MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Derrick Lewis KOs Curtis Blaydes | Adrien Broner Wins In Return | Ep. 121

Episode Date: February 22, 2021

MK recaps all the combat sports action from this past weekend. Luke and Brian break down Derrick Lewis' knockout win over Curtis Blaydes. Is it time to re-evaluate Lewis as a heavyweight contender? Who else impressed on the UFC card? Plus, in boxing, Adrien Broner picked up a UD win in his return for an over 2-year layoff. What do we make of his win? Also, Oscar Valdez upset Miguel Berchelt in dominating fashion, ending with a vicious KO. Is this a career-transforming win for Valdez? ---------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

It is Monday, February 22nd, 2021. And it is time, ladies and gentlemen, for Morning Combat. Hello, donks. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. And, yeah, that's about it. And I am joined by the gentleman on the other side of the screen. He is the apathy to myself titled, the conspiracy to my theory, the cue to my anon. It is the one and only Brian, the King of Connecticut, Campbell. Hi, Brian. How are you?

Battling through a fairly gnarly case of seasonal winter. It won't stop from being frozen, cold, and snowy depression, Luke. I feel old. I feel like a beat-up truck. I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn. Well, that's a great way to start today's show. I'm glad to hear that you are pumped, primed, and ready to rock. That's fun. You had a lot of talking to do before the show. What happened? I was here. I was here through the whole pre-show meeting. I don't know, Luke, were you putting out fires in Abuela's room? I have no idea where you were.

I was here. I was here. I was getting ready. All right. Well, I don't know how Brian's going to be, but I'm happy to be here. Let's see. We have a lot to do today. We have to talk about, let's see, we have the UFC card over the weekend. We have the Showtime boxing card over the weekend. We have the ESPN boxing card from Top Rank over the weekend. Your questions, Brian's, have you seen this shit? and a whole lot more. So to get things started, please give the video a thumbs up. As my daughter screams for bloody murder just outside the door, only when the show starts, you can subscribe as well. Let's see, if you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep

it. If not, you can pounce in. And if you subscribe, I believe you get for the Bellator deal, I believe you get $4.99 for the first six months. Or you can buy merch, as BC is kindly modeling for us over there. You have hats, beanies, shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies. What else we got? Tumblers, mugs, the whole nine yards. Store.show.com

is the place to be. What would you prefer at this point, world peace or international shipping for MK products? Your choice. Oh, international shipping. World peace wouldn't last anyway. You know what I'm saying? That's just a moment in time.

Fuck that. I'm trying to get some merch to some folks in Poland. Yeah. I got to get them women off the pole. Let's put them in some MK clothes. Yes. Exactly, right? Exactly.

All right. So that's that. BC, by the way, my tip for Friday was for folks to watch Assassins, the documentary on the assassination of Kim Jong Nam. I must have gotten a dozen emails from folks saying that they love the movie. You watched last night Letters from Iwo Jima. Did it tear you up? That was $2.99 on Amazon Prime, by the way.

That was an incredible watch. Luke, you recommended this. I purposely didn't do any research. I knew Clint Eastwood and Spielberg were involved, though, so I knew it had a chance to be great. But what a deep human portrayal of the quote-unquote enemy side as an American that really was uh touching gripping uh wow what a what a piece of art luke okay from one artist to another last thing on this the reason

why the movie is so good and it's so realistic is aside from where it was shot and how it was portrayed and everything but folks don't realize this when world war ii started bc just to make we'll get to the show in just a second i I swear to God, but the Japanese warrior, the professional class of fighter was as good as the Americans, if not better. But what ended up happening, and the reason why the Americans partly won the war, is that they were able to take someone off the street, train them in basic training, then occupational school, and then send them off to fight, and they were pretty good. They actually could do that.

The Japanese, it turned out, were not good at that. It took them a long time to get somebody ready to be that professional class. So you see in this movie this guy who's a baker. He literally makes fucking croissants, but the Japanese had to draft him because they could not figure out how to take someone like that and turn him into a warfighter, so they were just drafting whoever they could and sending them out there. By the time Iwo Jima happened, they were on their last legs. just a fantastic movie in every can you solve something real quick for me Luke I mean

it's our show we can delay the shit out of this I don't care all right you know what I'm saying it's snowing and icy outside what else do I got to do um I I respect and they adequately portrayed the idea of a Japanese warrior like you saying, somebody who wants to die for the country and the emperor and believes, you know, in the, in the afterlife, they will be rewarded for that. Why were spoiler alert? So many of those soldiers when times got hard, though, so willing to off themselves rather than instead just turn into enemy fire and go out with a blaze of glory. I would be speaking a little bit out of turn, but I do believe and this should be double checked, and if I'm dead wrong,

I'll eat the dead wrong. It's okay. But my understanding is there might be something from Shintoism involved in there or it simply could be sort of a cultural practice where suicide doesn't have the same meaning in Japanese societies as it might in American society. I think it happens with a little bit more

regularity and in wider circumstances than it might in American society. I think it happens with a little bit more regularity and in wider circumstances than it might happen here. Here it's sort of a function of utter despondence and mental illness or end-of-life scenarios, and those apply over there as well. But there is just a little bit more. They don't have, I don't think, the same kinds of taboos, but if I'm wrong about that, by all means, please. Yeah, they were shaming the soldiers who still wanted to fight.

It was weird. But, you know, I'll tell you what. The movie was so good, it had me cheering against the Americans. And the only other organization to do that previous was Risen. So shout out to Clint Eastwood and company. All right. Well, with that segue in mind, let's get this show started if we can. Topic number one, BC.

Topic number one. Our man, Derek Lewis, who you interviewed back in, I don't even know what it was at this point. He viciously KOs Curtis Blades. Does so in the second round. Maybe getting arguably the best win of his career. The Volkov win was certainly more dramatic. But in terms of a ranked opponent, this actually might be the very best one.

BC, your thoughts on the win, and more importantly, here's the operative question to start the conversation about Saturday's main event. Is it time to reevaluate just how good we think Derek Lewis is? Not so much his ranking that will go up by virtue of the win, but what we think about how good he actually is. Yeah, I think this is like a positive referendum and a reassessment time. He's not without flaws, right?

We know that he's the epitome of puncher's chance. And even though he's on a four-fight win streak now, you can obviously poke holes in some of those wins, the Latifi fight, the split decision before that. Was that against Oletic? I mean, he's had some rough ones there yet i mean this was a reminder of how great he can be when things are going his way and you know he didn't dominate this fight i didn't think he was winning it up to that point he was kind of getting pieced up on the feet by blades but it was such an

intelligent and violent and shocking finish that he could do that not that he could do that luke we know he could do that but that he did do that against a guy so well-rounded his blade so red hot who'd won nine out of ten and had already seemingly secured a title shot but was forced to wait because of how uh bottleneck the top of the division is at the moment yeah i think it kind of makes us go when you start hearing the records that he ties vitor belfort for the most knockouts in ufc history you know regardless of division that he now has 20 career knockouts and this is a guy who said of himself in the post-fight press conference when when they sort of asked him you know you're making history what does that mean

to you and he's like you know i wasn't an mma fan growing up this is a business to me this is a way to feed my family you know derrick lewis did jail time in the past he's as unlikely you know, I wasn't an MMA fan growing up. This is a business to me. This is a way to feed my family. You know, Derek Lewis did jail time in the past. He's as unlikely, Luke, to get to this point as possible. But yet, I think even in the last few years, I looked at him as more of a colorful, I don't want to say joke, because joke implies that there's not substance there. But certainly a colorful clown who can be dangerous when he gets lucky or when he wants to be. I think there was a calculated nature to how he finished this fight

and how he set up this exact finish happening. And to see him do it, yes, with that mixed with the numbers, the record tying, you do have to ask yourself, at 36 he's kind of only getting better. And this is, yes, the best win of his career and do we have to recalculate where he sits right now in this title picture luke because i don't know man you know when he fought dc for the belt i felt at the moment like it was out of central casting ufc didn't have a main event for that return to madison square guarded they wanted

to make a splash fights were falling through they knew knew they had DC on a short turnaround. They kind of wanted to give him a good B-side dance partner that he could be. They gave him Derek Lewis. He tried his best. He got dominated, Luke. I said it before. I thought that was going to be the end of elite Derek Lewis. I thought that was going to be the peak for him to kind of repackage himself, do it his own way, and now be as dangerous as ever. Yeah. Luke, we got to stop and reassess where he fits in right now in the actual title picture. And not so much, where does he fit in sort of all time, but like, this is a guy who's for willed himself into an elite status, the, the doing it his own way. And, and, and you do have to tip your cap to that because

you put him in there against any heavyweight it's not going to be likely that he's going to win the betting odds won't really reflect his chances yet he proved in this fight against Curtis Blades any given night he's as live as anybody this has been a fun ride watching watching uh the Black Beast get to this point and uh the whole idea of him being a clown a joker i think that takes a back seat right now he's a legitimate heavyweight title contender and a threat and i'm proud of him in a lot of ways as weird as that sounds i think that's exactly right i mean you know it's funny so to when we were planning to show yesterday we were discussing how we were going to make this the the opening topic so i went back through his record and i watched some of his

early fights some of the wins and then some of the losses as well. The loss to Mitch Rione, the win over Gonzaga, the loss to, who was it, Sean Jordan was one of the earlier losses that I watched. And I watched a bunch of other fights as well. You know, it's interesting. The reason why I think a lot of folks, maybe us included, need to have this moment where we're saying to ourselves, wow, is he better than we thought he was? It's because his weapons didn't really change, BC. It wasn't like he started wrestling. It wasn't like he started using a bunch of kicks. It wasn't like he started going to the body in some kind of unusual way or just had some

kind of standout brand new technique that he was using that he wasn't before that you could maybe point to as something that was like a turnaround moment. That's not really it. What the difference is is that if you watch like for example go back and watch the Gonzaga fight or the Sean Jordan fight the two losses that I refer are the one of the losses one of the wins but in both cases it's the same you have Derek Lewis charging opponents over and over really over committing and having to defend takedowns or finding himself at the wrong range because he's rushing into stuff and then getting cracked. Now he's much more patient. He's turned into something of a kickboxer, a counter kickboxer in some ways than he was before.

Certainly in this contest, he has figured out, okay, I've got really big power. If I pace myself on the ground and I find unique ways to stand up, I don't take a lot of damage and guys can't really advance on me positionally. Not too much anyway. I'm safe against the fence for the most part, Daniel Cormier notwithstanding. What can I do with that? And if you employ patience, timing, and then an understanding, you hear he was throwing stuff up the middle. Anytime you fight somebody who's a wrestler, snap kicks up the middle, uppercuts up the

middle, knees up the middle. All of these are going to be really valuable kinds of tactical choices. So he makes smarter tactical choices with the weapons he already has. He makes smarter tactical choices with distance closing, counter striking, timing, that kind of a thing. He can see everything coming. And so as a consequence, he has not new weapons, but the weapons have new life by virtue of this maturation, this development, the seeing the game for all it is. It kind of reminds me, BC, of a quarterback who would just like got to get the ball out fast. And then you throw a pick

because you're not making the right reads. Here, he's taken just enough time to work through his progressions, see who's open, and then find the open receiver. And again, it doesn't make him Tom Brady. It doesn't make him any of the very best quarterbacks ever to play the game or something like that. But it does, to your point, make him a very live contender. He's probably number two or number three legitimately in this weight class in the world. That is no small achievement. Yeah, we're going to break down sort of the beauty of this knockout later in the show, so I don't want to blow our wad now.

But it's weird because he's had fights, Luca, you sort of teased, that he should have won. Remember that set-up showcase against Mark Hunt in which he was winning most of it and then gassed out and got stopped? Even the Junior Dos Santos stoppage came at a point where it looked like he was being built up and he was on a run, but just the same he'll win fights he shouldn't like the Volkov one. So it's certainly unique, but man, he has a weird confidence to him. And maybe it speaks to this efficiency that he's evolved to that you're talking about. First of all, he doesn't waste any energy or motion in there.

He stands in the middle of the cage and simply just turns his body and keeps putting the pressure on. But it's not a menacing pressure. You know, sometimes Luke, you know, he plays possum. It almost looks like he's hurt or gassed in there. He somehow carries in the same personality that we love about him, but sometimes don't take him seriously enough because of into there. Almost like ho-hum. If I get the knockout, I get it.

If I lose, whatever, I'm still paying my mortgage and everyone's going to be happy and i think that takes off the pressure and that certainly leaves the door open for him to be able to do either the miraculous like he did against volkoff to to snatch a victory out of the mouth of defeat or in this one where he had a truly elite prime great heavyweight and blades just just succumbed to everything that Lewis does great. And that doesn't mean we won't see Lewis again in a Latifi-type fight where he underwhelms and he gets exposed in certain categories. But, man, this is crazy. The highs and lows don't really affect him.

He called out Jon Jones sort of begrudgingly afterwards, Luke. Would it be promotional malpractice for the UFC to make Jones beast next, knowing that they have a guaranteed giant pay-per-view payday of Jon Jones versus the winner of Francis and Stipe for the title? A little bit.

Or would that be logical? It would... Probably the answer is it would be a mistake, because if you lose, you end up ruining a lot of the intrigue and possibility of what would happen. Because even if John lost up at that title fight, you could still say, well, you know, there's a lot he could do, and blah, blah, blah.

If you end up losing to Derek Lewis, how would you end up losing? You're not going to lose by Kimura. You're going to lose either by decision or, more likely, you're going to get finished with strikes. For that to happen, A, John's never really lost and certainly never lost in that kind of a way. That would be kind of bad. I mean, all of the situations are reparable,

but what I mean to say is if you're going to have the guy go up there and you're trying to get the biggest bang for your buck, he may win, he may lose. But it's probably better, especially if you're talking about the all-time very best light heavyweight and the last champion there before the one who currently holds it. It's fine to give him a title shot, I think, under those circumstances. I think some heavyweights have said he should have some other fights in there. If that was the direction they wanted to go, Derek Lewis would be a fine fight. I don't think it's huge risk per se, but if you're going to weigh your options,

I think you just go right to winner of the title shot, personally. That's where I'm at on that one. Of the trio of heavyweight champions or contenders ranked above him, sort of, in terms of who's going to get a chance at it next, it's Stipe against Francis and John next. Of that trio, Luke, who do you like his chances against

the best francis i mean you already beat him once right there's sort of that it's kind of it doesn't count there that fight doesn't count luke it really does not count derrick had a back injury and couldn't be himself and francis had you know had a lobotomy inside the cage and didn't and didn't act like Francis. Remember when that guy says, lighten up, Francis? He was lightened up the whole damn fight, Luke, okay? So it's as if that fight didn't happen. Both deserve to have lose.

Dana was wrong for throwing shade only at Frank afterwards, and I think you know that, Luke. I don't know if it doesn't count as much as you know running it back might yield a different result but I'll say this I don't know who he yeah anytime he's going to face a wrestler especially one who can strike behind it you know and and weld the two that is going to be a very difficult thing for him to handle you might say oh that was Curtis Blades yes and no Curtis Blades does have really good level changing, and he's fast, and he's worked on his striking. But the real big problem, I think, we've not discussed it to this point, Curtis Blades' issues are twofold. One, he has a little bit of difficulty closing that distance at the last moment,

unless he can sort of run through you a little bit. And two, he hasn't established in enough fights, not in totality, but in enough fights against elite opposition, the ability to just sort of strike it out a little bit to then make that a real enough threat so that when you combine the wrestling threat together, opponents have a difficulty telling what's coming or going. I mean, the thing is, Derek Lewis read this coming a mile away and then threw the uppercut and it was just absolutely perfect so that's sort of an issue for him to fold there I mean here's what I would say I think he's probably Lewis top two because you have the rankings right now BC you've got Stipe who's unranked because he's the champion so number one as a contender is Francis two is Blades this is

before being redone three Rosenstruck and then four Lewis Lewis is probably going to jump to Blades a spot the number two maybe number three here's what I'm. Lewis is probably going to jump to blades a spot. The number two, maybe number three. Here's what I'm thinking. Uh, John's going to get the winner of steep a versus Francis. So let that just play out. The other way to go here is if Rosenstruck wins against, uh, gone,

I think I say his name, then you put Rosenstruck in there with Lewis. I think that's probably the way to go. What about you? Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. Derek would fight the winner really regardless because, Luke, let's not forget, one,

that during the Wheel of Death a couple weeks ago, you predicted that Cyril Ghosn, gone in 60 seconds, would one day wear the UFC title. So I think if he beats Rosenstruck, that's a big win. Let's give him Derek Lewis anyway. But yeah, that would be fair. That would make a ton of sense. will this stop people from trying to shoot because you know hindsight is 2020 and I see a lot of people going damn if Blades only just boxed from the outside for

five rounds he probably would have won this fight he could have pieced him up with the jab that never gonna happen because Blades is a wrestler will this stop people from feeling like what DC was able to do to Derek is possible, is easy, is the way to go? Because, look, DC's not the only wrestler who's given the Black Beast issues in the past, but DC made it look easy, Luke. I mean, it was crazy. This has to be a warning sign because of how good Blades is as a wrestler for the idea that that might not be a path anymore to try to shoot in on this guy. I mean, he will take your soul if you let him, Luke. Don't you let him. Here's the thing.

I think you could do it. In fact, in many ways you're going to have to do it because just out there striking with the guy is not a great idea. But it is pretty clear to me at this point that if you want to really beat Derek Lewis you have to have a couple of things one you better have lights out takedown ability and I mean that through body locks you know John Smith low singles head outside singles doubles high crotch lifts the whole nine so somebody like Daniel Cormier who can change levels who can get to the body quickly

who can make it work and then chain wrestle. Yeah, that's probably going to be one option for you. But really, even if you have that, the big key here is, dude, he is very patient. And he's going to wait for a good opportunity. You have to either, you have to confuse him. You have to get his timing disrupted. You have to make him commit and then react to that. But just trying to shoot in on the guy without really establishing some kind of other threat that he has to recognize. So the only real threat he has

to recognize is the very thing which you are trying, a level change, a single punch, whatever. Dude, he's going to roll with that punch. He's going to defend the takedown or he's going to uppercut your fucking brains into the upper deck. You pick. It's going to happen for you. So there are guys out there, I think, who can beat him in this weight class. And I think Blades still is young enough, by the way, not to bury him. I think he's young enough, BC, where he can still make some of these changes and get to the point where he needs to.

But Saturday, that wasn't it, bro. That was not it. No, no. Are we ready to pick it on Herb Dean's lawn yet, Luke? I mean, Blades took some hammers after he was already out cold. Here's the thing about that. I don't think it was a great stoppage from Dean. There's two things that sort of stuck out to me about it.

One was he seemed to be pretty far away. And two, the urgency with which he was pulling somebody off. I've seen referees dive in to save guys who are already unconscious. I haven't seen Herb level change in a while. I wonder what's up with that. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's always hard to kill a referee in the spot because they never know when the knockout's going to come. And, you know, you can be close, but you can't be too close.

You can't get in the way of the action. But, yeah, this felt very unfortunate for Curtis Blades to take two just— I mean, it was kind of three because, you know, Curtis kind of got hit on the way down after he was already knocked cold, and then the two giant hammer shots. Look, Herb's great. Yeah, it feels like Luke in in the last year he's had more topics of conversation on this show than he has ever had before when he when you know for for really five six seven years he's been you know the elite guy you know one or two or three

at the worst in your referee rankings but man this this video this is pretty damning i mean it's hard to say anything else about you know he, he was late. Luke, he was late. Okay. He was, you know what I'm saying? The goalie slipped one, you know, the goalie let one through. He was late.

Okay. There's going to be a baby in nine months. Sorry. Sorry about that. Curtis. All right. Uh, we'll come back to the UFC card. If we can BC,

let's transition to point number two here, which is the Broner fight, uh, Broner versus Santiago from Showtime boxing over the weekend. Now Broner gets the unanimous decision. We'll talk about the scores in just a second, but this was his first fight back in two years. He was taking on the replacement, I believe, of a replacement, but certainly not the guy who was initially scheduled to fight. And he got the job done,

technically. The judges thought he won. And again, we'll talk about the scores in just a second. Let me start with a very basic question, BC, which is loaded, but you can answer it however you feel free. How did he look? Bad. Okay. You want to take a snapshot of his late rally and say, if he could be that against the very elite moving forward,

there's still a run left in him. Okay, that's great. But Luke, I know it's a two year layoff but he came in in shape and he was in there against a replacement of a replacement in a get well showcase fight let's say exactly what it is yes Santiago was unbeaten but the only name on Giovanni Santiago's resume that anybody knows was 43 year old demarcus chop chop corley who dropped santiago twice in that bout that santiago won by decision so this is not a killer and ab was lifeless luke and disinterested enough to be the very worst version of who he typically is against fighters

that are better than him a guy who doesn't throw enough punches doesn't use his jab doesn't rely on his strengths and is too in love with his power and landing once in a while a clean counter shot so then he can smile backpedal showboat do all that the problem is luke and you know this does play into the decision conversation and the disputed nature of it he got outlanded by over 100 punches by a two to one margin you're letting a light hitting guy who really has no business being in the ring with you two-year layoff or not you're letting him control you get inside on you with no penalty or toll to be paid so while yes ab's rally in the end was enough to either make it close or give him an edging-type victory,

like on my scorecard, seven rounds to five for Broner, which, oh, by the way, was pretty damn generous. Doesn't even reflect how bad those other two scorecards were by the judges. You're doing just barely enough in a showcase comeback fight. Luke, I have always said this guy has nine lives. It's a loaded thing when I say that. One, because he has more talent than he typically shows. And despite all the

missteps and issues in his personal life, he has a way often of coming back in the ring and showing you that he's still got it and teasing you to believe that if he ever puts it back together, he could still be it and teasing you to believe that if he ever puts it back together, he could still be something. B, I tend, Saturday night notwithstanding, I tend to be entertained by his bullshit. I'll say it. I tend to be entertained by his can man theatrics and all the shit he does. It's a typically for me, welcome distraction in this sport, okay? He draws a crowd.

He draws interest. He's the perfect marketable B-side. But even me, Luke, is like, enough with this bullshit. A.B., be who you are inside, which is a guy who's been fighting since you're age four or five, has great skills when he wants to use them. The problem is you got to use them. If you're not going to use them against Santiago, then I don't want to care. I don't care and want to hear that you think you can knock out Rougarou because you know what's going to happen they're going to make the fight you're going to cash the check and you're

not going to throw enough punches and at the end you're going to say I did it for the culture no you didn't do it for anything but the check okay I know he's got personal problems Luke maybe that's fueling why he's coming back for the money but this was a joke on saturday go out there and knock that guy out and then afterwards to do the whole look i don't mind the we're gonna go out of sex comment whatever it's part of the shtick but you're gonna you're gonna you know kill a guy like steve farhood and try to throw shade at the network who's going out of their way to give you a damn showcase fight against a guy who shouldn't be in there get the hell off my screen enough yeah i mean here's what it looked like to me it looked like to me that he did get in good shape for it he did not gas or something it wasn't like he put out a ton of effort on saturday night but you know he didn't look like he was completely out of shape

and i'll give him that um you know that's a hard thing to do after two year layoff okay fair enough uh but what it looked like to me was he was willing to do just enough such that his name would carry him the rest of the way. Like, in other words, I'm the A-side. I'm Adrian Broner. Whatever that is worth, I'm going to use that as my foundation, and I'm going to build just enough on top of it to beat someone who is without a name,

even if they might outwork me two to one, not, not all the shots were quality, but outwork me two to one. If that's your attitude, you know, I, I,

I'm a little bit concerned for your future because the obvious response I got and Will Brooks, former Bellator lightweight champion responded to me and he was saying on Twitter, he was like, okay, but he's been gone for two years. Okay,

fair enough. But the, but the narrative after the end of two years should be, one, you got in shape, which again, I'll still give it to him. And then two, you beat someone you were just way better than, but you did the kind of thing that an A-class fighter would do to somebody who's a C or a D class level professional. You really showed the difference. In this case, it was so close, some people thought Santiago won. And I don't know that that's the worst scorecard in the difference. In this case, it was so close, some people thought Santiago won. And I don't know that that's the worst scorecard in the world. I don't agree with it, but I don't

think it's crazy. It's not crazy. So this is what you did with the tune-up fight. You eked by, probably by the momentum and celebrity, whatever's left of it, of your name. And again, you're right. The last third of that fight, he looked pretty good, I would say, for the most part. Not a confidence-inspiring win, even if it's a win just the same, BC. And look, I used to say, if you're pissed off at Adrian Broner for what he does outside the ring or, you know,

when he's clowning on opponents, then that's on you because that's his goal to make you pissed off. But this is separate from that, Luke. This is where, like, we all know the real truth. What's the real truth in this, you know, in the last couple of years of Adrian's active career? It's that he'll blow away the guys he should. He'll do just enough against the guys right below him, right?

The Ashley Theofanes, I think you were at that fight. He had that fight against that guy, Emmanuel. What's his name? He did just enough and dropped him at the end and won. And then against the elite guys, unfortunately, he'll talk a big game and almost do nothing. Sometimes we like to forget that that part isn't there, Luke. That he does nothing when he steps up against Mikey Garcia and Manny Pacquiao. And sometimes we forgive him because he brings attention to the sport.

But you got to do the freaking bare minimum, which is knock out Giovanni Santiago or at least drop him multiple times and dominate him. You didn't do that, then you're not allowed to clown afterwards. You're not allowed to do all this stuff. Okay?

Like, it's... Luke, it's... You know what was really sad, Luke? Okay. You know who I'm a big fan of, Luke? Dickie Betts. Remember that guy? Guitarist for the Allman Brothers?

Long time ago. Love that guy. All right. Maybe he doesn't pay his taxes. Maybe he's hit women in the past, but he's a fine American man. Plays the Les Paul. Some of his guitar work on Blue Sky, Jessica, the memory of Elizabeth Reed. I mean, it's branded in our brains, Luke.

I used to see him solo all the time at theaters and stuff. It was great, you know, amphitheaters and stuff. Eventually, he started playing for free at the Terryville Fair. That got pretty sad, Luke, okay? This performance against Santiago shows me AB is not far from playing for free at the Terryville fair. Okay, Luke. All right.

You know what I'm saying? Like, and that's not where we should be at 31, two years layoff or not. So this, this was the, this was the moment to, and you heard his corner.

I think it was between, man, I want to say after the seventh round, I can't be too sure, but there's a moment where his corner is advising him on some changes to make between rounds and then reminding him, you know, we're trying to get a big fight from this you got to go out there and do x y and z so like they knew what was on the line here this was the moment to over deliver your opponent is set up in such a way where you can over deliver without maximizing

your skills without having to go to the greatest depths of your cardiovascular conditioning and he couldn't even do that he couldn't even do that by the way can we make a statement here about steve farhood you know what's funny about adrian broner's uh um enemies he always like if if if adrian broner kills you in public let's say here i hope he kills us and the reason why bc is he only kills like the nicest sweetest people. It's like he went after Al Bernstein and now Steve Farhood. Who are you going to go after next? Fucking Santa? Why would you go after? Fuck the Pope or something.

Why would you say that? Look, let me clear up. You're right. And it's bullshit, right? It's bullshit. I mean, good God. But let me clear up a couple of things about the decision, okay? It was bad

the idea of ab winning though despite what the bot what the bot the copy box stats tell you or despite what you saw that's not wrong i had it seven five let's not forget there was a point deduction so i had it which i didn't i thought arthur mercanti jr the referee had a horrific night from trying to yell at ab to stop talking hey Hey, refs, never tell a fighter to stop talking. It's a fight, bro, okay? But number two, they took away a point that didn't seem to make sense on Santiago. Still, 7-5, okay, it's generous to AB, but here's the difference for anybody that sees the punch stats and goes,

oh, my God, boxing robbery, oh, my God. This fight wasn't necessarily a robbery. Is the other two scorecards 117- 111, and the other one too far? Yes, too far. Not good at all. Shit. But Santiago was not landing anything of consequence. He's patty-caking to the body.

So this is kind of a theme in AB fights. Even his biggest win on paper of his career, beating Paulie Malignaggi for a welterweight belt. That was a split decision, Luke. Why? Because even though AB was knocking Paulie around the ring with clean power shots, he did not throw enough punches and Paulie outworked him. This fight was kind of like that. So I know you can't look at the CompuBox stats and decide that that tells you who won the fight.

Yes, AB was lazy and that's why the fight was close. But he still landed the punches that affected the fight. He almost knocked Santiago down twice. He hurt him. That's why you're able to give Broner those close rounds. And oh, by the way, even the rounds that Santiago won, they were shit rounds, which means they could have gone either way. So this wasn't a robbery.

There were some bad scorecards. AB got lucky at the end of the day. That's what it was. And it's not a good look for boxing when all three judges have it for him in a fight this close I mean look for Santiago's defense he didn't argue afterwards he actually thought Broner fought well

and he kind of knew what he was up against the problem was BC to Sardica Joe but you know this as well as I do he fought well he fought up to I thought the ability that he had but he also had a bit of a I'm just happy to be here vibe yeah that's true that's true and it doesn't mean that we can't say because of that interview that that makes this all good because i had a lot of people killing me on twitter go how are you not

campaigning that boxing's broke well boxing is broke so let's not act like it's not but it's almost like i'm numb and i've seen worse this was close enough ab won this fight on the eye test did he win enough rounds? That was up to you to decide. There was a bit of a brighter note on the card, which actually came from the co-main event, BC. Otto Wallin defeating Dominic Brazil. This was, I won't say a tale of two stories in a fight,

because I want to say mostly pretty good. What I would say is through two-thirds of that decision win he got, BC, he looked great. He was jabbing. He was never getting cut or cornered against the ropes or in the corner itself. He was slipping under punches. He was pull countering. He was boxing. He had good footwork. You can see

some of that here. Tying up when he needs to. Staying out of the way of punches. Catching Brazil at angles a bunch of times here. You can see him jabbing over the top of his own jab coming through. He looked good. He did fade in the last third. Now, it didn't matter in the end because he was already so far ahead. And BC, you've got to give Brazil some credit.

He realized, if I'm going to fight this guy at range, I'm just going to get boxed up. Let me just crowd him and smother him, and he's 6'7", or whatever. You see a little bit more of that there. So what do you make of this? It was a good performance in the end, but with some noteworthy differences as we hit the 12th round. Yeah, I don't want to throw shade at our brethren at Showtime. I felt that they weren't saying enough that Valin did kind of fade,

and he got hurt in the 10th round, and I want to give Brazil a lot of credit. Luke, Brazil looked like crap in this fight for most of it. He's more than two years away. We haven't seen him since he got knocked out by Deontay Wilder in the first round in a devastating knockout in like May of 2019. So it had been a long time. Brazil looked like two steps behind the whole fight, but he didn't quit. He trained in elevation with his new trainer, Abel Sanchez.

And I want to give Trouble, as they call him, a nod here because he was coming on in those last three rounds with his new trainer Abel Sanchez and I want to give uh trouble as they call him a nod here because he was coming on in those last three rounds and you almost felt like he was close to really putting Valine in trouble but yes the first nine rounds look Valine looks like a heavyweight contender very legit we know he he gave Tyson Fury all he could handle he's 6'5 he's a southpaw quick feet quick hands I don't know yet Luke if he can win a world title. Can he get out of that second-tier bubble, right? If the top tier is Joshua Fury, Usyk, some nights Deontay Wilder,

you know, the husk of Luis Ortiz, can he get out of that next tier, right? The Joseph Parkers, that group. He looks to be the class of that next tier. He's going to have to keep improving to show us. But I think that it's in play that this guy could win a world title in his career i mean it's in play that he could give somebody a tough night at the office he came that close to a doctor stopping it uh against fury and him legitimately winning the championship so good performance but you do got to kind of repair the loose ends because Brazil had no business coming on at the end and making it a little bit dangerous. Yeah, I mean, to refresh my memory, BC,

the story of the fight that Valine had with Tyson Fury was that he was bossing Fury around early, early and mid, cut him, but that Fury ended up rallying. But isn't it also true that Valine put it on Fury in that 12th? So we know that late he can go. We've literally seen it against the world's best. Maybe he was a little bit more exhausted

from all the moving he did early on in this fight because he was kind of on his heels the whole time or he misjudged what he was up against. So I don't know that this performance undercuts that, but maybe it tells us something to pay attention to for future fights yeah I thought he I actually thought he went for the finish in the middle of this fight against Brazil and that kind of gassed him a little bit but yeah against Fury you nailed it Luke he he deserved to have lost that on the scorecards but he had Fury exhausted and almost wobbling in that final round and let's not forget about

Otto Vali and he stuck his thumb in Fury's cut right in front of the referee's eye. Look, he was going for it that night, okay? He's like the nicest guy in the world when you interview him. But I love that in his biggest moment, he's like, I'm fighting dirty. I'm trying to win this thing. Luke, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, brother. All right? Yeah, you know what?

There's daring to be great, and then there's fuck it, let's go be great. He had a little bit of both of him that night. Pretty impressive. All right. So you had teased this BC and I didn't poo poo it as a fight, but I had poo pooed it as an attraction for our audience. But you know what? Got to give props where props are due.

You called it. I decided to watch it on your recommendation and what a treat it was. So Miguel Burchelt gets absolutely sent to the land of wind and ghosts by uh oh you know what that's number four i'm fucking this up bc i apologize you know what let's put a pin in that we are going to talk about the valdez and burchelt fight but not right this second i apologize to our viewers and you as well bc let's go back to the to the UFC card. Once again, Mexican boxing taking a backseat, Luke. Okay, once again. I apologize.

That's on me. No one else fucked that up except for me. Can't blame Jay. That's my fault. But with that being said, BC, going back to the UFC card, somebody else in that main card, maybe the prelim card slot, whatever, who else impressed you from the UFC on Saturday night? Well, look, I want to kind of ask you if what I'm seeing up to this level is deceiving. Is it legit? Because, you know,

heavyweight Chris Dawkus of Philadelphia, this is now three wins all by stoppage. And look, Alexi Olenek is so old, Luke, that he made his pro debut four months after I graduated from high school. But the manner in which Dawkins just manhandled him, this guy's, you know, I mean, he's got a little man boobage going on, but he's also got quick hands, Luke, great combinations and seemingly good power. He's not beating any killers yet, but please tell me what I'm seeing here. Is this a potential contender? Because this guy's fearless. He gets into scuffles, and he seems to have good boxing background where he's going to give people some issues.

Well, here's what I would say. With Chris Dawkus, it's still, to me, a little bit too early to tell. Plus, with Olenek, you know, he'll catch the guys who are just not on their A game, but Dawkus looks to me like, how good can he be? I don't know. We'll have to see. But he probably does do his homework.

He probably does cross his T's and dots his I's in terms of, what do I know? What can I control? And when you have an opponent with known weaknesses like Alexi Olenek, that kind of a thing is really imperative in a pre-fight preparation, and I think he probably did that. So it's a little hard to tell what the upside is. What I can say about Christakis, BC, and I think this is kind of what you're getting at here a little bit, is I thought this was going to happen a few years ago, and it didn't. Some of the heavyweight guys really hung on. But a division changes when the young supplant the old. And it doesn't happen at once.

It doesn't always happen in an arithmetic fashion. Sometimes it happens a little bit, then not at all, and then all at once. There can be ebbs and flows to it. But you are watching this younger generation of heavyweights the gons the dachas there's many others as well they're the aspinals we'll talk about him in just a second they're starting to push through they're starting to make a name for themselves in ways where um the old guard is beginning to lose to them in ways that they had not before and that he dachas is at least at a bare minimum part of that row of fighters yeah he

impressed me he impressed me those them are some quick hands Luke uh I know you're itching to tell us about Aspinall well didn't you find like that was really impressive I mean Arlovsky was impressive too man this is a guy like people always ask me what's one guy you've been the wrongest about I mean I've got two whoppers in my career. Maybe three, but two. One was I thought, oh, Matt Lindland is the guy to beat Anderson Silva. I mean, they never fought, but in retrospect, that seems very wrong. Spectacularly so.

The other one is, oh, I thought Arlovsky was done by the time he was even in World Series of Fighting. I did not anticipate he'd be able to make the kinds of changes that he has. That's a failure for me and not for him. Pretty amazing because Aspinall got the win in the second round, BC. He had presence of mind. He stayed calm. He showed a lot of positive things. But early, dude, they were trading and Orlovsky was landing on him continuously.

What did you make of Tom Aspinall? I think that the real lesson there was he still has plenty to work on in terms of his defense, but he can switch gears and find another way to win a fight against very smart credentialed opposition at this young of an age with relatively this little of experience. That's very, very impressive. Yeah, I think you nailed the key part in why this is more impressive than even what Dawkus did is because aspen all faced some legitimate uh you know uh pushback and he got

hurt he got hit in the eye as you said afterwards and look this was uh this was a very stubborn arlovsky just you know pouring out what was ever left we know arlovsky is going to break his nose in the first 30 seconds of every fight luke but uh, you know, he showed some weird wrinkles that work, that front kick to the nipple that he kept doing, and he still can put some combos together. It's weird that, you know, I mean, obviously it's dependent on the level of competition and what you're getting hit with.

But some nights, Arlovsky's chin just folds up, Luke, like an unpinned-down tent in a storm. And other nights, he decides to bring the good one. And this was one of those nights. So it was able to give Aspinall a little bit in a storm. And other nights, he decides to bring the good one. And this was one of those nights. So it was able to give Aspinall a little bit of a stretch. Like Dawkus, it's early, but I think he's showing an even better upside than Dawkus. I think there's a more complete game there.

And I like the, hey, Bisping, let's go out for some cold ones afterwards, all right? Also, I got to tell you, if you're the UFC, what Arlovsky has turned into is a blessing for you because he's going to help you sort the contenders from the pretenders. You know, I'm not saying if you lose, you know, all that's it for you. You can come back and find a way to get it past him. But the way in which he works now where he doesn't take a lot of big punches, you got to beat this guy with smarts. I mean, yeah,

you know, he might overcommit a little bit against the Rosen strikes and to get, you know, clipped coming in, but that's pretty rare. he's very reserved careful and and and very considerate about when he wants to throw and how he wants to throw it and so to beat that guy you got to show real maturity you got to show real depth of game so you beat him man you know okay i don't know if he's the next champion but this is somebody who we should definitely keep an eye on if not you got some things to work on in your game it's a really fortuitous situation for ufc matchmakers and look we're probably you know missing out on on what could be a great segment which is your arrogant ass judging people's tattoos but on the front aspinall

looked very promising i like what he's going on there's like a there's like an old world italian scene looking on his chest and there's there's you know asian symbols on his arm but what's with the flavor flave clock on the back you in on that well here's the thing i um clocks so if you don't know much about tattoos clocks owls um spartan or roman iconography that kind of a thing features heavily into that and not just clocks we see about stopwatches in particular i am not it's a little salvador dolly-esque kind of because sometimes they're like you know dreamlike um i don't quite get why they're as prominent as they are i mean i get it a little bit but people overestimate the smarts of owls and you know they tend to sort of go to stuff that's a little bit one note on chest pieces i can take them or leave them but i did see that he got his right sleeve nearly completed or

certainly heavily worked on. I did like the sleeve a little bit. I thought that there was some good work on there. And Luke, true or false, you also completed your right sleeve-ish this weekend. Sort of. I didn't complete and it was earlier in the week and I don't know if you guys can see here. I've got

rope added to it on the Eagle Globin anchor, but it's going to take some time to heal. You can see I've got grease all over it. I've got petroleum, whatever the fuck it is, to help clear up the scabbing. So, yeah, we'll see. Okay.

Plenty more to go, buddy. Is your daughter a big fan of it? Yes, she has learned to say the word tattoo. It's very nice. All right. Tattoo. Remember that really weird tattoo song that Van Halen had in that comeback about 10 years ago? No, I don't listen to soft-ass shit.

All right. Let's move on now to a point, which is a line from The Rock, everyone. All right. So let's go to point number four if we can. Sorry I jacked this up earlier to the folks in the back. Now let's do it. Oscar Valdez, frankly, dominated BC and then viciously, viciously, viciously KO'd Miguel Burchelt on ESPN, winning, I think, a WBO title in the process. WBC, baby, the green belt.

Excuse me. Yeah, I apologize. It was the main event. You had hyped it up. Credit to you, BC. I watched it. It delivered, and I think then some, although maybe a little bit shorter than some had imagined,

and certainly an underdog winning in the most impressive of ways. Did the fight, in your mind, live up to what you thought it either could or should have been? You know, not in its advertised ways, which was this would be the next Barrera Morales, you know, name your favorite all-Mexican war, three, you know, the trilogy we saw in Showtime. It wasn't that Luke, but it certainly lived up to the other expectations, which is drama, violence, something that not only you need to watch and should, and I'm glad you did. And I

got a lot of great messages from, you know, MMA only fans that watch our show that were like, BC, thank you for that recommendation. But also one of those where people are like, call your friends, text your friends, to quote Teddy Atlas, right? Call your friends. There's a fight breaking out. I think the shocking part was this, Luke. Oscar Valdez is better than we thought. Yes, he was unbeaten coming in for the former featherweight champ, but he gets in a little bit too many brawls for his own good yet luke i underestimated two things one how much his speed would be an advantage moving up to

130 here against burchell and two you know i hadn't been looking close enough let's say to the copy box stats burchell does get hit a lot and there are some deficiencies there the difference is luke brichella's mostly fought brawlers throughout his run as wbc 130 pound champion and in the category of brawlers he's sort of the guy with skills he's the guy with the jab and the combos who will brawl you and get you out of there but do it a little bit more cleverly and technician like oscar valdez was just at another level on top of that luke he fought with balls in the beginning if you re-watch that fight even tim bradley and andre ward were like you know he's a little bit too jacked up here he's a little bit too hyped he's exploiting a lot of

energy expending a lot of energy excuse me but luke him jumping over burchelt the way it did it was shocking he knocked him down down in the first three rounds. I don't know what the hell Judge Max DeLuca was doing, by the way, who gave all three rounds to Burchelt to open. This was Valdez's fight early. And then to see Miguel Burchelt do what he does, which is turn into an angry zombie, walking Valdez down, taking stupid punishment, but kind of making this a fight suddenly.

There was a window there, Luke, where you were wondering if Valdez had expended too much to try to get him out of there. At the end of the day, it was a tour de force for a guy in Oscar Valdez who I mentioned. Unbeaten, a great fighter, but a guy who we sort of thought his limitations and sort of addictive tendencies to fight too much would hurt him. And it would hurt him in this fight especially because he had a five-and-a-half-inch reach disadvantage. Luke, none of that mattered at the end of the day. His combination of speed technique and balls won out. And, oh, by the way, that picture right there of them on the stool is everything you love about this broken, beautiful, brutal sport.

The two of them having that moment and giving the love and respect to each other. Luke, this was a violent as shit knockout. This was a stunning knockout. The noise that was expended from that left hook in round 10, like your spine just shakes and quakes. I have not seen a knockout this violent in a fight this big, maybe since Pacquiao-Marquez 4 in 2012, Luke, where you're just like, holy shit, the fight is over. And I'm not sure if Burchelt's going to be okay. Luckily, he went to the hospital.

CAT scans are all good. I mean, you know, look, a fight like this is going to take years off of your career, maybe your life. You know that coming in. But two warriors and a coming out party for Valdez in some ways. Luke, I know we're going to kind of talk about knockouts and compare them in a second. But coming into this with not deep knowledge on these guys, but now you kind of know who oscar valdez is when you hear valdez

top rank espn and shaker stevenson himself a champion at 130 pounds one of these building blocks for the future of boxing i talk about when you hear that all of them are interested in a junior lightweight unification bout that could probably air on ESPN later this year. How jazzed are you to that idea? Yeah, I mean, how do you not make that fight? You've got everyone basically in-house. You have an availability in the calendar. You have the, not necessity per se,

but there's something of a necessity to unify the titles. You have a contrast in styles. You have a guy you could promote to different audiences either way. Certainly in this case, Stevenson, and by the way, Stevenson's been not fighting the greatest competition since the pandemics happened, so this would be a huge step up,

and I think a welcome one at that. Valdez obviously had his hands full, but more than passed the test, but I mean, he's earned an opportunity against a name that a lot of folks think is the next big thing in boxing. So yeah, dude, I don't know how you don't make that contest. I mean, it was kind of funny. He had this, I forget which round it was.

It was kind of early BC. I think it was like third or fourth round where he really had Burchelt in trouble. But then Burchelt kind of rallied a little bit. And I thought at first, ah, you know what? He might end up winning this, but Burchelt's going to rally here and, you know, experience is going to matter here. I had read some pre-fight previews to see

who kind of experts thought was the boss. And then he gets knocked down again later. And at that point, I'm like, dude, this guy Valdez might put this dude away. And then he did exactly what you saw. My point being is it is amazing how these young gungs are coming up in boxing. He was not only the underdog, but he was sort of looked past as one guy was considered just better, but much better. There was a categorical difference between

them, which I did not think was true, at least based on what you had said. Sure enough, he comes out and shows something like that. That was really special. If you don't get rewarded for a turning in of an effort like that with a big fight, what the fuck are we doing here, you know? Absolutely. And, you know, he was a 3-1 underdog.

It seemed bigger than it should have been. But, look, I mean, Burchelt's been a killer in this division. He's been the face of this division for five, six years. And, you know, he had those physical advantages. But not on this night, Luke. I mean. And, you know, he had those physical advantages, but not on this night, Luke. I mean, look, you know this sport, Luke. We show the scars and the wounds of boxing on this show. We're not afraid to dodge it around.

This fight, this night, it was one of those that, like, this is why we watch. I mean, this is it. This is great. I know people are saying, and I do want to get your take luke that maybe his corner burchelt's corner should have stopped it earlier and i think obviously if burchelt had been you know badly badly hurt from this meaning in the hospital you know in a coma we would be much deeper investigating this you could have like you could have stopped it but dude he's the bigger guy the bigger puncher.

And he was having moments. He was caught. You know what I mean? Like, I, I, I don't, I don't want to look back and be like, should they have? No, they shouldn't have. Right. You know what I mean? I'm sorry that it was brutal, but this is boxing.

This is elite championship boxing. Where do you stand on it? I think I'm of the view that like, had they stopped it, you would have understood. Had they stopped it, uh, his corner, maybe not so much the referee, but his corner, had they stopped it, you would not only have understood, you would have someone like, yeah, that's probably for his best. You know, that's, it was not, before the stoppage itself, when he got knocked out, it was not going his way right up to that moment.

So if they pulled it a little before, they be like okay that makes sense still watching in real time i did not have the same alarm bells going off in my head as i have for other cases that i continued which isn't to say i did not think it was getting dire and desperate i did but it didn't have the same to me bc it it was definitely something that you were like oh this is getting kind of bad but it didn't read medical emergency in the ways other ones have. Does that sound reasonable to you or am I being awful? Like we've debated in the past with Cater and Holloway and whatever, like it is a gray area and this was in the gray, but I have to agree with you.

Burchell took a ton of punishment, Luke, and in the moment I'm thinking, you know, this is not going to be good for his long term, but, you know, boxing's not good for your long term and i do like a window here these guys are willing you know they're willing warriors they want this they you know they're they they come here prepared to die in the ring and god we never want that to happen but maybe that's part of what we love about this sport that you know it's as real as you can possibly have for a sporting event and that's a savage thing to say out loud but uh you know i credit burchell for being a warrior and going

after it and luke i also credit a guy who can we start banging the bell for uh banging the drum for eddie reynoso the trainer we know him forever as canelo's trainer and co-manager we've been giving him props for what he's done with ryan Ryan Garcia and turning him into a more responsible offensive fighter. But what he's done with Oscar Valdez here, I forgot coming in that that was Valdez's new trainer, and that was a hell of a game plan and performance that they executed. It certainly was. Pretty impressive, I have to say.

Now, the devastation, which you had alluded to, brings us to a point where we now have to ask. If you look at what ESPN did, they had a good night on Saturday, BC, because they showcased a main event in two different sports in the same city, almost at the same time, or within pretty close approximation of one another. On the MMA side, Curtis Blades losing. He was the favorite to win. He did not.

He got viciously KO'd. And then, of course, you have, as we've been discussing valdez's ko of burchelt which was also just devastating in the most unbelievable ways and again an underdog winning so here's the question point number five here bc and again it's a loaded question so answer it by the criteria that you think are important which underdog winning basically one punch ko was better uh valdez or lewis all right i naturally want to say valdez i'm a boxing guy this was a title fight although you can argue with so many titles luke in boxing and and lewis blades being almost a quasi number one contender type fight, that it's almost on the level of the WBC Junior Lightweight Championship in boxing, right? There's 87,000 titles in boxing.

But, I don't know, the Blades, they're both equally unlikely. Blades more unlikely getting KO'd that viciously in that situation. But I'm going to go with Valdez as more impressive. Luke, it capped off a more impressive performance between the two. Lewis really only had that moment in a lot of ways. This was the cherry on top of Valdez's giant masterpiece painting where he just put on the performance of a career. And oh, by the way, I think this was even more vicious.

This was even more brutal. I mean, that sound Luke, when Burchell got hit with that left hook, I mean, good Lord, you know, like we say, this was in the gray areas in the gray area of me,

almost not wanting to come on and celebrate it on this show. Cause it's so damn violent. Reminding me of those 55 seconds when Manny Pacquiao got knocked cold by Marquez that I mentioned earlier, where, you know, I'm not lying to you, I stood with my mouth dropped watching that TV screen wondering if Manny was dead.

And, you know, this had that kind of feel to it. So I'm going to say Valdez barely, but I want to spin it back to you and ask you this. I almost don't understand the Derek Lewis knockout. I had to replay it like 50 times. Luke, it's so non-traditional. How did he put him to sleep that viciously from that angle? Normally it's turning a guy's chin where they're just unconscious.

He hit an uppercut just... I mean, is it just lunch pail hands? I mean, how did that even happen? It almost didn't make sense in the physics of it, Luke. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of ways to get hit. It's obviously the chin, the temple, which can happen in the front as well, but the temple, and then kind of to the back of the head. Those are sort of the three main areas that most of the problems can happen.

The reason why that's such a big punch is because, A, it was well-timed, so there was an extension of power through it. Not full extension, but enough. There was a lot going on, so he had reached a part in the arc of the punch that was very, very powerful. It was, and it landed, you know, not to the center, which you're talking about,

on the side of the chin, but it landed with enough force that its location, I'm not going to say it doesn't matter, but certainly was enough to transfer it. And the other part is, dude, when you level change like that, you've got to go. A level change is quick. It is fast. It is explosive. You have to close that distance. And

that's the other part about it. For a double to work, for folks who've never wrestled before, and again, I'm no expert, but I do know this. How far away do you want to be when you shoot a double? You should be able to reach out and just touch him with your hand. That's how far you should be. He looked to me a little bit further away than that. And so if you can aim and you can get enough extension on a punch and the other person is bringing all that force with them and the two clash in the center, dude, really bad shit's going to happen. Really bad shit.

That's what you saw there. It's just normally you want to tuck your chin to avoid the rattling of the brain that causes the knockout. And it was like Blades' chin was almost tucked. I mean, maybe Derek caught him under the chin more than I realized from what the angle showed. But, Luke, you saw that in real time. I thought he had a seizure and he just passed out or something. I mean, it was shocking.

Shocking is the word. I mean, they're beautiful in different ways. First of all, both were scary. True or false, the scarier of the two knockouts was the Burchelt one. It took him a while to get up, dude. And the way his body fell on top of that almost didn't make sense with physics either. Like, the body just gave up and fell face first. I mean, that was yikes.

I'm sure it's cold comfort for the loved ones of Curtis Blades who watched him to be like, oh, well, the Burchell one was worse. It was still probably agonizing to watch a guy in that condition. So it was very, very scary. But the Burchell one was like, I got a little bit – I rarely get concerned when I watch this stuff. And even I was starting to get a little bit sideways with it. So that was the scarier of the two.

I have to – and also they were different. Like Burchell had knocked him down several – is with it so that was the scarier of the two I have to and also they were different like Burchelt had knocked him down several sorry Valdez had knocked him down a couple times in the fight and it was kind of beating him up the left hook was landing this one was sort of I won't say out of nowhere but there wasn't a preceding beating that happened beforehand it was just all of a sudden and so in that sense they're very different kinds of vicious KOs. Yeah. This was the Valdez one was more like, do you remember that fight?

Uh, what was it last year when, um, uh, Zepeda, when Zepeda fought Baranchuk on top rank on ESPN. So it was like seven or eight knockdowns. Yeah.

And remember the final finish when Baranchuk just got separated from his senses. It was just so flush and violent and sudden and the fight's over this felt a lot like that where he's just like good god and it was obviously a longer sustained beating as you mentioned whereas the blades one just it was over i mean it happened and it was over but uh shout out to both guys shout out to both guys who took the brunt of that and are now you know back and doing as well as you can look luke you know i mean you you can't clean it up luke you know, back and doing as well as you can. Look, Luke, you know, I mean, you can't clean it up, Luke. You know, you're still not meant to do this, right?

You can't clean it up. You know, we can argue over stoppages too early, but at the end of the day, this is still possible. And it's part of what we love, and it gets us close to the cringe level too. But vicious, great theater on Saturday. Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, people can pick what they want.

One was heavyweight. One was, you know, almost 100 and actually half their size, right? 130. So that's kind of interesting. There's just going to be very different kinds of KOs, but it was a good night for combat sports fans. And one last time, shouts to BC for putting everyone's radar. But I still got to say, BC,

I went back and looked at the interview you did with Valdez. It's still like the audience, you know know they can say what they want and your call was correct but i don't know how much they like mexican boxing bro i don't know how much they like hey bro i'll i'll take quality over quantity every day of the week luke that's the the history of my career compared to yours luke okay uh no i've been doing a lot of the same sacrifices and then i realized i'd rather watch people i'd rather have people watch my shit. So I went with big topic stuff. I'd rather have you watch me on this show when I speak rather than emailing your plumber back.

Yes, that's right. Okay, with that in mind, let's go now to where you get to ask us questions. Let's go to DMs from dogs, BC. Do I have these? Yes, I do. Very good. All right. As always, we put up an Instagram post on Sundays

where you can then leave a bunch of questions for us. A few will get picked, and we answer them here. All right, BC, let's get right to it. Andrew D. Cabello asks, how much of an indictment is it on the heavyweight division that Derek Lewis is sneakily becoming an all-time great in the division? Well, that's a shitty way to ask the question, but he did ask it, so we have to answer it, BC.

It's not an indictment on the lack of quality of the division, even though historically, yes, the heavyweight division has been a very barren cupboard. We're in a pretty damn good place right now, right? We were in a pretty damn good place in the original rise of Kane and Jr. and that sort of mini era then as well. But historically, it's an empty cupboard. It's more of an indictment on what happens when you take 265-pound men

that are jacked and put four-ounce gloves on their hands and know that anything can happen at any given time, Luke. Also, as we laid out to open the show, Derek Lewis is really carving out a very unique run to where he is right now so you hang around long enough and you knock enough people out you're going to end up close to that record and he's special because

of his power but I don't think this necessarily says we're dealing with a shit division on the level of women's featherweight, women's flyweight maybe it's the most shit men's division in the history of the ufc but uh right now it ain't awful luke right i've seen worse no i've seen cabbage blades curtis blades and his ability to wrestle at the level that he does by mma historical standards for the heavyweight division is very very very high. Very high, right? So you can't say that Lewis is beating Scrubs

and then just, you know, he's doing the Kirk Cousins thing where he's going out there in garbage time. You're down 50 to 13. Yeah, he might throw for two touchdowns and get the points, but, you know, what is he really doing? You like it. You like it. You like that.

You like that. Here's what I would say, though, and this is the thing I bring up to folks all the time who don't watch a lot of combat sports, which I'm not saying is true about the person asking the question, but rather combat sports is a little different from sports where there's this argument where folks make, they're like, oh, if we could just get the best stick and ball athletes

from basketball, football, whatever in the United States, how much better would the heavyweight division be? And there's no denying it would substantially increase the level and quality of fights you get at the heavyweight division. But there's also a component that has not necessarily anything to do with athleticism, which is like this gameness, right? Pursuit of the fight despite the physical consequences of people who just kind of have a certain mentality where they can do this for a

living. It's not automatic and not all the best athletes have it. Lewis is one of those situations where I don't know how many athletic gifts he has, although he does have big power, but he's got all the rest of those conditions, willing to do violence, willing to take punishment, all those kinds of things that a lot of premier athletes just would not be well situated for. Michael Westbrook may have you know gotten to fight during training practice but he tried MMA you could see he just never was nearly as good at it even though he had like also composite belts in judo and I think in jiu-jitsu as well so Lewis is a special character indeed indeed Luke well said all right let's go

on to the next at Dalton underscore Smith underscore 23. What would be a crazier story, BC? Nate Diaz somehow wins the 155 belt, or Derek Lewis wins the heavyweight championship. This would be 2021, early 2022. This year, this era, this time for Nate Diaz, I think it would be Diaz, Luke, because as much as I sort of made that case, you can call it misguided, whatever,

a couple weeks back saying, hey, imagine if he got the Poirier shot and cut down to lightweight and everybody's like, BC, Dana's never going to give him that chance again. I think it'd be, you know, Nate Diaz, because as we just laid out in the last question and to open the show, you got a puncher's chance, and that puncher's chance gets very escalated in the heavyweight division, and Derek Lewis is on some kind of run here of,

of knocking people out that are, you know, seemingly better than him on paper. He's on the doorstep, Luke, not necessarily in the on deck circle, but he's on the doorstep of this heavyweight title picture. That is much more likely than even a celebrity like Nate Diaz,

you know, a backdooring into a title shot because of his name and be actually winning it. Right. Dude. A, backdooring into a title shot because of his name, and B, actually winning it, right? Dude, I mean, Derek Lewis is on a four-fight win streak against top-tier competition. Nate Diaz hasn't had a four-fight win streak since 2008. Nate has fought and defeated very good fighters. He is worthy of everything that he has, make no mistake about it. But he is much further back in either division than Lewis at the moment.

Dude, Lewis is putting in work against legitimate names who have legitimate ability. It's not even close to being the same. Diaz would be a much bigger, crazier story. Plus, you've got the fact that he butted heads with UFC management for so long. To get Nate Diaz even another title shot, do you think it'd be more likely to come through Conor winning the lightweight title,

Nate agreeing to go back down to lightweight once more for the trilogy, or Kamaru just empty in the cupboard in this division, Nate getting one more big win and then them making that for celebrity purposes? I would say the best choice would be,

it doesn't matter if Conor or Poirier wins it. They could do it that way. And honestly, this is how we got the big fight the last time. They call him on short notice. You know, you want a title shot against Conor McGregor on short notice? I bet he'd take it. You know, maybe not. I don't know.

But there's certainly a possibility there as well. All right. From Trex underscore 3OH, Ohio, I guess. As MMA ages, will the sport take a hit when female fighters show obvious signs of being punch drunk or bad CTE stories later in life? So that's an interesting question. Something I've thought about recently, Luke. You know, we really haven't seen that yet.

It's not, you know, we've seen, look, women's boxing had that uptick. You remember in the 90s, we had like Christy Martin on pay-per-view and Leila Ali and Mia St. John and Anne Wolfe had periods of being, you know, somewhat notable, but we haven't really seen yet the 55-year-old retired women's fighter

who's had a 15-year career who talks like Tommy Hearns. We haven't seen it yet, Luke. You know, it's easy to knee jerk and say if, and when we do see that, could that have, you know,

maybe that won't have an impact. I don't know. I mean, look, Luke, could you ask yourself this? Are we not seeing as many American, especially American heavyweights,

right? In boxing, we're seeing so many, you know, Burt Sugar, the late boxing scribe, always had that line that, who's the next great American heavyweight? He's playing linebacker for the Ravens, right?

We've heard that story in reference a million times. It's more likely that we're seeing guys like Deontay Wilder who fail in other sports and end up, you know, coming into boxing this way. Are we not seeing that because this generation grew up seeing Muhammad Ali with Parkinson's and seeing some of these other heroes from back then, Luke, in kind of disarray now because they dared to be great

at such an obscene level. I mean, look, as fans, we want everybody to do what Roberto Duran and Tommy Hearns and all these guys did and fight all the best one after another then fight them a second and third time um but there's certainly a freaking price to pay physically for that how much do you believe a Luke that Ali and Tommy Hearns and these guys who really can't speak in front of a microphone has turned away the American athlete and in turn back to Trex's question if it happened in with females would that stop the

female mma boom at all it's a it's an interesting question i we're gonna have to no one knows but we can say what we want we really don't know how the public is going to take it my my thought bc is that would at least with respect to the women in the question, it does kind of echo what you hear from other people who want to prevent women's MMA. So before women's MMA, I remember when they would air women's MMA on TV. This is true. Gina Carano used to fight under, I think the Kedzie fight was under these circumstances.

It was three minute rounds and the rules were a little bit different. It was only like getting women's MMA expanded to five minute rounds on par with the men. That was considered a big achievement, you know, 15 years ago or whatever it was. Um,

so there's always been this chorus of folks who are like, you can't do women's MMA because what will happen if a woman is bleeding? What happens if a woman gets her arm broken? And it turns out like all those things, you know, may, maybe they were coming from a good place, but they just did not end up being true.

Folks did not make some kind of gender exception for that kind of a thing in terms of their moral horror or their revulsion at the product. It tends to be similar across both. And in fact, getting women over has been much more of a boon in terms of expanding the audience and the palette of fight fans. So is it possible that on the other side, if they're affected and you see a woman who's got really bad effects, that the worm might turn in the other direction?

It's possible. Or it could just keep being what it's always been, BC, which is that the things you think that they'll make a gender exception for in terms of their horror, it never really comes true. Yeah. And also, I think, you know, this may play into that argument which i don't always fully believe that you know long-term mma safer than boxing look cte is cte luke and uh you know getting knocked cold in mma a bunch of times can't you know it's all the same in the end in terms of damage but there is something to you see more veteran boxers with the really bad slurred speech than you do mma is that because boxing you take more sustained damage to the head? Yeah, I mean, you just have a narrower target.

It's above the waist. And even then, it's pretty narrow about where you want to hit. I mean, yeah, Canelo went to the arms against Callum Smith, I guess, but you get the idea. That's not usually a target you're looking for. So the narrowness of what you're experiencing. I mean, I interviewed Dan Hooker about the fight with Barboza and whether his corner should have stopped it and blah, blah, blah.

And he was like, nah, because I was getting beat up all over. It wasn't just my head. I was getting hit to the body and the legs and the back and blah, blah, blah. It was distributed. We'll see in the end how much that matters, but there is kind of an argument about that. All right. From Max Block Photography, BC.

This actually asked to me, but I'm curious about you as well. Have you had a chance to watch the new Patrice O'Neill documentary yet? If so, what did you think? By chance, have you seen this? I have not. Neither have I, actually. I didn't realize it was out yet, so I apologize. BC, you know, as homework one week early on I I had put in uh which not even his best work but his most recent one

before before his death I think the the special he did uh elephant in the room uh Patrice O'Neill was the best comic I ever saw I saw him probably a dozen times when I was living in New York City because he was out every Friday you could go see him and saturday as well and um i think he was a totally bold visionary and uh also you know a raving misogynist but you can be all those things and still be uh you know a more complete whole clean comics look clean comics don't become this legendary you know they make movies and they make sitcoms but they don't become this legendary you know they make movies and they make sitcoms but they don't become this legendary yeah i mean who are the legends carlin lenny bruce bill hicks you know i think doug stanhope but he's sort of like underground a little bit

but patrice dude patrice was a guy that like i'm telling you man every time you listen to any other comic talk about patrice and they talk about him from the print like with it seemingly from the position that they realize that he's up there and they're down here in terms of ability yeah yeah I'm excited you got me so into him that I'm excited to check out this doc so yes definitely so I apologize to Max but both Brian and I are lame and have not seen it but well then let me spin this question Luke my wife got me into that fantastically acclaimed Amazon Prime series, Mrs. Maisel, which is based on a female comic in the 1950s in New York. It has a lot of Jewish culture in the show.

I talked to Jay about it. He's a huge fan as well. Lenny Bruce is actually a character in that show. Have you seen this yet, Luke? Because it's freaking brilliant. No, but years ago someone gave me as a gift um like a best of book that was a story of lenny bruce's life and there's there's original lenny bruce material in it and i listened to it it's not as good as you might

imagine it to be it wasn't like rip rory funny, but what he was was absolutely against the censoriousness of the time. I mean, saying outrageous shit, even by today's standards, saying some outrageous shit knowing it would get him arrested and he would just do it anyway. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, they kind of play some of his real-life stuff into the show, but Luke, I advise you to check this series out. There's three seasons on Prime, and they're filming a fourth, I believe, now.

It's amazing. Luke, watch this shit. It's about stand-up comedy. Would you watch it? I'll watch it. Alright, last but not least, BC. From Ghost Thord Thord I don't know what the fuck this dude's name is.

The official MK Burger would have what on it and how would it be prepared? Oh, wow. By the way, a lot of people DMing me about the official mk beer they have all these great ideas of different flavors based on our personality we should continue that discussion one day but the mk burger luke all right here's the first the most important question bc does this burger have one or two patties because i feel like if you can't decide that you can't go anywhere else all great things in life come in twos, Luke, right?

Co-hosts, breasts. Passes? I don't know. Yeah. Testicles. Yeah, come on, Luke, right? You know? Yeah.

All bad things come in threes. Celebrity deaths, vasectomy needles, you know the deal. Let's do this. Here we go. Ready? So two patties, I agree. Cheese, American cheddar. I got to put some.

You hate blue cheese, don't you? Blue cheese is my favorite thing ever. I like blue cheese, but I don't know if I. Okay. Jalapenos, yes or no? I'll do. So I'm a wimp with hot stuff, but I love jalapeno on a burger. So yes, let's do it, Luke.

Okay. Lettuce, tomato, onion. Yeah, damn right. But it's got it. I like a big fat tomato, like a slice, but like a beefsteak tomato. Yeah, damn right. Yeah. Okay.

Mayo, mustard. What are we putting on this? Like some flavored mayo, something really funky and special. What about like a Thousand Island sauce? I'd be into that, but there's got to be something special on it that makes it an MK burger. I don't want a fried egg or anything like that, but there's got to be something like that. Not avocado, right? Things like blue cheese are just extras, but what's the main thing that makes it an MK burger?

I'm not putting a hot dog on there, Luke. I was going to say I'll drag my balls across the bun, but I don't know how many of those we'd sell. I don't know what the special sauce would be. Would it be like soaking the beef in the MK beer or something? I don't know. The cream of some young boy? Yes, yes, Luke. What would be the special sauce, Luke?

I don't know. I don't know what that answer would be. We have to figure that out, but I got to tell you, figuring out a menu that answer would be. We have to figure that out. But I got to tell you, figuring out a menu, an MK menu, we need to do that. We're like halfway there. But we have some work to do on this. We should start an MK food truck that becomes the official food truck of Brendan Schaub's food truck diary. You know what, dude?

That's an amazing. See, Showtime, synergy. Corporate synergy. truck diaries you know what dude that's an amazing see showtime synergy corporate synergy and then the whole time you order they'll just heckle you and shit on you for what you order that's how it has to go i want all my portions to be thick luke thick yes with triple c's okay bc with that in mind good sir it is time now for me to hand the show over to you to do your best. Thank you very much, Luke. This is the most awaited segment in all of combat sports talk shows that appear only on digital. It is Have You Seen This Shit?

All right, Luke, we skyrocket the globe. You know, all that highs, lows, good, bad, ugly, in between in the world of combat sports and beyond. Luke, I know we just talked a lot about top-ranked boxing on Saturday and Burchelt's loss to Oscar Valdez, but one of top-ranked social people picked up the knockout on their phone ringside. Luke, check out this video, and it really shows you how brutal this ish is. Dude, this was bad. That was bad.

Wow. Dude, it sounded like it legit sounded like he, I don't know, that there was a construction accident between two objects clashing or something. You're right. It did have, like anyone that's been right next to a car accident, it's so loud and jarring that you're like holy shit it had that luke are you okay with his celebration i am because i know what valdez was coming from for this fight the the emotion the upset like this was his the masterpiece of his career but he came close

to stepping on burchell i'll say this if it was a slightly different circumstance, I think you could probably take him to task. But did you see his speech afterward? Like when he was being interviewed by the ESPN desk, he was like, everybody counted me out. Odds makers, analysts, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, dude, don't ever let anyone tell you what you can be in this life. And you could tell it meant a lot to him.

So I think he deserves a pass here. I think he did. Yeah, he had said on this show, and he echoed it again after the fight, that Julio Cesar Chavez, who does Mexican TV for ESPN Deportes, you know, predicted a Burchelt knockout. And Valdez was like,

instead of getting mad at my hero for saying that, that was my motivation to prove him and everyone else wrong. So love that one more thing from this fight check out this absolutely iconic photo i'm not sure if it was mikey williams the great top rank photographer i couldn't see a credit but check out this photo look if i can get this framed in my office here a poster this this is one of the better shots i've seen in a long time uh gaff we don't we don't have the photo. All right. Hey, great. Sorry. Sorry folks.

Could you set that one up with higher expectations? It was a one B a Maniche one B on the, have you seen this shit email? Uh, do you have that? No. BC is like, dude,

this fucking photo is like the motherfucking Sistine chapel. I'm about to blow your minds. Uh, we ain't got shit. Yes. Uh, or although there's nothing in Capone's vault. All right.

Well, check out Top Rank's Twitter feed. You'll find it. Just set it up. Burchelt is sitting on the stool being attended to. No, no, no. Not the loved one. I'm talking about Burchelt face down, referee waving the fight off. And when Valdez did that run around the ring, he leaped over Burchelt's body and put a fist in the air, Luke.

The timing and the angle of the photo is just epic. I see. Listen, it was not a normal celebration, but these were not normal circumstances. Thank you very much. All right, UFC Fight Night in Vegas on the undercard. Luke, Jamal Emmers had back spasms backstage, so this was Chaz Kelly after he entered the cage.

From our production room, and Jamal Emmers is backstage and suffering from back spasms. back stage so this was Chaz Kelly Luke. Anyway. Well, this segment is going really well. Yeah, can we? All right, this segment is shit. Anyway, it's Joe Martinez, a fantastic ring announcer who we both respect, basically saying, Chaz Kelly, your opponent can't make it. So this was a rare, weird thing, Luke. Very rare to see a guy come to the cage and then his fight is canceled. But Chaz Kelly still gave us a highlight. Let's play this

audio. Did you see his karaoke session for the media, Luke? No. In fact, sometimes that's not right to do. Sometimes you got to make some love and fucking give her some smooches too.

Sometimes you got to squeeze. And sometimes you got to squeeze And sometimes you got to say please And sometimes you got to say hey I'm gonna fuck you softly I'm gonna screw you gently I'm gonna hump you sweetly I'm gonna ball you discreetly then you say hey I bought you flowers and then you say wait a minute Sally I think I got something in my teeth can you get it out for me? That's fucking teamwork.

There you go. That's a little, yeah. You're not moved by that, Luke? Listen, I'm 41. Isn't it a law if you're 41, you're not allowed to laugh at Tenacious D anymore? Isn't that how it works? All right, Luke, let's keep it going here.

What a dirt hole segment this has turned out to be. luke uh good knockout on the ufc undercard uh i'm in amin amin's a hobby i should probably get it right look at this right hand from hell against draco rodriguez how do you say this guy's name luke i think i think you got it i don't know all right uh not for us i'll tell you that amin's a hobby this was a good looking shot you know luke he kind of looks like a canadian journalist right a little bit uh but i think by the way he was out for nearly two years before this fight so we're talking about this broner thing and it's like oh well you know he's coming back after a long layoff yes that certainly should limit what you think someone could reasonably do. But just for reference sake, before that fight, he hadn't fought since May of 2019.

Yeah, about two years. You know, you can go out there and perform. And that was against a tough opponent, too. Yeah, kind of looks like, what, Bronstetter, maybe? Kind of looks like him a little bit. All right, Luke, also on this undercard, Juicy J, Julian Erosa, erasing that hick, Nate Landwehr with a flying knee. Your thoughts?

That hick. Jesus. Yeah, this was nice. Faked the left and went with the right, I believe. I have to re-watch it again, but yeah. Nate was like, let me bang, bro, to the ref afterwards. Were you down with Mark Smith's stoppage here? Yeah.

Yeah, I think so that dude was he was you can't tell from that angle what he looked like but i i mark usually makes some pretty good calls all right land weir brought out broke out the mullet which drew the ire of you luke on the old well i just don't understand people like oh i have an ironic mullet dude you just have a mullet it's just more more Budweiser. It's not a 40. I don't understand. You know, it's like if you went to a party with it, okay, it's one thing, right? Oh, I'm going to have an ironic mullet for the party.

Okay, well, that's, you know, it's funny for the gag. Ha ha. You're just walking around with a shit every day now. I don't quite understand that. Thank you. Okay. Luke, finally, backstage before her co-main event, Anna Kunitskaya was warmed up with her significant other, Tiago Santos.

Luke, this is pretty intimate, Luke. No, it's not. It's pretty normal. You're just a fucking weirdo. I mean, would you pay to watch this on pay-per-view, Luke? No, no, you're just weird. This is normal. All right.

All right. Well, hey, it worked. She got the win there over old Ketlin Vieira. Which I did not think she was going to. She did. Wow, she went to full mount there against Mejeda. That's interesting. Crucifix, buddy.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's where I might end up after all these jokes luke okay uh hey let's move on over to uh the zone boxing from london check out this trainer trying to steal a drink of water from the fighter on the undercard luke no no you don't brother you got a damn shield on blocking your face and he pulled down his mask too you that thirsty there guy yeah what have you been you do walk here from the fucking

desert hydrate before you come outside what the fuck all right hey great knockout in the club scene boxing from orlando check out this first round stoppage welterweight cesar francis sending gonzalo carlos daleria to uh the the deep end of the pool there, Luke. Wow. How would you define club level in boxing? You know regional MMA where it could rain in the cage and sometimes the cage floor opens up and the Undertaker reaches out and grabs the sole?

Yeah, it's on that level, Luke. Okay. Good to know. All right. Thank you. Shout out to Tim Boxale for the footage here. All right. LFA 100 over the weekend, Luke.

Steve Wynn with a beautiful right hand against this Juarez fellow. This was a nice one. I watched this one earlier. Great setup right to the face first. Wow. Pack him up. Get him out of there that is it uh luke can we get a wellness check alert on your good buddy tony ferguson he was attempting on this video that he put on social media to bite his own ear luke um um i don't know if i understand snap jitsu as well as you do um this is him trying to whip around to get his own ear.

Yeah. He's trying to bite his own ear. Luke. Um, yeah. Okay. Remember that time at the two 29 open workout that he ran down off the stage and gave you that,

uh, what was it? A baseball? No, it was a, um, it was like a thing to work on your grip. Have you used it?

Yeah. That's weird. That's pretty weird. Okay, Street Fight of the Week, Luke. Some people have hands, and some people also have a new Samsung. Check out this KO via cell phone. Oh, yeah, Luke. What the fuck? I'm going to fire myhone 11 at you next time you piss me off

look at that ass huh so shirtless guy talking a lot of junk and this cool dude in the background's like all right i got you yeah well oh so wait he got hit from behind no straight up he got hit in the chin with a phone collect call from hell bill play one more time as i look at this man's disgusting butt cheeks oh yeah dude what the fuck is that phone made out of vibranium jesus christ yeah plutonium you can't just buy that in a drugstore and then one more time with the man's ass i've seen enough man ass today to last me for a good year. Yeah, yeah.

You could stick coins in there, Luke. You can reach in and get a prize. All right, Luke. Let's move over to weird weightlifting tricks. These are your people. What is going on here? A couple guys in a horse face mask with some fire. Oh, is this Juju Mufu?

Juju Mufu? Yes, it is. This looks like some pro wrestling bullshit, Luke. What is this? Yeah, these guys are, they're like a mix of pro wrestling in the weightlifting world. When I say weightlifting,

I don't mean Olympic. I mean like just lifting weights of any kind. Yeah. They're a mix of that, plus they're like stuntmen, plus it's like jackass, plus it's like jackass plus it's like uh actual lifting it they're they're a weird and interesting combo or it's a it's a it's a nerdy looking dude

and then this big buff dude who i think is on let me see here real quickly i can't quite tell which one he might be i believe it's the one on the right here momentarily where are they spraying on the left excuse me what are they spraying dude it's a listen it's it's very meat-headed humor all right this is one of the worst segments we've ever done of this on this show hey you pick these motherfucker yeah this is not good all right let's move over to other weightlifting tricks look i call this a double squat. Is this impressive? What is this, Luke? I haven't taken a double squat since that time I ate back-to-back meatball grinders, Luke. I mean, that is, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's just circus tricks, right? So he's going to squat and overhead press? Is this impressive? It looks impossible. It's certainly impressive. It's about, I mean, it's hard to tell how the bar is loaded. It looks like he has 225 or so, maybe 240, 250, maybe like 275 on the high bar. And then he's got, those must be fake weights because it looks like he has 315 in his hands.

I don't know that I believe he's overhead pressing or overhead squatting 315. Yeah, people are just trying to get followers on Instagram. You know, yeah, whatever. All right, Luke. One of our listeners named Damo slid in this week and said he hopes this is how you deal with homeless people in your front yard, Luke. I have a fence.

Well, you know, it would be that man's dream to live with you one day. Maybe you can work on this with him. What do you think? Yeah, this dude right here who's doing this is fucking strong, by the way. Yeah. Very strong.

What does that guy weigh? About 215 right there? 195? The guy doing this? I don't know. No, he's strong. The other dude? Oh, I don't know.

Let's say 180, 185. And he might be more. That's impressive. And then to hold it? Yeah, enough of the speed heads. Scorpion King tryouts came to the strip clubs this week luke for the for the movie sequel let's see what we got here oh this is a at home poll luke okay spider pig spider she'll never she'll never walk or dance again luke okay uh let's move over

to the regional mma soon luke we've talked about how anything can happen turns out this guy turned into the ultimate warrior they call this roid range guy on the left gets the stoppage and watch what happens next luke he goes after the ref oh and then the corner oh gee oh shit yikes beating these guys like they stole something from them luke Warner? Oh gee. Oh shit. Yikes. Beating these guys like they stole something from them, Luke. Bro, sometimes it gets, I'm telling you, regional MMA, club level MMA. That's the real shit right

there. You're allowed to do PCP in the locker room. Yeah, people snorting crystal meth before they walk to the cage. Yeah, this is great. All right. Wow, what a shitty segment today is. Hey, or real check out what this drunk chick started by taking a fall here i think she was grabbing onto his swim trunks and then she pants him and then knocked him in the pool. The fall looked real.

Oh, that fall is super real, dude. Her ankle turns. Yeah, yeah. That's hilarious, dude. Luke, remember all that time I told you I met Joe Rogan once, and he's, like, strangely short in person? You're like, no, he's not. No, he's not.

Check out this picture from his interview with Francis Ngannou, Luke. Yeah, I'm sure that's not photoshopped fuck face all right let's roll on hey regis pro gray you know him rougarou uh how about this relatable tweet luke so i was just randomly thinking and i hit some horrendous looking chicks in my lifetime i at least got 30 bodies that i wish i could just erase don Don't judge me. I wasn't always rich. We've all been there. Luke, have we really all been there? I don't think I have quite 30 bodies in that respect,

but let he who is without sin cast the first stone. You got to love the honesty of old Rougarou here. Well done, Regis. All right. Luke, let's move on to the bar. I think this is pre-COVID. Either way, it's frigging creepy. What would you do if you saw this, Luke?

Is that a toe? Oh, my God. What is wrong with these honkies? I mean, what are we doing? Coyote ugly indeed, Luke. Okay. How do you, and Bourbon Street, how do you not set these two

motherfuckers on fire yeah yeah that is great one more for you in the worst have you seen this shit in company history here we go check out this party follow foul and a face full of nachos Luke I can't believe they're white. All right. It looks like that scene of Can't Hardly Wait, right?

You know? Yeah. Okay. You ever fall on face first and take a cake? Like, you know, something almost like cartoonishly awkward? No, no, I haven't, Luke. You know, I did just fall on my face with this shitty segment. I guess I'll have to do better next week, but that's the shit that we got. The trick is, I haven't, Luke. I did just fall on my face with this shitty segment. I guess I'll have to do better next week, but that's the shit that we got. The trick is, I've learned, BC, the trick is if you call for a photo,

you have to send them the photo ahead of time. That's the key. Oh, I did. I did that, Luke. Okay, we'll be talking afterwards. Okay. All right. Hey, Maneach, I'm not against you, okay?

You're on my good side, all right? Speaking of people not on my good side, Luke, it's been a few days now. You all into this Remington Steel rebrand for Jay? What does he call himself? Pennington James? Did you download the single on iTunes? You into this, Luke? No.

No, of course I didn't. Why would I do that? I don't hate my ears. I've watched the extended music video on youtube i i'm i'm decently impressed okay all right very good uh bc time for odds and ends what do you have for odds and or ends hey little upset uh does own boxing over the weekend in london on an eddie hearn card luke there was this welterweight prospect josh kelly goes by the nickname pretty boy josh or pbk uh 12 and 0 former olympian he stepped up in class luke against david avanison Josh Kelly goes by the nickname Pretty Boy Josh or PBK.

12-0 former Olympian. He stepped up in class, Luke, against David Avenison, and he got sent to hell. It's a mild upset, but here's the deal. Josh Kelly kind of fancied himself a white Mayweather, has the Olympic ring tattoo on his midriff. I believe we have highlights of the stoppage here, or at least I did send them in.

Anyone? Anyone? Anyone? Fry? Bueller? Anyone? Aaron? Maniche? Hey!

There it is. There it is. Anyway, look, so Pretty Boy Josh was on the undercard of Anthony Joshua's loss to Andy Ruiz, Luke, and he got a very bad draw against the other Ray Robinson, and it kind of showed you he might not be the guy. Well, he got straight up imploded and exposed here. Evan Eason rallied from a slow start, dropped him in the sixth, and then finally they threw in the towel.

Kelly was bloody, beaten, exhausted. Look, it's not new that we get a you know quick-fisted good-looking english boy that that that kind of claims he has next and then turns out to be you know an imposter but this was kind of tough to see i fancied myself a josh kelly fan here's the uh the stoppage thank you man each and uh avanison you got to give him credit. He just kept coming. Adam Booth had a throw in the towel. Yeah, he was bloody, wobbly, was out of gas. So this is actually a big win for Avanison, who's a fringe player in the welterweight title scene.

He's going to get a big fight from it, but it was too much too soon for 12-1-1 Josh Kelly here and a tough setback for a guy who has such flashy offensive skills. But, Luke, if you don't got it when it comes to the backbone, you't got it so it's tough to see for all you pbk fans out there wow uh i'll actually call a bit of an audible i had sent in a different odds and ends but there's no it was like there was last minute fight cancellations of the ufc so you mentioned the one with chas scally there was a bunch of other ones that fell through including the one we wanted to see which was pena and uh jacar close they're including the one we wanted to see, which was Pena and Jakar Close.

They're going to reschedule it. So it was weird. They had 15 fights. Then they were down to 12. But just as a calling an audible here, one thing that they did during the broadcast, which was a little bit strange. I'm not really mad at it. I'm more just confused by. They aired a Black History segment for Black History Month. And the central theme of the package was Michael Chandler

who had adopted an African-American, a black son. And to be clear, the story is quite nice, touching. We should all be so lucky to have as dutiful and loyal and loving of a father as Michael Chandler is to his son and assuming what we can tell. It's not about the story per se. It was just really weird because it's like I have no idea what on earth that has to do with black history

quite literally nothing it has no relationship to it whatsoever and I was just kind of curious that they would air something like that I mean here's what I think they were trying to do they were trying to do a situation where like how can we talk about black history while you know giving light to

somebody who's a contemporary fighter that we're trying to push. And I think they kind of came up with that story because it is touching, but it's relevant for adoption stories or other kinds of circumstances, but not black history. It has literally nothing to do with it. And I thought that was a bit of a missed opportunity. One of the criticisms UFC has had over the years that they've faced

that even they internally will acknowledge is true, although they're much better about it now than they have been historically, but one of the things they've struggled with is kind of telling their own story. Because the company has changed hands, and the big one was, of course, from SEG to the Zufa era. A lot of stuff gets lost. There's a lot of fan turnover. Telling the stories of what has happened before again they've made massive improvements but it's still kind of a lingering issue i thought that you know you couldn't promote anybody new but it to me it was a bit of a moment where they could have told the

stories of maurice smith eugene jackson pete spratt ed nine millimeter ratcliffe shoney carter you know there's a lot of the guys who who were pioneers basically in early era ufc before it was um you know before the ultimate fighter but you know you live and learn i guess yeah i saw i saw some legitimate criticism luke uh andreas hell uh uh journalist in combat sports i respect a lot was a shout out uh negatively there um it felt pretty tone deaf despite a good story from the chandler family i agree with you. Hey, look, Reggie Jackson just came in, just opened the door. He's a star. Look at this guy, Luke.

Is Reggie Jackson, is he neutered? Yeah, he's got, look at this guy. He's the best man. Yeah, show him, Reg. Yeah, baby. Woo! Do not abuse this animal, you fucking gorilla. He's the best.

I mean, I think he's probably my best friend in the whole world. How old is Reggie? He's about a year. He's handsome. He's mischievous. Oh, he's young. Yeah, yeah. All my pets are old.

All my pets are like nine or ten years old or older. No, I got three of them. He's the second youngest. Maybe he's a year and a half. I don't know. He knows how to open doors like your daughter. Does he scratch? He bites and scratches everybody but me, Luke.

He chews on my beard, which is weird, but he loves me. So, you know, it's great. Dude, I want to see this. Hilarious. I want to see this cat smack the fuck out of you. No, no, no. Beat his ass, Reggie. Don't take that shit.

Yeah, yeah. There you go, dude. There you go. All right, BC. no no no beat his ass Reggie don't take that shit alright BC well if you want to see more Reggie Jackson you should like and subscribe to this channel that's a fact if you want to follow us on social we're everywhere morning combat is consistently the name throughout so you can just look that up of course morning with a K but BC and I have slightly different names

between Twitter and Instagram so take a look at it there and screenshot it and then give us a follow if you want to email the show for either fan submissions dead wrong or anything else morningcombat at gmail.com that is the place to get in any inquiries or submissions okay if you want to try showtime you certainly can showtime.com for a 30-day free trial and then after that you pay $4.99 i think for roughly six months if you want to try out Bellator, which, of course, starts in April. We also have a store, store.show.com, for some MK merch. You can't buy any cats on there that I'm aware of, but, you know.

Oh, God. Get his ass. Yes! Get his ass. Get his ass, Reggie. The MK litter box cover will be coming soon to our merch site. Luke, I think you drew blood.

That was great. Good. Any final thoughts before we get out of here, BC? No. I'm done. We never did see your photo. Alright. Well, we will be back on Wednesday. So, thank you guys so much for watching.

And for Brian Campbell, CBS Sports, Showtime, Mocha, my name is Luke Thomas. May all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be right back. you