MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Dvalishvili Upsets Yan | Bellator 292 Recap | Tszyu Dominates Harrison | Ep. 417

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

On Episode 417 of Morning Kombat the guys have a packed show for you. They start off by recapping Bellator 292. Usman Nurmagomedov easily dispatched Benson Henderson in the first matchup of the Bellator lightweight grand prix. Is it fair to say Nurmagomedov is a top 5 lightweight in the world? Benson Henderson retired following this loss. What's his legacy in MMA? In UFC, Merab Dvalishvili outworked Petr Yan en route to a unanimous decision victory. Is he now the top contender at bantamweight? Plus, in boxing, Tim Tszyu stopped Tony Harrison in the 9th round in Australia to set up a showdown with Jermell Charlo. Based on his performance in this win, did his chances of victory improve? Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher 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:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, reveveille, dogs. 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. Hey, it's the 13th of March, 2023.

You ain't got no job. You ain't got us to do. So you might as well just be here with us. Hi, everyone. Two idiots here to help you today. My name is Luke Thomas. I joined you from the capital of the status of needles right here in Washington, D.C. Joined by my friend from the great.

Well, we'll say great white north, but something kind of close to it. A place that I forgot. There are a lot of white people in Connecticuticut luke okay there's a lot of snow too there's a lot of snow it's uh brian campbell hi brian campbell luke thomas i'm back let's do this thing oh tech tech problems luke almost almost sunk my battleship today but you know uh unlike uh unlike jack at the end of titanic spoiler alert, Luke, I was not only not cold, but I was able to survive. So I'm very excited about that.

Yes, I did try to leave you in the icy water, but it didn't work this time. Yeah, not my fault. We almost didn't have a show today. About 45 minutes ago, I got a phone call being like, well, there's no show today. And I was like, well, that's terrible. But we actually figured it out. Well, do you know what fixed it?

Here's the recommendation for anybody out there. Just restart your laptop. It fixes everything, dude, right? It's like, you know, it's like go back to the drawing board. Sometimes in your life you got to do that too, Luke, okay? But happy to be here with our peeps, all these people who subscribe to us. Because, you know, at the end of the day, Luke, they know deep in their hearts that they're washed pieces of shits and they think we're just cooler versions of that so it look if this is the family we've built luke you know i'm here for it brother all right yeah

same same so we have a fun show planned for you today obviously we have a lot from the weekend to get over or get to i should say there was bellator on friday there was ufc on saturday there was also tim zoo beating kind of the brakes off Tony Harrison on Saturday as well. We'll get to all three of those. So thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube. Please hit subscribe. And if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, do leave us a nice review. I want to remind everyone, Showtime.com is the label that pays.

Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can pound sand. Of course, if you had Showtime over the weekend, you got to see both Bellator and Tim Zhu. Although, BC, we just saw the ads for a plant Benavidez. That one will be on Showtime pay-per-view because that one can't wait for it. Electric in the Showtime schedule. Let me say this episode one of all access Benavidez.

I still haven't seen it yet. I still haven't seen it. It debuted Friday on Showtime. You can catch it now for free on YouTube, on the Showtime sports YouTube channel. And all I have to say is like, if you don't know a lot about this fight or whatever, like plug it, plug yourself in and watch that. I look, I was so fired up watching that last night that I was like involuntarily shadowboxing around the room. Like, I'm not going to give you any spoilers. There's no major spoilers, but it's a great, it's a great program. But dude, every single time Benavidez talks about

plant, he's got like the scary eyes going like every single time, dude. every single time Benavidez talks about Plant, he's got, like, the scary eyes going. Like, every single time, dude. And Plant's just, like, trying to play him like a pup. It's a wild dynamic. And it's going to be interesting to debate as we get closer to March 25th, you know, how that changes things. Because Plant's not afraid of this guy at all. And this guy is the damn boogeyman. So, you know, I don't know who's going to win this Luke, except for you and I on the ground in Vegas,

we're going to be big winners. All right. Yeah. I got to say, I actually watched a fight hub interview with David Benavidez and we've spoken to him too. We actually interviewed him right after he missed weight during the pandemic.

Do you remember that? We were actually hosting the weigh-ins for that. And he missed the, he missed weight. When you actually talk to him about things other than Caleb plant, he seems relatively mild mannered. You bring up Caleb plant, bro. And it's a, it's over. He seems relatively mild-mannered. You bring up Caleb Plant, bro, and it's over. It's a completely different ballgame. He's like, no, I'll actually kill that man.

You know, like, okay, bro, we're just, yeah, okay. Yeah, take it easy. So that's that. I want to remind everyone about that as well. Let's see. We have merch, BC. We have merch on the store. You can go to morningcombat.store.

What can they find at the wonderful old merch store, BC? They can find a fantastic mix of hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts. We're talking about bomber jackets. Look, these bomber jackets are about as handsome as Luke and I can be. So when we put those on, it matters. Why don't you jump on board? There may be some

scant, discounted leftovers from our MK and UK excursion on there, but fantastic quality quality morning combat.store. RJ is there working behind the counter. Tell him BC and LT sent you. I'm sure you'll get nothing from it at all. I haven't even heard from RJ in weeks, Luke. Okay.

But he does a great job just to say. Yeah. Well, when your last name is Dunkel gang bang, I mean, you know, they tell you what they're up to. Oh, here for you. It's morning. I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you. I'll get back to when we can.

BC, that's it for our ads. And then we have to do a recap of OK, bet. And I do this with great. I won't say trepidation. I won't say great trepidation, but well, time to pay the piper, I guess. All right. So you guys know how it goes. Every Friday, we pick the main event winner from the same card,

like who we think is going to win the biggest fight, the biggest card of the weekend. Obviously, we were going to do Usman Nurmagomedov, but he was like a gazillion whatever favorites, so we went to the UFC card. We did that, and then we have to pick which fight is going to end in a KO or a sub, which one will go the distance, which one won't, right? And then we have to pick our favorite and then one of our upsets.

So that's how we went down the list. BC, here's the thing. You did better than me, which is not saying much hold on let me get this out you still did basically as well as you normally do which is to say not well the difference is i did cataclysmically bad i mean literally literally the worst you could fucking do oh and5 for your boy. All right, so let's go through this here very quickly. They call it the golden sombrero in baseball, Luke,

or something like that, right? Now, here's the thing. Your record still sucks, but you had a much better weekend than I did. So let's go through it. We both started off quite badly in terms of top-down picks. We thought in the main event both Jan was going to win. That didn't happen.

That's an 0 for us there. In our favorites, I picked Saeed Nurmagomedov, which, byov which by the way BC Jan I wasn't too too sure about I felt pretty good about the Nurmagomedov pick that one blew up in my face you picked Julius Angliskas he also lost in that one which also I found very surprising as well to Dovletstan Yagshimuradov so uh over there all right well done Grasso I like that i like the commitment there yeah yeah on the underdog i whiffed here gochi yamuchi nope that fight went about five fucking seconds he'll never walk again great job yeah yeah he also might never walk again uh you picked alexander volkov winner winner chicken dinner that was one of them that was your underdog pick well done

in the over under i picked musaev shabli to go the distance which it was getting there it was getting there but of course it ended in the third round you picked uh vasel uh moldovsky to go over that's a big fat l that did not happen uh i had picked for my ko or subbed it says barzola perez no no i had well that's not right but i didn't have it either i had uh krill of going up against um a span you freestyle luke to be fair you freestyled during the show you gave mikey different picks and it wouldn't matter it wouldn't matter either one was wrong but i had said that i was going to end in a ko ended in a sub so it wouldn't have qualified anyway but you did get you did get zoo versus harrison ending in. Correct. So that brings your total to 13 and 21.

Still, you know, you're still the Baltimore Orioles of this bitch. I want to have alligator blood. Luke, check, check, check. OK, I'm not going away. Little by little. I'm coming back. All right. Little by little.

I turned in a whopping. I mean, why would you listen to my advice? It's the worst fucking advice on Earth. Well, but it brings me to where I'm still. Hey hey head is still above water i'm 18 and 16 what we learned is that neither of us are actually good at this but the whole thing is who is worse that's what we're trying to figure out i just came back to put it i gained back two picks this week and uh we'll see what happens this weekend as ufc returns to london with a pretty damn big pay-per-view. What else is going on this weekend in combat?

I kind of forgot to check this schedule. Let's just remind folks, the pregame preview with Chuck Mendenhall for UFC 286. It came out yesterday. It's out now. YouTube.com slash morning combat. That is out. Go have a gander. Take a look.

We always have fun sitting down with the Iceman, Sir charles himself and we get you ready for the big full disclosure we filmed that directly after we filmed the ufc uh john jones pregame preview so we were a little extra saucy so if you come to mk and pregame preview to hear like educated breakdowns from luke and chuck about who will win this is not going to be your episode. Okay. There's going to be a lot of BC humor in it. And that's just, look, you want to,

you want to feed me tiger thick whiskey. That's what happens, Luke. Yeah. Fair enough. You guys were boozing. It was unbelievable. So there you have it.

That's up there for everyone to take a look at and don't bet on anything. I say, otherwise you're an idiot. How about that? All right. Very good. BC, you ready to get this party started? yeah yeah I'm thinking about I'm thinking about put like

not mailing it in at all and absolutely bringing it today Ian I'm I'm always in for that uh all right let's start with let's start with topic number one if we can and we're just basically going to go in chronological order on the weekend here so we start with Usman Nurmagomedov, BC. Now we knew on Friday, according to the odds makers, they had expected him to be the world's biggest favorite. He was going to be, you know, I think it was my over minus 2000 favorite, some astronomical 20 to one favorite to win. And we both thought that was a little silly, but that we, you know, yes, the win is not so much in doubt, but maybe we're sleeping on Benson Henderson a little bit. Yeah, no, no, not at all.

He ran over him. Question mark kick, dropped him, took his back, held it for a couple of minutes until he was able to ultimately secure the choke. BC, the question for you, is Usman Nurmagomedov a top five lightweight? I think he's getting there, if not already. I mean, you know, if you're really asking me to answer that, the evidence says yes up to this point. The name, the lineage, the well-rounded ability.

Look, it's such a problem when you come in being that big of a favorite. He was more of a favorite, Luke, than Valentina Shevchenko was for the Nico Montano flyweight title fight that never ended up happening, which was like the widest odds I've ever seen for a title competitive fight. I don't think these odds represented the true chances that Benson had, like you said, but when you have that much pressure against you to win and win dominantly, and then you break out a freaking question mark kick and drop one of the most durable guys in this division's history, and then take your time setting him up and getting

him out of there. I mean, you know, Big John thought Benson was fine in that choke, Luke. I don't know as much as he does, but I didn't think he was that fine. And then he tapped. I mean, dude, what are you going to say about Usman? Like, I actually liked this matchmaking because Benson Anderson was on a nice little stretch. They're back in San Jose here, like, you know, Scott Coker's MMA lineage and royalty and history there. Kung Lee Cage. I like this setup to open the tournament.

And yet Usman came in and kind of showed that, yeah, he might be even better than we think he is right now at 24. Still only a handful of fights at this very elite level. I mean, what else can you say? Had he won a wide decision, we would have been like, okay, that's nice, you know, but what about this? Oh, he gave you this. I mean, dude, that kick is insane. That way he curved that in. I mean, I get that. I get, I get that's the point of a question mark kick, but to do that early in a fight, not when somebody's staggering or tired early in a fight to hit that, dude, this guy's sick. And of course, he has the last name that tells you he can wrestle if he needs to. But unlike the rest of the Abdulmanap tree of fighters, Luke,

I mean, I know some people say Umar is even better than all of them, better than Islam, better than Habib. We still got to let that play out. But damn, dude, Usman Nurmagomedov is nasty. And, yeah, I mean, if you the the big test when someone's rising like this is like you said let's line up the five best in the world at this weight class what are his chances in each one they might differ but his chances are pretty damn good Luke because he looks to be the absolute real deal yeah two things about that victory I really just want to point out to what you said the question mark kick he slipped on it but the setup was brilliant he went to be the absolute real deal. Yeah, two things about that victory I really just want to point out. To what you said,

the question mark kick, he slipped on it, but the setup was brilliant. He went to the body a couple different times. Henderson thought he was going to get another one, and he whips it around just so nimbly. Stunning a guy, as you mentioned, who was legendary for his durability. And yes, Big John got the call.

Wasn't the best call, but up to that point, they were right. What has Benson Henderson showed? Great durability. That's true. In the Koreshkov fight alone, you saw that. That was up at 170. And also great scrambling. He's been very hard to put away.

It's happened a little bit more recently, obviously. Michael Chandler did it on his exit in Bellator. But this is a guy who's very hard to do those things, too. But there's a commonality between this and the Pettis win. What did you notice? He gets hurt first, then submitted. It's hard to just submit and take the – like from a positional standpoint. It's hard to finish off Vincent Henderson.

You've got to put a couple of different things together. Usman Nurmagomedov did that. I asked you if he was top five. I'm going to read you the top six. Now, if you think Usman can beat one of these guys to me that's kind of you're on the bubble the question is can he beat two of them so you have islam makachev now you know they'll never fight each other so it's hard to say and they're in different organizations obviously as all these guys are and their teammates so maybe he can't beat islam but

there's charles olivera that's a maybe for me dustin poirier that's a maybe for me gaethje that's a yes for me benil dariush that's a maybe for me and michael chandler that's a maybe for me. Gaethje, that's a yes for me. Benil Dariush, that's a maybe for me. And Michael Chandler, that's a yes for me. That's six names, but they kind of shuffle all in that space. Yeah, he might be top five. He might be top five just by looking at that. If he keeps going, and this tournament's got some very strong names in it. I mean, it gives Scott Coker and company a lot of credit.

But if it ends up being him against A.J. McKee in the final, that'll truly show us just where hee in the final that that'll truly show us just where he ranks in the world you know in terms of like okay you'd be the guy that we consider to be pound for pound you know regardless of weight one of the best on the planet and that's aj mckee moving up in weight class and establishing himself here at lightweight that'll tell us more but from what we know now i think the way you laid it out maybe might be I mean the thing is like you just haven't seen him yet in full compromise mode you know to get knocked down be down in a fight and have to battle back but some guys Luke never get to that point because of how dynamic they are so it's it's a lot of fun watching this guy so heady so poised for 24

it seems to have a little bit of everything from all the influences in his life from habib to islam in his corner the late abdul manap and the extended family they're very special i mean look is it talk bellator pound for pound right now i know you're not a voter in the bellator rankings like myself and shaquille majuri are but where do you think you would put usman pound for pound under the Bellator banner? That's a little harder to say. I've never made a Bellator pound for pound list. Well, we're talking about A.J. McKee, Patricio Pitbull. We're talking about Vadim Nemkov.

You know, I mean, he's in discussion. Yeah, he's in discussion. The thing is, those guys have longer resumes or at least longer resumes against more elite guys. And so you have to give that, obviously, more consideration well amasov too yeah i mean they just got more experience against more top guys but he's on his way also one of the thing i want to point out just about what he did i mean just did you see the setup on the rear naked choke the question mark kick is nice this to me wasn't as nice but pretty goddamn slick with one hand he has same side wrist

control right so so on this side Benson doesn't have use of his wrists from behind Usman goes to the op this is the head Usman goes to the opposite side of the head and then pushes it over what does that do when the natural reaction if you're getting pushed from behind almost like you're getting like half or full Nelson your reaction is to write your posture you don't ever want to be off balance but as he writes it into the back usman just pops the hand over immediately pops the arm over and now remember there's nothing defending on this side because usman already had the rear naked excuse me the wrist control so he just slides it through and locks it up all day long a brilliant finish from the back just i mean this guy has tools for days in so many different positions so even if he's not five bc i am very comfortable in saying he's top 10 i don't have

any problem saying that and he is on his way ladies and gentlemen look that's one of the better that's one of the better signings of late from from scott coker and bellator you gotta give him a lot of credit no doubt they've discovered've got to give them a lot of credit. No doubt about it. They've discovered a lot of breakthrough fighters of late, from Nemkov to Amosov, who they brought in. But obviously, AJ McKee was homegrown, and there's a few other guys we're excited about.

But Usman may end up being that dude. He may end up being that guy who becomes the absolute face of your organization because of exactly what we're saying on a worldwide level. He's closing in. He's coming down that road to potentially being best in show. And, God, how consistently deep and dominant is 155 pounds? So it's saying a lot about what Bellator has here. Also, I'll give credit to Bellator on the matchmaking.

This was smart matchmaking. Yes, in one sense, you're like, well yeah it's smart because you know the odds makers considered it a squash match but it's more important than that we thought that the odds were a little bit unfair um and again do i think that's the best that benson henderson could do no but of course the version he turned in was you know it's the only shot you get we have to judge it on what it is but to the point it's like let's put him in the tournament where you get. We have to judge it on what it is. But to the point, it's like, let's put him in the tournament. I mean, we have March Madness coming up, right? 16 versus 1.

It kind of felt like that. It kind of felt like Duke versus somebody who was enough to get to the dance but probably not going to go very far. That's how a tournament should start, just sort of a natural order of things. And more to that point, setting him up against a name in Vincent Henderson for visibility for his wins, I think is pretty crucial. We had, obviously, Alexander Shabli, and we had Tufik Musaib, which was a tough fight, really tough fight.

But the winner of that's not going to get a ton of name value out of it. Now, Usman Nurmagomedov gets a lot from this win, not just because he was the main event, obviously, but for all the reasons aforementioned. A great, great win for Usman Nurmagomedov, BC. Really, really excited to see his next step in this tournament. Cannot wait. Hey, look, as I chew this fruit snack,

which is probably a bad idea on camera. Eating on air is what they always recommend to do at broadcasting school. But I did it because, you know, it's going to bring out my egg, and you're going to get all, you know, that's cool. But somebody DM me and was like, look, BC, I love love the egg shen joke but they sent me the origin of that actor and the fact that he had bell's palsy and that's why he he had to save the guai lo in that way luke but um i hope that makes you think that's going to get me out of not calling you egg shen you're very wrong i mean it's a it's a tick it's a tell luke you know i get really excited the thing starts going

you know what i mean yeah yeah the thing is you don't have bell's palsy you're just you're just a mongrel well you know you always wonder growing up when you drink the tap water as aggressively as i did luke not just in my hometown but wherever i go you know what is there a price to pay for that uh i'm looking at it i'm looking all right uh again uh we'll see how it goes in the next stage of the tournament BC now speaking of Benson Henderson let's go to topic number two here Benson Henderson retired following this loss he had basically said there was a a demand he'd put on himself about um the the last four fights on the contract he had and had to go a certain way for him to keep going and they didn't so he called it a day bc he had quite the run in mixed martial arts in fact our friend sean el shadi over at

mma fighting who of course uh has been covering benson's career in a more noted way given their both proximity of being in arizona he put together a list of all the things that benson henderson had done ready for this here's his hit list after 17 years in the game. He beat Cerrone twice. He beat Nate Diaz right before a title shot on Fox. He beat Frankie Edgar twice. Jorge Masvidal, Patricio Pitbull, although that one's a little dicey. Gilbert Melendez.

It does count. Gilbert Melendez. Josh, that was close by too. Josh Thompson, Clay Greta, and Jim Miller was a WEC champ and a UFC champ. BC, surely you would agree. Benson Henderson is one of the best lightweights in MMA history. Yeah, and I like when you break down the resume like the way you did because it's like he's become one of the sneaky best.

And it's not by disappearing from the sport. I mean, look, going from UFC to Bellator as a big name free agent at the time that he did, where he still had something to give. I mean, he ended up fighting for the title three different times in Bellator and two different weight classes overall. He never went away, but I think because he had lasted so long, you sometimes forget how great he was at the peak of his powers. And Luke at the peak of his powers for this division lightweight although of course he did go up to welterweight at times so durable you know ahead of the game in some aspects the attention to detail on the calf kicking attacks and that kind of stuff big for the weight class was in such memorable fights you know of course he ate the showtime kick but like was in

such great memorable fights through that run that when we talk about the greatest lightweight because Habib had just kicked that door open and went on the run he did and you're like oh is it habib is it bj penn what are we doing here even when we try to make those those rankings real quick luke we tend to forget about benson and um to be able to still be at this level at 39 in a 1 million dollar tournament with a major promotion and fighting for a world title shows you that other side of legacies that we don't always talk about. Like everybody's got a peak. Everybody's got a prime.

Sometimes you can extend it later than others. Sometimes you can resurrect it and have another twilight. I give a lot of credit though, to those guys who already did big things with Benson, which Benson did, but never gave up and stayed at it. And look, he kept at a very high level. I mean, even if he lost these, these big step-up fights in the second

half of his career, you know, he was in those, he was durable. He was tough. Um, a very special career that it's weird. Like, it's a kind of like, it's a whole home nature in a way because he's so quiet and reserved. He's never been a big flashy interview. So again, sometimes you can forget about what he did, but please don't, please go back and watch. I mean, look, remember those two Edgar fights? Remember that one title fight they had in China? I think it was like sneaky, great fight. I mean, he's been in some great ones and I hope that he's receiving those flowers. I know he's going to focus now on his wife's career and that's a cool family story there, but I hope those bouquets showed up at his front door look he deserves it all right i'm you know if i only had

a toothpick here i would i would do the full tribute i really would yeah i mean there's a there's no doubt he's one of the best lightweights in mma history and even some of the wins i didn't mention for example he had wins over anthony andrew kawane in wec he had a win over shane roller shane roller i think was a multiple time all All-American out of Oklahoma State, part of the initial with him and Johnny Hendrickson and I think some other guys. They were part of Team Takedown. There were these guys who were trying to sign all the best collegiate wrestlers who weren't going to go

on to freestyle and turn them into MMA fighters. Some of them worked out, some didn't. Shane Roller ultimately I don't think had the best career but was a very difficult fight, certainly in 2009, and he whooped up over him, then beat Cerrone, then beat Jamie Varner,arner then be by the way loses you mentioned the Showtime kick loses that goes to UFC as everyone migrated over first fight he gets in UFC was the very talented Mark Bocek one of the best Canadian grapplers certainly at that time a black belt very well respected

and Benson Henderson beat him then he beat Jim Miller as we mentioned then he beat Clay Guida then Frankie Edgar twice Frankie Edgar twice. Frankie Edgar twice, back-to-back. Then Nate Diaz. Then Bill Melendez. That was Japan. First Edgar fight, Japan, not China. Same meeting, though. Same meeting.

But here is the issue that he runs up against. It's not – and again, I'm not even mentioning the fact that he beat Rustam Habilov as well. He beat really good fighters, Myles Jury and so forth. The issue is that the biggest wins that he has, certainly the second Edgar fight and definitely the Melendez fight uh they were real close and those are not the only ones that are real close the Patricky fight that was weird where he got the knot over the injury um there's been a even

the how about this the Masvidal fight there's just been a lot of fights where the audience watching at a bare minimum had a very disputed version of what had happened and I think that ended up coloring the perspective on how dominant or good he was but in the end when you can collect that many scalps when you can do it for as long as he did and remain as competitive for as long as he did there's just no denying this is a very special fighter whether he'll go into the UFC Hall of Fame I don't know that's that's a completely separate question he certainly deserves to be remembered for his success in this weight class and even even his b-tier wins bc are very very solid definitely wins i mean how would you describe it in a sense he's like the sum of the parts type of fighter like look did he have one dominant skill i mean you know there wasn't a an overly ton of finishes there's a lot of strong decision wins he's got a lot of cage time but it was because he had a fairly damn well-rounded game

across the board and was very stubborn in some of those defensive categories to prevent people from taking over but it wasn't like he was known particularly for one thing he was just a a damn great mixed martial artist he was and he was aggressive but i think it's the series of decisions from pettis uh the pettis loss all the way to the in between the pettis fights he had nothing but decision so he decision bocek decision miller decision guida decision edgar decision edgar decision nate diaz decision melendez and he gets finished by anthony pettis there i think that i think played a role because to your point, what was his ace in the hole? To me, he was hard to hurt.

As we mentioned, great scrambler, very hard to choke. Guys would go for chokes on him and couldn't get it. Relentless pace. I would say the one thing he kind of developed, you mentioned the calf kick. His kicking game kind of brought some new dynamism. Remember, he had a Taekwondo background. That was a big part of what he did.

So he just brought in some dynamism in that way but he was much more a jack of all trades than a master of some uh and i think that it was just overall he played the levels really well again another thing like khabib had like dominant wrestling or you guys see like dominant strikers or dominant punchers he never had exactly that but the full tool belt the the batman belt around his around his waist there was it was very difficult to deal with in the time in which he competed in the aughts or excuse me he always had a great motor too it was always in shape you gotta be if you're gonna go five rounds with all these killers yeah uh didn't have didn't i mean the problem was like the fights he had in terms

of like rivals people think he lost either one or both the edgar fights he never had a rematch against melendez he lost both pettis fights he never had like that trilogy that lifted him and in terms of a narrative he was just always kind of that guy that thorn in the side of the division rather than the accepted king there was just a lot of dispute well he did have time the trilogy with with cowboy it was just that he had won the first two. So it was sort of like, oh, we're doing it a third time. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, fair. Actually, well, he fought Cerrone in 2009 and then twice in WEC.

And then, yes, they had the loss to him at the end there. That's right. I apologize. 2015. Still, you know, that fight kind of sucked, too. Although he rebounded from that against Brandon Thatch. I mean, that was kind of amazing as well. Yeah, well kind of amazing as well yeah yeah yeah that was supposed to be like the next big thing and then old Benson whooped up on him and then beat Masvidal then tries to fight

Koreshkova 170 that got him a bit of trouble but certainly daring to be great the entire time too and by the way just looking at his fights here never had never ducked a difficult challenge ever ever ever ever always signed up for the toughest assignments here's the hard question when i say mount rushmore you know that means four spots is he on the mount rushmore of either lightweight mma history or wec history or none of either but hey great career i think he might be on wec so wec you would have you would have pettis faber faber aldo aldo faber pettis aldo i mean uh yeah that's where you go do you go cowboy but he didn't win the belt right I mean Mike Thomas

and it wasn't sustained yeah Pettis yeah Pettis has to be on there dude he's yeah yeah Pettis DJ Aldo favor maybe that Pettis DJ offering Miguel Torres and Hennon Baral or Dom Cruz Or Dom Cruz.

Or Dom Cruz, but, you know, he... Dom Cruz. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he may not be on... Yeah. So, this is what I mean. Like, you can't knock the resume. Very, very respectable.

Very high achiever. But I think there are a couple of things, either the nature of the wins themselves, or, again, that the, the game you speak to, it's really well-rounded, but not super specific in one kind of way.

I think that holds him back just a little bit, but a very, very, very successful MMA career. And I don't know what kind of money he made BC, but I hope it's enough. You have a history interviewing him, Luke.

I mean, he was never like overly, you know, expressive. No, not so much. I think I interviewed him a couple times early in his wec ufc run and you know i mean this idea where we have to like interview fighters the same guys every single year it really never made sense to me so i haven't really spoken to him in a long time but you know i got a lot of respect for what he was able to pull off and clearly a thoughtful guy clearly a guy by the way remember he was going to like all these clearly a thoughtful guy clearly a guy by the way remember

he was going to like all these jiu-jitsu tournaments to challenge himself in the middle of his ufc career just because he wanted to like get competition to get better just always ran into the fire never around it right always right through the middle and you got it you got to really take your hat off to a guy like that as much as it's weird that he fought with a toothpick in his mouth do you know that hulk hogan and his prime would wrestle with a razor blade in his mouth because you know they use the razor blade to to to cut to blade luke to produce blood and normally they keep it under the tape on their wrists dude hogan used to put that in his mouth and wrestle with how weird is that yeah well hulk hogan you know, also banged Bubba the Love Sponge's wife.

I mean, we're just, you know. Okay. I mean, that was the worst of his moves. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yep. From what I understand, not the most racially progressive guy. All right.

There we go. There we go. Yeah. I mean, it's true. From what I've heard. From what I've heard. I've heard the tape. Yeah, I've heard the tape.

Don't sue me, Peter Thiel. I don't have that much money. All right. BC, let's go to point number three here, if we can, in it's true. From what I've heard. From what I've heard. I've heard the tape. Yeah, I've heard the tape. Don't sue me, Peter Thiel. I don't have that much money. All right, BC, let's go to point number three here, if we can, in today's show. Let's get to the UFC action on Saturday. Marab Dabashvili. How good was this breakthrough moment here? Wow.

Yeah, so you and I have kind of been on the fence about Marab. We had always known, and this was obvious to everyone, that he had just had the sickest cardio. And by the way, I'm just going to say it. He's got the best cardio in MMA period. Like I, there's no one quite like him, uh,

independent of weight class, independent of organization. Nobody has a motor. Like that video to cut you off. Did you see that video of him at a pool where it was this really, really long pool? It was, it was indoor somewhere.

And he jumped in one end of it, Luke and swam the entire distance at insanely fast speed and then got out and was like flexing but like it's a distance that even elite athletes would be like you know it was like multiple pools connected together i mean the guys just got sick sick endurance and yeah he's got a cardiovascular conditioning that is historically rare you're just not going to see guys like this very often. So anyway, he beats Jan. I'm not going to say easily BC, but in terms of the scorecards,

he basically blanked him. He blanked him. Yeah. Okay. In your mind. Now, I don't know what's going to happen with Aljo. We'll talk about it in a second. In your mind, is there any doubt he's the number one contender at 135 pounds

well yeah there is some doubt because the division is insanely deep as we know it's been bottlenecked at the top consistently because of different reasons aljo being hurt the dq changing of hands of the title a lot of that and it's still kind of weird right now that sugar sean o'malley after beating the same guy piotr yan was allowed to cut the class get the number one hands of the title, a lot of that. And it's still kind of weird right now that Sugar Sean O'Malley, after beating the same guy, Piotr Jan, was allowed to cut the class, get the number one contender spot, but then didn't get the title shot. Isn't fighting anyone as of right now for an interim title shot, right? You could easily do the rematch against Cheeto and they didn't do that. So does Murab deserve to jump ahead of that? Well, can't you argue that even though he didn't do it as dynamically or as one-sidedly, O'Malley just beat that same guy.

Either way, Luke, the real thing here is even separate from the talk about the relationship between him and Aljo, which I get is a big part of this. Yeah, this was an absolute breakthrough moment in his career because we did have questions about the striking. The striking isn't completely there on the same level of what he does, but the way he's able to utilize the head movement and with that insane pace and the fact that when he does connect, those are some big shots. He really loads up on those right hands. He's right in this mix. If he's not getting the next title shot in the winter of, um, Aljo going against, uh, Henry Cejudo.

And obviously again, there's relationship issues there. There's some monster fights for him. You can see him. I mean, look, what if he fought Sugar Sean O'Malley for their interim title next? What if he fought Chido Vera? What if he fought anybody? He's at most, he's going to have to fight one more before the title, but that's the type of breakthrough performance that if this was any other division at any other time, you'd be, be you know finding out his belt size right now to get ready for this title bout because he jumped through our screen he took on a guy in Jan who yeah had the weirdest stretch of three losses and four fights for an elite fighter that we've seen in some time yet from the very beginning he dragged him into deep waters and even though, we know Jan's heart and his spirit, and he fought back and he tried,

he landed some big shots at times. But Luke, he was coming from behind the entire fight after the big moments in the first round, just completely overwhelmed by this pace. Not enough to break him, not enough for him to get stopped and exposed fully. But once again, you know, Jan goes into a huge fight against a huge contender here. And this time he came up empty again. And dude, it's because Murab is leaping through your screen with confidence and the ability to mix that whole game together. Um, you know, he's like Habib to a certain standpoint, he may never need to fully figure out the striking. Habib made his own

striking work for him in relation to the threat of his ground game and how just incredibly smart he was Rob like the striking is good enough right now Luke he can win a championship tomorrow if he got the chance so what a freaking performance and before I throw it back to you I know they were only at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas because of the stupid dick slapping thing over at the Apex Luke on uh brought to you by Rumble TV whatever that is Luke but I will tell you this. Him, and we've seen that venue before, the old Hard Rock. We've seen it for years in UFC, boxing, all that. The fighters essentially come in like through the crowd almost

to get to the cage. Merab's stopping and high-fiving everybody. That small crowd was filled with Georgian flags. That was an environment. And he seemed to thrive on that and it seemed to buoy him buoy him buoy him luke we haven't figured out how to say that word have we no we have it's buoy okay he had seemed to it seemed to buoy him to an altogether next level and when you look back at the run in the consecutive win streak it's like okay he

almost got stopped against morice and had to had to show superhuman effort but outside of that dude he's getting a lot better every single fight and not getting banged around a lot outside that marais fight yeah so i don't know if this stat i'm about to tell you is still in play as the there's only three guys in it him now adding himself to it but a few years ago i was talking with the fight metric guys and they were telling me but this again this there may be more at this point but this was a few years ago they were saying that there's two guys to this point that have in a single ufc fight scored at least 100 significant strikes and 10 takedowns in the same fight one was the last one was kane velasquez one was usman excuse me one was kamaru usman I apologize. You can now add Murab to the list.

Murab in this fight, listen to this fucking stat line. This is insane. Okay, ready? He attempted 401 strikes, landing 202, of which 147 were significant. He attempted, and I can't believe I'm looking looking at this 49 takedowns in this fight you're like well he only got 11 of them big fucking deal he got 11 of them 11 takedowns 147 significant strikes six minutes and 53 seconds of control time that is insane bonkers bonkers level of output bc he first of all we should say something marab striking to me look the best it's ever looked

now some of it he landed a lot of he didn't but he looks like he is improving his technical refinement and i want to be very clear about that. On the other hand, I don't know how much he needs to refine it. If he can spam this much volume at guys, dude, Jan did not have bad cardio in this fight. Jan didn't look pathetic in this fight at all. He was a worthy adversary. Nobody can stand up to this kind of volume either you hurt and put marab away or it is fucking curtains for you over the long haul it's brilliant the way you just said that because that's exactly here's how smart that team is now look rob showing us he's got a hell of an iq but obviously

credit coach longo matt sarah and the crew over there the way that they looked at yan and said okay late starter, right? Takes time to figure it out. Thrives down the stretch of the championship round. It's been like peyote on superpower and some of his biggest wins, you know, San Hagen on and on. They, they jumped out such a quick pace on him early that they put him into that fight or flight mode. I mentioned that he never properly recovered from.

So like automatically that put him in such a big advantage. And to your point, unless you're going to stand in there and finish him, Marais went ham in that first round and tried. Jan never truly committed because I think he was already facing an uphill battle cardio wise with how wild the start was for him, but he never really bit down and said, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to pour out the jug right now and see if I can finish you. Obviously, because if you don't, Rob's going to run you over. But the difference between Rob and anybody else who spams takedowns and, you know, the perfect image I have that is Damian Maya in defeat against Tyron Woodley. Remember, it's just like constant, constant takedown.

The difference is, is that Rob doesn't always need to do the takedown. He look, he's so smart. He gets up in your grill, but it's the constant fakes and faints, which are nonstop. He's just waiting for that little slight opening where he's either coming over the top with the big right hand, he's surprising you with a calf kick, or he's shooting in for those single-leg takedowns.

And the way they described in the broadcast what that does, always going for single legs instead of double leg, keeping the opponent off balance. He's just like, you see those stats. You see how he just destroyed came to Alaska's record for most attempts for takedowns in a single fight. But it wasn't this reckless, you know,

stubborn Damian mile level. It was constantly reading what's in front of him, making the other person show their tell and then respond to it. I don't think we give him and his team enough credit for how smart they are. Luke and the 25 minutes showed us exactly what he's operating with up here, which means it's not just, okay, you know, is O'Malley a potential kryptonite because he's such a sharpshooter and he can pick them apart coming in.

Well, you better finish him if you're going to pick them apart coming in, because he's going to take a chunk of your stamina in the craziness that he lures you into. I don't really know what is the right style to counter this. What does it look like, Luke, when he goes up against a super elite wrestler? He can take the risk of gassing them out just through the constant attempts of taking them down. I mean, it is a superpower, but I think to your and my point about the striking,

at least he's got a powerful right hand. There were moments where it looked like Jan might start getting back into the fight, where when he got too close, Marab really popped him with one that reminded him, like, I'm not only going to be up your ass this whole fight, I'm going to be on you, but if you take too many chances, I can get

you out of here. I didn't see this coming. I saw a guy who's always going to be kind of a wild card, Marab, with some of the elite skills that he has, but now that he's putting it all together and making it work in one flow state. And now that the commitment to those, those constant fakes are just making him so hard to pick up. This is going to be an interesting puzzle for the most elite coaches and fighters in this division to really study that tape and figure out how to constantly either get him off rhythm or or meet him in his tracks with something big that makes him think twice but jan can do that luke peyote jan can knock you the f out he couldn't slow this guy down at all he couldn't and again the only way

you're gonna stop him is you it's you know what know, who would be a tough matchup for him. If there was someone in the weight class like this, I actually think a Yair Rodriguez would be like a tough fight. Now, again, one's bantamweight, one's feather. That's never going to happen. But what I mean is, what do we say about a guy like Rodriguez? Great body attacks, by the way, and at range, but he just has attacks everywhere. So many guys spend so much time defending.

I'm going to grab the wrist. I'm going to whizzer. I'm going to turn my hips. I'm going to have my guard up, whatever. I'm going to defend this onslaught. You almost have to just eat it and then fire back constantly because unless he gets hurt in some kind of meaningful way, a big, big cut, his knee is injured or ankle or body hurts for some reason, unless he is meaningfully hurt. I don't know if he's at this stage of his career. I don't know if he's stoppable. He will just keep going on this. I mean, he showed tremendous heart against Marash,

like stupid level heart, right? He sure did. And that's the other part too. Like he's not, I don't want to read this. I'm making it out to be like, you know, he's just a volume guy, but BC listen to his career stats to this point, right? Because he's not only putting out a ton of volume, he's depressing what other guys can do by virtue of the volume.

In some ways, his best defense is his offense just because it's smothering. But his strikes landed per minute, 4.46. That's very good. Strikes absorbed per minute, 2.41. That's below average for a ranked fighter. That's good, right Strikes of sore per minute, 2.41. That's below average for a ranked fighter. That's good, right? The lower your golf score, the better. That's what that is. He gets hit half as often as he hits. I can tell you there's a lot of ranked fighters that are not that way. And how about this, BC? Takedowns per 15 minutes, 6.55. An astronomically high number even good grapplers are usually sub 2 per 15 he's nearly

at 7 per 15 minutes dude what the fuck are you gonna do with that guy seriously uh look before we get into what should be next in the future of him and him and aljo being best friends when we do talk about which we're talking about right now like who's gonna who can who can figure this out omel is an interesting matchup because of the sharpshooting nature but obviously marab could be monster kryptonite for him and just just you know take him down drag out the cardio i do wonder if chito vera with the extreme violence can can either discipline marab's output to a certain degree or like cut him chop him open do something that really tries to prevent that downhill motion what about umar and marga medoff who's not currently in the top 10 but he's coming on luke that's another guy with such a unique

well-rounded game that you're like well well let me let me hold judgment you know get what he'd look like against him until we get there and see it. But those three ideas in mind of who could look good against him, I want to know your opinion here. If you're Sean Shelby, what do you do next? Because O'Malley does not have a fight. I don't think Chido Vera has a fight. I thought he was recovering from injury. Where are we going here?

Because Aljo's got to see who's next. No, Chido's fighting Sanhagen, right? Oh, you're right. So let's update that. I'm sorry about that. So we don't know about O'Malley. Chido's fighting Sanhagen and Aljo's got Cejudo. Now Aljo and Marab are not going to fight. You know, I respect that

Luke, unless Marab beats everybody and Aljo's still the champion, then we change that conversation. But for right now, there are enough matchups in my opinion luke where he doesn't necessarily need the title shot where are you going which direction here well i've seen people being like oh there's no way marab and uh aljo will fight well if i had to bet i would bet that they would in fact not fight uh however you know i have lived through

long enough of combat sports to see many times teammates say, we're never going to fight, and then later on they actually find a way to, in fact, fight. So while I appreciate that they don't want it, and I suspect they will resist it, for example, Koscheck and Fitch never fought. There was a lot of pressure on those guys to face one another when they were at the same time, and AKA, they never did. Okay. But I've also seen the opposite happen a lot.

So if it doesn't happen i think you can go well let's just back up a step if if henry suhudo wins i don't think they're going to give aljo an immediate rematch i just have a feeling that they're not going to go that direction right even if he ekes one out so that you could do you could go give him the title shot after that that's one thing you could do that leaves Sean O'Malley the only issue is BC Umar Nurmagomedov I'm not saying your point is not well taken because I agree with you in fact Umar is a sniper and I think a guy like that could be a real problem for a guy like Murab but he's only sitting at 11 he's only sitting at 11 Ricky Simone who's done great work is sitting at 10

you got Song Yedong at 8 Rob Fawn at 6 obviously marlin and cory are gonna fight each other sitting at 4 and 5 so it creates a real interesting problem or rob's gonna have to sit out i think honestly if they um dude what about sean o'malley why is he not fighting sean o'malley dude aren't they okay but if you're ufc okay let's just back up a step let's say you're sean uh sean uh i won't say al shadi you're sean the fuck man the shelby yeah henry beats step. Let's say you're Sean. Sean, I want to say Alshadi. You're Sean. What the fuck, Matt? Shelby. Yeah.

Henry beats Aljo. Let's say he does it triumphantly, right? You're going to want to make Henry versus Sean O'Malley, right? Yes. The only way I think you get around that is with an interim title. And again, I don't like to advocate for the misuse of interim titles. And this would be a misuse. The champion is not injured or away or suspended or anything, but it allows you to present it as a absolute big,

legitimate moment. I mean, what about the idea? Like, cause you know, you again, like you said, you respect Aljo and Marab saying you're not going to fight each other.

I agree with you that if Marab beat enough guys and Aljo decided not to move up and was beaten enough guys, there would be a pisser, you know, get off the pot moment, but UFC could kind of F around and make that thing happen sooner than later by putting O'Malley against Marab for an interim title that would, you know, go off a little bit after Aljo versus Henry happens. And if it just so happens that the two teammates survive in advance, then they got to make that decision. Luke, I'll just got to move up in that instance. And then morale will be morale. We'll just be fighting that next guy in line.

Maybe the winner of San Hagen versus Cheeto. Um, I don't hate that idea, but I don't think you're going to get on board with it. What's what do you, what do you have against that interim title idea? It kind of fixes everything, even though I hate doing that. The problem is you don't have, you would be doing that to accommodate guys in ways that the ufc doesn't have to i mean they never have to with the interim title but in ways where they really don't have to here but that's all they do in modern history it's all they do is accommodate that to fill out the marquee you know that that's what we do here they might i'm not okay i'm not

saying it's crazy i'm not saying it's crazy i don'm not saying it's crazy. I don't think it's crazy. I think it's unlikely only because the champion is not in recess. The title is moving, but they could like alleviate the log jam. I think is what you're trying to say, right? So yes, because that would force this conversation. If Aljo and Mara both won those difficult matchups,

then you'd go, okay, guys, you're number one and two. You're you, you both have parts of the same championship aljo either go now or let's see how you know let's see if you guys want to figure this out okay that'd be a great way to fix this division but you know they don't let me match make

too much look you know sean and nick they don't they don't i i wanted to uh i wanted to make one point if i maybe see i saw something over the weekend uh because i didn't watch any of the fights live i decided to have a weekend with my family, so I had to go back and watch everything later. And I noticed something that was brought to my attention, which was kind of interesting. There's this, I'll give it a shout out. There's this Twitter account called MMA Wretch. They do good work. And basically he or she, whoever it is, ends up making a point, which you kind of know, but they show the details of how it's true namely marab implemented very specific tactics including some single legs and then forcing uh

or i should say compelling anyway yon to use his high guard to block in order to get to certain positions to get to the hips to get to the leg and then run the leg back to the fence and this was causing a shit ton of problems for yon why do i bring this up some of those things that jan did or didn't he reacted in certain ways to al jermaine sterling and al jermaine didn't realize some of that in real time but it's a five round fight they fought twice the second one went the full distance you actually get a little bit more tape and so here is a real big challenge for fighters who are championship level or former champs themselves once you get to that level dude there's so much tape on you and you might have opponents that are teammates that this is why it's so hard to maintain a title because we haven't

talked about the fact that Jan won the title lost it and gone one and three since then to me it's really not an accident you're looking at Merab taking things that fighters, including his teammate, have learned over the course of Jan's UFC run, put a much more specific game plan together around very known recent weaknesses, or at least tendencies anyway. You can turn a tendency into a weakness, and they're using that against them. It's my opinion, BC.

Yes, champ champs are special, but to me, the hardest to do in mma is to win a ufc title to begin with and then defend it over time because we just saw it with valentina shevchenko dude there is tape on you what did grasso grasso excuse me do she they had planned for her to spin and jump the back that only comes from years of having available tape. You don't know what the tendencies are with how she throws that and when she throws that until you fully studied it. It turns out she throws it often a little bit too close to her opponents, right? But you have to, there's time it takes to get all these details out of someone. Dude, Jan has gotten to a stage of his career where there's a lot of either known weaknesses or known tendencies that they can build

weaknesses around. And it's really, really, really hard to undo that. I want to say it again, dude. Jan didn't look bad. He didn't look bad. He just looked overwhelmed. Mikey just chimed in with the point that's similar to what you're just making that, you know, coach Longo and company had, had game plan twice already for Jan against Aljo. So they use that information wisely here, Luke, and then had a different...

The answer is yes. If you watch the first round of the first fight between Aljo and Jan, Aljo was just raining on him. You know what I mean? Like there was just nowhere to go. Yes. But different ways,

different ways in which they were able to set up stuff. I thought, I think more educated ways. And again, dude, Aljo's got a great gas tank he doesn't have a bad gas tank at all but no one's got a marab gas tank and he can he can do 49 takedown attempts 400 attempted strikes that's fucking insane insane yes yes yes um do you think they'll go back to virgin hotels because of how fun this was? Or do you think Dana didn't even watch the card? I don't think he even watched the card.

I mean, dude, didn't you like that feeling of that fan interaction? Was I the only one getting high off that? So I like it, but I didn't like it. Also, if you're Jan, that small cage, I don't know how much he liked it. I don't know how much he liked that. That's a lot to deal with, you know? So I guess it'd still be small on the apex, but we're talking about, like, what's a good place to put a fight? Maybe a place where you can have the full-size cage? I don't know.

It depends on your perspective. Okay, whatever Adzuk wants, Luke, he's going to get at the end of the day. You know that. Do you think Pyotr Yan stays with the UFC? I don't know his contract situation, but when you lose four or five at the elite level, you know know you kind of run out of guys yeah yes and no dude that division is tough so maybe he wants a break

maybe he wants to go someplace else but this is what i was thinking about bc in this whole thing which is if you're yawn you definitely need a reset right you definitely need a reset it's time for a reset but this is not Darren Till asking for a release for very different circumstances now Till's had a lot of losses I think more five to this point he's only at three but Till to me was regressing I want to say it again Jan did not look bad he did not look bad he did not look like a guy who can't beat good fighters or elite fighters top five fighters his last win was over cory sandhagen who's still a top five fighter but i do think it's time for a reset in the sense of let's get someone a little bit more manageable for a get back win and i think

he's got to switch some stuff up if guys are making game plans this specific he's got to work on making some new setups and new changes or some changes in the way that he does things. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, two of those losses are split decisions. One of those was a DQ. It's kind of hard, but we'll see where he's going here. I mean, it's I never thought I mean, this is this is what happens. This is the dark side of daring to be great.

He's been very aggressive in his matchmaking after each defeat, always wanted to get right back in line, you know, whatever it takes to fight that next guy this division's so deep that dude this can actually happen um wild wild luke uh man damn i love this division think about this we get so hudo kind of it's almost under the radar like i know we're talking about it or not really talking about it he's just parachuting into this already deep and amazing division at the moment we have so many names who could be wearing this title uh what a time what a time that fight and that fight was so fun just that atmosphere i don't know luke uh dude marab's coming on and in in it's it's hard to say we should have saw it coming because sometimes it just goes full bloom at the right moment that

was that was the damn moment right there there it is yeah i mean listen jan was the favorite but barely i think i do we all knew that Merab was a threat. What I didn't know was that he could put together such a, here's the problem, right? Against Aldo, it felt a little, I don't know, one note. Like he just had one gear he could go to. This felt like he had a full plan, and he engineered it and worked it to perfection.

He had a symphony going here. All the different sections were flowing when the times that they needed to. And it was balanced and efficient and yet still overwhelming. That was such a masterclass in how to weaponize cardio and volume against a very difficult again i want to say it again a very difficult opponent i he really i mean he had my respect before well he really has it now amazing performance amazing mikey just reminded me the reason why i brought up the idea of like jan leaving was he had threatened to leave the ufc in november when he due to judging judging following what can you say here this This was fair judging, bro.

You lost, you know? No, this was fair game. He does have to go back to the drawing board. I just don't know. Sometimes, look, sometimes if you... That many losses happen,

you're like, I got to leave this territory. I got to just go somewhere else, you know, regain my mojo, win a title there, and then maybe come back one day. We'll see. I mean, look, Luke,

if he... Wouldn't be the worst idea. He's still in his 20s, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see him in a trilogy bout with Magomed Magomed off you. That wouldn't be the worst idea he's still he's still in his 20s if i'm not mistaken yeah i mean i'd like to see him in a trilogy bout with mogul med mogul med off you uh it wouldn't be the worst idea i mean he doesn't you're saying he has to go to bellator oh he's not saying that i just i like

i like interesting matches when i put on the randy couture hat i like interesting matchups luke okay and that's one of them right there i mean listen let me be clear about this going to bellator actually could be a good idea although, Bellator's 135 division is not some fucking walk in the park, man. There's tough guys down there too. So like, you know, yes, that would be a fun. Hey, dude, speaking of that quickly, because Patchy Mix has that big fight with Raffion Stotts and Bellator for a million bucks. Did you hear on that broadcast over the weekend? And I'm sure DC and Felder got penalized for this through their ear hole but they were bringing up rafi on stats and they were mentioning that paul felder

used to train with him and because stats had that early loss to marab i believe and they were saying you know stats hasn't lost since then and then there was a pause and then cormier's like yo is he still the champion in that other place and i'm like all the producers are gonna hate this dude they're gonna hate this although dana's not they're not as crazy as they used to be about stuff like that no somebody made him stop dude because felder responded okay quickly earlier in the broadcast felder and dc were responding back to their producer on the air and then they finally were like oh sorry guys i was you know answering a question of the producer was giving them stats this sounded like the producers were like dude stop talking about the other side and then felder actually said oh yeah yeah okay

okay okay and then it just awkward i mean don't get me wrong the ufc stole every promotion wants to pretend it's north korea and that any other promotion doesn't exist so that's true more generally although some are you know less hard up about it but i would just say in general like rogan had a bellator reference recently on air you know it's happened it's happened it used to be like you couldn't even acknowledge elite xc you couldn't even acknowledge the ifl now it's like all right oh i was hoping you would conspiracy it to the level because stats owns an mk bomber jacket that maybe you know i'll say this if you're if you're wondering if a producer was in his ear telling him to stop you're probably right because you know how that is too.

But I'm just saying they used to be absolutely fucking insane bringing up anything else. Now it's not as big a deal. But okay, neither here nor there. All right, BC. Question number four. Let's make it a little more open-ended here. BC, who on the Bellator or UFC card this past weekend stood out for their strong performance?

Dude, I'm glad I put my confidence back in him because I still do think Alexander Volkov has a shot at getting himself down the line into a title shot. I know he's looked at as either the worst of the best heavyweights or the most elite gatekeeper that this division has. And I do recognize that Alexander Romanov, just recently a monsterkeeper that this division has and i do recognize that alexander romanov just recently a monster prospect in this division luke i don't know what happened he fought like shit and he came in at 264 and a half pounds half pound shy of the limit looking in extreme dad bod mode like worse shape than he was in when he gassed out against Marcin Tybura and lost that majority decision, like visibly worse shape. So I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to overlook the potential of fool's gold here, but the reason why I'm so high on that performance from Volkov

is do you see the level of shape he came in? Did you hear the pre-fight interviews talking about how much he's dedicating to take down defense and grappling, knowing that look, like, look, he hit his ceiling a couple of times over now where he looked like a possible threat and then couldn't get over the hump against blades. Although he fought well, right. Couldn't get over the hump in, um, Aspinall subs amount. And you're like, ah, damn man. Maybe he never will. At 34, he has made that decision that we all get to at some point in our career of if I don't give every single thing I

have it's not going to happen I think he's doing that right now but dude can I get your answer what the hell happened to Romanoff because that's about as damaging a two-fight stretch after you were like hungry hungry hippoing everyone before that dude he could be in trouble here yeah he has shaken my confidence in him big time. He had some potential. To your point, he had a better physique, much less fat on him, in a contest where he still gassed. And then this one, as you indicated, he came in. He had to cut to make 265.

I think 264.5 was where he weighed in at specifically. It's like, dude, what is going on with your decision-making where you think this is a good idea or not that costly? You cannot fight guys like Alexander Volkov, half-assed or marginally or somewhat prepared, and really expect to win. You're like, oh, well, Jon Jones did that. Right, Jon Jones did that. You are not Jon Jones.

You've got to understand that there are very special guys, and you can like them or hate them, but they are special, and they're going to get away with shit. That dude, that dude's not that he's just not that. And so the lack of the lack of, I mean, and now listen, if he was injured and took the fight, cause he needed money. That's one thing, you know, maybe, but if he was just like, yeah, I could be bigger and it's not really a big deal. You're just, if that's the case, if you're just not thinking clearly, you're not. He also was spamming takedown attempts to the level. You're just, if that's the case, if you're just not thinking clearly, you're not thinking rationally. He also was spamming takedown attempts to the level.

Like he would not give up on that single. Like Luke, he was willing to run that pipe. That tells me that he didn't have cardio for later and he knew it. So he was, it was just, it was just get them down right away or else. Right. Cause you're not going to have, you're not going to have cardio in the end of round three or even the half back half of round two. Get it

in now. And it didn't work, obviously. During the preview, when I teed up the idea of Volkov's back tad in your updated take on it, you didn't seem that familiar in that moment. Did you catch that when you rewatched it? Do you like what he's doing? I didn't really pay attention to it. Do we have another shot at it?

Mikey would know that. Our fantastic producer mikey more mile uh do me do me a favor we don't have to yeah grab one later we can take a look at it mikey i don't know if you have it i want to do uh talk about my guy over the weekend and i gotta tell you bc i thought i thought there's a chance yamauchi might win you know i really did and who knows what would have happened in a different world bc but about 30 seconds into yamauchi's fight with mvp we learned he may never walk again is really what happened can we say something about mvp we talked about what a great signing usman number gamedov is for bellator mvp i think was a slow win for them because we had talked

about it early in his career, you know, was not fighting the toughest guys. But now you could say he certainly is. And on top of that, you're just talking about a guy who just has insane viral wins. The win over Cyborg Santos, the one we talked to him about. How about this one on top of it, BC? He shatters the kneecap or some shit of the right leg of a guy like Goichi Yamauchi with just his second or third kick of the fight and stops it.

Dude, I don't know what to say about MVP. The guy is a born highlight machine. Sometimes I should say in very gruesome ways yeah but wow is he not you mentioned spike carlisle is the best tv fighter no mvp is the best tv fighter oh for sure memorable performances all the time as long as we can forgive him for that paul daly fight then yes yeah that one sucked and then the logan sorely fight sucked but that was not necessarily his fault but but dude the wins he's had have been spectacular at times my favorite memory though that paul daily mvp fight was the next morning when i flew into uh hartford from la luke i was out there for something and uh i ran tomorrow as he was about to get on the plane to fly home from

the mohegan sun and he had he was it was like 4 a.m and he was so angry get on the plane to fly home from the Mohegan Sun. And he had, he was, it was like 4 a.m. And he was so angry, still like hung over in anger from that fight, not living up to the entertainment, you know, options that it ultimately had. But no MVP, that's a big one. Luke, they were big. John teed him up about the potential. I know the ass kicking machine is ranked one higher than him. Jason Jackson, who has a fight coming up.

And he was like, do you want to fight the winner? I love the MVP. He's like, no, dude, I want to fight Amosov. Like, I'm ready for the belt now. Considering he lost that questionable split decision to Storlie, and considering Storlie just got blanked, right, when he lost to him, it was for the interim title. Dude, you got, it would be promotional malpractice

not to do MVP versus Amosov next. Three and a half months from now, Luke, right? That's, do right? Do it. Do it. I agree. And also, this is why the bare knuckle thing for him was not the wisest idea, which he kind of conceded in retrospect. He wanted to take a fight because he wanted to stay busy,

and Bellator wanted to accommodate him. Two thumbs up. That seems great. But that skill set is not his best. When he can move and use all of his limbs, knees, shins, whatever, elbows, he's just hard to deal with. That's a gross-ass win. But it's a win just the same, man.

Ridiculous. Luke, I want to ask you quickly as we round out everything else in MMA from the weekend. We didn't talk much about that other lightweight Grand Prix bout for Bellator, the co-main event when Alexander Chablisabli or whatever shabli uh gets a third round tko over tofik musaev who came in with you know the bigger threat of power and he was the betting favorite dude i don't know if we have videos the betting favorite really i thought it was musai or anyway i'll double check for what it's worth, Luke. So Shably wins that fight.

So that fight got, they almost got booed out of the building in round one. It was not a highly contained, it was very, you know, patient and poised. Once they started mixing it up, did you see the finishing strike when Shably landed a beautiful front kick to the body to almost the, you know, where the chest meets the stomach. But as the foot came down the heel caught musaev in the balls luke and they stopped it and you're like okay accidental foul but when the ref finally cornered him and was like uh you know can you continue do you want to continue and he said no he lost by tko is that legal like so it is the body kick that hurt him but dude he got

he got tagged in the piece i saw it i guess the way it ultimately went down kick that hurt him. But dude, he got tagged in the piece. I saw it. I guess the way it ultimately went down was that he has a choice to decide how much, whether it was intentional or not. It certainly wasn't intentional. And then to what extent was he wincing in pain from the actual shot and that this was incidental or how much was directly from it, which is just a judgment call from the referee. I think he actually, in the end, made made the right call and the reason why is it turns out musaev had broken ribs that shot that shot from alexander shabby broke his fucking wrist dude

i didn't know that and that that is that makes that call perfect like that he actually nailed it because in real time and then watching the replays right after i'm like how do you call that a loss you know like i get that he was more hurt to the body but it's not like he didn't get caught and every time somebody gets caught in the ref sees that you stop the you stop the fight right you give them a chance so is it so is the ruling that because it was also a clean strike before it that will give you the full five minutes but the ruling is i mean obviously the ruling is they called it tko but like that's the official thing if you can't the full five minutes, but the ruling is, I mean, obviously the ruling is they called it a TKO, but that's the official thing.

If you can't continue after five minutes, you lose. That's right. So basically they were going to give him the five minutes for the nut shot, but they were not suggesting that the nut shot was a fight ender, and if he couldn't continue, it must have been from the other strike, and therefore they called it off. And again, in real time, it seemed very questionable. After the fact, it seems like the referee actually got it just right in that one. So good job by him.

By the way, real quickly, Shabali was the favorite, minus 150 to a plus 180. Very, very close. Very, very close. I'll take an early Friday dead wrong on that. Luke, before we throw to Volkov's back tat, which we have, can I also have you comment on the Nikita Krylov-Ryan Spann fight? Dude, Krylov is that all or nothing at times. And this was an all moment to get the sub.

And he allowed to advance here up the rankings. And still, even with the losses and the injuries and all that, dude, he's still a tough out. My heart broke for something here for Ryan Spann. Not that he, because he lost or he fought horribly necessarily. Did you watch that video package before the fight at all, Luke, that led up to it? I missed it. He basically admitted that most of his career, he doesn't train consistently. He doesn't train with a lot of effort that the, the, the motivation to train constantly comes and goes with him. And he has a lot of bad days where he's just not there mentally or, or, you know, not there physically and just, is just going through the

motions. And I know this, this fight was supposed to be the one where he kind of started to really put it together and care. And, you know, look, it was a wild fight for as long as it lasted and he got tapped out and that's what happens. But, you know, I almost wanted to like, you know, get his contact info and call him up and try to rile him up because look i think he does have really special talent and i think if he goes all in and maxes this out he's not done yet in this division he's not done making noise i mean that's a tough loss at this time after watching that type of video but you know he's being perfectly honest with us and i respect that but if that guy goes after it he's being perfectly honest with us, and I respect that. But if that guy goes after it, he's got an interesting skill package, Luke.

It's unrefined, right? Yeah, it's unrefined. But, I mean, here's the problem. It's like, dude, he does have ability, and he's got a good coach, great coach, I would argue, a really great coach. But, dude, if you're going to train part-time, dude, you're going to get – this is not a place to do that at all, at all, at all. Like not just winning and losing.

Like terrible shit can happen to you if you are – Well, he openly admitted in the video package that he has a lot of success early in fights, and then he's always fighting scared because he knows the gas tank is going to run out, and then he can't do it. And he's like, if I could do that for the full time, I'd be something. You would be. I mean, you know, you're right. This sport's too dangerous to do it half-assed.

But to see somebody right at this sort of pivotal crossroads in their career, you know, it's either going to go really bad or really good from him. I hope he, you know, looks in the mirror and says, look, I haven't given my best effort yet. Let's see what happens if I do, you know? I wish him well. It's cliche and it's silly, but this is why some of those guys,

you are kind of like good but never great. Not that I'm saying that about Spam, but other guys I can think of who were good but not great, but had like renaissances at 33, 34, even 35 at times. But the thing that enabled them to do that is those guys just made training their life. Competing was almost not incidental. It certainly was a major part of it.

But even when their career is over, they're going to train just about every day. That's just who they are. They'll dial it back a little bit, obviously, because they love it. They're married to it. They understand it. It's just part of breathing for them if you don't have that it's you're gonna be you're gonna be in trouble against guys who do uh yeah if this is not a great place to have that kind of attitude you know uh not that i'm judging him for it just

for his own sake you know i also didn't want you to miss what what linton oh yes and and i almost dismissed it because you know he lost he lost to Moldavsky. I liked the streak he was on. I just didn't see this breaking out the way it did. And I got it wrong in our okay bet. But, dude, five wins in a row. Now knocking on Ryan Bader's door. Tell me about this win over Moldavsky.

So on Friday, we're going to play the clip here, and I'll set it up and let Mikey take it away. But just to set this up, I told you guys that I noticed something on tape with Linton Vassell. He can have good wrestling. He has good top control. But just to set this up, I told you guys that I noticed something on tape with Lytton Vassell. He can have good wrestling. He has good top control, but sometimes he can get taken down. But he's using this trick called the sumi geishi

or sumi geishi. I had to say it really quickly, which is basically you take an inside hook and you kind of throw him past you out to the side, not overhead. It's not a hook sweep. You're not going with them. You can go on top and you can roll with them. But the way lot of guys are using it Volkanovski against Islam Makachev is

just to contest the takedown and he used it I showed you guys this on Friday on tape sure enough he did it again this past Friday let's roll the tape clips for uh Luton Vassell there's something I want to show you I don't know if we're going to be able to slow it down he does something called sumageshi but I got the leg taken down here pay attention to the left leg right there it's hard to see it's very hard to see he uses his left leg right there and it's called a sumageshi this is exactly the same thing that volkanovski did to Islam uh makachev to win in a scramble He uses his left leg on an inside hook here, right there, just to shuck him off to the side and then comes up on top. That's hard to do. That's all timing. It's just enough to create separation so he can rotate and come on top.

He's crafty like that. This is Saturday. This is Friday. Look at him one more time. Right there's the sumageshi hook. He's going to rotate him off to the side and stand just like that. He does it over and over again, off to the side like that. You see that? Whoop! Moves him, and it allows him. He doesn't just shuck him off and then sit there. He shucks him off and then turns his own hips and gets up right away,

and it's a great way to either get the sweep or, in this particular case, contest takedowns. Dude, that's a great thing for a big man to have in a heavyweight division like that. And, dude, you know, like he talked about it after the win with Big John. When he gets full mount on you, you know, or when he gets you in a compromised top position. Dude, he's a problem. He's a beast. Five wins in a row.

And as I mentioned when we previewed this, that includes stoppages of Sergey Karatinov, Hany Marks, Timothy Johnson, now Valentin Moldavsky. There was a split decision against a tough Tyrell Fortune in between that. Luke, he fought Ryan Bader for the light heavyweight title some six years ago and lost via second round TKO. He's a different fighter now. Bader is, to some degree, a little bit different fighter now. What are your hopes?

What are your beliefs here that he's a viable heavyweight title threat here at Bellator? I still think he's got some problems because he's not as much of a natural wrestler as Bader, and this is the big difference. Vassell is big and strong. I mean, you can see he's well-muscled. I think Bader's quicker. Even at this advanced stage of his career, even at heavyweight, he's got a speed edge, I think, on Linton Vassell.

And I think that will make a difference in the end. But, dude, you turn in performances like this. He polished him off. I think it was a right hook, left straight that dropped him. And, dude, once he gets on top, Vassell's control and ground and pound is terrifying. But I would still favor Bader to win. But, dude, he's doing great. He's doing really great things. Absolutely. All things absolutely can we see that volkov back tattoo

yeah let's see that shit um it's aggressive luke it used to be something else under the helmet it was a different design and he just it was like a it was like a manta ray, yeah. Yeah. It's pretty good. It's a lot. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. Hey, Luke, I'm – Not the best I've seen, but it's pretty good.

You know, I always like to be honest with the audience. I mismanaged my fluid intake. I was very aggressive this morning. If you give me 45 seconds to make a deposit, and you could tell people how excited you are about Jonathan Martinez having the breakthrough win of his career, You know, that would be good. I'll be right back. Thank you.

Go ahead. I'm going to switch over to Tim Zoo, though, so I'll just tee you up when you come back. All right. Let's talk about this right now. We talk about topic number five. We finish with some boxing. Tim Zoo over the weekend stopping Tony Harrison in the ninth round in Australia. By the way, they're saying, now I don't know this, we haven't confirmed this, but what we are told is that this fight might break the all-time boxing record for pay-per-views in Australia, for whatever that is worth.

But Tim Zhu ends up stopping Tony Harrison in the ninth, dropped him, at a bare minimum, hurt him really bad in the third. Want to get BC back so we can talk about some of these results. The question I'm going to ask him is based on this performance, did his chances of victory against Jermell Charlo improve? Because obviously that one is now headed next. I'll say this dude, Tim zoo looked good. He looked real good. He looks like he's got some pop.

He has very good ring craft and control and cutting off the ring in terms of just cornering guys. It looks to me like I wouldn't call him like a super, super, super crazy hard puncher in the weight class, but it looks to me like he's got some pop. There were times where he was tagging Tony and you could see Tony's eyes get real wide and you know, it would, the pain would and the punishment was shocking him almost quite literally.

And then mentally it was causing problems as well. But the other part too, that I think we can't look past is I thought Tony Harrison. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian superstore with PC express shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Stop sitting on your Aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be, like on a beach. Right now, you can save up to

25% in Aeroplan points when you book a trip to one of 180 plus air canada destinations worldwide so stop sitting on your next trip and start saving on one don't miss out your chance to save in points ends february 23rd book at air canada.com conditions apply look a little old i didn't think that was the best Tony Harrison we'd ever seen. Not much lateral movement, which he didn't need at first because his jab was pumping. But it wasn't a great showing from him. So I don't want to take anything from Tim Zhu. He looked better here than he did in the Terrell Gaucher fight. And that's really all you really want.

Like, did he look better fight over fight? The answer is yes. Much better, in fact, I would say. BC, where are you? How much of it was tim zoo looking great how much of it was tony harrison look a little long in the tooth you know maybe 75 25 on that split in favor of zoo and you know i came in late luke putting this air piece back in after this bad mismanagement of fluids but it sounded like you were a little down to some degree on tim zoo and i would have to say no no no quite the opposite i'm high on

him i'm high on all. I'm high on him. All right, look, the adjustment he made from the Terrell-Gauchet fight where he got into Terminator mode when he got dropped in the first round, and shout out Reggie Jackson for the appearance. But let's get serious, Luke. I thought the adjustments he made were perfect, meaning you didn't see an overcommitment from Tim Zhu. It wasn't that wild caveman of walking into shots and just saying,

look, I'm going to just penetrate this wall to the point where I'm going to eventually break you or outwork you like you did to go shea this was intelligent middle distance fighting and what that means and does is zoo is was allowed to sit down on his punches and particularly not spam with shots although that you work the jab pretty well but be a constant countering threat with heavy shots, but do it at such a close distance because he wasn't constantly spamming with the jab or whatever. He didn't allow any exits for Tony Harrison. So this was pinning a veteran fighter in Harrison, either the corner or to the ropes,

but not overly committing with his shots. And that was allowing him to keep Harrison in a disadvantageous position where he really couldn't get much leverage on his shots. Yes. Tony Harrison had that quick jab and there were certain, you know, old school tricks he does to kind of hang in that fight, but zoo dominated him at that distance. And when he can start breaking you down and, you know, Luke, his commitment, when he is a body puncher, he can be very, a lot of trouble to deal with. So I loved a lot of what he did. It was smart. And it was also, look,

if you can't get me off of this spot, this close to you, I'm going to load up with big time power shots, counter shots, and I, you know, I'm going to hurt you. And, you know, we knew the death star could explode if, if Tim zoo could find that right button, you know, it's happened three times before to Tony Harrison, all in fights, he was winning by the way. And the only part ultimately about this performance that puzzles me to a certain degree, Luke, is the scoring of the Australian judges having it 77-75 Zoo at the time of the stoppage when Steve Farhood on the broadcast, and by the way, great to see Steve back on camera for the first time in two years.

I think I had the same score you did and he did, which was basically, you know, seven, eight rounds to one, whatever it was in favor of zoo. It was sort of systematic domination. And, you know, he was vulnerable at times against Gautier because it was too reckless to gung-ho to, I'm going to show you guys, this was the fight where he really showed us he's going to be, he's going to be in this Charlo fight.

Will you favor him betting wise? No, it'll be interesting to see how the experts have it split. And you know, Jamar Charlo is still a very tough style for this version of zoo. But if this version of zoo can be as poised and patient and calculating as he was against Harrison here, um, this is going to be a good fight if they do that this summer for all four world titles. Yeah. The Charlo fight is the interesting dynamic here for me, BC, because Charlo can be a guy who takes rounds off and whatnot, but I think he's going to be busier than Zu.

I think he punches as hard, if not harder, than Zu. And I think he would not necessarily, you know, he's faced a Castaño type who was kind of in his face trying to pressure him, you know, so I don't know. I don't know about this one. I tend to think Charlo, I tend to think Charlo's just a bad matchup for him, right? Is that a fair way to say it or is that saying it too strongly?

Yeah, because Charlo is so explosive as a counter puncher that, you know, he'll change the entire tenor of the fight with one big shot. Tony was not able to do it. Look quickly on Tony. Okay. Because we said, yeah, there we go. Thanks, Mike. Because we said, you know, at times, Luke, was this a little bit of him getting old?

To some degree, it probably was over over the accumulation but he never committed to power shots with that right hand luke you know the jab was there it was quick he had educated jabs you know he'd split the guard with there's a lot you could like there why wasn't harrison willing to go for broke do you think it was the the danger of zoo standing so close to him yeah that and you know he had some time off in this last fight between this and this last one. And he just, you know, again, it's like, I'm not saying he's shot. I don't think he's fully shot. I don't think that's, I don't think that's right. But a hesitancy to throw back is in boxing is usually a bit of a bad sign about where

they're at and where they're headed. So I agree. The jab was, the jab was good. Actually, the jab from Tony was good and there were opportunities to throw the right but he just didn't feel confident in it and I think part of that is he just didn't feel confident overall once he got really in there looking across from zoo you know Charlo's going to feel confident with that even with the long layoff so that'll be something um I don't know if Mikey's got a video playback here on the stoppage, but Luke, that was five consecutive right uppercuts from Zoo

as Harrison was pinned against the ropes. He landed four of them flush and then hit a violent right cross as Harrison was almost turning his body completely away from the punch. He was in the most vulnerable state you could be. In fact, when you even turn your face, you know, that much to the side, the referee can legally stop the fight. It basically means you're moving away from the, the, uh, you know, the violence coming at you.

The ref not only did not stop the fight, he gave Harrison a chance to get to his feet. Would you call this stoppage, uh, potentially dangerous or what? Did you see that? Yeah, it went on a little too long for my liking. They could have been, they could have let that one, excuse me, they could have interfered in that one much quicker. It seemed like they were just waiting. Sometimes these referees are like, well, he's still fighting back.

And it's like, it feels to me like you're just waiting for him to get a very clean, I'm up here, he's face first, and then it makes the job easy. It's like, and I get that they don't, sometimes you see a referee be like, you know, we don't want to be the ones to decide if we don't have to but by letting it go you are being the one who's like you are deciding that it's going to look more like a massacre than it needs to you you have the job to be the humane representative in this equation and they just let it they just let it rock so not not a great stoppage. I mean, yes, Zoo, fair winner, but not a great stoppage at all.

No. Right? No. All right. Hey, look, I think there was some talk to the idea of Charlo being healthy July-ish. I know he was an announcer on the telecast Saturday when they called that from the studios in New York, but where do you think the odds will be?

Where do you think they should be how tough of a challenge coming off the Castanho two fights where where Charlo made incredible adjustments in the second one and to be fair he may have lost that first one right like legit um but we saw him make the same adjustments against Tony Harrison in the rematch so dude Charlo's he's great I mean he's a great, smart, powerful boxer. I'm going to say, I'm going to say like a minus 300 for Charlo. No, that's wide. Come on, that's a little wide, right?

250, 250? I like it in the twos, I think. All right? You like it in the two? Yeah, okay, 250, 250. Let's see what you did there. I mean, you're a douchebag. Is it plausible deniability?

Probably, Luke. Don't think you're not. So anyway, that's our top five for the day. It's time now for when the... We put up social posts on Sunday. You guys fill them up. The producers pick questions, and then we answer them. It's time for DMs from the Diggity. Donks! on Sunday. You guys fill them up. The producers pick questions and then we answer them. It's time for DMs from the diggity. Don'ts.

Go to it. Did you like Tim Zoo's what's my motherfucking name like that? What the hell was he doing with that shit? The crowd liked it, but it was a little weird, right? All these things you talk about because I didn't watch the fights live. I skipped all of it. Oh, yeah. You watch with the volume down. I know how you do it. Yeah.

Often. Often. Because there's aggressive music being played in your house. Tookie's living her best life at all times, and I'm here for that. I'm definitely here. I got to tell you, the Princess and the Frog soundtrack, very underrated. Very underrated. We've been listening to a lot of Princess and the Frog soundtrack around here.

Is that the new obsession post-Bruno? Yeah, yeah. For sure, that's her favorite movie right now. It's not a new movie. It's been out for, I don't know, five or so years. But yeah, she loves it. All right. From at z.frm.esp,

is Jan kneeing Sterling in the head one of the most career-altering decisions in a fight? Boy, it's up there, BC. Because if you think about it, you go back to the first fight. If he doesn't do that, it looked to me very clearly to be on his way to winning. He would have had it, would never have had the rematch, may have cruised on, but here's the problem, BC. I don't think people figured him out by accident. Jan is very talented, but he has a lot of observable habits. And if you have a lot of observable habits, people can game plan around it. This is not a bad way to block a punch, but everything has its trade-offs. It has benefits and has minuses.

The benefit is it's a great way to block and you don't have to move out of position. The problem is if you do this now, of course, your hands aren't there, for example, to defend a takedown or a body shot or whatever. And they have built game plans around this. That's the problem. Yeah, Merab, did you see that clean double leg he got when Jan was hiding up under the guard too much? You know? Yeah. It was sweet.

On this topic, would you compare this to the spinny shit Chris Weidman tried to pull against Rockhold? Yeah, and his career just went like that afterwards yeah yeah by the way we didn't mention it Chris Weidman back in action this past weekend in a uh submission grappling match sure against this dude I think his name is Owen Livery uh he's I might be pronouncing his last name wrong uh who is like a very well-trained judoka, and I think a jiu-jitsu black belt too, but like a high-level judoka. Dude, they had a killer grappling match. And by the way, another sumi-geshi that was used to get Chris Weidman off of him

when he got a double leg takedown. But like a great, great match. It was great to see Chris Weidman back. He didn't win, BC, but he looked good. He looked pretty good. Yeah, I mean is this is all heart what he's doing right here you know trying to come back on his own terms just and i give him a lot of credit luke it uh weird enough that i brought weidman into this conversation of potential

turning point moments you have to say anderson silva in the first weidman fight too luke that was a pretty bad decision to try to lure in all those punches and was he ever the same since then no no no that was a big ass turning point for sure all right BC from DVR DV Rauchi with Murab clearly qualified for a title shot would that be the biggest most competitive teammates fight ever okay BC let's think about it biggest teammate fight ever are there big like guys from the same crop or not cronk jam but like any major gym going at it in boxing that you can think of i mean stuff like that's happened but i mean the biggest one is rashad on like a monster level yeah yeah not i mean even recently in boxing danny jacobs fought machi sulechki and they both had the same trainer.

So Sulechki left that camp for one fight and got another trainer, but then came back after. But, you know, that's not on this level. Jon Jones, Rashad, isn't that the working comparison, basically? I mean, obviously, just to reset the timeline, Rashad had left Jackson's by the time they fought. But in terms of teammates, in terms of teammates for a while and then having this major fallout uh yes in terms of like guys who stayed at the team my understanding is this happens frequently in kickboxing where

guys who all train at like a mike's gym or whatever in amsterdam they'll end up competing against one another it's really not that big a deal part of it is cultural the dutch don't seem to mind it nearly as much make of that what you will um but gilbert did you say kamaru gilbert that's another one kamaru gilbert's another one uh but marab and um marab and aljo would be a big one if that if it happens again i don't think it's likely but i don't think it's crazy either people like oh it'll never happen sure yeah those people need to check themselves before they wreck themselves, Lou. All right, BC, at AAA1017, name anyone in MMA that has a better motor than Merab. BC, they don't exist.

Not only does Merab have the best gas tank currently in MMA, trying to think long-term, he might have the best one I've ever seen. Would you say it's better than C-level Kane? Yeah, it is better than C level cane? Yeah, it is better than C level cane. Yeah. I mean,

that was pretty remarkable in that size of a body. Cause it wasn't like Cain was all caught up, Luke, you know, he, um, yeah, it's, it's,

it's remarkable. It's remarkable. How many times the highest volume, uh, like per round in boxing, like the Figueroas and shit like that. They'd be up there. Yeah, they'd certainly be up there.

You know, the times that those CompuBox records get challenged or broken, a lot of times is when you have an aggressive boxer who doesn't have power. Remember like the Baby Bull Juan Diaz, or there was this guy on ESPN Friday Night Fights, Sucre Ray Oliveira back in the 90s and 2000s, who these are guys that just come at you and just non-stop just hitting both buttons A and B buttons over and over again

but they don't you know don't have big gaudy knockout totals no no one's on I mean you know the Diaz brothers do triathlons Luke I don't know if you've heard that before but they've mentioned that a time or two billion you know seriously like remember when when DC like dominated Stipe in the

first round of the rematch with the wrestling and you know i was like why can't you just do that for the whole five rounds and people like you can't do that for the whole five rounds or even remember curtis blades kicked the shit out of volkoff for three rounds with wrestling and then like barely made the finish line down the stretch you can't do that luke you just can't and it's not all wrestling right but it's constant movement you would agree that these um these herky jerky feints that are now full-time part of marab's game dude that's that's not easy that's not easy to pick up on no he's really beginning to blend it into something of a more coherent hole rather than just kind of going so he can just go but now he's putting some science behind it and And oof, the results are devastating.

All right, BC from at Jimmy underscore Reed. He says, living in Australia, Timmy Zoo has been presented as a superstar and our shining light in Australian boxing. Did that presentation translate to an American audience on the coverage over the weekend? What do you think, BC? Yeah, I'd say so.

I'd say, look, is the translate question about did he come out in front of his home crowd like looking like a stud a star yeah looking like the crowd the crowd you know has huge adulation for yeah i mean when he did you know whether you thought that was cool or not like when coming out being like say my name you know what's my motherfucking name like he's he's out there screaming for respect not just in the division for you know for charlo but i think to get out of the shadow of his father to some degree too and you know and coach jesu was supposed to be at this fight but they mentioned on the broadcast they had an ailing relative in russia

that kept him back but you know they're close but not like minute by minute close and i think that's all part of it is he's trying to prove to to the world but to his fans in australia too i'm just you know i'm my own person and you can really say Luke, that there's some real poi, like, you know, in, in terms of intangibles, you know, it's like, I, I always been jealous, Luke, I've said this before of kids that grew up, like their dad owned a store or something, you know, this grow up, like business is natural, you know, or the dad was a landlord or something. It's just like natural. I'll just slide into that area. Just, yeah, I've seen it done. You know, look at what this guy's seen done and his father.

And you mix that with hard work and extreme belief in yourself. And you get the potential for that Terminator to come out in the big moments. He looks like an absolute stud. And, you know, maybe that U.S. debut, which was impressive, but not convincing enough in terms of like exactly who he is again we've we've teased it around he needed this in-between fight before taking on the full challenge of charlo for himself for the critics to understand who he really is and he's all those things he's a star and he is legitimately in contention here to

potentially be the new undisputed champion bc uh uh my best friend in high school his dad was an immigrant from iran um they had they had to flee iran in 1979 during the islamic revolution they were not muslims they were something called bahai and uh so they were they were basically told leave or we're gonna kill you so they all left and uh so they moved to the united states and they opened up a video business to compete with blockbuster in marietta georgia they had several locations it was called video wonderland well you can imagine what happened to video wonderland it went tits up pretty quickly and uh so it was cool for a while my friend's dad had a video store but then i had to help them box video so they could sell all the inventory to get rid of it. It sucked.

That was not much fun. It was interesting you used the term tits up. Did they have one of those back rooms with the curtain? I don't think that they – I don't know if they did. Not in the store I ever visited. Like you could walk back there. Like you know a lot of those stores, the guy at the register is not really paying attention. Like you could walk back there and we've all done it.

But there's a lot of shame associated with that because what if you come out i've told you this i've rented i dude i go into there i've done it i've rented like in college i rented pornography from a local video store and never returned it never returned it well that's probably the problem like uh they were like this is back in the days of answering machines so like my my roommates would play in college they'd be like this is uh whatever the store was called like you know video fuck face land whatever it was and they'd be like this question is for luke thomas you have an overdue title it's uh it's an adult feature if you could give us a call back or return that at your earliest convenience that'd be great thanks bye i'm not returning burying the bone four hours of black human banging i'm not doing that okay

no but like you know you'd have to take a real risk on potential shame because you know it's in your town when you come out from that curtain anybody's parents could be standing right there luke your teacher anyone but you know did i did i shamelessly roll that dice the answer luke again and again yeah yeah i did you know i certainly did as well. I do it again right now, too. Last but not least, at HarrisonSmith27, is Leon, talking about Leon Edwards, is Leon's road to victory

easier or harder for this fight than the one before? It's actually an interesting question. What does the road to victory part mean? Here's what I think he means. On the one hand, you got the win over kamaru so there's two ways to look at that one you realize wait a second i can do this i can find openings i can look on tape i can set things up i've literally stopped him with strikes why couldn't i do it again boost your confidence give you a potential roadmap of technique to follow.

That's one interpretation. The other interpretation is, okay, you stopped him. Does this overly motivate Kamaru? Who, by the way, hasn't done a ton of media leading up to this. I want to point that out. That's one thing.

Yeah, he'll be talking to me tomorrow. Very good, very good. But I'm pointing out, and also, does he now, based on what he's seen on tape, change a bunch of things that close a bunch of doors that may have been available to you based on what happened the last time? So does it really lift Leon in both terms of motivation and actual things he can look at?

Or does it actually lift Kamaru by him closing the doors on deficiencies that he previously had open? That's fair. That's fair. I can hear Reggie Jackson purring. Yeah, he's very aggressive in all the things he does in life including trying to take down all of my posters aggressively to get me mad at him so then i'll pet him luke you know he's got a system and a plan i'll say this ultimately about that question uh wait what was the question again no i got it um i'll say that there's more pressure on him now and in front of the home crowd. But in his mind, he's got to be pretty confident because, you know,

there was some luck involved, but it was a calculated move that won him that. And we do have to ask those two things that I'm sure we mentioned on the pregame preview, the combination of what does a knockout loss that devastating due to Kamaru physically and mentally, and the idea of he's 36 with a very intensive style when does he get old does that knockout help him get because I'm not looking for him to break down but if you get if you slip a little bit at this level right you know could Leon come through and yeah I mean Leon I wouldn't be I've largely been under the idea that all that's great but if Usman's really that champion, that transcendent guy, he's going to come back and fix this, you know,

in a GSP Sarah Nunes Pena type deal. But people like to counter that by reminding me that Leon Edwards took Usman down in round one and won the round Luke. So, you know, there are parts of him that feels style wise in the way this makes up, but Luke, the missing ingredient, the most DMS that I get on this topic, usually in relation to this pregame preview we just put out,

is why are you guys not mentioning the elevation in Salt Lake City and how that affected both fighters in that fight and how that won't be there this time, and could that make Leon's Road easier than harder this time around? I mean, it benefits both guys. And you're talking about a guy in Kamaru who, when he wants to can have an insane work. Remember who are the other two fighters I mentioned beyond Marab,

who had at least 10 takedowns in the one fight that they also have a hundred significant strikes landed. It was Kane. It was Kamaru. And now it's Marab. So you're talking about a guy who can fucking work when he wants to um i don't i definitely see that as a benefit for both guys honestly i don't i don't to me it's like maybe luisman gets a little bit more of a benefit because he works more but i don't see that as like the deciding factor one way or the other right no i'd stand with you on that yeah

certainly not certainly we're not ignoring it or at least we're not we're not trying to ignore it uh but i don't know how decisive that will be that's a little harder to say also these guys are championship level fighters like it's not like leon has bad cardio leon's got leon's got real good cardio or or at least good enough, certainly. Maybe not as good as Kamaru, but he's got very good cardio. He's not an unprepared fighter under any circumstance. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see.

Now, BC, we have a choice to make. Oh, actually, we don't have a choice to make. Do you want to tell the folks what's up with have you seen this shit? Yeah, we're having playback issues here. So we're going to be unable to unveil the HYSTS today. We'll have to run that on Wednesday's show. But we will close, Luke, with some actual big news from over the weekend and a video to play with it. When we last left you on talks of an idea of an Undisputed Heavyweight Championship bout between Tyson Fury and three-belt champion Alexander Usyk. Fury had sent that video that we played that said, you know, you pay,

you let me get that 70-30 financial cut or you're shit out of luck, brother. We got a response from Usyk. Let's throw to that video. Hey, greedy belly, I accept your offer. 70-30 split to fight with you on April 29th at Wembley. But you will promise to donate to Ukrainian immediately after the fight. On million pounds on every day of your daily, you will pay 1% from your poorest to Ukrainian people. Deal. Luke, you know he's trolling us with that fake Borat thing,

but when he opens with greedy belly, that's just brilliant. I find this whole thing exhausting. And then Tyson has some new stipulation. I haven't seen Tyson's new one, but Mike Coppinger... He just put it out like minutes ago. It appeared from Mike coppinger of espn's reporting that april 29th is real that usic is really accepting the 30 split financially

and we are really adding this absolute historical masterpiece of a fight to an already loaded march and april here in combat sports uh hell yeah can i say that out loud hell yeah you feeling it or no you got it yeah no big time If they can make it happen. They keep doing this BS in the media, I don't care. But if they make it happen, hell yeah. If the biggest struggle is the 30%, the man said, you know, hey, donate a million pounds to Ukraine and let's do it. Tyson might have that kind of one.

Just you donate a million. Stop doing this. This is just fucking nonsense. Make the fight or don't make the fucking fight. Like, oh, you have to donate a million dollars to it. I didn't mean to anger you with that. It's just fucking nonsense make the fight or don't make the fucking fight like oh you have a million dollars with that it's just it's just fucking ridiculous like it's just these who is this for who is this all right we're gonna be we're gonna be loading the tyson fury response in the uh in the in the hopper soon to play but how old is reggie jackson he's like three now i think oh he's young yeah yeah he's starting to finally slow maybe four yeah he's starting to figure life out a little bit more and not just break everything and

so like you know my wife thinks that all the animals walk all over me luke like i don't put up boundaries but you know i you know they're my only there's nothing there's nothing in the world that you love more than stray animals i mean yeah yeah that's fair that's fair all these were this was a homeless cat luke that i that we legitimately uh rescued him where did you get where did you get reggie from just a shelter i told you shelter in shelton connecticut where he was he's around dogs so he's not afraid of anything except for going outside luke he's you know violently afraid of that but outside of that you know in this in his castle he's the king and we're all just trying to you know catch up to you know one regret i would have with moco i didn't have a great answer for

it because if you take your cat to the vet the vet will tell you this do what you want but the studies are clear if you let your cat out they are in general going to have a much shorter life yes right between between other animals getting them depending on where you live cars you name it they just they live shorter lives in general but they tend to live happier lives i think between other animals getting them, depending on where you live, cars, you name it. They live shorter lives in general. But they tend to live happier lives, I think. So I had cats that I let out, but all of them got fucked up over time.

So I was like, all right, well, Moko's going to stay inside. But yo, Moko hated staying inside, man. I always felt really bad about it. I didn't know what to do, you know? I hear you. Luke, where do you rank Usyk Fury in your i'm most excited about this single combat sports fight over the next few months top six or seven wow six or seven really yeah okay. I got to tell you, this one doesn't do much for me. I mean, let me be clear about this.

I want to see it. I hope it gets made. It's important to be made. I don't in any way challenge any of the things you've said about it that make it relevant or important or interesting. It just doesn't call my attention that strong. Partly because I believe Fury is going to win. I don't think it's that competitive.

I mean, I think it's that competitive i mean i think it's competitive but like ultimately i just i'd be very surprised if fury lost um i have to tell you you know what i'm much more interested in which apparently jake donovan has given some life to is apparently there are some real talks real talks between francis and ganu and deontay wilder and and i heard aj too those reports out there that he's talking to both so like let's stick with wilder they were supposed to make wilder ruiz but they but both guys balked at it because they're both with pbc but the money that they had offered to do the fight i guess it wasn't enough for them or they didn't they just didn't work so they went in a different direction now dionte is expensive well you could pay dionte a lot if you're also paying francis a

lot for one of these crossover fights and dude here's the best part francis we know has just nuclear power how much with the gloves and in a boxing contest i don't know but bc it's not like dionte is a great boxer no of course that's the thing dude like he gets hit and fucking this fight would be gonna hit this fight would be more about francis's um like head movement and defense like how long can he hang in here because but but also don't forget francis got a chin on him i mean he took a sustained beating in the first dp fight and had his gas tank just you know poured upside down twice over and still, you know, still grinding in that fight. He'll need it against a guy like Wilder if they make it,

because he's got nuclear power too. Anyway, we've got the Fury response. Yeah, let's hear from Tyson Fury here. Thank you, Mikey. Hi, Tyson Fury here. Just a quick one. I've been speaking to the lawyers today, and USEC's people are talking about rematch clauses and all that bollocks.

Here's one to up the antis. How about there is no fucking rematch clause for both of us? Let's up the antis completely. Never worry about what's in the future and how many more dollars you can get after you've been defeated. Worry about the fight. April 29th, no rematch clause. The winner takes the glory. The loser goes home with his dick in his hand.

How about that? Agree to that, you fucking bitch. Dude, that's an all-time great soundbite right there. Holy crap. This is silly. This is silly. Luke, the loser will go home, most likely with their dick in their hands

But I'll tell you this does that make you I get it what you said off the start Just like make the fight and shut up But we're still getting this fight right Probably I don't know I don't know if we're getting April 29 Alright real quickly

May 20th Luke Sources Mike Coppinger of ESPN reporting, Devin Haney, all four lightweight titles against Vasily Lomachenko. Give me that. Give me that, brother. Yeah, that's a sick one. That's a sick one.

That's going to be great. The other bit of news was, of course, the main event on Saturday for Zufa and company was the first slap pay-per-view, Luke, which aired live to live, live to free, whatever on rumble. It's not much of a pay-per-view if it's airing for free,

right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dana says, uh, rumble is on board for seasons two and three now of slap. And for season two,

they're going to take it to fight Island. Yeah. As Island there in, in, uh, Dubai. And it's going to take it to fight island yaz island there and in uh dubai and it's going to be the season one all-stars against the best in the world from the power countries right poland and

all in russia and all the other ones where this sport originated in sport is that what it is yeah these are fights and this is a sport um my question to you luke is is the rumble deal for seasons two and three a clear indication that this is going nowhere or yeah i mean here's the thing you know who's not up for season two and three tbs the people who aired season one so that tells you a lot number one number two it's like dude they're just taking every idea they've are there's like not one new idea in this whole thing have you noticed that like everything is let's just take the existing blueprint and I mean, just work with that.

Nothing else whatsoever. Nothing original whatsoever. And yeah, dude, if that is interesting to you, then yeah, we're not the show for you. So there you go. There it is, Luke. Hopefully both of us can make it in the four minute media hit job video

about how we were double standards because we support MMA, but we don't support the slap. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. Okay. We'll have Have You Seen This Shit on Wednesday. Reggie's trying to get out, Luke. Maybe we should get out too. All right?

Maybe we should. All right. So sorry about the fact that we don't have Have You Seen This Shit today. We will do it Wednesday. BC, oh, wait, wait. All right. Maybe we should. All right. So sorry about the fact that we don't have, have you seen this shit today? We will do it Wednesday. BC. Oh, wait, wait.

Are you still there? Yeah. Yeah. I had to let Reggie out. All right. Yeah. One quick second. So I have jury duty tomorrow.

I have literal. No, no. Tomorrow, Tuesday. So I have jury. I can't hear you. I got audio problems.

This is great. I'm getting new equipment in the mail tomorrow and hopefully that'll fix it. Can you speak? Speak nonsense. So I can try to find this spark. Yeah. One, two, three this spark yeah i'll just unplug and listen go ahead all right just fucking take him off screen mikey because what the fuck are we doing uh i actually have jury duty tomorrow so i don't know if that's going to last into wednesday i don't think it will but it might so we'll have to see how that goes either way you will get have you seen the shit on Wednesday?

So reminder, you can reach the show morning combat at gmail.com. If you want to reach for Wednesday's fan subs, Friday's dead wrong. We of course are, don't forget. Showtime is the label that pays showtime.com. Get a 30 day free trial.

If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. I'm here. I'm back. I'm just, I'm just letting everyone know about the jury duty that I have tomorrow and that may interfere

with things on Wednesday I don't know would you be willing to talk about the trial if you get picked like with regular updates on the show but without naming names or specific accusations if you're serving on a jury you're not supposed to talk about it with

like the details of it with people outside of the your your fellow jurors or the judge or something you're forbidden from doing that now once the trial is over yes i can tell you whatever but the thing is in voir dire i may not get picked because i'll just be like yo i got full-blown ebola slash aids just i can't be here so just send me home and we'll see what they do i don't know yeah it's gonna snow 12 to 16 inches here tomorrow luke so i'm finally gonna finish the rocky creed rundown you watched rocky balboa over the weekend and you know the kids are they liked it they were

back luke they you know we liked it you know their response again so much better than rocky one all right well let's call it a day here for this show appreciate everyone who tuned in we'll see you guys on wednesday for brian campbell i'm luke thomas thanks to showtime thanks to mulca thanks to cbs especially mikey morams who did a great job today we'll see you guys on wednesday and until then may all of your gains be loyal