a good episode. People wrote me saying it was a much more mellow episode. Like it was, we took our time and I was like, well, we also didn't have to do, have you seen this shit? Yeah. Yeah.

You didn't have me screwing things up with shitty humor. Uh, we do have a fantastic third member of our team. He's the host of the main card minute podcast and he's here by way of a horned up Australian man's testy sack. Hey, it's long Island. Luke no Ceda in the house. Lukey. How are you, bro?

I'm good. Now he's horned up though. I mean, we're well, you wouldn't have been here if he wasn't horned up like how are you, bro? I'm good. Now he's horned up though. I mean, we're- Well, you wouldn't have been here if he wasn't horned up. Like true or false, right? I mean, true or false, your daddy jackulated in your mom and that's how you got out.

Okay, now that's too far. That's no, quickly, Long Island Luke. I wanna thank you for filling in for me last week when it was Luke-a-mania. It was. During WrestleMania week. What a star turn for one Nocita here. Ah, Luke, how was it? How did it feel to take my seat? It felt good, man. What a star turn for one no seat here. Oh, look how how is it?

How does it feel to take my seat? It felt good, man. It felt right. It was good Dennis from submission radio reached out so shout out to him. I love that guy. Yeah, some props so Now how bad was it having to listen to Luke talk about Toast Basterds for an hour? like three hours YouTube YouTube boners. You too, I got a sausage and a helmet here. Yeah, yeah. As Patty the Batty would say. From the island of Bonaire.

Thank you very much. Two mushrooms. Two mushrooms. Thank you to all of you for staying with MK always, okay, always, and we're back, we're ready to go. Shout out to the guys in the back. How about Ken, right? We love Ken.

Is he sober? I don't love it. That means he's ready. That means he's ready quickly on Norland's Luke. Yeah, nollins. Excuse me. Did you get some beignets for tokes? We did. We went to Cafe du Monde. We went to the big one. The nice one. It's overrated. admit it. Um, I didn't love it, but you know what, for, tell you what, you take a five-year-old to Cafe du Monde. Oh yeah, that powdered sugar baby. It's not just the powdered sugar. They put mountains of powdered sugar to the point where my daughter was in her hair to the bottom of her shoes covered in it. She looked like MacGregor.

and she looks like McGregor. I was like, did you win at UFC 205? Are you running for Irish president? I saw you on Tucker. No, she loved the experience. Because just to have the plate of empty beignets and there's still like mounds of sugar. The coffee from Vermont is good though. Coffee was super, super mid.

Super mid. But you like different things in life? But you know, she loved it and then obviously we had seen recently even long before that, we had read Refreshed on Princess and the Frog. And you see like, you know what's the main church there? St. Louis Cathedral?

I don't know the name but I know exactly what you're talking about. Right in Jackson Square? Yep. And she was blown away. Like I saw the riverboat. Every everything that she had seen in the movie, like obviously they did a pretty good job representing New Orleans. And it was just kind of one of those moments where she was able to connect all the dots. So she had a she had a brilliant time.

Well, just this morning at Penn Station, I saw two gentlemen without homes washing their ball bag at the sink. Did you have any experiences like that in the in the city? No, no. I will say this. We talked about off air. I was surprised at the number of homeless in New Orleans. They are not hidden. It's there's a lot of them there. Yeah. But also people in New Orleans, I've noticed this everywhere you go in the city, nice places, bad places, uptown places, downtown places. Dude, the amount of fried chicken that's on sale in New Orleans citywide.

It's insane. You're doing a Tony Hinchcliffe bit. What are you doing? No, no, no. I'm not making a racial joke. You fucking jackass. I did. I did your bit on you.

Yeah. No, no, no. I mean, like I just, everywhere you go, it was like, I thought everywhere you go would be gumbo everywhere you go would be you know no brother They love they love Bojo Frito up in that town. Yes, they do and by the way they make it pretty fucking good there, too I did love the food there in New Orleans love the can I say this goes food hop In San Diego in 30 plus years to touch the high? Let me say this, I had a bunch of cocktails

because I was just trying them out. Oh yeah, look at that, yeah. Can I say this? Most of them were real mid, real mid. Let me guess, you ordered a $20 cocktail, took a half sip, said this one sucks, ordered another one instantly. That's your move, that's your fucking move, dude.

No, if it's 20 I don't do it. If it's 10 I might do it though. I'll say this, best place I ate, best place I ate, I'll give him a shout out, Maypop pop you ever heard of this no may pop in New Orleans I don't know what you would call the cuisine I guess it's typical New Orleans cuisine dude the food was fucking ridiculous also very expensive but it was good you know what this one goes out to dude dude dude where's my coke yeah I saw I saw one of these on the ground in New Orleans covered in piss and vomit it said bro on it and I was like, yep quickly. All right Peter the Pope Luke the Latin American hero

I know that that hit big in your family one what 12 hours after shaking JD Vance's hand. I'm not I'm not saying nothing That's wild. But uh, shout out to everybody morning that of course It might be time though to get into the show. Let's do it as you crack open that can all right that can a whoop ass Oh, yeah, by the way, Dana white got booed to share that run No, I want to challenge that for a little bit. What I had read I had read that it was He got booed and then I saw a bunch of people been like he didn't get booed and I rewatched the broadcast So there were two times watched wrestling No, no, just the clips of him being and now you know why. Like he's, he's being introduced on the broadcast.

On the first clip, I didn't really hear it. Second clip. I hear it. I definitely hear it, but it sounded a little more mixed. Boot to shit doesn't sound right. Okay. He did voice the intro, which was interesting to the first night of WrestleMania and then the second night of WrestleMania got ruined by Dwayne

Johnson, not even being there, but that's another topic for people that care about that. Hey let's get into our show and it's topic number one right about right now. Hey UFC 317 remember that? That's International Fight Week June 28th in Las Vegas the biggest card of the year but we are 68 days away from that and we don't have a main event. So after Kevin Iulie's report on Sunday that an injury to middleweight champion Drikis Duplassi will keep him from a potential IFW headlining role against Hamzat Chamayev, you also have, oh by the way, lightweight champion Islah Mahachev saying under no circumstances will he grant a title defense to Ilya Toporia, Conor McGregor's on drugs, who knows about Jones versus Aspen also Luke,

UFC appears to be running out of time to make the type of main event that makes IFW matter. Remember it's Hall of Fame week, it's so many things going on with that fan fest. Luke, as things stand right now, what is the promotion's best remaining option in light of the injury in light of the uncertainty going on for June 28th UFC 317? They still have a couple of hands to play. They still are. I should say a couple of cards.

They could play a couple of hands, whatever the proper metaphor is. Long Island. I already did it. Long Island. Thank you. Are they okay? Yeah. Yeah.

I already did that. That reader. Oh, okay? Yeah, yeah, I already did that read earlier. Oh, okay, yeah. So there's still a few hands that could be played here. And I understand the fan panic. In fact, I believe that they had telegraphed, I was on vacation so I missed some of this, I believe that they had telegraphed, they were going to announce some things about UFC 317 during the middle of the week. And then the middle of the week came and went and we didn't get an answer to this. Dana also telegraphed late last year when he said there'd be a fight that we wouldn't

believe that would be announced this year. Yeah. And we don't appear to be an answer to this. Dana also telegraphed late last year when he said there'd be a fight that we wouldn't believe that would be announced this year. Yeah, and we don't appear to be any closer to that. So what I wanna say is I understand that there is deep concern about what kind of main event we're actually going to get. But for an exercise, if I may, I'd like to review some previous

International Fight Week main events and see if we can figure out what might be a roadmap for the future. Are you trying to say without saying that calling it the biggest fight card of the year and expecting some blockbuster might not be a reality? What I can say is if you look at the history of International Fight Weeks, they do typically try to book a big fight with a big star and if possible, one in some kind of rivalry. Now that's not always possible, but you know,

you did get, I think, Silva-Sanin too, was one of these such cases in previous years. That would be big star Anderson Silva, title fight, rivalry, rematch, perfect headlining kind of thing. However, what you commonly get is something where you get a little bit of half of that. Where you get one really big name star in a title fight but the dance partner may not necessarily blow you away.

So let me give you an example. The last one we were at together, UFC 276, that was Izzy versus Jared Kenanier. Now that also had Volk versus Max 3 on it. So it had some supporting cast, but by itself, Izzy versus Jared Kenanier. Now that also had Volk versus Max 3 on it. Sure. So it had some supporting cast, but by itself, Izzy versus Kenanier was not necessarily something that was going to blow you away in a similar vein. UFC 239, John Jones versus Tiago Santos.

Again, somewhat hotly anticipated John Jones, big name, but not the biggest. What was that? Coman? Uh, I don't remember who the Coman was exactly for that one. Um, you could pick some other ones. You can go not the biggest. What was that co-main? I don't remember who the co-main was exactly for that one. You could pick some other ones you can go down the list. Sorry Chris Wyden versus Leota Machida. That was somewhat anticipated because you had a former champion Machida dropping down he had won a couple to get this spot. It served a useful purpose. That's good to good to very good right? Not great. Yes that's good to very good. It ain't Connor Poirier, too.

No, it's not even close. In fact, the biggest ones would be, as I mentioned, Silva Sonin II. Silva Sonin I, by the way, sorry, Silva Weidman. Sorry, Silva Weidman. OK. Steve Miochich-Cormier was a big one as well. And then, of course, Connor versus Chad Mendes would be the biggest of them all. And then, you know, John versus DC II would have been.

Would have been. So, by the way, would have been Nate versus Connor, too, which was originally scheduled for UFC, I FW, also Cruz versus Faber UFC 132. And you even got Whitaker versus Romero UFC 213. What I'm trying to tell folks is what you should be looking for, what I think makes the most sense about who's available. Pick a big name star, somebody that is on the pound for pound list, somebody that's a champion, and they're probably going to be making a routine title defense.

Because honestly, who else is really left at this point? Let's go down the list BC. Could they make for International Fight Week, at least in terms of timing, John Jones versus Tom Aspinall, they could, but it doesn't seem like that's in the cards for that part of the year, probably gonna be New York, right? Probably. Because they have to divide their calendar in that way,

so that's out. Conor is on Tucker Carlson, I mean, I don't even know what the fuck to even say about something like that. So you've got Islam, you've got Ilya, but- You can stop the sentence right there. So- You've got Islam, you've got Ilya. But they're not gonna make that. So you've got Islam, you've got Ilya, but- You can stop the sentence right there. You've got Islam, you've got Ilya. But they're not gonna make that. What the fuck are we doing here? That is a stop traffic superstar fight, number one versus two pound for pound, two champions

although obviously Ilya had to give up his belt to move up. Like, what are we doing here? Why is that not automatically the fight? You could say, well, because Islam doesn't want it. So let's show, if you don't mind, Long Island Luke. First, I want to hear Toporia Anrogan talking about this fight. Let's watch this. I would like to fight with Islam. But if they don't give you that fight, if they give you like a number one contender fight, when would you like to fight next?

I wouldn't fight for a number one contender fight. Really? It's the most marketable fight. I don't care if Islam decides that he doesn't want to fight me. I don't fight for a number one contender. Really? It's the most marketable fight. I don't care if Islam decides that he doesn't want to fight me. I don't care. I sit till you're going to have to fight me. Okay? You say that you are the world champion, you're going to keep dominating the division, all that.

I'm here. You can't keep avoiding me all the time. So you would just sit on the sidelines rather than fight someone else. I don't think that they're going to do that. I get the promise that I would fight for the title in my next fight. So how much time you will stop me from the fighting. And I prove that I deserve that shot. Once I pass him, I get the title and you pulled me against Patti.

So he was promised a title shot. It feels like Islam is waiting to see the results of JDM versus Bilal to see if he's going to move up and wait. We also have a deleted tweet response from Islam. If you can show that where Toporia said Habib knows I'm the one to take the belt from Islam only reason he doesn't want Islam to fight me that was in response to some comments that to be given an interview Then Mahachif briefly posted,

don't mention my name or my coach until you've beaten a top five opponent in my division. So, Luke, I understand the, I guess you could say the politics in play right here. A lot of people are saying, hey, Islam, didn't you tell Marab that he had to fight Umar because it was the number one next in line and that's what you do in this game?

I understand you can make the argument that Ilya is coming from another division. But what argument are we making here? If you want the summer attraction to be a Stipe versus DC, a John versus DC, taking two of your best brands that are isn't gimmick related. It is like if you brought in Connor like they tried to do with Chandler last year and Turkana pro-lao, that's a gimmick fight, but it still sells. It matters. Elia versus Islam is not a gimmick fight.

It's the two best damn fighters in the world that happen to be in the same division at the same time. Put the two brands together. This is a stop traffic main event. We criticize UFC for charging exorbitant ticket prices and bragging about the live gate records that they're setting. This is the fight you charge that much. You should put it in the Legion and people will come and they will come

in masses and pay the money to see your two best fighters in your promotion fighting each other. What am I missing? Okay, let's let's game this out. If they make this fight, let's say JDM wins at 315 and Islam doesn't want to, now wants to go up, but now you've already booked him for whatever you you call it You international fight week who does let me we have to we have to think about this Who does JDM defend against and when? If Ian Gary beats Carlos Pratish, that's not a bad choice Okay, and I guess whenever they go back to when long on Luke. Do you know when the UFC is going back to Australia? I Don't know they usually go like November. Yeah, so you asked them that because of his dad's

Because he's a hardcore fan and also his dad's got a ball bag that comes from Okay The one I'm trying to make is but wait, I wanted to say shop caught JDM shop caught Walter wait so crowded that there's multiple names like a fight JDM. So I think that arguments out of there Okay, but they have they're probably gonna if JDM wins, they're gonna want to save him for that Australia rotation. I'm guessing? Something like that. There's also rumors Buckley's gonna fight Usman, by the way. Okay, so, but I'm just saying you have to figure that part out. So now, if that happens, do you do an immediate rematch no matter the result?

Of JDM versus... No, no, no, no. Of Islam and Toporia. I mean, I don't, I don't, immediate rematch. Let's just get one on the books. What do we do? We have to, this is the point about doing these fights is you have to consider the implications. If, if, in other words, at one 70, if Bala Muhammad loses, even if it's like a really fucked up decision, you just have to imagine the UFC would probably be like, Oh, tough. Okay. let's just move on to the next one.

But if Islam loses, it's the pound for pound number one guy in the sport. There are going to be conversations about what you do with him in the event that he loses, even if he gets fucking stretched. Let's do a rematch if it's close or if it's a shocking development. So now that leaves a question of like,

what do you do with Gachey? The UFC might wanna honor what he's done for them by gifting him with some kind of a, and I'm saying gifting, like, you know, he's in position for it, but assigning him a title fight. But the point I'm trying to make is if you want to pull the ripcord on this to make this fight, you're saying that you have to make the maximally biggest fight. And what I think the UFC wants to do is probably that if they can, but they're mostly trying to balance. People make this mistake. And I'm not, this is going to sound like it's some kind of like unfair criticism of UFC. I'm not, I'm honestly

not trying to do it that way. I really am not. I'm just trying to get them to look at it. Do they want to make events? Of course they do. But they also want to make calendars. Sure, sure. And when you're making calendars, robbing Peter to pay Paul carries risk and consequences for what could happen down the line. Now listen, if Bilal goes in there and smokes JDM, it kind of narrows Islam's options in a major way. But if he gets fucked up at 315, it changes the equation dramatically at that point, especially for what Islam wants to do in his career. And by the way, if you go in there, if he goes in there and wastes Ilya and to Poria, excuse me, and JDM was available at 170, it just, you have to think about how this plays out for the 2025 calendar year. I'm not saying that's not a reason to

not make it. Are you saying that if you, if Islam were to lose to Ilya, it would ruin the idea of him moving up and fighting for the title right away? Completely destroys it. If you can't beat a guy moving up from 45, why are we wasting our time with anybody at 70? But at least there's enough names at 70 and marketable sexy names, I think, where you can keep that title picture alive. It's not like you're killing the division. I'm wondering if, and the announced fights already, by the way, for UFC 317, June 28th, Pantoja is going to defend against Kaikar France, the flyaway belt.

Brandon Royvault against Manel Kopp, very good fight in the flyaway division. And then we're going to get a tour of Taffa with Justin against Jahannada Denise. I butchered that name, sorry. Whatever. But the point here is- Damn, I don't give a fuck. Even if you didn't want to run Ilya directly into Islam, but again it's like, if you can't give us John and Aspen all in a reasonable amount of time, and you can't give us Conor McGregor, and I get why, like, could you please give, like, what you're supposed to do, what you're all about, making the best fight the best? Okay, but let's say you didn't do that. Could you do Justin Gaethje versus Islam in the main event and Elia making his 155 debut in the

Khomein against a big name Charles for example Sarukian you could do that but it sounds like it sounds like to Poria doesn't want a piece of that which drives me nuts because I did they promise him though yes or no he says yes is a promise a promise anymore? I don't even know what that even promises. I don't know. I don't know what that is supposed to even mean. At this point, I'm not saying that they haven't done that. But like, as the circumstances change, the need to enforce this changes and I don't even I don't

I don't even know what to say about that. I mean, the question you have to ask yourself is, and I'm not getting into the fighter pay debate, I'm just asking, could they make it, like, in other words, maybe they went to Islam and maybe they went to, you know, like, Hey, we want you guys for this particular date. We want to make it. And Islam's like, yeah, I don't know. And to poor is like, well, I would do it. And, but I'm not going to take a number one contender to what extent does a little more of this change their options? And I don't know how to answer that question because I don't only know what really the

holdup is, but it's something at least on the back of my mind if we really have to make this. But this is the point I'm going back to BC is do they feel like, this is the answer, this is the question you have to answer. Do they feel like they have to make International Fight Week main events as maximally big as possible? And I guess I don't know the answer to that. they have to make International Fight Week main events as maximally big as possible. And I guess I don't know the answer to that. Not only do they not have to under the setup

of their ESPN deal, which expires soon, but you can also make the argument of why waste some of these big bullet fights when you're about to sign with a Netflix or a Prime and wouldn't you wanna fight like this level to kick it off. But I've also got to say like, what do you owe the fans when you're already in a year that has watered down matchmaking

and it's a topic on our show every week? This is a no-brainer. It's sitting in front of you. Answer this about a guy I respect the shit out of, Islam Mahachif, the best fighter in the world. I love him as a fighter. What's really going on with his stance that Toporia doesn't deserve it? Is it only about, hey, the UFC kind of softly maybe promised me that I could go up another division. Why would I have to fight this killer first? Isn't the MO of Mahachev and other hammers of his kind that they're going to take on all comers?

How many, did you see that spliced up video fans are putting out on Twitter of all the times that Mahachev was like, set up the next guy in line, I'll take him out. I fight the best all the time. Isn't this a bad look to to be so bold? In the same way we criticize John Jones for publicly talking his way out of the Aspen will fight in almost every interview he gives right acting like it doesn't matter to him or it's not big enough or he doesn't want it or whatever the case is. Shouldn't we give that same criticism to Islam in this case? enough or he doesn't want it or whatever the case is. Shouldn't we give that same criticism to Islam in this case? Islam didn't sit active for years at a time and like hold a title hostage.

I mean, he's been much more active. So to me, it's not the same kind of thing. Also, it's like, oh a fighter said one thing at one point in their career and now they're saying a different thing at a different point in their career. Shouldn't he if you're the number one in the world, shouldn't it be about defending that? I mean, come on.

I think I'm not even any Ilya guy here. here I was gonna say do you think it's the fact that Ilya is a natural 45er and all Islam's title defenses have been against former 45ers maybe yes not like he's ducking smoke if he's wanting a guy at 70 and again he's the only reason he doesn't want Bilal is because they're obviously they have a relationship from training together it's not like he's doesn't want tough fights. He just wants the right kind of tough fight at this point, which by the way, you can also make the claim that if you're Elliot, excuse me, if you're Islam Makachev and doing what

he's done and fought who he's fought, maybe he's earned that position. Maybe he's got just a few fights left in his career and he wants to make maximal use out of them. He doesn't want to fight a guy, another guy coming up from 45 who if Islam goes in there and smokes them, they're going to be like, Oh, all he does is beat up 45ers again yeah but this is different and by the way that the why the major 45 I agree the major 45 argument surrounds Volkanovsky who was the number one fighter at the time when they fought so I'm not even gonna count that as a 45 or blown up he the first fight was that close okay I'm not even gonna count that number two to Poria is

not a natural one small 145 moving up. He's the second best fighter in the world on my pound for pound list. He's on the verge of breakout stardom. It's a different conversation. It sounds to me like what you want is a promoter to make a maximum effort on certain tent pole events. Hold on, let me finish. Yeah, the best to fight the best. I don't think that's crazy. I'm not in any way disagreeing with you, BC. I really am not. But I just don't know if that's where we are with how events get made. I just don't get that there's not a unanimous fan reaction that this has to be the next fight to make and it makes more sense than it doesn't. In fact, it makes all the sense. I understand if you're an Islam super fan and you're trying to make the case that he's earned it.

I get that there's other lanes where you can argue against it. But isn't it at the end of the day about number one fight number two and they happen to be in the same division. They're both huge stars. I am I missing. No, I think most fans from what I can tell online and again online sentiment is not necessarily always the best indicator. Certainly online. Most people agree with you. Most people are like I don't care what this means or what the obstacles are.

It's the biggest fight they can make, or at least one of the very biggest fights they can make. And certainly even John versus Tom, I think is a much bigger fight, but I think a much better fight, honestly, in terms of pure fight, is probably going to be Islam Ilya, because you're getting two guys who are absolute peak of their powers, whereas John is clearly not at the peak of his powers, and Aspinal probably is and you know, I don't know what that asymmetry will mean for the fight itself, but I'm just saying number one versus number two pound for pound. If that's the way you have it, that's a fight that cannot be topped. Plus it'd be exciting.

Plus they, you know, knock out power in the case of toporia super well. I think most fans certainly agree with you. Why aren't we getting it? If that's, if it's so obvious? I don't know. Is it that both make extreme A-side salaries that even though we always argue when we talk about Jones Aspinall, UFC could pay that tomorrow. They don't need Turkey. Okay, but here's the thing, if you're Islam, are you making a lot more money fighting JDM than you are to Poria? I don't know. So you're not.

No, but in that one, at least JDM is going to make a certain amount. Islam is going to make this much. This seems to be a matchup where they're both going to make super A side money, right? So I'm asking you if this is the UFC just not wanting to break out or TKO, not wanting to break out of the recent financial amount that they're paying for each fight. The same reason why we say they could make Jones Aspen all tomorrow,

but they don't want to set certain precedents with Jones. Are they saying, would that be part of this conversation, or am I looking too deep? I don't think that that would preclude them from making it. Okay. But the question then becomes if in a world where guys are getting less and less from pay-per-view, if they would be enticed with bigger guarantees, and that one might be harder to procure, to what extent that could be doing it. But I honestly feel like that's really not even it. I would honestly feel like the biggest thing is the fact that Tupori's at 45,

and he hasn't beaten anyone in the top five. And again, whatever inconsistent logic you might be getting from Islam is irrelevant at this point. Like, he has some leverage. He has, I won't say minimal, but modest amount of time left. And I'm not saying he can call all the shots, but he can call some of them. I mean, it's not lost on me that you can keep two huge stars,

two huge stars by not running them into each other. But it's sort of like, what is your MO as a promotion? This is gonna sound unfair because I'm like, oh, I'm just blaming it, you know, a different part of the game. But I am saying that like, if the women's game had more stars or even just any other division had more stars, we wouldn't be quite as reliant on like one or two matchups to make these big fights, big fights on the calendar. But again, I don't think there's a damn thing wrong with making Islam versus Ilya other than.

The principles in these cases don't want to make it and it's kind of bumping up against the fact-finding mission of 315 it just creates complication I think you might end up getting it which you might end up getting it kind of late you may end up getting it to kick off the prime error or whoever yeah so the DDP injury is not like officially official but Kevin I only sort of threw it in his column, and the column was based around the idea, in his opinion, that given that all these matchmaking circumstances,

that Mahatchev versus Gachey is probably the right move to go in that direction. We could certainly argue that it's not a bad fight by any means, but is it the best fight they can make? But he sort of threw it in there as almost after the fact that, by the way, I'm hearing that DDP is hurt. Tremayev instantly took to social media and let's see his reaction. This guy, biggest bullshit. DDP did respond this morning, by the way, by showing essentially like the Wikipedia page of Tremayev's history of like being hurt or pulling out of fights or whatever that is right there.

You're also seeing, I always say his last name wrong. Kyle. Oh, Holly. Oh, Holly. Oh, saying I'll fight. Tremoy of, and then saying on Twitter that Tremoy have accepted it. And then even going as far as saying that fight has to be for the interim title, even though GDP just fought two months ago. Yeah. No. Um, could that be like a co-main that you'd be okay with we don't need an interim title on that, right? Not to say you wouldn't get one Could Chumayev main event in IFW for an interim title against an opponent that isn't a star Oh, that's a good question. That'd be wow. That's a great question You could argue that's watered down or you could say Chumayev is a breakout star

First of all on its own terms Chumayev versus Bahalia's a great question. You could argue that's watered down or you could say Chameiah visit breakout starter. Well first of all, on its own terms, Chameiah versus Bahalia was a great fight, right? Because Bahalia was good on the ground. You would imagine would be able to have some kind of an answer for at least portions of that game. And by the way, striking is getting better as well. And he's kind of definitely has moved through the contendership queue fairly and competently. Could you do that as like a box office thing for International Fight Week if you slapped an interim title on it? I think you could get away with it because

people are just desperate for Hamsat to ascend, but that would be a bit of a letdown because even then it still doesn't set up the big one. There needs to be some kind of major title resolution at International Friday Week. John Jones had a big title. You have to put a big title on the line here. So like you could get away with an interim definitely as the co-main. I don't know how that plays as a main event. That's a tougher sell. When McGregor pulled out with the toe injury last year, the recurring theme was just called Poetton and he once again saved the day and delivered a big knockout in

the main event, just like he did at UFC 300. You brought out the idea of, well, if everyone's healthy and willing, could we just do Ankeleye of defending in a rematch against Poetton? And that'll fix all of this. Would that fix all of this in your eyes? First of all, let me say one thing. I know that the biggest international fight week is Mendez McGregor. That was supposed to be Aldo McGregor.

He pulled out and it was for an interim title, but like McGregor was red hot at that time, a UFC 194. McGregor could have gave a press conference in the main event. Exactly. So that's a very different circumstance. I don't feel like Chumayev is quite on that level. So in any case, could you do the Poetan on Koliath thing?

Yes, you could. If you needed to pull that trigger, you could do it. But once again, what does that do to the remaining part of the calendar? Less a concern for for 205. I know Ulberg is in the waiting wings, is waiting in the wings, but doesn't really have a mandate because that win over Jan was fine, but not remarkable. I think he's got a lot of woman dates to be fair. He might have he might have, you

know, he's got some plowing to do, you know what I mean? He's not a farmer. So I think you could get away with it, but all these things are, it's like, you know, creating destination event at the top of, by how you match make at the top of a card, it's difficult to do. You have to, it's the right kinds of matchups.

There's a bunch of stuff they could do. As you mentioned, Islam versus Gachie. I actually think that's probably your leading candidate. I think if Kevin Eulies writing about it probably is he seems to be very connected and up on that. What about star power wise Islam versus Max Holloway? Do you remove Holloway because he got knocked out recently or do you say, well, he beat Gagee at 155. He's the BMF champion. I know we're earmarking him for Poirier, right? So, I don't think they're gonna pull that trigger. I think they definitely want that trilogy

for the Louisiana show. I think what Smoothie King Center is where it's gonna be, which is right next to the Superdome. Is that a pay-per-view, by the way? It would almost have to be, right? I don't know that I'm right. I think it's supposed to be a fight night. Yeah.

For the BMF title? That's a great fight night. I mean, you could kinda, could you make that as the 317 and just be like sorry New Orleans We're going in this direction. I could you main event with that? It's so much star power that people would not get angry. I don't think that would who would complain about the fight? Nobody Poirier Retirement fight is history. I think if you had a strong supporting cast and the rematch was fire was fire. I think if you had a strong supporting cast people would be

happy but as it stands as good as those flyweight fights are the Ulysses including the title fight those are quality fights but those are not gonna get people to look the other way and not having the big the big hammer. Oh yeah. Or your main event. This is Freddie. Hey Long Island Luke are we missing anything? Is there a matchup a name that we're not bringing out here that could do this? No, I said to you guys, like Poetan Onkaliyev, to me at this point, feels the most likely.

And like, to Luke's point about holding up divisions, they've talked about doing this rematch anyway, so I don't think it holds up. Like, Olberg should be next, but realistically, they're probably gonna do the rematch regardless. Yeah, no, they're gonna do the rematch. Olberg doesn't have a mandate I mean, so why not just do it at International Fight Week? You got the KKF, Pantojas, the Co-Main

I mean, this is this is I fully agree this but this is my only problem with all of this is and I think this what you're feeling as well, which is I Get again, they're building calendars. That's different than making events But it just feels to me like what hole could we plug is a very different conversation than what jewel could we build around. You know what I mean? Like, oh, we can, this can go in here.

It's almost like, you ever seen those cooking shows where it's like, okay, your ingredients are licorice, bubble gum, banana peels, cigarette butts, and rock salt. And you're like, you got to make some dish versus, hey chef, just make the best dish with the best ingredients you can. And you might get a better meal one way or the other, but they're a very different kind of process by which you are making a dish. And should your counter to my aggressive push that Islam Ilya needs to be next, should it have been on 68 days notice?

You know what I mean? Like you would want to really hype that. That's a doable amount of notice. But they don't really hype it like that anymore though. It's the old days of press tours and stuff doesn't happen as much. Yeah, but again, 68 is fine. Like how much time do you have to do at camp? That's plenty. That's plenty of time.

Alright, interesting. One final note regarding headliners and injuries. The UFC 316 main event, of course, I believe June 7th, Newark, New Jersey, is the rematch as Marab defends his band and weight title against Sean O'Malley. What did you make of that video that's out there? I guess Sean O'Malley and people were surveying land of where he's going to build his new house and he seemed to be on crutches. Is that troublesome? Is that worrisome?

I don't know what's real anymore. Especially internet pranks. Or if it took place a year ago. Yeah, exactly. I don't... Well, now, Luke, you had anything to add to this? I didn't even see that video. I mean, I'll just say this. God help him if it's true. Yeah.

I mean, the whole reason that they're making this event is in part because they are trying to find them. By the way, when that fight got announced, like the mass confusion over how that fight got made was like baffling to me. Like how could the UFC make this? And I'm like, how could they not make it? I mean, again, you could have pulled the trigger.

Yes, you could have pulled the trigger on a 25 versus 35 super fight. You could have done that. But again- But even that doesn't sell. That doesn't sell. And that also creates log jams, potentially in the divisions,

depending on what happens there. More to the point, like, oh, we're just gonna have Marav Diwalshwili versus Pyotr Yon, we're gonna try and sell that in the North American market. This is a fine fight to sell, but you need, probably if you're gonna sell to a North American, in particular, American pay-per-view buying audience,

probably is gonna help to have an American on there Probably gonna be have one that at least had some kind of a push behind although that that is certainly faded But the point I wanted to make is like O'Malley selling this has been oh, I was fucked up the first time If you're fucked up the second time, I mean, I don't know you're I don't know what to tell you You make a great point who I don't know to believe videos on the internet anymore with all this AI bullshit. I was not even that just like I hope for your sake. It's not true because the entire selling point is that you were injured last time. I fully agree with you on that one. Wild times. We'll see how that plays out.

But speaking of time speaking about a good time, by the way, now is a very good time to remember where tequila story truly began. Yes, in 1795, Cuervo invented tequila. I said that right. Since then, Cuervo had stayed true to its roots. We're talking about the same family, the same land, the same passion for what they do. 230 years later, we're still here. Cuervo is in every pour, every margarita, and in every celebration, including when you have three of them at an MK live show. But more importantly, it's time to enjoy the tequila that started it all. Cuervo, the tequila that invented tequila. ProximoCuervo.com.

Please drink responsibly. And Luke, we have a great relationship with Cuervo. Yep. How about that episode of pregame preview 314 that we did right before our vacations with one Jed Mishu the second entertaining piece of business? Yes, aside from getting lice from Jed, I had a wonderful time in here. Shots to Quarrivo being great sponsors. Wonderful to drink that. The Blanco, yo.

Can't wait for UFC 315. I know people are kind of bagging on that main event. I gotta tell you, I like that main event quite a bit. I think it's going to be much better than people think. And I look forward to getting ready for it with our friends at Quarant. Right here in this studio. Maybe we'll get maybe we'll get old man Mendenhall out of the bullpen. All right. Maybe we'll get took his hat off off camera.

Yeah. Oh, boy. And I was like, I was like, I saw the scene at the end at the end of Return of the Jedi. You don't you don't make it out of here, bud. All right. Hey, it's time for topic number two. And when we're talking about, by the way, the PFL, the Professional Fighters League, and let's be honest and fair, because that's what we always try to be, it's been a tough year for PR for the PFL,

despite the success of Nurmagomedov versus Hughes, and the fact that three cards into their tournament season, it has been kind of action-packed and decent. Well, let's talk about bigger picture stuff. The biggest picture, the biggest star they have you could argue, Dakota Ditcheva, the 125 pound superstar who won their million dollars in their tournament last year, kind of quickly and brutally defeating former UFC title challenger Tyla Santos. Well Dakota Ditcheva hasn't fought since closing out 2024.

She did arrive at ATT in South Florida for a sit down with that guy, MMA junkies Mike Bone. And Luke, what we heard out of her was Ditcheva airing her concern over her PFL future, including a lack of communication from the promotion, no concrete plans for her next fight, and the promotion kind of just being like, we don't really know when you're going to fight next. Let's listen in. We certainly want to react to this. Here's Mike Bone and Dakota. At this point, the past three years, you've had two fights under your belt already. So, I mean, I'm sure it's nice. You got the big prize. Life's probably good, but I'm sure you're getting itchy knuckles, right?

Definitely. Yeah. I mean, the prize, like you said, was amazing. The belt's amazing, but for me, I want to fight. You know, I loved fighting four times last year. The year before that, I fought three times. The year before that, I fought four times. So I've always been a really active fighter. So this, for me now, especially not having anything even lined up, is really like mentally challenging for me. Like I've really got to just believe in the process

and let everything happen how it should. It's tested me for sure. Like I've really got to just believe in the process and let everything happen how it should. It's testing me for sure. Like that's probably why I went home because at the start of the year, I was here in Florida training with nothing lined up, seeing everybody train for this tournament. It was really disheartening for me. So I went home, refreshed a little bit.

Now I'm back, ready to get back in the gym and hopefully something will come up by then. Gotta put you in there at some point. I assume you have a contract and they do owe you fights at some points. Exactly yeah that's another thing like I'm in contracts and you guys have to have me fight so I know that they will pull something out the bag there's just been a lot of changes obviously this whole year has been a big change for them so

I'll trust that they they bring something for me. It's just a bit of a bummer because I know after the last fights you're like I want them to find something that's going to test me and like you know raise up the level but now it seems like it's just get me anything Yeah, I'm just like get me anything literally and but like you said, you know, it was kind of it's hard I get it's hard for PFL, you know They've put all the girls in the tournament and then now they need to find someone that's that's gonna kind of give me a good competition They can't give me someone that's you know, just kind of signed to the PFL, not really had that much experience

because it doesn't make sense. I've just beat Santos very easily. I think that's another thing that I have to understand is like if I'd had a five round war with Santos, there would have been a few more people in there that would have been more of a match, but I walked through it. I walked through everyone last year,

so it does put them in a difficult position now and I get it, but I'm sure they'll work to find someone. So Luke this video was last Thursday, it went viral quickly the following night on the PFL 3 broadcast of their tournament season they brought Dakota Ditcheva ringside and this is what they said. Yeah excited to have you here so little bird telling me in my ear that we've got good news it'll be a July fight for Dakota Ditcheva. I did just have a great chat with Dom.

I did actually feel a little bit more hopeful now. I think people are getting a little bit stressed that they weren't going to have me fight this year. But guys, I'm coming back. Don't worry. It was always the plan to have Dakota Ditcheva fighting in 2025. It will be the first of four champion series dates in the 2025 calendar. Now to be fair, no opponent, no official date, no location. What does this say when the biggest

piece that PFL has, the arguing point, someone that essentially homegrown and built their stardom through them that is young, ready to take over the world, that she has to go public to complain to get noticed. I know that they tried to fix it the next day, but what does this say about the promotions attitude and maybe their structure? Because all they care about now is this tournament matching guys in rematches, the second rate people like this with no titles at stake Where do you weigh in on this? This is something that we've this version of the issue is new this version of as you mentioned and we saw the video Dakota

Ditch of us speaking of his by the way, it's my bond Bonfire. Oh More of his like Then you like you like double down on I'm like, I just adopted that pronunciation listen if you're kind of like you and caseras, you know, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean that's different but either way He calls it bong. I'll just put that way but to the point This is a new version of the issue, but it's an old and it's a lingering issue. It's one that we've covered on the show Extensively and I feel like a broken record when we go over this because there's like denial

about it. But now you're just beginning to see evidence that there can no longer be denial about it. If you want to understand how this promotion is suffering to a degree. They're a slave to a content format that cripples them. And they are trying to figure out ways to get around it. And they have some of that going for them. Certainly to be clear, in fact, the first show of the year in January of this year

with Usman and Paul Hughes is an example of getting around that. And by the way, just want to point out, look how good that show was. And that main event was a fight of the year contender. Fight of the year contender, they were in a great venue. Like I don't know how they can look at that event and be like, gee, do you think it makes more sense to go to a place, now in this particular case I think they were in Qatar and they're probably paid to be there, but it was a great

venue, it was a great crowd, it was a signature main event with a card that was built below it rather than being a slave to a tournament structure. But here is the central tension. Here's what is happening with PFL. We've often talked about how they posture almost like in treating their company as like a financial asset rather than a fight promotion. And that's certainly been part of it.

But in order to raise money from investors, it seems like they feel it, that they have to have some kind of silly ass differentiator to the UFC. Aha, we're not just the UFC light. We are a UFC competitor. We do things a little bit differently here. That's our value add. And they essentially just try to gamify everything by creating in this particular case, tournament systems for all of their weight classes. And then they have these long delays in the calendar and everything else. But couldn't they put her in the main event on a tournament card against somebody else to keep the chains moving?

They certainly could, but then it would interfere with the rest of their plans. But the point I'm trying to make is what comes first in how they evaluate everything is getting the tournament's needs met and then they try and piecemeal stuff on the back end, which is why guys are having long droughts where they're not competing, where they're finding out very late. No, this was obviously a bit of ahead of time, assuming that that date holds for July.

Again, not a specific date, but you know, summer or whatever, that they can make it happen. But it's all something of an afterthought. Rather than having the freedom to build a card, put guys under it, put ladies under it. If they want to have one tournament fight here or whatever, some kind of brand differentiator, but then put Johnny Eblen at the top of the card,

Patchy Mix at the top of the card, Dakota Ditcheva at the top of the card. Oh, you mean your best assets who never fight? Rather than nimbly using that with the freedom to kind of write their future, they are constrained in this straight jacket of the tournament system. So they're caught between what do we do to raise money from investors? Because you're not raising it at the gate, and I'm not trying to be a dick, but that's obvious. Conversely, by going to a model that is venture capital funded, it constrains the ordinary

things that they're able to do to make their roster stand out. Something at some point has to give Brian Campbell. It should have given at the start of this year and while they do deserve praise for changing the things that the fans were most complaining about, the ridiculous no elbows rule, changing this tournament format in a way that they think makes more sense. To me, it only makes it more convoluted for half the money, and you don't even get a championship at the end. It's one thing if you say, look, Patricio Pippel is an all-time legend, but he's 37,

he's got a big Bellator contract, and that's just not going to meet our financial plan to pay that. That's one thing. But you let Aaron Pico go like they did, it's unforgivable. You know, Patchy Mix sit there and tweet that he just wants to get recognized and get a fight when he might be the best fighter on pound for pound level that they have, unforgivable. You have Nermaga, Madoff and Hughes, but then you disappear for two months. I'm just saying like they figured out some good things like getting Paul Hughes back in the main event coming up.

Great idea. But you can't f around with Dakota Ditchiver. That's like your that's your crown jewel of somebody to sell with and build upon. She had to go to this length. Once again, they're not building fight events. They're building a cow. This is the problem with modern. Then you're going to die. You're not building people. People think this is like a UFC specific criticism and is absolutely not with these big promotions that are trying to fill big content demands, they're building calendars. They are not building events. Whereas if they were building events, they would be able to sit back and go, wait a second, let's get us been back in

rotation to your point. Let's get Dakota back and rotate. She would have already do it. It's the fifth month of the year. Almost almost. She would have easily have fought by now. She would have easily have fought. You can put her against anybody and just put the PFL championship at stake, like actually declared champions. Don't give out belts on pay per views. And in all star games, they got 15 bells. They don't generate money at the gate. They don't generate money on pay per view. They generate money in B2B sales or B2 government sales, and then venture capital. You have to satisfy that master too. This is the inherent contradiction in what they are trying to

do. They have to serve a master who ultimately undercuts the product. Tough place to be. Is the master the amount of dates or is the master that it has to be the tournament format or we wouldn't get this money? Because if it's only about we have to fill the dates, they have smart people there that can match make. Mike Cogan, right? Yeah, Mike Cogan knows what he's doing. We covered Bellator and Run on Showtime probably closer than anybody besides Josh Thompson and Big John, right? Yep. It was always matched very well. They took the resources they had and got the most out of them. Are you telling me they couldn't do that with these set PFL dates? Or are you saying that they can't get the money unless they push this gimmick of the tournament?

I think that they can't... How are they going to generate money if they've spent all this time not building an audience? By taking the three or four or five names that matter and pushing the shit out of them and keeping them as active as possible. They're doing the exact opposite. They're inactive. Yeah.

That's the worst thing you can do. Again, what I think that they're doing is trying to hold on to a business model that ultimately undercuts their ability to do the thing that matters most for a fight promotion, which is find, develop, and find and develop stars and then attract audiences as a consequence and that that system that they've built simply it gets you part of the way there and then it doesn't allow you to capitalize on it. One more time I'm just gonna say this I found it in my email like maybe before ever before I went on vacation I remember when Bjorn Rebnis Bellator

sent out an email being like, hey, if you fought in a previous tournament, you don't have to fight in tournaments anymore. We're going to have our tournament system and then the post-tournament pool of contenders, whatever the fuck name they gave for it. And he lost his job about a week later. Like they realized you had to scrap that system completely. Now, Bellator obviously fell in harder times eventually anyway. And I think that's the nature of also, we should just say the elephant in the room here I don't know

even if they made those changes that it would save them we should be very clear about that but at the same time for sure this way not being able to maximize your hottest talents I don't know how that serves you long term I really don't get it. So it's like it's good that they saved it by making that announcement that we showed but you don't have an opponent you don't even even have the terms. Like, is it for the PFL title? Like, couldn't you fix both masters by each of these tournament cards having a main event that's separate where your actual champion is defending? Give Johnny Ebel in the middleweight belt and have him headline the first one. Make Dakota Ditcheva defend the 125 title in the

second. Usman Nermagomedov back in the next. On and on and on. Yep. Patchy mix. Okay, now he's our band-a-way champion starting today. Shouldn't you do that and then say, look, also these tournament cards will produce the next title challenger at the end of the year. That's exactly how they should be doing it. I think you can serve both masters. I don't want it to be all negativity and hate,

but I have one more negative thing. Let's watch this meme here that somebody put together. Luke, is this true? Is this Dakota Ditchefund the PFL? That's a nice car. That's a nice car in that double wide trailer there. I think that that's a, I mean, obviously it's a little overstated, but. Will they be able to keep her happy?

Is the real question. Will they be able to keep her there? Okay. The P. Let me, let me read it. Here we go. Here we go. I'm going to look into the future and I'm going to use the fact that I've been watching MMA for a very long time To understand and see if I can look into my crystal ball here Brian Campbell and in my crystal ball. I see it

Okay, so so it doesn't matter you're saying I'm saying it's a question of if not when she goes to UFC I'm sorry. It's a question of when not if she goes to UFC. I'm sorry it's a question of when not if she goes to UFC. Now that could be a couple years it could be a little while I don't know how that's gonna work. Are you saying without saying that people like us who feel like we're smart in the MMA business and we're giving PFL free advice that even if Don Davis believed our free advice his key to survival is only going this tournament mode so even if they lose her it doesn't matter because as you would say, the trains are still going to leave on time.

We're going to have a tournament for every one card. And that's our only way to survive financial. I'm saying that either already in a very difficult environment where if one dominant firm has a grip on relevancy and you have no real way to wrestle that away from them, you have to be really, really on your game to have any chance of survival, and they've handcuffed themselves to a content and program schedule that won't allow them to do that. What is supposed to be the reason that I think that

they're going to be around for a few more years other than they could continue to get money from venture capitalists? But short of that, someone explained to me what the math is. Called Darren Owen, just merged the GFL, the PFL, Eagle FC, MMA. But you know what? Here's what I'll say about this, man. I mean, I know a lot of UFC fighters complain they don't get enough fights. And certainly that can be true in certain cases. You said UFC fighters.

Yes, yes. Oh, they complain too? So yeah, I'll talk to someone. They'll be like, they're happy that they get the two that they get a year. Sure. But a lot of them want three, sometimes they even want four. And that's where you get that two to three is where you see not a lot of bellyaching, but they would prefer to be a little more active. But then I would

say, you know, like, look at the market outside of it. I mean, there's Yes, if you're on the regional show, you know, you can get seven fights in a year. It's very, very easy to get booked, but there's not much money in that. It's these middling ones that are supposed to be able to deliver for some of these people and with GFL or Bellator gone one Significantly reducing their MMA footprint PFL's time is limited and GFL like a fart in the wind Just gone with the free All right, PFL did have their third tournament card at Universal Studios in Orlando I'm not even gonna bring up Ariel taking down Donald for Twitter

He did kind of he did kind of be small on them like Scottie Pippen on fucking walked into it I know why was he he's he by the way He went after Damon Martin and then called him a clown and then edited his tweets and they took that out 17 times Yeah, so he took that part out and it's like a LinkedIn brother It's like- Go back to LinkedIn brother. It's like bro, do you, like okay, you want to go after the media because you think that they're mean to you, right? That's what's happening here.

He wants to go after the media because he thinks they're wrong and he thinks they're mean. How the fuck is that going to fix your problems Don? Don, we want you to succeed. Hey Don, put the camera on me Don. We want you to succeed. We fucking want more business! That's fun to watch!

I love Strike Fours! I had a great time covering Bellator! What the hell is going on here? Alright, BFL3 happened Friday night. Universal Studios Orlando. In that main event, in the middleweight tournament, Fabian Edwards' brother, right? Brother of Leon? Fabian. Fabian Edwards, brother of Leon.

He took out a guy we know well, Impeccasanguinay, in round two. brother of the Fabian Fabian that was brother of Leon. He took out a guy we know well, Impa Kasongene in round two. Pretty pretty impressive TKO. Yeah, are you looking at Fabian as a favorite in this tournament? Uh, maybe you're not looking that deep. Well, first of all, he doesn't typically get finishes and that was that was pretty good for him. Also Impa is, you know, not the best fighter in the world, but a good test for most people. And he made a run. Was it last year?

Dude, he made a kill. He won one of the million dollar tournaments. Yes. Did he win one or two of the attorneys? I think one. He won one. He lost by knockout last year. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But anyway, he made some, he's made good money. He's made good money, you know, certainly given the state of the game he occupies, replacing the game anyway. But Edwards, yeah, this was a nice win for him. One of the better ones he's had in his career for sure.

He looked good doing it. So we'll see what happens. I did enjoy that for him. Also in that Coleman event, this is worth talking about, we're in the lightweight division in Dagestan's Godzai Rabotinov. I had forgotten that he had that great Bellator run and then you look at his page. He's now 11-0 since 2020 after taking care of former UFC fighter Mark J. Casey in 32 seconds He's fucking awesome to make a huge statement about his chances in this tournament and maybe being one of the bigger hammers I mean look an 11 fight win streak against some of the names when you do look back over the different federations that he's done it

Against we never talk about him Should we we never talk about him? he was he was fighting guys with no Wikipedia entries on Bellator for a long time. Some decent guys right? I didn't say they were bad fighters they just were not heralded. He was not winning heralded uh contests against big name opponents but now you're beginning to see him turn that up. How old is he? Let me see here very quickly. He's like 31. Rabotinov is 31 so he's also in his prime now smack in the middle of it. Wins over Brent Primus finishes him off in the third round then Mark J. Casey here in the first. Looking to your point fucking awesome doing it. Dude, Robodinov is ready to make a move in this division. Take note. Long Island Luke, you're hardcore. Did you see anything else on this card that we should be talking about?

I got a shout out Aaron Jeffrey who was like the first fighter. Yeah, first in the fight. Cashed him as an underdog, plus 180, so that was nice. Josh Silvera going over two and a half, that was also plus money. Ooh. There was some good bets on this card. You're only speaking from a gambling standpoint, apparently. Yeah, there you go.

Dalton Rasta beating Sada Bussi. Sada Bussi former champion. That was nothing, yeah. Dalton Rasta, first team all body. Ever seen him? Yes. Looks like fucking He- man when he walks out there He got a nice submission victory by the way another Bellator over PFL win Bellator had do it. Do they own PFL? I'm telling you about Scott Coker Like there's there's good things about there's bad things about him. There's successes. He's had as a promoter

There's some failures, but that dude's ability over the course of time to develop quality talent and from little places that you never imagined, you gotta give him some credit. He's done really well. I mean, I remember when the strike force roster came over, people were like, how good are they going to be? And then they all ended up becoming champions. You're like pretty fucking good. Isn't that more reason to pay the Bellator guys and get them back out there? Also, how about this? We always think of like the Kiwi fighters and the Aussie fighters as like Australians and we don't know, we don't talk about any of the ones outside of them. JJ Wilson, JJ Wilson beating Mads Burnell, Mads Burnell, solid UFC, very good veteran. Stream couture. Stream couture. JJ Wilson proper fucked him up.

Yeah. Like JJ Wilson, another Bellator guy. Now also Mads was a Bellator guy too, but be on the lookout. One of these Kiwi guys that you don't ever pay attention to because they don't fight in the UFC. Very, very good young talent. To the coach, Jonathan Coachman, love that they're using him on these broadcasts more often. So Clay Collard got wiped out. Yeah, yeah. I mean we're kind of seeing the same guys in these tournaments year after year. He's lost like five of his last six now. He had a run during the pandemic.

He had a run during the pandemic and you know, you during the pandemic. And you know, you got to give that guy some credit. He shows up to fight. He was fun. But as soon as he you know, you beat the Pettis and the Jeremy Stevens of the world and then you just fall off. I forgot that he beat Anthony Pettis. Who was the boxing prospect he wiped out? I forgot that too, but I remember the fight distinctly.

Yeah, some guy they were like he was the part. They always some former MMA fighter. Who did he fight? Max Holloway? He fought Max Holloway. He got whooped. Now I need to know who was the boxing guy who he wiped out during the pandemic. Oh, it was some former MMA fighter. Who did he fight? Max Holloway in the US? He fought Max Holloway. He got whooped. Now I need to know who was the boxing guy who he wiped out during the pandemic. Let me see. Oh yeah.

Here we go. So when was that? 2020? Yes. Was it David Kaminsky? No, no, no. Cause it was in... Maybe?

It could have been early 21. I mean, he had that run where he was winning fights he He shouldn't have, and then they should have featuring in 2020. He beat a question on Toler. I don't think it's that one. Raymond Guajardo. I don't remember. I don't think it was that one. And then it was one in June, 2020 was David Kaminsky.

That could be another one was Laurent Nelson. I don't know. The Maurice Williams. And he lost four in a row after that. All right. We're deep down a rabbit hole. Let's let's pull it. All right. Let's pull it back in. Hey, let's go to topic number three. Jake Paul, a masterful promoter in his own right with most valuable

promotions and also he boxes. Did you know that but coming off of his one-sided victory over a 58 year old Mike Tyson, we were waiting to see who the next big name would be for Jake. Yes. He tried with Canelo and Turkey Turkey El-Ashik intervened. Yes, he seemed to try with Tank Davis for as weird as that fight is, but interesting, but also could they even make it? That didn't happen despite their intentions.

Now we have the details of the announcement. It'll be June 28th. It'll be at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. And by the way, it's going to go head to head with whatever international fight weekend UFC 317 has to offer. The opponent, former middleweight world title holder Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. So Luke, given the public's continued demand of fight a real fighter, this accomplishes that like on paper. But we do have to bring up the brutal facts. Chavez is now 39. He's just eight and six since 2012.

He lost to Anderson Silva straight up in 2021. He fought life and death with Uriah Hall last year on a Jake Paul undercard. He's also had major drug and mental health challenges and was, I believe, committed within the last year and concerns from his significant other that he would take his own life. What's the single best word, honestly, to describe this magic? Do a. It wouldn't have been great like three years ago before I would see the Anderson's fight was 20, 21, if it was like after the Woodley fights and then he stepped up to the Chavez former title

holder level. Yeah. I mean, okay. So let's try and let me just tell you where my head is at on this one BC. If we are talking about Jake Paul the promoter and what he represents for boxing, let me say this. Jake Paul and what he's done for women's boxing is more than I've seen any other promoter. They make headlines almost daily. I mean,

Salida Promotions does a lot obviously with Clarissa Shields and they've been on, they've been supporting her for years. For sure, for sure. There's been some other ones that I don't want to forget that there's other ones that have done it, but like in a short amount of time, the names he's signing, the fights he's trying to make, the platform that these fights are going on, because you remember, obviously we're gonna get KD Taylor and Amanda Serrano three in July, right? So-

Netflix. On Netflix, yes. MSG, yeah. Yes, and by the way, also like what he's done for American boxing, we should answer a question. Oh, is Jake Paul bad for boxing? No. No.

Absolutely not. In terms of getting relevant, when I say relevant, I mean in terms of pop culture, relevant in pop culture, making pop culture moments. He's achieved that for American boxing. He's trying to bring fights home for the most part. He's been on like every network. He's been on every network. In big fights he works with other promoters. He's signing women in ways that like, again, just many, most other promoters are not doing. Like when it comes to what he's done for boxing in that sense and as an energizing

force as a promoter, two thumbs up for me for Jake Paul. I give him real credit and I'm going to say this with total sincerity. I'm grateful that he's here. I mean that. I mean that absolutely. It is great that a young guy who's got big dreams, big ambitions, big big dollars, balls to big cojones and is trying stuff as A promoter and as a force in this game is exactly what the game needs right now. I'm grateful for it I mean that's from total sincerity, but who gives a fuck about this fight Seriously, I'm not even sure this is what I'm trying to tell the people dude. What is the argument for watching? Another fight that means nothing?

They are at best at best boring. These Jake Paul fights, they are at best boring. And at worst, I'm not going to say a scam in the sense of like, you know, it's, it's fixed or something, but you feel dirty when it's over. What is the argument for watching that? Brian had this. No, look, look, you're, you're, this is name only you're buying Chavez is name, but like anyone with half a clue could read off the same stats I did, or at least know that this

guy's damaged goods. Now in some degree he has to be damaged goods for this fight to make sense. Like we get what this is all about. He's just super damaged goods. So I ask you from both a storyline standpoint and even from a necessity standpoint, if this was Tommy Fury and they seem to be talking over Twitter and arguing if this was the rematch, Jake's only lost the only time Jake fought a quote unquote real fighter, even though Tommy's kind of a reality star turn fighter. Would that have been fine? Would that have been okay? You're going back to try to right the wrong of your split decision loss, the only loss of your career. That would be bad boxing, but it would at least be a situation in my mind that you could expect to be reasonably competitive for where he's at. And I'm not trying to diminish his journey as a boxer. What I'm trying to say is he can fight whoever he wants to fight. And again,

as a promotional entity, I'm grateful for his presence. Make the argument as a fight fan, somebody who watches fights for a living or spends, if argument as a fight fan, somebody who watches fights for a living or spends, if you're just a fan, you know, you don't work in the industry, somebody who spends a lot of their time and their money paying for stuff like this. What is the fucking argument? We have seen this movie before. He's made a lot of progress, but is ultimately not that great. And he's taking on another handpicked opponent who is a corpse of relative to what he wants was a history of quitting, a history of quitting, who's clearly

looking for a payday, who clearly is at troubled times is in good shape. Fine. Fine. Fine. I'm sure he's in good shape. But what is the argument about why that is must see TV? It's the opposite of that. I can't do another fucking Jake Paul

fight cycle where I'm expected to launder what he's doing with like this narrative of you know up from the bootstraps I'm trying my best dude. I don't give a fuck anymore. So here's the deal if the Tyson fight didn't just happen I think we would be more forgiving on this we would go okay, you're cherry-picking a name, but at least it's a name It's a former. No dude since no no no no Cruiserweight fight is a foot no I think coming off of the Tyson fight where that was clearly like no almost pro wrestling of like Let's make this money together this you can't accept we can't accept this after the Mike Perry fight I was like I can't do this and I hear you from it. Yeah from an entertainment standpoint It's like did he beat up Mike Perry was it you know one side in that sense?

But like this is what I'm getting at. In order to make it exciting, he's got to have like a, like, you know, total dominance over a guy. And on the other hand, he had total dominance over Mike, but he did, he had mercy, which was like the worst of all worlds. If this was KSI, would you have cared?

That's like the one non-traditional boxing opponent that people seem to really want. Again, it's a situation where like, is that for me? Probably not, but I think that's a better match up in terms of skill level. Sure. And I think Jake beats him, by the way, from what I can tell anyway. But just like asking me to spend another media cycle, what are Jake's chances? How good is he? This is kabuki fucking theater. All right, let me bring up this one last thing. It's all again, I'm not saying that the, I wanna be clear.

I'm not arguing that the result is, they figured it out ahead of time. That's not what I'm saying. But in picking an opponent this languid and picking an opponent this ready to be picked off, they're setting up an obvious outcome here. Why am I supposed to dignify that anymore? I've seen this movie already.

I don't give a shit anymore. I'm not far from that by the way. Let's hear somebody's going to try to argue and sell this. And one of those somebody's is a big key to the storyline. This is a cold promotion with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy promotions. It will be a disowned pay-per-view not a Netflix show, but still should drive some demand and to help it from a

actual boxing perspective. I've got to actually applaud them. The Coalman event's pretty damn awesome. Gilberto Zerdo Ramirez, your unified cruiserweight champion, will defend his WBO and WBA titles against two-time former champion, Uniel Doritos, Cool Ranch himself. That's a hardcore fight fan only. I get that, but that's a pretty badass actual fight. So Luke, am I trying to connect too many tea leaves when I say... If Jake was recently arguing to try to fight Canelo, which he was, then he was publicly campaigning for Anthony Joshua, which he was, you could say to yourself,

okay, Jake's future is probably more in promoting than it is fighting, this would be at least him cashing himself out the biggest way possible. If he couldn't get AJ, and he couldn't get Canelo and couldn't get Tank, are they setting up for if Jake beats Silva and Zerto defends in the co-main event? Jake beats Chavez. That Jake would fight, I'm sorry, Jake beats Chavez, that Jake would fight Zerto Ramirez for the unified cruiserweight title and I guess in a sense cash himself out, but also take the chance that people have been criticizing him for so long even though he only has 11 or 12 fights take that chance of like I'm going to try to be legit is that where we're headed I don't think we should ever assume that until he gives you a reason to assume

that and to this point he's giving you absolutely no reason to assume that everyone wants to like oh look the other way on this fight and then the next fight and then the next fight and then the next fight because, aha, there's a nobility to the greater journey. And to the point you raise BC, perhaps there is. Perhaps, by the way, a Zerto fight would be a very real fight. In fact, that would be actually worried about Jake Paul in that case. Yeah, Zerto would be favored heavily to KO. Zerto would probably fuck him up. But, but, but there would be real nobility in that fight.

And there'd be entry entry to see Jake try to 100 percent 100 percent. So if I'm not going to say he won't do that, you see, but until he actually takes a meaningful step in that direction, to me, all of this is just a big circle he's going in where you're just

trying to satisfy the same demands you were trying to satisfy the last time. The easiest opponent with the biggest name that you can, you know, there's very little chance they can do anything to you. Why am I supposed to care about that? Why am I supposed to care about an opponent who can't do shit to you? Oscar De La Hoya is here to tell you why. He is the co-promoter of this event and he talked to Marcos Vegas of Fight Hub TV about why this fight matters. So imagine if Jake Paul can hurt or even wobble Travis Jr.

It's something that Canelo didn't do or couldn't do. So Jake Paul, Julio Cesar, Travis Jr. It's a real fight. People keep talking about Jake Paul. He's not a real fighter, this and that. Well, he's fighting a real fighter now. And Julio Cesar, Travis Jr. It's going to be a good test for both guys.

Obviously, Jake Paul, he's a master class promoter and what he does. He's been doing some great things. I mean Mike Tyson 60 million people fighting who just he's a Chavez jr. Who When he trains when he gets in shape when he's focused he will be dangerous for anybody look Canelo Oliver is fought who just he's aesar Chavez Jr. we promoted that fight many years ago didn't knock him out couldn't hurt him so imagine if Jake Paul can hurt or even wobble Chavez Jr. it's something that Canelo didn't do or couldn't do so. I know that's the hook for the promotion but that's freaking laughable I'm not going to say there's not intrigue in seeing Canelo beat him 121.09 I know and Chavez was weight

drained and he didn't even try I know he weight-drained and he didn't even try. I know he didn't get finished, but he didn't even try. Like, you know, he was just there to collect a paycheck. It's laughable what Oscar's doing, but as Oscar says, you can talk shit as long as you're telling the truth. He wasn't telling the truth there. Luke, there is some intrigue, by the way,

to see what Paul would look like against Chavez, but you saw Chavez against Uriah Hall last year, dude. Like, no, he's on this YouTube level. So I mean, like there is a world where this actually is oddly competitive and that'd be bad for Jake in a lot of ways, but I don't think there's a world that unless it's a war and Jake survives it and knocks him out late triumphantly,

where Jake actually proves what he's setting out to do, right, or do you think Jake doesn't even care about that? It's only about money on this fight. I think Jake has been very clear that this is principally about getting money for him. And not so much about proving look, I beat a real fighter. Which is why it's like, again, if people want to watch it, if people want to pay for it, fine, I like do whatever makes you happy. But it's just this like, you made the point.

You made the point. I just get so sick of these questions. Like, oh, is he great? Let's see Chavez. Let's see the shape that he is and I did see him ringside at the Tank Roach fight and he looked surprisingly like very thin and healthy at least but you know he's 39 he's plotting he's slow he does have a certain level of technique but if Anderson Silva was able to outclass a better version of that and then Jake had a competitive fight with Anderson.

I guess maybe this could be entertaining at best, but it's not. There's a possibility where it could, but it's just you have to ask yourself why, just ask yourself, B.C. Okay, B.C., let me ask you. Why is Jake Paul making this fight? Answer that question honestly.

Why did he make this fight? Money, stay busy, and to further the argument that if he is gonna fight somebody somebody like a Zerto next, look, I just beat a former champion. At least he'll be able to say that. Okay, but that's all like what you're saying is... It's all pro wrestling. Right. You're just basically arguing he's trying to get an opponent that has something in the line item of his resume that he then can then claim for some kind of greater nobility cause. And I'm like,

I don't know if this leads to a greater nobility cause. It's too bad that he didn't get this a couple years ago where it actually could have mattered to a certain degree in his story arc. But we don't have to play it, but he tweeted about Jake did about this fight and he got community noted for trying to say that Jake would say five years ago I stepped into the ring. He had a good story about stepping up against a real former champion and selling the fight. But I think we have the community note here where they say Jake's claim of

Canelo who Canelo could barely be as you said earlier Canelo dominated Chavez 120 to 108 on all three scorecards in a real Hoham pay-per-view event that was a what may of 2017. I believe yeah Yeah, yeah again, I'm glad I'm glad Jake Paul's a promoter But I've seen too many bad Jake Paul fights To get excited about the next one. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you very much. Let's go to top Oh before we get to topic number four Luke, we have fantastic partners that we should be talking Yeah, we certainly do okay, and when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about talking about I'm talking about our friends over at say it Luke Gold Belly. Gold Belly!

That's what I'm talking about, Luke. Luke, why don't you talk about it while I find this? Well, Gold Belly, here's how it works. It's a fantastic company. Let's say you wanted some kind of delicacy, some kind of special deep dish pizza from Chicago, some kind of special kind of thing that they make in Philly or anywhere in the country. But you're like, well, I don't live there. How do I get that delicious, iconic dish

delivered to my house? BC, one thing you could try, for example, the Magnolia Bakery bread, excuse me, banana pudding. It's tremendous. You know what that'd be good for? Mother's Day. Mother's Day. So this is my point. You order from them and they send it to you

and it's like the most iconic American dishes. Who wouldn't want that. And who doesn't like when they sprinkle on top and say they'll ship it anywhere across the country for free in time for Mother's Day. So it's sort of like an instant party whether you're celebrating a Super Bowl party, a birthday party, Mother's Day, whatever it is you get this delicious food Luke packaged perfectly kept cold with all the fixings right in your mailbox, right on your front doorstep. And it's very easy. And that's the thing for me. I'm not a good cook. It's very easy to cook, but it's top shelf's taste. It's great stuff. It's gold-bellied. Yeah. And again, these are might be places that you've eaten that really mean a lot to you,

or again, special dishes or things you've seen on the internet even you wanted to try. And I'm glad you brought this up. When it's delivered to you, the care that goes into the packaging, the level of detail that goes in to make sure your experience is curated the right way, cannot be overstated with what they say they're going to do, BC, they do. So whether your mom would love something sweet, whether she wants to taste to that deep dish pizza, a lot of options for you. So if you're looking to make Mother's Day perfect for your mom, and she is the most important, or want to impress your friends and family with an epic meal next time out,

go to GoldBelly.com, get free shipping, but also get 20% off your first order with our promo code. That's CombatWithAK, GoldBelly.com, with the code CombatWithAK for free shipping, and 20% off your next order. And by the way, this podcast is also sponsored by our friends at Total Wireless, the official wireless partner of the UFC. When you're streaming the fight or sharing those takedown highlights,

you need a wireless provider that keeps you close to the action. And with Total Wireless, you're covered by the Verizon 5G network. So you don't have to worry about your connection being knocked out at the biggest moments when you're waiting for that big knockout. It's not something you can usually say about a wireless promoter. Total Wireless is different. They really have your back. They are in your corner every second of the day so you never miss a thing. They keep you covered for just $25 a month with four lines without sacrificing

the essentials like speed. With Total you get unlimited. You get that 5G data. You get so you can stay ahead of the Action and keep up with every knockout total wireless also understands. You can't afford surprise Blows any more than your favorite fighter can so that's why the price is guaranteed for five years Taxes and fees included the best fighters don't make it to the octagon alone They've got that all in support along the way. And it shouldn't be any different for you and your wireless partner. So visit TotalWireless.com or visit your local Total Wireless

store to learn more about how Total Wireless can be in your corner. TotalWireless.com and 5G access requires a 5G capable device and a 5G service area. Monthly rate on the total base 5G unlimited plan for new subscribers applies only to the monthly rate for your plan additional terms apply see website website for details. Thank you very much look back to our countdown of topics here we slide gingerly here into number for a big time boxing card got announced by Mike Coppinger of the ring who certainly probably had great Intel because Turkey all the sheets ring magazine series which will debut this weekend by the way with that Connor been Chris Eubank fight

in London and then also May 2nd on Friday in Times Square we get that huge Ryan Garcia supercar Devin Haney so many other big names but how about this one night after Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano will fight on netflix in New York's Madison Square Garden in their historic trilogy. Turkey Al-Ashiq will have a show the following night, Saturday night, July 12th, exclusively on Dazon,

although it has not been decided yet if it'll be a pay-per-view or not. But it will be at, quote, an iconic location still to be determined, and the event will coincide with the launch of Turkey's new Inside the Ring TV show. Let's put up the card here and break down the matchups and get Luke's reaction to this. In that main event, Edgar Berlanga will take on

Hamza Shiraz who is moving up to 168 pounds and has a new trainer Andy Lee after that controversial draw with Carlos Adamis and Shakur Stevenson after originally in recent weeks being on the outside and accusing Turkey of not paying up what he promised, he will get that fight against his WBC lightweight title, mandatory William Zapata. And you have PBC's Alberto Pollo, who will defend his title in the WBC at 140 against former champion, Sabriel Matias.

That's a hell of a fight right there. And how about David Morrell Jr. of PBC fame, his first fight since the pay-per-view loss to David Benavides in January, he will take on Imam Khtayev, who is a 10-0 slugger from Russia. Luke, here's the deal. Three fights into this Ring Magazine series, which is presumably, according to Turkey, paid for out of his private equity and not connected to Riyadh, Cizner, TKO at the moment.

What should the fan response be for what these ring magazine cards are providing in terms of matchmaking and value up to this point? Seems to me that these are quite good. These are not main events with bullshit behind it. They are cards. They are real cards. As you indicated, the Connor, the Connor, Ben, and Chris Eubank is a little thinner, relatively speaking. Huge grudge match also focused on the UK. Yeah, exactly. And it's the first, they're kind of, you know, rolling it up. But to the

point you raised, the one in Times Square is three good fights that sets up potential for more, right? Because you have Haney and you have Ryan and also you got kind of Roley hanging out there. Well, Roley and Ryan are in the same fight, but you know, you have Haney and you have Ryan. And also you got kind of Rowley hanging out there. Well, Rowley and Ryan are in the same fight, but you have different winners and different permutations that makes it possible. So it's not just like you're burning something and you get nothing out of it. And then you have this one,

which is nothing but great fights. Now you could nitpick Brian Campbell, you could nitpick. You could argue, should Shakur Stevenson, Williams Zepeda be the main event. I agree with you. As it's the more important fight, but they might be- It's a title fight. Well, the thing is, why wouldn't they do that? Are they borrowing already the UFC model of the

heavier fight goes up top? No, I'll tell you what I think it is. Okay. What do you think it is? Shiraz is a big Turkey fighter. Do you remember Al-Ashiq controversy? His corner in the Adamas fight gave the scoring or what he thought the scoring was in that position. That was a tough fight for him against Adamas at 160 for the title because it showed his limitations. Now he's moving up to 68. He's got a new trainer in Andy Lee. There's a lot of expectations and the inside sort of rumor is

if he wins this fight against Berlango, who is a star, you got to give him that, right? Whether you love him or hate him, he could be a next opponent for Canelo Alvarez, who by the way has four fights locked up with Turkey the first We expect to be Terrence Crawford this fall. I see just kick off the TKO But what if it was Canelo against Shiraz next year either way either way? But look a big part of this is we weren't sure what turkeys

next few cards after what this May 2nd one would be given that he's announced the partnership with TKO and Now he's pulling back the PBC. He put out a picture with him in Louis de Cubis Jr. So he's working with more people, which is good to see certainly. But the interesting development here is that Shakur Stevenson was on the outs. And then he put out this tweet, which seems to change the narrative. He said, excited about my next fight. It was a misunderstanding between Turkey and the team. My apologies on my part for overreacting.

Can I read the original let's work turkey What's the original tweet the one he put out that? Probably caused the problem. Yes, he put out a so Dale Ahoy. I basically said Shakur's ducking So Shakur quote tweets it and writes is that what they told you talking to Dale Ahoy? Turkey promised me a number and now he's going way back on that number that he promised me and sending his towel boys, we talked about this, now again I think that meant like errand children, sending his towel boys to run me the info instead of telling me straight up what he's trying to do.

I don't bow down to nobody Mr. Dale Ahoye, now let's negotiate. That was the one that, you know, I'm defiant and all of a sudden not defiant. I mean here's what I think is happening. Well, let me add the one wrinkle to this before you react. Sure. The big news associated with this is that Stevenson was promoted by Eddie Hearn in matchroom sport. There was an understanding that there was one to two fights left on the deal.

According to Dan Rayfield, Fight Freaks Unite and a few other outlets, they're now split. Eddie Hearn is no longer promoting Shakur. Shakur and manager James Prince has called Lou DiBella to be sort of a one-off promoter for this event, and then Shakur would be a free agent. Then you got people like Rick Lazer, who puts a lot of misinformation out there, did tweet out that Eddie Hearn is officially

on the outs with Turkey, which is interesting. That adds to this whole thing with Shakur. Yeah, it does. I mean, here's what I think. Well, it's not just with Shakur. It's like what Turkey is trying to do. Are these cards reasonably well matched? Is he pulling from a lot of different parts of the talent pool to make that are some of these other actors operating? It seems like in good faith to make the best cards available. Sure. But let's

just be honest about what's happening here. Turkey is probably trying to line up as much talent as he can with as much ease in the future to serve his business interests with TKO. I just don't see how this is anything but that. It's like, oh, he's signing these brand ambassador deals, the ones you raised with Abdullah Mason. He did five of them last week and the three biggest ones are the top ranks future stars. That's right. Abdullah Mason, Keyshawn Davis, Bruce Shoo Shoo Carrington. Like why would he do that?

All three are unbeaten, all three are, you know, Keyshawn's a champion, the other two are on the verge of championship. I mean, he's building very strong relationships and keeping them. Again, I don't know, this is not a declaration that if he does those things, it will lead to them signing over time.

I don't think that that's necessarily a one-to-one relationship, But it seems to me that these cards, at least in the interim, are, listen, it's the same thing we've been saying about the Saudis the whole time. If I look at their cards, are we getting cards that are excellent? Are we getting good fights?

Are we getting meaningful fights that fans wanna see? There is simply no question that you are. But it's all in service to a bigger, broader purpose. This idea that like everyone tweets him or excuse me, everyone treating Turkey like he's this avuncular figure in your life who's just there to do good. It has no ulterior motives. You can like or hate those ulterior motives. But to me, this is all in service of this grand vision that he has. What do you make about Eddie Hearn in this case? Now, I don't know if that's confirmed, but it does seem to be confirmed that him and Shakur, I don't know if they cut ties or if they just ripped up the deal or whatever, but it does seem like Eddie's on,

Eddie, because Eddie was the strongest at the beginning when the TKO thing was announced, and I didn't agree with the timing and the way they did it, but Eddie famously said, look, I'd love to keep working with Turkey, but I'm the best promoter in the world. I'm not dependent upon him. Is this the future of that? Is this that playing out right? So let's see. Berlanga left him. Yep. Uh, Shakur left him. Who's the other one? I'm

not thinking of. Uh, B vol is with him, even though her and promotes him. But remember we've all was considering going to PBC and fighting benefit as, but instead just drop the belt to stay with Turkey and do the trilogy. So that's interesting. I think Eddie Hearn still his promoter, but that's interesting. Yeah, it just seems to me like I don't know who is pulling the reins back from who. But these guys who are all like.

Reading that there's writing on the wall about the future of TKO, I think are trying to feather a nest for themselves. And some of that's going to lead to players going to different bases, so to speak, on the baseball diamond. Interesting stuff. We'll see what goes on. They did have Terrence Crawford, by the way, at WrestleMania, so he got his TKO close up.

Did he get a big pop? Yeah, he got a pretty good pop, and I think we're going to see him later this year against Canelo in that stadium, so that would be a... We're under the understanding that TKO is going to do what, two to four pay per views a year. I think they would probably want to do one or not pay per views. But think of like I think of like an all star version of the Fox model.

Four big shows. Yeah, one of the quarter, you know, and then they'll probably start whatever their prospect league is going to look like with. Maybe we'll see Callum Walsh and those likes on there. Let's go to topic number five. Even though the story in theory is a little over a week old, there have been recent developments. We're talking about the rise in very sudden fall of the GFL.

Well, we joke and call it the geriatric football league or the geriatric fight league, excuse me. Uh, but the, uh, the global fighting league under Darren Owen, uh, made a lot of claims, they had a format we didn't actually agree with, with teams in different cities across the globe. They bungled a draft in which they exposed the fact that it wasn't actually a draft and, you know, the backstory. But one week, Luke, after Darren Owen was forced to cancel the promotions

kickoff weekend of back-to-back events in LA, when an investor pulled out of money at the last minute, it seems, the GFL founder continued to dig a hole in subsequent statements to the media, including a text message to uncrowned Ariel Hulwani, that have only furthered the speculation that the GFL was potentially fraudulent from the beginning. And you have MMA manager speaking out, you've got fighter Alan Belcher straight up calling it a scam on Instagram. So Luke, in your opinion, in light of these recent comments, I think Lloyd Pearson was

one of those MMA managers who reached out to Ariel and I saw a story on MMA junkie that really kind of showed a lot of this and we can get into that. But first and foremost, what really happened here? And is this promotion ever going to have an actual? Or was it ever expected that they would? Like, is this a doja coin scam that I didn't understand? What the hell is GFL really? Dude, I don't, I can't believe. I can believe that we're here,

that everything collapsed and it brought us to this position. I get that part. I can't believe that we, there's this much interest in something that is as obviously phony as them. I gotta tell you, I certainly have sympathy for fighters who may have adjusted their preferences. I wanted to go with this promotion. I'm, instead I signed with GFL

because I was made a series of promises and these promises to me indicated that it was a better choice for me and my family. If they get screwed, I certainly have a great deal of sympathy for them. I want to be very clear about that. Like there are potentially victims here in that sense and it deserves to be noted. Oh, a lot of fighters turn down money with PFL, for example, to take what was gonna be bigger checks with GF. But I would say if you're a manager, I don't know how much sympathy I really have for them, to be perfectly honest, in this particular case. Now I'm glad that some of them have come forward

to talk about some of the issues that they're having, but it's like, how could you ever advise your client that this was even remotely real? How could you do something so foolish? I mean, they promised a lot of money, dude. They promised a lot of money that didn't seem realistic. We should talk about that. Certain fighters and certain coaches were offered stipends, and some of that was delivered upon. I understand that. But even with that, how could you look at this place and the amount of money that they were offering to everybody else,

these gigantic paydays, They had no broadcast deal. They had no real fully funding. They had no real dates. And again, they claimed that they had dates and they moved them, but for a long time, they had no real dates. They had this ham-handed. Then Shob.

Shob was one of the best things about that thing. I mean, let's be honest about that. Brendan did a great job on that. That Goldie. They had this ham-handed draft. And again, a core concept, I'm trying to be as delicate as I can be, that simply cannot work. It's like let's take the gamification, this sportsification of what PFL is doing only at a higher degree. We'll do it even more. That is a DOA fucking concept.

I have a theory though that cuts into that, but I want to show the facts first. Okay, let's look at the facts There's a bunch more I want to say about this on April 9th is when we found out this was canceled and then Darren Owen gave Some text to Ariel Hawani to sort of explain it here was the original Text that said working on a solution my main investor didn't fulfill his April obligation, which has caused a problem I'll keep you posted, but I believe we've been able to work through it. I think we can make it happen for June additionally I don't foresee the event taking place in California, but we absolutely will keep pushing forward.

I think we're going to have to push the dates to June 15th or 16th. I'll confirm ASAP. It's been a frustrating week, but I think there's a solution in place. Then we had Lloyd Pearson, the MMA manager, speaking to Uncrowned going in length. And here's some from that story that MMA junkie put out that Aaron Bronstetter tweeted out. According to Pearson, according to this MMA junkie story

by Ben Foulkes, Owen attempted to address concerns about the GFL's financial stability by quote, circulating copies and photos of the GFL bank account, showing that at one point they did have over 20 million in funding. Let's go to the next slide, please. That's the only tweet we got. Oh, you don't have the second half of that tweet? I have it in front of funding. Let's go to the next next slide, please. That's only two. We all you don't have the same.

I have it in front of me. OK, go ahead. Quote, to do so, he transferred 20 million into our bank account to prove he had the funds. Owen wrote he transferred the funds out of the account the same day. We had a monthly schedule of funds typically in the 200,000 per month range. This is Owen talking about his main. So Owen responded to the comments from from Pearson. Yes. 200,000 per month range. This is Owen talking about his main fund. So Owen responded to the comments from from Pearson. Yes, 200,000 per month range that he had been funding without issue until April.

Whether it was the market crash or him getting cold feet, he did not fulfill his April obligation and subsequently halted our progress. So originally, Pearson, who had a bunch of his fighters that were assigned to GFL and a bunch of them turned down opportunities, He gave this quote to Uncrowned. At its inception, GFL came on the MMA scene seeking attention by promising fighters large sums of money. Many relied on these promises. And when GFL failed to deliver,

now the fighters have been financially harmed and forced to participate in prolonged fight camps for bouts that will now not occur. He would go on to essentially accuse Owen of reaching out to fighters and almost kind of pitching to them an opportunity to still fight, but for free, I guess in hopes of no of of attracting rev share of rev share in hopes of attracting the right investments. And the final quote there from Pearson was GFL and Owen began recruiting top level fighters during the first months of 2024, offering large financial purses and guaranteeing the ability to fight three times during 25,

relying on these promises, blah blah blah, left so many fighters to financially hurting themselves. We can say, what did you expect? Blah blah blah. But my theory that cuts into this is, I don't think it was a scam that was never anticipated to succeed, but I felt like when that shitty draft happened and they kind of showed their hand and admitted afterwards, oh yeah, it wasn't really a draft. We kind of just assigned based on where the fighters live and made the teams. We all had the same opinion of why the hell are you doing a team format in 2025? You have no chance to make it work. I think they never had the investors. They maybe had some talking with people and they hoped that by using the draft as a commercial,

having Luke Rockhole down there in an AI supermodel or superhero costume, having interviews with Tyron Woodley and all these former UFC names, that then all the people willing to waste money on MMA would call up and say, yeah, man, now I'm in. I want to own that New York team. That seems to me the only way they thought this was going to work. And it does feel sort of halfway, maybe not fraudulent, but gross, if that's the case, that they would roll out in this attempt and make all the fighters do that. Could it be as simple as what Owen is saying, that the money was guaranteed and it wasn't there?

What do you actually feel deep inside? Be real with the people. First of all, let me just say this. I would love to have 20 million. 20 million to run the fight promotion is nothing That is nothing you cannot do shit with 20 million You can you can be a very very small league and that will save you but to do what they wanted to do 20 million would get burned almost instantly

that is not a lot of money at all in terms of the in terms of the People that they were signing for the amounts they were trying to sign them for Brian Campbell, 20 million is a drop in the fucking bucket. It means absolutely fuck all. Moreover, if you have a budget of 200K, you definitely don't have anything going on, again, for the names that you wanted to sign. You could do a much smaller promotion with a much smaller ambition, and that will last you a good long while, but that's not what they were doing. This is the point. Guys, if you want to see a regional promotion that can

do well, look at what LFA does. They actually started two different promotions that merged, but they started very, very small and slowly built over time. Is that the model that XSC who you're working with? That's the kind of thing. They are very cost conscious for that reason and they want to build slowly over time. Going the other way where we want to go as fast as possible with like these exorbitant price tags on everything with a concept that you know, if you've been watching MMA for at least a moderate amount of time can not work at all. This had red flags from the moment I learned about it. Them being like, oh, down the line, it turned out their promises were bullshit. How was this not the most predictable

fucking outcome that could have possibly befallen us? I cannot believe these managers sitting here being like, we had no idea it would go this way. Some fighters left the UFC money on the table to come here. How could you not know it was going to end in blood? Yeah, how could you might have been able to get one paycheck? Maybe two at most you had to know this ended in blood you had to know we knew we want Ferguson blood that's the blood we thought and I want to go a little bit further you mentioned this just to clarify what they Were talking about by the way according to Alan Belcher after the initial GFL event cancellation about by the way according to Alan Belcher after the initial GFL event cancellation, Oward offered him some quote rev share and stuff that I would fight for not a guaranteed purse

with the apparent lack of funding for the GFL. Darren is asking fighters to compete for free and I would get again that's a rev share. Pearson wrote he has circulated a document showing a rev share model for the fighters a complete deviation from their contracted amounts. According to some fighters the GFL is projecting to make almost 4 million from this event at the low end. Holy fuck, if they only lost 4 million I would be shocked to say that they have a rev share model where they're gonna make at least four. I mean after all the gate and the television and all the everything you're gonna make 4 million you're out of your fucking mind to think something so obviously fucking idiotic

Here is the biggest problem that we're really not talking about and it was central to the PFL conversation as well There just aren't enough opportunities for fighters. Is that because of the monsobsony? I know people get sick of this conversation BC. I know that we sound like a broken record But eventually GFL is gonna be completely gone one might stay around as like a kickboxing organization that does MMA on occasion. PFL does not have a long future. What are we going to say then to the middle class of fighters? Bellator's week or excuse me, excuse me, Bellator's yearly outlay of fighter pay, like all the fighter pay they had to do in a year top to bottom was 40 million. That just got taken away from the market and didn't get put back in. And trying to go to this fucking route

is like so obviously nonsensical. But if you've got really constrained options, maybe you're desperate enough to just want to believe this stuff. What are we going to say to them? We're going to say 12 and 12 Hunter Campbell on line one. That's what we're going to say to them. That's that's that's that's it. But I mean, I just if you've been watching MMA for any amount of time, how can you, how can you say with a straight face, you couldn't see this coming?

Jesus Christ, I could see this coming. We talked about seeing this coming. It cannot work. I just feel like they use that they were hoping that draft was a Hail Mary that all these people are gonna come and they're gonna get it in a live and they were gonna get the money that they need to start one card at a time.

It feels like the tail end of 80s wrestling when Vince McMahon went worldwide and something like the AW and all these people are dying slow death. It feels like the tail end of that only this is a one for them. Yeah, they just never got out. I mean, you're right. It is the it is the industry crushing them, but it also was just poor.

It's just was it fraud or is it just I don't think she knows I think this guy just believes his own nonsense. But the point I'm trying to make is if you see somebody trying to spend a fuck ton of money up front for faded names, like we're talking like a huge list of names, which would have a huge list of costs. Like if Turkey only did old guy fights. Yes. Again, under the weirdest nonsensical city system, the fucking Spidey tingles on the

back of your neck should have gone up right away that this can't work. Yeah. It's the opposite. It's literally, BC, it's the exact opposite of everything we know that works. At least we'll have those GFL draft memes for the rest of our lives in the video game costumes. That was very interesting. The AI fucking video? That's the link. That's the thing. We're gonna remember right or

The or the the fact that the day after the draft like yeah, sorry we accidentally leaked the results after the first pick It was never oh my god. I forgot about that, too Yeah, no, I mean I I feel bad for fighters who were counting on a paycheck I will always say that I really am people producers camera Everybody who was counting on one I. I will always say that I really am. And people, producers, cameramen. Everybody who was counting on one, I feel bad for, not the managers, but I feel bad for everybody else. But I just don't understand how people can be like, how did this happen?

You fucking know how this happens. I don't know if anyone is actually saying that. Those are our five topics. Thank you for playing. Now is the chance though, that we give you the chance to say, you have your say, right? Ask us a question every Sunday night at morning combat on IG on the old X.

We put out the call to you. We call this one DMs from dogs. I mean, it's a disgusting sound. I am told. I am told that they're making new imaging. Oh, for this new sounds too. Yeah, I'm told long Island. Look, who will voice the ejaculation on the new one?

It's actually Gaff just saying. I'm gonna say it's gotta be your dad. I mean that's really... All right. Hey, here's our first question from our fans. What do you got to say? Let's see if they bring it from Conman88 and that's Con with a K. Who would enjoy their night the least? BC at Cannibal Corpse or LT at a Burt Chrysler show shirtless. You have to be shirtless with Burt at that show. I actually, the answer would be who would enjoy their night the least. It would actually be BC because if I had to go to a Burt Chrysler show, I would just probably blow my brains out.

Dude, Mikey loves Burt Chrysler. You have to respect his favorite movie of all time is Armageddon, and he loves Burt Chrysler. Everyone has like, you know, you know, everyone's got their things. Yeah, Armageddon, I wouldn't call it my favorite movie, but I'm not going to hate on that. I mean, that's a fun little- We love Mikey. We'll let him have that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, it's a big action summer thriller. I remember when Armageddon came out. But Burt Chrysler, I would just rather be dead. I'm being honest. I would just rather be dead.

I don't want to. Dude, I couldn't. I'd go into a cannibal corpse show. That'd be rough. You know what I bought recently? I didn't know about these. Well, I'd heard of them, but I never really looked into them. I bought the earplugs, but the kind, like if you buy like sleep earplugs, they just muffle sound. I got these new earplugs. They just take the decibel level and just lower it

so that it sounds basically the same, but you can still hear the music. I got those because I'm gonna see Cannibal Corpse on Wednesday corpse on Wednesday bitch this week Yeah, what venue the MGM in DC at the oxen hill facility? Yeah, wow you gonna have any chance to meet the band like maybe George corpse grinder. That is it's the plan That's the plan for afterwards. Do you know somebody in the band? I forgot what you're I do. Yeah, Eric Rutan Who's the guitarist? So he's not the guitarist that all the child?

Images, right? No, I don't think he had child images. He had human skulls in his possession. Oh, okay. I think it starts with, you know how there's people in this world that have like glass cases of snakes all over their house? I think that's where it leads to the skulls. If you have snakes in your house, the next step is dead bodies.

No, I hope you enjoy that and I hope you do get to meet the band. These privileges that we get in life, they are absolutely amazing. Eric Rutan, big boxing fan. There we go. There we go. Let's see the next one from our great fans here. At Jordan Peterson. Wow. With Holloway. Does he cry as much as Jordan Peterson?

I don't think so. With Max Holloway intending to move back up to lightweight permanently, who should be, who should Max be matched up with next a fight with hooker would be dynamite well look we feel like it's gonna Be Pua we way three so that's a great fight. I Lot max has options max has options all of error rematch you could do that Do I mean I did not be against hooker that be a what would you say about Oliver versus Saryukian? Sorry, what am I saying? Holloway versus Saryukyan.

I never even thought of that one. That's interesting. That's what I mean. A lot of fresh, interesting matches. And that could give him a title shot earned. Yeah. Title shot earned. But I think if you're Max and, you know, you...

Remember, he lost the first two and then the third to Volk. He lost the first two to Dustin. Yes. He's gonna want to get this one back. He's gonna be the champion going in. Dude, Conor McGregor is seriously effing the UFC because even if he's in shitty shape and is automatically Gonna lose to every fights He should have still given them two to three pay-per-views over the last couple years He's one of them 37 and I know and one of them would have been max and I feel like that would have been a

Great rematch it would sold that would have been interesting But well whenever max beating Justin Gaethje is pretty fucking redemptive. That was great. That was great. But, but I'm saying like, think of all the arguments we're making about star power and what fight is going to save this pay-per-view. Just old ass Connor showing up would save a lot of it. They can't even get that. It's true. Next question from the people. This one's from H M Z and a Q, which current UFC fighter do you think is the most underrated by both fans and the promotion and why?

Does it have to be both? I mean, there's some you can say that are underrated by the fans that aren't underrated by the promotion. I mean, Movzor Evloyev is super underrated, but you get why, right? You could say even Ian Gary. I was just going to say Ian Gary, but I wouldn't say that the promotion underrates him. The promotion doesn't. Yeah, the fans still do Aljo

Yes, yes Aljo's like Aljo's always underrated as shit. Yeah, that's probably fair. That's probably like he gets critical recognition, but Maybe it's how they treated them when he was on top. So he dropped in the rankings recently with Some of the movement that happened after 314. I don't think he was very happy with that so that's like that's a Aljo's a good one certainly There's some other ones too, but yeah Trying to think I'm trying to think of one that just fits this perfectly like who is everyone Kind of like sleeping on yeah, I wish I could say Brian Ortega, but it's just not you know what Pantoja I mean, that's a great hardcore fans love him, but like He's way fucking better than he gets credit for.

He's so good. I think Umar is gonna be just fine and is gonna be one of the greats. Umar has a bright future. Listen, Marab is gonna be champion for at least for a little while longer, I think. I mean, DDP is finally getting the recognition and respect, even though he's unorthodox and lumbering and messy,

but it works, it freaking works. There you go. Right there. I think we got another one from these people. Let's see what they say from a man and his cat. I can support that lifestyle. Who's a bucket list RSD guest you would have to have? You would love to have Max Kellerman. We both said we're fantastic. Schwarzenegger, Schwarzenegger is the body hunter, except for the end.

Dog, the bounty hunter, except for the endward debacle. Is he alive? Yes. You're damn right. He's alive Are you sure? Yes, I know his wife died. Yes Beth. Yeah, all right P Oh, no for real in the sport. I mean Max Coleman would be very interesting. We both loved that I do I would loved when is he coming back? I don't know. I wonder if it's TKO That's what I wonder imagine him on Netflix and be kind of badass, right? Good for it. Good for him I mean Lampley's coming back on this Ryan Garcia card. We'll see if that's for better or worse, right? I mean, I support you. I might give I want him to get his shot. We'll see how that goes. Yeah

But for me, it's our Schwarzenegger. Okay, if we had RSD back and it's not out of the question. We're building Sponsorship relationships. We're coming back, right? We're on the comeback trail MK, but we still need that studio with that couch I gotta add a few names because that's what they're asking Rolly Romero relationships, we're coming back, right? We're on the comeback trail, MK. But we still need that studio with that couch. I got to add a few names, because that's what they're asking. Rolly Romero. No. Ryan Garcia. No, fuck no. I get why, but that's Teo Fimo. What is, Ryan Garcia is interesting to watch.

He's not interesting to talk to. All right. I just named everybody from that card. Have you heard him talk? Yeah, I think he's interesting to talk to you because he's so I think it is. But I get we have very different. All right. Who else in the combat space would be like a dream? Maybe they came on of late or maybe it's somebody that we wouldn't have access to. But honestly, if they would be if they would even if they sparred with us, Don Davis, I'm telling you, Dana White, Hunter Campbell, I love any of those. Yeah, I mean, there's certain legends. Remember when we sat down with GSP briefly before the Anderson Silva-Jake Paul fight?

We had for Showtime on the Way In show. I'd love to get GSP in that format, wouldn't you? Because even though he's always in our face on social media, I feel like he's under... Craig Jones. True. But isn't GSP to some underexposed to some degree even though he's always in your face. It's not in a deep It's not in a long term sit-down deeps. I'll just say this you know that there's been Generational turnover in the fans when they start killing old legends so for example There's a lot of Aldo hate just from dogs You don't know what the fuck they're talking about and I see some of that was st. Pierre to people think I have Aldo hate

That's unnecessary. I need to put them in the upper room table and just shut up and be a man about it Yeah, well just wait all you think is you think Islam? Makachev is gonna be universally revered wait five years you're gonna get a bunch of fans be like cook that fraud You know yeah dumb asses who's the guy that knocked out Islam. I even forgot his name The Brazilian dog Rianoano. Martins. Yeah, there you go. There you go with that. Do we have another one from the people?

From Von Beckal. Cal, did you guys do anything fun for Easter? So Luke, I didn't arrive home on my flight from the West Coast until after midnight Saturday night so this was the most low-key Easter we ever had. I did the rundown for this show. I put together my shit. I took a nap. That's about it for Easter for me on this sacred holiday.

I mean we flew home yesterday and my daughter was very very cranky because her sleep was interrupted to make the flight. Yes. And then we went home and- Nobody puts Tukey in the corner. Yeah I took her out for milkshakes afterwards. Oh what a dad. Yeah I took her for milkshakes. She loved it. She loved it. So that was great. But we didn't do anything super crazy We were also tired, you know Was we because we traveled with we we brought her we brought the grandma with us and you know, it's just a lot

That's what we're calling her now the grandma Abuela Abuela. Come on, you know, Abuela. So she's no she was great. There's a boil a date or is this conversation over? Maybe the conversations over it's I'm not saying it wouldn't happen but like, nah. Alright, thank you for that insight into your life. Those were the DMs from DONGs. You can join us again on Sunday night and don't forget for this Friday's episode, for all episodes, or just to reach out to the show, morningcombat at gmail.com is the email address. The great Mikey Mo Miles is on the end of that but do not, please do not show him a picture of your package. Your

dead wrongs, your fansubs, they won't get read. I'll come original this Friday. Bring it. Let's bring it for good fans of moments. We close with with really the best segment in all of combat towards maybe outside of high court. I re I rewatched High Court, the John Jones edition, maybe our finest piece of art we ever put out there. We never do. That could have been so much better, too.

We could have like that was like that was like a prototype. We could have, like, that was like a prototype. We could have done a million of those. Yeah, that would have been- True story, that was my first time working with you guys in studio. Oh my God! Which episode? The John Jones episode.

Did you think we were the dumbest people alive? I mean, I knew who you guys were before, but I was like, what the fuck are we doing here? Luke, how high? How high were you for high court? Zooted, brother. Yeah, yeah. It was a zoot riot going on, right? Throw back a bottle of beer.

There you go. Our final segment is what I do every Sunday. I go through all the DMs you guys hit me up on IG with ridiculous videos meant to make Luke Thomas emote. This one's called, Have You Seen the Shit? Have you seen this shit? Luke, we're less than two weeks removed from the return of my favorite fighter, Rolando Romero, that comedic, dry humor genius. So let's celebrate the holiday weekend with a look back. The last time we saw and heard from Rolly.

Happy Easter, buddy. I want to tell everybody happy Easter and thank you for supporting me and following me. Thank you Rowley. That was actually two fights ago when Pitbull sent him to hell a year ago, but happy Easter to everyone from Rowley. Speaking of Rowley, Luke, here is how he trains for cardio as he prepares for Ryan Garcia. He trains for cardio, uh, fuck three times a day. I fuck three times a day.

I fuck three times a day. Can I just say, it's not even like I believe that, that's like a, like, dude, fucking three times a day, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. I mean, Will Chamberlain was active, you know, the guy was active. I mean, he's a pro athlete, he's a pro athlete, but to me it's like,

dude, that sounds like a death sentence. I gotta go fuck three pro athletes, you know, he's a pro athletes But to me, it's like you got a dude that sounds like a death sentence I gotta go fuck three times a day 1.5 women per day We're like over the math to work to get the 20k to work. I don't do that's just I would just I mean I'm not I'm not advocating being in so that's even worse but like You know three times in a day. That's that's a little overkill. It's great work if you can get it though. Okay Rolly can also make it rain on the heavy bag quite literally. Welcome to the weather forecast. What's the weather like there Rolly?

Rain? Yeah, rain. I think so. One more time. Just double checking. Definitely rain. Okay. Thanks really much.

Appreciate it. Luke, are you giving my guy any chance against rock guy who looks spectacular in those videos with, with, uh, Derek, with Derek James James like those quick hooks He's showing in the footwork. It's I'll say this it seems to me like Garcia is Significantly more sober this time around and I actually don't think that'll make him worse. I believe that's part of the analysis Well, I mean dude we are a year ago was that fight? Yeah, what was the fight like a year ago yesterday? Yeah, a year ago yesterday. He was out of his fucking mind. Remember he in the club on the shirt listen. I thought he was again all-time fucking my face quote

He was you know you know we you know the story tune him like a guitar Yeah, that one didn't work out too well speaking of disturbing moments. I don't put this out to laugh, but this was that bj Penn video that's getting a lot of attention We'll just quickly look at this fucking scary He tell me if I because you know he put Brendan Schaub on the same input Brandon Schaub. I know. Schaub in the comments thought it was a joke. He didn't know. And he put it with Aaron Hernandez. And of course, it's going to light up the reddits and everybody had fun on the Internet. But you think BJ is

literally saying that Aaron Hernandez is not dead. He's just been repackaged as Brandon Schaub. That's right. Did BJ I know this is like a fun segment. Yeah, BJ Penn. I really brought down the mood. Yeah, he's in trouble. Mentally. All right, we got to cleanse the palette. All right, let's do it. I don't want to say any more about it because it's just a bummer, but he's in trouble. Let's watch this to cleanse the palette, okay? The nurses saw my birth. Okay. Okay. He's not wrong, Luke. Okay. He's not wrong, Luke.

Okay. Johnny Walker. All right. Let's check in on the Mexican restaurant. The old Cantina, Luke. And I had a lot of this food in San Diego. It was great. On the.

Lo mejor nunca. Oh, oh my God. He, he, Luke, he's just putting the salt, you know, you gotta love the sauce, right? You know, just, uh, do they look, he's got a bottle in front of him. Yeah. He gets after it. Okay. It's he's got a bottle in front of him yeah he gets after it okay it's he's done hey time for your boxing ko of the week i believe we ran this before but it's so good oh my god like 18 people sent this i gotta tell you why don't white violence here i'm all about it yeah what kind of thing this can't be a real fight is this one of those uh uh rough and

rowdy joints whatever the fuck i hope look at this turns around just fucking boom bitch take that ray mysterious wow okay uh luke this is a this is uh cruel and unnecessary but it's also funny let's watch give me that microphone corner regreger i know you died of an overdose a year ago and are probably in hell but that's nothing compared to the hell I'm gonna drag you through when you share this off to God with me by the way my kids are black That was Chandler after losing on the prelims in 2027 Oh, gosh. Oh, Luke. It's time for an unfortunate flashback headline. Let's go to the 80s. This is a real one from Rolling Stone magazine.

Look at the headline on the right, Luke. Those summer nights. How magic stays positive. Yeah, I bet he does. Plus, OJ takes a stab at. No, that can't be real. OJ takes a stab at family life. I think it's all fake. But it's okay. I was going to say, holy shit. OJ takes a stab at, no that can't be real. OJ takes a stab at family life? No. I think it's all fake mental illness. Okay, I was about to say holy shit, they really, there you go, that was, that's prescient. Let's head to the restroom, Luke.

You sent me this, this is actually Newark Penn Station's bathroom. I want everyone to know this is tame. Oh yeah, was there a murder in there? We don't know, can't go look. Hey, look at this homeless guy just occupying, oh, there's, look at, just doing drugs over here. I change trains in New Haven

and I go to that restroom every time and it's rough in that one, but it ain't Newark Penroth, dude. That's nothing. That's the tamest I've ever seen it. I had a hundred people send me that video and I tried to tell them all, A, was I lying?

Absolutely not. B, I have seen it so much worse than that. Remember that time I went there and I'm like, Luke is talking shit, it's not gonna be that bad. It's actually probably nice and historic. I got accosted by like four people upon walking through the door. You can't, if you stand in line at the Dunkin Donuts or the Mickey D's at that place, the homeless come right up to you. Oh dude, they mess with the people that work there. They start, like it was wild. It's fucking insane. Wow, all alright now speaking of the restroom Luke. I don't advise this, but what are your thoughts? Do what is wrong with the whites?

Do show that one again show the one again show that one again Dude what would you wash his mouth off with carbonic acid? I'd wash it out with a shotgun. No, we don't. Wow, that is not necessary. I'm teasing. It's a joke. I don't mean it for real.

Speaking of fatalities, it's time for your fatalities of the week. Let's go to the bike ramp. Oh, wow. Oh Wow dude that was like in Ghana versus the overing love okay, all right there Wow Let's see an old guy in a bicycle. What do we got her? Not what I was expecting see if he popped that motherfucker Pop that motherfucker over the cone. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, is he gonna sprain his ankle? Yep. Yep. Oh Wow, right now it is your kid get concussed you now tore your ACL you fat bonus We have a scorpion of the week people like these videos

Yep, oh All the whites dude, I don't think you can walk after that right seems so unlike them. Yeah Right. Hey Luke old people say the darndest, right? Let's hear a grandpa at the wedding. You know what? Truth in advertising. That's what Noseda should just embrace, right? Embrace his dad's Australian nut bag. It's the reason why he's here. Okay.

Does his dad even know we talk about his ball bag? I don't know. I'd love to get him on the show just to talk awesome shit. Definitely does not know the extent. Oh, Luke, watch this grandma keeping it one hundo. Is that a cigarette? Yeah, that's how she's lighting her. You know what? God bless her. I mean's how she's lighting her thing.

You know what? God bless her. I mean if she's still smoking and she made it to triple digits, keep smoking, right? Why would you stop? Smoke them if you got them. Uh, Luke, uh, Batman was spotted in LA. Watch this. Is that a person?

I don't see a person up there. Zoom in, zoom in. Oh my! It's Batman! Something's in my eye! IT'S BATMAN! SOMETHING'S IN MY EYES Pfft Pfft Pfft Pfft Pfft

Pfft Pfft Pfft Pfft Signal me for anal? Pfft Pfft Pfft

Pfft Hey, let's go to the schoolyard. Great fights happen outside of cafeterias. Alright, they're gonna square it up here. Let's see what happens. Everyone dressed in black with a- What the fuck? Oh ho ho ho ho! Got him, right? Dude, that kid's never gonna live that down. Everyone dressed in black with that what the fuck? Do that kids never gonna live that down he's gonna be garbage pail That's not his fault. No, but he got KO'd by it. It had gross stuff in it that liquid that came out Yeah, dude that the garbage can juice. Oh

God, I remember when Nick Klaver hit a freshman in the air with a doughnut from like halfway across the room I've been like that kids don't air for the rest of his life. Yeah, that's true true There you go, right? Okay, Luke. It's time for your dunks of the week Let's watch the principal. My high school principal went for a dunk and this happened That's a ko1 headfirst down. Oh, let's go to Walmart for the next dunk head first down. Let's go to Walmart for the next dunk. What? I can get behind this type of... Okay, okay, here's the thing. I'm not going to say that wasn't funny. It was funny.

Y'all, don't be fucking with the Walmart staff. Yeah, I know. They got jobs. Let them be. Let them be. Although that was funny. We need them, Luke. We do need them. We absolutely fucking need them. Smoke them if you got them, time. Luke, you've ever heard of a glizzy bowl?

This combines everything we love. If you use this, you deserve to be sent to a prison camp in El Salvador. I'm just gonna point that out. Long out, Luke. You down with the pork bong or no? I mean, it's better than the soda can bong, so. I guess it could be a beef bong, too.

Yeah, there you go. Or the toilet handle bong. Let's continue on. Do you ever hear of a frisbee bong? Handle bong let's continue on do you ever hear of a frisbee bong? What the fuck is that You can throw it to your friend. Oh, you know what pass the duchy to the left side support this now Yeah, okay. I mean you got to have good hands though, right, New York City degenerate all branded too, so they probably sell that shit Oh, you're right. They make wraps and stuff, right?

Yeah, they're paper cup heads. We should play Ultimate Frisbee with that. Or we can just smoke a vlog. I mean... Luke, let's bring together two celebrities and have them play Touchbutt in the park. This time, Rob DeVos Veely and Gable Stevenson. Your thoughts? Gable seems unimpressed. Do you think Gable will work as an MMA fighter?

I mean, he certainly got all the things you would need you better work Work it. Yeah, they're just you know, there's kind of hand fighting here a little thing Yeah, I don't know. There's nothing else to say about this. They're just kind of Yeah, I don't know. There's nothing else to say about this. They're just kind of No, like there's no there's no pay just like the viewers hoping that one day Luke will bang They want us to switch. It's not gonna this is not Tony and Angela. Okay, please. All right, Luke Planet Fitness time You sent me this in fact a Luke Thomas original Planet Fitness, yeah, I'm gonna fit this penis in my mouth or in your mouth. I'm playing a fitness these knots on your head That was me asking John Jones a question yes

Let's go to the 10 playoff time in the NBA Let's hear from win Hurst is obviously Luca LeBron and Austin Reeves Can fit together beautifully and be a competitive group and they can share each other's load and also so they can fit together Look hashtag load watch. That's what real friends do. All right fire that cloud today That's Lebron's caddy. Okay, apparently Lebron doesn't like Lebron don't like that guy No, he thinks their best Brian thinks their best friends Luke. Finally Do you do you believe in proper etiquette when when walking your dog like there's some people that

Properly sure is this at least laws, okay? Is this too far in your eyes? Oh, do you mind if her dog say hi? Oh, yes, sir awesome Their friends Execute both of those disgusting creatures that turn you on well. I hate them both. Okay. That's the shit of the week I hope you saw it. Well, I think I think we gave it to him for two hours today We didn't have much to work with no no we had we had to turn in the words of Brock Lesnar We had to turn chicken shit into chicken salad just like our sexual histories not much to work with but we Alright, I didn't do great. I did. Alright. Alright. I just

Alright, there we go. Sorry about that. That's the show for the week. You can email the show at morningcombat.gmail.com. We told you about that. Also, here are our social accounts if you want to follow the show or follow us, including on our personal YouTube channels where the parties only continue each week. Also check out the main card minute with one Luke Noseda,

our fantastic director, producer, bong enthusiast. Long Island Luke, can we expect content on your YouTube channel this week? Yeah, I'll have the bet breakdown for Kansas City today, longer one tomorrow and you know, I'll be doing the watch along. It's Ian Gary fight week. Come on, let's go. Time to prove the haters wrong. Main event's going to be great.

Damn right. Clark's going to be pretty good. Are you into you bank versus Ben as well? Yeah, yeah I am. It's gonna be a fun build-up. It has been, and I think this week will be kind of cool. All right, for all of our great people

that work back there, including Ken and Nadir, shout out to those gentlemen, okay? There they are. And Daniel Snyder's nephew. Shout out to him as well. That's right. It's been a great show. Thank you for watching.

Take care of yourselves. We will be back Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern, a remote episode that will get you fired up for the fights this weekend. Don't miss it. Take care. Be, I don't know. Be good to each other. Yeah, be good to each other, right? Be excellent to each other. We are out of here.