MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - End Of Year Awards | Jake Paul vs. Dana White | Ortiz vs. Martin | Ep. 247

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

In the first episode of 2022 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian kick it off by handing out their end of year awards across combat sports. Plus, they discuss Jake Paul and Dana Whites on-going fued, which went nuclear this weekend and recap the first boxing fight of the year between Luis Ortiz and Charles Martin. (7:20) - 2021 End of the Year Awards (80:00) - Jake Paul vs. Dana White (91:00) - Luis Ortiz vs. Charles Martin (93:30) - Dm's from Donks 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:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It's not quite the first of the month, but you can cash your checks and get up. Hi, everybody. Time to wake up, wake up, wake up. It's MK in 2022. We start the campaign here. Hi, everyone. I'm merely the one half of your hosting duo. I'm in the snowy part of the Capitol here in Los Estados Unidos, Washington, D.C. I

don't know if it's snowing where my viceroy of Connecticut friend Brian Campbell is, but nevertheless, happy to have him here. BC, is it snowing where you are? No, but it was, you know, 59 degrees yesterday and, like, you know, feels like negative today, so it's a typical depressing Connecticut winter. Buckle up. But, Luke, as you indicated off the top, it's a new year, no limits. Let's bring it, okay?

Let's absolutely bring it. I want you to take all your past hurts, Luke, which are many, okay? Okay? And leave them behind. It's a clean slate, brother, okay? Auld Lang Syne, whatever the hell that means, dude. How was your New Year's? Did you do anything special or were you washed like me?

Yeah, I was washed. I was in bed by 11 watching scar faced and i fell asleep with the tv i this gets great you know it's great theater you wait you didn't even make it to midnight no no luke you know wow i at least made it to midnight i at least made it to midnight great great you saw balls drop i've been watching balls drop in my spare time for a long time luke all right it's not i bet you i bet you have motherfucker not your own dude all right well i'm happy to have you here i'm happy to get the show started nothing like a I bet you have, motherfucker. Not your own, too. All right. Well, I'm happy to have you here.

I'm happy to get the show started. Nothing like a dick joke in 2022 to get things kicked off. We have a bit of a different show planned for you guys today. Not a whole lot of MMA and boxing news. We will get to a couple of the pieces here. But BC and I are pretty adamant we want to do an award show, or at least an informal one. But, you know, I don't like doing them in 2021 when there's still stuff happening we usually like to wait until the year is over so look i thought you didn't want to do it at all i'm interrupting you to say i was refreshingly surprised to get a text

from you after you know sold our producer mikey for weeks on his idea of an award show you're like i won't do that shit that's what everybody else does i won't be different yo and then yesterday you're like hey you want to do an award show? I was like, yeah, why not, bro? Yeah, but I mean, we're not going to, you know, there's no pomp and circumstance. And Mikey was right just a little bit ahead of time. That's all. You know, his idea was correct.

In any case, we'll give you a little bit. Yeah, no, that's not fuck Mikey. Mikey's idea was generally right. We'll give you a little bit of that today. KO, sub, that kind of a thing. Then we'll talk about some of the pieces of news that are happening out here in the world and then we'll do dms from donks and have you seen this yet so if you're watching on youtube we'll be awarding the donk of the year from 2021 luke and my final interruption of the show thank you thank you

very much which which interruption was the best i all of them really is what i think they're like all my children um in any event, beyond that, BC, I don't know if we have any new merch to pump, other than the old merch we've always had, at morningcombat.store. Yeah, I haven't heard from the Merchmaster in a while, Luke, but

I think there's a couple of these laying around if you're still interested. All right, head on over to morningcombat.store. Oh, yeah. You can outfit your abuela luke all you know full transparency did pepe or abuela get a little mk merch on the body or no like did i buy them mk merch yes yes no i try to buy things people will wear oh i bought my dad the underwear the t-shirts i got some shirts for my mother my mother-in-law even got a shirt this year luke i've been spreading that spreading that seed all over the place luke like like uh antonio cromarty we took one of our mk shirts and let my daughter

have it as like a smock when she painted her nails the first time um that's great so yeah that's about all they've gotten run for here alright if you want to try Showtime in this year I mean what are you waiting for we've been telling you to watch this shit for two years you gotta just do it at this point Showtime.com get a 30 day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can pound sand we have an email it's where you can send your

dead wrongs it's where you can send your fan submissions morningcombat at gmail.com that'll be the place for that and yeah BC i think that's it for the moment you're gonna be on television on friday correct because you're gonna be here for sure i am my debut luke talk about new year wow my debut friday night i believe it's 9 p.m eastern we'll check on that only on showtime showbox the new generation kicks off from Orlando, Florida. Not only is it a triple header, Luke, but all

six fighters have unbeaten records. This is what Showbox is all about. Your boy BC sliding in. The great Steve Farhood, still going to be part of the broadcast team and what we do there, but your boy BC sliding in alongside Raul Marquez, Barry Tompkins, the legend. This is going

to be some great theater going on there Friday night. So if you're free, check it out on Showtime. Should be a lot of fun. All right, BC. Well, with that in mind, let's get our unofficial award show started here today. We have, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 categories. We'll do these relatively quickly so we can go through them. BC, let's start with

fighter of the year i would like for you to go first who is your 2021 fighter of the year well are you going sport by sport what the hell are we doing look you and i don't talk anymore you don't you don't bring me let's go category by category and if you want to put the i have it in so like i didn't want to have one whole award show for boxing and one whole award show for m. I split up some of them as it relates to gender to be as fair as possible. But in this particular case, you can give it for both. All right. Look, I think both sports have very obvious choices for fighter of the year, you know, and really this is male fighter of the year, and I think both have it the same.

In boxing, Luke, it's Canelo Alvarez, and it is Canelo with a bullet. Not only did he unify and become the first undisputed 168-pound champion in boxing history, he beat all unbeaten champions to get here. And if you include his Callum Smith fight for a vacant title back in December, that's four, what is that, four or five fights over 12 months, all against unbeaten champions, also the mandatory against Yildirim. He won all of those by stoppage, by the way. Except for, I think, did Kelmsmith go the distance?

Either way, Luke, all the ones this calendar year were by stoppage. And the reason why he's so far ahead of everybody else in this category is not just the dare to be great element, Luke, but the activity level. Stars in the modern age don't do what Canelo's doing. And he's calling his own shots. He's shopping networks and, and promoters to do it, you know,

working with Eddie Hearn, but going network by network. We saw him on Showtime to close the year. What an amazing year for the 31 year old, the rare crossover, the commercial star of this sport, but also the critical, you know,

you can debate who's second and third, Luke, but there's no one even close to him in the running. Who would be second and third in boxing? I actually think that's a pretty important question. I agree with you. I don't know how you could pick anyone but Canelo for the year 2021. That was his year. He was the king.

Fair enough. Who had a good year that was not good enough to beat Canelo, but also good enough to be mentioned at the top of the food chain? The problem is that most people had one win, and that's really the problem with, you know, we're still in the pandemic times where fighters aren't as active as you want. Josh Taylor had an amazing win to become the undisputed junior welterweight champion beating unbeaten Jose Ramirez.

Gervonta Davis was very busy, Luke. He has to be in this discussion, what, winning three fights all on pay-per-view? And certainly you've got Nonito Donair who turned back the clock busy Luke he has to be in this discussion what winning three fights all on pay-per-view and certainly you've got Nonito Donair who turned back the clock to regain a title at 118 scoring two knockout victories you have a singular win from Alexander Usyk which was arguably the biggest of the year Tyson Fury had a huge win and let's also not forget about Stephen Fulton Jr. who won a title at 122 against Angelo Leo to start it and then survived a thriller against Figueroa there to close the year to unify belts at junior featherweight.

So plenty of names to look at, Luke, as the next in line. I'm probably forgetting somebody off the top of my dome right there. But again, no debate as to who's on top. All right, so for the MMA side of things, I think we both agree. I'll go Kamaru Usman on this one. So our fighters of the year would be Kamaru Usman and Canelo in the two sports, respectively. Usually with one of these scenarios

where we have an MMA fighter of the year BC, I look at it and I'm saying to myself, well, who had the most amount of wins or something like that? And here in this case, Kamaru had three, which is what I would put at the minimum to win this title. But as you pointed out, a lot of people in the, because of the pandemic don't have that many fights or, you know, uh, they have more fights, but fewer wins or something like that. But his 2021 was he beat Gilbert Burns in February. He did it by stoppage.

Then he stopped Jorge Masvidal in April. And then he decision Colby in a heated rematch all the way in November, you beat three top Colby in a heated rematch all the way in November. You beat three top contenders in one of the most important divisions. You do two of it via stoppage. And in one of those cases, it was a former training partner. Another case of Jorge Masvidal. It was a rematch with him as well. It was a foe.

It was a big show back with a crowd at the first time for Florida beyond that. And then on top of it with Colby at Madison Square Garden, all the marbles, all the stakes. You had guys now getting a second crack at you. You still beat them in the case of Masvidal via stoppage. This is just a level of domination and success within the calendar year period that none of his peers can match. You might find people with more wins.

You might find people with more stoppages or something. You won't find this many quality wins with this much stakes involved at this level of the game on par in 2021 with what Kamaru Usman did. Yeah, yeah. Luke, I want to say something. You know I'm still sore about the 2019 MMA Fighter of the Year balloting in which, again, people like Brent Brookhouse, Brandon Wise, our cohorts at CBS Sports, you know, feeling the emotional rise of Jorge Masvidal. Hey, great year. But good Lord, Israel Adesanya in 2019 got jobbed.

I want to say something about what Usman did this year. Even if Dustin Poirier had beaten Charles Oliveira, which, again, would have been an incredible year with two stoppages of Conor McGregor and then finally winning that lightweight title, which inevitably he didn't do, I still think Usman would have won it, Luke, because the fact that he transitioned from a dominant decision fighter to getting used to the great Trevor Whitman in his corner, implementing new strategies, and becoming a damn finisher. People are somehow trying to hold it against Usman in this balloting that he got dropped by Gilbert Burns and hurt. I give him the plus for that, getting up and then finishing a guy who was riding a dangerous hot streak, doing it against Jorge Maslow where it was going to be hard for him to win a lot of respect for that win

because it was a rematch that wasn't really warranted. So what did he do, Luke? Arguably delivered the knockout of the freaking year to deposit him down and then holds off a game as shit former teammate, I'm sorry, not not former teammate of Colby Covington who who had his number in the first fight but barely lost and seemed to have his number again and get still edged it out and won it somehow I see people going oh that fight was so close maybe he shouldn't win no he's the pound for pound king and that's a precarious crown to

wear and dude did he held that shit firm, and really, this year was about Usman transitioning to a finisher, like I said, but I think it was more about transitioning into potentially becoming an all-time great, something we talked about in the storylines of what made this calendar year so great during our last episode, so love Usman at the top, obviously we're giving respect to who? Charles Oliveira who who in some ways came out of nowhere to to stop Michael Chandler in a thriller win the title and then really cement having won that vacant title in the post-Sabib era by doing what he did to Dustin Poirier we are not overlooking that that was incredible but Usman's three wins are going to hold up over everyone yeah to your

point he already had 20 fights before the last fight, but with his last fight, the one over Colby Covington in Madison Square Garden, that was his 20th MMA win. His first and only loss happened before he even got to the UFC. So we're talking about the continuation of a win streak. We're talking about obviously a 3-5 win streak in the case of 2021. We're talking about the difficult guys it took to do it. We're talking about, at your point, the way in which he had to do it. I mean, every which way point, the way in which he had to do it. I mean, every which way you want to slice it, it was extremely impressive what he did. Now, that does take us to the women's side of things, BC.

I do have a separate category for them here. We're talking about male fighters of the year. And maybe you could argue Canelo, no matter what, would be the fighter of the year in boxing. Similarly, if you wanted to, you could probably argue the same thing for Kamaru. But let's say we decided to split it so we make sure the women get some of the shine that they deserve. Who would be your female fighters of the year in either MMA or boxing? Let's start in MMA, Luke, because I think this is a very heated discussion with four legitimate contenders in here, but I can't overlook what Rose Namajunas did. There were legitimate questions, not just in the

fact, Luke, that she lost her title to Jessica Andrade a couple of years back, but even the way she survived the rematch heading into 2021. Rose went through hell in that final round. I think there was still reason to believe, you know, was she still the same fighter, damaged goods, all of those things coming in.

For her to get two victories in the manner that she did against someone like Zhang Weili, who was riding so high following that Ioana Jung-Jae check thrilling win, for her to finish her with a first-round head kick, and then knowing what we all knew with that rematch was going to be a tougher outing, for her to edge that, yes, you could argue that Weili deserved the nod in that close win, but the judges gave it to Rose, and that was an incredible year to... It's not just a bounce back.

I really think this was Rose cementing a level of consistency that I think is going to stay a while. That she is right now among the greatest female fighters to ever do it. She had shown flashes of that. Now I think she's showing you the consistency. Luke, Rose gets my nod. Do you agree, though? Because good Lord, Kayla, Juliana P Pena how about Valentina there's an argument to be had here Luke this one is a is a lot less clear-cut I mean to be we should just

say this out loud you already did but one more time her 2021 is only two fights and it's only one opponent it's the course the 261 268 where she had the KO head kick and then the split decision in November and we're awarding it to her because here's the thing BC, those two wins, now maybe the 261 win you could argue is that way, but I don't think she's got the best single win by any female in the calendar year. I don't think that's quite right. But she probably arguably has the best two-win pair. And so that makes it a little more interesting. In the first case, you've got this head kick KO win to win the championship over this decorated champion who has just come off of herself a historic fight, quite literally. She goes in there and then she gets just bludgeoned. That's incredible. Then they have a rematch later where she changes trainers, blah, blah, blah. And

then she has to do it again. We also mentioned this was her third pairing in a row where she had to fight. But to this point about this particular competitor, it's one of the toughest divisions. It was a former champion. She solidified the loss by giving her essentially the equivalent of what it would be if there was a rematch clause in the boxing side of things. And then she did it, you know, not without controversy or easily, certainly, but she did it. She got her hand raised. She was able to get the job done over the course of six rounds. Extremely impressive.

Very difficult to do. Did it on the road as well for both of those contests relative to her hometown. Like, you know, still in the United States or whatever, but still. It's pretty impressive, dude. Do you agree with me, though, that is that the single best win that a woman was in. And I think you have to factor in what she did to her reputation this calendar year, almost doubling and tripling the idea that she's here. She's the next big thing. She's ready to take over. And I think you can make a year ending argument here about where Kayla Harrison really belongs in the women's

pound for pound rankings. It's not apples to apples again because of the level of competition. But would you say that Kayla could deserve second place on this list just in totality of the new mean streak she acquired and how absolutely dominant she was across the board? Um, I don't. Sounds like you can. I'm not sure I can. I don't know if I can, because, dude, Valentina's win over Andrade was sick, dude.

I mean, Valentina's the best. You know, she's, God, this is a hard topic to debate, Luke. Yeah, that's a tough one. And also, like, just Nunez getting beat by Peña in 2021, that's a bigger and arguably better win than the two wins that Rose has. But here's the thing. Like, Peña's got two wins in 2021. That's a bigger and arguably better win than the two wins that Rose has. But here's the thing, like Pena's got two wins in 2021. Obviously the Nunes one is big, like extremely big, bigger than anything that Rose has. But the second one is Sarah McMahon, which by the way, that's, I mean, you beat an Olympian medalist, a silver medalist in your first fight in 2021. And then you got the belt in your second fight. I mean, don't get me wrong that's an impressive run but there's something to be a little bit more difficult about a being a straw

weight and beat not so much of a noon is but straw weight generally and more to that point you know beating the champion handily and then having to do it again that's that's a tall order it's very difficult to do about why we don't slide the boat for Topena, and it's not a slight, but beating a 41-year-old McMahon who's lost, what, like three or four or four or five, it's not going to win you over. And even though the Nunes win was so shocking and arguably the best win of the year, there's still a lot of people that are looking at that as a fluke.

I got to see it a second time, so to speak. So I think that holds her back. I feel like Valentina is going to be, you know, number two every year until she can finally maybe fight Amanda again or move back up to Bantamweight. But great year for all four, Luke, all things considered, and they all

deserve to be placement very high. What about the boxing side of things? It's an interesting debate, Luke. There's been... I don't think there's been a clear-cut standout year. I'm going to give it to Katie Taylor, your undisputed lightweight champion, who had three fights. She comes out every three, four months like clockwork

and got three dominant, strong decision wins. I think in this crowded pound-for-pound top five, right, which includes, you know, Clarissa Shields, Amanda Serrano, Jessica McCaskill. I mean, there's a growing mix. Michaela Mayer, a very good rising fighters. I just think Katie Taylor was the most consistently dominant across the board and still is performing at a slightly higher level. But Luke, I do think this is, at the end of the day,

a two-horse race between Taylor and Amanda Serrano and obviously a fight that we're hoping for the first half of 2022. Can you tuck me into the idea that it should go to Serrano based on the fact that she's moving around in weight so often and getting some stoppages thrown in? So she retained her WBC and WBO featherweight titles. She had three fights in 2021 as well. She won all three.

She KOs Daniela Bermudez. Were you there for that fight or not I called that fight for NBC sports and and just a reminder Bermudez was a champion and in the top 10 pound for pound at the time so that's a that's arguably the best one of her career to be really fair yeah so she got she starts off the year in March with that win then she followed up with the two on the Jake Paul cards over Yamaleth Mercado and then Miriam Gutierrez. Both of those being by way of overwhelming decision where you wondered how the opponent even made it to the end, including Gutierrez in the last one where her face was deformed. I'm going to give it to Amanda Serrano, BC. I think your point about Katie Taylor, it's all well put. It's hard to really say if any part of that is wrong. I just feel like if we

didn't put Serrano on this list, I'd be undercounting what she did, which was, this was arguably in terms of, to your point, not just the win of Bermudez, but in terms of standing out, this was maybe the most fruitful year of Serrano's career. Jake Paul did her a real good solid, putting her in the spotlight that she did. She did everything she needed to do in terms of keeping the win streak and the auditions alive to get this Katie Taylor fight down the line.

To me, it's 1A, 1B, whatever you want to go with Katie Taylor and otherwise. But in that Bermudez fight, you tell me, was Bermudez ever close? Because I can tell you in the Mercado and Gutierrez fights, they were never even in it. Or maybe Gutierrez a little bit, but not really. And I'm curious about the Bermudez fight.

Yeah, Bermudez had moments, and she's a good puncher. She's a smaller fighter, though, who was moving up in weight and eventually just got overwhelmed. Look, you can't go wrong either way, Taylor or Serrano. You can't go wrong either way calling them the pound-for-pound queen. And if we don't see this fight this coming year, Luke, and if we don't get three-minute rounds in women's boxing, I'm going to riot on both categories.

I think you might. All right, fight of the year. This is an interesting one because I think neither of us agreed on any of them, either for MMA or for boxing. So, BC, stay up front because this is how they need you to give the lower thirds together. Give me your two choices, boxing and MMA, for fight of the year and why you picked them. Okay, my choices on the MMA side, it picked them okay my choice is on the mma side it was alexander volkanovsky defending the featherweight title over brian ortega and on the

boxing side it was that showtime thriller at 122 pounds the unification stephen fulton jr against brandon figueroa luke i think both are not not controversial both are disputed picks because there's been so many great fights this year i want to to tell you though why I'm, let's start in MMA, why am I picking Volkanovski Ortega over Alvarez Chandler, which was a fight coming in that we said, oh my god, this could be the fight of the year, and good god did it deliver. You could argue it delivered higher than the level of expectations. I think though that was two round heavy, the third round was a little bit more sliding down the hill, although still a thriller and still exciting. But here's the deal. Volkanovski-Ortega was a five-round championship fight. Doesn't mean there weren't stakes in the Alvarez fight. It was a number one contender bout.

But this was one of those that surprised you to be this type of fight. We all said coming in that these are two, you know, pound for pound or in Ortega's case, sort of a quasi top 10 pound for pound guy. This could be a highly skilled thriller. It was highly skilled, but it was the passion, the drama, the back and forth, the near submissions from Ortega. I've seen some people saying I can't put this fight of the year because it was a little bit too one-sided for a normal choice. I disagree. This had more of those oh shit, wow moments from an unexpected standpoint, and I think that's what won me over. Also for a title, also a little bit more skill shown than the batshit crazy Alvarez-Gaethje fight. This was mine because, look, it caught me off guard.

Ortega, we can argue, did he employ the right strategy? Is he getting the most out of himself, or is he taking on too much damage? He came there to win that night. He emptied the tank and he made Volkanovski show us a different side, a backbone for anybody like BC who sometimes criticizes the wizard as being too footwork heavy and technical. No, he dug in, showed his heart, showed everything. This was a wild ass championship fight that had damage and had everything that I want, drama and skill mixed together. I don't hate anyone who says Alvarez Chandler was their fight of the year or their favorite fight of all time, but Luke, this won me over.

Why don't you tell me your MMA won, and then we'll get into the boxing category afterwards. Well, you said Alvarez Chandler. You mean Gaethje Chandler? Yeah, I'm all over the place. Iler you mean gaethje chandler yeah i'm all over the place i meant to say gaethje versus versus chandler i excuse me for adding eddie alvarez's name in there incorrectly oh that's a good fight too but uh so here's the thing with volkanovski and ortega i would agree it's a i mean it's a phenomenal fight i mean i'm hardly bagging on a terrible or good fight here but uh can it be fight of the year if it's that one-sided I mean the round three I

I'm kind of giving it away it's my round of the year we'll talk about that later but like at the end it wasn't like you didn't know who's gonna get their hand raised for for Figueroa and for Fulton you didn't know you really didn't know you had to wait and see with this one I I don't I I I'm I'm a little bit skeptical of that. All right, so we lost BC for just a second. I'll be back. With that in mind, I will give you my answers for Fight of the Year. So here are the two of them.

For Boxing, Fury Wilder 3, and then for MMA, I went Sanhagen Yon. I was a little bit, I didn't know if I actually wanted to pick either of these, but here's why I ultimately did. For Fury Wilder 3, it was heavyweight MMA. It was the trilogy. No one in boxing right now has the kind of relationship as adversaries that Wilder and Fury have. I mean, there's people who have bad blood. There's people who have had interesting fights and even rematches. But to have this kind... I mean, these guys, I won't say built their careers off each other.

That's a little bit over much. But they built their current level of fortune and fame. Certainly. I mean, the most important chapter that got them there is arguably this one for, for, for, for either of them in different ways, obviously, but that fight fury, none of us believing Wilder had a chance fury, having to get off the canvas, not once, but twice, but then stopping him again, going back to the, some of the same, many of the same things he did in the second fight it was just heavyweight brilliance it was drama it was action it was technique it was storyline over delivered in the biggest way BC I'm making a case for Fury Wilder three so I got a little bit of you know this this was a big debate we put out our

cbs sports you know which was voted by a panel that but uh it should have uh i don't get paid to write so i don't write well i mean you could vote do you get paid to vote luke i don't know that's a topic i don't get paid to vote so i don't vote deal, though. You know, I got a lot of feedback from people saying, how the hell could you put Fulton Figueroa? What are you, Showtime, Shill for Life? When Fury Wilder 3 was the passion, the heavyweight drama, the old school flair, everything violent, the human spirit, everything we would want.

Yeah, you're right. It was all of that. But when we're comparing, you know, apples to apples here at the end of the day, it was a little bit more one-sided overall oh my god didn't you just say Volkanovski one wasn't that more one-sided no because I thought for a lot of that fight that Ortega was gonna had a chance and was in that fight even if he wasn't in and on the scorecards as well I thought Wilder was largely out of that fight after that rush he had to drop Fury twice, which was exciting as hell, but you were watching him sort of hang on and slowly dissipate before violently getting finished by Fury. Full credit. It's one of the greatest heavyweight title fights of all time, and really,

in the last 16, 17 years, it might be the best we've seen. You got to go back to, you know, I mean, AJ Klitschko was incredible. You got to go back to Lennox Lewis and Vitaly Klitschko. It was awesome. But what Fulton Figueroa was, two unbeaten champions coming together, and they did that thing that I love in my fights of the year. They mixed skill, pace, and aggression and craziness in that passion. It was 12 insane rounds in which each round, both were able to really dictate their will into the fight and take over control. It was Fulton countering in the first half of rounds,

landing the cleaner shots in the midst of the fire, and then somehow a bell would go off in Figueroa's head with about a minute and a half to go in each round, and he'd start going batshit crazy to the body and walking Fulton down you didn't know who won each round you didn't know who deserved to win by the end of it it was just 12 insanely great rounds in which both really implemented their game plan perfectly yet there had to be a winner and there had to be a loser a unification fight between two guys in their prime it's hard for me to sit here and say anything bad about Wilder Fury 3,

but the long layoff meant that Fury wasn't really at his best. I give Wilder credit for being willing to go so hard out on his shield like he did. It was everything we want out of heavyweight boxing. But I think Figueroa and Fulton was a better fight across the board, and I'm very comfortable saying that. That gets my nod. Nobody's wrong if they like the heavyweight one better. Luke, we do want to sort of look at some of the other ones that deserve a nod.

Do you think Peter Jan-Corey Sanhaken could win on other people's lists here? Let's stick with Figueroa Fulton for just a second, because I agree with 99.9% of what you said. I mean, you can't bag on the fight. The fight is incredible. The two fighters are incredible. The circumstances are incredible. We're splitting hairs here. I'll just tell you that the reason for me, and this is very much

a preference-based thing, so this is not me trying to convince you or anybody else out there watching. I'm just telling you how I see it. When you get a Fulton-Figueroa type of fight, it's amazing, and it's brilliant, and it's bloody, and it's long, and it's difficult, right? It's just really, really hard-nosed kind of fights sometimes though you can just i won't say get bored that's not the right word but i can almost tune it out because the action becomes all the flavors kind of get lost in the dish a little bit because it's just kind of washing over itself over and over again whereas this one had punctuated moments and momentum swings I will also tell you while I agree I think from round like five or six I was like how the fuck is Deontay Wilder on his

feet maybe it's round seven I can't remember anymore but when the I think it was the first time that second time excuse me that Fury got knocked down I didn't know if he was going to get back up I was like oh this is... Sorry, make it out of the round. Because remember, he actually had to stand up and then just kind of get battered a little bit. That was the first time I was like, dude, Deontay might finish him off. It had these incredibly punctuated moments, whereas there was just this steady intensity and fury

to Figueroa and Fulton. So either are brilliant, but they're a little bit different. And that difference of high, low versus like, you know, sort of medium to high, high all the time. It's a little bit more preferential to me. It's fair. I just felt like, you know, like I said, in the same debate on the MMA side, I felt like Ortega could have won that fight at any point with a big rush of a knockout or a submission threat like he was, even though that was similarly in the more one-sided category. But again, we're talking about some of the best that could win any year. It's really your preference at the end of the day.

I appreciate your breakdown right there. Luke, let's look at the honorable mentions that deserve it, that deserve a nod or at least an argument in that level. On the MMA side, you certainly have Jan Sanhagen, which was... Yeah, that's who I picked. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, you did pick that, Luke. Yeah, go ahead. No, why don't you go ahead?

Well, I'll just say for this one, this is an interesting choice because in the end, it wasn't that competitive, right? By round four, you had a pretty clear sense that, like, Sanhagen's got some catching up to do. He started strong, obviously, as most people do. The reason why I, or, you know, against Jan, but then he takes him over. The reason why I picked this one, though, BC, is a little bit different. The fight itself was great, really great,

and the result for Jan, incredible, not just that he becomes champion, but, you know, the reason why I partly picked this is because I have a very high degree of respect for what Corey Sanhagen does, and I think Peter Jan does too. And the level of ability and craftsmanship and adjustments he had to show to get this win over time was just, I mean, unbelievable what he had to show to get this win and the kind of skill he was able to demonstrate like Corey had a way of both in terms of the fight itself and I think in the prep pulling the best out of Peter Yan and then had to weather that as best he could which was a difficult task

but in the early going what I loved about this fight was that both guys represent kind of what a future model of MMA elite fighters look like, although they're already in the present. One happened to be a lot better than the other one on that night. Fair enough. But what each guy was able to show and what one guy pulled out of the other one just makes it historic and special. But I grant, I grant that there are some other reasons

to pick some other fights that could be just as good if not better. Yeah, I don't see how this one can win, Luke. I think it's in the discussion, but I don't see how you can talk yourself into saying it. Only because I felt that Corey Sanhagen was behind this entire fight, and I really didn't see an opening for him to win it, even though he fought at a very high level and sort of ceilinged out. Jan had an answer for everything he had.

And how the hell do we never talk about how much Corey Sanhagen looks exactly like Corey Minici, our producer? We've got to put a split screen one day, Luke. I mean, it's ridiculous how much they look like. A little bit. A little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's obscene. But, Luke, I think you, you know, look, everyone watching this right now is probably going

nuts that neither of us picked Gaethje versus Chandler. So I think really that falls more on you. Here's the thing. I liked Gaethje versus Chandler a lot. I mean, again, with all of these fights, I have nothing bad to say about it. It's great. I don't have the same love for the... I mean, Fury Wilder was a slobber knocker in many ways.

But with boxing, it's a little bit different. Here's what I'll say. Three round slobber knockers in MMA. I love them. They're great. They're not bad. This was two of the very best fighters in the world doing it You're not gonna hear me say anything bad about it BC but three round MMA slobber knockers aren't as interesting to me as they are to the common sort of MMA fan MMA fans sent like for example

I remember the year that Bryan Stan Fought Vanderlei Silva that won a lot of people's fighter of the fight of the Year award and don't get me wrong Dude that fight rocks like that fights amazing, but that's not my Fight of the Year award. Don't get me wrong. Dude, that fight rocks. That fight's amazing. But that's not my Fight of the Year. I can't put that on the list. That's just two grown men biting down on the mouthpiece

and having aggression. But that's not the same thing I'm looking for. Okay. I mean, that's fair from that regard. I just can't make that same leap you did for Jan Sandhagen, a very highly skilled fight,

just the same. I do want to shout out Bellator's Best Fight of the year, I thought, was Sabahomasi against Paul Daly, which was one of those sort of old school slobber knockers that you mentioned. And also Luke, we can't overlook Max Holloway versus Yair Rodriguez in a

different type of year that could have won. It was that wild and violent and crazy. 100%. Dude, I looked at it closely. I was like, ooh, I might have to pick this one, but in the end I didn't. But you're right. That was absolutely on the list. All right, so let's go to Lizzie. Hold on.

Boxing real quick. That second fight which opened the year between Juan Francisco Estrada and Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez, I almost gave that my vote this year. It was in that category, on that level. I just think because of the decision, it was a close, great fight, but nobody thought Estrada should have won it and certainly not that wide. I think that soured a lot of us from giving it the nod. Also, Luke, let's shout out,

Makayla Mayer had that 10-round women's championship win over Mama Douche or whatever that lady's name was. That was freaking, that was almost on the level of, remember Don Fry had that guy with the Japanese guy and they just went to town on each other. Takayama. Yeah, it didn't look that kind of crazy for a while. And Luke, it may not get the votes, but you know it.

You saw it. Terrence Crawford versus Sean Porter was like perfect elite high-level pay-per-view theater. I loved everything about that fight. Hey, could my daughter yell more during showtime? Would that be that'd be fun right yeah you should go rent a studio like the schmo luke and eliminate those issues all right i'm going to motherfucker uh okay so for knockout of the year bc we'll go mma and boxing here as well i'll go first on this one you can react to it if you like

for mma side of things i like pettis KOing Horiguchi. Now, this fight was unbelievable because Pettis didn't just lose every round, as we discussed after it happened. Dude, he lost every minute of this round. He might have lost every striking exchange other than the one he lost. You see, the reason why I picked this knockout was not merely

that by itself. If you just watch the knockout itself with a couple of seconds before he delivers it, it's unbelievable in the way that he gets it faking or at least attempting the head kick and then just spinning back into it, spinning back fist to reestablish stance. That by itself is just unbelievable, the one hitter quitter part. But when you add in that he was facing a level of adversity that either should have finished him off or made him quit mentally, and instead he stayed in there in the fifth round, getting it done the way he did. Dude, you will almost never see major MMA titles handed over this way.

You might see it via knockout. You might see it via knockout late in the fight or something like that. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying you'll never see a scenario, or very rarely, where a guy gets his ass whipped, but doesn't lose mental composure all the way into the fifth against an opponent who has clearly been better, but gets finished off because he has one momentary lapse. It tells you about the state of MMA and how difficult it is at the elite level. It tells you a lot about these competitors. It tells you a lot about Pettis' mental makeup, and it just tells you a lot about the fight game generally.

I love this KO. I feel bad for Horiguchi, but it's what makes the fight game special. It has to be this, Luke, because it's high level. It's for the damn title. But this is one of those rare times. You don't do fight recaps anymore.

I'm sure you've done your surefare and your time, but there's a rare thing that we do once in a while, Luke, I try not to do it to jinx myself, but when a fight is so one-sided and there's such a strong narrative in front of you, you start to form your thoughts. You start to write your lead as the fight's going on. This was one of those fights where it's like, oh shit, Kyoji Horiguchi is not only back, he really might be the best Bantamweight in the world. He is outclassing a world-class fighter like Sergio Pettis in every single category. He's back from surgery in a long layoff. He's the guy. How did UFC ever let this guy go? All those narratives

are being, you know, playing out in front of you on Twitter or in your head and then pettis gives you that kind of maybe it's not yair rodriguez against you know the korean zombie but it's of that ilk where you're just like holy fuck how did that happen and it just damn look that's a cliffhanger you know well it's on the level of million dollar baby although i never encourage anyone to watch that but it's certainly on the level of you know spoiler alert no i am your father it's one of those like holy shit really darth is anakin's luke's are you kidding me insane i love it it's gotta win wow luke but dude on the mma side before we get to boxing it had some competitors luke any other year it's gotta be yuri prohatsuka against uh dominic reyes look that was violent as is shit dude or usman masvidal too luke that

was perfect or stan hagen edgar dude come on there's some vicious ones out there this was a hot one that was harder to pick but as as you mentioned, you can watch regional MMA and see stuff like this all the time. But that kind of a game just doesn't really work 99.9% of the time at the elite level, especially when a weight class title is on the line. Go look at all the times that a Bellator or UFC or PFL title was up for grabs. How many times ended something like this? You just don't see those kinds of errors or these kinds of volatility affect operators that smooth.

But it just takes quite literally one, just one mistake, and you can lose your assumed title at that point. Nothing is like that. Has to get the win. That's why we love the damn sport Luke and also I mean shout out to obviously Nganou with that jab KO of of Stipe or maybe it was the jab that that floored him to set it up there were a few other great ones in the elite MMA level it

was a monstrous year Luke on the boxing side there's a debate to be had there Luke right yeah so you and I don't agree on this one I actually feel like yours is probably going to be had there, Luke, right? Yeah, so you and I don't agree on this one. I actually feel like yours is probably going to be the one that most people pick. I'm happy to admit that I don't have the choice that I think is leading the consensus among most, but I will tell you, BC, at some point during the year, you watch highlights, and I did not watch the Rosado fight against Malik Zayev live. I only saw my Twitter feed kind of blow up after he did it and then i went and saw it and it was one of those punches dude like here's the thing maybe you can argue maybe you can argue that the valdez versus burchelt win uh is a better ko and i think you will probably argue that yes you will but here's thing. What single punch in boxing was more memorable than Rosado's KO punch in that fight?

Like, you can see it in your mind, plain as day. He stuck him when no one thought he was going to stuck him. And he goes face first to the canvas. And that was fucking it. It stuck in my mind. It burned a hole in there. And for that reason, and by the way, he got himself the Munguia fight from this which he wasn't even supposed to get he had this this was a huge upset as well i love this win from gabe rosado he's a true vet that was that was a thunderous punch that he landed and yeah it counted

a lot for me full disclosure i had this as my third best of the year and what made it special was that rosado was up at a higher weight he's not not even a puncher. He's old. He's got a million losses. And Beck the Bully was like Superman coming in with his hands down in the corner. And, dude, he just got caught with one of those perfect shots. And he went face down under the ropes. I mean, it was just brutal. But, Luke, you nailed what I think is number one. And I think, you know, while this is a debate-heavy category, because boxing had a lot of good ones, whatcar valdez did in moving up in weight miguel burchelt has had a run as a 130

pound champion that you know he hasn't been touched with one win after another we talked like hey this is a great fight you got to watch it but oscar valdez man i can't see him moving up in weight and doing this not only luke did he shock people by flooring Burchelt twice early and just, you know, dominating this fight. It's an outside fight of the year contender despite it being one-sided. But what put it over the top was how vicious. There are once in a while, Luke, you get one of those vicious KOs in an elite title fight. Think Marquez Pacquiao 4 where you're just like, oh, God, like, that's what this punch was to deliver Burchell.

This is how you make a statement. Obviously, Valdez's year turned in another direction with the failed drug test, yet the fight still went on, and all the, you know, rumors and accusations about what's going on and Team Canelo. But this was a major breaking out moment for an undefeated fighter moving up in weight and doing this to the division's boogeyman. What a beautiful punch that was almost Pacquiao-Marquez-like

in that Burchelt ducked in, going for the kill, and he just got caught and laid out. But Luke, this was a great year for honorable mentions and contenders. And you said you don't think there was a bigger, more memorable single punch than the Rosado one. Dude, Jake Paul against Tyron Woodley part two. It's pretty damn memorable. Pretty damn memorable for a single punch. That's fair. I was talking about so high level boxing.

But yes, you're right. That is extremely memorable. You do have to give it credit. I mean, again, the circumstances are what they are in terms of the credibility of for boxing sake but as a ko by ko standards it is pretty fucking good i will get and i want to shout out what was my number two for boxing if you didn't see the showbox ko by unbeaten brandon lee as luke likes to say brandon lee but it's it's spelled he spells it d-u-n it's a little bit weird but yeah yeah. I mean, he's 24-0 with 22 KOs, just 22 years old. He fought Samuel Taya.

That kid's a fucking hammer, by the way. And what made this KO, and your daughter loved it, as you can hear, what made this KO so great is the way that Samuel Taya fell, Luke. When he got hit, he was concussed. He went like this, and it was Timber. I mean, it was incredible, dude. Also, I got to say, it was on that Canelo card, and no one really cared all that much because it was Canelo or Bust on that thing.

But, dude, Andre Durrell's uppercut KO. Anthony Durrell. Dude, it was fucking nice. Yeah, damn right it was. That was beautiful. That won him another big fight, by the way. All right, round of the year. This is another one where I think we have a little bit of differences. I don't i don't know if i have one for boxing because i don't know if

anyone stood out to me that much we'll start on the mma side of things bc i picked volkanovski ortega round three this is the round where you'll recall where volkanovski was pushed to the limit with a series of very close submission attempts from a mounted guillotine to a triangle to I think to a couple of triangles along the way and he was absolutely pushed to the brink of his submission defense and combat sports situational awareness that he had to have just to survive that right understand something if a choke submission is in tight enough, it doesn't matter if you wish to keep going. Your body will shut off.

It will make a decision for you. So you have to put yourself in a position where that doesn't happen, and then you have to fight out. That's exactly what Volkanovsky did. And then on top of it, BC, to be that close, and then to turn the tides and then get on top and then go back into the guard and smash him on top of it, BC, to be that close, and then to turn the tides, and then get on top, and then go

back into the guard, and smash him on top, it was incomprehensible. You couldn't understand how A, Ortega could get that close that many times, and then not get it, and then on top of it, how Volkanovsky could just throw caution to the wind the way he was doing it to go back into this space that you knew was danger all you had to do BC you know this was stand up and invite him to stand and he didn't he went back in there to send a message but my message got sent either way one of the most miraculous rounds you'll see in MMA certainly for high level certainly for a title just maybe the best that it gets in terms of back and forth mixed martial arts action that could have easily won on mine that was one of the great oh shit moments

and why we love this sport and why i made that my fight of the year by the way because of ortega being so close to pulling off that miraculous win and then by the end of it being like oh shit he might be done right there so that was incredible but lu here's why I'm going to give the love back where it belongs in the Gaethje versus Chandler we all thought it could be one of the best fights we've ever seen and that first round Luke was I mean it was just next level it was just two guys biting down in round one and just throwing bombs and what you know what made the argument of why it could have been fighter of the year was the stakes. Number one contender bout, high placement there

in terms of the attention. It was the people's main event, to quote Ariel Helwani or The Rock, depending on which side you're on. And it freaking delivered. I could watch that on a loop for the rest of my life, Luke. I love that round so much. But Luke, do you know what was my number two pick, and it's right freaking there?

Do you remember round one of Marlon Marais versus Davala Shilley when Marais suddenly looked like he hadn't lost four fights in a row or whatever, and he was putting it on him? Nearly stopped him. Nearly stopped him. Luke, that was a whole fight in one round. Like, there was enough drama for, that was a whole fight in one round like there was enough drama for like a a whole damn five round fight in a five minute round you cannot

like that that has somebody has some publication has to make that their round of the year because it was that good uh i certainly agree that was just incredible i i liked chandler gaethje round one as well i want to be very clear about it. It's just, you know. Yeah, you refuse to recognize that fight at all apparently. Round one, I can round one, I can grant deserves to be in the round of the year conversation. Overall fight, I did not feel like rounds

two and three were nearly as good. Round one of Chandler versus Oliveira was also batshit crazy this same calendar year. There's not a lot of fights you can point to in Chandler's career and be like, yo, round one sucked. Yeah, that's a fair point. You don't see too many of those.

Luke, I don't think you and I voted for boxing, but let's make sure we recognize that round one of Teofimo Lopez versus George Cambosos, which turned out to be such a great upset. Glenn Feldman, a great, one of the best boxing judges who just happens to live in my same town and I'm friends with him. He was one of those two of the three judges that scored that a 10-9 round for Kambosis. And people are like, oh, they tried to screw him. It should have been 10-8 with the knockdown. I talked to him about it after the fact. And he's like, dude, I was sitting right

there ringside. Teofimo was putting it on Kambosis before that momentum shifted, and he really was, Luke. The one thing about Teo, yeah, I think he overlooked George, but he came out in round one looking to KO the fuck out of him after that long soap opera with Triller and all that BS. Dude, when that thing shifted, when that turned, this is theater, dude. You've got to go back and rewatch round one if anyone missed it. That is a great piece of theater right there. Of Teofimo getting dropped, and you can argue it was never the same the rest of the fight.

He looked embarrassed, but that came out of nowhere. I agree. I love that round. Also, what has played more in my house, BC? The rematch between Volkanovski and Holloway or Encanto now that it's on streaming on Disney+. Is it on right now, Luke? Is this why your daughter's celebrating? It's fucking loud and I can hear it.

But, you know, what am I doing with my life, BC? Nothing. Nothing that matters. So that's why it's loud. Have you soundproofed your office, Luke? I put this foam all over the ceiling. I put over the door one of those moving blankets. I'm trying to work hard to keep my family away from the bad language coming out of the show, Luke.

It won't really work that well in here because it's too small. But anyway. All right. Let's go to submission of the year. Obviously, an MMA exclusive kind of category here, BC. Do you want to go first? Who do you have as your 2021 submission of the year? Good, sir.

Look, I don't want to go much further and not give this guy some kind of due. We didn't put him in our fighter of the year talk, although I think, you know, the same aj mckee that fight with patricio pitbull rightfully we played it up as really the most important the biggest in bellator history let's not forget how shocking the result was it was aj mckee jumping all over pitbull putting him into that that that guillotine and really putting him away luke that was was shocking. It wasn't, you know, the same McKeoteen that finished Caldwell. It didn't have the same sort of crazy, we've never seen that before. But let's talk about the stakes. Let's talk about who Pitbull was coming in. And let's talk about how quickly McKee jumped all over him, put him in position and ended it. That's what

makes AJ McKee special. That was a monster it. That's what makes A.J. McKee special. That was a monster moment. That's my submission of the year. I can't hate on it. The only reason I'm going to pick what I picked is I just like a little bit more submission flair to it. But basically, Andre Muniz, by the way, getting two from the back arm bars in the same year is also kind of interesting.

But he submitted Jacare this year and broke his arm in the process. process now that's not the first guy to break Jacare's arm with an arm bar Hadja Gracie did it all the way back in 2004 at the world championships but Andre Muniz Muniz excuse me becomes the first person to do it in MMA and by the way it kind of hastened his departure from the sport Jacare subsequently retiring not soon, actually not long after this moment. But dude, to get a submission over a guy like Jacare is extremely difficult to do. Quite literally, one got it and that was it. And Jacare faced the very best of his generation along the way. You know, it's the one thing to catch an accidental submission after you rock somebody, right? Like hit them with a punch and they're barely there and then you take their back and you choke them out.

You know, that counts or something, but it's very different when you got a guy who is more or less with it and then you just sort of systemically go past him to break his arm, which is what Muniz did. The rarest of rare submissions, I have to give it to him by virtue of that. Would you say that, well, I love that pick

and it could easily be. What you loved about it was the shock that he did it to such a submission expert. How about the shock that McKee used the guillotine on the guillotine master in Pitbull? Fair enough. Either way, no doubt about it. But submitting Pitbull, while difficult, extremely difficult, he's a black belt in jiu-jitsu, submitting Jacare is a different ballgame, and you just got to recognize that for what it is people didn't do it for a very good reason except until they did right so there you have it all right this one is easy in certain ways and then not in other ones let's go upset of the year BC

I'll go first of those one because it's where we disagree on the MMA side of things now I grant from the odds perspective that your answer is certainly much better than mine. The reason I went with mine is because of the way the fight played out, where I have upset of the year. I have Pettis KOing Horiguchi. I grant, I grant that Peña defeating Amanda Nunes is a much bigger upset that shocked the world. However, the only reason I picked Pettis BC is because of the way the fight itself played out a Pettis was an underdog going into it although

not super significantly I don't recall but he was an underdog not as much as Peña was to Nunez either way but the fact that he got walloped for every moment of that fight up until the middle or whatever it was of the fifth round is so unusual, so rare. I mean, talk about how many different ways, I should say this, BC, in terms of pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. By the time the fight started, I felt like Pettis had a harder job. I feel like Peña defeating Nunes, BC BC is a huge win, a huge win. But part of that is driven by the media narrative about how Amanda's unbeatable. And that's just us being wrong, not about the facts of the case.

The facts of the case is Pettis had almost no chance to win that and still found a way to win it via stoppage on top of that. For that reason, I have to call that the upset of the year. Luke, no disrespect to you, but I think DJ Khaled said it best when he said, you know, congratulations, you played yourself. Luke, a lot of people think this fantastic Bob Marley vacation had I purchased is, you know, a bridge too far. It's hipster dad, BC, just not understanding real life

and where he is in his life. And, you know, you can say the same about your European man bag that you debuted at the Cleveland Indians keg party slash Red Sox baseball game we had for doc five. But Luke, first of all, Nunes Pena is the biggest upset in MMA history. If I mean, come on, Luke, how can it not be the opposite of the year? I don't know if by odds it's the biggest secondly pettis well

okay the underdog as champion was a slight underdog horiguchi was coming off a layoff in a surgery and we still didn't really know who was going to win that fight you can say it's the biggest upset based on where the fight was okay at that moment he was getting dominated yes but not only do i take umbrage with that pick i do take umbrage with you saying that the whole thing was media driven luke i didn't say the whole thing was media driven no part of it okay but here's the deal though juliana paint we were right to discount or even eliminate any chance pain your head i'm telling you we were actually right she was two and two in the last five years. She got dominated and finished by GDR and Shevchenko, who were sort of the elite level people that showed her where she's at. Even the win over

Sarah McMahon had a lot of holes. It wasn't overly impressive. What she did was effing shocking as all kinds of shit, Luke. And the fact that she wore down Nunes, who we still don't know, was it a, did she lose her, you know, gas tank because of the weight cut? Did she lose her will because of the success? You still don't know, but no one would have ever guessed that Nunes would have stood there open mouth, gassed out, just eating jab after after jab we could not create a path to victory for pena ahead of time and while i give you credit for you didn't pick the upset but you did come out and say people stop with this she has no freaking chance at all i'll give you that credit because that kind of thinking prevents offsets like this from being part of the discussion

but that's what made this the best upset ever and certainly the best of 2021 because we could not... Wait, wait, wait. You think this is better than Rousey-Holmes? Yes. I don't think it's... Oh, I don't. Because in hindsight, in hindsight, right after that fight happened, we all said, oh, shit, we should have seen this coming. The holes in Rousey's game mixed with the strengths of Holmes' footwork, boxing, kickboxing ability to set all that up. We should

have seen it coming. We shouldn't have seen this coming. In fact, Luke, I'm going to be I know it's unfair to Pena. I don't think she could do this a second time. This was the perfect... Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Who has a better chance to win in a rematch? Pettis over Horiguchi or Pena

over Nunez a second time? I think Horiguchi's still among the top three band weights in the world and probably should be the favorite entering that Bellator tournament. Dude, I think this was the Buster Douglas perfect storm. Now, I'm not saying Peña is the same class of fighter that Buster was when he pulled that off, a guy who had shown potential at some point. Yeah, that's unfair. But in terms of the, like like it shouldn't have happened i think it's an aberration luke the way that

amanda let me ask you a question and i'm being dead serious right here i think that i don't know this of course like none of us know this but my my feeling is that the chances of amanda nunez losing twice are much greater than Kyoji Horiguchi losing twice to Pettis am I crazy for that no no dude dude Amanda's the betting favorite in the rematch Luke no I'm saying I think the chances of Pena winning here's what I'm saying I think Pena I don't know if she will win if they fight again. What I'm saying is if they fight again, both pairs, right? I actually feel like Horiguchi's chances of winning are much better than Peña's. Yeah.

Yeah. No? Horiguchi's chances are much better than Peña. Pettis' chances of doing... But this is sort of what I mean. I don't think Pettis really has a chance to beat Horiguchi. No, he's a world... That thing he pulled off, dude,

like he'll fight a hundred more times. He'll never pull that off again. Okay, that type of way of how he won it was a miracle. But, but Luke, he's a world-class fighter who the betting odds were close for a reason entering that fight. Dude, Pena doesn't have the game to do what she did. It was the perfect storm.

Then how did she, here's what I would say, BC. I part of your assumptions are need to be a little correct a little bit this is why the predictions game it's like we got to be careful about doing it dude if she won and we didn't see it and the case of pettis and horiguchi i think you would agree the guy was literally getting his ass kicked for 23 minutes whatever it was and then through the spinning backfist he does he he threw it with intentionality and it landed but he was i mean he was getting eaten alive by koji horiguchi he had no hope dude i don't think it's at all crazy that if they fight again penya beats her i don't think that's like she the only way to her the only way penya could do it a second time is if amanda's done as if this fight was the the turning point, that Amanda's not the same

fighter and will never be. Latin Fauci, you do have to take a step back and see the whole force through the damn trees here, Luke. Fair enough. No, no. You're not making that up. What we didn't talk about enough was how sloppy and almost irresponsible Amanda's cardio was. Now, I think it was because of what Pena did.

She rightfully yanked on that arm for a full round and wore Amanda down. I do think there's other factors, whether it's lack of preparation, overconfidence, whatever it was, bad weight cut. It's all part of the story. I just don't think it's remotely likely that Juliana does this again, Luke. She doesn't have those skills. This was a great victory for the human spirit. Shout out to Pena. BBLs for again, Luke. She doesn't have those skills. This was a great victory for the human spirit. Shout out to Pena.

BBLs for life, Luke. But you got to see the truth, dude. I think that when you pick someone to win and then they don't, you need to have a long conversation about why you got it wrong rather than, oh, she can't do this again. No, she probably can. Maybe unlikely, but she probably can and it probably is a better chance of doing it than you think is the way i would look at it she's six kind of like

what amanda did to cyborg in the first round of their 51 second fight she lured cyborg into a bad shit crazy war took the bigger took big shots and outlanded her. Pena in a weird way, did the same thing. She turned it into a crazy ass street fight and credit to her chin and balls and all that. She outlasted her, but Luke, she was sloppy and finishing her too. I mean, it was,

it was, it was a damn street fight. That's not gonna happen a second time. Come on. Uh, I wouldn't, again, I don't favor her to win a second time,

but I think the chances of, uh, Pena doing that to Nunez are much greater much greater than pettis doing something even remotely similar to get the w again get the look i don't like saying so if they lined up if they lined up if they lined up pettis and horiguchi and Peña and Nunes, and you're telling me that Pettis' path to beat Horiguchi is much easier than Nunes versus for Peña to beat Nunes. Is that what you're arguing? If Juliana Peña was born in Iowa to parents of Irish and German descent, you would not be taking this stance, and you know it.

You freaking know it, dude. dude no i don't think so i feel like everyone is it's not so much that they're over there is some overestimating of pena yes that is clearly happening here but you don't hear me saying that what you're hearing me say is everyone is making out amanda to be unbeatable and for a time it certainly felt that way but dude like you can't like the level at which she has occupied is so insanely difficult to maintain some regression to a more attackable level was inevitable now if she has reached that level we don't know we'll see but dude but horiguchi horiguchi is in his motherfucking prime what kills your argument is this. Holly Holm was clinical in how she game planned and executed to beat Ronda Rousey. Juliana wasn't clinical, Luke.

It was just a great freaking night. Be fair, right? There was nothing freaking clinical about it. It was a great night. Yes, it was not clinical. No. But there was a certain level of intensity that she brought to the exchanges that Amandaanda was not able to meet that night just she just wasn't you know dude horiguchi had an answer for everything up until he didn't like that's the

difference to me like horiguchi who is almost certain to win when he fights uh pettis the second time but i don't think that's the case at all for amanda nunez and pena even though if i favor amanda to win in that case too so i'm I'm just saying that. All right. Moving on from that, BC, we're almost done here. Oh, and then for boxing, Cambosis over Lopez. What else could be the winner there? I have nothing, right? Got to be. Got to be.

Slam dunk. Absolutely. What a great moment for boxing. So let's go to this one. What is the biggest, irrespective of sport or even gender, who had the single biggest win this year all right i'm gonna be fair here my answer is pena over newness it doesn't get bigger than beating the the greatest of all time and doing it the manner in which she did it that big of an underdog i mean look there's

nothing get bigger than that but she already won upset of the year she wins this category too i gotta give alexander usic upsetting anthony joshua as being the won upset of the year. She wins this category too. I got to give Alexander Usyk upsetting Anthony Joshua as being the biggest winner this year. Joshua wasn't pound for pound anymore like he was for a season back when he was unbeaten. But Anthony Joshua was the unified heavyweight champion of the world. There were distinct concerns about if Usyk, who had a great sort of introduction to heavyweight in his second heavyweight fight when he beat Derek Chisora, but Derek Chisora is a little on the other, you know, on the backside. There was no full indication that Usyk was going to be able to take the bigger punches

from the bigger fighter and still implement the game plan that he wanted to. And most importantly, Luke, land the type of power shots that could give AJ pause. How did Usyk win this fight? He disciplined Joshua, forced him to be more of a countering pot-shotter from the outside or thinking he can outbox Usyk, which was a bad game plan. This was a brilliant, brilliant high-level win. You consider the stakes. You consider what we thought coming in.

I can't put it above Peña Nunes for what it meant. What does the biggest win of the year mean? It means what's the most important, you know, in terms of the credibility of both coming in and the stakes. To me, it's Peña Nunes. But shout out to Alexander Usyk. We can't overlook this. I hope they rematch this year.

They should. This was a major, major breakthrough step-up performance. I really wish Usyk could have been more active and could have made a run at Canelo for fight of the year because the way that he executed this was just absolutely brilliant. What a win. And look, he doesn't talk about it a lot, but he took a lot of damage. He just

didn't show it in this fight, and he was able to bite down on the mouth guard and fight right through it. Yeah, I mean, Anthony Joshua is huge. He's going to deliver a big punishment even off a jab if he can land it. and Usyk was a much smaller guy than the two and so you had to weather that as well I like your choices the only reason I went a little bit of a different direction is because both of what you have are somewhat surprising certainly the Peña win is surprising and even Usyk win was you know was an upset and was surprising I don't think I mean maybe some

boxing insiders kind of saw it coming but it was still shocking to watch in the moment. I mean, I predicted it, Luke. For the record, I predicted Usyk would win, just so we could be sure. Fair enough. So this is my point, though, right? I mean, like, it was still surprising and amazing to watch, but it was not so unexpected, and there's a little bit of an element to surprise, relatively speaking. For me, this one was expected as well, but because of what it signified, I went this direction. I'm going to go Canelo defeating Caleb Plant. I really believe that that win he got this year in setting himself apart in terms of guys who have unified a weight class, where he stands among all Latin fighters, where he stands now among Mexican fighters,

and even what you're seeing. Roberto Duran, of course, is Panamanian, but still he was weighing in on where Canelo stands as Mexican fighters. And he was saying he thinks he's now number one. Again, it's sort of a debate about whether the body of work is enough at this point, obviously relative to the standing greats in that division. But you get the idea. To me, this was not a surprising win. We had kind of seen it coming. He had

telegraphed it. There was a lot of like, you know, almost checking a box kind of feel to it. But the fight was intriguing. Caleb Plant did not lay down. Canelo really had to work for it. And it was a huge crowning achievement. It was, BC, it was the culmination of a process that ended on that day. But I think when you really look back at what he did to get himself to that position and what that win does for his career, it's so huge. It's so significant. You're right. The Usyk wins over Joshua is big and Peña as well.

Who could say otherwise? But you can't lose sight of this one too. No question about it. Great choice. I think we also have to put a lot of respect on another fight that could have won it. And that's Charles Oliver's victory over Dustin Poirier. It's just, you know, that was him cementing that he was the best lightweight in the world post to be. People hate when I say it, stop saying post to be, he's not there anymore. I know he's not there anymore, but he's still in

his early thirties and probably still the best, you know, in the world and the best lightweight we've ever seen. You know, one of the pound for pound best of all time. Really, Oliveira was not a paper champion, but he wasn't the recognized champion for a lot of us. You know, I thought I favored Poirier in this fight. I thought that, you know, he really had to go through Poirier to prove it, the manner in which he went through him. I mean, that second round when he took Poirier down and just mauled him and was like almost quasi-dirty and just mean, I mean, he took a leap this year.

Let's never underestimate how big that win was. Oliveira could have been, it's a hipster pick, but he could have been your fighter of the year if you'd wanted to. And also, Luke, Brandon Moreno's submission and dominance of Davison Figueiredo needs to be remembered the same way. Also, we're talking about big wins. Cambosis defeating Lopez is another big win. Not just a big upset, but a monster moment for a guy as well.

So you can add that in there. And Rose's head kick of Whaley, which gave us the, you know, you're the motherfucking best. That whole great speech from Pat Berry. And that was, that's one of the better feel-good wins in the history of both of these sports Luke I mean how could you I mean you're we were wide-eyed smiling watching that it was just sort of like oh my god what a great moment as was you know no to be fair as was Pena's upset of Nunes I don't remember ever being in an arena in like feeling as like collectively happy like we were all just it's almost like when you're at a concert and your favorite band comes out and plays your favorite song

and just jams it for another ten minutes, and you're like, damn, I fucking saw that shit, yeah! It was like that, Luke, okay? Fair enough. I know you don't have those moments, because your Satanist dead bands just come out and play, you know, blood-curling, you know, yeah, you know, trench coat wearing type music.

And there's really no variation. Are they curling the blood? Is that what they're doing? Curdling. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's weird, Luke, but that's, you know, it's fine. You know, I don't expect you to like the same things I do. It's what makes us different, Luke.

All right. Coach of the year. BC, we were simpatico in the boxing pick. It's easy. We differed a little bit on the mma side let's start with boxing the answer is eddie reynoso and who else could it even be brian campbell no it couldn't be anybody dude canelo's year alone and what reynoso has done to consistently help him evolve is amazing but let's not forget eddie reynoso also guided oscar valdez to the upset of miguel

burchell ryan garcia passed luke Luke Campbell in that early thriller to open the year. And also Andy Ruiz Jr.'s comeback from the weight issues and the way he looked in getting dropped but finishing Chris Areola, or sorry, outbeating Chris Areola. A great win for Reynoso. He is the best trainer in the world today. And did you like the after the valdez steroid comments and all that stuff that caleb plant talked that uh eddie bit down hard and was like you know uh

moving forward you guys need to you know he was almost trying to implement like safeguards so that no one would ever blame him for his fighters actions this guy's legit luke he's a kind of a chubby badass too i like i this guy a lot. Chubby guy, doesn't give a fuck what you think. It's always weird. Boxing has... Why does boxing have more chubby trainers than MMA? Like that dude, Bomack, who's the trainer for Jim O'Hanlon. He's the

fattest. He's the fattest man on earth. Yeah. Dude, he's hilarious too. Shout out to Bomack. These are great people, but they're so fat. Yeah, they are, Luke. Shout out to Bomek. He's an interesting person. These are great people, but they're so fat, you know? Yeah, they're fat. Yeah, they are. They are, Luke.

I mean, what is he, some big, great, fat person? Yeah, she's a big girl. You know what I'm saying. MMA has less fat trainers, generally. Generally. They have less fat people in general, Luke. Let's be fair. That's true.

All right, and then for our Coach of the Year, we went a little bit differently. Now, you went with Trevor Whitman, who won the World MMA Award this year for that. Why? Why'd you pick him? How could it not be him, dude? I love that he keeps a small clientele, three fighters, and all three of them are absolutely world-class. For all we know, Justin Gaethje could have, you know,

he's on the verge of another title shot, but if things are going a little differently, you could have three champions under his stable. The fact that he has helped Usman evolve from already dominant to now just, again, on the verge of all-time greatness, mixed with the stuff he does with Rose. I mean, how he helped her round out her boxing game a few years ago and just a complete full game, but also how he's helped her mentally, you know, rebuild herself. Pat Berry, a big part of that camp as well. You mix that with his same evolution patterns with Justin

Gaethje, helping him dial it back a little bit and bring out the best of himself. This guy is next level. If you watch his speech at the world MMA awards, it was emotional. I mean, he loves, I mean, Luke, you got to, if you're a coach, you got to be almost a father figure in a way, but he loves these, these folks. And the that, again, he keeps a small clientele, he's able to pour his blood, sweat, and tears into them. Luke, you would agree, the concepts, he's a step ahead of most. Yes, he's far ahead of most. Actually, not just a step.

I would say several steps on top of it. So his case for it is pretty great great if you don't have a whole lot of clients and then three of the ones you have are uh UFC champions you're doing something right and you coach the male and female fighters of the year on BC's card I mean that's pretty cool yeah I mean I'm not even saying that like you shouldn't get it you know but I also just don't want to lose out of the fact I picked Eric Nixick not that I think necessarily that Trevor Whitman what he's doing is you know it's pretty close to the best I've ever seen much less this year but I just want to point out Eric Nixick a has a champion under him his stables and in Francis and Garner number one but number two he just has to do way way more with I'm not going to

say less in the sense of the fighters he has or crap I don't mean that but like he doesn't have only UFC champions he has to go out there dude't mean that. But, like, he doesn't have only UFC champions. He has to go out there. Dude, he's constantly out there with Bellator, with UFC, blah, blah, blah. Dude, Extreme Couture a few years, not a few years ago, but I'll say five or six, seven, eight years ago for sure was not in a great place. Certainly not the place that it's in now.

It had a great place when Randy first opened it, and then when he kind of retired it just kind of fell to the side a little bit and then it picked back up in a major way and in no small part due to what nixick has done so like certainly the pronounced effect that a guy like sherman whitman has had cannot be denied in any way but a you've got a case where nixick has a champ and B the level of ability for him to affect at scale dozens of fighters I think can also not be overlooked it's pretty it's pretty special also uh shout out to James Krause who was really coming on Luke as one of the yes premier elite uh trainers coaches and also you know she took a lot of time off with maternity leave but coach latore i see you okay all right last but not least

bc person of the year this is something you were really kind of passionate about who is your person of the year if this even makes sense yeah i'll separate it so what what does it mean up front it just means you know who had a great year not only in the ring or cage but sort of also in how we look at them their their their actions their their you know charitable i mean every everything comes in together who was the person of the year in both sport and boxing it's an early easy pick for me nonito donair at age what 39 for him to have this type of renaissance comeback year in which he moves down in weight two weight classes had that ridiculous brawl with a Inoue in which he showed so much heart a couple years back, and this year scores two knockouts, wins back a championship

at 118 pounds, and really takes a stand for so many things. One, the better treatment between fighters. He called off that unification fight against John Real Casemiro because of the way Casemiro spoke to his wife and sort of tried his best to try to almost like Rose a couple years back during the Ioana feud trying to reinstitute decor in this he translated his most recent opponent's press conference maybe you think this is all bs but his wife Rachel has become his trainer his manager and is really he's really gone to bat to open the eyes for the respect that she deserves. Just how he's carried himself as a gentleman, his performance in the

ring at such a late age in the lower weight classes. He has been a brilliant gentleman this calendar year. I think he's my person of the year. And Luke, you see the name there, what Dustin Poirier did on the MMA side. No, he didn't end up winning fighter of the year. He would have been in that debate, obviously with the win over Charlie Olives, but this was such the breakthrough year that he deserved at the super elite star level. The money and fame that comes

with defeating Conor McGregor twice is massive, but Luke, he really carried himself greatly through a lot of the darker parts of the builds to both fights. The way that he throws himself into charity and, you know, in soccer when they take off the jersey and swap it with the opposing team afterwards, he's like that in MMA, which really no one is, you know, offering to donate to the charity of his opponent's choice, putting his foundation first. Across the board, he was very easy to cheer for this year

and i was glad that he got the close-up that he did luke maybe he didn't get the belt on top but he sort of solidified you know that he's a hall of famer in many ways across the board they both get my nod whether you think this award is bullshit or not luke will you try the new dustin poirier bourbon? What's it called? It's called Rare Stash. Oh, okay. I'm not a bourbon guy, Luke. It's like inhaling lighter fluid or something,

but I'll try it if you want, Luke. I mean, I tried his KO sauce. Not the ghost pepper one. That one will kill me, but the other one, Luke. It was all right. He doesn't have a ghost pepper one. Yeah, he does. I got it right here, the KO edition, doesn't have a ghost pepper one but uh yeah he does the the i got it right here the ko edition luke is it ghost pepper i think so i don't think it's ghost pepper dude ghost pepper is hot for me and you know you're a little child so well the

real fans go hey bc didn't you tell dustin on air that you tried the ko edition i did luke i lied okay sometimes you have to lie in life to make people feel good. I lied in that moment. I'm really sorry. I won't do that anymore. All right. Very quickly, since we ran a little long with this,

let's do our two segments that we have that are kind of basic. Luke, I got nowhere to go. I got nowhere to be. Don't you dare. Don't you dare take this away from our people. Who are your people of the year, Luke?

Me? Me? Yeah, you. There you go. All right. End of that. All right. Segment two here, DC.

Yoana, maybe? You and Yoana, yes. My number one. All right, segment two here, BC. Yoana, maybe? Yes, you and Yoana. Yes, my number one's and number two. Ariel, honorable mention. Emily Whitmire? Yes. Come here, Spitfire. You know what I'm talking about, you motherfucker.

All right, segment number two. Segment number two. BC, I was all over this one. I'm a little bored with it by now, but people loved it. It is something. Jake Paul and Dana White, BC, they just can't stop attacking each other. We've got the tweets. Dana White, I guess, I'm not sure who taunted who first at this point, but here comes Jake Paul. Happy New Year, Dana White. Here's a real challenge for you. I will immediately retire

from boxing and fight Horry Madsville in the UFC. If you agree to it, it was a series of demands, like pay your fighters 50 percent uh make the minimum base pay 50k instead of 12 blah blah blah blah you can i'm sure all of us have seen it at this point so dana oh no so was this in response to dana saying if you let me steroid test you for two years you can cocaine test me for 10 yes then jake paul puts out create me or if i'm wrong brian another video on top of this where he then proceeds to just destroy he puts out the first demand dana comes back with a video luke i'm shocked that dana responded i think the move here knowing like jake paul's a master troll love him or hate him and by the way this ordeal has brought a million comments on twitter people

be going i can't believe I'm opening 2022, loving Jake Paul and supporting him based on this. I know Dana can be a villain at times. He came at Dana. The fact that Dana put out a response shows you that he was rattled, whether you think this is BS or not. Luke, correct me if I'm wrong. Dana did not address any of the, the demands or the, the mentions about fighter pay.

In fact, his comment really was like, if you think you, if you and Nikisa think you can run a better promotion, why don't you, you know, you and my former accountant, why don't you go do that? That's not addressing it. So that's almost advantage Jake right there. Of course, Dana saying, if you think I'm on Coke, I don't use cocaine. Why don't I steroid test you? Luke, that's a hard stance from my vantage point because I'm of the belief that all of our heroes in both sports are more likely on the juice than not. My personal take, not of this show or this network. But Jake's response to that video, which you're seeing right here, Luke, it's an evisceration. I don't know. If you're Dana, you may have to put your tail between your legs and run away. We've seen Dana back down before when Brendan Schaub came out swinging.

You don't want to get into a troll war with this guy because this is what he does. Love him or hate him, this was a heavyweight response from Jake. Yeah, it's all BS back and forth. Okay, do you believe him when he says, look at i'm fat i'm not on steroids but he's essentially coming out now in in in and just going adam about dana's avoidance on fighter pay playing up the cocaine thing i know you said you're over it but i think that's a little strong luke this was actually pretty damn well done no no it's actually when i say i'm over it i'm like i'm over them beefing like i i don't get a ton of joy from that at this point, but you're right. This was...

Here's what it tells you about the nature of the UFC brass and their current state of things. At least in the case of Dana White, he can't argue for his position against someone who is even remotely aware of the facts. Think about what he often does at this point. He used to go on a lot of different media. He doesn't do that anymore. He goes to hand-picked media that he knows are not going to ask any difficult questions, usually some big mainstream media ones.

But Jim Rome ain't asking him shit about fighter pay in any kind of serious way, right? It's just not what he's going to do. Pat McAfee, same thing. Great shows. I listen to them both, but they're not going to do that, right? So there's that. Well, if you actually you listen to pat you would know it's pronounced mcafee luke just just a fair whatever i'll listen i'll watch clips on youtube fine okay there you go

but the point being is this uh there's nothing he doesn't get pushed that way the media that they handpick doesn't really get pushed in any kind of way they're used to just saying things and people accepting them but jake paul doesn't play that game and any kind of way. They're used to just saying things and people accepting them. But Jake Paul doesn't play that game. And like, if you actually want to have a debate, this is why I keep telling, dude, the debate about fighter pay is not hard to have. It's very, very simple, straightforward, relatively easy.

Some of the more complex economic arguments about monopoly, those are a little bit, obviously, above most people's pay grades, including my own. But the basic sort of gist of things is not that difficult to grasp. And Jake Paul is unencumbered by any of the other things that the UFC world use this North Korea like situation to like this to tamp down and then eliminate dissent but Jake Paul doesn't play like these rules this was an interesting move from Jake at the end where he essentially said like everyone's afraid of you but I'm the only one that doesn't need you

your fighters can't can't counter because you'll just bench them. You know, I'm the one speaking out for them. Okay, he's trying to do a Robin Hood thing in some degree, bringing attention to fighter pay and all that. Look, is UFC going to open the door and say, okay, sure, come on in, retire from boxing, take on Jorge Masvidal? No, they're not going to bend to this troll's public comments and start paying the fighters what they deserve.

But it is interesting, A, that Dana responded, B, that he didn't address any of the key issues at all, and C, that he's kind of allowing this to play on and get kind of embarrassed right now. Luke, you could brush this off as nothing. I get that, right? It's just trash talk back and forth. Will this go anywhere? Meaning, do you think it actually can help the the fighters cause or again does it

unless they're gonna mobilize and put you know and join forces in a non-Bjorn Rebny type of way nothing will ever change because Jake you could argue Jake has a pretty big audience and they're non-fight fans so if he's bringing this to the attention of a lot of people the momentum is there to do something with it do you think the momentum will continue at all i don't think the fighters will do shit with it i think that they're very much afraid and i think some of them have stockholm syndrome i i the idea that like well when are the fighters going to get together and do something i never probably is the answer i wouldn't wait on that but what i do think is kind of interesting is you're right like jake is the everyone kind of i feel like gets this wrong.

Everyone's like, oh, Jake's not proposing anything particular. Like he's not proposing the Ali Act going MMA. He's not proposing a union. He's just shitting on pay. Well, number one, he's not attempting to lead a revolt. So he doesn't need to be all that specific. He's just having a war of words with another guy. Moreover, here's what he actually can do.

Dude, if he keeps beating this drum, more and more people are going to be paying attention. And a lot of people who might hear his message might also just say, well, I don't care if the UFC pays fighters low. It doesn't mean anything to me. But here's the interesting part. You keep rattling this cage that's happening. You'd be surprised who might catch wind of it, including state and federal regulators who may have an issue with the fact that allegedly fighters are underpaid you just don't want to drum up this kind of attention if you can avoid it which is bc your point i think is quite correct which is like why does dana keep trying to play the dozens with people a he can't

play the dozens with and be around an issue that does nothing but make you look bad and has the capacity to raise the alarm of regulators. It's like, dude, you don't want to do this. If you look at previous FTC investigations in any industry, a lot of it comes from the fact that media will raise reports about some kind of industry not acting above board and that's how they end up getting involved. you want to run that risk by getting involved with jake paul who's a youtuber like it just it's like it's a not as not just an l uh brian but why does he keep signing up for them i don't understand what do you take if you're into the soap opera salacious part of it dana calling nikisa who band bandarian i think is how you pronounce it yeah yeah he's armenian or something who used to be the cfo of the damn ufc then it was part of the sale and then became what

the chief financial head of the the fortita brothers operation uh i don't know how his relationship there ended luke but it's interesting that dana called him made fun of his looks called him a an accountant and then part of jake's counter video was shown a little DM exchange between him and Nikisa I think there's there's a story there at least I I know you and I requested an interview with Nikisa when we were in Tampa doing the uh the public workout and he politely turned us down but I'd like to hear a little bit more on that Luke what does he know some certain secrets here uh or you know where's this going here i know it's like dude the guy you fire well i don't think fired i'm actually i don't know what happened i don't know at all yeah yeah i

shouldn't say that i don't even know how he split but i'm pointing out the guy who doesn't work for you anymore like he was good enough to be literally your cfo and now he's just a warlock accountant like you just can't take any of this shit seriously the guy was cfo for a while during perhaps the most important transaction in the company's history like you know does he have all the right ideas nobody does i'm sure there's plenty of things you can bring up about him that aren't great but you know this idea that he's some kind of rank amateur that's what dana why doesn't understand do they've convinced themselves that like decision-making is so good that they can't possibly think about things in the wrong way or be off on an issue. And it's like, dude, Jake Paul, I don't know about his total abilities,

and Nikisa, I don't know much about him either, but they're not rank amateurs. They got to this point not by accident. On some level, you have to respect that, and you have to at least be, especially if you want to go to war with them, you definitely have to respect that. And he you want to go to war with them you definitely have to respect that and he just doesn't they seem to be huffing their own farts here a little bit

they are and maybe dana's too successful now and and doesn't really take l's so he doesn't know how to counter but his troll game has slipped luke and part of it i think is we're in a different era he can't come out with an exobliss ex expletive laced misogynist response video like he would do to loretta hunt back in the day, or come out and call everybody the F-word and homophobic like he would do back in the day. If you're a new fan of the UFC and you have no idea how Dana used to publicly ran against journalists that would anger him, I mean, back in the day, Luke, love him or hate him, he came after it. I don't think he's got that same ability anymore.

He never had that ability dude dana white can't and no one over that company they can't debate they can only issue edicts they issue pronouncements they issue declarations and they do it because the mma industry just loves power right so you don't have to win an argument in mma if you have a lot of power if you have a lot of status doesn't matter if you're right if you're wrong or if the person who has no status is totally right or wrong. What only matters is the power dynamic. They got used to that. They got used to just saying, oh, we'll just say shit and

people will just accept it. But then Jake comes around and he's like, I don't have to accept any of this shit and doesn't. And they don't really know how to deal with that except just stop engaging with him. I mean, this ain't Oscar De La Hoya in terms of one-sided Dana public rants, you know? No.

This is somebody who can spar with him, so whether you hate it or love it, it's interesting, okay? All right, last topic. I did see the highlights on Twitter, so I've done my prep, but this is why I didn't do it, because I know our audience doesn't care, but there was a big heavyweight fight.

The Cuban monster Luis Ortiz taking on Charlesles martin martin drops him twice bc but then has the worst weirdest ko of the year on the first day of the new year more to come from this and have you seen this shit in terms of highlights but luke here's the deal this was in fairness the worst one of the worst on paper pay-per-views in boxing history i don't know what what PBC on Fox was thinking, but you know what? It was a pretty damn exciting card. There were five heavyweight fights. They gave us some crazy wars, some wackadooness. Frank Sanchez, Canelo's buddy,

the unbeaten heavyweight may have been boring, but he looked fantastic. And then we saw Luis Ortiz. Luke, people debate his age. Is he 42 or is he 55? He's definitely slipped from his prime in those two Deontay Wilder KO losses where he was ahead on the cards and boxing beautifully before getting stopped late

but he can still throw Luke he can still pop even though his legs aren't there I thought it was a little bit concerning that Ortiz got dropped twice early from Charles Martlin who's not a huge puncher even though the broadcast tried to convey that he was. And he got dropped on basically jabs, Luke. Luis Ortiz was not looking good for a while. But once he poured it on, he got the finish. This should get him a big fight, whether it's Andy Ruiz Jr. or, you know, we'll see who else. But I'll say this. They should have put this on regular TV.

Heck, they could have put this on Christmas night. I don't know if you noticed, Luke. We didn't talk about it. But PBC on Fox had a Christmas night card with, like, card with like 18 year old veto mel nicky in the main event who by the way went to same high school as our documentarian jake roseman shout out to jersey there that card luke because it followed an nfl game did something like four and a half million viewers this card would have done gangbusters it was incredible yet it was on pay-per-view so uh a little bittersweet since it was fun to watch it was sloppy it was it was incredible yet it was on pay-per-view so uh a little bittersweet since

it was fun to watch it was sloppy it was it was heavyweight action let's see Luis Ortiz one more time Luke do you ever see this guy winning the title or just being a uh a knockout foe to a big name again yeah I mean I'm mostly candidly between you and me since no one else is listening I don't really care if I can just be honest okay uh i do think he can i'll say this if they made a luis ortiz andy ruiz fight i think ruiz's hand speed and volume might give him some trouble but that would be an interesting contest i'll say that ortiz can still box he's slower but i think the his legs not being as quick luke is going to be an issue for him but we'll see yes it is but he does have good timing still he's got good reads um you know he can still be a problem for people all right bc that's it for

us talking to each other now it's time for the audience to ask us questions it is time for dms from the dignity dogs uh okay from at jose underscore turd bro jesus what are your guys's new year's resolutions comma daddies guys is guy geyser old faithful you got any new year's resolutions i try to avoid this type of stuff luke obviously you and i both want to uh take better care of ourselves so what i did early morning january 1st i got on the the Peloton. Luke, it'd been a long time since I rock and rolled. And every time I do that, for some reason, I can't sleep at night because my legs are throbbing and in pain. Maybe I just need more Advil, but yes, I am one of those people that need to get it. I got to get this, this face off, you know, this face off. Remember Travolta face

off. I got to get, I got to, I got to get healthy again, Luke. I think I've been unfair to my liver over the last month. Yes, I'm going to get in shape. I'm trying to find more balance in my life, Luke. My therapist is trying to help me develop better boundaries in all of my relationships from family to professional, maybe even including you, Luke. Do I talk about you in therapy? No. I will if I want to though, Luke. Those are really what I'm looking at, trying to be a better person, trying to turn off from work at night, which is hard to do when you live and work in the same house, sometimes in the same room, Luke.

It's hard to do that. I'm trying to do that. That's my damn resolution for this year. I mean, I've got a few resolutions. One is health and fitness related, and then another one is sort of i've i've i got a bunch dude i got a bunch of work related ones like in a columbian tradition that my wife and i do for new year's is when it strikes midnight you have 12 grapes and you have to make 12 wishes one or one per grape and you have to eat them like right at the stroke of midnight

this whole thing so i had like 12 different wishes related to this show related to my private life all kinds of stuff but I'm just not going to tell you guys any of them here but there are they are real they are real tune into Luke's live chat for more I think right yes I'll tell you all of them there actually all right from at legendary third leg wow everyone talking about their turds and dicks today this is great all right BC is Antonio Brown Jakeul's next opponent for folks who missed the bucks and fucking jets game yesterday antonio brown just said fuck it i'm out took off his pads his fucking rash guard chucked it on the sidelines chuck some of it to the fans and just walked the fuck out jerry mcguire style bc what do you think he's like fuck you

fuck you you're cool you know i'm out um look that's what look obviously there's some uh concerning fuel behind what he did and he's had a few of these moments in his career not on this level but he's had some endings of some bad professional relationships before it was really hard not to just laugh and be amused this was an all-time sort of like mid-game look it's funny i can't say the guy's name but i used to play high school rec basketball in a very serious league and i had a teammate who when he would foul out he would he would he would take his jersey off go into the other team's locker room and you'd hear him like banging shit and throwing stuff all around

come back out go up into the crowd and then heckle our team and the coach never did anything about it this guy was a maniac it kind of shows you what kind of town i'm in it was a very that type of moment i've never seen this on the professional level luke i saw tom brady's very professional response of obviously he's having issues we're hoping to support him but luke how do you even explain that he's had problems for a while dude i mean he had he's been accused of multiple people being a bad business dealer like the reason he got ratted out about his vaccine card was because he didn't pay a chef a personal chef 10 grand and so they just ratted him out like he's got all kinds of fucking things he's dealing with to say nothing of whatever other issues beyond just that he's

got two women claimed that he had inappropriately touched them. He's just never faced any consequences. I think his connection to football was tenuous. Some coach probably told him something he didn't like, and he just said, you know what? Fuck it. Straw broke the camel's back. But, bro, he's a mess.

He's a complete fucking mess. So he might fight Jake Paul is the answer. Yes. Is he a Hall of Famer, Luke? I saw saw that debate is he a hall of famer luke antonio brown no yeah he's had some great years with pittsburgh but yeah he's been a dude yeah some sick he's a fuck dude antonio brown's ability never been an issue never been an issue everything else has been the issue all right would you like would you do you dream maybe like you didn't end vox like that but you drew we all dream of a moment like that right luke of like seeing what exactly of saying goodbye to a bad situation whether it's a job or a relationship or something

and just yes there is definitely some folks i used to work with who i would love to like it's too late now i've been out of work with them for two and a half years but yeah there's a few things I'd like to say yeah during some dark times at ESPN even I used to be like I used to fantasize about like quitting on Twitter in the most disastrous way and just like revealing inner secrets and just being like f off but you know that's that's that'll that'll catch up with you quick look you'll never work again it's fine yeah uh okay from at yeah i know the other part too is like i don't want future you know like even cbs let's say i re-sign with them like do i want them to see me like just blasting old people people i used to work with all the time

like i've had a couple of things i've had to say but you gotta let it go at some point too all right yeah i'm right not last but not least uh there's actually three more at b wardle 33 uh did either of you listen to dr robert malone on jre if so thoughts bc did you i did not i don't know who dr robert malone is luke tell me uh this is the gentleman if my memory is correct who is the inventor behind behind mrna technology um but i don't you know i'm you know just based on what joe has had on his show during the pandemic i'm guessing it's also somebody who did not challenge his worldview but um i could be look would you agree and i you know you know i'm not here to disparage joe or make height jokes or all that but like would you agree that where he was at the at the peak with the elon

musk interview and it was like god it's must see every time he interviews anyone got luke thomas is on there it's must see where he is now it's like night and day see i don't know i've never been a big i've lived here he has put out there this is the situation that he has right he has so much content like even the conversation i did with him was fucking three and a half hours i don't think i've ever listened to myself talk for three and a half who the fuck wants to listen to me for three and a half hours nobody well just just your co-workers who are hoping to hear a shout out potentially potentially and you probably waited till the extra credits and everything but your name just did not appear but you know i'm in all seriousness like i will listen to joe's show when

i literally can i literally can. I literally can. He'll have a guest on that. I'll like whoever. I remember one time I took my dogs walking. He had James Hetfield on. And I remember I took my dogs walking for two hours and they were only in the portion of a conversation where James Hetfield was talking about beekeeping. It's like, motherfucker, I don't care about his bees.

Tell me about the night. Cliff Burton died on the black ice, man. What the fuck? You know? So like there's just so much of it. I can't, I his bees. Tell me about the night. Cliff Burton died on the black ice, man. What the fuck? You know? So like, there's just so much of it. I can't, I just can't keep up.

So like, are you suggesting what? Like he's, it seems to me as relevant as ever. Are you saying he's falling? No, I'm not suggesting even the quality of the shows. Cause I don't,

I don't listen anymore. Not just, it just sort of happened. I stopped listening and not, not in purposely, but I just feel like the public, like, like public, like, he was on top of the world in terms of, like, a mascot for coolness and guys our age. And now he's sort of, like, extreme, half boomer, half conspiracy, half Dr. Joe. I don't know about his show his show but on Instagram he definitely posts a lot of boomer memes like it's the year 2040 and you have you have 2,000 genders and

you can't say thank you anymore like won't that be a sad world it's like okay Joe lighten up a little bit just that weird IG post the other day about how he discovered cooking meat over an open fire and how he mentally prepped preps for it it's like bro we've been doing this shit from the beginning man come on yeah eat meat that's that's what happens when you eat meat just like that you know um yeah i don't know you know maybe he was listen i can't find the keys to my car when i've had too many delta eight gummies i'm not in a position to judge i mean look our guy rashad's got some explaining to do on ig2 too, okay? Listen, let he who is amongst sin cast the first stone. I'm not better.

I'm just, you know, I'm just noticing. All right, from RLI2Cool6, worst name ever. Luke, how did the new pull-up bar do? So my wife, BC, Rogue, do you know Rogue Fitness? I don't know them, but I did see this post you're referencing. Well, Rogue Fitness, you might know them. They're the ones that do, like, make most of the equipment and are kind of behind the CrossFit games.

That's not quite true, but they make all the weights and the plate. They make gym equipment for gyms, but also for a lot of homes as well. They're maybe the biggest name in fitness and CrossFit, and they make bars and everything. They make a pull-up bar called, if you guys want to know, it's called the Rogue Jammer Pull-Up Bar. It basically works like you would put up a TV. You actually put a mount on your wall, and then the bar mounts to the wall. Now, the way most pull-up bars work, if you go to your gym or something, they'll probably have it inside of a rack somewhere.

But if it's attached to the wall, bc they come off sometimes two or three feet because you need space to swing underneath the bar well if you're next to a door jam you can't do that so what they want to do is they do put it on the door jam but they the whole idea or a wall i should say but the whole idea is the rogue jammer bar only comes off about eight inches but you put it over your door so if you have to swing you can um you know i'm not talking heavy swinging you're not like fucking tarzan but you know normal swinging through pulling dude it's you put it over your door so that if you have to swing, you can. I'm not talking heavy swinging. You're not like fucking Tarzan, but normal swinging through pulling. Dude, it's great.

I tried it. We used the stud finder, put it in the studs. We checked it out. I even put some weights on myself, so I had over 300 pounds on my body as I was pulling it, and it worked. It does creak a little bit, BC, and that gives me the heebie-jeebies. It does creak, but it works. The only stud finder I need

is my mirror, Luke. The first thing I saw, I thought, when I... You're such a fucking idiot. When I saw that IG post was, I love you, Luke, but that wall's not going to support you. Like, are you confident you're not going to do damage? Am I confident? Mostly.

Mostly. You better put that house on the market before you do look okay uh all right last but not least from scully it's me what are the chances you guys do a live show on the capitol steps on january 6th i don't think we'll be anywhere fucking near the capitol steps on january 6th well we'll have some fucking near the Capitol steps on January 6th. Well, we'll have some good guests, meaning Pat Miletic and half of the MMA world will probably be there, Luke. You know what? It turns out that insurrections are a great time to do in-studio interviews because all of your favorite fighters are in town. I'm sure all of our fans will be there, too. It'll be a great live show, but no Luke, one of our, to circle back,

one of our resolutions that we've talked about at nauseam is returning to our brand new studio. Not only has the fine folks at Malka and Showtime redesigned our studio, which we hope to debut. What next week is it next week? I think next week. Yeah. They will also be moving the entire studio down the road in this,

in this calendar year. So big, more space for us, big things to come from that regard. And I think you'll agree, Luke, while it's to some degree, and this is where I do thank Jason Aaron, the guy that you refuse to mention his name at all, unless it's disparaging. We made a quicker, easier, and more technologically sound transition to the pandemic with this show than most. And I give our staff a lot of credit for that, even though, yes,

we still have painfully crippling tech issues on the regular. Come at me. I'm here. I will say, Luke, that that is a big resolution and goal. I want this show to be taken more seriously from the things that we do seriously. And I think that studio will really do it for us, Luke. Let's button up and bring it, dude right let's do it um that's it for us let's do have you seen this shit speaking of taking things seriously luke we have a segment every week where we scour the globe for the highs and lows the good the bad the ugly the in between in combat sports and beyond it's a

viral video show called have you seen this shit all righty luke pbc on fox pay-per-view from south florida let's say it right here did you see luis ortiz's finish of former champion charles martin um he got up off the canvas twice this was as wild an ending to a fight as we've seen in some time. Look at that big left. He's on queer street, Luke. He did. He did the Frank Gore bit where he just like, wow.

You know? Oh God, there's a brutal ending. I don't know if you can see it there, Luke, but his glove got, his glove got trapped. As Joe Goosen said on the broadcast, correctfully so. That's a one in the million result to get your arm hooked in the ropes to which you can't even get out. It actually bought Martin time. Luke, the fight could have been stopped right here,

but they didn't. The referee, Frank Santori, took some time. Here's an alternate view to actually see what happened. Martin looked out. I mean, he was getting battered. It probably should have been waved off. Oh, he was totally out, yeah. Nobody has ever seen this before, Luke.

In fact, the only combat sports equivalent of this is on our next slide. Yes, yes, Luke, yes. Good old Andre's done it. That used to be a part of his routine to get caught like that, but I've never seen that in boxing. That was a wild finish. God, I hate pro wrestling dude can you imagine sitting next to andre on the airplane all right let's get on the undercard look this victor faust versus iago coladze fight had five knockdowns in two rounds look at this batshit crazy action that the folks at pbc on fox give

us that's coladze he He got dropped. He gets up. I mean, this card, again, it was questionable in terms of purchase, but it delivered. It delivered craziness. Oh! Caught him between punches. That was nice. Nice. And it kept

going here. I don't know how much longer this goes, but they just kept bringing it. This is a long slide. There we go. Plenty of seats still available, but Twitter was on fire from this. Oh, and then it gets dropped again. It was pretty wild, Luke. Eventually, the referee would call an end to the action in round two in which what was somewhat of a questionable stoppage.

I think we'll see it coming up here. Oh, another drop there as Faust goes down again. Can we advance the slide to the ending of this fight? This is you and me trying to finish the first room, not room service, but the first pregame preview. So, Luke, the ref sees Kaladze stumbling. He calls it off. Did you see Kaladze counter the ref with a short right hand? Yeah, you know, you see what the ref does?

The ref actually calls him to walk towards him. That's a common thing you'll see referees do they'll say walk to me and he tries to walk to him and does it off to the side yeah of course he had to stop it he had no choice that's a good call it's gonna get fined and probably suspended look at this look you don't punch a ref in the face right i mean i mean you know veto long car was it was that his name here's a close-up of it, Luke. Oh, that's not good. That's not good. That's not good.

You know, listen. These guys get frustrated. You can hit referees. It's all good, bro. Okay. All right. Hey, let's keep it going. Luke, remember this name on the undercard.

Lightweight Frank Martin is 15-0. He's the Southpaw in the white shorts. Oh, I saw this on Twitter as well. Yeah, that lightweight division, as we know, is already loaded. Maybe the best division in the game, top to bottom in boxing. But this guy, Frank Martin, is coming. He's coming, Luke. Yeah, dude.

135 and 130 as well. But 135 is exciting as shit. Luke, I didn't watch this on Saturday because I don't watch this anymore. But it has an MMA tie-in. Here's the pay-per-view from WWE called day one and here's Bobby Lashley spearing Brock Lesnar into the support system there Luke who would win in an MMA fight between these two right now not Brock's hair why does Brock have a haircut from the four non-blondes video yeah and I said dude I'll say this L lashley still yoked as shit

luke was he like 46 he's a i mean he is just jacked probably just from asparagus you know just asparagus and just working out and getting good night's sleep i think brock regained the title because roman reigns had covid and i don't i don't really watch anymore who gives a fuck is really the question hey let's go back to that pbc pay-per-view pound-for-pound king canelo alvarez showed up luke in attendance here in south florida to support his teammate frank sanchez and luke he's wearing the damn hugh hefner pajamas again do we need to stage an intervention or is this cool in 2022 i think two guys like us who wouldn't know cool if it if cool's dick slapped him in the face would should

probably pump the brakes on questioning whether or not canelo can get away with this now the future so bright he had to wear shades our producer maniche is saying he votes that this is cool he's a lot younger than us luke and he's also a recording artist maniche so uh he probably knows a little bit more hey shots yeah you and. You and I, our concept and understanding, and frankly, our claim to cool is tenuous. There's the Sugar, what's Ray Flores' nickname? The sauce is the boss. What's the damn company that makes that sauce?

I don't know. Oh, Sweet Baby Ray. Sweet Baby Ray Flores. There he is, Luke. All right, nobody cares. Let's keep it going. Hey, speaking of Frank Sanchez, Luke, video has surfaced of Canelo sparring the Cuban heavyweight. Luke, does this make you imagine?

Frank Sanchez is my height. Does this make you imagine one day Canelo doing something crazy like going off the heavyweight? Not necessarily. People spar, you know, but Jesus. Listen. Listen. Let's see him go to 175 first. Let's just see what happens. You know what I'm saying? That's fair. Let's listen. Let's see him go to 175 first. Let's just see what happens.

You know what I'm saying? That's fair. That's fair. Luke, let's go over to the MMA side. Here's Jan Blachowicz meeting his match, a Lego version of the former champion. Your thoughts? That's a Lego version? Yes.

That's a lot of work, man. Jesus. That's pretty good. That's not bad. That's pretty good. That's not bad. That's pretty good. That's not bad. Not bad there. All right, Luke.

Bare knuckle fighting got wild over the past few weeks. Check out this guy in the jeans delivering a big KO. Yeah, hit him with the double jab. Looks like Dean Ambrose right there with those on. Yeah, that is. I like the straw ring. That's pretty cool, Luke. Yeah, it's like, hey, where are we going to fight?

In these bales of hay? All right, shit. Luke, your favorite knockouts are the one where they testify before the congregation. So we got one of those in this European bare knuckle fight. No, that's not testifying. That's the opposite. That might be the Hitler sign. Yeah, we don't need that anymore.

Maybe this guy just hates Jews or something. I don't know. I don't want to speak bad about him. He just got KO'd. By the way, here's how you know the BK thing might have some life, BC, is because now your European randos are imitating it. You know what I'm saying? That's fair.

That's fair. Enough fighting, Luke. You come here for Drunk Girls Gone Wild. Check out this gingerbread house headbanger. Oh, yeah, that's my kind of lady, Luke. You know what? She gives good head. Hey! Oh, wow.

Cutting it out. Yeah, we might get canceled for that. Oh, Luke, what's that clip you wanted me to see one time? What's it called? Two chicks, one drink? Is that what it's called? Something like that. Let's see what happens. I can't quite see.

Can you blow it up? I can't see what's happening. Oh, that's friendship right there, Luke. Wow. Can I be honest, BC? It's kind of hot. I'd like to be honest with you. Just be candid with you.

Well, Luke, those girls get along well but these girls are probably going to end their friendship after this luke let's check out this on the links oh shit i think that's called getting hit with the ugly stick luke wow wow she hit her with like the nine iron god damn yeah four forehead wow she hit her with, like, the nine iron. God damn. Yeah. Four? Forehead? Wow. She hit her with the fucking, with the driver. Wow. That's not cool at all.

I mean, but why are you standing there, though? What kind of a-hole? By the way, have you ever been hit on the golf course with a ball? It happened to me twice, Luke. Yes. You mean, like, a foul ball, basically. Well, like, you're playing golf with your friends, and you don't get out of the way because you don't think your friends are going to hit you because they're swinging in the other direction, and then they shank one and it hits you right in the with your friends and you don't get out of the way. Cause you don't think your friends are going to hit you. Cause they're hitting, they're swinging the other direction and then they shank one and it hits

you right in the gut. And then you have to like bite down. So you don't cry. Cause you're in public and you know, it's just awkward. I just take it like a man. I don't really have bitch issues. You're like 49 days until training camp.

Yeah. Okay. There you go. One day each for Volkanovski and Holloway too. Fuck this. Big week for our famous friends. Let's start in Vegas. Kevin Aioli debuting his new bobblehead, Luke.

What do you think? Oh, snap. Look at that BDE. How did he get a bobblehead? Yeah. Wow. How did he get a bobblehead? I don't know, Luke.

I didn't read the subhead. I just skimmed through. I saw he had a date. He took his girlfriend to the Michael Jackson show. Shout out to Kevin Aioli getting it done, Luke. Shouts. All right. Also, Luke, friend of the program in our Showtime Brethren for no more, Brendan Schaub, living the life dream here, Luke, by going to the Ferrari dealership with his pops and stepping on up. Luke, I drive a orange Subaru Outback,

or I'm sorry, Crosstrek, so I can't comment here, but can we blow this up? Your thoughts on this fine automobile. How much does a Ferrari like this cost? I'm going to go with a lot, like a real lot. Like what, 500 grand, something like that? I do have to say, that's a wholesome father-son moment right there, Luke. Getting a Ferrari? Luke's like i i don't know what those

moments are like i really can't comment but uh yeah it's like you know it was you mean the little league games that no one showed up for for me uh uh let me ask you a question serious question if you had unlimited money let's say just you checked your balance and all of a sudden you had 500 million in there right if i if i had if i had thick boy money yes yes yeah what is the nicest car i think we've talked about this before but what is the nicest car you you would purchase like seriously go to the lot give him cash what would you get dude i i'm still in love with catalogs i'd get like a 75 000 top of the line sedan all love i mean i know it's not exciting to you i know luke what do you want me to say?

Alpha Romero. I'm not a car guy, dude. It doesn't get me off, Luke. I'm not a car guy either. But there is a part of me, as ratchet as this is. Do you remember back in the day? This was like the aughts. You'd see the rappers.

They would get the Escalade, right? The Cadillac Escalade. And then they would put the Sprewells on them. Do you remember those? The Sprewells? Yeah, I do. I do. So for folks who may not know, there was anba player named latrell spree well who was by the way you know curmudgeon i think is

a nice way to put it dude and he you're still gonna hold that coach choke incident against him yes i am but at a bare minimum he opened up a business where he would make rims and the spree wells were famous because the cars would stop and he would have these rims that have its own access in the middle and they would just keep spinning as you came to a stop. I would put the Spreewells on the Escalade, Paul Wall, 2006 style. You know what I'm saying? Luke, no one ever talks about it. No one ever talks about it because they got swept, but Spreewells performance in the 99 finals against the Spurs was heroic, Luke. Okay? I don't remember.

All right. Anyway, Luke, our final famous friend, Pennington James, made it out for an open mic, Maskless in NYC. Let's listen. Let's listen. This song is called Long Hair. Where is he? He's at the bottom of a pizza shop. I can't hear anything. I can't hear anything.

Multicam. Oh, multi-cam. Listen to this tone-deaf zero. It's ambitious, Lou. I like how he's got a multi-cam shoot on an open mic. All right, that's enough. That's enough of this bullshit. All right. By the way, who is this person playing guitar with him as I listen to myself?

I don't know, Luke. I hope it's one of the members of his boy band, No Escape. I hope it's one of the other two donks from that. How come I have no escape from him? All right. Hey, Luke, some people think we invented the old tip-to-tip thing, but check out this OG photo of Nas and Fat Joe. We may owe them a bit of royalty here, Luke.

That's a little bit aggressive with the fingertipping. Yeah, that's sliding on down the pole a little right yeah yeah brother okay you into that no okay let's keep it going go to the next one let's tug of war time luke how strong is your neck could you could you compete against me in this i don't know what the fuck that's got to be whiplash inducing, right? Yeah. How about I would just do this and then drop my head real quickly so you get smacked in the face? This has got to be Russia, Luke.

It's got to be. Yeah, yeah. This is like Kazakhstan where it's like they don't have Nintendo Switch. All they've got is fucking man games. Luke, let's go back to the boxing ring. They put the ropes there to keep people safe, but people find a loophole check out this ending oh you'll get the fuck out my ring oh wow that's that's very similar to jay aaron's exit from the show look wow yeah i wish i wish we could have punched his ass out the door oh man oh man yeah just have a fucking good night all right

we'll stay in boxing here luke uh this this video is back around some people claim it's older than we think but here's tyson fury going at the bag oh wow that's gonna be like my pull-up bar bro yeah yes it is yes it is luke watch out oh you see that picture he's got the painting of him and wilder that's not bad on the wall there uh i didn't but you can go to the next slide okay thank you uh luke we love fat guys here's a fat guy attempting big air gotta gotta give him respect for this look at this tub of shit i mean but look no covet involved in this dunk at all you gotta respect dude this was me coming to the studio at the beginning of the pandemic right here

with with mask and all by the way oh yeah shirtless fat guys will always show up and have you seen this shit uh luke you gotta uh you ever wonder what life was like before Manscaped invented the lawnmower 4.0 look? So let me get this straight. You clean your pubes by burning them? Yes. Is this the Burning Man Festival? Yes, it is. Wow, that guy.

Yeah, that's kind of... You know what? I'll say this, BC. It's fast and efficient. It's fast and efficient. It's fast and efficient. The original fire crotch. It's this fellow right here. All right. Yes.

Hey, Luke, the subway is just a... I was about to say, my crotch also burns as much, but that's just from jock itch. Luke, some people call the subway the world's toilet seat. Look at this. You got to watch your step, Luke. Yikes. What am I?

Can we zoom in, Manege? Is that a dildo? Dude, there was this comic years ago named Russ Maneve. He used to have a really good bit. And it was when I was living in New York. He would be like dude i'll be walking down the streets of new york and i'll see like a used condom just laying in the road and i'm like who is so reckless that they fuck in the street yet so uh thoughtful that they actually wear a condom before they fuck in the street it really is quite the i don't think it happened in the street, Luke.

I think it was just, you know... This dildo's in the street? There was a little kid that almost tripped over it. That's awful, Luke. Hey, we back the blue on this show, Luke, but you gotta stay out of the halfpipe here. What's this guy doing? I think they call this skate or die.

He chose the latter, Luke. Is that a cop? Yeah. Yikes. He's like, let me see what you kids are all about on these whirly turns. There's always those videos of cops trying to look cool, like they're dancing in the hood or crossing people over.

Yeah, this went too far. You got to be careful here. All right, speaking of hoops, Luke, Shaq still got it. From way downtown. Bang. Can we zoom in on this? By the way, are we on his property or something? On one of his, like, palatial estates? Damn.

Yep, yep. Big Shaq. Dude, Big Shaq has been popular for so long. He's great in commercials. Like, great. And he's making money. Luke, you think this guy's just laying pipe? Like just, I mean, just left and right.

Did you ever hear his interview on the Howard Stern show about his hog? No, no, I haven't. What do you got, Luke? Bro, women used to run out of the room when the first time they saw it, they would run out, just be like, I can't do anything with this. You have a fucking eel in your pants. I mean, what are you doing here? Very Rocco-like. you got to respect that two big 90s uh icons in my in my house luke finally luke will will finish

with the street fight of the week a lot of people sending me this jewel right here uh uh uh oh is he gonna get it oh he's gonna get it he's gonna get it luke you gotta zoom in here man dude you gotta love the third world man they just got a different set of rules bro oh yeah yeah i'm gonna bang on your diamante or whatever the fuck this is yeah it's just some by the way who makes that car some manufacturer you've never heard of in the middle of nowhere. The guy who punched him is probably a police officer. That's his uniform. Just looks like he's wearing beach clothes.

What country is this, Luke? Djibouti? No, this has got to be like Nicaragua or something. Okay. All right. There you go, Luke. That's all the shit I got for this. This is dirt poor Central America right here. That's it, Luke.

That's all I got. We don't usually do odds and ends. Well, we didn't do odds and ends for today. Anything else you would like to mention before we get out of here? You're not watching season four of Cobra Kai, Luke. It is awesome. My kids and I are eight episodes in of the 10-episode fourth season, which debuted December 31st.

Luke, Terry silver is back remember from the quick silver method from karate kid part three i mean yes it is just awesome they brought back a lot of callbacks of characters from season one of cobra look it's it's great it's absolutely great i can't believe you bowed out of it i really can't i said dude at some point i don't i was watching this. I'm like, I don't care about the lives of stupid, nerdy teenagers. Like, I don't. It's not interesting to me.

So if it was animated and in Spanish, Luke, you'd be all over it. Okay. You'd be all. Well, if it was animated in Spanish, my daughter would watch it. In which case, then I would have to watch it. Like, I don't watch in Kanto because I love it. I watch it because I kind of have to. So. All right, there's that.

Did you see any movies over the winter break? Yes, last night on the Showtime app, actually, I watched Serpico with Al Pacino, Luke. How was it? Great. God, I haven't seen that

since I was a teen or something. Slow as shit, but great. Oh, God. Pacino with the beard and the long hair. It's amazing. Also, Luke, 1974's The Gambler with James Caan.

I am, Matt Snyder, our great Showtime producer, has gotten me into the 70s neo-noir run. And, you know, I am just so deep in this shit. You ever seen Thief with James Caan from the early 80s, Luke? So good. I mean, I... I did see, I saw the new Matrix movie, which is, dude, to call that movie bad,

it's like, I don't know how to explain it to you. You know how Triller fumbled the Kambosis and Lopez fight? Yes. So imagine, like, take the spirit of that and then rub feces all over it and then urinate on top of it and then rub more feces on top of it and then throw it in the garbage and then pee on top of that and that's the matrix we got it and then put it inside it's like within 15 minutes i was like dude they they should have let they i i have good news i have good news for you, Brian. If you thought it was impossible that the fourth Matrix movie could be worse than the third,

boy, are you going to be surprised. The second sucked the horn too, Luke. That's a hot take, but I'll back it up. Second sucked the horn, but third was really bad. The fourth movie, dude. And everyone's like, what were you expecting, Sir Lawrence Olivier?

No, just a movie that's decent. It is so fucking bad. But I did see Don't Look Up, the new DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence movie on Netflix, right? Yeah, it's great. You'll love it. Really fun. All right, Luke, we got breaking news. Our Maniche has been all over us. I know I saw it, but I ignored it because it's dumb. Amanda Serrano backing up the jake paul tweet about fighting jorge masvidal has tweeted out i will gladly sign a one fight deal with the ufc to challenge valentina for the flyweight championship if the ufc agrees to jake's offer let's make history now full disclosure of course uh or not full disclosure but amanda is two oh and one in mma She fought under, what, Kambate. She fought a regional fight as well, but this ain't happening.

Come on. No, it's not. This is silly and I'm ignoring it for that reason. Alright, Luke. Yeah, so go see those on Netflix. Have you not seen Encanto? Seriously, being dead serious, I would love for you to watch it and get your perspective. Have you not seen that Latin animated

film named Dead Children? No, Luke. I have not seen that shit okay luke come on seriously i know you have kids but your kids are such a different age it doesn't matter yeah but they were never really into that to be i don't i don't really like animated stuff i'm sorry okay what did they when they were three what were they watching um oh who are those guys you know those guys no i don't know. Look, it was a long time ago. The Bang Bus? The Imagination Movers.

That's who I was thinking about. All right. Well, your kids sound lame. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. The kids are great. All right. With that in mind, we need to call it a day.

We'll be back on Wednesday. We'll have good stuff for you. I don't think there's going to be any extra credit today. There's really nothing to get to, so we'll put that off for when the next fight starts. Brian, you, of course, can go to morningcombat.store if you want more of the merch, or if your neighbors want more merch,

or if your family wants more merch, they can go do that there. They can get that sweater. Look at that. Look at that nice sweater he's got there. Nice champion sweater. Yeah, that's not bad, Luke. Okay, come buy our shit.

You'll look great in it. They should make us belts that we can carry around. Championship belts? Yeah, like tag team. I hate pro wrestling, but we need some tag team belts. I was going to say, it's very Helwani-like. I don't know if I'm into that. Shout out to Ariel, your boy, though you know all right all right uh let's

see what else we got the email morningcombat at gmail.com for wednesday's fan subs oh one more thing one more award we almost forgot one more award maniche has a video luke the nominees this is probably the most important award let's close the show with this the 2021 mk donk of the year now luke if you remember last year the great christos christoforos aka web scream uh greek born italy living uh shout out to petro his young son there he won it you know luke it was a tight field this year okay let's go to the videotape the winner winner for 2021 Donk of the Year. Well, I need to say something first, BC. Dick on the web screen.

You're taking everything I work from, motherfuckers. You know who the number one donk is? You know who the donk of the year is every year? Not some dorks making videos on the internet. I'm the true donk. Wow. Wow. Wow. Put some respect on Damien's name

They're coming after you, Web Scream Alright Luke, that was of course A video, that interview that we did earlier in the year When Damien got The MK Logos on his left bicep Luke, he tattooed our show

Can we turn off BC's second audio feed for the love of fucking God? Thank you for cutting off that echo. I don't know if the people can hear it. 209, Damien the Donk, who Luke has spun off loving our show so much, created his own podcast. He goes after. How bad is that podcast?

It's real bad, right? No, it's all right. He goes after John Nash on Twitter. He's a real donk. He's got very scary scary tattoos but we met him at the live show in july he showed us all his ink he says it gets him it gets it he gets the job done with it luke he pulls the poontang with those scary satanic tattoos but we love him luke and it was a crowded field this year do you have any honorable mention donks you want to name no i mean he was the he was the runaway i mean i also say this dude like a lot of people email me over the year people brought me their ejaculate pepperoni which was nice you know i had a chance to eat that i'm just being so mean shout out to

aaron from washington i want to shout out obviously web scream our great celebrity friend otiel burbridge of dead and, a great fan. Oh, I have to tell you, dude, I was out Saturday and yesterday. I got recognized both days, and both guys were MK fans. Both guys were MK fans. So I was actually, fuck. Dude, there was a long time here where I would get recognized at MMA Weeks, like we were all on the road somewhere or something. But then I come back to D.C. and no one knew who the fuck i am dude i get recognized literally almost every time i go out

now dc is starting to show up starting to show up for your boys so not in connecticut uh shout out to saul who always uh sends us his fan subs of wearing our merch also luke david a from france eventually they're gonna get him but until he weinsteins himself luke he's a great fan for us antoine from alaska he may be running from the law up there, but he's doing well. They say for 6'8", he stood. Luke, do you have any favorite fans? No, you don't care.

Oh, Jen and Bill. Jen and Bill, who need to come to the East Coast if they at all exist. Also, who is it? Is it Saul? You mentioned him already, but the guy who does all the great stuff on Wednesdays? Yes, that is Saul. We got so many of them. I'm sure I'm upsetting people,

not putting them in here, but we love you people. You're the reason we want to award. You're the reason we keep doing the show and it's building because of you. But look, Damien, the donk, you were above and beyond the donk of the year for better or worse.

And sir, we salute you. We salute the fuck out of you. Uh, okay. All right, BCc so there's that uh showtime.com 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not pound sand but if you get the 30-day free trial you can see brian campbell on friday night making his showbox debut bc who's the main event one more time for that card we'll talk about it all week i'm sure but yeah we got six undefeated fighters by the way luis nunez versus carlos arieta in the main event it's going to be a fun show they're from orlando big uh a couple dominican fighters puerto rican fighters on the

card obviously orlando is a big puerto rican population a lot of boxing shows going down there i'm expecting at the caribe resort a fun crowd a fun event luke and you know i get to be with the l diamante raul marquez and people forget forget, Barry Tompkins, what is he, 80 years old? He was the voice of my boxing youth. Now I get to call fights with him. Dream come true. Thank you, Showbox. I'm excited to be part of the new generation.

There you have it. And that's it for us today. We will be back Wednesday, ready to lock into the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I don't even know what we're going to say, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't even know what we're going to say, but we'll have something figured out for Wednesday as well. Okay, give us a follow all over social media if you can. MK's name is the same throughout BC, and I have slightly different names

between Twitter and Instagram. You can see it on the lower third. There it is. Alright, for Brian Campbell, for Malka, for CBS Sports, for Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas, and for everyone here at MK, thank you so much for watching, and until next time, may all of your gains be loyal.