MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Derek Brunson, Showtime Boxing, Whittaker-Cannonier | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 54

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

On episode 54 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian preview everything that happened this weekend in the combat sports world. The boys breakdown Derek Brunson's big UFC win and recap Showtime Boxing's return event. They also examine the reported matchup between Robert Whittaker and Jared Cannonier.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, August 3rd, 2020, and it is time, donks, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. And do your eyes deceive you? No, they do not. Back from vacation, well-rested, probably hungover, but ready to get going again is my friend and yours, the conspiracy to my theory from cbs sports yours truly brian campbell brian how was old vacation body oh so good luke so refreshing in fact i'm so you know tanned and and overjoyed and relaxed i'm not even going to mention your covid haircut we are on a train with MK and yes, we're all lit up

again. Here's a little look in Luke on the little sunset behind you. You can see the glazed look in my eyes. A lot of local IPAs there. Looking good in the MK merch. Okay. Okay. Out with the family. Can we advance the slides?

Look, it's MK all day. Okay. On brand right there on the uh on the coast of massachusetts so uh look i'm doing fantastic i am fired up look you're pretty damn good by yourself right you made a career out of this on youtube but you put us together yeah right something special okay we are the uh yeah i'm the i'm the coach latore to your mike perry if you will you're you're pregnant with my child i don't know how that works exactly but i will say it's just not the same when you're not here quite literally obviously you're not here but that doesn't make it the same but we can't do what we normally do if the dynamic duo ain't together.

So I'm happy to have you back. Did you count how many LBs you packed on on vacation? No judging. Just usually I use it as a barometer for how good of a time you had. Yeah, as my boss Karen Portley would say, put on a little bit of shelving. You know what I mean? So to speak. A couple extra handles going on here.

Maybe I'm an A cup at this point, but I'm going to get back. That Peloton is coming in 30 days so i am gonna get back at it shout out to my son isaac in that picture taking part in the tradition of the mk here luke but uh we can put the family time so there he is look at look at that handsome is that a chinese finger trap no no that's uh that's that's tip on tip luke okay we are representing what we bring to the table here at Morning Combat. I'm going to tell you, it's slightly weird that you and your little one are doing this, but I know you mean it in good

faith, so I'm going to let it slide. It's the fist pump of 2020. It's actually COVID conscious, if you will, Dr. Luke Fauci. You're on fire already. With that in mind, BC, I know you were on vacation,

but I know you did your homework. We have a lot of combat sports action to get to. So without further ado, oh, what am I doing? I'm forgetting all the promos I have to get to. Showtime, if you want to try it, and why wouldn't you? Showtime.com, you can go right now. Free for 30 days. Everybody, give the video a big old thumbs up and hit that subscribe button. Share

it with somebody, you know, we added a bunch after last week, which was kind of surprising, but I was happy just to have them. So let's keep that momentum going into this week. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Ready or not. Right. You can't hide. We're going to find you and make you subscribe. So please join this nineties party. Let's do this. All right. And without further ado now, ladies and gentlemen, let's get to the topics at hand. at hand all right up first let's talk about it in UFC I think Vegas 5 is that what we're calling it something like that Derek Brunson absolutely brings the hype train of Edmund Shabazzian to a screeching halt I think winning in third round TKO but really you could have called it at the end of the second. We'll talk about that stoppage in just a second, BC.

But please, sir, go first. What is the right answer? Was Shabazzian overrated? Or was Derek Brunson overlooked? I'm going to go with Derek Brunson overlooked. The more you hear his story. And by the way, shout out to the Wesley Snipes demolition man meets Cisco the thong song haircut there for old DB.

But look, at 36, it was easy to write him off. We'd seen Derek Brunson lose to the very elite that this sport had to offer. I hadn't personally, though, Luke, been following his story of joining Sanford MMA, being down there with Henry Hooft, getting that personal attention, and finding a coach who believed in him late in his career. They said it on the broadcast. Henry Hooft looked at him and said, you are not a gatekeeper. You can be someone.

You can be a contender again. And 3-0, the proof is in the pudding, as Floyd Mayweather would say. But you saw a complete performance out there, Luke. And I do have to tip my hat, pour one out for my Armenian homies, including yourself and Edmund Tarverdian, a extreme lack of head movement, if you will. Yeah, too much, too soon. A lot of that for a guy in Shabazzin who's had largely just first-round finishes,

hadn't stepped up to this level. But I don't hate him for what he did here, Luke, because fortune does favor the bold. Yes, everyone's trying to be the youngest champion ever, the Jon Jones. And maybe this was the equivalent of Jon Jones going in there against a Bonner or even a Ryan Bader. Jon Jones was extra next level special. He was able to pass that test. I don't think it's train off the tracks for Shabazzian that he wasn't, right?

We saw some bad things. He ran out of gas. We also saw some good things in there. I think the story of this fight was that we cannot write off Derek Brunson as just a gatekeeper. He mixed the wrestling with the smart striking with the gas tank. And Luke, at the end of the day for Derek Brunson, I think it was that gas tank that allowed him to absorb those heavy blows and keep on coming. Yeah, it was a total veteran

performance. I mean, we have seen now Shabazzian go past the first round in his UFC career twice. And both of those times he kind of gassed. He gassed in the third round against Darren Stewart. And he didn't super gas here, but he did not have, I would call, you know, serviceable cardio for the task at hand. Now you could have written off the Darren Stewart one because I think that was his UFC debut, not counting contender series. So it was actual UFC debut. And he wrestled a lot in that fight, if you recall,

because he didn't really want to go toe-to-toe with the dentist. So, okay, first time out in UFC, you wrestled a lot. Maybe your cardio is not going to be the best. And granted, it's not like he's had a ton of time in the cage since then. His other fights all add up to still less than a round. So you could sort of understand that they just didn't have enough experience. I think you're right. This will be a really big wake-up call for him.

He's just 21 years old. But to answer the question here, this to me was certainly Derek Brunson being overlooked. I will raise my hand and say, I overlooked Derek Brunson being overlooked I will raise my hand and say I overlooked Derek Brunson I got it wrong I kind of thought Shabazzian was going to go in there and do what he'd been doing and I'm not one of these guys who typically believes in these dudes who come out and say I've got 11 fights 10 first round finishes you see them come up from the regional cards and you're like okay you're obviously talented and you obviously hit hard you just haven't fought the right guys and then he fought Brad Tavares and I thought okay well if you get rid of Brad Tavares faster than Adesanya you must be doing something

right but the reality is as good as that performance was and it was a legitimate win no doubt about it you just have to see all the different looks a division and contenders can give you because that's when you figure out somebody's weakness. And the rule in the UFC is it does not matter how good you are. Somebody's eventually going to put it on you. And how do you respond when you do? He responded like a rookie. That's okay.

That's going to happen. He kind of is a rookie, BC. Let me just make this point real quickly. So to answer the question was, to your point, Brunson totally overlooked. No doubt about it. I am guilty of that 1,000%. We also have to dial back a little bit on some of the expectations of Shabazzian. When he's in control and coming forward and he's got a good rhythm going, he's hard to beat. But Brunson took

all of those things away. He brought the volume down. He constantly interrupted him, made the takedowns really count and by the way did you notice how he was taking cross side wrist and hitting it the same side wrist and he was doing all the Dagestani handcuff stuff and then passing to mount like Chemaev and then hitting the ground and pound he was something of a reborn fighter in a way and to the commentator's point BC part of the reason why we overlooked Brunson was because all of the errors that he had made he moved away from now this was a wake up call I think on both ends yeah look look we love to see when somebody that we know has great

talent finally puts it together and let's be honest go back and watch the Derek Brunson fight with Robert Whitaker he fought like an asshole Luke he came out guns blazing and just poured his his skill set all over the canvas and tried to get an early knockout and got finished. This was such an opposite of that. There was such maturity and growth. And so the point about Shabazzian, like, you just don't know what you don't know until you get in there and find it out, right? We used to have, like, a Mendoza line in the party days, Luke.

Remember in the early 20s, right? Sit around, get high. There were some dudes, you know, oh, you get high? Yeah, I get high. Okay, yo, you think you can smoke? Well, step up to the full sink hit, right? We're going to fill the tub with water. Step up to that level.

Luke, I've seen dudes take one hit and pass out in front of me on the floor. The deep end of the pool is exactly that. Some people have it. Some people need to build up to it. I don't crap on Shabazzian for this. But is there a dark side of your heart, Luke? Well, let me answer that question, yes. But is there a dark side of your heart

that takes a little bit of pleasure seeing Ronda Rousey get an L here? I'm just, I'm going to put it to you honestly. No, well, okay. No, I mean, here's the thing. I just don't even care that if it was 207 and she was acting like totally unprofessional in the way that she was

then it would be a thing but she's been gone for a while not everyone is designed to be living in the public eye pretty clearly she's not built for that kind of thing and as you mentioned bc shabazzian is armenian which means i'm going to be unfair in my praise of him and my expectations as well so i don't like seeing armenians take l's uh but you know listen as i mentioned derrick brunson very much you're deserving winner veteran performance and you know what's kind of funny bc last thing on this i went a bit through it there's a couple times he started exchanging with shabazzian a little bit and he got caught a few times yes but he centered himself he stopped he regrouped it was just a veteran performance, BC, or hit one of his better ones.

It was really smart. The only thing, BC, and here's my other question for you on this. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. In high school. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. The credit card that rewards your good financial

habits earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month level up from bill payer to reward slayer terms and conditions apply this was one of those fights we're like wow okay we really did not give Derek Brunson his due guilty as charged on the other hand I don't know exactly what his next move is. I didn't, no name popped out to me as like, ooh, we gotta match him up with that guy next. Maybe someone did for you?

I'd like to see him against Yoel Romero. Boy, you are certainly a sadist. Or maybe I'm underestimating him again. I don't know know nothing really occurred to me as like a super awesome exciting matchup but that's not the that's not the worst one all right all right uh luke can we comment quickly on two things one you must have missed me because i think we need a bc counter for luke now how many times you've said my name but two can we at least

talk about the haircut i mean it looks pretty good it's a little bit too high and tight for my taste but is that was the did the wife get down on that? Yeah, it was choppy. The wife did it. She did it yesterday, but you know what? She's getting better at it, and these are free 99, BC, and you know with my spending habits, a free 99 is always a good thing. It's a wide gap from 100 bucks.

Yeah, yeah. Shout out to the wife. Good on the plow. Good with the scissors. Very happy for you. So let's talk about that stoppage really quickly. At the end of the second round, you had Brunson move to mount,

pounding on Shabazian, laying him flat. If you actually go back and watch BC, you'll actually see Herb Dean. He's not very demonstrative with it, but he does do this. He does wave it off a little bit. Now, he doesn't do it like a normal one, but he kind of moved his hand,

which I've never seen referees do between rounds. And then he lets Shabazzian get up and walk over. Third round starts, and he literally offers nothing. He doesn't punch back. He doesn't defend a takedown. And then Herb Dean intervened very quickly there. I don't have a problem if it was going to go to the third in the way that he stopped it there.

The question is, should he have stopped it at the end of the second? He could have, but I say no, he shouldn't have. Can we get this Herb Dean slander off my timeline for the past couple of weeks? I had to come home from vacation and watch two UFC cards back to back. And Luke, I don't know how you responded this because I don't watch the morning combat elements that don't involve me, selfishly enough. But Dan Hardy and Paul Felder I thought were completely out of line in their response to that fight a week ago

and I thought in this situation Herb Dean handled it perfectly if you want to give any criticism and Dana White did after the fact may have been that doctor giving Shabazzian too much time before the start of round three. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you sure? You do have to make those split decisions on the dime and not give any advantages. Could you have stopped it at the end of round two? Yes.

I don't hate that he didn't. I do like to be safer than sorry. I also like to keep combat sports what they are. And as long as you're somewhat intelligently still there, give you a chance to recover, give you a chance to do things. There, there's a great area.

There's a sweet spot. And I think Herb Dean has been operating within that sweet spot for a while now. And I'm more than happy with it. Yeah. Well, I'll really disagree with your assessment from fight Island, but I will say for this one,

I don't hate what happened. In fact, if you want to say that Dean was late, you have to really spread the blame. You could say he was late and should have stopped it earlier. Doctor let it rock and Shabazian's corner didn't intervene. So if there's a failing there, let's assume that there is for just the sake of argument. It ain't just Herb Dean's. There's a lot of hands in that one that easily could have pulled the plug and didn't also to your point was it an obvious thing that he should have stopped you know to some it some believe that it was for me i think it's a very difficult call and the fact that he brought in the doctor and that the doctor had a chance to look at it and then he immediately

intervened at the end of the third if you want to get on herb dean for bad stoppages this one to me would not be at the top of that list you would put this somewhere very low huh jay's in our cochlea but he can stay back because the two reasons one at the end of the second round herb dean gave edmund a long look and to shabazian's credit after initially just sort of sitting and sulking he realized I got to lift myself off the canvas or this fight will be stopped so that was key for Herb and then number two if we were all a little bit unsure at the start of round three what Shabazian still had or if he still wanted to be there the second he showed you he didn't Herb jumped in so I've really no problem with that at all and and Luke you know just quickly back to last week i don't want you to rehash the whole argument but i mean the dude got dropped by

trinaldo but he looked to be there for a second so herb gave him a chance not only do i think that stoppage was fine but i actually for once i'm going to side with dana what are these announcers doing jumping up and sort of getting involved there it wasn't one of those egregious situations how are you able to get a driver's license being this blind oh well yeah i mean really really luke he got did you see his look when he got dropped i know it was a little bit of a messy delayed knockdown but you know he looked like he was still in there and had a chance he also may have been winning the fight at that point well here's my here's the last thing I'll say in this, because Jay is going to have a conniption fit if we don't move along.

It's that if you're defending Dean for last Saturday, this one, the Shabazzian and Brunson fight, I think you can find legitimate room to do that. But the reasons for why you would do that don't allow you to defend from Fight Island other than being inconsistent and being some kind of Herb Dean fan, which you should just admit, because the steps that he took in this one were much more concerted, much more aggressive. He had a shorter window in which to make a decision, and he leaned on some degree of caution there. With this one, standing over him, I don't know

what Dean did or didn't see. There's some video and photos where it looks like Herbert's eyes on all there, but it's hard to know exactly, which is why I think we have to temper some of that criticism. But once the first punch goes through, utterly unobstructed, he doesn't scramble, he doesn't move, he doesn't get up, you have to intervene. Trinaldo landed three more after the first one. There just wasn't enough urgency on that. Whether Dan Hardy should be screaming or not is sort of a weird situation to debate, but that's an example of a decent stoppage. I don't think that it is.

And I'm not here to go against Dan Hardy. His girlfriend's real hot, so shout out to him on there. Thank you. I think she's a fighter too, right? Yeah, yeah. Veronica Maicito, yes. We'll come back to the Calderwood thing, but we got to to move along because we've got to get to some bigger topics, BC. So let's move on to number two if we can. Showtime was back, baby, at the Mohegan Sun. They were back for their first card since essentially the beginning of the pandemic.

And Angelo Leo taking on Tremaine Williams. Angelo Leo winning. What do you want to say, BC? Something of a runaway fight. A little bit of trouble early, depending on where you want to call it. I had Williams winning, I want to say, the first three rounds. I thought round four was where the tempo and everything began

to turn. He picks up that junior featherweight title, 122 pounds. Looks like he's still going to fight Stephen Fulton Jr., who obviously was out because of COVID. What's the big takeaway from this fight? The big takeaway is really the storyline that I thought the Showtime crew echoed so well, that 122 pounds, you know, Farhad nailed this.

Historically, we don't really get into that division unless there's a big star, a Manny Pacquiao, a Leo Santa Cruz passing through. It has been a while since the Barrera Morales days. This weight division has largely been dominated by foreign fighters who aren't always on US TV. Now we got this group of US-based guys all under the PBC banner. So it's fun to see this, just as it was fun to see Angelo Leo really step forward and make this fight his own. Not the right situation, fighting a guy last

minute, adjusting now to a southpaw, his fourth in the last seven fights. But his early fight adjustment, as you mentioned, I had it three rounds to nothing for Tremaine Williams, who, good God, I mean, they mentioned Pernell Whitaker. As much as you don't want to make those kind of comparisons, he looked brilliant early on. To see Leo make that adjustment and walk him down to the body that aggressively, now you're excited for some business at this division full

and steven fulton jr cool boy steph who uh has you know a marketable side to him can talk can both box and brawl if he has to the fact that we now have a road to that fight we got brandon figueroa lingering around with a title under the pbc banner we've got you know alim on the undercard who looked fantastic as well who was originally supposed to face jermaine williams now we've got some players some storylines to connect to so this was a good night overall and a pretty good salvage of what could have been disastrous for the very impressive launch of showtime fights to close 2020 that we celebrated maybe this fight didn't on paper have the star power of the others. Then to lose that biggest star certainly could have hurt it.

But the fights were well done. The COVID was handled well. And we got some people to care about. I don't know if Angelo Leo is a killer. I like the story back line of sleeping in his car, getting promoted by Floyd Mayweather, all that. But he is an exciting fighter. That was a good fight.

He certainly is. A couple of notes here about Leo from from albuquerque new mexico you know you i think he's the most recent champion in boxing from albuquerque since who holly holm right i mean it's something to consider there so albuquerque is still a place of champions both in mma and boxing to your point this actually for me all eyes on the fulton fight I gotta tell you it makes it a lot more exciting Williams was a sturdy challenge in the end he couldn't figure out once uh Leo was able to go to the body and get inside and then just rough him up his work weight was really really high he was much more comfortable there but to your point making those adjustments at the very

last when did when did uh Fulton fall out like a couple of days yeah Wednesday yeah Wednesday so so Leo a very young fighter now is only at his 20th fight this was his 20th fight making the adjustments Williams didn't back down made it kind of tough took the all three of the first rounds in my book although Farhood had it for just the first two I just thought this was one of those things where it's like not only was this great experience for Leo it makes the Fon fight, whenever they're able to get around to it, and I guess the WBO is going to set that up. So within 180 days of the fight, probably sooner, I suspect, it makes it way more exciting. Fulton, to me, is a way better fighter than Williams, but also a bit of a different fighter. And the maturity, and also just kind of the blood and guts

that Leo showed to get this decision win, it makes what was going to be that Leo versus Fulton fight redone much more exciting the second time around. And also because Leo now holds that 122-pound title. I have to say, you're going to get to it later, knockout of the year to start that Showtime card. Yes.

For all intents and purposes, boxing has not had a lot of luck. On the top-ranked side, they haven't had the best cards, but even some of their better fighters have fallen out from COVID, or they got delayed, like Mikayla Mayer. So she was able to perform,

but not on the timeline she was supposed to. Here, Showtime's first card back, and they lose arguably the biggest star they had on that card but i would say in general you can't you can't really complain too much with what you got circumstances being what they are yeah you can complain about abner mars's pink hair but you know that's that's kind of uh trite and uh surface level there i just wanted to double down on that one point if you're an mma fan not that big into boxing. Oh, it's so disorganized. It is. Oh, you know, we can't see the best fight the best. Normally we can't. The fact that within certain promotions that are tied to certain

networks, they're starting to put a lockdown on certain divisions, right? PBC has 122, 154, for example, on lockdown, you can tune into Showtime and Fox and follow those storylines. At the end of the day find out who is the best fighter in the world in those divisions it sounds like something that should be natural right we want to see what the best is it isn't always in boxing so we celebrate it's a refreshing when it actually is and I think at 122 you know a year from now we may have an idea actually who's the best in the world speaking of boxing let's stick with it they have signed it appears at least it's been reported that Errol Spence and Danny Swift Garcia, whose last fight we covered

against Ivan Redcatch on Showtime, they are signed for a welterweight bout later this year. How significant a bout is this? Help the MMA fans who are watching, or even the boxing fans, certainly understand what is the significance of this contest and should it be a pay-per-view in the way that it is being booked? Yeah, it's a pay-per-view main event. It's a huge fight. It's for two of the four recognized welterweight titles and Danny Garcia, a former champion. And I think more importantly, coming off of the,

or within the COVID quarantine right now, where we are not seeing those superstar megafights outside of, say, Fury Wilder 3 from a star power value, this might be the biggest fight you'll see in 2020. And that, you know, that says a lot here. And I think the fact that Errol Spence Jr. had the unfortunate accident late last year, fresh off of really, you know, getting to the top of the pound for pound rankings and declaring himself as a two belt champion, it adds so much more questions and actually makes this bout much more intriguing. A lot of guys in Errol Spence's spot

would come back very soft in the boxing game. Luke, he didn't want to do that. He wanted to go in there against Danny Garcia, who I've been touting, and I think I believe this. I think he's the biggest puncher in the welterweight division right now from the standpoint of one punch. You give me one guy, one punch

to get somebody out of there, I'm taking Danny Garcia's left hook. So while on paper Spence has certain advantages, Garcia's always been underrated against the very elite. He's a smart boxer, he works the angles well, controls distance, and he has that out punch. If Errol Spence is not 100% mentally or physically coming off that near-death experience, this is the guy to expose

that it's a high profile bout cannot wait luke more than keith thurman he's more of a one puncher that old one punch himself keith thurman yeah it would not you know not only that the intention keith thurman's got power he doesn't always use it right he's fell on more in love with his boxing over time danny garcia is a guy who still tries to get you out of there first, then win a decision. Also, to your point, coming back like this after that tragic, or I should say near tragic car wreck that he had, which we were told in the end put him in the hospital,

but only kind of scarred up his face a little bit. And even then, not that bad. When you look at the footage from that sort of outdoor cam that caught it, I it could have been a total calamity maiming death god forbid it could have been really bad this is his first fight back and you're going to take on Danny Garcia who has been staying busy staying fresh in as much as a high-level fighter like that can during these pandemic times that is that is certainly uh a tall order but if Spence is who we think he is and can retain the ability that he has shown, probably one that he should take. Last but not least,

BC, in the world of boxing, take us home on this one. Eddie Hearn was back with Matchroom Boxing, putting a little egg and cheese together. Yes, I'm going to make these dad jokes. I'll let you talk about the fight for just a second, but can I talk about the atmosphere? First of all, nice house, essentially. Mansion. Estate that Eddie Hearn has but you know it really brings up

something that we saw with UFC and Fight Island which was Fight Island was a success in virtually every way you could imagine it most of the fights were able to get to fruition nobody that we know caught COVID there people were able to get in they were able to get in. They were able to get out. Some of the fights succeeded. Some didn't. But in general, hey, UFC got what they were looking for out of that. And probably then some. Certainly a big pay-per-view return on UFC 251. But it just looked like any old arena. Now, Eddie Hearn doesn't have the UFC's roster. And I'm not comparing him to that. But I have to say, and I know you can't do outdoor fighting in Abu Dhabi I'm just pointing out some promoters trying to make the situation look a little different in these different times I appreciated it your mileage may vary I thought it looked pretty cool yeah it looked great it

looked elegant it looked a lot of things that you know Eddie Hearn does that's different from U.S. based promoters the fact you know that look there's certain promoters Eddie Hearn does that's different from U.S.-based promoters. The fact, you know, that, look, there's certain promoters, Eddie Hearn in England, the folks in Germany, they make boxing not this, like, rough-and-tumble sport with a questionable, you know, backbone to it. They make it this elegant affair where you dress up and go out to it. I thought that was in line with what we saw in this fight camp. This was Hearn's old mansion, now the matchroom headquarters,

outside of London. And it was just a cool looking venue. He rightfully loaded the card up, not with, you know, breakthrough names that are good, that are going to, uh, you know, stop you in your tracks, but exciting fighters who go after it. That's Sam Eggington. Ted Cheeseman main event was exactly that with Cheeseman getting the win and that fun junior middleweight bout.

That's, um, the best card we'll see for a while. The next two Eddie Hearn fight cards are a little bit of a step down. The fourth one, though, August 22nd on DAZN is that big one. I think it's going to end up on DAZN. It's not official yet. And that's the one where you've got

the heavyweight match, the Dillian White against Alexander Povetkin and then the Katie Taylor rematch with Delphine Pursun. That was one of the fights of the year last year. But shout out to them for doing something a little bit different on saturday it was fun to see in the afternoon you got your sweet caroline fixed if you're into that luke and uh yeah i'd like to see more people take more chances and do more fun things while we have this

opportunity yes i cannot stand sweet caroline as a song it's it's you know it's just the worst and uh people who like it are the worst. Those damn cheeky Brits. I know we got a lot of Brit fans because they always slide into my DMs. I love these passionate hardcores, but yes, a little bit lame. The UK, they're the kings of boxing these days. I make no argument

otherwise, but that song, it couldn't die fast enough. Alright, with that in mind, let's move on back into MMA. So some news that broke last week, at the end of last week. We haven't had a chance to talk about it yet. It looks like we got another fight lined up at middleweight, and the winner might just get a title shot. Former champion Robert Whitaker, fresh off of his win over Darren Till, is going to take on Jared Crystal Cannoneer. QAnon himself over there, if you haven't checked out his Twitter timeline, it is certainly something. In any event,

it is a super interesting fight we've seen. So the question there is, does the winner get a title shot and who has the early edge? I don't know what you saw from Robert Whitaker against Darren Till. I guess you'll tell me in just a second. For me, that performance was what it should have been, not necessarily what it ultimately could have been, which is not a knock exactly. I just don't think, like what he showed you against Darren Till was that some of the bigger concerns

that were laid at his doorstep about whether he was shopworn from Yoel Romero, about whether he could reinvent himself and be the person that we had seen before. I think most of those were proven to be false alarms, or at least somewhat overstated. I did see a Robert Whitaker who could take a shot. I saw a Robert Whitaker who could take a shot,

recenter himself, come back. I saw a guy use the full array of his skills with his wrestling, sort of clock management when it was appropriate. It was just a very, very high-level performance from him. I did not see anything new. I did not see anything new. I did not see anything from him that was like, wow, he is really, oh my god, this is totally awesome. And maybe that was not the time to see it.

Maybe this was just about getting right, just about getting back on track, just about centering himself, given all the challenges that he had been under. That's fine. I think that's a completely reasonable thing. I'm not sure what he has to show to beat Kananir. Kananir's one of these guys who, it's like, the heavyweight thing wasn't right, although he got some wins.

The light heavyweight thing wasn't right, although he got some wins. At middleweight, he looks great, but the Silva fight didn't tell us much. The Hermansen did. I thought that was kind of interesting. But Hermansen is so completely different from Robert Whitaker. So while Whitaker so while Whitaker to me pushed away a lot of the demons he's been dealing with and a lot of the doubts that have been cast his way I will still favor him BC I will still say that I think he's the guy to win this and I think he probably will get the title shot against the winner of Adesanya

and Costa I just to me yeah hold on Cannanir's a bit of an X factor here. He's a little bit older, but he's capable of weirdness in ways you don't expect sometimes. What is the timeline in terms of when the Costa championship fight is and when this fight will be? So Costa and Adesanya are supposed to lock horns

September 19th, and I think they want to do that one before the end of the year, although that part I'm not entirely sure all right well look this was really smart matchmaking in the end you could have argued that either Whitaker or Cannoneer deserve the next title shot but to make them both sit and wait and have somebody taken in between fight that doesn't lead them directly there why not just have them fight each other and that's what we're doing here so I love that I really can't add anything more than you said about Robert Whittaker because you nailed it.

Darren Till set the terms of that fight. It was going to be a five-round chess match. He was going to do Darren Till things, which means not throw enough strikes and not give himself a great chance to win. Yet Till did have his moments, and Whittaker answered every question he needed to about his chin, his backbone, his fighting spirit, all of those great things. I actually prefer that he had to go out there and show us everything that he's back, not what you said, show us, you know, the new tricks in the bag. One more stop to get back to that title picture.

Yeah, let's do this. I mean, look, he could have had it off of that to win, but you want to see him have to beat somebody who's just as deserving, and that's Kananir. This is a great fight on paper. I think you have to favor Whitaker. He's just a better fighter overall. I think he's the most well-rounded middleweight in the game today, and I can't wait, Luke, if Robert Whitaker can get back to the title level

and if it comes against Adesanya, what that rematch could look like because as great of a crowning moment for Adesanya that he really is that great to become the champion and knock out the former king and do it in front of the home fans and all that, that wasn't the Reaper. That wasn't the guy that night. He got caught.

I want to see him come back and have that second chance, kind of like Ioana did against Rose in that rematch. She didn't win it, but she gave it all on the line and showed you everything she had left in that tank.. She didn't win it, but she gave it all on the line and showed you what, you know, everything she had left in that tank. So this is great matchmaking. I mean, look, we just said about boxing. It's like we get so excited when the guys in the division are on the same side of the

street. They can actually fight each other. This is almost an unnecessary fight that we're making. And yet it makes perfect sense in the title lineage to do that. If Costa ends up winning against Adesanya a fight against Robert Whitaker is interesting no matter what but I guess the thing I'm looking for in this cannoneer fight if it's something that's even available is he needs to show me something that would lead me to believe a second fight with Adesanya would go differently in terms of the

outcome which is to say Adesanya getting his hand raised. Finishing him in the second round, you know, I don't know, dropping him in the first, that's not what I'm saying. I think with the poise and the range of weapons that he showed against Darren Till, a second fight with Adesanya would be different, but it wouldn't lead me to conclude that he would win. I would need to see something against Kananir that would lead me to conclude that. I don't know how exactly he does that. I guess we'll have to see what ultimately he shows us. Or Kananir ends up being

something that we don't necessarily think him to be right now and provides an interesting style matchup for either Costa or Adesanya. Now, speaking of those two very quickly, BC, they're going to fight in that small cage. It's going to be in the Apex facility. There was some concern or question, rather, I should say, that maybe this fight between Costa and Asana might happen in New Zealand because they can have fans, they can have a gate. But if you fly over there, you have to quarantine for 14 days. It just seems like a huge headache to just get people over there. So screw it. They're going to just bring them here. But that means it's going to be in the small cage. Now, I will cop BC to being a hypocrite, which is when they said they were going to go to Apex, I was like,

I love the small cage. And when they announced a title fight, a third one, between DC and Stipe, I was like, yes, third cage. Or sorry, a small cage. It's going to force action. Well, now they're doing it, and I'm saying to myself, I don't know how good of an idea this is. I don't know how bad of an idea this is. All I'm saying is, BC, if we were not in a pandemic,

there might be a title fight that occasionally happens in the small cage. But in general, it just wouldn't. They'd be fighting at T-Mobile. They'd be fighting in Atlanta. They'd be fighting in Chicago or wherever, and it would be the big cage. And it carries a significant implication for this fight, not just in terms of outcome, but complexion. It gives a much stronger advantage to Costa than he would ordinarily have.

So the question is, and I kind of answered this one on my own YouTube channel previously, should they be fighting in a small cage? Should UFC title fights all be in the big cage? You know, I'm going to go on the record and say no. Like you, I'm not against it. It's going to be exciting. It adds a different element. Do I think MMA should be like baseball where, you know, some ballparks, the fence is huge

or far away or close and all that? No, I don't think there should be that variation. And I think sometimes even in boxing that gets in the way, right? When the home fighter gets the smaller ring because it favors him or sometimes people complain about the surface of the ring and all that. I mean, there's some nonsense there. You want uniformity across the board. I can justify it because of the potential for excitement and

because we're in the quarantine season but wouldn't you think ufc could be able to configure the apex and just put the larger one in luke it is it does sort of in a situation where it can favor a fighter like it could potentially in costa yeah it doesn't really make a ton of sense to do it that way all right well with that in mind let's move on to our fourth topic here before jay has an aneurysm in the back i've been away a week what is up with jay right now he is all over us with his loud ass air conditioner uh let's go to this one connor mcgregor is out here just relentlessly tweeting i accept and he's doing it now in multiple languages he does it in english i guess his native. And he also did it in Tagalog, the language of the Philippines, sort of implying that he would be willing to take a fight with Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao, of course, who was signed, I believe, to the same representation

agency that he is, Paradigm. But you see, I'm not going to ask, do we care in a general sense? Because here we are talking about it. So on some level, we obviously care. But do we, like, care, care? Do we really care? Are we making an effing segment like two losers out of Conor McGregor's tweets, things that we accuse MMA media of just stretching out so they can fill up content on their reverse chronological websites? Are we also hypocrites, BC?

Yes and no. Look, we want to only talk about if it's for real. And, you know, there's a chance it could be for real because Conor McGregor can't get the title shot or Habib right now, the two things that he wants the most. So, you know, I've said this since day one, it doesn't make a lot of sense for him to come back against the Tony Ferguson, against Poirier, against anybody right now, right? It makes sense for him to come back against the Tony Ferguson, against Poirier, against anybody right now, right? It makes sense for him to stay on brand and only go after the biggest prize and the biggest white whale, so to speak. And if he wanted to stay busy on the boxing side

and make a crap load of money against Pacquiao, like, okay, it would make sense. I think it's an awful boxing fight for him. I think he'd potentially get knocked out a lot earlier than he did when he ran out of gas against Mayweather. But if he wants to do it, if it makes sense for Audi and Paradigm and all that, the thing is, I just don't think that it's being talked about realistically and it's on the board. I think if anything, it's Conor trying to raise his own UFC comeback price. And you saw Dana react to it at the post-fight press conference on Saturday and basically just say, I don't care. I don't want to talk about this I think that showed me a

lot Luke I think he's just trying to raise his price um you know that's great that he hit the translate button and figure out how to put it in there and to god log but I feel like he responds you know when he's sitting around drinking uh drinking the whiskey to any fight going on or any potential call out good god when I started that ridiculous Oscar de la Hoya thing, he responded. So let's not give it too much until we actually, you know, I mean,

if it's time to talk about it, let's talk about it, but I don't think it's going to happen. I just hope the only thing I have to say about it is obviously we are hypocrites. We are using it for one of our segments, but I think more than that, if he's still interested in the fight game and this is part of

it this is part of like shots to the UFC or just messages or you know some kind of way to signal something as a way of early negotiation then I think it's something I'm willing to live with if it's just trolling or boredom or something like that, then, you know, by definition, it's certainly a waste of our time. But my only hope is that, you know, we don't know exactly what the truth is in terms of either the reality of the allegations or the investigations. But whoever the famous Irish sports star was

who had been investigated for alleged rape, that same one, which the Irish press refused to name, has now been cleared. And of course, the New one, which the Irish press refused to name, has now been cleared. And of course, the New York Times connected the dots and reported that it was actually Conor McGregor. So it appears anyway, appears, that whatever he had hanging over his head legally is now gone. If that's now gone, and he's not punching old dudes in bars anymore, and he turned over this sort of new elder statesman leaf, and maybe he was innocent of those allegations,

we simply just won't know certainly it's not a legal jeopardy he's in anymore uh it would be nice to have him back it would be nice i think the game is not the same when he's not around and he's a better person great it'd be freaking great to have him back luke okay so this is my point it's like if this is a way to keep his toes in the water it's a it's a tax i'm willing to pay i just have no way of knowing what it is i only hope that it's that you know people accuse the american media of of you know of kneeling for connor at all times and you know i mean look i got freaking connor red panty night posters all over my damn office in here and stuff

but uh the fact is nobody brings that type of excitement and yes financial lucrativeness and you know uh front page availability and all that it makes the sport better when the biggest star is active and i think that has been this calendar year if we're talking about mma storylines and themes one of the biggest things that seem to have been robbed by the quarantine is that when connor blew away Cowboy whether you think that win was indicative of him turning a corner you know emotionally physically all that spiritually and coming back and being the same guy again or whether it was just an easy fight against a washed guy um it suggested that he was going to be busy that he was humble that he was going to come back

and fight three times and now we're going in the other direction when we're talking about these mythical boxing matchups and it's like I just said it a minute ago i don't blame him for not coming back against a ferguson or even a nate doing anything that is sort of like a take a chance stay busy when he's focused on that prize so if he wants to sit out that's his right but i do think luke had things not falling apart for this sport we may be we may have been able to see him on a much faster timeline and i mean for all we know he could have been the one facing Justin Gaethje or Ferguson uh on that first show when they came back still might I guess we'll see I doubt it but certainly still possible all right last but certainly not least we have a couple of

fights coming up this weekend we should talk about for just a second there's a UFC card and a Bellator card we start with UFC headlined by a heavyweight fight between Alexi Olenek and Derek Lewis. You see, the question would be, you know, what would happen if Lewis wins here? Should he get another crack at Francis? Now, Francis has said, listen, I've won four in a row. I've beaten all these former champions. I'm not fighting again unless it's for a title or something like that. Now, I'm not suggesting that they put an interim title fight on the winner of this one versus Francis, but just thinking out loud, if there was a way to make it, and maybe there's not, I would love to see actually, believe it or not, a second fight between Derek Lewis and

Francis, despite the first one being a literal all-time stinker in MMA history. And the reason why is because one, it would just make sense MMA history. And the reason why is because, one, it would just make sense from their positions in the division. But two, more importantly, part of what you're trying to discover with Francis is something that these other champions he's beaten have not been able to show us, which is how much change has he made

since the loss to Stipe, since the loss to Lewis, the last two times, in fact, he has lost. We've heard about all his growth, and yes, he's been winning, but he's knocking these fools out in like the quickest amount of time. You're just not getting a full read. Maybe Derek Lewis tells us that, maybe he doesn't, but the whole premise of this growth that Francis has apparently undergone is that he can now answer for challenges like this so between where they are the divisions

it'd be a three fight win streak for Derek Lewis with Bogloy Ivanov uh Elir Latifi and this one if he can get it it would make a ton of sense how easy it is to make I don't know but honestly despite the first one sucking ass BC I would love to see the second one I mean cool story bro but it would not make a ton of sense right now, Luke. It would be a giant step back for Francis Ngannou. Those names you just mentioned that Derek Lewis had beat, it's like, okay, that's great, but those aren't the highest level names. I mean, a lot of people didn't even think he beat Latifi.

So, look, he's a step down at the moment, right? There was a time when he shined himself up and got lucky against Volkov and got himself into a title fight, and he's great on the mic and all that stuff stuff but he's not that dude he Nganou shouldn't go back to that right now Nganou should get on a plane or actually he doesn't have to he lives in Vegas he lives in Brett Okamoto's old house I've been in there I partied in there shout out to my man Brett on the birth of his first child but uh Nganou should show up with a mask and be their cage side ready to walk in when Stipe and Dese do it for the three-pay time right out there. You know who Derek Lewis should fight if he wins? Curtis Blades.

That's who he should fight because Dana hates him right now for, quote-unquote, talking shit. And it would seem to be a perfect stay-busy fight, stay outside the title picture, be ready to potentially face Ngannou a third time if Ngannou ends up becoming the champion after that but no Luke don't don't uh don't drag Frank the Tank back into this that first fight sucked Lewis needs more than that to get back in it I mean who else do you want Ngannou to knock out he's been destroying elite level guys okay Luke

yeah but it's the same thing it's the same thing with Shabazian it tells you you're good and yes it's not the same thing in the sense that he hasn't been fighting enough guys. But eventually, someone in MMA puts it on you. Now, maybe Derek Lewis isn't that guy. But hello, he's already beaten, Francis has, Curtis Blades twice. So you can't do that one a third time, even though he beat Volkov. You're right.

You could do Lewis versus Curtis Blades. Is there really any mystery to that one? Is there really any kind of sense that you have about how that one's going to go? I don't think so. There is actually a little bit of mystery, I think, with Lewis and Francis. We are so put off. Do you believe Lewis would earn it? We're so put off.

We're so put off by the first one. I get it. It sucked. It sucked our will to live. I have a strong suspicion the second one wouldn't. Yeah, but okay, but that's nice. But weigh the resumes against each other since that fight. Even if Lewis beats beats olenek who i love and is on a nice little run here it's not the same ball game he doesn't deserve it uh i agree except part of the guys he's beating are pretty highly

ranked you can make that blades fight but i think that's a waste of everyone's time i don't think this would be a waste now except for francis i agree he doesn't need to this fight, but they would have made him an interim champion if they thought that that was something they wanted to really put in his direction. The fact that they didn't means they might have one more fight in mind for him. I guess we're going to have to see, especially if what if DC wins and then drops the belt, they might have to do Stipe versus Francis too. Or how do you give a title shot to the guy who just lost in the title fight? Can you imagine it, BC? They might do Francis versus Derek Lewis

for a title fight. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? I know Dana hates Curtis Blades, but if both of those guys retire August 15th after this epic five-round war, you're doing Ganu Blades 3 for the title. You do it, Luke.

Okay, you do it. You might. You might. We'll also have Bellator, I believe August 7th, which should be a Friday, and Ganu Blades 3 for the title. You do it, Luke, okay? You do it. You might, you might. We'll also have Bellator, I believe August 7th, which should be a Friday, back at Mohegan Sun, which is where, of course,

the first Bellator card was and Saturday's Showtime card. They're both going to be sharing resources down there. It was interesting. I actually thought that the Showtime set looked better. It was a little bit darker than the other one.

But I don't know. Is this my imagination? Did they have music between rounds on the Bellator show? I feel like they did. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't know. Neither here nor there.

The point being is this. Going to have a rematch between former champions, one in UFC and certainly one in Bellator, with Michael Chandler and Benson Henderson. Now, the first fight was actually super exciting, with Chandler coming out to a commanding lead early, but Henderson showing incredible grit and putting it on him late. Still, Chandler getting his hand raised. They're going to make it one more time. Now, this is an interesting fight, BC, because Benson was a big acquisition from UFC for Bellator.

He has, initially he was not performing the way that they had hoped. I think of late, he's done a lot better. Chandler, it seems like on the last fight of his deal, might be looking for a way out. So is this the chance for the guy who was supposed to be the golden boy and wasn't to also put it on the guy who was maybe the golden the golden boy and wasn't to also put it on the guy who was maybe the golden boy but now isn't yeah this is a great fight luke no one's talking about this fight friday night bellator this is a fantastic one not just because of the star power and the rematch of how good their first one was but for everything you just mentioned benson henderson came in as a

big signing lost title fights in two different divisions in his first three fights and i think think his only win during that time, didn't it come on like a freaky leg kick? Like he didn't look good in the beginning to a, to a, to a one 45 or yes. Yes. He's rebuilt himself nicely with four wins in a row. And Chandler is, you know, your face of the franchise outside of pit bull. So I talked to him about two months ago, Luke, and it was a really refreshing interview. As you mentioned, this is the last fight of his deal. He knows his value. He would be very happy if Scott Coker and company would give him the dollar value that he thinks he deserves

at age 34 to essentially retire with Bellator, sign his last deal, fight out all those big names, chase Patricio Fre air a third time and go after that his title that he lost by knockout uh he'd love to get eddie alvarez back in there if his one deal ever expires all that great stuff but he's also willing to walk depending on what the market tells him and you look at this guy luke he's in almost the same spot eddie alvarez was when he walked from bellator where when he went to UFC I'm like okay he's in a killer deep division he'll make fun fights but I can't see him ever competing for a

title and what did he do you know he lost that close fight to Cowboy and he went out there and he won the damn title so you do never know Michael Chandler would make so many great fights in the UFC in the midst of this historically deep division that it would be obviously as smart as he could to exit his deal with his brand as strong as possible, which is why he is wired and dialed in. This fight was supposed to take place two different times in the last few months. He's been in

camp the whole time. He's ready. You're dying of a coughing fit over there. I hope it's not COVID, but this is a great fight, Luke, and if Chandler wins, I would like to see what his value is on the open Chandler wins I I would like to see what his value is on the open market as much as I'd like to see him go back in there against Pitbull one more time yeah I have conflicting feelings about Chandler leaving Bellator on the one hand it would make perfect sense because you've sort of seen what he's going to do in Bellator at the high end

at the middle end and at the low end we've got a full range of the experiences, the sort of weird fight against Brent Primus, the loss to Pitbull for the double belts, but some of the more dramatic wins, including the one over Eddie Alvarez. I mean, he's been doing this since the Bjorn Rebney tournament days. And the fact that he's held on this long in ways where like other guys who did those tournaments like Pat Curran, they got ground into dust because of them, but he's found a way to persevere. It's been pretty interesting. So I would like to see something new for him. On the other hand, I don't think that while he might win on Friday,

I don't want to take that away from him. To your point, he's a hard, hard, dedicated worker. How good would he do in that lion's den of a division in UFC? A few years ago, I might have a different opinion. Now I'm certain he could win. Could he go and get a belt there? You know, I'm less than convinced that that's a i mean we're historically deep yeah it'd be it'd be tough it'd be tough but but it'd be interesting it'd be new it'd be something different you know we'll have to see and by the way last thing about this you think about some of the best fighters who never fought in ufc normally these considerations just don't mean

anything anymore because there's no more pride to acquire. There's no more strike force to acquire. Chandler would be somewhere on that list. And if you ever remember the days of Hector Lombard getting signed from Bellator, I remember Stephen Bonner complaining to me on the set of MMA Uncensored Live. He was like, dude, Hector Lombard's getting like 400K per fight because he got acquired from Bellator.

It might also be possible, depending how he looks on Friday, for Michael Chandler, if he wants to bounce, if the UFC's still in that business, to get potentially a bit of a pay bump if he looks good, if that's something they're still interested in doing. So a little bit of a historical footnote there as well.

Did Craig Carton try to sell you a timeshare backstage at all? No, but I spoke to him recently. Did I tell you that? Oh, tell us. Tell us. No, I will not. With that in mind, it is time where you guys get to ask us questions. It is time for DMs from dogs.

All right. all right let's go to this one first as i very much uh not uh inconspicuously drink my diet mountain dew all right from dip 3886 why isn't vicente luca getting a proper push shouldn't ufc be booking him against top 10 ranked opponents like lawler or woodley what do you think brian uh yeah it's about time i mean mean, how many other B-grade fighters does he need to go in there and walk down and knock out? He's an exciting fighter at times to his detriment back then, but then really, you look at his record, doesn't have a ton of loss.

I mean, does he have that one loss over this streak right now? I mean, he's on an incredible run. What did he get, knocked out at 205, I believe? Well, this is sort of the point bc is that he's lost to steven thompson which okay that happens i mean he's very good but he also lost to leon edwards back in 2017 and that's not nothing either but the whole point is if you look at his wins versus the guys he's lost to since the michael graves loss which was on the ultimate fighter right he's beating not not like scrubs like he beat below muhammad he knocked him

out that's very very, very good. But that's probably his best win. Whenever he gets into that upper echelon, that's when he begins to get problems. So he's on a two-fight win streak. I'm not opposed to seeing something a little bit more of a challenge. But when he has stepped up,

it's been shown that he is a formidable talent, but maybe not top five, top seven formidable. Okay, okay. Give him Leon Edwards. Let's find out how good he is. He is a formidable talent, but maybe not top five, top seven formidable. Okay. Okay. Give him Leon Edwards. Let's find out how good he is. Edwards is good, bro. I hate to admit it because his style is not exciting, but he is very talented.

He is. No, he's getting screwed in this larger conference. Let's be honest. He's getting completely screwed. How did he not get booked on Fight Island? That's what I don't understand. How do I have pit stains this bad right now, Luke? That's what I want to know. You're nervous. You're nervous

coming back your first show. Good lord. Yeah, he should have been booked on. That is a bad. Wow, that was a real gross one. Yeah, he should have been booked on Fight Island. I don't know, Luke. This is for the questions that don't have any answers, right? Your midnight glances and your topless dancers.

From Brandtendo64, is lando venata an elite talent who just can't put it all together he's still very young or is he just an average talent who has had elite moments bc aren't you the one that has said uh you are what your resume says you are uh that was bill parcells but uh yeah but you quoted him yeah i quote i quote a lot just quote a kid rock for god's sake um yeah i think he's more of the latter he's more of a brawler who who who has some polish on him luke i don't i don't think he's shown me enough to know that he can be a polished fighter who can brawl when he needs to right and flip that that coin you know upside down um there's guys like him luke right you know there's there's i mean i was that guy in my mid-20s right you know i i could dress up nice but you know i had no bank

account i was living in a crappy apartment right i was in the dead ends of life he's got to get out of that he's got to go upper class and i don't know if it's in him luke i mean here is the problem basically what happened to him he came to the ufc undefeated he filled in in that 2016 bout against ferguson which he put it on ferguson but lost then after that folks forget this he had that john macdessy win where two fights in a row he gets a bonus fight of the night and then uh performance of the night and he beat macdessy with that spinning heel kick. I mean, it was absolutely brilliant. So you're thinking, wow, dude, this guy must just be, okay,

you lose to Tony Ferguson on short notice, big deal, and you nearly beat him. Plus, you come out, you do this to John McDessie, made him look like he was nothing. You just thought he had, I mean, the wool was his oyster, but then he loses to Tamer, had the draw with Green, lost to Close, had the draw with Frivola. He had a win, had a loss, had a win, had a loss.

And so it's like I don't know how representative those fights with Ferguson and McDessie were except to say that's his upper bound limit, but it's not his consistent level. His consistent level is pretty clearly something a little bit below that, maybe a lot below that. He's a very nice guy. Good win for Bobby Green though well Bobby Green is just one of these incredibly enigmatic dudes where the first fight was very exciting and it was a draw Bobby is talented man he's always been talented

he just had rounds where he took off or you know he just I think saw I mean he one time he and I spoke about this he's like you know if you go back and you watch some of my fights he actually asked me to watch some of his rounds he's like what do you think about this one and they were close but it was like he only lost because the other guy worked a little harder or something you know not because he was more talented than bobby now bobby to me is putting in a little bit more of that work rate and mixing it in with that pretty significant talent that he has. And when those two come together, he can do very special things. I don't think he's a top five lightweight, but he can beat good guys and he can do it pretty consistently. I have a high view of Bobby Green.

Yeah, I mean, he's got like top end speed. And I think he showed better technique in this than I'd seen in his boxing in a long time. For sure. And he's well-rounded as well. Like if he needs to wrestle, he can wrestle. He's got good jiu-jitsu he can scramble he understands the metagame I just think for you know we had we got an impression of somebody early and it's not that those were lies it's just how representative of the is that them fight over fight turns out not that much uh all right from Omar Al with like eight underscores after it that's my guy that's

my guy that's omar al rashid from australia he's been a long time follower of my business and uh shout out to that fella what is uh leo's ceiling he showed a great performance this week but can he reach the very top i guess we're going to find out against fulton right we are and i think it's a fair question because although angelo leo made the right adjustment in that fight as we mentioned and walked him down and went to the body and was aggressive does he have the technical tools against a boxer like like cool boy steph against a danny roman a former unified champion in that division was looking to get back in there yeah we're gonna find that out i don't know yet i mean there were some moments like like we mentioned in the first three rounds where i'm like is he even on the right level here

well he showed us he is but uh he may be more aggression and balls than skill but he's gonna have to show us that yeah that sounds about right i think it's just far too early to say you know and by the way shout out to that guy uh brantendo 64 on the question before that's the guy who sent in the video of him uh doing the luke thomas uh coffee trick i like yes very good uh with with leo the only thing i would say is yes you made someone basically fight your way and he was actually i think in some places williams was favored at the very uh beginning of that fight in certain um uh places where you could have bet but I just Fulton to me seems way too slick relative to Williams way too many tricks

way brilliant jab he's got it's gonna be a hard thing to get around you know if you want to be an inside fighter he's got a Philly backbone too Luke I'm sorry I'm jumping all over you today I'm not I'm not it's not the only thing I'd add is that that's a different level of challenge to get around which he might do I'm not saying he won't but the Fulton fight will be a much better examination of what he's got and what he doesn't

okay at Tony G8305 Brian how would you guys feel about the UFC booking Chimaya versus Mike Perry potentially killing two birds with one stone? Perry could potentially take a bad loss, which the UFC could then cut ties with him. Why are people under the impression that they want to cut ties with him?

And then Chimaev picks up a win over a name opponent. You like that idea? Yeah. Look, they're not cutting ties with him because I think they found out in that co-main event opportunity against Mickey Gall that he was the story of the fight card. Everybody wanted to see him. But as much as that's a good fight,

because you want to find out how good Chimayev is, because he's just destroying people. I mean, I think he's got to fight tomorrow, Luke. And by the way, that's one of the greatest post-fight interviews I've ever seen. That one last week, Luke. The one where he just like... I smash everybody. Yeah, I mean, he did a little bit of Habib, but it was like evil Habib.

I mean, it did a little bit of Habib, but it was like evil Habib. It was like, I mean, it was absolutely fantastic. I mean, that was like almost, you know, Russian McGregor like. I mean, I was dialed in to find out if he can back that up. I think the problem is he might destroy Mike Perry, but, you know, that's why we have these type of fights. That's why you have these

step up, almost gatekeeper-like moments to find out as Brunson and Shabazzian just proved but uh yeah i'd be done with that kind of match making i'd kind of fear for uh latori's unborn child here that mike doesn't come back though uh yeah i mean here's the thing about shimeyev it's like did we not just learn with shabazzian who by the way had beaten brad tovarez prior to sunday or saturday that you know you gotta slow the roll here a little. You're right. He beat two donks from, I'm not sure if Reeves McKee is from Ireland or Northern Ireland, but he beat two donks essentially from the UK

and then if he's from native Ireland, then Ireland. But, you know, they're good fighters. Please don't misunderstand me. They're very talented, especially McKee. I actually think McKee's pretty good. But these are not dudes who are, you can look at on paper and you'd be like, oh, they give Chemayev a hard time. He hasn't fought anyone in the UFC that would say that.

And what's kind of interesting is he did fight somebody on the regional scene who did, a combat sambo world champion who stuffed all of his takedowns. And then Chemayev knocked him out, which is why he's an interesting prospect. But he also goes, BC, I'm sure you saw this, balls to the wall, floor is just, the gas interesting prospect. But he also goes, BC, I'm sure you saw this, balls to the wall. Floor is just the gas pedals getting shoved through it.

That's not the pace you should be fighting at at this level. It doesn't always work out for you that well. So to me, he looks very talented. He also looks like he's been fighting guys well below his level. And once he's not, we're going to learn a whole lot more about him. Maybe he beats him. I'm just saying, cool it a little bit. You're right on a lot of things because Mike Perry does have some of those

gatekeeper intangibles that will expose you. And you're right. We just talked about damn Shabazzian. What is it with MMA media and the new hot chick at the dance? Anytime we got a new young fighter who's destroying regional level talent, we're like, put him in there for the title, baby.

Like the whole Johnny Walker thing. It's like, Luke, why do for the title, baby. The whole Johnny Walker thing. Luke, why do we do that? Fresh tits. I don't know. In boxing, it's not nearly like that. In boxing, there's excitement around people who come up. Leo, for example, but it takes time.

They get like 20 fights under them, 25 fights under them. Then you're like, okay, we can start to see exactly who they are. How many fights does your boy over in golden boy matt virgil ortiz have how many fights is he up to at this point i think he's got i think he's 15 and 0 with 15 ko's yeah so i mean you know he's still just getting there it takes time it takes time and and for some reason in mma we like instant stars and we also like to bury them the instant that they lose, too. So it's a funny little thing.

Last but not least, by the way, Jose, before we get to that, people have been like, oh, they want to cut ties with Mike Perry. Why would UFC want to cut ties with MMA's Florida man? Like, that makes no sense.

If they want to cut ties with him, they just would. They clearly like being in the Mike Perry business. You know, if, if saying the N word as a guy who, you know,

uh, is basically, he's two, he's 2% African. Okay. Yeah. Well, in the world,

by the way, you can be white and be from Africa just so that's clear. I mean, you can be a Berber, you could be an Arab, you could be many things would be from, uh, Africa.

You know, it's a famous Joe Rogan joke. It's like, if I give you a ham sandwich and would be from uh africa you know it's a famous joe rogan joke it's like if i give you a ham sandwich and it's uh 98 shit and two percent ham is that a ham sandwich i don't think that it is not a ham sandwich so anyway but if they want if they didn't cut ties with him after that or of his other indiscretions they're not going to so they clearly want to be in the mike perry business for better or for worse. All right.

Last but not least, BC, at GetUpNow with a zero, on vacation, I don't know why this would matter, but okay, boxers or briefs? You know what I do on vacation, Luke? Do you know those? Masturbate endlessly? No, stop. I'm a family man.

You're so gross, Luke. Okay. Masturbate endlessly when your family goes to sleep wow wow how do i recover from that um i wear um i'm wearing them right now i wear those nike running shorts that have the built-in underwear that can double as a bathing suit i got two or three pair of those, Luke. I'll wear them the entire vacation because you can swim in them. If they dry in time, you can sleep in them. You can sweat balls in them.

They're very versatile. And I think that answers the whole boxer brief dilemma. There's no dilemma. Wear the built-in underwear on, or just wear nothing. It's vacation, all right? Do you know how many times I had stains all over my shirt from snack food and beer?

It was fantastic. Look, okay. Outdoor speakers at the lake home. I was rocking. I was yacht rock playing 24 seven. It was great. All right. Yeah.

I mean, the answer for me is vacation or no vacation. The answer is both. I wear boxer briefs. I wear the briefs that are boxers or the boxers that are briefs. I feel like that's the best of both worlds. BC, a little bit of comfort, a little bit of stability. the briefs that are boxers or the boxers that are briefs. I feel like that's the best of both worlds, BC. A little bit of comfort, a little bit of stability, and you don't look like the oldest old man at the gym who puts his shoes on before his underwear.

You're a little bit country. I'm a little bit rock and roll. I got it, Luke. I got it, all right. Okay. If you ever want to ask us a question, of course, at Morning Combat on Instagram. Every Sunday we put up a post,

and that's where you can get those in. Without ado bc let's get to them now your chance to steal the show yeah let's do this thing let's bring up that graphic it is the uh we scope the globe every week luke the highs and lows the good the bad and the ugly and combat sports and beyond it's have you seen this shit luke i was off a week okay i saw the responses the people want their shit i got a double dose this week look i know i've said it before but this might be the greatest batch we've ever had shout out to our boy gaff behind the scenes for putting it together we start as you mentioned earlier showtime boxing from the mohegan bubble did you see light heavyweight joe george down on the cards in round nine of a 10-round bout

against Marcos Escudero in their rematch, sending that blonde man to hell. And dude, Escudero was performing well. He was doing really well. And George just put it on him late. In the ninth round, he was carrying power like that. He was down on two of the three scorecards. This was a rematch of a fight last year that george won by split decision and this ain't no journeyman on the undercard george is unbeaten this was a

day after his 31st birthday this is a big win this got a lot of people's attention uh what more we're not we'll call it he said a uh phenomenal win for the phenomenon very well done there he threw if you show it one more time in rotation he throws the right which misses and then uses it for a frame and then uppercuts it nice dude that's a nice setup nice setup that kicked off it that kicked off the card nicely hey let's go to um you know aca mma in russia yeah you want to see a great left hook oleg borisov is about to check this dude and send him down these are this is one of the better falls, Luke, we've seen. He's not testifying, but he's going right in the coffin, baby. Yeah, there's no testifying in church there, but that's pretty bad.

Blank. Yikes. I love Russian mixed martial artists. They're just so raw and destructive. Are they wearing Reebok shorts? I don't know. That might be blood. That might not be red.

That's fantastic. Wow, yes. Hey, we talked about Kamzat Chimaev before, and you mentioned his run to the UFC. Did you see him in Brave MMA sending this dude to the deep dark? This is the guy I was telling you about. I think his name is Alexarov. He is a combat sambo world champion.

He actually stuffed all of Chimaev's takedowns. Chumayev could not take him down. Not even get very close, to be quite honest with you. He was very, very talented. And so Chumayev just knocked him out. That's it. Yeah, but peep the technique on this. Look at that.

He countered the jab with an uppercut underneath. That's brilliant, Luke. And then, look, he dips down. See him dip down? Bop. Caught him. Fainted his way in. And then, look, he dips down. See him dip down? Bop. Caught him. Fainted his way in. It was nice.

He's like a Chechen Abe Lincoln, but with John Wilkes Booth's backbone, right? Yeah, I guess. All right. Hey, Luke, this was from a week ago, but we had to hit it on DAZN. Sunisa Estrada, one of the rising stars in women's boxing, seven seconds sending this grocery store clerk down.

Oh, my God. This was brutal matchmaking. Who the hell signed this? This was shameful. Golden Boy should be ashamed of themselves. This was shameful. It was a title fight, too. I know it was like a late replacement, but it was a title fight.

This woman, I don't have her name here. I don't want to shame her more, but she was unbeaten. But they ended up doing research on Twitter, Luke. Her husband is a kind of a shady promoter who had matched her up against like you know absolute nobody she did not belong here and she got she got taken luke all right i mean i've seen better fights between uh strap hangers and mta employees you know in terms of just like who could last longer. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's that's assault, brother. Indeed.

Hey, let's have some heavyweight boxing hijinks. You know, my man, you know, unbeaten heavyweight Alexander Usyk, the former cruiserweight undisputed champion. Look at these dance moves, Luke. I cannot wait for his fight against Derek Chisora. I think he's going to knock him out, Luke. That will be his statement fight in the heavyweight division. Well, not only is he dancing,

but the colors on his gray shorts over his hog are distracting. I want to say this. If you're an MMA fan and not woke to Alexander Usyk, follow him on every social media. He is absolutely hilarious. How much English does he speak? Not enough, to be honest with you. But even in broken English, it's just so...

I mean, the dude's absolutely hilarious. Bros with Lomachenko. And he unified all the cruiserweight titles. He's the guy who did it. Absolutely. Hey, remember who called that fight against Tony Ballew on DAZN? This guy right here, all right? Go back and listen to that in the archives.

Thank you. When did you get fired? I didn't get fired, but I was cashing a lot of different checks at that point there, but thank you to Showtime for padding my own bank account. Let's see Tyson Fury. I don't know if he's in camp for the third Wilder fight,

or maybe he's just working out for Saturday night, late night, Luke. What is going on here? These are called glute bridges. These work, dude dude these are good for you yeah well maybe i'll try them out you know you know what they say in in weightlifting bc what the back is for go the front is for show okay okay okay these are uh these are terrible deadlifts. They look very explicit. It looked like he was preparing to bang, Luke.

Okay. These are not terrible deadlifts. They're just not very good. All right. Well, we praised his golf form two weeks ago. Now we're ripping his gym form there. But hey, let's go. Hey, Luke, baseball's back.

I know everyone in baseball's got COVID, and it's going to get canceled tomorrow. But let's shout out the greatest baseball fan in history. Remember this Florida Marlins dirty dancer? Yeah, this is you before every show. That kid is my spirit animal. This is the greatest clip. You cannot watch this without just losing your stuff.

This is you on the bus when a woman gets on. Yeah, yeah. How many kids do you think that guy will have before age 20? I mean, look at this kid. It's like me and BC would be on the PATH train heading into Manhattan, and a woman gets on the car, and he would just start doing this in her face. I'd be like, I'm pretty sure you can't do that. He'd be like, shut up.

I've got business to attend to. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Hey, speaking of baseball being back, did you see Tops, the baseball card card company put your broseph dr anthony fauci on a card who the hell's trading this luke and he had the he had arguably the worst uh you know opening pitch or whatever in major league baseball history not the worst carly ray jepson is probably up there john wall is too but it was bad. It was very bad. It's funny you should bring that up, Luke.

Let's go to the videotape of Dr. Fauci taking the mound at Nationals Park here to throw out the opening line. He is 79 in his defense, but it does suck. I don't care. You got, I mean, look at him. What is that? Yeah, it's bad. It's bad. It's bad.

Luke, dare I say it's 50 cent bad? You remember 50 cent, Shea Stadium or whatever they call it. Oh, I forgot how bad his was. Citi Field got just a bit outside. He's a grown man with muscles. How do you suck that bad? Luke, I know they say it's harder than it looks. But look, check out Johnny Mac here.

All right? Check out John McEnroe. This is how you do it, Luke. Let's see. Let's see. The old lefty. That's a freaking strike right there. Yeah, number one heater.

Look at that, son. I'm not saying I would do great. I'm just saying at least I'd float one in. Who's throwing one into the dugout right here? Hey, check out. We got the Simone Biles one. I like when people get creative on the opening pitch. Oh, dude.

Well, she's also five feet from the damn thing still that's how you do it float one in there right okay that was pretty good but there's a Korean lady who does it in motion from the mound yikes wow wow you haven't seen that one I have not seen that one

all right pretty good hey let's go to the airplane Luke you love airplane etiquette here is uh the the the merco crow cop of bad uh airplane etiquette throw this mongoloid fuck off the plane left foot fungus right foot covid luke this is great wow what would you do if you sat behind that luke what would you do would you tickle we'd have words we'd have words and the reason why i want to say something the reason why people do this is because everyone watching this you let this shit happen and you won't do shit about it

and so people like like fucking lurch over here with the worst feat since jungle rot in vietnam they think they're entitled to do it because everyone's like, well, I don't want to cause a scene. Cause a scene. Life will go on. All right. Well, let's talk etiquette, Luke. I've got really gross feet.

I'll be honest. It's a hereditary thing in my family to have a gross. My grandfather, rest in peace. We call them pipa. If you're a Campbell man, you get a pipa toe. That means a fungus discolored big toe. The nail falls. You know what I'm talking about, Luke, right?

I've got fungus the size of turtles in my toes. They're yellow and broken. I've got man feet, okay? They're gross. On planes, I often wear flip-flops or slip-on sneakers, and I take them off, but my feet are under the chair. Is that okay no you're a fucking scumbag who hates other people you are an absolute detriment to society

and you should be beaten with a car antenna every time you deplane whoa whoa whoa oj don't ron goldman me okay it was it was consensual sex please all right i mean no no one gets hurt if my feet are under the damn seat luke okay thank you all right yeah no no one no one just dude i mean why do you feel like the plane is your place to act like it's a pajama party put your fucking socks and shoes on five and a half hours luke i should be able to relax be tougher be tougher be tougher it's the same it's the same thing it's the same thing with mask i can't breathe right with a mask because you're a bitch that's why it's not hard if you're even remotely tough be tougher it's not that hard it's not that hard did you just call dana white a bitch

i've never seen that guy wear a mask yet yeah i don't know what his reasonings are maybe he's got some kind of condition but the people who complain because it's difficult for them they're just losers who have weak constitutions that's it there's no other explanation for it all right all right shout out to dana white and his many eskimo bros let's roll on here hey the wmba was back this week luke i don't have highlights of it but check out lady somalia over here this was god sham god who posts this look at the handle on her bro with this with the hijab and the whole all behind the backboard. This is badass.

Shout out to women. See, people think on this show we're not pro women, Luke. Who the hell thinks that? Look at this. Look at the handle on this lady. You know what? She's got some moves. But we actually don't see if the thing goes in, do we?

It does. It does. There's another video out there. She would take you to the hole, Billy Ho. I mean, would look she would cross you up you'd be falling over she would which is why i wouldn't play games and i would just bill lambeer her all right you remember god sham god right the providence point guard that guy was a drizzling legend hey let's move on here speaking of great handles check out this guy he just Is she pregnant? His girlfriend's pregnant in a onesie, and he just got broke.

What is happening here? Wow. And they're playing on, like, an eight-foot rim. You should retire. You should, like, never... I mean, I don't know what the proper recourse is, but if your pregnant girlfriend just broke your ankles, I mean, that is...

And by the way, what's this new thing with like we don't want to see your legs i mean i don't want to see your legs but that's not a reason to wear socks up to your balls what is this new thing that dudes are doing i don't understand that at all rest in peace kobe bryan okay like seriously i love the man it's like you guys know i see people at the gym doing it's like you guys know you'll be just fine in shorts this these leg warmers you fuckers are wearing does nothing shout out to kobe never forget colorado all that but luke yeah i think he's the guy that ushered in like let's wear sweatpants underneath our shorts let's wear like you know three t-shirts underneath like what are we doing just play hoops all right yeah if kobe bryant wants to do it because he's kobe obviously rest in peace but

i'm saying to be one of the best players ever, fine. You've got to let some things slide. But Jerome here, or whatever the hell his name is, but just put some gym shorts on. You'll be fine. You'll be okay. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Luke, not all chicks can ball, though. Check out this dunk attempt in the driveway.

This didn't go as well. Oh, God. Yeah, God. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. Oh, the old consolation hug. Is that an abortion? Did I just watch an abortion? What did I just see there? Oh, that is great.

Wow. Oh, my God. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that is fantastic. All right. Hey, Luke, it's been a while since we checked in with the grandparents this weekend. So check out Grandpa at the...

That is not social distancing. That is not. So that is not. Wow. Wow. I'll say this. That guy's an absolute dirt hole, but I hope to be him in 30 years, Luke. Okay?

Because that's fantastic. Dude, this guy is there goes my hero watching as he goes oh wow uh you know wow yeah there i mean that that's there's a plenty of those guys they're called the old guys at the club uh but let's check in with our boy can we please keep her away from the ping pong table luke it's just not safe at her age i mean like what are we doing i think i saw this one with you before no it was different it was a it was a it was a similar offense but uh that is uh yeah she's not by the way i like how there's like 15 things she could have reached to stop her fall and she did none none of them. See, we always show Abuela fails, but there can be some wins, Luke.

I know you have an Abuela in your household that will throw hands if needed. Check out this lady in the street fight. Look, if you're in the street fight, anything goes. And check out Grandma in the background. She actually has some good jiu-jitsu technique. Look at this. Standing rear naked. She dropped that?

She drops her. Yikes, Luke. Bro, like a ninja. Like a thief in the night. I could see this happening outside your house, Luke. No. Well, maybe. Maybe.

I'm trying to give your mother-in-law credit. I'm sorry. Okay. It got too personal. All right. Let's roll on. Hey, drunken boat season is in full effect. Check out my man, Miles Finch, over here.

Luke, call him drunk one more time. Luke. Look at this kid. you're you are five years old mentally this might be the week the show gets shut down this might be the week luke wow um i mean you know we might as well show uh king kong bundy wrestlemania three footage i mean come on you know do In fact, do we have that here? He sent Little Beaver to hell, Luke. What are you doing? Did they really do this? Yeah, they did.

It was a six-man tag match, but Bundy broke the rules. The big guys weren't supposed to fight the little guys, so he got DQ'd. You know what's great about this? They came to each other's defense all the small people defended each other okay you know what i'm saying that's you know that is what members of the lollipop guild do you know what i'm saying it ain't so luke they would not go right you know what i'm saying turn the lights down hey all people think is that we show small

people fails let's show a big small person win check out this ankle breaker on the hardwood luke look he sent mini me to hell right there look that is fantastic look at this it's good to know it's good to know that black dudes are still crossing up white dudes on the court even when they're little people is that nate robinson i thought he has a fight against the uh the youtube guy all right that's great here oh we better roll on before they figure out what we just said uh luke i know that you'll never touch your beard but how about this third world uh beer trimming technique you in on this wow it saves money right i mean this, this is like Civil War dentistry. What country is that, Luke? Is that...

That might be Chechnya. That's got to be... Yeah, he's somewhere in the Caucasus Mountains, bro. That is... Yeah. Those people are tough. That is fantastic. Hey, Luke, you do know that hell hath no fury like a side piece scorned.

Check out this little piece of business here. Got to close that door up, Luke. She's coming for it. We've all been here, Luke, okay? Let me tell you something. If you've never had a girl damage your front door, you've been dating nothing but exactly have you ever you know it's is it better to have been loved and beaten up by a woman that never loved at all luke we've all had to ask ourselves that you know you know my weakness bc i love you know latin women and i don't want a

stereotype but i'll just say this i've had a few front doors repaired in my time this is actually live at at luke's uh dc townhome here yeah i'm not i'm not even doing i'm not doing a bit i've had multiple front doors repaired they will beat the fuck out of your front door please believe it uh yeah i once yeah i'm not going to tell the story okay let's let's let's not end our careers this week all right uh luke we don't have this video. It didn't work. So let's go on. Hey, Luke, all is not lost in life. I celebrated my 42nd birthday last week. This Wednesday, Luke, will be your 41st birthday.

And there'd be no one else I would deem better to honor you on your day than the number one viewer in morning combat history. He lives in Italy. he's from greece he's the greek god of graphics and thunder he is christos christophoros aka web scream you have seen this little piece of business he put out uh rocking the parasite movie poster luke i'm sure you have also seen or maybe you haven't, he took my favorite movie, 1917, and added me into it for a little bit of a birthday present last week. Shout out to WebScream for sliding in my DMs there. Brilliant.

That is epic. That is brilliant right there. I could F around in WW1 right there. This is your Halloween costume right here. I should buy that coat maybe at an Army Navy shop. That'd be great. I'll wear it on the show. But Luke, for your 41st, our guy Web Scream went one further.

You have not seen this yet. Welcome to Depredor, Luke Thomas. Happy birthday. That is awesome. Oh, man. Fucking A. That is awesome. Oh, man. Fucking A. That is great. The guy is a graphic designing legend, Luke, okay?

That is fantastic. He's got to send that to me because that is too good. That is too good. You should print that out and put that on your wall. Actually, if we ever get back to the... Luke, real question here. I'm going to remove the fourth wall. Will we ever make it back to that undisclosed

jersey location i think we will i think i don't know when but i do believe that we will yeah if we do i would like to frame our 1917 and predator posters from the great web screen okay i completely agree i completely agree yes all right hey luke this is great my last point of the week here a little bit of a story time you know know I love our viewers, right? Whether it's web screen, whether it's whomever. Phil McCogan of the LA Chargers, by the way. Or was it LA Rams? Which one is he? No, no.

LA Rams, by the way. Chargers, Chargers, Chargers. No. Chargers. Fuck, I don't know, actually. I'm sorry. I don't know. It's the damn Rams.

He's been wearing the MK merch, by the way, on the set of Hard Knocks there. So shout out to him. We got a bloke i think he's from the uk named tom walker who reached out to me let's show the first picture tom is engaged he's going to get married in march of 2021 uh whoa luke look a little sneaky hot right there right shout out to tom walker seems like a normal person oh wow wow because she's not south american luke is is that the deal here i mean come on i thought we were talking about the dude the girl is our is our listener well the dude is well dressed i

wasn't talking about him luke okay thank you the woman is attractive yes thank you very much all right tom reached out to me luke and said he only knows about morning combat because of his best friend since age four you want to know the guy's name no alex donkin aka donks luke his best friend's been known as donks for the last like 20 years all right here's a picture of them at their senior prom 10 years ago i could pick i could pick no garbage pail kid better to call donks than this guy yeah if you didn't know that is donks on the left that's our boy tom on the right well luke morning combat has become a place where we celebrate life it's a social platform it's it's your show in the viewer show as much as it is mine tom walker today wants to use the platform of morning combat to tell his best friend donks that when he gets married in march 2021 to that beautiful piece of business right there that he wants donks to be his

best man there you go that's beautiful i i hope we get a follow-up if he accepted luke that is fantastic well you know what you shouldn't be doing cameos on the show unless we both get paid in which case where's my cut? Well, I mean, look at the two of them, Luke. I mean, Donks is kind of the Campbell to his Thomas, right? The Lyle to his Eric Menendez, the Del to his funky Homo sapien. I love Brotherhood, Luke, and really that's what this show is about, whether we're talking about, you know, the guy on Fire Festival.

I'd say it's more like the Pinky to his brain. That's fair. show is about. Whether we're talking about the guy on Fire Festival. I'd say it's more like the pinky to his brain. That's fair. That's fair. Hopefully we get a postscript on this. Hopefully they get married still and do the business and hopefully Donks is right there by his side. But Luke, have you seen this shit? It's been a great run. Very good. By the way, Phil

how do you pronounce his last name? McGahan? McCracken, yes. He is the wide receivers coach for the Los Angeles Chargers. Chargers. We both got that right. We got his name wrong. We got his job wrong. His team wrong.

Whatever. You know what I'm saying? BC, time for odds and ends. What do you have for us on odds and ends? I got a lot, Luke, okay? I got a lot for you here. I forgot what I actually had. What is my original odds and ends?

Oh, yeah, Mike Perry. Can we show this gangster? Look, he sent me to hell on my own show. He's knocked out old dudes in bars. He's a wild freaking dude. I did want to tell him and Coach LaTorre legitimately congratulations on the announcement of their soon-to-be-born son.

I don't know if you saw on Instagram, Luke, they had a gender reveal video going on there. No fails happened. But did you see Mike Perry yesterday on Twitter? He took it a step forward. He might be trying to turn over a new leaf. I mean, he put it out there and said, I want to be a better role model for my family,

for my unborn son. He went on to praise Queen LaTorre. I'm going to get behind this, Luke. Maybe a guy with that many face tats, you are what you are at the end of the day, but I'll be honest about something. We've long heard the cliche that fatherhood changes a man, but we normally ascribe that to people in their early 20s

who are living a wild and reckless life, and then they get serious. But I've seen many a man right around your age, Luke, who have their first child, you know, late 30s, 40, whatever, and they just become a different person. Luke, some people would say you have turned for the better, all right? There's a soft side to Luke, you know, along with your brushy beard and personality.

But maybe there's hope. Maybe Mike Perry stops knocking out dudes in public establishments. And maybe Coach LaTorre has been really the change that he's needed all along. Your thoughts? Listen, everybody who can be decent in this world deserves happiness. So if he can be decent, I certainly wish him nothing but happiness. I think it's as simple as you can make it, right? And happiness is hard to come by in this life, BC.

I don't know if it is for you. It has been for me. It has been for many people. So if you can find it, and if you can find it because you happiness is hard to come by in this life bc i don't know if it is for you it has been for me it has been for many people so uh if you can find it and if you can find it because you're a good person hey man that's all right well i also wanted to bring up we didn't have the time earlier at the ufc card over the weekend hey big win for jennifer maya who like went out there and uh you know we can criticize jojo calderwood for taking that fight when she already seemed to have a title bout with Shevchenko locked up. And I will criticize her, by the way, for doing that. I mean, I don't know if she did it for the money.

I don't know the situation. But, you know, she not only lost that fight by submission, she passed out afterwards. She did post a picture from the hospital saying she's okay. I do hope she's okay. JoJo, an incredible interview, great person. But she had her window of opportunity, and she allowed it to get smashed, Luke. I never thought much about Jennifer Maya as an elite fighter. And now let's be honest, this division blows.

You can be elite just by winning one fight and looking good. But I've never seen Jennifer Maya come out in that level of shape, look that fluid, aggressive, great technique. I mean, everything about her just screamed like this was the best version of her on one night i was a little bit surprised that they announced right there she will get the next title shot but that's a big win luke and as you can see by me representing um you know the baron the great henan baral former pound for pound king our brazilian heroes have slowly died off, Luke. Aldo just lost.

Andy Silva's on the way out. Paulo Costa sure has a chance to come back. But this is a big win for Brazil. Do you think she has even a backside of the ball hair chance against Valentino?

No. Also, you're skipping Figueiredo. Figueiredo won. Oh, yeah. Shout're skipping Figueiredo Figueiredo one oh yeah yeah yeah shout out shout out to Figueiredo he is the Brazilian bandit the Lone Ranger yes absolutely um and speaking of the Baron Luke this just in as we record this uh Hennembrow fresh off I think 17 straight UFC losses has signed with Tora. Your thoughts? Luke? Your thoughts? You got them.

You just got my thoughts. Okay. You know, Uriah Faber once told me on my podcast that USADA is to blame for Hennenborough's losing streak after dropping the title. Your thoughts? To blame or to credit? Well, that could be it too. But luke i still believe in the baron he's probably only 28 somehow um we'll see what happens all right very good for my odds and ends

i will go with marcus almeida otherwise known as boucher is uh getting into mma and has signed with one championship if you guys don't know who almeida is, he is, I think certainly in the Gi, but it could be even concluding no Gi, the winningest jiu-jitsu black belt of all time. He has more, I think he has like 13 world titles. I know he has at least 10 or 11 in the Gi. And it was interesting though, I think the reason why he switched

was because at Metamorris, the first one, he gave Hadra Gracie the business and then they had a rematch years later, and it was revealed that Hadra Gracie was dealing with staff in that bout. And so when they had the rematch, Hadra Gracie beat the fuck out of him. Double-lapelled him, choked him. It was like it was nothing. And then he couldn't get past Gordon Ryan at this year's past ADCC. So he had certainly a time in the sun as the top dog in jiu-jitsu,

but now it's time to move on. He's still very, very good, obviously. He can still win the mundials if he wanted to, I think. But in any event, he is very, very big, athletic, fast, quick wrestler, as you can see, built like a brick shithouse. So we'll see how well he can transition, but one is a decent place for him, I think. What weight class, Luke?

Oh, he'll be heavyweight. He's huge. He's huge. Okay. I don't know much about this bloke. Maybe he'll be heavyweight. He's huge. He's huge. Okay. I don't know much about this bloke. Maybe he'll try light heavyweight, but I doubt it because he'd have to give up a lot of what... He's very

fast for a heavyweight. This news doesn't move me as much as if that guy from Glory ever came to UFC. What is it? Pineda? Oh, the dude who knocked out Adesanya? Yeah, yeah. Give me that guy. When he touches people, they fall. Yeah, that's great.

That's great. But there you go. Also, did you see this news about Paige Van Zandt? I mean, it's not been reported officially yet. Maybe signing with bare knuckle boxing. Oh, no. Oh, my God. God, this is like a Tanya Harding turn.

What are you doing? I know, and I was thinking to myself, I was like, why, given how good you are at fighting and given how you make your money why would you sign with a sport known for slicing people's faces more than the sport that was also known for slicing people's faces that you were just in look this is the fighting equivalent of adult movies this is i mean that's it that's it right there is this the showgirl's turn for what's her face from saved by the bell it is and i'd still just like 1995 i'd still buy a ticket for opening night if you gave me that option but i wouldn't feel good about it right all right very good uh okay bc let's remind the folks here if we can. Thumbs up.

Hit that subscribe button. Plus, we are all over social media. You got BC who's on Twitter and Instagram. You got me who's on Twitter and Instagram. But the most important one is the Voltron that we form with you, known as Morning Combat. You can see the Instagram there. It's pretty simple.

You can see the YouTube channel. It's pretty simple. Spread the word around. Also, if you want to try Showtime, why wouldn't you? You can go to Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. We have the merch store,

store.show.com where you can get mugs, BC, and tumblers, and hats, and sweaters. Luke, I can't tell you. I cannot tell you how many messages I get from people saying, bought your merch, my wife or girlfriend has stolen it from me because it's so freaking comfortable. Luke, it is.

I'm not effing around. It's freaking amazing. As somebody who has tried to make his own merch through Teespring, let me assure you that the stuff that Showtime is putting out, little bit higher quality. Just put it that way. Yeah down yeah it's fantastic it's worth your money it supports us luke there are some let's say uh i know you have another job i know i don't know just give me a second here there are some you know uh pots on the burner what's that phrase you know where i'm going here there are some things happening long term for mk that i'd love to let the people know that i i can't

but i will say luke that uh i said it before i'll say it once more this rocket ship i mean it's going guys so get on board now please make luke happy and subscribe luke can we get the cat out of the bag about what we're doing this week no don't do it yet because i don't want to tease something that doesn't rely just on us okay what you're saying is don't tease the bag if you don't want to tease something that doesn't rely just on us. Okay. What you're saying is don't tease the bag if you don't want the mess. Right. Exactly. So let's just wait till it's in the bag and then we can

squirt it everywhere. No, no, no. No, no, no. Alright, so look, a lot of big news, right? That's some short-term big news. A lot of big news down the road. Very excited. Luke, I just want to say i was sloppy today i have really gross pit stains i interrupted you like crazy but you in the audience whenever i'm alone with you you make me feel like i am home again so it felt really good to be back and um i i can't wait luke i can't wait okay yeah i can i

can you know i can keep the lights burning when you're not here, but I can't do MK. It's a two-man effort, and that's just the way it is, and that's just the way it will always be. So for Showtime, for Malka Sports, for Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. Until next time, thank you so much for watching. May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.