MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - EP 10: JUSTIN GAETHJE DOMINATES, CONOR NEXT? FURY SURVIVES AND DEVIN HANEY SHOWS THAT THE FUTURE IS NOW!

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

Justin Gaethje impresses yet again with 3rd straight first round stoppage against a game Cowboy. He has ascended to the upper echelon of the loaded lightweight division, right there with Ferguson and Khabib. Will Conor McGregor step in to the octogon with such a dangerous opponent? Michalle Pereira makes a great GIF but isn’t it about winning at the end of the day? The best showmen back it up in the octagon with wins and they MAKE WEIGHT! Next up is UFC Mexico City with Jeremy Stephens facing off against the Zombie killer, Yair Rodriguez. On the boxing front, Tyson Fury had all he could handle with the tough, game Swede, Otto Wallin. Fury won a decision but with two cuts on his eye totaling 50 stitches, was it worth it? And finally, once again we learned that Devin Haney is the real deal and at 20 years old is already calling out Lomachenko! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, it is Monday, September 16th, 2019. It's time for Morning Combat Reveille Donks. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program. Joined, as always, by my trusty co-host, Brian Campbell from CBS Sports. A lot to get to today, Brian. Before we do, how was your weekend, buddy? You know, went down to the New Amsterdam, was talking to this yellow-haired girl, and Mr. Jones stretched up a conversation. It was good times, you know? I think we have a running tally today for your dumb 90s references.

Have you seen the graphic for that? I have. Yeah, I think we're going to start. I don't know if they deployed it or not. I can't tell from this screen here. But hey, don't bury the lead here, Luke. We got big news. This show is all growns up, bro.

It is all growns up. We tried to get the word out yesterday. I was so hung over. This is a true story. Brian calls me and I couldn't even talk on the phone. I was so hung over. But the good news is I sobered up. I took a shower. I walked my dogs and I came back and we made a video about it on my personal YouTube channel. We put the word out on your Twitter and my Twitter everywhere. We have our own YouTube channel now, which you're probably

watching this on. I'm going to be some growing pains to start. Rome wasn't built in a day, Brian Campbell, but it gives us a lot of options to do a lot of different things, including just more volume, right? So you can take the show, all the different clips, and you can come right here for it. We appreciate Brendan Schaub letting us squat on his couch the last two months, but it's time we got our own place out in the city. It is. From the Armageddon bomb shelter to the bomb diggity. This show is coming because we tell it like it is and how it could be, right? How it was and, of course, how it should be.

No punches pulled. No protecting sponsors. This is the real deal right here, right? No protecting sponsors. Who are we protecting? I got dynamic fasteners on line one here. We're pending right now. Condom Depot.

You see Bang Bros? We'll move on from this. You see Bang Bros put in a $10 million bid to rename the Miami Heat arena? That's spectacular. I love everything. Honestly, whatever team ends up doing that, even if it's a minor league team, that's my new favorite team. I just want to put that out there.

Shout out to the fans for loving MKUltra, right? Our whole crew now is lounging, celebrating every day. No more public housing. Same public housing, unfortunately, but the show's still bringing it. A lot to talk about this week. It's a wild weekend of combat sports. It certainly was.

A lot to get to. All right, boys and girls, let's do it. First up, Brian Campbell. Justin Gaethje wins in the main event at UFC Vancouver on ESPN+. It not only was a nice victory, it not only was his third victory in a row, it was his third victory in a row via first-round stoppage. He has now defeated, Brian. Let's see.

James Vick, first-round stoppage. Edson Barboza, first-round stoppage. And Cowboy Cerrone, first-round stoppage. He has now defeated, Brian. Let's see. James Vick, first-round stoppage. Edson Barboza, first-round stoppage. And Cowboy Cerrone, first-round stoppage. Now, if you want it to be an A-hole, and I'm not saying you do, I'm using the proverbial U. Do I give those vibes off just now? No, no, no. I'm merely introducing it as a way to frame the argument.

There are always going to be people that no matter how many wins you get, they say, yeah, but, you know, Cowboy's up and down, Edson's on the downside, and James Vick already left the division. What does that really mean? So the question would be, how good is Justin Gaethje? Now, for folks who are maybe new to this, I do a second segment just by myself called Dissected where I look at some film, some multimedia evidence to see what we can glean from that. And I do think having some managed expectations about this are important. Yes, James Vick is talented, but he did leave the division. Edson Barboza is probably not in his prime, and certainly Cowboy Cerrone is an incredible competitor, but he's always a little

bit up and down at times. However, it's not fair to say anything other than Justin Gaethje, while not reborn, is certainly reformed. To me, he is absolutely a top five talent, if not higher, and here's really the key to the whole situation. I'd love to get your perspective because I showed a bunch of stuff, but as just a general way to understand what's happened, Justin Gaethje is still very much Justin Gaethje, which is to say, does he throw leg kicks? Yes. Does he throw great punches in the dirty boxing clinch? Yes. Does he still have a hammer of a left hook? Yes. Does he throw, not with reckless abandon, but like with consistent offense? Absolutely. Does he still have a hammer of a left hook? Yes. Does he throw? Not with reckless abandon,

but like with consistent offense? Absolutely. Does he still try to eat men's souls? Absolutely. All the things that makes him good and all the weapons that he likes, they're still there. But everything else around it, from the footwork to the entries to the exits, dude, he's cleaned up so much of that. It's turned him into something of a sniper of sorts. His timing, he shows. Like, how are you able to beat Barboza and Vic and Cerrone with these kill shots? Because his timing is impeccable. Everyone's like, oh, his power's great.

Yes, of course it is. But it's aided by ridiculous timing. Dude, he is a force to be reckoned with. The World Series of Fighting Gaethje is no more, Brian Campbell. I think you're right. And Professor Salt-N-Pepa, I'll be your Spinderella to break this down, but when we thought Gaethje, when he hit that

crossroads, and we said it's time for a change, and what that crossroads was, consecutive knockouts where are you going to be a true elite contender in this game, or are you going to be MMA's version of Arturo Gatti? Which is fine, you can be a TV fighter, you can go out there and walk into oncoming traffic and sort of sell your fighting soul to a degree, because that's just how

you get down. I think, for me personally, knowing his wrestling background, I always thought his evolution or just to change himself to salvage his career was going to come through abstinence from banging. It was going to come from wrestling and mixing it up. Instead, you know what he's doing? He's taking what

he does best and he's just ironing it out just a little bit. We've all had those girlfriends in college. You can't domesticate them. You want to. You want to bring them home to mom. You can't because they're here to bang. And this is ultimately what Gage G did, only he says, I'm going to go into that cage.

I'm still going to be promiscuous, but I'm going to wear protection, and I'm going to set up my shots better, and I'm going to be a little bit more crafty. Still the animal. Still has power, and you asked me off the top before you went on a somewhat long-winded five-minute start to this show, but I'm sure the viewers enjoyed it. They did. You said, what is he? Now, he's a legitimate title contender now.

Yeah. I don't care where those guys went after he knocked them out. Each of those three fights were important for him to sort of declare, who are you, Justin Gaethje? You know what he is? He's a smart and powerful, legitimate title contender in the deepest division in the sport. Who do I want to see him against? Everybody. You would have thought what a guy like that and it like anybody who comes into the game can get better right? Change teams or just refocus or there's always ways to improve

But you would have thought a guy who had a style like that that that's his identity Like there's only one way to fight Maybe you can give him a bit of a different weapons to your point, throw a little wrestling there, mix it up, maybe give him some good ground to pound. But that wild brawling, that just off-balance swinging, well, that's really who he is. And it turns out it's actually really not who he is. What he is is a guy, yes, he likes to throw hammers, and of course he's landing them. But he can be so much more.

He's light on his feet. He's careful. He's at times considerate. I mean, of his own offense and his own strategies. It just felt like the way, if you see somebody who's a brawler, you just feel like, oh, they're a brawler for life. That's who they are. Because most brawlers, that's them reaching their peak. It just turned out he was a very good, maybe actually quite out elite fighter who was fighting well below his potential, just in a way that was really exciting. He actually made a point as well when the ESPN post-fight show saying,

you know, I'd be done with these other fights. Even the ones I won, I'd just be exhausted. He's not tired at all. Yes, they're going, you know, not far past the first round, but just that style. It's not so labor-intensive. We'll see what that means for the second and third round if anyone can ever get him there,

which leads us to the next question, Brian Campbell. Okay, he's looked great, but who would be next? Would it be a Conor McGregor? Would it be a Dustin Poirier? Would it be the winner of Tony versus Habib? Now, Conor, as he is wont to do, after all these events, gets out there on social media and MMA sites desperate for traffic, will then take those tweets. Hey, some of us work for those MMA sites.

I get it. They've got bills to pay. I'm not above it. Turn it into traffic. That's what above it. Turn it into traffic. That's what it is. Turn it into traffic and it magnifies the whole thing.

So, we don't know if Tony's going to fight Habib, but it seems possible at least within 2019, maybe early first quarter 2020. Does DiPuartia coming off that loss? He's out in the open.

Conor's kind of out in the open as well. Those two could get matched up. He's tweeting out here Dublin, December. Of course, I think it's December 14th, that show's supposed to be at T-Mobile.

Well, here's the thing, Ron, I'll pitch this to you. Can they do a show in Dublin? Should they do a show between Gaethje and Conor, given that they already pulled one show from T-Mobile, they have to give them a certain number each year, following Jones-Guss. What do you think? I'm not sure about the internal details of an MGM grand T-Mobile deal in terms of filling dates, but they moved the Jon Jones show in such unprecedented fashion in Christmas week on six days' notice from Vegas to L.A.

If you're going to put Conor McGregor in the main event, he wants to go to Dublin, and you can pretty much make comparable money and make this an event, I think you'd do that. I wouldn't want to see Gage G against anyone coming off a loss except for Conor McGregor because we know that's a Super Bowl, that's the equivalent of a title opportunity. And right now he is a title contender legitimately, but that line is long at the top. Tony Ferguson at the head of that. We know this is an all-killer division. I don't want to see him against Poirier now because Poirier just come off a loss. It's time

for Gatsby to trend upwards and Conor's the only step back that's still a forward step because of his name. And that fight screams so much chaos so much violence so much drama it's so damn intriguing hg's almost too good though if you're if you're the ufc financial power brokers that be and you're sitting in that war room that we talk about that dana has and you got all the uh names on the wall and you're mapping out the territory and you go we want to take the chance that KHG takes Conor's soul? I mean, when we can put Conor in there with other names coming off of loss, the Frankie Edgars, the Jose Aldos, that will refresh him and prop him back up.

It's very interesting. If they go in that direction, it's going to do business and it's going to deliver. Yeah. So you would do Aldo, Edgar, or excuse me, Aldo or Edgar against McGregor at 155? Or Cowboy before this fight, essentially. That's interesting. Well, I don't know what they're going to do, because you have Poirier out there tweeting Santa emojis

when asked if he was going to be fighting in December. Does that mean he's fighting Conor? Does it mean Gaethje's fighting Conor? I'll tell you this. You can't go wrong with either bout. You can't go wrong with either bout. Here's what Conor is essentially up against, insofar as I'll tell you this. You can't go wrong with either bout. You can't go wrong with either bout. Here's what Conor is essentially up against, insofar as I can tell. Let's say he fights Gaethje. First of all, Gaethje has all of a sudden turned into just a magnificent talent. I mean, he already

kind of was by virtue of a weird, exhausting style. Now he is by virtue of execution. So you've got him. You know he's unafraid. Under those lights, he's just like Conor. He comes to life in that scenario. Only he's not coming with his hands down anymore, so it's such a different ballgame. Right, certainly is.

But you'd have the most violent man in MMA, which, by the way, Eddie Alvarez even agreed. I don't think he called him the most violent. I think he called him the most entertaining,

but they're essentially synonymous. Most sadistic is where I'll go with on that one. Fair enough. So you've got that versus MMA's most popular man. That is just a thing that sells itself.

On the other hand hand with Poirier There's history there. You could sell the rematch. There's two guys coming off of losses Technically the question though is how much has Poirier changed since their first fight? I would say a lot like the benefit is okay You already beat that guy But the downside is that guy's real different, and I think actually poses a much greater threat than he did the first time. If the choice is only Gaethje or the choice is Gaethje or Poirier, which way is Conor going to go?

Those are your only two. Aldo, Edgar, out the window. Which way is he going to go? Is Poirier an easier fight under these circumstances right now? And that's crazy to say. Easier than he used to be or easier than Gaethje? Easier than Gaethje right now who, I don't know how Conor looks at him.

I don't know if Conor sees or appreciates the same advancements to his game that we're seeing. And if he just sees him as a husk that he can chip away at and be the perfect foil for him, then Conor's going to have the confidence against anybody. But I don't know. Both are tough fights. I mean, you're really splitting hairs on which one is easier, which one's better.

They're both going to draw. They're both going to move. I just want to have Conor in a fight. Like, come on. I'm sick of playing this game. I was sick of playing that game for two years through the Floyd fight of who's going to fight, when he's going to fight. He moves everything. He makes us care. Get in there and fight, okay?

The good news is it doesn't matter which way he goes. It's going to be great for us. Just announce it. And by the way, if he does go with Poirier, I want you to consider something. Everyone talks about Gaethje being like the Habib killer. I don't know if he is or if he's not. What I would say is, if you could pick any permutation, most people are going to say Tony versus Habib, and I would too.

Second to that, I'm going to say Ferguson versus Gaethje. I thought you were going to go hipster and go Gregor Gillespie. A lot of people like him. He's great, but there's some validating that needs to happen first. Well, look, you're matching two kinds of souls together in Justin and Habib that you just don't see in this game. Mental toughness. Tony as well.

Tony as well. Very quickly, where does Cowboy Cerrone go from here? My sense of the whole thing is the guy's been a chameleon his whole career. He is a quarterback who throws an interception and then gets right back on the field and marches him down for a touchdown. He has good forgetfulness in that particular sense. He can go to two different weight classes, which allows him to reinvent himself and get a fresh set of opponents. The answer is I'm not really sure, but maybe taking some time off is probably

in his interest, although he probably won't. He doesn't take time off. That's not his deal, all right? I'm just saying I don't know what the answer is exactly, but I'm never too worried about him. It's fairly easy. He goes back to being a celebrity fighter, which is kind of what he is his whole career. And I don't want to be the hater who doesn't respect fighters here because I love me some cowboy. And Luke, his long-term legend is going to be his legacy in all-timer with a combination of one of the most beloved fighters because he's so damn real and sort of this longevity

where he fights every three months on the dot. It gives him the ability to say, I have the most wins and most appearances in UFC history. But it actually has been rare in his career where he's put the formula together and come up for air and tried to be a legitimate title contender. We just saw, I think, the last stand of that

being Cowboy Dad kind of regenerated him. He looked great. He got as far as he could, couldn't get past Tony Ferguson. I think he's just going to go fight in whoever they put in front of him every three months. Why? Because the dude likes to cash checks

and buy power tools in jet skis, and that's just who he is. In long term, he's a bit of a compiler all the time. His legend will get more than his ability might actually deserve because of how beloved he is and because of all these numbers. But he's one of those guys who ends up playing 25 years in Major League Baseball and gets to 3,000 hits. But you look at him and go, never really an MVP candidate, just to sell it out. To your point, though, that could be a function of how he has managed the way in which he has accepted fights on the particular card. I mean, he took, the Ferguson fight was on short notice.

Like, you took a fight, Tony freaking Ferguson. He's Craig Biggio. That's where I'm going with this, all right? Fair enough. I think I would just say I wouldn't worry too much about it. He's got such an ability to get a fight quickly, to readapt. All you need is another win in your back pocket, and all of a sudden you're back to this. I'm just going to say this.

I'm glad that the Cerrone dad thing has now been shown to be nothing but a nothing media narrative which is to say of course your kids can provide great focus for you and they can push you

to great heights but on some level you are the fighter you are irrespective of what kind of... Says the guy who just had a child in his career is taking off but that's fine.

You know what? Maybe they are good luck in that way where I just don't... These media narratives I don't buy them but you know who just had a child and his career has taken off, but that's fine. You know what? Maybe they are good luck in that way where I should... These media narratives, I don't buy them. But, you know, Cerrone will rebound quickly, I'm sure. Okay, next. Now, when we were planning the show,

Brian got super bitter about this. I don't understand why, but I'll let him have the first crack at it. Alright, so let's do this. Michelle Pereira. Michelle Pereira, which, by the way, I always thought the two R's in the middle was the H. But Cormier was calling it Pereira. Pereira.

Pereira. So my understanding of Portuguese, if it starts with a R, it's an H. If it has two R's in the middle, it's an H. If it's one R, it's just an R. And sometimes an R is a D, just for no reason. So Michelle Pereira fought Tristan Connolly. It takes him six minutes to walk to the octagon. Once he gets there, because he's dancing,

he's doing backflips off the scales and the weigh-ins, Superman punches, look at him somersaulting here. He does this over and over and over and over again to the point where he eventually gasses out and then loses. Connolly taking this fight on ultra-short notice. It was a one-day or something, something insane. And was the biggest underdog on the card. And he ends up winning a nice decision.

Now, I didn't understand what the problem was here. I'm not saying I love it. I'll get to it in a minute. But you hated this. I hated it. What is so wrong with a little bit of acrobatics? I hate that I have to be the old guy, you know, get off my lawn moment, sitting on my front porch right now with the gin on the side here.

But here's the deal. If you watch this just in a vacuum, if you look at those highlights playing over our shoulder, if you saw the gif on social media, you're like, holy crap. He's doing legitimate video game moves inside of a match. I need to see this guy. Who is it? That's fine. I'm not against that completely. I'm against the total package.

I'm against him missing weight for such a big fight yet doing 10 backflips at the weigh-in. And I'm against him taking so long to come to the cage and dancing up a storm that the whole time we're going, this clown's going to gas himself out. And that's exactly what he did. And there's a difference here. I am addicted to charisma and showmanship. My favorite athletes all time, Jim McMahon, Deion Sanders, Prince Nassim Hamed, right, who had many kind of things. I love that show-me type of guys, but all those guys are wired to win in the end, and a lot of times the showmanship, think Diego Sanchez coming to the cage screaming, is about

hyping themselves up or intimidating their opponents. What this guy, Pineda, is doing, and to a degree, Johnny Walker, the other circus clown here in the big tent right now, is they're just all about look at me. Not look at me because I'm going to win this fight, or look at me because I'm celebrating winning this fight. Johnny Walker's undefeated in the UFC. And Johnny Walker's fantastic and you can't argue with his finishes. Great. But there's a spirit in Johnny Walker that we saw in Michelle Pineda who took it to a whole new level where, Luke, it wasn't about winning that fight. It was more about I'm the party guy. I'm having a good time. You're going to have a choreographed dance routine on the way to the cage, and then you're going to gas out against

a weaker fighter, and you missed weight, and you couldn't get the bonus in what turned out to be a hellacious fight. You lose, all right? You stole Fizzy Lifting Dreams. You bumped into the ceiling because now it has to be washed and sterilized so you get nothing. Good day, sir. Get it together, bro, okay? Win a fight, and then do all that crap. I don't understand what you're upset about. Let me see if I can inventory here. You're mad that, again, I don't need it. Like if he'd never done it, I would have been like, oh, I'm so sad. No, I'm with you. Like if you want to go fight, go fight. Here's what I don't understand. People are mad at him because he missed weight. Fine. He only missed it by two pounds, which is not great, but it's not the end of the world.

But as far as I understand it, what they're mad about is a guy basically took entertainment, irrespective of the necessity to fight, a little too seriously. He put everything else above winning. I get it. I get it. So he does that. He misses weight and he gets beaten by a guy who has a hard scrabble story from Checkmat Vancouver, who's been grinding forever, who got a shot last minute, basically, had to fight a bigger opponent, wins and gets $100,000. So let me see if I understand it. The guy you don't like for things he did loses.

All the money goes to the guy you do like who now has a great story. We're being told, what's the problem? Hashtag War Connolly. That's what I tweeted out. It was a great moment. Where is the downside? The guy you hate got screwed by his own misdeeds. Case closed.

This is natural selection working itself out. Karma bit him in the ass, and that's why I hate taking this stance. What do you want him to do, get shot in the face with Ebola like he lost? I'm a show-me-style guy. I'm doing borderline Michelle Podeta stuff in this damn show, but I'm about delivering the truth and the analysis. He wasn't about winning that night, so I hope this isn't a... And he lost. You act like he got some weird decision that the judges gave to him.

He lost. He lost. All that stuff backfired. And the only person who has to pay the cost is him. What are you worried about? It's like me watching somebody swerving through traffic. They hit another car. I get to keep going. It's not like I got stuck in traffic. Hey, sucks for you, asswipe. Don't ride people's bumpers from now on.

Lesson learned. Honk, honk. I'm going to be home in five. Fuck that guy. What are you worried about? What are you worried about? How do I follow that? Wow.

I just see people online. I can't believe this man's lack of professionalism. I'm like, you realize his lack of professionalism. It wasn't like, who was the actress? Felicity Huffman, who she bribed her way to get her kids into college. The kids got into college. Imagine trying to bribe your way. Lori Loughlin from Full House.

So imagine trying to bribe your way to get your kids into college. Not only do they still get rejected, you lose out on the money and then you go to jail. That's what happens. She's kind of sneaky hot, too. What are you worried about? Aunt Becky's kind of a cougar, low-key right there. I saw people getting mad. Well, dude, you know what?

Get off my lawn. It would have sucked if he had somehow gotten one over on the guy. But he lost in every way. Look, the greats, the Adesanyas, the younger McGregor, the at-times John Jones, the MVP Michael Page, they can mix in the ridiculous, the greats, the Adesanyas, the younger McGregor, the at times John Jones, the MVP Michael Page, they can mix in the ridiculous, the video game, the Anderson Silva. They can mix in those moments in the flow of what they're doing, beating ass and winning the fight. This guy took it way over the line.

Yeah, karma bit him in the ass. And he paid for it. Okay, so what do we do in this show? We give them hot takes, you know, and I don't want to see this anymore is really what I'm saying. The hot take should be like, you got served. It shouldn't be, what a disgrace. Like, dude, the nature of the combative action took care of itself. The system worked.

Like, what do you want me to say? Again, if he had won, if he had been doing that dancing and scored some kind of knockout, or the judges had weirdly given it to him, or if got the bonus money i'd be with you he lost every single step of the way and people like i'm so bitter about what he got served kind of embarrassed the credibility of the sport did even though it's cage fighting with face the pain and people with tattoos all over their face did he yeah i think he did i think he did okay all right. There is a line, right? Bushido is a real thing, right? Maybe. All right, you know what?

I want to ask you about standout UFC Vancouver performers. How about this guy, Tristan Connolly, biggest underdog. By the way, Michelle Pereira, whatever else you want to say about him, dude is crazy athletic, obviously. His ups are just insane, and he was doing all that capoeira stuff. He was also so big compared to Connolly. Connolly went in there, man, and just kind of stuck it to him, workmanlike kind of way. Take that clown shit to Bellator.

That's the gist of where I'm going. That's fine. Here's what I would say. There's a part of MMA that people like that's just about showmanship. And your point is the best ones involve some showmanship with winning. Okay, well, maybe he's not one of the best ones. There's still a market for that for a certain kind of audience. Hashtag rise in. Hashtag maybe

somebody plays else. Have him go there. Fine. In the octagon, I think, is the issue. Stand-up performers, though. Tristan Connolly looked good to me, obviously, for the reasons we're articulating. How about getting back to his winning ways? Misha Surkinov. Misha Surkinov with the Peruvian necktie. Dude, he's had some losses where I was like... That had to be catnip

for you. It was. The Peruvian necktie was Dude, he's had some losses where I was like, That had to be catnip for you. It was. The Peruvian necktie is a great one. But here's my point. More than that, this guy's had some losses where I was kind of surprised by. And, you know, Jimmy Crute, I took quite seriously in this one. He's looked really good since coming off the Contender Series. Boy, I was very amazed by Serkanov. Big, strong, got back after it.

He's got really unique ability. I'm curious to see more from him. How about you? I like Glover Teixeira. He put some three pieces together. He looked good. Not washed yet. Still a rock and a credible contender.

But Todd Duffy back after like 15 years. Did he quit? I think he quit. No, I don't think so. I think he may have quit. No, Amir Khan quit. Amir Khan quit. But also, let's say he did.

And? It was a fight he was winning and was looking good because it was a sloppy Todd Duffy fight, and the slop was there. But he... Yeah, hold on. Athletes should be allowed to quit without stigma. They should.

I don't want to do it anymore. They should. Okay, fine. Good. All right. But I'm just saying, you wait this long to get in here through illnesses and injuries. You're kind of beating this dude. You're looking good.

Finish the job. Look, DC was biting the inside of his lip because he wanted to say that broke quick. He wanted to. He probably did. But to me, I don't think it's as clear a kind of a case. And I don't care if he did. And Amir Khan was the one who was like, oh, my balls hurt. I'm just, Bud Crawford's too good and my testicles hurt, baby, please.

No moss. No moss indeed. So, okay. So any stand-up performer against Todd Duffy for you? No? Somebody else? No, no. Glover Teixeira.

He won me over. Last question about that on Teixeira. Is he hurting the division? Because you've got all these young guys coming up, and they're making it competitive and interesting at times, but he keeps winning. He's lingering. He's hurting all these young whippersnappers,

including Misha Surkinov, trying to come up the ranks. Luckily, in MMA and UFC, you're allowed to take L's and learn from them and bounce back. So maybe it's a necessary operation. Maybe he's weeding out the, maybe this is natural selection. Maybe it is, right? You just can't beat the old man. You can't beat the old man. All right.

We move now to boxing. It was a huge boxing fight over the weekend. Yes, indeed. I can't remember which camera I'm looking at. Tyson Fury, back to action. Yes, he did. He took on Otto Wallin. And ooh, this got a little bit more competitive than people realized. He takes a, I think it was a left hook in the corner,

gets a huge gash, then gets through the course of the fight a secondary one on top of the eyelid. And then Wallin, who kind of made it, you know, a scrappy affair to an extent through the course of the fight, puts it on Tyson Fury in the 12th. I legitimately thought he was going to get, I don't know if close to a stoppage, but Fury- It looked close. Fury looked like he was having it rough that time. All right, what is the lesson from this? If you had to think about what was your big takeaway from Fury, who, by the way,

gets the unanimous decision nod, the fight is still on with Deontay Wilder, all things considered, but what did you learn from this, Brian? You want to take a knee-jerk feeling, and I get it, to try to be like, see, Fury, this is why you don't take two in-between fights, right? Tom Schwartz and now Adel Valin, who the hell are these guys? We want to see the rematch against Wilder. So you could, I see where you could say that.

But Fury got through so much. This was a hellacious fight. It was a fight in which tactically he sort of dominated in the second half, yet that presence of that fight being close to being stopped at any point. I mean, Terrence Bud Crawford tweeted out, if it was any other fighter, that fight's getting stopped. And you think about it, we have the unbeaten lineal heavyweight champion of the world. Some people don't recognize or care about lineal.

Guys like me know it's the only currency that truly matters in this alphabet era. So he's holding on to something there. The wilder fight, the big paydays are dangling in the balance along with his unbeaten record, and Fury digs in and really has to back up all the wild words he always says. Every interview is off the rails and wild. We talked last week, he hung up on me on my podcast, told me... He didn't know the name of his opponent when he was on my show.

Told me him and Bob Arum are out banging prostitutes. I mean, he just says wacky stuff at all times, but he always says, I'm a fighting man. I'll fight to the death. That's all I know. That's all I do. And some of us at times laugh at that because his style is so technical.

It's switching stances. It's speed. It's agility for a six foot nine fighter that's just not normal. So what did he have to do in this fight from the third round on, knowing it could be stopped and he would lose by TKO at any point?

He had to dig in there and be the seeker, the hunter, the puncher. And more than that, he did some slight, sly things that we never see him do. He's six foot nine and has a height, reach, and weight advantage on almost anybody he fights. And he was actually using that, Vladimir Klitschko style, leaning on Valin,

wearing down his gas tank. So in the end, do you want him to have two ridiculously bad cuts that need 40 stitches each when you're five months away from a wilder rematch? No. But do you want him to have two ridiculously bad cuts that need 40 stitches each when you're five months away from a wilder rematch? No. But do you want him to actually get a test and actually, for his own heart, know that he had to back up everything he said he was? And he did.

And it produced an exciting fight. And yes, we rightfully so complained about the matchmaking. Why are you, you had two gimme fights last year. Why do you need two more this year? You know what it proved? You got to watch every heavyweight fight because when that division has players that you care about, it's exciting. And I think Fury actually

gains from this experience in the long run, Luke, because he may get in there with Wilder again, and it may get hairy again. And he may get knocked down again and have to get back up, and he may have to fight his way out of trouble. And you go through this type of experience. You can't mimic this in the gym, Luke. I see this totally the opposite way, which is to say, I take your point about Valin.

He put on about as good of a fight as I think he could have. Career night for what we knew about him. And here we are talking about him. He did well again that 12th round. He put it on Tyson Fury. The rest of the fight, with the cut notwithstanding, I don't know exactly how close it was. How did you score it, by the way? Do you remember?

Yeah, I think I had it 117, 111. 111, that's how I had it as well. In any event, here's what I would say about it. This is a lesson to every heavyweight out there. If you don't take the fights that you know you're supposed to take, if you don't give the fans what they want to see, you're going to get one of these nights where, yes, Tyson Fury won, but that cut, forget the five months,

that's now permanent scar tissue that's going to be on his eye. And you don't think someone who throws bombs like Deontay Wilder is going to be out there. He's going to be targeting his jaw anyway. Every opponent from now on, he's going to be like Nick Diaz, where they're going to go and target that because it's hard to heal properly. In fact, it never really does all that well. I've seen Sean Porter up close. He's got them all over the eyes.

They look like they've been hit with barbed wire. And you talk about how Tyson Fury had to back up all of his talk, which he did. I agree. He didn't need to prove anything. We already knew he was that good. For somebody... We didn't know he could dig in the trenches and do that. We absolutely did.

Did you not see what Deontay Wilder did to him? I know it's a one-shot. There's a difference between getting up off the canvas and having to brawl in there. I understand. He didn't even have to brawl. He was doing a lot of smother, which we talked about. I always knew Tyson Fury had this in him. Here's what he did by taking this fight. He wasted everyone's time. He wasted his time and he gets drained with this experience. He didn't need to get drained from. He risked losing it all on a freaking left hook in the corner. By the way, it didn't even rock him. It just cut him open.

They were perilously that close to losing everything he had built, and for what? To beat a guy now that no one knows, which we now know because he made himself look good and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it was a waste. This is the lesson. You want to take these fights with people you're not supposed to be taking fights with when you know you're supposed to be fighting Deontay Wilder a second time or whoever, any of the other big names, then this is the risk you run and this is what you're going to get. You took punishment for no reason.

You have risked this cut on your eye permanently for no reason. You get what you earned. You get what you earned is my attitude. I think we both can be right, though. Make the fights that the people want to see, that the sport deserves, that you said you would do. And if you don't, God help you. Because the Andy Ruiz's, which is a bit of a different scenario, I understand, and the Otto Valens, they're going to go in there and they're going to give you everything they got.

And you don't need to take that just to keep busy. Do what you're supposed to do. That's it. That fired the hell out of me. And by the way, and that's true for Deontay Wilder too. I know he's got a big fight against Luis Ortiz. And here's the scary part about that. Of all the fights

that these big guys have, Wilder versus Ortiz, dude, that might be the most competitive of all of them. And I know he's got the win over it. I'm just saying, it's like,

I am going to be watching this fight now biting my fingernails being like, what's going to happen? Are we actually going to get Fury too? Because these guys are all dancing around the places.

I think the answer though is in the middle of what we both talked about. Like, you wouldn't want this, but Fury's going to get Fury too? Because these guys are all dancing around the places. I think the answer, though, is in the middle of what we both talked about. Like, you wouldn't want this, but Fury's going to benefit from that experience, I think, in the long run. Look, there's no doubt he came out of that and me being like, wow, that dude can box his ass off. Because, again, who was the other guy? Tom Schwartz, was that his name? He was doing all the shoulder rolling and the ducking and the dodging, and he looked phenomenal. And this one, dude, he had to just be smart about not slick movement,

but about just careful decisions about close contact and what punches he threw and in what ways and constantly being on his horse. Dude, Tyson Fury can box his ass off. I just kind of feel like I already knew that. Well, I think this was a warning. I don't think he was in top shape, and his dad came out and made some rough comments about the whole team,

about the trainer, Ben Davidson. They're having a firing back and forth. You know, big John Fury. This guy will let his mind go. But Fury, Tyson didn't seem in the top level of shape. Maybe this is a wake-up call and a warning. How about no more in-betweens? And if you have to, take it seriously and get that guy out of there.

Yeah, last thing about this. What did you make of ESPN? They had Joe Tessitore, and I think it was Andre Ward, and... Bernardo Osuna was the sideline. Who was the other commentator? Tim Bradley. Tim Bradley. And they asked Osuna to go to the corner and ask him,

are you aware of what caused the cut? And they had thought it was a headbutt versus a cut or a punch. Now, if it's a punch and they stop the fight, Otto Wallin wins. If it's a headbutt, they go to the scorecards. They thought it was a headbutt. The ESPN broadcasting booth corrects him and tells him exactly what it is. Is it the role of the broadcaster to inform the corners that way? Absolutely not.

Let's flip this to, like, the NBA. Okay, if the coach in the huddle is like LeBron, you got three fouls, we got to be careful. Oh, no, in real life he has five fouls. Is the ESPN sideline reporter going to run over, tap the coach on the shoulder and say, Coach, just to let you know, the ref said, the scorekeeper said it wrong. He actually has to fight. No, like we'd be like, what the hell are you doing? This is not their responsibility. What would have happened if the ref said one thing or they misinterpreted that?

I'm not really sure. What would happen is the fight would have been stopped if it was stopped, but it's up to them to know that. And this definitely feel like it went too far. Agreed. And the ESPN broadcast in general, to be honest, goes too far in hammering down our throats how great Fury or Lomachenko or Bud Crawford are. You know what?

Guess what? We know how great they are. Let them show us. Don't tell us. You have to let the competitors work with misinformation, right? When you have somebody, who was it, the guy calling the timeout at the end of the… Chris Webber. Chris Webber calling the timeout, and then, of course, the whole thing collapses.

It's because he has bad information. They have to know the good information on their own terms. They have to come to it on their own terms. Telling them is inappropriate, in my judgment. Luke's saying, know your role, get off my lawn. Michelle Pineda right with you. Get off my lawn, you kids. All right, with that out of the way, so there is still UFC coming up this weekend.

Shouts to my friend, Dan Segura, who's in Mexico City. In fact, UFC's going to be there. UFC in Mexico City. In the main event, Jeremy Stephens taking on Yair Rodriguez. And the question is, Yair's still young, coming off that great win over the Korean Zombie, although he was losing for huge majorities of that fight. But, you know,

KO of the year contender, finish of the year, of the decade maybe. It was unbelievable. It's his first fight since then. The question is, can he still be what the UFC wants him to be after he had the falling out? He comes back, takes his fight, has a spectacular KO, and I don't think he's fought once this year. This should be his first fight in 2019. And I don't know. Here's my answer to that. The jury's still out a little bit, and I'm not sure what the Stevens win gets him other than one thing. One thing.

You know how Dana White always talks about Rafael Dos Anjos? For him, he's like, Dos Anjos is mean, nasty, technical, can do it all. If you can beat that guy, that tells me you're pretty elite. If you look at Jeremy Stevens, you look at the guys he's beaten, there's some pretty good names. You look at the guys he's lost to, there's some great names in that one. I'm not saying the situations are identical, but I have a great deal of respect for Jeremy Stevens. Big power, arguably the best ground and pound in the sport, irrespective of weight class.

Always comes prepared. Has fought a wide diversity of opponents. By the way, we talked about Justin Gaethje making some changes. I think you can look at the course of Stevens' career, and you can point to, again, I'm not saying the same ones, but real development over time. To me, I'm going to treat this the way Dana White treats Rafael dos Anjos. I don't know if Jair Rodriguez can beat Jeremy Stevens. I will say this. If he does, to me, Korean Zombie might be the people that like and

appreciate him more, but that was a, I don't want to call it a fluke because he threw it and it landed, but he was losing that fight up to that point. If you can go in there and you can demonstrably show you're better than Jeremy Stevens, to me, the title hopes to become something real, they would very much be in play. Oh, absolutely. And look, he's only 26 years old, and he only has the one loss in the octagon to Frankie Edgar in a fight that at the time, Frankie had better products, sort of humbled him a little bit.

He was kind of given a gift by this performance against Korean Zombie in the way that he won it, a little bit fluky, a little bit lucky. The gift is that you came out of there with a W. Now you're main eventing in Mexico City. This is a big opportunity for his brand. But even more important, it's, can he learn how to win fights without having to rally, without having to be spectacular?

Can he learn some of these adjustments and wrinkles to his game? This is the showcase. This is kind of a now or never opportunity. Stevens, that perfect foil, that banger. I know Stevens has improved as well, which you mentioned. But Yair is a better fighter. He can and in some way should win this.

And if he does, he's going to be legit and have a chance to live up to that lofty idea of what they thought he could be. Where would that put him in the division in your mind? Let's say second round submission or something. I mean, he'd be up pretty high. That'd be big, you think? He'd be up pretty high. We still have to see Ortega bounce back and show us who he is. So there's Ortega hanging out there. Obviously, Vol'd be pretty, he'd be up pretty high. That'd be big, you think? He'd be up pretty high. We still have to see Ortega bounce back and show us who he is.

So there's Ortega hanging out there. Obviously, Volkanovski is going to be next. Max is your champion. I don't have the rankings in front of me, but there's not too, too many people.

I mean, Aldo's still kind of hanging out there as well. I guess that's what Yarira doesn't have, right? He doesn't have that. It's hard to know, even all these many months later, what the win over the Korean zombie makes

because the Korean zombie has already fought at the UFC Greenville and he got right back to work. You know what I mean? And so I think people still kind of feel like if they did it again, if Yair fought Korean Zombie again, who would you bet on? You'd probably bet, I don't want to speak for you, but I'm guessing old TKZ, right? It'd be a pick-em fight.

Really, you think so? I do think so. I don't know. I don't know if I would agree with that. I would still probably go TKZ pretty comfortably. Well, this is really your chance to show us, but I like this card beyond this. You care about some of these matches? Tell me what you think.

You know, I bank for straw weights, and I like Esparza against Alexa Grasso. It's not a bad fight, but I like when you dig deep. You know, it's like you're at Cumberland Farms. You see what's on the rollers. You dig in the back. They got that French toast one with the scrambled eggs on the inside. French toast from a gas station? You are truly a raccoon. You're like Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy, a raccoon come to life.

Look, there's certain things in life where the experience is so good, the less you try to think about what you're actually doing and just enjoy it, you got to roll with it. Bet you go, hey, a back. Are you kidding? I didn't know that. Is she really on the score? Against Zahara Eubanks. I kind of like that fight at Bantamweight. That is interesting. I did not know she. Is she really on the score? Against Sahara Eubanks. I kind of like that fight at Bantamweight. That is interesting. I did not know she was. Is that on the prelims?

That's on the early, early prelims. You may have to log into Facebook to see that. I did not know that. That is an interesting one. All right. Well, the UFC returns to Mexico City this weekend, of course, a great main event. Last but certainly not least for the big topic today, we have plenty more stuff to get to on the show, Devin Haney.

Now, I'll give you all the credit in the world on this one. I had seen him flow through some of the boxing accounts that I follow on social media. Hadn't really given him much of a shot. Didn't know who he really was. And you were like, dude, have you been following this Devin Haney guy? I think he fought on Friday, if I'm not mistaken. Friday on his own. The theater at Madison Square Garden.

Yep. And he gets another spectacular win. And I did see the win itself. And 20 years old. Now he's a mandatory WBC challenger for Lomachenko of all places. And he's calling him Lomachenko because he's saying he doesn't want to fight me. Now tell the folks what the situation is because as I understand it, I'll be honest, Devin Haney, not a guy who's super hardcore on my radar, you put him on there, did a little bit of research, I was kind of blown away.

What is the talk of Devin Haney in the boxing world? Why is he somebody that MMA fans or boxing fans should keep their eye on? The talk is the next Floyd Mayweather. And every time I hear that, Luke, I'm like, get that the hell away from me. Bend down that road with Adrian Broner. Even though Errol Spence kind of is the next Mayweather in the sense of the next potential pound-for-pound king, along with Crawford, calling anybody the next Mayweather, it just doesn't work.

The more you do research on this guy, the more you start to kind of just fall into that quicksand and go, maybe I've got to wake up on it. He fought on a couple of showbox cards on Showtime, looked really good, and then a key point came in his career where he took the reins of his own career. He had suitors of Mayweather

promotions, PBC, Al Heyman, Top Rank. Everyone wanted him. He said, no, I'm going to the zone. I'm going to be a key building block that not a lot of people talk about. And I'm signing with Eddie Hearn because Hearn gave him a lot of money and he's given him the room to kind of start his own promotion. Very Floyd-like in a way. That's just a setup that

at 20 years old, this kid's got it. When I want to see somebody and see if they have that it to be next level, to be in that Floyd category, even on a could this be, I don't want to see the speed. I don't want to see the ability. I want in that Floyd category, even on a could this be. I don't want to see the speed. I don't want to see the ability. I want to see the mindset

and I want to see the journey. And he has both, Luke. When you look back, his dad turned him pro at 17, couldn't legally get fights in the US, so brought him to Tijuana, had him fighting in bars. You understand that kind of experience

that you're going to get instead of going into the Olympic amateur system. Nothing prepares you for life like child abuse. Well, and then bouncing around to different trainers, learning the shoulder roll from Floyd Sr., going around to major elite trainers and figuring it out.

When you watch him box, he gives you those same feels that when we saw LeBron James at 18 join the NBA and you watch about three or four games and you go, this guy doesn't have faults. Like, there's no faults at all. Like, once he fills out and gets some teammates, this guy's going to be winning championships every year. Haney's jab, just the little championships every year. Haney's jab,

just the little things, right? Haney's jab is so quick and powerful. It's like it reminds me of Bazooka Icorte from back in the day. I mean, it's just a weapon and the crispness, the right hand, the poise, everything about it. If you want to see a 20-year-old and try to

say in the moment, is he going to make it or not? When you see the poise of Devin Haney and the way he carries himself as a professional, you go, OK, I've got to stick with this guy. He was in Floyd's camp, Floyd Mayweather, early on when he was still an amateur, and then was a sparring partner for Floyd ahead of the McGregor fight. So he sort of watched Floyd from a close distance moving to Las Vegas. And this might actually be a guy who knows what it's going to take to get there. You never know if they will. But he seems to have the intangibles,

and he's going to be fun to watch on that journey. And the best part about it is... So the question is, is he going to fight Lomachenko? So that's the great equalizer in boxing, because there's so many cooks in the kitchen. Every promoter's got their own network deal. It's hard to make the fights we want to see. But the equalizer in that is to become somebody's mandatory.

Because we hate these alphabet bodies, but they do control, and they make you do one thing. If I become your mandatory, you have to fight me or you give up your belt. Lomachenko at 135 has three of the four titles. Top ring is going to match him against the winner of this December fight, which is Richard Comey defending against Teofimo Lopez Jr., another great-looking young product. Oh, my God. Has some of these Roy Jones leaping type abilities. The winner of that, they want to match against Loma.

But Haney could be standing there and force his way in and basically be like, you don't fight me? You're going to lose your title. And you look at where we're at at 135, lightweight, which is usually the last stopping ground for these great welterweight stars to eventually grow into their size and become. We have young Lopez.

We got Lomachenko. We got Gervonta Tank Davis moving up to lightweight. We've got Orozco in the Golden Boy Stable at 140 who's unbeaten. I'm not Orozco. Virgil Ortiz Jr. who looks like a killer. We've got a lot of these names around lingering where you look at Lomachenko, still the pound-for-pound king,

still the best fighter in the sport, but 135 is his ceiling, Luke. We've seen really hard fights against the Pedrazas, against the Linareses, against Luke Campbell a couple weeks ago. That was a killer high-speed chess affair. That was some high theater in which Lomachenko has to use... The dimensions of those bigger men really give

him progress. He has to use all of his talents to be a magician and win those by decision. If he's going to go in there against a next-level athlete in Teofimo and then a Devin Haney who seems to have everything, we're going to see some really tough fights. That's how you make them. You work your way in there and you make it so either there's too much money or the networks have to work together

or you go the mandatory route and say, you want to collect all the belts? You have to fight me to get there. In fairness to Lomachenko in that Campbell fight, he nearly stopped him a couple of times, especially late in that fight. But you were right. There was very, very competitive early. And you have to wonder, if someone who is big enough in that weight class to be natural there and is just as good of an athlete as he is, and maybe not as technical a boxer as Lomachenko is,

but technical enough, that appears to be a winning... We'll see. You could imagine it being a very winning combination against somebody, even as decorated. And Mikey Garcia could come back down to 135, too. We could make some fights here, Luke. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how it happens the rest of this year and then into 2020. All right. Time now for your questions that you sent me.

It's time for DMs with donks. Now, I need to hear – I wish we had some audio for this that we could play. We don't have any audio. I think – here we go. Pull these up. By the way, we should note, I'm at LukeThomasNews on Instagram. What's your Instagram? Brian C. Campbell.

We also have our own Instagram now. I think it's morning – Jay,, is it Morning Combat in the back? By the way, it's not Brendan's brother. It's a different one. Which one? Yes? No? Look on the screen. Those are my two. I meant for the show account. Hey, Jay, get it together, alright, bro?

Yeah, there's a new one for Instagram. Does he listen in the back? He's the biggest heel on the show. Get out of my ear. You know what? That's what happens when you have to work with Dallas Cowboy fans. Reprobates one and all. Reading at a fifth grade level.

All right, here we go. Yeah, first place. You beat the skins. They're talking S to me in the back of my ear. All right, here we go. This is from Web Scream or Web's Cream. That's gross, yeah. Yeah, that's bad.

Is Tristan Connolly the greatest example of the impact you can make by taking short notice fights? What do you think? It's a good story. You jump in at the opportunity and you punch the clown. And speaking of Webb's cream, we've all been there. So there you go. Here's what I would say.

The answer is yes, but not necessarily. I wouldn't call this the best example. It's a good example, which is to say there was a time there, it seems to be less of a problem these days. I think the UFC is just twisting their arms a little bit more. But remember that like six-month period where if you were ranked eighth and I was ranked third and we were supposed to fight each other, I would be like, just no, I'm not fighting someone ranked below me. They couldn't get fights. But then they booked me against three versus four. My opponent would fall out. You would take the short notice fight, then you would beat me, and then all of a sudden you just boom to the top of the rankings. That to me is the best way to take

a short notice fight, is if no one wants to fight you, you fill in on short notice and you beat all the guys who said no to you, or ladies or whoever, that's a great example. This is also a great example, but it doesn't carry the same level of divisional consequence to merit at saying it's the best example. And in theory, if you take a fight last minute, you're going to have an inherent advantage because your opponent's not going to be able to prepare for you, right? Prepare for you at the length they would want. Did that help Andy Ruiz?

Did it help Al Iaquita taking the Habib fight on two hours notice? Maybe that helped him where your opponent really can't figure you out. It's a gamble. It certainly can make you an advantage to him. Yes. Right. And how many times have you seen it where it completely backfired? I mean to say if you're just –

Chris Lieben's whole career? I just mean to say if you're a really talented fighter, like a really talented fighter, and you can't get fights, that short notice window is often your best opportunity to leapfrog up the rankings. All right. This comes to us from The Combat Hour, or The Combathour, depending on how you want to pronounce it. Could Fury's inside fighting pose an additional threat to Wilder in the rematch? Absolutely. Because fighting on the inside is traditionally not something that heavyweights do well. It was something, do you remember the initial rise of Riddick Bowe? You're a DC-ish guy. Yeah, of course. He was there, by the way,

I saw him not too long ago. Yeah, it's sad now. It's not a good look. It's not a good look. The night he beat, or Vander Holyfield, I believe it was 1991 or 1992, one of the best heavyweight fights of this modern era. Their first fight of their trilogy. I think Riddick Bowe at 6'5", that night, could beat or be game against any heavyweight on any

night in the history of the sport. He was in shape for the first time in his career, and he's big, and he's got a punch and a chin, but he can infight. Infighting is such an inherent advantage, something Luis Ortiz does very well with his boxing background in the Cuban system, and he's a big puncher. Very little heavyweights do it. If Fury can do this, Wilder needs room to get his punches off.

Wilder's a crude heavyweight who's taken the unorthodox that he does, and he uses it to his advantage. But if you can slow Wilder down and especially crowd him, he doesn't have, he needs space for even his uppercuts. Yeah, but the way that this fight went, and I guess we'll have to see what Tyson, Tyson can box so many different ways, I guess we'll have to see what he does. But the way, the reason why they had inside fighting was because Valiant forced the issue, right? Wilder and Fury both were happy to maintain distance in their first fight. One of them would have

to change that dynamic and according to what Fury did in his last fight, he waited until his opponent, well not waited because his opponent just forced the issue,

but in other words, is Fury going to decide to go inside fight with Wilder? I don't know. He seems to like working it. He likes to use footwork and work at distance.

He knows he's going to He's got that nice long jab. I don't know. Here's the deal on a rematch in Fury Wilder and why it's so exciting. Because Wilder was a deer in headlights in the first fight, and he admitted it himself. The moment got to him, the pressure and all that. He didn't put his foot on the gas pedal until late, scored knockdowns in round 8 and round 12.

If Wilder gets outboxed first couple rounds but then decides to just go for it, then Tyson Fury has to make championship adjustments. And one of those adjustments could be crowding him on the inside. Again, a skill that heavyweights don't often have, unless you're small and you have to. Never say never. I'm just not convinced.

Not that he couldn't do it, that he will do it. I don't think that he will. All right. So this comes to us from Phoenix UFC underscore. Am I the only one that's still interested in the Connor Pauly sparring video? No, I've lost all interest. What about you? If you offered me right now like a $2.99 pay-per-view.

Yeah, I'd pay for that. I'd pay just to see it, right? It's sort of like when 20 years into their career, some star, oh, she's got a nude scene, I've got to go see that crappy movie. I've got to see that. You've just got to see it, right? Sometimes you've just got to see it. No, I don't do that.

You're a creep. Well, yeah. I would say this. The original intrigue was that there were two stories. One was Connor went in there and just beat the brakes off of him. The other one was, hey, Paulie admits it got a little ugly early, but that he took over late. Then two things happen. One, the video comes

out, the little one where he gets knocked down. Was it a knockdown? Was it not? Paulie says it's totally not representative. Conor says it's utterly representative. Then Paulie comes back and fights Artem Lobov. Now, I actually thought you could have scored that fight for Artem Lobov in bare knuckle, but it was not. Paulie won that fight, though.

I'm sorry. You could argue in fight for Artem Lobov in bare knuckle, but it was not. Paulie won that fight, though. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You could argue in case that Artem did not win and that Paulie did. Either way, Artem wins. The point being is, you know, he was coming out of retirement. I mean, I love Paulie. He'll tell you the same thing. That was hardly his best showing, bro.

I think people basically believe at this point Conor's recitation of things or at least they just whatever skepticism that Paulie had introduced I just don't think the fan base believes anymore which doesn't say he's not right there's a mythology around sparring videos though like people on boxing twitter still can't stop talking about that like

2000 sparring special where Paul Spadafora who was like a week out from fighting for a world title like gave it to Floyd and kind of edged him in sparring and where Paul Spadafora, who was a week out from fighting for a world title, gave it to Floyd and kind of edged him in sparring and Floyd wasn't in top shape. People still jokingly say Floyd's 50-1 because of that. So people like to talk about it.

Just like people... Or even in MMA, too, where you had Gaethje before this fight being like, yes, you're going to knock me out in sparring. Oh, what does that mean for his chances? Turns out nothing. It means nothing for his chances.

I always try to explain this in terms of jiu-jitsu because it's the best way I can understand it. What does sparring footage mean? All right, so let's say Brian shows up to jujitsu one day, right? And he says, the way he makes his living in jujitsu is take down, top passing, side control mount. That's how he does it. That's the way he does everybody the same way. And then for six weeks, he decides to work on his guard. Well, for the first four to five of those weeks, he decides to work on his guard. Well, for the first four to five of those weeks,

you're going to get your guard passed all the time. That doesn't mean if you didn't do your normal game, you wouldn't smoke them, but you decide to put yourself at a disadvantage. And someone got footage of that. They'd be like, oh, my God, X beat Brian. And then you two rematch at a tournament, and you just annihilate this guy.

That's why I always go for the Cody McKenzie guillotine from the awkward angle. McKenzatine, son. Yeah, that's it. That's it right there. I'm just pointing out. That guy's eating out of a few gas stations. I'm just trying to point out, you can never really know what sparring means. That's why it's very much a private thing.

Speaking of nudity, 1995, you were there for opening night at Showgirls. You had to be. No. If you were a man and you had a driver's license, I mean, first night, Friday, I was a senior in high school. I was 14 at the time. I think there was about 50 of us.

It was a seminal moment. You saw it in the theater? Opening night for showing, bro. Wow, dude, you are. Like 7 p.m. There were dudes in my high school coming with me who were like fake IDing to get into that movie. Dude, you are a degen.

Holy Jesus. Bro, you're telling me. You went to see that joint in the theater. Did you not grow up watching Saved by the Bell? I like how you treat it like it was a Star Wars opening. We were there opening night in costume. Did you not grow up watching Saved by the Bell? Yeah.

Is this not the Super Bowl of your youth? How are you going to get on that? If I would like to watch pornography, I'd just go watch pornography. I don't need to watch an acting version of it. It wasn't the internet in 1995. Huh? It wasn't the internet in 1995. Huh? It wasn't the internet in 1995 to get... Actually, there was, but okay.

Not in the way you're talking about it, yeah. To peddle VHS tapes. It was a gross hobby, all right? You think you need the internet for pornography, you amateur? I could have shown you the way. You needed Cinemax late, and I read your diaries on Showtime. Shout out on that one. Cinemax?

What are you? You watch like the... This is like the... I don't know what you want to call this. This is not pornography. Your pornography game sucks. We've got to bring you up to speed. All right. Here we go. Let's make that for the sizzle reel, please. Okay. Omar Rubio says,

what do you think of Tyron Woolley? They wrote Woolley. Going on IG Live when he's driving every day. I've not seen this. Is he like... If it's on the dashboard, what's the problem? Everybody does it, unfortunately. Just like everybody texts and drives. It sucks.

Does he do this bit with it? I don't watch it, but I'm assuming he does what every other famous person does, which is film themselves. Forget famous person. Everyone on my Facebook timeline, everyone I went to high school with, does the same thing. All right? Yeah, I don't know.

Look, if he's got a dash thing, which everyone has. I know you don't connect with anybody you went to high school with because of the bad memories, but school with does the same thing. If he's got a dash thing... I know you don't connect with anybody you went to high school with because of the bad memories, but they probably do the same thing. I actually saw them all over the weekend. You just don't understand me. I don't want to revisit the donks in high school, but the cool people I'm still cool with. I bet you were a donk. I'm going to almost guarantee.

Bro, ready for this? I was a mathlete. The puzzle pieces are coming together. No showgirls for you. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? You've got to get in where you fit in. All right, this comes to us from Joseph Corson Matra D. Is aerating your lawn really necessary? I ripped my hands apart after doing it for four hours straight.

Is that where you dig tiny holes in your lawn to let it air out to stop the weeds from growing? I've only been into this homeownership thing for two years. I couldn't tell you. Here's what I do to my lawn. I let it rot. You know why? I ain't got to mow shit. I don't have to do anything.

I don't do any yard work. Are you one of these green thumb types? No, my neighbor is, though. Shout out to my great neighbor who helps me out. But I just get it done. I'm serviceable. Okay, did I tell you what my neighbor did to me? And then we'll move on because the people in the

back are having aneurysms about this. So, okay. When I moved to my neighborhood, I live in Washington, D.C., like in the city. And I was the tip of the spear of gentrification when I moved in. Just the tip though, just for a second? Anyway, so one way to keep out people walking by because I'm between two metro stops was I put a fence on my yard. Now, my neighborhood has radically transformed in the last 15 years, so it's much better now. So it's not a ghetto is what you're saying. No, no, no. Not now.

But when I was there, I had people walk down the street with pumping shotguns. It was a whole thing. Anyway, it's a true story. A guy came by and did the whole one-handed bit like that. My neighbor, she wins contests in gardening. She came by my door and she was like, what would you say to the idea of you taking down your fence and I'll mind your yard for you? Wow. And I was like, where's the shotgun? That's the ultimate insult. Get off my lawn. That's the ultimate insult. Yeah. And I was like, I would

rather be shot in the face with liquid E-ball. Wow, you're that guy in the neighborhood. I can see that. No, no, no. I've maintained the property. It's got grass, and I pay a dude to cut it, but I'm not aerating my lawn. No, I'd rather die. I literally would rather die.

I would rather die than aerate my lawn. Okay, okay. Anyway, you can imagine what I told my neighbor. This one's iron. This one's steel. If this don't get you, this one will. Wow. I pulled a Brian Campbell.

Yay! And then you put your earphones back in and listen to that. Speaking of cringe, what are you going to show me now? Luke, have you seen this shit? Because there's always great videos. We don't have enough time in this show. I know. You've seen this shit.

There's always great videos that go by each week and you just miss it. I want to make sure you are all caught up on what's going on in combat sports and beyond. Now, where am I looking? Look on the screen behind us. Jay in the back. Let's hit him up with the first one. This is sort of my collection. Wow, check this out. Go to the movie. Somebody looks at you the wrong way.

They're at AMC, too. That's expensive. You order the three-piece in the left hook at Hoyt's. I like the guy in the hockey jersey. Can we run that back? Oh, it's Kane, too. That's expensive. You ordered the three-piece in the left hook at Hoyt's. I like the guy in the hockey jersey. Can we run that back? Oh, it's Kane, though. F. Kane. Look, public fights used to just be sloppy.

Now people are trying to mix in MMA. Watch the guy in the light blue shirt here. Oh. He takes it. Oh! With the delayed reaction. And then he's like, you're getting up. No, you're not.

T-kick to the heart. That's really where we're at right there. You down with that? You know what? Here's the deal. You have to always know why they're fighting. They were going to see like a Star Wars and one was ahead in the line and that's the whole thing? Look at this guy.

Oh, I love how this dude's dressed. He's like, look, man. I need every shade of blue to match these terrible red shoes. You got to watch your back in the movie there. Let's go to the next one here. That's hilarious. Luke, you seen this shit this weekend? This is from Shoe Face?

Uriah Hall against Shoe Face. Antonio Carlos Jr. Look at this zoom in on this. Look at the blood snot go. On this stiff jab. Uriah Hall, by the way, the former jujitsu sensei of our own producer, Jay, in the back. He wanted to share that with us. Look at that.

Is that true? That is true. Look at that. Is that true? That is true. Look at that bottle rocket of blood snot. Sometimes in the UFC, too much is too much, Luke. That's a little uncomfortable. Yeah, this is the reason why my dad doesn't love me, is because I cover this for a living. Yeah.

Shout out to Uriah Hall. Big win for him right there. Can you imagine being like, Dad, I cover this activity for, this is how I pay my mortgage. And then my dad, who was a foreign service officer, looking at this and being like, I don't know. You're not my child. You're not my child.

We got any more here? Have you seen this shit? All right, we're talking about Fury Valine over the weekend. Fury has this massive cut. Look at Valine right in front of the referee, sticking the thumb of his glove. Luke, is this like if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying, or is this too far? This is him shooting the shot, right?

This is him shooting the shot. He's like, look, I'm not going to get back here ever again. I got to cut on this dude. This is stick picks right in the DMs. Dude, that is straight up egregious. Wow. And also, here's the point about this whole thing. Dude, competitive sports, I try to tell people this about PEDs and whatever else,

it will force rational people to do crazy things in the interest of winning, including taking drugs or putting on an act or putting on gloves. I think you should be DQ'd for that. Not even a point taken away. I think that should be straight. The referee, Tony Weeks, by the way, did you see his blue shirt? Oh, my God. It looked like he had been performing surgery at an animal hospital.

It looked like the movie Carrie. It was bad. And then he didn't, I don't think he warned him. I don't think he said anything to the coroner. I could be wrong about that. I didn't see him do anything. Nothing. All right.

We got a good MMA one for here. You're going to like this one. Check this out. Check this out. All right. The last thing to go. Let me guess. This old man's going to do it?

The last thing to go when you're old is power. So watch this. He's got good hand control. I think he's got an overhook. I can't tell. Look at this geriatric caroparision. Oh! With the lateral drop.

That is amazing. Look at this old bastard. Jack LaLanne jacking up those sweatpants right there. Bro, I bet he's got dumb grip strength, too. That guy would tap you out. Yeah, he would. He's got sweatpants hiked up to his nipples. It will fuck you up.

Get that guy a Foxcatcher t-shirt. Nice. That the dude you went to go see showgirls with? That one of your buddies from high school? Wow, wow. Look at that. Look at that. All right.

Hit him with the old lateral drop. That's great. I got one more for you. I know you're pumped up for November 9th on DAZN when we see KSI Logan Paul II. They had a press conference in Los Angeles. Wow. Look at that. Look at these degenerates.

This kind of looks like a high school party in Old Marietta, right? This is interesting. Why is he, is that Shannon Briggs? That's Shannon Briggs, Let's Go Champ, and Logan Paul did a lot of talk about dongs, and then there was a lot of, yeah, so. If there was ever any,

like, I want to find someone who doesn't believe in human evolution and be like, here's Logan Paul, are you really going to tell me this isn't a primate? Are you really going to tell me that this human being is a. These are the type of bros you went to high school with, right? Are you going to tell me this isn't a primate? Are you really going to tell me that this human being is a... These are the type of bros you went to high school with, right? Are you going to tell me that this guy is... Those are the type of bros you went to high school with.

Is Logan Paul really that far away from throwing his feces at KSI at this point, honestly? Speaking of Luke's high school days, we do have very, very dedicated listeners and viewers here who did a little bit of research for us. Uh-oh. We want to see what this donk looked like back on. Do we have this up? Do you have this ready here? The show's live, folks. Yeah, I know.

Don't have it. There we go. I like how they botched this one. You know what? Karma. Karma for you guys being dicks. Wow, wow. Spoiler alert, Luke.

What were you doing in that senior picture? Looking up at the sky? I mean. I don't know. I don't see it. Yeah, it was pretty bad. It would look like one of those at-home drawing pictures, mountaintops, right? Oh, Jeremy.

Lemon yellow sun, you know? Alms raised in a veal. They unleashed a lion. Hey, great work in the back, Jay. Yeah, you guys did a killer job with that. Really, really good stuff. You're good at your jobs. Yeah.

Hey, we're live this week, though, so we're back. They teased that you're really not going to show at this point? Oh, they don't have it. Suck it, Campbell. You tried to stick it to me, and it blew up in your face. You're Michelle Pereira doing backflips. That's who you are. In the words of Logan Paul.

It blew up in your face. Last laugh. You're the Smurfs. I'm Gargamo. No, if I was Gargamo, you would win. Fuck, I fucked it up now. Doesn't matter. It blew up in your face. S laugh. You're the Smurfs. I'm Gargamo. No, if I was Gargamo, you would win. Fuck, I fucked it up now. Doesn't matter. It blew up in your face. Suck it. I am so happy about that. Shocker, the Cowboys fan

can't do his job right. Ha ha. Wow. All right. Uriah Hall definitely can cuss at some point. You got any more of this multimedia? No, you've seen all that shit. We're done. Wow. Wow. I'm so happy about this. Yes, I live to fight another day. Suck it, Brian Campbell.

All right, before we go, odds and ends. Give me an odds. Give me an end. Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, C-level Cain, was back at the Rasslin this week. It was for the Mexican promotion AAA. Now, where is this? This is Madison Square Garden Theater in New York. Went up against the WWE pay-per-view.

Here's my question here. I'm doing a bit. Is he good at this? He's insanely good at this. So here's my deal. See Level Kane? The last seven years, every time he touches an octagon, he gets injured. And he's doing this shit, and he's really good at it.

Can you name these things he's doing? He told ESPN last week that he has talks right now with WWE, New Japan Pro Wrestling, with the new AEW that's launching in a couple weeks. I don't know if he's ever going back, Luke. Look at the movements here. How much is he getting paid? I don't know, but how is he not getting hurt, Luke? The dude, like, you can look at him the wrong way, and he's out for six months. Here's my question.

What does UFC think when they see this? They think we're not getting that Stipe fight ever. Is that what they think? They have to think. Because they have, like, if you do something like this inherently dangerous, which I recognize obviously carries some physical risk, they have to sign off on it. So why would they be signing off on this if he's an active heavyweight?

This was his second of three bouts he signed with AAA. After that, he's going to kind of be a pro wrestling free agent. I know he's talking about still maybe wanting to fight. I don't know if he's ever fighting again, Luke. You know what I'm saying? That is wild. He may end up getting one of those sword dong tats on his chest like Brock and just go for it, you know? How much do you think he makes for that? Hard to say? 500k maybe? I don't know.

What? I don't know how much money AAA has, but he's living a dream right now. He's doing well? He's living a dream. He's doing very well. Did you see how athletic he was right there? Yeah, but does that mean that he's... Okay, but his mic skills, like, can he do that? Well, that's going to be...

He just needs a hype man, right? I mean, if he needs a hype man, if you're going to wear the mask and he's going to show the tradition of the Mexican luchador, then he can hide some of those lack of charisma that he's had throughout his career. But ground pride all day. All right, well, look, one of us is the adult in the room. So for my odds and ends, let me give a shout-out to, well, two people, especially three people, Jason Cruz, Paul Gift, and then John Nash.

I don't know what Jason Cruz's Twitter handle is, so please forgive me, but he's over at MMA Payouts. But for Paul Gift, who's a professor at Pepperdine in economics, he goes by MMA Analytics. And then hey, not the face on Twitter, John Nash. These guys, and then just Josh gross from The athletic too, but in particular these three gentlemen and then growth and then Nash and gift They went to this court case where if you didn't follow what happened in Las Vegas I think it was last week or maybe the week before the idea is as follows the plaintiffs for the the fighters who were suing the UFC

And the defendants there the the UFC, they had their last moment, essentially, before the judge decides, are the fighters, can they be certified as a class to have a class action lawsuit? You have to get that hurdle passed. And we still don't know the answer to that. It'll probably be a couple of months before we do. But apparently the plaintiffs, the fighters in this case, they had a great week. And the guys who covered it the best were those two. Why is that important? Because we got a treasure trove of data on pay-per-view buys, on what the biggest stars make. John Nash over at Bloody Elbow has a post up today. We basically know what the biggest fighters make now in the

sport, which we did not know before. We have, again, it's not full, complete data, but we have a ton of information now, Brian, about how to say how much these guys make. And the big takeaway was Strikeforce, 63% of their wage share went to the fighters. Bellator, about 45%. UFC, a consistent and steady 18 to 19. Let's say being generous, be 20%. And the key about that 20% is they want to keep it at 20%.

Oh, yeah, of course they do. They want to keep it at 20%. You ever see Dana's office? There's like a machine gun with cocaine in it. That's how you afford stuff like that. I know. His art just beats you over the head with its subtlety. But the point being is if you want to know,

if you want to look at this information, which we've never had in the history of the sport, those gentlemen did great, great work going together. Go look at it. No one wants to hear your nerd math anymore, talking about that stuff. Put it off there. Let's go!

Jeremy Spoken, right? No, no. That's not senior. That is. Clearly, I remember picking on the boy, right? That is like 16. Look at that fresh face. What are you looking at?

You're looking up at the lights here? You get knocked out? What's going on here? You know what I like? You know what I like about this one? First of all, F you. Second of all, the t-shirt underneath the shirt, that's very 90s. I bet you had a white college hat made by the game that probably said Buffs or Cox on it.

No, I didn't go that far. I like how my mom was like, you know what? For a haircut, we're just going to do nothing. Hey, shout out to Lisa T. You slide in those DMs? Actually, it's Lisa. I won't say her last name. I know her well. She actually lives.

She's an attorney in D.C. now. Oh, she's going to sue us for this. All right, that's great. She, too, left Marietta. Luke, who hurt you? You've got to tell us what really happened. Bro, I had a single mom. I had some choices to make, and they were not easy.

Yes. Can you believe I ended up being a Marine after this? They must have looked at me and been like, we've got some work to do with this gentleman. That was a good show, though. You know what? First of all, internet sleuths, we need to talk about Brian Campbell's history. That's what we need

to do. We're gonna. Where'd he go? He walked off camera. Alright, for Brian, I'm Luke. Guys, this is our channel now. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Share it around. Like the video. Tons more coming your way. Appreciate you guys watching. Until next time, Brian Campbell's a loser. So was I in high school.

May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. Outro Music