MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Early Weekend Storylines | Covington Calls Out Poirier | Woodley-Paul | Ep 179

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

On Episode 179 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell are ready to talk about a packed weekend of combat sports. Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castano, UFC Fight Night and Bellator 262 are all this weekend (9:10). What should we be watching out for? There were 2 fights announced for UFC 266 (31:40). Colby Covington made some comments about Dustin Poirier's character and called him out. Would this fight eventually make sense (42:50)? The guys also react to the Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley press conference (60:50). Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

This is Morning Combat. Hi everyone. It's July 14th, 2021, and it's time for Morning Combat. I hope you're doing well. After all the craziness from last week and then Monday's show, I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I am joined by Royalty on the other side of your screen. He's a man with a recovering liver, remains remains the king of Connecticut it's my friend and yours it's Brian Campbell hi Brian how are you hi Luke I'm I'm here I'm still recovering from Las Vegas you do need a good two weeks I mean I ate I ate borderline clean this time too Luke I know I can confirm that you did you really did I mean you know is RSD down with THC yeah you know me but outside can confirm that you did you really did i mean you know is rsd down with thc

yeah you know me but outside of that luke you know i didn't really kill my body but just the grind 115 degrees day after day providing the mk folk with not what they want luke but what they need okay i'll be your huckleberry in this regard luke okay you motherfucker yeah i tried to tell I tried to tell my wife that I was tired, but that was not a very convincing message. No, that doesn't work so well. Yeah, hold on. Whoa, crap. Come here. But I have to tell you that...

You got your cat? I got a visitor here, yeah. Anyway, I tried to make that argument, and it didn't work. But you're right. You need a few days to get your feet under you a little bit, especially as we get older, man. But you're right. You did sleep pretty good. You did eat pretty good.

Yo, Luke, check out this one, right? This is Emma. Hey, who's this? This is Emma. She's the best. She's the best, right? Emma, what's up, man? Girl, whatever.

Yeah, usually females are named Emma. I mean, sometimes they named a man Dana. I mean, a lot of things can happen in 2021. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. Yeah, they females are named Emma. I mean, sometimes they named a man Dana. I mean, a lot of things can happen in 2021. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right. Yeah, they do that. Anyway, I hope, did you have a good day off, BC?

I know you were a little bit quiet yesterday. Did you do anything fun? Yeah, I slept, like, the whole day. My wife was real mad. You know, it was great. It was great, you know? But, Luke, you got to recharge those batteries because here's the deal. No days off, brother, okay?

MK, all day, nearly every day, okay? You know what I mean? We weren't even on yesterday, and we still gave a delectable piece of content for the people, okay? I don't see Canada doing that. You know, you can have five jobs. None of them are as good as MK, I'll tell you that much right now. Hot take alert. Hot take machine right here, your boy BC, okay?

Yeah, right, Emma? I took my daughter. I don't know what you call these things because they're not – I't pay to get in it's just part of the public but they put a bunch of playgrounds all throughout the city now and then next to the playground they put these things where the water comes out of the ground so it's not a swimming pool but it's like a it's like a sophisticated sprinkler system what would you call that uh a way to clean up the less hygienic yeah i guess it's not really a water park but i took my daughter to that and she had What do you call that? A way to clean up the less hygienic? Yeah, I guess.

It's not really a water park, but I took my daughter to that, and she had a blast. You took her to the drinking hose, basically, you know? Yeah, a little bit. It's a little more sophisticated than that. But anyway, I'm going to take her back today because she loves it. I took her to the pool, and she was a little bit iffy about it. Luke, how's her functional Spanish at the moment? Better than mine. Better than mine. Better than mine.

She knows more Spanish than she does English. I mean, it's about 50-50, but to answer your question, just fine. Just fine. Anyway, listen. You know, between Emma the Cat and your daughter's Spanish, this is a real home-style way to open the show. Yeah, that's a great show that we're doing.

Please vote for us and give us awards that we don't deserve. All right. So we have a lot to do today. Actually, believe it or not, we of course have fan subs we'll do at the end. But we also have some fights this weekend. We have Showtime boxing on Saturday.

We have Bellator on Friday. We have UFC on Saturday as well. So a lot of different things we have to get to. We'll start with some of the main event stuff today. First things first, as always thumbs up, hit subscribe. BC's wearing merch that we don't offer but we kind of know we have it so you can actually go to our site morningcombat.store and then not buy it there you want

to wear mk on today then go to our site and hope that one day this shirt shows up there okay or that we get communication from our above people into questions that we need answers for. Outside of that, though, it's great merch. MorningCombat.store. Check it out. Put your abuela in a sweatshirt at store.show.com. And maybe we'll open up a third store at some point, Luke.

Who knows, right? Yeah, we might have to. But by the way, if you want to try Showtime, because there is the boxing this weekend, there, of course, is the boxing this weekend, there of course is the MMA this weekend, you can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can go do something else. But there is your offer. You want to email us, either for fan subs or for now, Fridays, deadwrongmorningcombat at gmail.com is the best place to do that. And of course, you already saw all our socials. Can I give a two-second sincere plug to Showtime? What a time to get your 30 days free if you want them, and you should, because how about a four-belt 154-pound unification bout this Saturday

with Jermell Charlo? How about Pitbull versus McKee in the biggest fight in Bellator history to close the month? How about the road to Jake Paul, Tyron Woodley, and the return of David Benavidez next month. I mean, the next 30 days or so, Luke, or 60 even, are going to be pretty big on Showtime

across all forms of combat. Get on board. Join what we're doing. If you want to be like Ben Foulkes and watch some show called Gigolo on the Showtime app, I'm not going to judge you. All I do is sell predatory you, okay? You know? All I do is sell predatory loans, Luke. That's all I do, okay?

Let's keep this show moving. Give me your car title. I'll give you five bucks. All right. With that out of the way, BC, with that preamble, let's get the show started. As we mentioned, there are, in fact, three big or bigger, biggish, three events on our radar.

There, of course, is the boxing fight this Saturday and then the two MMA fights, Bellator on Friday, biggish. Three events on our radar. There, of course, is the boxing fight this Saturday, and then the two MMA fights, Bellator on Friday, UFC on Saturday. We start, though, on the boxing side of things. I just want to go over what you think are, for the main events for each of these events, what you consider to be the dominant storyline. We start with Charlo taking on Brian Castaño. There's an all-access on the Showtime Sports Channel.

BC recommended it to me that I watch. I did. I thought it was very, very good. I find the interaction between Charlo and his brother to be mystifying, yet somewhat intriguing. I find the differences between them to be actually kind of interesting as well as people. But here's the deal, BC. You already know this, but let me set this up for the audience. BC was talking about this being a unification. Right right this is for all the marbles folks this is 154 pounds so this would be the MMA equivalent of lightweight if Charlo beats Castaño on Saturday he'll have all four he'll have all of them he'll have he'll be the guy in this weight class and nobody else will be BC is that the dominant storyline here or is there something else to this

that we should be paying attention to? Well, look, that's the prize. So that's the dominant storyline from the standpoint of why does this fight truly matter? But I think even deeper, it's this. Luke, you remember when the Charlo brothers co-headlined a pay-per-view last year and Jermell, who's going to fight again on Saturday,

he had a big bout against Jason Rosario. It was a unification. But I think in that fight, we knew Charlo was rightfully favored. We wanted to see if Banana, though, could, you know, provide an upset or provide some resistance, but for his brother, Jermall, that night, Luke, that was the fight in his middleweight term to figure out how good he really is. He had to go in there against Sergey Derevyanchenko, and that was sort of like, okay, we've seen him against, you know, names. We see it, okay, we've seen him against names,

but now let's see him against somebody really, really tough and elite. And in some form for Jermell, although he's not hurting for a resume in that same regard in terms of proving himself, this may be the toughest fight he has had up to this point at 154 pounds. The dominant storyline for me is the style contrast. What Charlo does great is potential kryptonite for Castaño, who's a forward mover, could potentially walk right into what Charlo, as an insanely efficient and powerful counterpuncher, does great. But on the flip side, Luke, what Castaño does better than anyone in this division, which is put his head down and

get inside and have a two-fisted attack going to the body and just basically clubbing you. That's a great form of potential kryptonite to corner Jermell, to outwork Jermell. So you have two guys going in there to try to be the undisputed champion. Yes, that's the big banner that gets you in the door. But this may end up being Jermell Charlo's toughest fight in this division on paper because Castaño is a lot better than people realize. Maybe you only saw that draw he had against Erislandy Lara on Showtime a couple years back. He is of this world-class elite, Luke.

And maybe he's a little bit more rugged and aggressive than skilled. But he's got an interesting, sleepy chance here coming into this fight. We're going to talk a lot about Jermel because he's got three or four belts but Castaño is a live dog and I love this fight and I love how these two styles can potentially pair off of one another what happens if Charlo wins right because you're basically done in the weight class Usyk is the last guy that to my mind to unify all four belts for his cruiserweight title then he went up to heavyweight now that really hasn't I mean it got started but it's not really cooking off his brother is the champion a weight class up is he going to go up to 160 like what's he going to do here well don't

forget that Josh Taylor just uh became the undisputed champion at at 140 pounds after beating Jose Ramirez earlier this year but to your your point, what does Jermell do? What am I saying? Yes, you're right. I'm sorry. Look, by beating Rosario and getting three or four belts, Jermell became the man at 154 pounds. So here's the deal about this division. It's loaded, but Luke, some of those bigger names that were just recently, the Kingpins, the J-Rock Williams, the Jared Hurds, they're coming off of defeats. They're trying to reload.

So if there was a time for Jermell Charlo to look at the landscape and consider a move to 160, it would most likely be after this fight. If he can bring all four titles together, become the first fighter in super welterweight history to be the undisputed champion in this four-belt era, there could be. But the thing is, there's not a ton of big names in the PBC side at 160 160 which is why you and i have been basically saying hey jermall charlo you're great but you want the real smoke that's out there you probably have to go to 68 i think for jermall there's still bigger fights to be made at 154 luke when jared herd comes back you got j-rock in there you got you got some other uh uh you know you're going to eventually have Errol Spence Jr. moving up uh you've got Danny Garcia talking about moving up to 154 there's potential money fights for Jermell

at 54 right now though he's going through and getting those fights that define your resume and that's what Castaño is got it okay well it'll be interesting to see um how how would you describe the differences between the brothers in terms of their styles in the ring? They obviously started with similar trainers, but then Jermell broke away with Derek James. It does seem to me he marches to the beat of his own drum a little bit differently than his brother. The whole fish tank thing, I don't know, he certainly has a measure of introspection that I don't know that Jermall has, at least not to the same degree. Does that reveal itself in the ring at all? All right, there used to be the only way to tell the guys apart was to

say this. Jermall's the puncher of the two, Jermall's more of the slick boxer. That changed that narrative, Luke, dramatically when Jermell left the longtime camp they both had in Houston with Ronnie Shields and joined forces with Derrick James, who's one of the best rising trainers in the game, also Errol Spence Jr.'s trainer. James really turned Jermell into such an incredible counter puncher and knockout specialist with that. So the new way to really define is, look, both brothers can do all things, right? Jermall's a little naturally bigger. That's why he's at middleweight right now earlier. But Jermall is more of a classic big jab, walk you down, look to set up the overhand right. Yes, he can do all things. He's a very good boxer. What makes Jermall different as a fighter, Luke?

He kind of fights this new style, which really Canelo has spearheaded the past few years, and now we're seeing Gervonta Davis do it too. The style is efficiency. You're not throwing a ton of punches. You're looking really to stay in that pocket and find that right moment to land the perfect counter shot that's either going to force a knockdown, a knockout, or really sway the momentum of the fight increasingly. The problem at times for Jermell Charlo, in my opinion, Luke, is he doesn't throw enough punches. He's very much in love with what his power is at 154, and his counter shots, you know, you've broken down videos of the Charlo brothers before. They're just absolutely beautiful. Uppercuts, you know,

hooks, like just perfect timing and explosion, but, you know, he had that two-fight series against Tony Harrison. Jermell did that. It was fantastic. The first one, you know, I thought he got a little bit jobbed on the scorecards, but the reason why he had a chance to get jobbed is he didn't throw enough punches. I don't think he threw enough punches against Rosario either, Luke, although he happened to get the knockout, so it didn't matter. Jermell's a little bit more selective in looking to get you out of the one punch way

where Jermall walks you down, clubs at you, and gets you down. Personality-wise, look, Luke, they both very much stare away from the idea of being labeled emotional or hotheads, but here's the deal. The proof is in the pudding. They're very emotional. They're hotheads, and it's marketable, I believe. I think it makes them better fighters. I think they're incredible soundbites. It even at times, as you saw in that All Access, can push them at odds with one another, I think that's one of their most redeeming characteristics, that outspoken ability that they carry with them in the ring that's like, you know, I'm a lion. I'm coming for you. I'm going to eat you up.

It has made both of them very hungry and worthy finishers and they're knockout specialists. Really, Luke, let's be honest, two absolutely great talents that, you know, we want to find out how great they really are and I think both are at this point in their career where they're going after just that right they've made some money now they're starting to get the recognition they're going after the defining fights to find out you know uh what their potential and their ceiling actually is fair enough all right so that's the first of the three main events this weekend the second of which

will be on Friday on Bellator on set on excuse me Friday night where Juliana Velazquez will take on Denise Kielholz for the women's uh flyweight title interesting enough when Bellator had a kickboxing division Kielholz was the Bellator kickboxing women's flyweight champion she obviously has a decorated background in judo, but her real big background, of course, is in kickboxing. The card itself is not great, but the main event, I will give it credit. The main event, I think, actually is pretty good. You just saw Velazquez give Ilema Leigh McFarlane the business, BC.

Absolutely demolishing her, although I think it went the distance. But still, she crushed her face, had her bleeding everywhere. This is a great one, I think. Hill Holtz is not nearly as good in MMA as she is in some of the other sports. Obviously, kickboxing would be the one where she had the most amount of success, but she's intriguing to me, BC, because she can match some of the skills Velasquez has on the feet, and on the ground with the judo, she's got a little bit of a, I'm not going to say gimmicky game. That's not true, but it's a little bit, it's good, but's got a little bit of a I'm not gonna say gimmicky game that's not true but it's a little bit it's it's good but it's a little bit limited it can't do all the things

that it's supposed to but the things that does do it does well so she's tricky to me BC how do you size or actually same question dominant storyline for you here looking at Velazquez and Kielholtz look I think we need to know more about Velasquez because she was a fighter who we knew the name you know we saw her on co-main events or on the main cards of Bellator it really wasn't until that title fight against Alimaleh McFarlane we're like okay let's find out what we have here turns out as you mentioned over five rounds she was the dominant destructive force she was efficient she had every she threw everything with power and she basically just clubbed a very seasoned champion in McFarlane

all around the cage and had an answer for everything. Okay, so now the reign begins, Luke. Is Velasquez legitimately one of the pound-for-pound best females in the game today? That's what the first title defense is all about, and you certainly nailed it when you said, look, Kielholtz is a lot better than maybe her name, value, or reputation brings you know, brings in, if you're not following this day-to-day, a very accomplished striker on the feet. I think we can see a very exciting matchup, but Luke, I want to see how Velasquez carries herself now as the champion. She's got a potential here to really be the face

of not just this division, but of women's MMA and Bellator, to be really honest, and I mean, you've got Chris Cyborg there, obviously, but you've got somebody who's, here's in Bellator, to be really honest. And, I mean, you've got Chris Cyborg there, obviously, but you've got somebody who's – here's what Bellator's done a great job. From Nemkov to, you know, across the board, we saw Moldavsky. Names that maybe a year ago weren't on your radar but are coming through solid now that they're giving big opportunities. I want to see if Velasquez can really become that and a future, you know, foundational player for Bellator. First title defense will be a big zoom into that because if she finds out that

the skill level is vastly different, Luke, she's gonna have to finish Kielholtz. And if she does so impressively, you can see the beginning of a special title right here. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of things I would say. First is that if Kielholtz wins, this is good for potentially taking some fights back to Europe when that opens up. I don't know exactly how that's going to go. But you would imagine at some point, maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe the year after that, I don't know.

But we are going to get back to European shows on a relatively routine basis, it seems. And so, Kielholtz winning might be good for that, for whatever that's worth. Bellator has done a pretty good job of putting in inroads into the UK and Ireland. And obviously, I think Kielhholts is Dutch, if memory serves. But still, just having people on that side of the pond is good for business, number one. Number two, though, I think the thing you picked up on is the right one. Dude, Velasquez is good. She's really good.

I don't know if she's going to win this Saturday. I tend to think she probably will, but we'll have to see what happens. But if she's as good as we think she is, BC, Bellator could do something with her about making not just her more popular, but you're right, getting behind her as a face of the brand, or at least a face of part of the brand, parts of the brand that they want to shop, whether it's the Brazilian side or whatever that may be. Velasquez has the potential to go on a bit of a run here. And the longer you you remain champion the longer you can make a case for yourself as someone that should be paid attention to it's how Douglas Lima got as far as he did despite being you know relatively anonymous in other ways um the other

thing I'd say too is like dude Velazquez I you know I don't think she's as good as Valentina Shevchenko but she's very good um if you care like, one of the criticisms I think that comes from fans about Bellator's women's divisions is that they're not very filled out. Actually, in fairness, that's the same one they make about the women's divisions in the UFC, too, that you got a lot of names on there that when the push comes to shove

they don't really show up or they're not all that great. And partly that's an issue about women's MMA generally that no promoter can escape from. But here you have a case of Kielholtz while limited very talented in that limit and the case of Velazquez I think you're right BC what we've seen has been very good finding offense everywhere patient calm good finisher when she needs to be deadly puncher in fact Bellator put out a video on their YouTube channel being like I thought it was smart for them to do this. Here's Juliana's rise to champion. And they showed all her Bellator fights. And you can see her development and what she had to do to get there. It was actually really

smart. But I think there's still a lot of improvement for her to make. I think actually through this run, she can reach another level. So this is the building block to something bigger, no matter who wins. But it's an important foundational one, especially BC, especially if Velasquez can look good. Absolutely. And look, Keelholz has won four in a row all by stoppage. So she's rising at the right time. And, you know, you noticed that you mentioned the kickboxing success, you know, looking at her record, she's 18 and two overall in kickboxing throughout her career. So very accomplished there, but you know, she had 18-2 overall in kickboxing throughout her career, so very accomplished there. But she had a couple early losses when moving over to MMA and specifically to Bellator,

but she's really starting to find a nice groove. So it's a good-looking main event to find out really what we have in the champion here or whether we're going to see a division that this belt can bounce around in because you know Leigh McFarlane is looking to get back, Luke, and eventually that could be a heck of a rematch if she works her way back up to the top and Velasquez is still standing there with the belt. No doubt about it.

So that should be a fun main event on Friday night. And then certainly last but definitely not least, man, Islam Makachev taking on Tiago Moises. This will be the main event for the UFC show on Saturday, BC. This is an interesting one. Islam started out a little bit bumpy in his UFC career, where he got flatlined by Adriano Martins. But since then, man, it's been basically impeccable. Not just that, you can tell. For me, the big wake-up call

with him, when I knew that the Martins fight was not an accident, but that's just not the same fighter anymore, was maybe the Armin Saryukian fight where he just looked absolutely dominant they don't want to fight this guy in this division at all tiago moises quietly putting together a nice three-fight win streak i think the last of which was over alexander hernandez he has done well for himself just 26 years old bc you got a russian versus a brazilian tends to produce pretty good action. Your top storyline when thinking about this. Really, my top storyline for this card is Misha Tate, Luke. Am I wrong in that regard? No, you're not.

If you want to, make that claim. I mean, look, I'm very interested in this main event, first of all. Lightweight is the best division in the sport. You got Islam Magachev who won seven in a row. To your point, a little bit of a slow starter and making the transition, you know, that happens from the Smash Factory into the actual Octagon but i mean that victory over drew dober in march luke that that third round submission it was like yeah that's that's that's freaking legit we've got a player on our hand so yes i'm looking forward to him in a vain event opportunity to to have that

potential to to bang the drum hard and say yeah lightweight is your focus and i'm next in this division but look the storylines mr tate luke it's the five-year retirement it's the big name to bang the drum hard and say, yeah, lightweight is your focus, and I'm next in this division. But, look, the storyline is Misha Tate, Luke. It's the five-year retirement. It's the big name. She's come back in just such incredible shape. It's very good matchmaking to put her in there with a Marion Reneau who's tough, but in her early 40s and looking to retire on this fight. So, in some cases, Luke, it gives Misha that potential, you know,

let's shake off the rust. Let's find out what we have here. Luke, it gives Misha that potential, you know, let's, let's, let's shake off the rust. Let's find out what we have here. Luke, you and I both know Misha's coming back in a great time for her personally, after, after being a mom a couple of times over and doing the whole one championship executive gig cleared her mind. She's still very young, Luke. What is she? 33, is it, Luke? 33, 34. So she's still very young, but it's a short 34. It's a short path to the top at 135. Really, let's be honest, ever since Amanda first won that belt and just started running people

out of there, like Misha, like Ronda, it became Amanda and everybody else in this division. Misha, even with a three-quarters as good as your expectations performance here against Renault, could end up in a frigging title fight with Amanda. Now, I have no idea, Luke, at 34 and this far away from the game, if she can do any better than she did when she was champion and Amanda broke her nose and submitted her and just absolutely dominated her. That's not

really the story, though. To me, the story is an already pioneering hall of fame celebrity name making a big comeback at the time when the division can really use it. And even in general, Luke, women's MMA and UFC outside of strawweight can really use it. I've been banging this drum alone, trying to get you fired up to the idea of Misha Tate, home too you know in the near future Luke okay that's a that's a fight right there bro all right that's still a marketable valuable fight so however it plays out to me Misha coming back looking in this good of shape and this situation is the storyline for this card and maybe could have and should have been the main event yeah I think they're trying to see what they have first

before they put Misha back in that slot, given the time off, and given the fact that I think it's a tough fight that she has in front of her. But I think you're right. When you talk about what the most important, let's say, box office attraction, and also, to your point as well, potential title shot implications, the return of Misha Tate is impossible to ignore. Still, it would be doing a disservice to Islam Makachev if we didn't at least acknowledge where he's been at this point.

Since losing to Adriano Martins, he had the two decision wins over Wade and Lance, and he KO'd Gleason Tebow. He submitted Cajun Johnson. He had that incredible fight with Armin Saryuki, and then he defeated Davi Hamos, and then Drew Dober. He just kind of ran over. I'm told he's having trouble securing fights. Guys don't want to say yes to him.

To me, BC, when I think about what might be possible here, I don't think title shot really is the operative thing that stands out. But I'll say this. Where does Islam Makachev stand in this division, BC? He stands at 9. Now, winning this one doesn't get him any closer. Thiago Moises is sitting at 14, for crying out loud. But above him is Dan Hooker, McGregor, Rafael dos Anjos, Ferguson, Chandler, Dariush, Gaethje, and Poirier. Why do I bring this up? No matter who Islam fights next,

assuming he fights somebody in his peer group, it's going to be a majorly, majorly consequential fight. He's going to fight somebody with a big name, and he probably will do quite well. So the Tiago Moises fight, BC, is about setting up Islam Makachev's entry into the elite end of the 155 talent pool. That's what it looks like to me. Agree or disagree?

I agree. I agree with you fully. He has looked so good in this win streak, and has looked better almost with each performance luke do you think with habib nurmagomedov retiring right at the point where he helped make that region of the world uh a a monster player in mma now anyone that comes out with the abe lincoln beard and the even half-hearted connection to uh habib and his late father's, you know, camp and style is going to get that sort of rub off of that. Do you think in a world in which Habib's no longer here, Islam is the next one?

The next one that all people will put the powers behind and say, you know, this is the new guy from the smash factory that's taken over? I mean, you got a few names to choose from, Luke. And obviously Zabit with his health status, we're not sure where that's going but Islam's starting to look like the guy in that category in my eyes Luke yeah maybe maybe I I would say that um I mean the thing is he's taking over in the same excuse me the same division that Habib was in but to me there's some differences between Habib's grappling and Makachev's. I don't think Makachev is quite the dominant grappler that Khabib is, which is fine.

I mean, that's not, he's still quite dominant, just not as on that level. Also, like, you know, just that whole region is opening up. So, like, at welterweight, you've got Shavkat Rachmanov from Azerbaijan, Rafael Fazaev. I know he beat him, but it was fight of the night when they fought. And I actually think this guy's got huge upside in Armin Saryukian. So like, yeah, maybe you could say that Makhachev was handed the baton from Habib. But in the sense of what that world has to offer, maybe Makhachev wins the belt, maybe he doesn't. He certainly seems like somebody you should take seriously in that regard but i tend to think that like the next big thing out

of there is going to be as big as habib makachev doesn't give me that vibe just yet i guess but but but you would agree though that him getting the main event slot here is very strategic in a fight a fight against someone ranked less than him oh Oh, he's good. He's very, very good. I'm telling you, man, if he goes in there and beats Tiago Moises the way I think he's gonna, you know, UFC's gonna be leaning on people hard to take fights with him because he's coming. He's coming like a freight train at the top end of that division.

So we're gonna see. But some good fights this weekend. Good main events in all three of them, and to your point, an even great co-main event on the UFC side of things as well. All right. So now we go to some UFC 266 fight announcements, BC. Let me just read them out to you as we have them. Volkanovski Ortega coming off the Ultimate Fighter is going to be on that card.

Let's see. You're going to get Andrade versus Cynthia Calvillo. You're going to get Curtis Bl versus Cynthia Calvillo. You're going to get Curtis Blades taking on Rosenstreich. You're going to get Murad Davalashvili taking on Marlon Marais, I think. And then Roxanne Modafferi taking on, I'm not sure who. Okay. But the other part about it is, A, Valentina Shevchenko is going to face Lauren Murphy. So two title fights on there. But B, maybe this is the biggest fight on there for some people. Nick Diaz is taking on Robbie Lawler.

This will be the second time the UFC does a non-title, non-main event five-round fight, which MMA Fighting had confirmed following an initial report from Yahoo Sports. Okay, BC, let's break it all down. You've got the two title fights. You've got the return of Nick Diaz. Tell me what you make of all of this.

Just real quick, so you don't get dead wrong. Tatiana Suarez, it looks like, coming back against Roxanne Modafari, which will be Suarez's flyweight debut. So that's a very interesting fight for the future, as well as, you know, Zalva Shili against Marais. Interesting there. But look, this is a very good card, Luke, and it's come together with sort of spare parts,

but it's going to be a pay-per-view. It's going to be at T-Mobile in Las Vegas. It's going to be a big deal. Would you say the most intriguing fight, I mean, the best fight is Ortega-Volkanovski by far, but would you say the most intriguing fight has become Nick Diaz-Robby Lawler? I mean, you just got to see what the heck Nick has left

after all these years. It's perfect freaking matchmaking from the standpoint of let's throw two washy guys potentially in there and find out who's got the most left then you got the 17 years in the making storyline look this pretty damn sexy let's be honest here it's a great card for all the reasons that we already mentioned two title fights plus the other ones we have up there I gotta tell you don't me wrong. Nick Diaz versus Robbie Lawler too is absolutely the fight to make. I love it. I think it's great. I can't wait to see it. I would just slightly put myself a little bit different than the overall wave of enthusiasm for that particular fight. Slightly different, not majorly different,

slightly different. I tend to think that Lawler is definitely feeling it at this stage of his career. I think he's what, 38 almost, something like that. Nick Diaz has obviously had a considerable amount of time off, so he's not had that damage, but the time off itself doesn't serve you necessarily for your interests. I have much more managed expectations about what the return of Nick Diaz means. He might end up getting title shots because he's Nick Diaz, but I'm skeptical that he's going to look like the guy who went out there and beat up BJ Penn the way that he did. I don't think that that's all that likely. So I will say I love the fight. I love the matchup. I remember that when the first one happened and what a surprise it was getting dropped face first with a jab the whole nine yards. This is phenomenal. i love the five round thing that has nothing to do with being a main event

or a title all that's great i just have slightly more managed expectations about what what really is possible with nick at this stage that i see the general enthusiasm on social media i mean you mentioned you know title shots like damn no no i don't you know i don't think he's going through there but let's with the idea that it could be a short it's always a short shelf life with the ds they could just be mercurial and walk off in the other direction and never fight again um it's it is perfect matchmaking for the chance with if nick still has it this is a fight he can get by and yet it's still going to draw a lot of attention for all the reasons you said but luke if he wins it and if he wins it as good looking as when his brother came back from a three-year absence and who did he fight was it

pettis didn't nate ds and nate looks so good that we're like oh shit what like what are we doing next we doing masvidal we doing connor we doing title shot i mean if nick diaz comes in there and just looks great putting it on Robbie, are they going right to Masvidal? I mean, what kind of big fight is next if he looks? This is a tryout. Look, this is a tryout to see what this guy's got left. Where is he going with it? Yes, I think that's the right way to put it.

We don't know what you have left. There could be a lot. There could be not so much. Let's just kind of see. I don't know that Robbie Lawler is necessarily the best barometer for that at this stage but it's a pretty good one and then given the history between these two and the way in which they compete it's hard to think of a much better choice frankly than what you could put together with that so don't get me wrong like I'm I'm

interested in it I think it's intriguing but when you said the word intriguing to me I would say Diaz Lawler 2 is mysterious because I just don't really know what you're going to get anyone who says you that they know I don't think it's telling the truth but when I think about intriguing I think about what's possible and what it might mean and how difficult and strange and unique it could be I go a little bit more towards Suarez, Modaferri or even maybe the main event Volkanovski, Ortega. But that's just a personal preference. I'm not asking anyone to necessarily agree with that. Okay, but you didn't answer my question, Luke.

Which was? If Nick comes out there and looks fantastic, please tell me they're not, like, lining him up to fight Kamaru, right? Like, he's going in the BMF lane. Oh, they might. And you think Kamaru already called out Nate, didn't he? I mean, dude, these guys will absolutely take that fight. If you're Kamaru, why would you not take that fight?

You could win that with your eyes closed and get huge amounts of popularity off of it. I mean, it'd be the smartest call he could make, given the considerations. I want him to go the BMF lane, okay? That's where he's at. Hey, I'm not arguing with you. I think that's fair.

But, you know, what's going to happen? I mean, I don't know. By the way, I got to say, that's a hell of a stacked card. Two title fights. You got the crazy Diaz-Lawler fight, which basically will act as, like, an informal title fight, given the fact that it's five rounds. Then you've got a Jessica Andrade on there women's flyweight fight if I'm not mistaken you've got Curtis Blades having to make sure that he can remain

a relevant heavyweight contender Murab Davalashvili has the best motor I've ever seen in MMA at least currently and then the return of Tatiana Suarez bro that card is fucking stacked really stacked it's a hardcore stacked card it's got the two titles

and Nick Diaz to get it in the casuals door but it's a hardcore stacked card. It's got the two titles and Nick Diaz to get it in the casuals door, but it's a hardcore fan, jacked up card. No doubt. I can't wait. Best not counting the title fights, and then obviously Diaz, Lawler. Best fight on that card that I named. So the other choices would be Andrade,

Cynthia Calvillo, Blades, Rosenstreich, Davalos, Vili, Morais, and then Modafferi, Suarez, Rosenstreich, Davalos, Vili, Morais, and then Modaferi, Suarez. For my fandom, it's Suarez. I got to see, Luke. It's been so long. She's announced she's moving up to flyweight. It's a short path to the top at flyweight.

I got to see what she has. Let's find out right now because when she's healthy, she's a special wrestler and an aggressive, grinding talent, Luke. A lot of question marks. Were you surprised that without really coming back and testing herself due to the injuries, she's going right to flyweight?

I would say yes, but it's a favorable matchup with Motafari. That's why. Oh, for sure. For sure. You know what I mean? Like, I respect Roxanne. I think what she's done in this game is incredible. She's reinvented herself and grown so many different times.

She was relevant in an era of MMA that most fans now, including ones that are OG, weren't even paying attention in. She lived in Japan for a long time. So I have a lot of respect for Roxanne. But it's a bad matchup for her. If Suarez, if she's ready to go, or excuse me, if she's not ready to go, it's a bad matchup. Well, excuse me, if she's ready to go, it's a bad matchup for her. I'm just saying it's a good way for Suarez to dip her toe into the pool, so to speak. Yeah. Do you have an answer, Luke? Are you more intrigued on any of them?

Probably Motafari suarez um although i gotta tell you man marlon marais with his back up against the wall jesus christ and he's got this guy you know marab is not the most technically sophisticated guy but when you've got his motor it's overwhelming that's a very very consequential fight for Marlon's career, if you ask me. Absolutely, Luke. No question about it. And Blades too.

Blades-Rosenstreich is a tough fight too, man. Like, all those fights are good. I was going to say, no, you're right on all that. I was going to say, do you give Lauren Murphy the same non-Andrage chance you've given every other Shevchenko title contender since she's won the belt? Yeah, I like Lauren Murphy a lot. I think she's smart.

I think she works incredibly hard. I mean, all these fighters work incredibly hard. But she's really earned this opportunity. It would be incredibly disparaging if it was like, oh, she's got no chance. It's MMA. Everyone's got a chance. Obviously, I'm going to favor the champion, Valentina Shevchenko. But I have a lot of respect for these people who have been in the trenches and then they were up and then they were down and up and down

and tough fights and split decision losses and blah, blah, blah. But then they finally just right the ship and then they get into a groove and they earn a big opportunity. I don't like to be the guy who reigns on that parade by saying, well, you earned the opportunity, but it's a tough hill to climb. I'll just say may the best person win. Certainly I'm not, you know, insane. I think Shevchenko deserves to be favored,

but I have a lot of respect for Lauren Murphy and I have a lot of respect for her career. That's it. You know, as we talk about Shevchenko Nunes every time either one fights and you know what's next for them well you're not going to get another big fight until they fight each other you think the more that we wait to build to this trilogy that it's advantageous to Shevchenko who seems to be aging just a little bit better than Nunes Nunes has maintained her dominance Shevchenko seems to be getting better now some of that is moving down in weight and aging just a little bit better than Nunes. Nunes has maintained her dominance.

Shevchenko seems to be getting better. Now, some of that is moving down in weight and finding out that she's a, you know, she doesn't have to be a counter striker only like she was at 135. She can be an absolute force. I feel like the more we push this out, Luke, this is going to favor Valentina. I've not thought about that too much but she might be right I think I think

I think she might be older too I think I have to double check that but you're right I do think that Valentina is staying a little bit more composed year over year whereas you saw like Durand and me really take it to her where Nunez was able win because she's Nunes but she had to dig incredibly deep into her bag of tricks and skills so that's interesting I haven't thought much about that but it's it's it's it's a it's a it's it's certainly something to think about like what it might mean the longer this gets delayed Shevchenko technically is two months older than Amanda I would have guessed it was a couple years older for Nunes, but, you know, that's how it works, Luke.

There you have it. Okay. So those are the announcements from UFC 266, which will be September 25th. All right, let's go to this Colby Covington thing. You see, I'm not even sure what to say about it, but he wants a fight with Dustin Poirier. I don't know if I can read all of this

because some of it's just terribly unfair. But basically what he says is, I thought it showed the charitable, nice guy, the true character of Dustin, the doofus Soirier. I can't believe he thinks that's a good insult, but okay. He's out there strutting in front of... He's cloud chasing. Yeah, he's out there strutting in front of Conor's face.

Obviously it was a fluke, man. Connor broke his leg. It was a fluke ending. It wasn't a knockout. It wasn't a clear-cut decision. It wasn't a sub. And the guy's out there strutting in front of the guy's face at a downfall when the guy made his career and did everything for Dustin to get him to the big fight.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's a dirtbag, and so is his whole camp. Obviously, his wife is a prop, he says. He only uses her for a prop because he's a piece of S person who wants to act like a nice guy a family man, a father and a good husband it's not my fault he says Dustin was saying to the media

oh it's on site when I see Colby but I've seen the guy 40 or 50 times since he said it's on site so who's the man of their word who's not a man of their word anyway he wants to fight him he says he's not a draw he's not going to sell pay-per-views

by the way I think Dustin Poirier might be able to start selling. After two fights with Conor in a year, I think he's going to start selling. I was going to save that talk until we get into the pay-per-view numbers shortly, Luke, but that's a very good discussion to have. Here's your quick answer, all right? Hey, Colby, you want to fight Dustin Poirier? You got two options, bro. Cut to 155 and get in line, go beat Usman win the Wellesley championship

and then call out Dustin Poirier short of that bro this is just a bunch of annoying noise and that's that's that's that's it that's it at the end of the day okay you know I don't I we we allowed Conor to disparage this man Dustin Poirier a lot in the name of well it's fighting at the end of the day and it is but Colby's just shooting his shot from the peanut gallery Luke he's not in position to fight this man it would make absolutely no sense what the heck does he bring to the table for Poirier hey Poirier it's time to figure out your true destiny which is winning or having a shot to win that full undisputed lightweight championship. Why are we even putting up pictures of Colby? Next topic, Lou.

I'll just say this, too. Let's get into this here real quickly about Dustin Poirier. First of all, it's like he's nobody, but you want to fight him? No, you're calling him out because you know he's got a lot of gains he's made in visibility and popularity by virtue of fighting Conor and beating him technically twice in the course of a count. In six, seven months.

In seven months, he's beaten the guy twice. Now, again, one of those is a little bit, you know, injury related or very injury related, but still. So the pay-per-view numbers came out and they had it at 1.3 domestic, 500,000 or so overseas. The 1.3 domestic is the bigger number to me. Although if you add 1.8 together or you put the two numbers together, you get 1.3 domestic, 500,000 or so overseas. The 1.3 domestic is the bigger number to me. Although if you add 1.8 together or you put the two numbers together, you get 1.8, then you get, I think, second or third highest all time. But the way that was usually measured, just so folks are clear,

back in the aughts and then before that, international pay-per-view did not count towards the overall count of pay-per-view. I guess that's changed now because the number is much more significant than it used to be. But 1.3 domestic, 1.8 overall BC. Back of the envelope math from John Nash, so they probably made somewhere around, around $100 million for that event alone. Granted, Conor is doing the overwhelming bulk of that work.

Let's be real about it. But I do think it is fair to say that Dustin Poirier's star power has been launched into the stratosphere since January. True or false? Absolutely. The fact that he won both of these McGregor fights, the fact that he won over the public by how he carried himself, the fact that, look, you get the rub being with Conor.

It's what you do with it, right? I mean, unfortunately, Nate Diaz sat out for three years after getting that two-fight rub. Khabib used it. He became a legitimate pay-per-view draw on his own. I wonder here, Luke, you know, the proof is in the putting, as Floyd says. So that proof will be when Dustin headlines against Charles Oliveira,

who obviously exciting, great fighter, not marketable on a household level across the board to casual fans. This will be the judge of that. But I hadn't known that it was when I first saw that headline that it was throwing in the international views. That does skew it. It would be the second biggest of all time total at 1.8, meaning that the biggest is UFC 229, Conor and Habib,

what, right around 2.4 million. And then I think the second one before that coming in was Nate versus Conor 2, which was 1.6 million. But even at 1.3 domestically, Luke, that's, we're in an era where pay-per-view is broke. Look, Luke, be honest with me. You can argue that Mayweather Pacquiao broke the pay-per-view business, right?

People waited so long to get there. They the price up to 100 bucks there were so many people that just even though that was a technical interesting fight if you're a hardcore boxing fan that did not ring the bell for casual fans ever since then we've seen pay-per-view numbers go down except for these giant ones that lift everything out of the water like a a Mayweather McGregor or, you know, or, or Habib versus McGregor. 1.3 these days is that's fricking legit, Luke. So I don't necessarily, now look, that's all before the, how Saturday played out. So again, there's certainly debates to be had on the future of McGregor's brand. And did he, did the craziness only strengthen it moving forward

in a Mike Tyson way, or will people turn away and not buy it? You know, whatever. You can have that. But 1.3 domestically, pretty damn strong in this era. No question about it. For a third fight between guys, that's legit. Dude, 1.3, 1.8, if you're making 100 mil, because remember, they made a killing on the gate at T-Mobile. they're fucking printing money i mean there is no way let me ask you this luke nash let me ask you this uh scott hall looking at john nash um what what is what does

connor go home with here what does he go home i'm not asking you on the books are off what does he go home with from this fight i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know 40 million 50 million luke seems a little on the high end i'd say probably closer to 20 or so something like that okay okay give or take but that you know i don't know the i'm being very clear i don't know i don't know i don't know what he would be making now um but you know probably more than he would be in 2016 but uh hard to say but i gotta say you know all that money he got from whiskey that's where he really went home with that that that's the big he got stupid money from that so um we'll see how that goes in the future i'm excited

for dustin luke that you know title or not moving forward he is going to have the chance to headline pay-per-views against marketable opponents I mean you know here's what we're not talking about how about Dustin against a Diaz brother at lightweight would you be down for something like that we almost had that we almost had Dustin Poirier versus Nate if you'll recall and then it fell apart at the last minute but I hope he gets these cash in opportunity you know Dustin at welterweight against Jorge Masvidal for a BMF. I'm saying moving forward, title or not. Okay, okay, that's fair. That's fair.

Colby's the enemy. Hey, Luke, I wanted to get your thoughts. I don't see it in our rundown. Did you see Habib Nurmagomedov gave an interview with a neck-bearded Brett Okamoto? I did. I did see it, yeah. All right, here's what Nurmagomedov said about Conor.

Money and fame show who you are. All the time we hear that money and fame change people. No, when money and fame come, these two things show who you are. And what has McGregor done? He punched an old guy. You guys can watch everything he did and understand. It's just like Dustin said. This guy is a bag of shit.

I saw a lot of tweets try to support Conor. How are you going to support this guy is a bag of shit i saw a lot of tweets try to support connor how are you going to support this guy when kids young generation watch him and watch the sport if you want to promote your fight promote but if the mma community is going to support bad people this sport is going to go in a bad way luke habib went on to say that without the broken leg he believes connor could fight at the same level that he did in the last two poirier fights but he says with the broken leg, he believes Conor could fight at the same level that he did in the last two Poirier fights, but he says with the broken leg, Conor will never be the same. Conor does not have a good, he's got a good age

right now, but what happened with his mind and his leg, this guy is finished. He's good for the promotion, but this guy is finished. Do you see any lies in there, Luke? Lies, I don't know. Some things I disagree with. I mean, he might be finished I mean I had presented a scenario where he could use the opportunity to rebuild through the injury to really

you know get back to as a reset moment as the way I presented it but it could be the other way too right just as easily which is that an injury this traumatic could derail you permanently now most of the time when we've seen these they've've been a little bit older, like a Tyron Spong or an Anderson or a Chris Weidman. And they were, we haven't seen Chris, but Anderson wasn't exactly the same. But it's hard to parse that because, you know, was it the USADA thing that was later on in his career? Was it just the fact that he was fucking old?

Like, I mean, it was hard to know. So I don't know what to make of that. Connor is relatively young for someone who has had an injury like this. But I think that do I and does everyone else out there need to take seriously the possibility that he can't recover from this injury in the way that you might imagine? That he could come back and maybe win a fight, but not be what he was, I don't know, before, whatever before means to you at this point yeah I think you need to take that seriously not that you have to consider it to be the most likely

outcome but you have to I think you have to at least consider it to be plausible the only thing I really take a exception to is like you know it's kind of funny when Ronda Rousey was tweeting Conor or tweeting about him being like wow you're promoting the next fight I wouldn't have the mind to do that everyone should be grateful to you that was so like a sub tweet to everyone she's still fucking mad at and she was just using Connor as like an example of a way to make her point about all the people she's bitter at without really realizing that you're magnifying behavior that kind of sucks but in defense of Connor what I would say is it's dude, here's what Habib just totally gets wrong. Dude, most people in this sport are bags of shit.

Most people from media to fighters to promoters, up and down. Dude, they're bad fucking people. Dude, this is not. Hold on, hold on. Let me finish. I'll put you back to you. Dude, let me be very clear about this. This is not a sport that wants to be cleaned up.

It's not a sport that wants to be cleaned up. It's not a sport that wants regulation. It's not a sport that wants any kind of informed judgment being made about it, especially by outsiders. It wants to have what it has. It wants to do things not by the book. It wants to make sure you don't turn over the rock and see the worms. And anyone who tries gets bounced from it. That's just the way that it goes so like oh we can't root for bad people maybe connor is maybe he isn't but i got news for you if he is bad he has a lot of company wow luke it's been a while since you pulled out the mma bag and

reached in and grabbed the dead skunk and held it up and we're like all y'all heroes are dirt bags you know you haven't done that in a while. You can't trust anybody in this game. Yo, Luke, one day I'm going to turn on you. I'm going to turn on you like Anakin on Obi-Wan style, okay, bro? And there won't be a battle of Kashyyyk where you have the higher ground. You may be high during that battle, but you won't have the higher ground, bro. Don't trust.

DTA, bitch, don't trust anybody. Hey, Luke, if you were behind Conor's team here from a PR standpoint, looking to get the most bang long-term from the buck, how would you strategically frame the narrative when he comes back? Because he's going to have to come back and beat somebody, okay? It's going to be a rehab. He's not going to come back and fight Poirier for the lightweight title. He's got to come back and beat somebody, okay? It's going to be a rehab. He's not going to come back and fight Poirier for the lightweight title. He's got to come back and beat somebody first. There's a lot of different reasoning and matchmaking that you can do. I mean, look, we all are hoping it's a Tony Ferguson coming back or Max Holloway at 55 or RDA. Dude, it could be Mike Perry for all we know, okay?

You have no idea. But what should the damn narrative be from Team McGregor, given all the fact that he's pretty much become a heel, you know, based on last weekend? Like, when he comes back, how should his team manage that? How should they look? Like, what character should he play? You know what I mean? Like, he was the gentlemanly, uh, dad slash whiskey sponsor against

cowboy and against Poirier the first time. Right. Then he just became like rabid maniac in this Tony Montana in this last fight. Do you double down? Do you stay in that lane? What do you do? I think, dude, here's the reality about all of us. It doesn't, I don't know that you could craft something

i mean i guess he could because he's got the talent to do that but to me it's like dude you just need to be honest with yourself like that was the way in which he got to where he got now he had these big big dreams but uh and he hadn't achieved many of them at that point but he had absolute complete and total belief that he was going to. And so it's like, dude, whatever you believe, that's what you should be saying, what you should be living, and how you should be feeling. And that means being honest with whatever it is. Like, dude, part of me feels like deep down, I mean, I said this on the post-fight show on this channel, BC, which is like, dude, this fucking guy already won, man. You're going

to be a billionaire if you keep going by the time you're 40 or whatever, whatever the age is. I mean, he's saying before that, but you know, that whiskey sale, dude, that was like real generationally changing money for him and his family. Like, you know, you had these incredible wins already and selling out Madison Square Garden and then you've taken time off, dude. You don't, there's a part of me, I don't know if this is true, BC, but there's a part of me that wonders I don't think he wants this shit anymore and I don't think he knows that he wants it but there's a part of him deep down inside because dude you beat the fucking game you won there's nothing else for you and if you try to go back for seconds in a situation like that maybe some other guys can do it like

a Floyd or whatever but if you try to go back for seconds in a scenario like that you're gonna get fucking hurt he got hurt you know so like you're asking me what he should come back as fuck if i know dude all what i know is you need to come back if and only if you really really really really really really really want it and if you do let it just breathe and however it's going to breathe. And be sincere is what you're saying and not an act. So it's interesting that you frame it as like he doesn't want to do this anymore, but he doesn't know. He hasn't come to terms with that. I think it's similar to that, but in another lane.

If I can play psychologist, I think, Luke, he's not coming to terms with the fact that all this time off has meant he hasn't evolved at the same level of the guys around him he's like that dude who's like oh i already beat i beat up poor in high school so i'm gonna be able to beat him up the rest of my life well guess what now it's you know 20 years after high school and you're not in the same shape anymore and poor yates a stud i think connor has not come to terms with the fact luke that even by trying everything he can in a full training camp with no excuses,

he still can't be the same fighter he used to be. And he doesn't know how to deal with that. And I think that's when this sort of parody act came out of him on the build to this third fight. And then what we saw in the cage Saturday, look, I think he's in part turning the audience into marks. I think it was like his only move was desperation this is not over because if he didn't do that look if he didn't sit down and call out poirier and his wife none of us are talking about a fourth fight none of us are we're like dude we learned everything we needed to see we're only talking about the potential of a fourth fight outside of the

financial implications because connor's like no this shit ain't over i'm gonna kill you like so i think part of that i think that was calculated But Luke, I don't think he's doing a good job coming to terms with that. He's not that same guy anymore. And that's a hard pill to swallow, Luke. Yeah, well, I mean, what he was, you know, like, I've seen fighters accept their new,

their new state. Like, and they find a way to hit that groove for whatever it's worth. Like, Rich Franklin realized, okay, I'm not the man at 185 anymore, but you know what I am? I'm pretty fucking good. And between 185 and 205, all right, I won't be the man, but I'll beat some good fighters and I'll get my hand raised in some important contests. And he was totally okay with that. Like everyone's going to be a little bit

different. I don't judge Connor. If he let's assume for the sake of argument, BC that in his heart, I'm totally right. That like, he doesn't want it like this anymore. And he hasn't come to terms with it, dude. If that's, if that's true, it may not be, but let's say that it is. I don't judge him for it at all. Everybody is going to want things differently and in different times of their life and in different ways.

And if that's, if, if that's the place he's in, okay. Like what he did was spectacular and the money he made. Shit, man. If I had 10, if I had, dude, if you had 10% of Connor's money, I'd be balling, I'd be balling out. And that's 10 fucking percent of it. So like, you know, for me, man, I, people should only do in life what they really want to do. And that's going to be hard to figure out sometimes. I guess we're going to see what connor really wants but you're asking me like what i want from him next time just be honest with who you are and if that's somebody who really wants to come back out there and beat dusta poirier's ass well then get on out there and do it but if it's not man call it a fucking day whatever whatever

way it is too much money to be made too much uh ego in play but luke the rest of his career he's gonna have to fight uh dangerous and desperate to keep up with these guys it's gonna be a fun ride for as long as it lasts I mean yeah dude think about this Islam Makachev is ranked what outside or barely inside the top 10 like dude anywhere you go in this division it's a fucking hammer sitting in front of you you know so it's like you gotta really decide what it is that you want man you know Dustin Poirier made that choice after Conor made him make that choice and and Michael Johnson made him make that choice um maybe this injury will make him make it

you know we'll see we'll have to see uh all right BC let's get to um this dude makes me laugh what can I say dude Jake is, I said this on Monday's show, I think, BC, or maybe I said it to you, or I don't remember. His brother, Logan, take it or leave it, he kind of bores me, but he's fine. He's whatever. I don't have any negative say, just not for me. Jake, to me, seems a little bit different. He seems to be like Logan Paul with a little bit of uh I'll jump off the cliff first dare me not to

kind of energy and they had a press conference yesterday in LA with Tyron Woodley uh everyone couldn't get his name couldn't get his name uh pronounced correctly it's Tyron you mean Tyron Tyron was there right yeah or Tyrone I think as Jake called him I mean then I mean he might have been trolling who knows either way doesn't matter being is this. They had the presser. There was the weird-ass robot behind Jake. But I thought Jake had some pretty good zings along the way. We've got a couple of clips here I want to play, BC. And then I want you to react to them.

Gaff, let's play the clip, if we can, about the bet. The bet they want. I don't think you can be selective, Luke. I think he's got to play more. Are you confident or not? Ha ha! What's that thing? Bro. That thing actually do it?

Bro, this guy has no fucking confidence. Bet. Deal or no deal? Deal. Can we shake on it? There we go. So the bet was if either guy loses, they have to say I love and then the other person's name on their body and put it on Instagram. BC, what did you make of that bet and their interaction in the presser?

I mean, look, the tattoo bet is stupid. I'm surprised that Woodley went forward with it, but it does show his confidence level. That might have been not the best commercial to show what we saw yesterday. Look, I watched bet is stupid. I'm surprised that Woodley went forward with it, but it does show his confidence level. That might have been not the best commercial to show what we saw yesterday. Look, I watched this press conference. I didn't have high expectations. I was very entertained. Look, look, we've said this before.

It has nothing to do with showtime and our connection there. We've said a few things before. In the celebrity vein, this is great matchmaking. You really can make a case for either guy to win by knockout, and I think both guys are going to go in there searching for the knockout. So that is what separates this fight from ultimately what we saw in Logan versus Floyd, which, you know,

we got ourselves cooked into, and it was a great opportunity, and we did our best to sort of say, here's what I hope will happen. Well, I think that one played out worst case scenario. I don't think this one's going to play out worst case scenario. So from that regard, I came out of this pressure fired up. I really believe both guys is stick and trash talk from the standpoint of getting confidence that they can win. But to your larger point on Jake, dude, I don't know if he's just wearing us down, but he's pretty fricking funny. I'm not going to lie. He's like, like he's entertaining me with this bit and you nailed the difference. His brother, Logan is a little bit nerdier, a little bit more like pop the collar, trust fund, you know, dude at the, at the keg party who, you know, at the, at the fricking fraternity who skipped past the initiation and he's a,

he's a legacy bro and all that. Luke, Logan's attitude toward boxing is like, ha ha, I walked into your sport and now I'm a pay-per-view main event. Take that. Can you believe it? Which is annoying. Jake's strategy is like, nah, bro, I'm coming through there. I want to fight fighters. Now look, through three fights, has he fought killers?

No. But to his point about the attention, pay-per-view buys, interest and money gained through three pro fights yeah comparable there's really no comparison he's doing a unique boxing version of kimbo slice luke as you've mentioned before only he seems to be about that life he was very honest in saying i haven't fought a guy yet who can punch me in the face you know if if woodley's that guy we're gonna find out what my chin is made is made of. Jake Paul is sparring with the right level of competition to figure out whether he belongs in this game, but I'm much more into this narrative

that Jake's putting out there that, like, you know, I don't know if I belong in this game, but I'm all about this game, and I'm going to find out along with you if I belong here, and we're going to keep matching ourselves more difficult. Luke, Jake went to the level of saying, give me three years, and I'll be ready for Canelo. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no.

Now, that's another ballpark. Luke, that's another town. That's another island. Are you okay with him saying things like that in terms of his true intentions in this game? Yeah, I don't care about any of that shit. That's whatever. But I'll say this, man. Here's the big difference between the paul brothers as best i can tell one

you've articulated it but two i mean think about it logan took on floyd where he had a massive size advantage in an exhibition still a very difficult challenge frankly an impossible one even with a diminished floyd but you know there's a little bit of safety involved with the whole thing relatively speaking. Dude, this is a pro-fucking bout. And all of Jake Paul's fans are like, dude, all of his bouts have been pro bouts. Yes, I'm sorry that I'm not the fucking Burt Sugar historian of Jake Paul's boxing career. It's been irrelevant to this point. Sorry.

But I'll say this. Dude, Tyron can knock him the fuck out. He's a real fighter. Certainly he's on the decline, but he's a real fighter who has done real things. You know, the Kimbo slicing, I'm going to amend it. And this is going to drive our audience fucking insanely mad at me, but hear me out. Again, the comparison is not totalizing. It's not just Kimbo slice. It's a little bit of Conor McGregor in Jake Paul. Why do I say that? Because if you watch the presser yesterday, dude, Jake Paul knew all the details of Tyron Woodley's career. It's up, it's down, and he was throwing it in his face.

But he only knew those things because he had clearly paid attention. One of the hallmarks of McGregor's rise through the ranks is when he was trolling Floyd with that Warriors jersey from, I forget who the player was at this point. C.J. Watson. Yeah, exactly. But here's the point being is, Conor would pay attention to these little details,

little kind of things that would make you be like, wow, dude, he's all in, included. And then he would throw that knowledge in people's faces. Dude, he was saying incredibly mean and hurtful shit to Tyron about the stage of the career that he's in and all the things that happened to him and all the fights and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, you're fighting me because this is your biggest payday.

You've never been on this stage. And the shit was like, you know, it was obviously in part false, BC, but in part it wasn't. And the parts that were not false were uncomfortable. And he was at ease with saying those things on stage dude he's he's a little bit different than his brother and because this is a pro bout eight rounds pro bout to me the stakes are higher that the opponent is much tougher given

the circumstances and uh i'm intrigued i'm intrigued to see what happens here. Jake's easier to like, or maybe from the sort of dudes that we are, Luke. Okay? He's a little crazy. He's not about, like, anime. Yes, he is a little crazy. That's right. And spouting off, you know, Pokemon and Dogecoin or whatever. I don't know.

Whatever that bullshit is. Luke, he's got tattoos on the side of his head. I mean, he's a little crazy so it seems to work uh in terms of he's got a chance to kind of win us over and make this an entertaining run now look Luke this fight did get a new date and it got announced yesterday officially it'll be Sunday night August 29th it'll be the night after a Showtime Championship boxing card from Phoenix in which David Benavidez is going to heavyweight, or sorry, headline at super middleweight against former champion Jose Uzcategui. The next night in Cleveland, Ohio, Luke, not LA, like you heard some people throw around,

maybe Vegas, maybe Miami. Cleveland, Ohio, a little bit of a homecoming for the Paul brothers. This will be interesting. They put Amanda Serrano, who's the most decorated women's champion, having won belts in seven divisions in the co-main event. She's fighting a 122-pound champion who's moving up in weight from Mexico. It should be an interesting duel there. They're going to add two more legitimate boxing fights to this main pay-per-view card.

But, you know, we've talked ad nauseum about this bubble, the celebrity bubble. It'll only last if you can keep giving fights where you don't know who's going to win and both guys are going to go for it. Luke, I'm pretty secure in saying we're going to get that August 29th, whether the people out there buy it or not or they like the Pauls or not. This is going to be the one. This is going to be a fun banger. It is.

Cleveland is the hometown of Jake Paul. For folks who are wondering why they're in a place as BC goes and vomits live on air, whatever the fuck he's doing, I don't know. But yeah, it should be intriguing. Sunday night, 8 p.m. I'm not sure why they're doing it on a Sunday. They didn't really tell us,

but I guess that's what they did with the other Paul brothers, so they're going to do it this time as well. We'll see. I get the pay-per-view returns were not bad for Mayweather versus Paul, so I guess that they're thinking this is a Sunday thing that could work. Is there anything in terms of, I guess, is NFL back on that day? But they wouldn't be at night anyway.

I'm not really sure. I don't know why they're doing it on a Sunday, August 29th. I don't quite get that. Did you hear anything about why it's on Sunday, not Saturday? I don't know. All I know, Luke, is that we're talking about Fury Wilder 3 getting rescheduled and has to get pushed out to October. There really aren't a lot of open weekend dates where you don't have a UFC pay-per-view

or in Showtime's case, they already have a card that Saturday night with Benavidez and Phoenix. So I think at the end of the day, look, you get into September, you're getting into Canelo territory. There's a lot of big fights coming up maybe this was the best way place to sort of shoehorn it in but uh what a packed august we have luke uh spence pacquiao the weekend before um it's gonna be wild the big ufc card the week before that so yeah i'll say this too about tyron woodley's no one's really we were just talking about jake and Tyron. Tyron, I thought, did a pretty good job of deflecting about, dude, you lost your last four. You got bounced from the UFC.

And he says, oh, the contract expired. But yeah, I mean, they didn't offer a new one. So take that for what it's worth. But I'll say this. I thought he did a pretty good job of having an answer for them and leaning on his resume. At the same time, man, there's just dude jake like why are we talking about fighter pay all the time a lot of reasons but a big one at least now is that jake paul is constantly beating that drum constantly dude he is constantly beating the drum of tyrant's decline

to like get that into his head um you know i I don't know to what extent that will affect him, and I don't know what he's got left, but Jesus, it's a huge part of the story of this fight, and that can't be easy for a guy like Tyron, who is a decorated champion, to have to field that all the time. But look, this seems like a smart pivot for him, and I think that he played up, as you mentioned,

the fact that Jake Paul hasn't fought anybody yet, right Ben Askren with a bad hip and no hands was his best opponent so I think Tyron did a great job of playing that up that look you know yeah I lost four in a row in the UFC but I've been training this my whole life and you know for 20 years and I've got you know decorated career and in evidence of using my hands what the hell do you have right you fought a diabetic gas station or sorry pre-diabetic gas station attendant but look can we throw to uh the remaining sound that we have because i did want to ask you a key question here please go ahead if you can get us back in here

fighter has ever accomplished what i've accomplished in three fights and people can say i didn't earn it people say will say I don't deserve it, but I'm earning more than any fighter has ever earned three fights in. And people know what they get when they tune into a Jake Paul show. Luke, he did double down on what I mentioned earlier. You can't really argue with that. He has sort of either made more money or been featured at a higher level through three boat pro

bouts in any way. I mean, you know, Lomachenko fought for a world title in a second bout, won a world title in his third, but it wasn't on the pay-per-view level for these, this kind of financial money. So that might be right. But Luke, I wanted to ask you about that fricking robot. I don't understand that. I can't tell if I hate that or if it's, or if, like, I know it's not cool,

I'll give you that much, but is there a person in that? What even is that, Luke? Because Tyron at one point, I thought, was going to try to attack it, and that could have been incredible theater, Luke. Yeah, it's someone who's got a bad job. A really bad job.

You ever seen those people who, like, have to take the signs, like, with the arrows, and they've got to flip them and point them so you can go buy a mattress in some strip mall? That's a pretty fucking bad job you're seeing those people who like have to take the signs like with the arrows they got to flip them and point them so you can go buy a mattress in some strip mall that's a pretty fucking bad job but this is right behind it do you think it's like some seven foot three guy in there luke's i'm like washed faded out nba center who's playing this role now yeah yeah it's some dude who had like one season in Sacramento and then, you know, was playing in like the Iraq league and in Greece or something, you know,

it's like a former Maryland center. Gerard Mustaf is probably the guy in that Luke. That's an oldie, but a goodie. Yeah. So we'll see. All right, BC,

are we doing wheel of death? What are we doing now? Yeah, we do that on Wednesdays. Yeah. Luke. Hey, how about that? All right. This is what we do that on Wednesdays. Yeah, Luke. Hey, how about that?

All right. This is what we do. Oh, wow. A little double track auto tune there. Seemed like Pennington James for a second. Luke, before we got into the wheel, though, I did want to mention something that I think is important, Luke, okay? You and I, we are finalists for the sports category of the People's Choice Podcast Awards.

Now, Luke, you and I, to be really honest with the people, you know, I'm not even a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America or whatever it's called, because, Luke, I don't need your awards. It's cool, all right? I'm just doing my job, all right? I knew what I need. I need that salary. I need that paycheck so I can put braces on my kids' mouths.

But, Luke, if you love this show and you've already subscribed and liked and bought our merch, you want to do one more nice thing for us, this might be it. We appreciate all what our fans do, but we hope you love our show enough to nominate us so we can advance to the final round. To nominate, go to podcastawards.com slash apps slash sign up and then toggle down to the sports category we've included the link at the top of the episode description as well you see the the little teaser below you want to do that you want to go vote for morning combat we'll love you for it luke okay now look i'm not trying to say that this is you're doing you couldn't care less look you don't even get praise in your own

household about your great work that you do yeah Yeah, no one cares what I do. So I'm not the kind of guy who is big into awards. You know, the only awards I've ever won were the ones they couldn't deny me because, you know, it's just a... Either you met the criteria or you didn't. But, you know, yeah, if the fans out there want to get out and sign up for this and support us,

I'll say this uh it'll make our bosses happy and making our bosses happy means more shows like last friday right that's a fair way to put it that's a very fair way to put it there's a it's a means to an end it's it's a way it's a it's a way to judge corporately what we're doing and the impact it's you see do you think we'll win any of those mma awards i don't think we're even going to get nominated nothing doesn't ariel get nominated like three times for each category i don't know i don't know he's a deck he's a decorated broadcaster shout out to him luke okay here's this ready for this i guarantee that they won't nominate this show for best show and they will put on the ultimate fighter for best show i i

absolutely guarantee that i guarantee they're gonna do that seems fair seems very fair luke all right uh hey every wednesday uh sometimes you know luke can be a bitch he doesn't want to talk about certain things so i gotta shoehorn them in this weird uh weird thing we do where luke spins the wheel five times 10, good faith answers to decently faith questions. We call this the wheel of death. You get what you get, Luke. Here are your 10 categories

for the week. Discounted food items. Pay me like your French girls. Acoustic death metal, jack of all nations, master of none, really gross shit. You're seeing a couple leftovers from last week that didn't get picked, Luke.

ESPN was never my friend. Please pass the Pilsner. No belts needed. The future of Daja coin and women with low self-esteem. Luke, you get what you friggin' get. Alright, let's spin this.

Alright. I can't guarantee entertainment. I can just guarantee decently faith questions. We got the echo. Please take that off. Yes, we we do all right pay me like your french girls leo uh luke we mentioned this last week that dana did that interview with the la times manuk akpokian akupian my god my armenian friend i think it's a cop it was about fighter

pay and dana now famously said if you don't like it go start your own MMA league and pay them whatever you want to pay them Luke in some ways this is the most direct Dana has been on the topic where his typical response is before this they either deflect away from it or they act like it's a non-issue whatsoever so uh imagine an alternate world in which you were called into Dana's public relations office. You were hired as a media consultant. And he said, look, Luke, I don't care about our past, all right? I didn't put you in that four-minute video for a reason.

Because unlike that clown you work with, I actually respect you. So here's the deal. We need to concoct strategies for how Dana will react moving forward. Because this topic of fighter pay will not go away and we want to publicly heal the image on such a controversial topic between ufc brass and the fighters so luke in what ways might dana and the ufc do a better job reacting to questions about fighter pay and spinning it in a way that can begin to win in the core of public perception jesus this is what i used to do for a living dude this is what i used

to do for a living no here's what i used to do if someone worked in a fucked up industry in politics and their message wasn't working but they weren't really ready to change anything about what they were doing they just wanted to change their messaging around it they would call my firm that i worked at and what we would do is we would write these speeches and then we would deliver them to focus groups or other attendees and then we would give them a little this is my the carrier for my sunglasses but we'd give them a device that had a dial on it. And then I would have someone read the speech and we would have someone adjust the dial

in real time, second by second. You don't wait till the end, second by second. And so you could see what messages resonate with audiences and then you would take those and then recraft them, do another whole series of focus groups. And so you got it exactly right and then you take it back to then recraft them, do another whole series of focus groups. And so you got it exactly right, and then you take it back to the client and be like, here's better messaging for your absolutely fucked up shit. That's what I did.

That job made me so sick to my stomach. I couldn't do it for more than two years, and I had all kinds of health problems. My fingernails fell out from stress. It was the worst shit ever, but I do have experience in this. Well, okay, so imagine they call you back to it, Luke. All the UFC responses are either, fuck you, we're the boss,

or I don't hear anybody complaining, do you? So that's not, Luke, that's not winning battles. How do you spin this? I'd say a couple of ways. First things first, I would say the easiest way to fix this problem is to raise fighter pay. And in fact, I don't mean that flippantly, BC. One of the things they could do is, like for example with the crypto or whatever, the UFC has probably decided that we could get away with not giving the fighters anything we don't have to

until they make us without much consequence. And I don't think that that's wrong. I mean, yes, the lawsuit might go forward. There might be legislation, but the public is not going, do they just sold 1.8 million buys despite everything like the UFC's calculation that they can just ignore this and it won't cost them. They might be right. They might be right. Another way, however, to look at it is to say, right, but let's think about this. We already gave them accident insurance. We do pay more than any other promoter on balance. And more to the point, what if we started doing a few other things to let them have money? For example, instead of putting the crypto ad on there, they could put, UFC

unilaterally decided we're going to put crypto on the shoulder, but anything you want in the middle, you can have. More to that point, we're going to start giving away 25%, they would never do this, I'm just going to make this up, 25% of our media rights fees to all the fighters, just year-over-year free checks. In other words, you do the kinds of things that the union, if there was one, would make them do, but you do a much more watered-down version, to the point where the fighters might be able to say, hey, listen, between the ads on my kit, between some of the rights fees we get from ESPN and, you know, let's say overall bump in pay, the Performance Institute, and whatever else that they get in terms of compensation,

I'm pretty happy with this arrangement. No one else in MMA could match that at that point. If you were actually giving away that kind of money, they wouldn't be able to do shit about it. But if I had to just do messaging, messaging, I think what I would say is, look at how much money we have paid, and show me who comes close.

Show me who's even come close trying. And we don't mean individual paydays here. In MMA. In MMA. Okay. And then you could talk about a couple of key factors. You could talk about how, yes, MMA doesn't have quite the high end for boxers, but one of the reasons why MMA works better than boxing

is because, one, we have a much better middle class in MMA than we do in boxing. I think that is actually true. And, B, what you could say is, yes, Deontay Wilder makes $20 million, but where is the boxing or top-ranked performance institute? Where is their accident insurance? Where is any of these things that they have? They don't have any of it. They pretend that they have it.

And so what we do is Conor McGregor and guys like that can make extraordinary amounts of money, but we take care of a much broader swath and set them up for success in a way that boxing just leaves them to their own devices. So on the balance, you're not going to see some of those extravagant paydays. But what you are going to see is a lot more happy fighters being able to live longer, happier lives

as a consequence of some of our participation in the Cleveland Clinic Brain Health Study, our accident insurance, our performance institute, and everything else in between. So it's interesting. That's really smart because some of these things like the Cleveland Clinic is really UFC trying to cover their own ass, right? Of course. Of course it is, yeah.

But they could spin that as we are doing that for your health. So I think the key to better messaging is the performance institute. I think the key is saying, look, okay okay you can say what we do about fighter pay but do you know how much we are paying and offering them to bring their training camp to las vegas free of charge to eat with a world-class chef to make sure they make weight to have you know masseuses and therapists there working with them i think that's the play up i do think it's interesting what you said about giving away, if not the front of the shirt, a spot. You know, OK, you can walk to the cage in a shirt of a presenting sponsor pre-approved by us of your choice. Or you can put it on the back.

That would do a lot. Because, look, it's not a good headline for the UFC that they sign a nine-figure deal with Crypto.com. And every fighter except for McGregor is forced to wear that Crypto.com shirt to the ceremonial weigh-in. I mean, it looks like, you know, uniformed tin soldiers. I distinctly remember, and this was before there was a lot of awareness about fighter pay, but this was the big, like people don't understand this who are new to the sport about Reebok. Before Reebok, you would get a lot of fighters who'd be like, well, the pay kind of sucks, but the sponsorship money is fucking sick, and I just make most of my money from sponsors.

And the UFC said, oh, well, we want that take. Okay, fine. But, dude, a big reason why you hear complaints about fighter pay is because sponsorship no longer offsets what that used to be. Find a way to offset that, and i guarantee you the complaints won't go away but you'll hear a lot less of them or yeah i mean whatever it is ufc is going to get their cut from it but just something that that you can point to with the fighters getting more cut because i don't think you the comparison to other mma leagues is interesting but they have such a a lead financially and structurally that doesn't really fix it because you can't compare yourself

to other sports because the percentage of what major team sports pay is so much higher. But yeah, they got to do something because the more that they continue to sign these big giant deals that the fighters get none of, you know, and then we hear Dana saying, hey, the quarantine is fine. I got a $27 million

mansion. I can hang out there for a while. Like, yeah. The last thing I say this on the PI, it's not just about who shows up and then they get the world-class meals and all that kind of stuff it's more than that remember they put one in Mexico and they put one in other building one or I guess the one in China and they're building one in Mexico um part of that is to prime the pump right so you could they could say listen part of what we're doing is and yes they're going to be the they want to prime the pump in Mexico so they can get all the best fighters into the UFC, but they do know it won't work that way.

There will be eventually some that spill over into Bellator and other organizations, but they're saying, listen, we're the ones investing in actual institutions that build MMA from the community up. That doesn't come for free, but it has lasting benefit for everyone. Folks should understand there are some things we can do to raise pay and we will, but we also want to make sure that we build the sport in a lasting kind of way over generations, over national boundaries. That doesn't happen without what we're doing. Dude, that's a compelling argument. Or you can just tell the truth and be like, yo, we pay them in cash and bags so much more than you know that they publicly get paid so just shut the hell up

and realize that okay all right uh luke let's go spin number two here we are you get what you get come on big booty gross latino no no that's awful that's all jack of all nations master of none yeah that sounds about hey luke you fancy yourself a world traveler a seeker of all nations, master of none. Yeah, that sounds about right. Hey, Luke, you fancy yourself a world traveler, a seeker of all cultures and customs, and someone who has been there and done that and, oh, has no problem telling you, unsolicited, everything about that. Like, have you heard Luke married a Colombian lady? I don't know if we've heard this yet.

Luke, you're pretty much a large asshole and an old bitch is really where I'm going with this. Thanks, BC. That's just the message I needed to hear today i appreciate that we uh we often hear though that you mentioned your favorite cities luke you know your your trip to spain has been a life changer for you we we regularly hear whether we're talking about the states or abroad just what you love we don't often hear what you don't like luke so this is your chance what are your three least favorite cities with citing up to three reasons for each that you have ever been

to domestically or abroad yeah panama city sucks not the one in florida the actual one in panama sucks it's not it's not good the beach is not interesting the food is okay it's not great the sites are not great um you know it was reasonably well built in the sense that like it has modern amenities but even i mean i'd rather have it not have modern amenities and have some character than to have all that stuff it has no character so between the heat and between the lack of character and there's i mean the the Panama Canal was cool to see, but other than that, like,

you can skip Panama City. Like, it sucks. I, I, yeah, I did a layover in, I forget what city it was.

I did a layover in El Salvador once. Um, not the greatest place that I've ever been. Not the greatest place I've ever been. Not the greatest place I've ever been. Did you leave the airport? Yeah, I did. And there were bedbugs on my flight.

I remember getting off and having just my ankles and calves chewed to pieces on that flight. And there was literal people in the airport with chickens and shit. I was like, yeah, I'm not doing this layover againover again i'm gonna do the layover in miami fuck this um so that place sucked okay random city in el salvador is number two i forget i forget where i forget i forget where it was i forget where the airport was you have to forgive me um all right somewhere in central america is number two and lu, your third least favorite city in the world is? Let me pick on a European city. You know what?

This is going to get me killed, but I don't care. You know what city I think it's fine, but I don't like it? I think it's super overrated. Paris. Paris ain't that money, dude. I'm sorry. I don't give a fuck how many romantic movies you've seen. I've been to paris

a dozen times easily um my brother was born there uh my family lived there for 10 years like i know a lot about it's overrated as shit it's expensive it's if it didn't used to be as bad but now it's really sprawling like it just goes on and on and on forever the fr there's a big misconception the french are nice the parisians are not they are absolute pricks just like montreal like quebec well yeah they're rude in montreal too but montreal is a great city yeah the food in france obviously if you know where you're going can be be good. But, like, dude, the average old place you could just stop at, like the average old cafe, not that good. Not that good at all. And, you know, yes, it's a world-class city with world-class amenities and stuff.

So, yes, I'll say this. The Paris subway is maybe one of the best subways I've ever seen. So I'll give them that. But, like, you know, like the sights and the sounds, like it's just, people make it out to be like, oh, you'll see the Eiffel Tower and your heart will fill with joy. No, it won't. It'll fill with a bunch of fucking dumbass tourists in front of you. You get to see the cool view at the top.

But it's not as spectacular as people make it out to be. Well, Luke, what happens is people go to France and then they have sex in Paris and then they have this nostalgic romanticism collection with it. So you must have not gotten it done there, Luke. Yeah, maybe. Well, I don't think that's true either. I think I did get it done.

But even then, it's just... I don't think so. I don't think so. Dude. Okay, whatever. But the point being is... And I would know from experience, dude. Yes, I'm sure you would.

But the point I'm trying to make is that everyone wants to make the city out to be magical in some way, and it's not that. It's not that fun. The food can be good, but again, place to place, terribly overrated, super expensive, sprawling. I'll put it this way. If you had, let's say a thousand bucks to tour and a european city meaning hotel whatever and you know let's say you had a thousand bucks that's the last city i'm going to spend it in um well a little little upset pigs here i mean paris is you know

that's fine but uh random city in central america no one no one knows including you i was expecting you to come guns blazing at like some our favorite U.S. metro stops, but you were very political here. Yeah, I mean, this place is in America. That sucks, too. Like, we're going to Cleveland. If I never go to Cleveland, what am I missing besides nice? Well, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is badass.

Okay, I don't give a shit about that. I don't really care about that at all. Why can't we have fights in New Orleans or something? I forgot. You don't give a shit about that. I don't really care about that at all. You know, why can't we have fights in, like, New Orleans or something? I forgot. You don't like good music, Luke. That's probably why, you know? Yeah, I mean, have they put enough R&B and pop artists in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to water it down to nothingness yet?

I don't know. Okay. All right. Anyway, I'm just pointing out, like, there are some American cities with a lot of, like, character, but they don't put a lot of fights in them, unfortunately. So, there you go. We should go fly to Washington State and hang out with your buddy Aaron who gave you the bag

of meat because Luke he's threatening to mail us a giant wheel of Gouda cheese the Cougar Gouda cheese that he says will change our life. Luke will there be any roofies added to that cheese or is this a transaction you'd be willing to get a part of? I'm willing to find out.

All right, all right. Shout out to our boy there. All right. Luke, spin number three coming your way. Yeah, everyone's favorite, Luke. Really gross shit. Hey, Luke, from Ryan Hall to Ronda Rousey ground based mixed martial artists have long had an affinity for

disforming their earlobes as some form of public badge of honor regarding the amount of time and effort they have put into grappling over the years Luke and as good faith and filthy casual way in which you can please try and explain both to me and any other equally horrified viewer

about this culture which breeds this phenomenon and why any upstanding citizen, particularly those that are good looking and hoping to slay, would add such decrepit property value to their moneymaker by turning into a Klingon. In debate form, I ask you to defend their decision to do this. And on the flip side, share with me which MMA fighter, past or present, has the grossest set of cauliflower ear and should be ashamed of themselves. Luke, first, defend the culture. Second, who has the worst set of lobes in the game today?

Uh, Ryan's are pretty bad. His are pretty bad. Um, Couture had some bad ones. I think Forrest Griffin said he, one time was taking him down and he had his ear pressed against the side of his leg. And it was like someone trying to smash a dumpling with their head on someone's leg is what it felt like. Um, I've seen someone in pure wrestling that are just really, really bad. The reason why the folks don't do much about it is because

if you spend as much mat time as Ryan has spent, and I think folks don't understand how much time that is. It's most of your day for the last 20 years of your life. It's really not all that possible to control for. You can probably do some. Some people get it worse than others. But it's very,'s really not all that possible to control for you can probably do some some people get it worse than others but it's just it's very very hard to avoid is the first thing some people have done it rich franklin never had bad ears but um you get the idea that's the first thing i'd say a little bit you pointed it out to me connor's got a little bit he's got connor had

bad he had drained his ear in two places in his left ear so he was getting it bad but the real reason why you keep it is because if you live their life where every day you wake up you eat breakfast and then you're off to the gym for either all day or multiple parts of the day and dude that's all that they do like you have to understand who these people are if you travel if you compete if whatever in the world in which they circulate, you have a hard to deal with problem to the point where if you just leave it or if you have visible trauma on your ears, this is what you don't understand. You can show up to any gym in America, not like a Gold's, but like a Marcelo Garcia's or whoever, a.k.a. And you roll up with those ears and you will have an automatic passport to respect that other people will not automatically weirdos. Okay.

But that's who you're around. That's who you decided to live your life around. Any different than if you were a guy who, who slays often, and you're proud of that, that, you know, what's the result of that negative?

Well, you get some pretty gross STDs. So you just, you just don't even attempt to medicinalize it. you just let that shit grow and it's coming out through your shorts like yo bro yeah yeah you know i think that problem is a lot more that problem is a lot more controllable than this one there's you can wear headgear but it really will impact the way in which you roll and what submissions you can and can't get out of and by the way that higger won't be there when compete, so it doesn't necessarily do you a ton of good.

It's just an occupational hazard that ended up being a symbol of one's commitment to the craft, so that when you show up someplace and you've got those, like imagine if you had to go do, like Showtime was like, hey, BC, we want to send you to go see how Islam Makachev trains over in Dagestan. I mean, obviously he's an AKA, but whatever. Let's say you were doing that. And you rolled up there because you're old and washed now, but back

in your 30s, you know, you developed a little bit of trauma on your ears. Dude, they're going to see that and they're going to know, okay, wait a second. He might be not one of us, but he's of our kind. And you're going to get a completely different level of treatment. In the 90s, if you saw somebody with either a neck tat

or a hand tat you'd be like either they've done time or they can really fight bro like i'm just gonna respect that from a distance right it's kind of like that yes it's just like that that's correct like when you watch me chew luke and one eye goes in the other direction of the other eye it's look it's it's a factory town defect but it it's part of what makes me tough, Luke. I know. Egg Shen is just your favorite character in a movie, and you're just recreating all of those magic moments.

Luke, I will say your boy Ryan Hall, that was my first media day with him where I sat and listened to him talk for 25 minutes. Bro, he's too good for the sport. He's an interesting cat. There's a few fighters like that when they talk you're like oh you don't belong here because i mean you could fight but like you know you're better than the rest of us yeah that's what he's one of those all right hey luke considering we started drinking beer as teenagers directly before the craft revolution changed the way we consume this beverage as

americans it's safe to say guys our age have seen their taste palates grow exponentially. But despite men of our age's graduation into beer kinds like double IPAs, gosets, saisons, barley wines, and other hipster trends, we all cut our teeth, typically in the woods after dark, fighting our way through a lukewarm can of mass-produced American Pilsners that have just as much taste of actual urine as it does barley and hops. But Luke, we fucking loved it just the same, all right? In fact, some of us still do

and drink that shit either for nostalgic reasons or for financial reasons or maybe just because a cold beer on a hot summer's day still rules, Luke, and it does. Okay. So with that nostalgia in mind, which three canned beers do you most associate to either your early high school or college drinking days that still have that same power of nostalgia over you that when you see it or someone passes you one you're like yeah bro fucking hey yeah milwaukee's beast ice yeah let's go back to the william and mary days in our greek life as we bung each other and for initiation purposes only believe that uh luke

which three shitty canned beers hold the greatest level of nostalgia for you today once again you totally misunderstand greek life you being the absolute perfect fit for it number one yeah that's true not true uh i would say uh natty light natural light was the big one that was the number one seed natural light so like a silvery white blue can kind of um two i would say is going to be Beast Light, Bush Light. It was affordable, shitty, everywhere. Dude, the Bush Light flavor is great in that category compared to its competitors, Luke. I mean, it's way freaking better than Miller High Life. I love the High Life, by the way. I love the champagne and beer.

I'm not a High Life guy. I'm not a champagne and beer guy. But Bush Light's way better. Do Bush Light's better than Coors Light too? You know what's two I hated in college the most? Coors Light sucked and then Keystone Light. Remember Keystone Light? Oh, God, that's bad.

That's fucking worst. Southpaw was another bad one. I'll drink some Jenny Cream Ale. Luke, I have an uncle who got married at like 40 a couple years ago, so he had a wedding in his front yard. He had a hot dog vendor. He had an ice cream truck. He had cases full of jenny cream ale i was like hell yeah dude genesee light i mean that was that

was fantastic dude but i would say that my number one thing and i'll still i won't really drink the natty and the beast and not that anyone ever offers me any at this point but the one that i will still like kind of side eye at the grocery store a little bit and it was really my introduction to you know oh i want to vicariously and you know find a way to enjoy rap videos in my life uh hurricane the 40 ounce hurricane that was the one that uh i mean that's just two dollars worth of punishment quick fast gets the job done when you're broke a 40 ounce of hurricane that is that's that's magic in a bottle luke my mostness i came up on natty lead i came up on bush and bush light no no question like most guys our age but luke the beer that i got shit faced on like the first eight out of the first 10 times i drank in my life do you remember when miller came out with the miller red label in 1995

it was only around for one year it was basically supposed to be miller's amber ale before we as a society were really ready for that luke they put a lot of money into it and it failed miserably dude we drank the shit out of miller red and as soon as it was on the scene it was gone Luke and I went on the uh Miller Brewing tour in Milwaukee with a couple friends in 2001 with the express goal of uh of trying to see if they had any like you know cases lingering around there nobody nobody had a freaking clue Luke it's like it was gone it's like the Arch Deluxe at McDonald's right it was here and then it's gone Luke somebody out there has got to have like a 30 pack of Miller Red in their It's like the Arch Deluxe at McDonald's, right? It was here, and then it's gone. Luke, somebody out there has got to have, like, a 30-pack of Miller Red in their basement for, like, the past 25 years

just, like, waiting for this moment to hear me say this so they can try to sell it to me for big money. Luke, I would buy the crap out of that. Yeah, that does sound good. I remember for red beer, we would drink Killian's Irish Red. Remember that? Yeah, hated that shit. But, yeah.

Hated that shit. Yeah, I've done that, too that too i mean we weren't ready for stuff luke i mean you remember the first time you had a sierra nevada it was like your first ipa you're like what the hell is this bro that's still a shitty beer but um yeah i remember when um when sam's october fest would only come out in october and it before craft beer took over and it was like the greatest thing ever created yeah I will say though that when I was in college like if you wanted to treat yourself with beer a case of Miller Lite was like that was high end you know that was like oh okay you paid extra for this you know because I think when I think when I was in Williamsburg there was a there was a food line right by campus and they would sell, I think I got this right.

They would sell a case of Natty light. So that's 24 beers for people overseas for, uh, $11. And then the case of Miller was like 15. So you're like, Oh, that's an extra four.

I don't mind. I don't, you know, you're pinching pennies at that point, but dude, you can imagine that 24 beers for like 10 or 11 bucks. I mean, that's an extra four. I don't mind. You're pinching pennies at that point. But, dude, can you imagine that? 24 beers for like 10 or 11 bucks? I mean, that's such a fucking steal. That's a great steal, Luke.

I was going to say, Miller Lite sucks. I have affinity for the high life. Did you ever get into MGD, Miller Genuine Draft, back then? Nah, I didn't like any of that shit. All right. All right, Luke. Red Dog? I got it.

I got it. Yeah. I've done it dude dude you remember like the first time you drank like two full beers it's the equivalent of being like on ecstasy and acid mixed together luke it's just like you float i mean it's just like you float you you're just in another freaking yeah and i think we spent our whole life trying to recreate that high and you know we just can't we can't lu We can't, Luke. Can't do it, bro. That's why you got to turn to gross porn, right? Listen, Perth City, give me a free membership, please.

All right. One more for you, Luke. You know, I don't know if this segment will survive another week. We'll see. Here we go. Hey, no belts needed. Luke saturday night was the rare blockbuster ufc pay-per-view main event that was not contested for an interim or full ufc title when mcgregor and poirier met for the third time ufc president dana white did carry on the tradition like none other luke when he said that pay-per-view was trending to be the biggest in UFC history. As we talked about, it may have

finished number two if you count international sales. But, Luke, throughout UFC history, there has actually been six other non-title pay-per-view main events that have surpassed the one million pay-per-view buy mark name five of the six to close out this week's wheel of death jesus non-title non-interim non-title pay-per-view main events that have sold 1 million buys in the u. The two Conor Diaz fights, right? Correct. Okay, that's two of them. Conor Diaz, two, did 1.6 at UFC 202.

Conor Diaz, one, at 196, did 1.3 million in 2016. Okay. God, you're going to tell me these when I don't get them, and I'm going to be like, how the fuck did I not know that? All right, so there's those two. I'm trying to think of who else non-title main events that sold that well. I don't know. My brain's not working today, dude.

I'm sorry. I don't know. I don't know. Wow, Luke. Okay, one of them was this calendar year. Was it Conor and poirier yep that at ufc 257 did a reported 1.6 million although again ufc doesn't report them it's hard to really know is that international and whatever but that's a that's a monster that's that that's like the okay the third biggest or second biggest okay give me give me a hint for some of the other ones. Just a small hint.

See if I can get them. You got one more Conor McGregor fight. Okay, so Cowboy? Yep, that was 246. It did 1.35 million. And then, Luke, you've got two others. Both non-title bouts, but both in the light heavyweight division. Ooh, Jesus. title bouts but both in the light heavyweight division oh jesus um do any of oh do any of them

involve couture and liddell incorrect but good guess i don't know i give up all right the obvious one i thought was ufc 114 rampage versus rashad did 1.05 million obviously fueled fueled by the ultimate fighter season in which the door got ripped off Kimbo was there it was a big deal the one that threw me for a loop Luke UFC 92 2008

1.05 million pay-per-views your main event Rich Ace Franklin versus Dan Henderson Luke blown away by that 0-5 million pay-per-views. Your main event, Rich Ace Franklin versus Dan Henderson, Luke. Yeah. I'm blown away by that. Yeah, but that card, if memory serves, 92 was a big card. Let me look it up here real quick.

Yeah, so UFC 92, Rashad and – wait, wait, no. That had Rashad and Forrest at the top, and that was for the title. Might drive the wrong number. Yeah, you must because that one's got a title on it. A couple of them. What fight did you say it was? I thought it was Rich Franklin versus Dan Henderson, but that's not UFC 92.

No, it's not. Let's see. Rich Franklin. Let's see. He fought Dan Henderson and lost to him. UFC 93. Okay, I was wrong, luke it's the right number it's the right date but you are correct it's the ultimate 2008 i had the wrong fight atop the

marquee there this one was rashad evans versus forrest griffin in the main event frank meir against big nog and the co-main and you also had rampage jackson versus vonderlei on that main card so i screwed up the fight but it is the same event. Hey, how about Rashad? Twice, Luke. Right? But that's a title bout, isn't it? The one against Rampage wasn't.

The one against Forrest was. So you just dead wronged yourself live on air. So I just ruined the whole segment. There you go. All right, Luke, there's that shit for this week. Let's go to the other one that we do every Wednesday. Morningcombat at gmail.com. Dead wronging myself in mid uh that's great it's real great uh luke fan submissions every wednesday you can hit us up at that email send in your shit and uh let's run that graphic please we've got mail we've got some mail

all right luke how badly did i butcher that dude yeah i was you fucked that up pretty bad okay okay yeah all right let's keep it rolling here luke our first fan submission coming at us from g-u-e-r-m-a-n from german he says check out my covid garage gym luke and bc don't judge my front squat too harshly i'm doing the best i can it's not as badass as doing them in your front yard but my neighbors would call police on me if i ever did that was very excited to get my t-shirt it's very high quality and fits on top of that my wife told me it makes me look thinner it's a win-win can't wait for merch 2.0 keep up the great work you are the best in the biz luke how about this guy with the mk shirt going low squatting yeah so he's got a front

squat position his front rack is a little bit off because if you show the fingers here or show the major picture the full picture if you notice he's only got two fingers on the bar it's okay you can do it that way but it tells you his front rack position needs a little bit of work. But I'll say this. His gym looks good. He's got good equipment. His squat itself looks really good. The only thing that stands out to me is, again, the two fingers.

You should be able to get your entire hand underneath, but if not, it's okay. The only thing that gets me on this one, BC, one more time, go to the able to get your entire hand underneath, but if not, it's okay. The only thing that gets me on this one, BC, one more time, go to the photo. I want to show you something. He's got a 35-pound plate. He's got two 35-pound plates. I don't know how to explain this. 35-pound plates are like the plate in the gym that everybody doesn't want, except this guy. And he's got got two of them and i think he's got tens on the other side so he's got a 45 on each side in that sense but um it's a

little weird he's got 35 it's like a susan b anthony coin yeah like a two dollar bill basically yeah but i'll say this his squat good, and his gym looks really good. So, shouts to this guy. Luke, UFC 93 was Ace Franklin against Henderson. That only did 350,000 buys, so I did dead wrong myself. Rashad did do over a million, but it was not a non-title bout. All right, thank you, Gurman. We'll keep it going here.

At HeelsGirl615, Luke, you remember her? She threatened to get married in Vegas with Elvis. Her and her man promised pictures. Luke, they said, we love you guys. Check out our trip to Vegas. Luke, as you can see, Elvis wedded these two in holy matrimony. But check out the groom, if we can zoom in one more time, wearing our MK 1.0 merch to the desert.

Luke, that's dedication. Big time. These people all seem quite happy. I wish them nothing but congratulations. I'll just say, my man Elvis over there is looking whiz-oshed. Wow. Yeah, that's like Elvis the day of the death, right? That's like him on the toilet, like pale as shit.

I'm sure he did a great job he had like he had like four peanut butter and banana sandwiches and then just yes died on the crapper and made out with a with a 14 year old yeah that's the full elvis style hey luke the groom right there you want to see the gift the wedding gift that he gave his fight fan wife. Sure. From this trip. Let's check it out. Gaff. It's her own Luke venom fight kit. If we can go to the back. I mean, look,

come on. I mean, get you a wife that not only will watch fights with you, but that you can buy a venom fight kit for, for your wedding gift. Come on. I agree. You know what? I used to,

I used to make fun of people for being all into UFC gear and shit, and I've done a 180 on this. I feel like this is a great gift and a great thing that their marriage can have this to share. Good for them, man. Dude, I've done a 180 on fans.

When you and I were at the weigh-in last week, we were at the podium way back at the other side of the arena from the stage where the cameras are set up because we were doing an HQ hit right afterwards. Luke, to see the way the crowd popped for every fighter that came up and anytime there was a pushing and shoving, man, dude, I just wanted to be in the middle of that. Luke, our job gets us so close to the action that we are, look, if you're a fight fan and you have our job gets us so close to the action that we are. Look, if you're a fight fan and you have our job, you're walking on sunshine every day.

But Luke, I don't get to experience it like Mr. And Mrs. Ingram here. I don't get to wear my own venom fight kit and show up at the fights. Luke, am I missing something big here? I'm missing something. No, see, I don't miss that part of it. I don't I don't miss going to bars or, you know, being in the audience. I don't miss any of that.

It's like, I know what you mean. For the right kind of person, it's intoxicating, but I'm not that guy. All right, Luke, our old friend David A., a.k.a. the French Bill Cosby, David Appleton, he's back, Luke. He says, as announced on last week's Dead Wrong, merch two, a.k.a. three t-shirts, no cups, finally reached France with international shipping and who better to try it on than my friend appoline and yours truly here is david appleton and his friend appoline going tip to tip presumably right before he put on a sweater and

roofie to her luke and in full uh bill cosby tribute there so uh Absent all of the latter things you said there, the other part of this warms my heart, and I love seeing it, and God bless them. I'm glad people can get international shipping now. Love it. David has one more. He says, I even threw in a bonus for Brian, us singing a cheesy 90s rock ballad,

more than combat words? Okay, I'll get my coat. Can we play this gaffe? This is gonna be incredible. To show me how you feel more than words

is all you have to do to make it real then you wouldn't have to say that you love me. Cause I'd already know. Dude, how about that? How about Appleton and Apollonia over here, right? Dude, with the old Extreme hit off of Pornography D2. Yeah, Luke, this is fantastic.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I got to say, that's impressive. They've done well for themselves. bless them great fans i hope they they bang the second this camera turned off right i mean all right he says ps more seriously you guys got me back into boxing so keep up the current balance of coverage and fuck the haters in the comments wow this french citizen luke you just tore apart his his city but i said Paris I didn't like, but the big misc... People think the French are mean.

No, that's not true. The French are not mean. The French are actually quite nice. The Parisians are mean. Yes, yes. I give much love to David A., his students that he sleeps with, and all that, and congratulations. Thank you.

All right, Luke, Andreas is here. He says, Dear Luke and Brian, a little greeting from Denmark. With Merch 2.0 being so late, I had to call in a favor from a friend in Boston where I lived while doing my entire master's degree at Tufts University. Luke, some of us actually graduated

from a good university. I had him buy the t-shirt as seen in the picture and the sweater, then had him ship it to his address and then afterwards ship it to Denmarkmark although international shipping is now available i'm happy that i'm the proud owner of the og true merch 1.0 i've been a viewer since day one i love the content a long time ago you had movie reviews and just did again on friday's episode i once challenged you to watch and review the danish cult comedy classic cloven the movie because it's truly

an MK movie I hope you give it a shot all the best Andreas PS now that Belgium is out of Euro 2021 maybe Luke will start to cheer for Denmark your thoughts Luke well this must be old because Denmark's out of it too um okay yeah but yeah my one of my very very very very good friends in my life i've known him since high school he went to tough so um smart smart guy this guy must be how do you think this man looks in our merch luke i probably saw him on january 6th here in town do you think he has a selfie in what's-her-name's office? Probably, yes. Probably, yeah.

He's a Danish gentleman there, so thank you for going to that effort for securing our merch. I mean, these are our people, Luke. These are the kind of people that will mail us wheels of cheese, okay? So shout out to that. Fair enough, fair enough. Luke Chewy. Chewy is here with Chewy. He says, hey, guys, here's a shot of me sporting merch 1.0 at Valley of Fire State Park,

not far outside of the fight capital of Las Vegas. Also, we made a Whole Foods stop before heading out and ran into the savage himself, Andre Feely. The shirt may or may not have inspired the eye poke that unfortunately ended the fight from two weeks ago. Anyways, thanks for all the content. Been a Professor Salt-N-Pepa fan since he broke down Holloway Aldo and gave me a further appreciation of the sport. I remember during the MMA Beat Days thinking, who is this gas station, hot dog eating, wrestling loving, 90s referencing trash panda?

He speaks my language. Was sad to see Luke end his run at Vox, but beyond stoked when the greatest show in combat sports started keep up the good work and hope a live show can happen at some point hey Chewy it just happened brother and it was badass all right more to come

more to come more to come yes so that's Chewy there in the shmedium he says PS don't go too hard on my shmedium t-shirt working on fitting properly into a double xl no front yard to have a home gym but i do have a membership at my local gym luke i won't talk about his shelving because you know if you're in a glass house you cannot you cannot throw stones i got a black liver luke okay but how how about chewy representing us and running into Touchy Feely? Great stuff. Brand ambassador for a while, it sounds like,

and incredibly grateful for this guy's support for what we do. So thanks to Chewy, man. Love it. I would love to know how he got that nickname. Little meat. What do you call those things, Luke? His beard. Mutton chops?

Yeah, he's got a mutton chop thing going going maybe it gets the girls and where he's from maybe luke okay hey austin w has three photos here one is italian sculptor fabio viale sculpting these statues he uses special ink that permanently stains the marble the deeper the ink goes the more solid and intense that color becomes see See the attached photos for fan submissions. Your thoughts here, Luke? Yeah, they're cool. Again, these wouldn't be tattoos I would get, but they're pretty cool. Wheel of Fortune.

How about Wheel of Death? Yeah. All right. Luke, I'd like to see you get a bust of a tattoo. Oh, see, that one I like. The Japanese one on the back. Yeah, that's really fucking good. That's really good.

So if you have an aversion to needles like me, you can buy these stone busts and have them tattooed. That's really what, what's going on here, right? Yes, that's exactly correct. All right,

Luke, uh, let's, let's wrap up here. West G says, Hey, LT and BC greetings from Palm Springs, California,

where local regulations require owners of shared pools to post these signs. Though between Luke's Pepto consumption and Brian's Kentucky fried liver, I believe my additional sign may be redundant. Luke Thomas is pissed and BC is art. May all your ex-lovers stay frosty. Day one fan, Wes, a.k, Wes aka 8-Bit Imaginations. Luke, what's the joke here? Uh, I guess

because I have to constantly dump after the show. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Do not go near the water with that grossness. Okay. Cord is sliding in. K-O-R-D. I wasn't sure if I got the right email address so I sent two of these.

My name is Cord, and I'm a Day One fan. I got a video of my daughter cheering on BC as he did the shoo-ee on the UFC 264 live show. She's four, and my boy is three. And both are little MK fans. Yes! C-B-C-B-C. C-B-C-B-C-B-C. Woo! B-E-B-E. B C B C B C B C B C B C B C B E B E Luke MK is indeed for the children.

Hey, could he have more trash in his front seat? B C B C Luke, can't you just, uh, can't you just enjoy how cute his offspring are, Luke? His kids look like the most adorable little children ever. And I mean that sincerely. But I had to zing them because that's just what I do on this part of the show. Yeah. All right.

Here comes Jordan. He says this pretty much sums it up, guys. It's not wrong. It's not wrong it's not wrong all right look here's the deal though i feel like when it finally came time to buckle down we gave good ufc 264 coverage i really do oh yeah nobody nobody does it like us luke okay sam v is here he says always a great time tuning into the mk but man bc just has to let aging happen. It's a fight you'll never win. Thanks for the great content. If you need an explanation, this is Creed from The Office,

and he uses printer ink as hair dye in the episode. Dude, that's hilarious. I didn't watch The American Office, but that's a great reference. Yeah, Luke's the OG. You have to watch the international version or you've never it's not the international version it's the original version the american one is the bastardized version no you're a bastard yeah uh luke connor every single fucking day says hey guys great work this week covering 264. Although it wasn't a week without low

moments. BC's mid-week die job wouldn't have been out of place at a divorcees speed dating night, so I thought I could do with an improvement. May all your $15 barbers be loyal. Is this BC Moutinho here, Luke? Dude, let me tell you something. You got a

hell of a chin, BC. I saw Sean O'Malley tee the fuck off on you and you just kept coming forward wow that is that is pretty hilarious i'll accept that i'll take that out i'll fall on that that shoe the shoe polish l uh finally this is jamie from los angeles that was my shoe that you guys drank out of you guys guys rock. Love the content. Hope you do more live shows together in the future. Luke, that was the most... It's Jaime. Are you saying I'm...

Oh, sorry. Jaime. Yes, yes, Luke. Yes, thank you. Luke, would you give a final comment about the shoe? Like, I had to pick out a giant chunk of the inner sole out of it before I drank. Yeah, dude, they handed me the shoe

they handed me the shoe and i was like did you pull this out of a fire like where has this where has this diseased uh vessel been for the last four and a half years and it's been on jaime's gross ass feet apparently and we still did it i don't i don't know of any lingering health effects bc but i'm i'm not gonna do another one of those anytime soon for the record jaime was wearing socks with those awful shoes and uh look i had a lot of people close to me be like like hey bro that was fun good entertainment really good episode but like with your black liver and all you really should not have done that they're probably right honestly i like to say that they're wrong but they're probably not wrong all right hey look we gave them two hours today okay i you know okay go in the comments

too much jake paul too much boxing yo fuck you bro okay all right let me just preemptively put that out there uh and you can dead wrong us for friday's show morning combat at gmail.com is the place to send those plus any uh fan submissions you might have, pictures or Photoshop's or anything else in between. Hey, guys, I'm trying to tell you, Bellator Friday, Boxing on Saturday. Showtime's the place to do it. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce.

There you have it, a big weekend on Showtime. You can follow us on social. We've got what? We've got Instagram, we've got Twitter. Morning Combat's name is the same everywhere, as you can see here, but slightly different names for BC and I between Twitter and Instagram.

Morningcombat.store if you want some merch. Oh, we should say something. One, we want you to go vote in the podcast awards. We can put the logo up for that here in just a second. There you have it. Podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up. Please go vote. It would mean a lot to our bosses. But more importantly than that, room service diaries came out yesterday. It's still up there. I want everyone to know we're

going to do those in the future, but in the future, that's probably going to be subscription-only content. Now, what does that mean? Oh, look, I don't want to pay for a subscription. Good news. It's free. It's totally free. But you got to sign up. You got to click that subscribe, and you will be getting room service diaries. But if you don't, you may not get it in the future. So just putting that out there. Right, BC?

Happy 33rd birthday to Conor mcgregor today luke also r.i.p the late great mr wonderful paul orndorff luke wrestling deaths happen often of our former heroes that we grew up on but some of them hit harder than others and uh the great mr wonderful luke was involved in the feud that activated my childhood passion in 1986 when he turned on Hulk Hogan uh you know there was the flower shop thing on the phone where is it you know I mean dude it's just it's I love that man Luke okay he was in the main event of Wrestlemania 1 I mean you know do you have any affinity for Mr. Wonderful Luke I frankly don't know anything about him I'm sorry that's great that's great great stuff great stuff Luke. I hope your heroes die one day too.

Okay. They do all the time. All right, man. Well, that's it for us today. Long show. We appreciate everyone who stuck around. We have interviews coming out. I have an interview with Phil DeRue.

It's Dustin Poirier's performance coach. It'll be out, I think, later today or so. And then Friday we're back. So there it is. Okay. For Brian Campbell, for Malka, for Showtime and CBS Sports, thanks to everyone who watched. We're back. So there it is. Okay, for Brian Campbell, for Malka, for Showtime and CBS Sports, thanks to everyone who watched.

We're back on Friday and until then, all of your gains. Be loyal.