MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - EP 11: MEXICO CITY MADNESS! 244 BMF TITLE PRESSER, 243 WHITTAKER VS ADESANYA - MATCHUP OF THE YEAR? GOLDENBOY PRESSURED BY A PROSPECT? IS SPENCE THE BEST AT 147?

Episode Date: September 23, 2019

Luke and Brian first address the mess that was UFC Fight Night 159 Mexico City. They loved the setting and promotion for UFC 244 Masvidal vs Diaz but there was something missing. But before 244, there's 243 with what Luke calls the matchup of the year featuring the Middleweight Champ, Robert Whittaker taking on the undefeated "Stylebender" Israel Adesanya. MK also previews this Saturday's PPV Welterweight unification between Errol Spence and Shawn porter and how boxing prospect Ryan Garcia was able to procure a big contract from Golden Boy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, everybody. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program next to my trusty co-host, Brian Campbell. We appreciate you guys watching. Before we get to anything else, Brian, got to make sure the folks know we are on our new channel. Like the video, subscribe to the channel, send this out to other people in the YouTube universe. Help us get that subscriber base growing. Making you feel the rhythm is our obligation. So you want more MKUltra in your life, brainwash your combat mind. How are you doing want more MKUltra in your life? Brainwasher, Combat Mind. How are you doing, by the way? How was your weekend?

Amazing weekend. You're a little tan. How about that Native American summer going on right now? I mean, isn't that what they call it? I don't know. When it's really hot in the fall. I think you mean Indian summer. This guy's so not woke right here. Outdoors, you know, kids had some sporting events, you know,

get a little color action, really nice. Yourself, you go to any metal shows? No, I am taking the wife to see Cannibal Corpse in November. This is true in Philly. That should be a very rowdy show. No, my wife, we met with some Colombian in-laws, but family, well, sort of family members. At what point do you share with your daughter on your iPod

your pre-mash shooters playlist? Well, again, my daughter was in utero in my wife's belly when we went to a dying fetus show right here in New York City. So soon is the answer. When I bathe her... That's why you named her Courtney. I get it. Violetta.

When I bathe her, it's a lot of angry metal. When my wife bathes her, it's a lot of tears for fears or something like that. It's enough talking about children and bats. Speaking of... Coach Sandusky, thank you. Let's roll on. All right. Speaking of tears, Brian Campbell, there were many of them.

There was wailing and gnashing of teeth because UFC Mexico was over the weekend. And, well, it was a weird event. So let's start with the weirdness that was the apex of it, namely the main event that was supposed to be between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens. It lasts a whopping total of 15 seconds before Jeremy Stephens gets his eyes raked. It ends up being a no contest. He has to get escorted out of there.

They're throwing beer. They're throwing popcorn. Stephen Jackson got into the crowd, started throwing punches. You know, it was great. It was a brawl. Then Yair, he seemed very fired up. Okay, so we're trying to think about what the lessons are here first on this one.

So the lessons, I'm going to go first on this one. Take the wheel. If I may. Jesus, take the wheel, secondary me. Here's what I would say about this. Look, the reality is I did not see a ton of people getting out there and condemning Jeremy Stevens, but I did see a little bit of it. Let me just say something about Jeremy Stevens. Jeremy Stevens is a throwback fighter.

If you look at his record, I think it's something like 28 and 16. He has faced the very best of his generation, Brian Campbell. Fight in and fight out. And sometimes he wins and sometimes he loses. He does not have the most spectacular winning record. What he does have is nothing but an attitude of piss and vinegar. He was on my show one time, and I forget which fight it was for, and I asked him why he accepted it, given I think he was on that winning streak before the Aldo fight. And he basically explained, he goes,

I didn't know we could turn down fights. Meaning it didn't even occur to him to say no when a name came from the UFC matchmakers. He is a bruiser, a marauder, and if anybody says they are injured and deserves the benefit of the doubt, because I'm not an ophthalmologist, I don't know, it is Jeremy Stevens. You have to be kidding me. Look, he was two days removed from on Instagram.

Did you see that little hullabaloo where he wrote at a teenage kid and was basically like keep talking and i'll kill you like your father like it was like this is that dude you know psycho killer keska say he's got that mentality he's not quitting he's not refusing to open his eye by any means no so by the way if you look up again this is some basic web md research but apparently the cornea of the eye has five layers. If you take off just the first one, which apparently is very easy to get rid of, the eye has, in that particular space, more nerve endings than any other place on your body. So that's why he had this triggered response where he couldn't even open the thing. So that would be my number one lesson I learned from this,

which is there is no level of ability, accomplishment, gameness, or toughness in MMA that will immunize you from criticism. It doesn't matter how much you show to them over how many years, they decide one time you're malingering, they'll just accuse you of it. You trying to get me to apologize to Todd Duffy? Is that what you're doing right now? Now's your chance. Well, I mean, this dude, they say he spent, what, $ 30,000 on this training camp, moved his life to Mexico to prepare for this fight. He's not going to quit 15 seconds in without giving it that chance. But you said sort of what we learned from this lessons learned. How about the lesson of maybe we don't go back to

Mexico city for a while. I mean, even C-level Kane sitting cage side was sort of like, oh man, this is not a good look. Bro, Bro, they turned this into a palace brawl situation, but here's the difference when the Pacers and Pistons brawled in 2004. That was because the players went in the crowd and were like attacking fans. So what? In this case, you paid your money for this great fight that didn't happen. Pretty good card leading up to that fight. It gives you the right to just throw-ish left and right. I mean, did you see the footage? Can we show Brendan Fitzgerald, the UFC announcer, ducking for cover? I mean, that was a little bit extreme right there.

All right, that was a little much. Biz ping on the can right there. But he got hit in the head. Everyone's getting hit. And just the disgrace of seeing Jeremy Stephens walk out with his team and security covering his head, people throwing punches to the back of his head, beers flying, ice cubes, hot dogs. Well, I wouldn't mind that.

But at some point, Luke. I'm going to throw some hot dogs in your face. Here's the deal, though, Luke. I get it. You can be upset that the fight didn't happen. But like, how did it go from zero to insanity when there wasn't like, look, this wasn't even like a Conor Habib brawl where the nationalistic emotions are so charged. This was just sort of like, oh, ho-hum, Mitrione kicked the dude in the stick. I guess we got to end this fight. So here's what I would say to that. Like, first of all, I just, look, there's no way to look at what the Mexican fan base did there and say anything other than it's reprehensible. It's reprehensible. There's no place for it. It's ridiculous. It's

over the top. It's frankly gross. It's just, it's just not defensible. On the other hand, it's not the palace at the mallace, bro. And I understand what you're trying to say. It could have been. If you let Jeremy Stevens into the audience, Cyclops and all, I get it. I know. But the thing I'll say about it is this. Two things I take away from it. One is, this is what happens when you have an immature fan base. And by immature, I don't mean 14 years old. What I mean is, by the time you come to the United States and you have a developed market, you talk to MMA fans, like real MMA fans, do they have like a legitimate reverence? Not merely for their favorite fighter, a Frankie Edgar or a George St. Pierre, but for like the sport generally, which isn't to say that American fans are above bad behavior.

God knows they get involved all the time. But I just don't feel like MMA fans in the United States are as prone to chucking shit into a cage if they don't get their way, because I think they have a certain, like, literally reverence for the sport. That's one. Second thing I'll say is this. Again, there's nothing to say to the Mexican fan base except shame on you. On the other hand, if you watch soccer, that wasn't shit, honestly, compared to what soccer fans have to go through. By the way, understand something about the soccer fan base here in the United States and in Mexico.

They'll throw bags of piss at them at last. Right, but that's like saying, well, you ever been in jail? You can't compare it to that. I mean, come on. I understand. I understand. I see there is enough room to say what they did was reprehensible without saying it was murder, because it wasn't really murder.

Well, it's like, who are they mad at? Do you think that was complete? Because by looking at it as a whole, it looks like, oh, they're pissed at Jeremy Stevens. They think he quit. They think he ruined their time. They think he inevitably stole money from them. They didn't get the main event they wanted. They didn't get a chance to cheer on Yair.

But that wasn't really what I saw. What I saw was a crowd that really began to turn ugly at the end of the co-main event when Carl Esparza gets that very close decision over Alexa Grasso, who's from Mexico. By the way, Esparza is also Mexican-American, by the way, so it's not like it's that one-sided on there, but they seemed very upset by that decision. You saw a foul mood in the air booing her, and it almost seemed like by the time that main event happened, we wanted lust. We wanted blood. We're lusting for blood. We want lust, too, but we're lusting for blood in this case. And if we don't get it, we're going to riot. I don't even think it was like a FU Jeremy Stevens. It was like a, oh crap, we didn't get,

we won. How many times have you seen a fan brawl or fan backlash that you could make, especially alcohol-fueled? I don't mean like online or in response to something thoughtful or considered. We're talking about, they were chucking beer. By the way, a lot of places in the rest of the world, like you go to a soccer game in England or where I've been in South America, you can't even drink at the games. They allowed you to drink at this place, which, by the way, you're just going to heighten the irrationality. You're expecting a rational response from an inherently irrational situation. You're not going to find one. Again, there is no defense of what they're doing.

They were mad at Jeremy Stevens. They were mad at the situation. And they wanted to hit someone for it. Who does that? Who does that? All I'm saying is you had a soccer game in Medellin over the weekend where someone got a knife thrown at them, one of the players by the fans. By the way, here's what folks don't realize. The Mexican fan base for the soccer team, they can outnumber the U.S. fan base in the U.S.

Like when they play at the Rose Bowl. Bro can outnumber the U.S. fan base in the U.S. Like when they play at the Rose Bowl. Bro, listen to the stories. Like the Mexican fan base, and I'm not saying that the American outlaws are some kind of heroes. What I'm saying is they're not known in those contexts for being super hospitable. All I'm saying is it was bad. It just wasn't the end of the world. Can we stop saying it's the end of the world? No, it's pretty bad, Luke.

It's bad. It's not the end of the world. Stop we stop saying it's the end of the world? No, it's pretty bad, Luke. It's bad. It's not the end of the world. Stop comparing it to soccer. Soccer's ridiculous. There's a spectrum of how these things go, and in terms of that spectrum, this was fairly in the middle. For MMA, it's awful,

and it just shows a lack of respect for the whole situation, and I know for a sport that's built off of just bleed and we're fighting in a cage, there seems to be proper decorum among the fans for the most part normally. I know fights break out and alcohol is consumed, but you think the UFC should not go back for a while and just say, hey, you screwed yourself or like penalize Mexico

City and come back with like Woodley Maya 2? There might be. Look, here's what you want to do. You might want to limit the extent to which you have alcohol sales. Number one, not saying you have to eliminate it, but tamper it down perhaps. And two, the solution is to not go less. The solution is not to ramp it up, but tamper it down perhaps. And two, the solution is to not go less. The solution is not to ramp it up, but to keep going. Remember, the issue is you have a fan base that's still

newly encountering the sport. They're not going to understand it in the way that they should in totality, in ways that a more Canadian market or even to an extent a Brazilian market might, although the Brazilian market has their own issues, I suppose as well. Keep going there, educate them, bring them up to speed. That's going to get you in a place where you're going to be less likely to get this. But again, sporting traditions around the world are very, very different. This is not an excusable one, but the idea that

is this the last time this is going to happen at a UFC show when they tour the world? Probably not. How much blame do you think should go to Yair Rodriguez? Can we get a welfare check on him? And I don't mean first of the month when I say welfare check. Let me put you back to you. So after the fight, he looked like he was enraged and like full of emotion, pent up that he got no release for, where Bisping puts his hand on his shoulder and he screams at him in Spanish. I asked my wife for a translation. She had trouble

picking it up. She was like, there's three words I get out of this and none of them are good. So he later apologized, which folks didn't see. I actually saw him go up to him and say, I'm sorry. And Michael was like, it's cool. I get that he was hot in emotions, but I did see online, Brian Campbell, a lot of people upset with Yair Rodriguez. Should they be? Yeah, I think to a certain degree, if he's the hometown hero and he's the one that the crowd is there to see that they're going to respond to his mood swings to a certain level. And he sort of was insanely immature in the way he responded to that. Look, Yair, it was your fault that the fight ended that way.

It's random, it's bad luck, it's all that, but it's your fault. You're swatting at a punch attempt, you know, at a strike attempt with your fingers spread like this at a man's face. So in the end, I guess you can be frustrated, but you're reacting in a way which suggests to the fans

that there was some kind of robbery, that there was some kind of injustice. I mean, Bisping's lucky he didn't take him down right there. I would just shoot the double leg if I'm Bisping. Like, settle down, son. Credit to Bisping. After Yair just cursed at him, he didn't move a muscle. He stayed right in the pocket. My man Bisping knows what's up. Well, one of the eyes doesn't work, so it was still. Oh, you had to go there, didn't you? All right, but I'll say this about Yair. I didn't think the way he handled it in the cage was great. In fact, it was bad. It was straight up bad.

And then cursing of Michael Bisping. Now, again, if you let that video roll, you can see him explicitly say in English, I'm sorry, I just got out of control. And Michael's like, cool, no problem. I don't mind him reacting in the cage the way he reacted because these fighters, dude, they are pumped up. They are in the zone. They're ready to go.

I don't expect them to be rational. I don't expect them to be rational after they win or they lose, whether they've been concussed, whether they've not. They're dealing with so much chemical surging through their body and into their brain, they're not going to say coherent things a lot of the times. Sometimes it happens on this set, too. Keep going. It certainly does.

It was afterwards. It was afterwards when he had a chance to sit down, calm down. He's like, well, he didn't outright accuse Jeremy Stephenson of malingering, but he went right up to that line. Dude, it's not a defensible position. I know you're frustrated. But it was not the cage that bothered me. It was afterwards when he had a chance to calm down,

and he still didn't fully walk back any of that stuff or give any kind of indication that he had in any way erred. That was what got me. And it's a weird stretch because we're talking about heading into this fight while Yair finally realized his full star potential. Now you have sort of a weird fight added to a 10-month layoff, added to a fight against Korean Zombie, in which he was pretty much losing for a long while

and got a miraculous victory, and then the loss to Edgar before that. It's been a long time since he's got the train back on the tracks and really regulated himself. But hey, by the way, shout out to Her before that. It's been a long time since he's got the train back on the tracks and really regulated himself. But hey, by the way, shout out to Herb Dean. He had a run lately where people started going, maybe he's getting a little washy as a ref. Is he losing his touch? No.

He gave that fight every single opportunity. He controlled that cage, telling people where to go, telling doctors, no, you wait over there. We got this much time left. You never really see a referee step up and control situations with that much. I mean, Mike Beltran will control his facial hair really tight in that crap, but outside of that, Dean's on the ball. Anything else out of that card that stood out to you? Good, bad, or indifferent? Yeah, great. I love that card. I said coming in there were a lot of...

Really? No, I'm going to be serious with you. Why? Because Betch Gohea beat Sejari Eubanks? There we go, there we go. You betcha. Son of a betch over here. When you look at a card, you look at these in-between, these foreign fight night cards, right? We got one this weekend with Copenhagen that really, to be honest with you, doesn't move me, like some of the guys, doesn't move me. Mexico City is up and down, though, like the storylines,

like the potential for good fights. You look at that main card. Out of the five fights there, four gave us something really interesting to talk about. Three were really good fights, One involving a highlight reel knockout of the year contender there from the Ocho, Steven Peterson. Can we run that over my shoulder right now? Counters a spinning back fist. By the way, took this fight on late notice.

With one of his own over Bravo. Run this thing back here. This is... Pow. Wow. I mean, it doesn't get... Wow, brother. By the way, look at the commitment to the Superman tattoos, huh?

Yeah, that's a little... The real story here is, boy, Superman got hands. So you have this, and then, Luke, you get an outstanding flyweight fight between Moreno and... Askarov. Askarov. And it ends up being a draw, back and forth, really just great high-level transitions,

a lot of stuff going on on the ground. And then you look at what I always talk about. Women's draw weights bring it. They bring it every single time. I like the crap out of that Esparza-Grasso fight. How did Esparza not tap when her arm was Misha-tated against Rousey there? People gave me crap online because I had said, again, this is not a hill I am prepared to die on. If I am wrong, I will happily say I'm wrong because I don't know exactly what the truth is.

But the assumed wisdom in every gym I've ever been in is that, to a degree, women are more flexible because they have less lean muscle mass. You're going to talk about women's bodies on here? Here we go. Hold on. You got takes? If you look at, I've seen Misha Tate in arm bars where they go well past the point of inflection. This was well past that and they don't tap. It's like, I'm not saying they didn't suffer any damage.

Maybe she did. But, oh, there's not heart involved. There's a lot of heart. I always assumed that that was true. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But people online were like, oh, this is bullshit biology. Is it? Seems like manifestly accurate.

But, okay, I might be wrong. Don't body shame anyone. The whole point is, it's a joke. Heck of a fight, though. Heck of a co-main event. I came in there saying, I need to see this fight. I love this wrong. Don't body shame anyone. The whole point is, it's a joke. Heck of a fight, though. Heck of a co-main event. I came in there saying, I need to see this fight. I love this division. That fight delivered.

You've got to love the heart of Esparza to rally, which is really on the ropes. Last thing on that, how'd you score it? I mean, the co-main. I had Esparza just barely, but I totally can understand it going in the other direction. I had it a draw. I had it a draw. Did you have a 10-8 in the third round? Yeah, I had a 10-8.

All right. We'll skip you. So you didn't love that card, though? That doesn't speak to you. No. There's names. Sergio Pettis gets a win. There's some bounce back situations.

Sergio Pettis looked good, but no, not really. You know what speaks to me is Adesanya Whitaker, which we'll get to a little bit later. All right. Secondly, UFC 244's presser is in the books. It took place at Pier 17, not too far from here, just across the water, right by the Brooklyn Bridge. It was interesting in so many ways. You had Jorge Masvidal coming out looking like Tony Montana.

Nate Diaz in like a cheerful mood almost for Diaz anyway. And the UFC really getting behind the presser in the way. And this fight in a way that they haven't gotten behind before. They had The Rock apparently is going to put the BMF belt. There's going to be a BMF belt, but The Rock's going to put it on the winner no matter what. Yeah, the parental advisory. Oh my God, the parental advisory. So Masvidal versus Diaz and the way it was the signage structured.

Just so brilliant. They lean into it. Let me ask you though, Brian Campbell, you go first on this one. The fight we all know is going to be bonkers and amazing. And by the way, they're going to sell out MSG on a non-title night. Amazing. And by the way, no one talks about this. The fact that it's non-title, UFC 244 frees up a title to take place in the December 14th card. So they can have two or three title fights on that one. We already have two right now. It just works. Is there enough rivalry in this fight?

Like, I felt, like, if you asked me, was that a great face-off? It wasn't a great face-off. No, everything about, unfortunately, this presser, except for the settings, the acoustics, the visuals, the optics, was, it's not a fail, but it was a worst case scenario for the potential of what it was. When you hear, when we got the email saying, hey, be there in New York in person, that's one of those rare times where you're like, there's not going to be a fight, but I have

the excitement level of a fight, right? Kind of like the Mayweather-McGregor tour. You can't argue the first two stops were hot fire money, have to be there, have to see what happens. It's like performance art. Some of Conor McGregor's have been that way. This gave you that feeling coming in that this could be special. These guys are finally getting their close-up.

But in the back of our brains, when this fight was announced and we were talking about, would UFC make this fight, part of us cynically were like, you got two villains. Two guys that, from a marketing standpoint, are perfect B-sides, especially when you put them up against a corporate, popular, crossover fighter who might run his mouth a little, McGregor as an example, where they can be the counter to that because they're so real that when they counter that, they come back even harder and stronger. And when you match them up together, will there be a storyline? Will somebody throw the first punch? In the end, Luke, it didn't. In fact, it somewhat failed miserably in that regard. We got some good soundbites from Masvidal. He dressed and looked the part. DS, it didn't. In fact, it somewhat failed miserably in that regard.

We got some good sound bites from Maz Vidal. He dressed and looked the part. DS2. DS2. But ultimately, Luke, unfortunately, it's not going to affect how the fight plays out. I do think it affected the upper ceiling potential of how this could have crossed over and where the buzz could be. Because I came out of there not nearly as excited. Again, the fight's going to be great.

I would love to be there, but I'm choosing Canelo Kovalev for different reasons to go to Vegas instead that weekend. But I think they failed. And I think if you're going to point at somebody, well, first of all, you're going to point at whoever allowed that group of press to sit in front of that stage and whoever was passing around the microphone. Can we please get Tom Brady t-shirt vegan guy to ask four more questions about weed?

Can we throw him in the fucking water? Look, I've been to a lot of boxing and MMA press events where, you know, the lower third of the food chain will get the microphone. And it happens, and that's just the way it is. Boxing and MMA seem to attract joesboxing.com as a website. And guess what? You can get to the majors quickly in this media business in a niche sport like this. But where was, where the hell was John Morgan?

We never needed him so badly to just bring it back to asking normal questions. We were going to this Radio Joe and this guy. That aside, Luke, I think the guy who failed in the end was Jorge Masvidal. It's me putting a lot of pressure on him, but only from a marketing standpoint, from the standpoint of two personalities, bringing them together, and almost giving a pro wrestling light type, this is why if you're a crossover casual fan that really doesn't understand the background, why you should buy it.

I think it was on Masvidal to step up and really bring an A-plus performance from a belligerent Mike running, get in Diaz's face, and put out a statement of violence. Now look, he didn't fail in the dress. He didn't fail going to SportsCenter or ESPN's Get Up. I mean, he brought it. He killed it on Get Up. He killed it on Levitard. He brought it from that standpoint. But that face-off matters to people. There's currency in that. And Nate, at this point, is in this precarious spot where he's like the longtime villain B-side who's kind of crossing over into A-side, not company man, but the company finally understanding who he is and his value. I think it was on Masvidal, the newcomer, to step in, not create a fake fight where there isn't, not, you know,

because there's a lot of respect between them, but get in his face at the very least and show that intensity that in the garden that night, it's going to be mayhem. And I don't think he spelled that out enough. I know you're getting into that gray territory, because what I don't want UFC to do is sit these two guys down backstage and go, OK, guys, we've got to amp it up a little, okay? Do you mind pushing each other? No, we never want any of that crap. But I think for Masvidal, who's so smart, I mean, I've done interviews with Masvidal, I'm sure you have, back when people weren't even talking about his fights, where I'm like, oh my God, if we had a TV camera here, this could have crossed over,

this could have been viral. He always brings it. And this was a time, I get that there wasn't somebody agitating him, but he needed to step into that crossover mode and say, I am the guy now. I could be your next McGregor UFC. So to do that, sometimes you have to own the moment. I don't think he owned that moment enough. I think you're being a little harsh. I think you generally got the right note here, but you're a little bit off.

I would say this. The vibe I get is, I don't know, you ever seen Big Trouble in Little China? Wow. Great movie. Remember you had the guys who were in the one gang that had the black and the red, and then the one gang with the black and the yellow? It's like they all just came together versus being apart. It's like the Crips and the Bloods after they signed their truce.

Well, there's no war there. You're promising us war. It's in this weird space where it's almost like Diaz and Masvidal have signed a pact to work together, not to like stick it to UFC, but almost like stick it to the game. The game's been sticking it to them for so long. Hey guys, let's work together. Let's make a bunch of money together. They're almost happy to be in each other's company. Not really because game recognized game, but because guys like we're finally getting our moment. We're finally, they're

putting parental advisory stickers up for us. Look, guys, we're next to the Brooklyn Bridge. This is what we've always wanted. And I'm happy for them. I'm legitimately happy for them. And like you, if Dana White was back there being like, all right, I need some pushing. I need some shoving. It would lose everything. At the other hand, asking like, what could they have done differently? Here's a small thing they could have done differently. Getting each other's face on the face off. Give us a moment where we can see two gangsters radiating energy off of one another and where we're like, oh man, there's going to be war on November 2nd. They didn't do that. They have so much. It's like, again, it's like, it's like the cold war is over. Detente no longer

relevant. I need something where the tensions are ratcheted up, not in a personal way, but in a competitive way. You know what Jorge Masvidal has to offer everything. I like the one line or like, you know, I'm going to baptize people, all that stuff. But you have to go up to that line. You can still respect Nate Diaz, but go up to that line and say, look, look, I respect you, bro, but motherfucker, I'm going to kick your ass on November 6th. And here's the other part. Nate Diaz is finally the A-side, as you mentioned. Here's how you know he's in a different space. Because this guy who has no brain, he just has ganglia bobbing at the end of his spine,

asked him a question, hey, how can you be a man if you're a vegan? I mean, please behead this person Robespierre style. But neither here nor there. How did Diaz handle it? You know what he said? He laughed. He laughed.

Well, after there was a long pause because they couldn't hear the crowd. No, I'm just saying there's some technical difficulties there. How many times does Grandpa Dana they couldn't hear the crowd. No, I'm just saying there's some technical difficulties there. How many times does Grandpa Dana be like... Understand the point. The point is an on-edge Nick Diaz would have chewed his head off. Yes. An on-edge Nate Diaz would have chewed his head off. But he's getting paid.

He's on the marquee. They're almost a little too happy. I need him to be not angry. I need him to have a little bit of edge in a non-forced but palatable way. I think that part is still missing. You got to give UFC credit. That backdrop, and I'm not really into this, of sort of critiquing this, it was big time.

I mean, that felt like a top-shelf McGregor situation. And that's why Diaz is so happy. He's like, I think this is what I've always wanted. Jorge Masvidal's like, I finally hit the lottery after 16 years. Fellas, we know you're happy. We need you to be a little bit less happy, if you know what I'm saying. Shout out to a friend of the family, Phoenix Carneval, for being the journalistic heartbeat of that situation.

Also, Mark LaMonica. Mark LaMonica asked a question as well. And yeah, when there was a bunch of jabronis there as well. Then it was Donktoberfest. Yeah. It was Donktoberfest for real. All right, that takes us to... By the way, how hot is the bomb shelter today?

You feeling this? You got the drip going on right now? Not as bad as you, which is surprising. You are really struggling over there. Woo-hoo! Okay. Hey, sweaty man. Keep rubbing your face.

No one notices. Yeah, that's great. Let's get to it. So upcoming, I mean, I just have to throw this right to you. Spence, he's going to be back in action, is he not? All right, so the big boxing event this weekend, Spence versus Porter. My man over here, Brian Campbell, has been all over it. Brian, let's go right back to you on this one as well.

Spence versus Porter. Now, a lot of MMA fans hear names like Bud Crawford. Oh, that's a big name. Or they hear names like, well, they know Canelo. But they hear some other ones that are coming up. Maybe even a Gary Russell Jr. I'll throw that in there. How about a Gervonta Davis? We were at his fight as well. Okay. But Spence is one that folks should know and probably have known more recently given some of his accolades. Taking on Sean Porter. What is this fight about?

Why is it so important? What should fans understand? In theory, it's a welterweight title unification bout. Both guys are champions. And look, the welterweight division is the glamour division in the sport. It's carried boxing the last two decades when heavyweight has died. Point of order. More than middleweight? Oh, certainly more than middleweight.

Historically? You know, over the last two decades, really from the end. We're talking about Hagler and... No, no, two decades when heavyweight has died. Point of order. More than middleweight? Oh, certainly more than middleweight. Historically? You know, over the last two decades, really from the end. We're talking about Hagler and. No, no, two decades. From the end of the heavyweight era of Lennox Lewis and Tyson in the 90s. Okay, gotcha. You had that group of the De La Hoya, Trinidad, Mosley, Walter Weights. That handed over to the Mayweather Pacquiao era.

They've become the stars. It's sort of the perfect weight class of mixing the speed of the lower weight classes with sort of guys who just understand the spotlight and have the power, and you can get great fighters there. We have two champions coming together. But as we know, as the welterweights, it's historically deep right now. You've got big names. Terrence Bud Crawford might be the best of them all, but he's with Top Break and ESPN.

We don't know. We think eventually we can get a crossover fight with him against the winner of the PBC bracket, if you will. Well, this is almost a semifinal in the PBC bracket. Pacquiao just defeated Thurman on one side. Now you get Spence Porter. So what's at stake? Really becoming the leader of the welterweight division if you have two of the four recognized titles. You can become the guy in the driver's seat, and you could get Pacquiao later this year, next year, in terms of really becoming the PBC side of it champion. then maybe we can build long-term toward Crawford. But even deeper than that, Luke,

we're at a really interesting spot in boxing right now. You know the term pound-for-pound king. People have passed the baton, you know, the Roy Joneses to Pacquiao, to Floyd Mayweather, to Andre Ward for a brief season, Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez. But right now, we have a rare time where there's almost five or six guys,

really six on my count, who have a legitimate claim for pound-for-pound number one at boxing. When was the last time in either combat sport you really had, you always have one guy who's the king or maybe two guys that you're 50-50 debating. We've got like six right now. And what we haven't had yet is one out of

that group really, you can argue Lomachenko and he's number one on my list, but one out of that group really pushing the others inside and saying, I am without question the best fighter in the sport. This is Spence's moment. He was the boogeyman of the welterweight division. Beating Sean Porter is the standout moment for you? Here's why, okay?

I get the titles on the line. I take Porter seriously. It's not clear to me how that's your number one pound-for-pound moment. People have avoided Spence. He's in the PBC bracket, which has all the big names, yet no one has gone out of their way to try to fight him, right? He had to go to England and become the mandatory to beat Kell Brook in a great fight that went back and forth in which he stopped him and broke his eye.

From there, he stayed busy and fought like the Lamont Peterson aggressive hungry types, but the big names have stayed away from him. He got lucky that Mikey Garcia had a ball bag that big, was really willing to move up two weight divisions. He's finally fighting an elite guy in Sean Porter on the highest level, And if he can cut through him the way that Errol Spence is saying that he will, and the way that odds makers for such a great fight on paper are really installing Spence as a monster favorite here, he has that chance. Maybe you argue, even if he blows Porter away in three rounds, he's not your pound for pound king. But this is his first chance to really

make that statement, in my eyes, that I'm the best fighter in the world. I'm separate from Crawford. I'm separate from Momachenko, Canelo, Alexander Usyk, you know, these other guys right around there, the monster Inoue in Japan. There's a strong group of guys right now. This gives Spence that opportunity. This gives him a chance to maybe really enter into a third straight pay-per-view fight against Pacquiao and really become the star in the sport, not just ability-wise but crossover-wise. There was a reason why Mayweather put his arm around Spence a couple years ago and really was like, this guy has next. There's an old sparring story, by the way.

When Spence was still an amateur, Mayweather came out of jail in 2012. He's getting ready. He's not in shape. And Spence gave it to him. And Mayweather told Spence, get out of the ring. And he stood and said, no, no, we're going more. And that was sort of the moment where people,

that word got around that this guy is for real. He's done nothing wrong up to this point and I don't know if you followed the back and forth here, but Spence from day one

that this fight was announced was like, okay, I respect you, we're friends, but I'm going to knock your ass out. And that's what we want and need out of an American star

who says, I got next, I want this. And that's no disrespect to Terrence Crawford who looks like an all-time great on the other side of the street. So then there's the other part of the conversation, which is, it was interesting to watch. Did you watch any football yesterday on Fox? Anything?

So you had Michael Strahan with Jimmy Lennon Jr. doing some kind of goofy-ass promo for this pay-per-view that's coming up. Because here's the difference between UFC and PBC. Fox and PBC, well, not PBC, but Fox does the production for the PBC pay-per-view that's coming up because here's the difference between UFC and PBC. Fox and PBC, well, not PBC, but Fox does the production for the PBC pay-per-views. So you're going to see, although, are you like a Boom Boom Mancini guy? Where are you as a commentator? I don't know if he's my favorite, but Lennox Lewis and so forth and some other ones. Anyway, they do the production form. So they are doing a lot more in terms of trying to sell it on their relevant other sports broadcasts. So you had this one yesterday with Michael Strahan, as I mentioned, and Jimmy Lennon Jr.

and some other ones. OK, coming off of that Mikey Garcia fight, what are you reasonably expecting here? Because that one had a little bit of like, this is a great moment in boxing. It had a little bit of like pay-per-view intrigue as well for what Fox could reasonably do. We're a little bit past that point now where, OK, you're selling me an interesting fight. You're selling me a fight with great stakes, not only for that welterweight division, but for pound for pound ostensibly as well. Can Pence, or excuse me, can Spence or Porter pull on pay-per-view in a way that is commendable at this point? It's going to be tough. It's going

to be tough. Give me a number. Look, NFL season's back. So you're hearing what they got. The full engine is pushing to try to push this fight. I think this fight has potential to certainly do less than a Thurman Pacquiao. So sub-250? Certainly, maybe even do less than a Spence Garcia. Let's not forget Mikey Garcia is a very popular Mexican-American fighter, has that backbone of that fan base. There is potential that this maybe doesn't move giant,

although Fox and PBC have done the right things, put the right promotional vehicles in place. I host one of those with the face-to-face show. I think if it can do in that three to four area, it would be considered a success. But I think you're also stamping once again, especially if Spence wins, that this is the next guy. This is the guy you take seriously. This is a tough fight, in other words, you're saying for Spence. But what it really also is, is an investment as a promotional figure for the future, right? Oh, absolutely. You get this one on this platform.

Maybe this one doesn't draw, but the subsequent ones could be provided to the right matchup at the right time. It takes a couple times to put somebody in front of the eyes of the casual, the crossover. That's how you build big pay-per-view numbers, and this is the right steady way to do it. Now, look, a lot of people are going to look at the odds and say, wow, is this really going to be a close fight? Porter is elite, okay? He does one thing better than anyone else in the game.

Maul people at an elite level because he's got the explosion, he's got the speed, and he's got the power. He's like a running back. He's like a football player inside the ring. We've never seen Spence have to deal with that pressure, mauling, borderline dirty style before at this level. That's the intrigue from a stylistic standpoint. But one thing to remember, We watched Spence Mikey Garcia. Mikey Garcia went the distance. But he got dominated.

Spence afterwards is like look. I did that for a reason. Everyone said coming in that Mikey's going to outbox me. That he's smarter than me. That he's got better technique. So I showed you how I can dominate him from distance. And really not let him get a punch off. He switched gears now for this fight.

And said I'm going to show you what I can do walking a guy down. And getting rid of him. If he is as good, Luke, as the words coming out of his mouth, he may be even better than we think he is. We have a situation now with Errol Spence on one side, Terrence Crawford on the other, where I think you have your Leonard Hearns of the modern era. Of course, Leonard and Hearns fought in that 1981 Walter Waite Summit. We have that.

These are two special, potential, all-time great guys. If Spence can come out of this fight, come out of this PBC bracket on top, I think that Spence-Crawford fight down the road really has Mayweather-Pacquiao potential. All right, so let's keep it with boxing. So this past week, I believe it was in Los Angeles, Canelo Alvarez and Sergey Kovalev had a face-off. And during the course of this face-off, yes, I can't tell which camera I'm looking at.

During the course of this face-off, it was noticeable that Canelo Alvarez, who's not a small man by any stretch, a natural middleweight, I suppose, just looked absolutely dwarfed next to Sergey Kovalev. But here was the funny part about this, Brian Campbell. I posted that on my Instagram, and I looked at the comments generally.

There were some people being like, wow, because I had said that Canelo was daring to be great. And what I noticed was, there was a real challenge to that narrative. So there's two narratives to this fight. One is, it's the Golden Boy narrative, which I think has got some, look, Golden Boy's going to say

whatever they need to sell a fight, but I don't think they're saying lies per se. When I say Canelo's daring to be great by going up two weight classes at light heavyweight to take on Sergey Kovalev. On the other hand, you know what I did see? And I got to be honest, it kind of surprised me. They were saying Canelo, what he really should be doing is fighting Triple G a third time. And what he's doing is he's avoiding Triple G

because he wants to get somebody who's washed, ostensibly in this case Kovalev. Yes, it's up to weight classes, but he's getting him at a point in his career where he's coming off that tough fight against Yard, and he's just a little bit long in the tooth generally. So the question is, is there something to be said for this push by Canelo that is, if not disreputable, this is not the direction he should be going? I have to tell you, I find it totally and utterly baffling. Look, first of all, I'm not suggesting that Canelo has never benefited from the judges seeing things his way.

In fact, I've never seen a fighter in MMA or boxing who just finds himself on the right side of the scorecard. Every single time. By the way, against Mayweather, in which I thought he lost 11 rounds to one, and that one was generous. Let's not forget, C.J. Ross gave him six rounds. I understand. And other fights as well.

You look at some of the scorecards against Eris Landilera. I thought Lara beat him. I thought Trapp beat him. I thought Lara beat him as well. I thought Jacobs was close to a draw. The Trapp one was a little bit dicey. But still, to your point,

he just keeps coming up roses. Okay, so that first fight to me, I thought Triple G won. The second one, I did not. I thought Canelo won that one. Fairly convincing. Again, both of them were close. Both of them were tight. Both of them were epic. The issue is not that I don't want to see a third one with Triple G. I don't understand what the fans are complaining about. I know what Canelo was saying, which is, I'm done with this chapter. It's over. You talk to everybody else in boxing, including the promoters,

they're like, no, it's not over at all. Why not take a detour, as risky as it might be, and become the third person to be able to do what Canelo has done going up those two weight classes to make boxing history? Even if the argument is that Kovalev is coming off of a tough fight in recency and is a little bit long in the tooth generally, you're spotting the guy two weight classes. He looked like his big brother in there. So to me, the argument that he's ducking a guy he's already fought 24 rounds with, which, again, I know Triple G is getting a little bit older. He's a little bit longer than the tooth himself. So the clock is ticking.

I mean, that's the argument if you think Canelo's ducking. The last thing on this is he fought Triple G two different ways, once getting backed up and then once backing him up. It's not like he doesn't, like, it wasn't like two times he eked by on the guy. He made adjustments the second time The only point being is while I have intrigue for a third fight with Triple G and I would love to see it and I Really truly hope that it happens the idea that this is some I don't know effortless detour To rack up a win that is meaningless against a guy who really doesn't have it anymore

This is just a demonstrably false narrative being pushed by people who think he got lucky the first time on the scorecards. And maybe he did. It doesn't make Kovalev washed and it doesn't make this a bullshit detour because it's not. No, and look, if it was anybody else but Kovalev, you could make the argument.

If it was Demetrius Andrade, if it was Sergey Derevyanchenko, which they were in talks in, you could say, look, I get it, Canelo. You're going to unify with these other guys, but Triple G is the fight fans want. Canelo could say, look, I get it, Canelo. You're going to unify with these other guys. But Triple G is the fight fans want. Canelo's argument had been, I don't like the guy.

I don't owe him anything. And more importantly, I'm chasing history. Triple G doesn't have a belt right now. Hey, go out and get a belt, which Triple G is now doing. He'll fight Derevyanchenko on October 5th in a great fight. On his own. And now, you know, this is the, when you're going to not fight Triple G because you got issues with him and you don't want to give him that payday and you're still pissed at him for saying that you've got, you know, needle marks on your arm from the steroids and all that.

And you know that Dazon's pissed off at you because they wanted the Triple G fight, your own promoter and all that. But then you go and say, I'm going to move up two weight classes. I'm going to fight Kovalev. It's a little bit washy, which makes it, you know, interesting. But it's still two weight classes with no catch weight. Hey, guess what? Canelo learned from Floyd. He knows how to be an A-side.

He's not doing what everybody in history has done. When Floyd moved up to fight Canelo, it made him come down two pounds. When De La Hoya moved up to fight Bernard Hopkins, it made him come down two pounds. When Manny moved up to fight Oscar, he made him come down in weight. Everyone has made them happen. When you're the A-side and you're the star and you're moving up, it's always a crutch you take. You know what Kofalev's trainer, Buddy McGirt, said? Thank you, Canelo, for having the

balls to do this the right way. Amen. You can say what you want about Canelo, but he's proven us that he's arguably the best fighter in the sport. He's certainly our sport's biggest star right now on a crossover and global level with Anthony Joshua kind of being dimmed from that loss. And this is a tough ass fight. I think that you can call this sacrilege. Maybe I'm a little bit too reactory to the Diaz-Masvidal presser. I'll just spit on you. A lot of fluids coming out right now.

Yeah, not the first time. You know, clean up on aisle right now. I'm actually more intrigued by Canelo Kovalev overall than I am by Diaz-Masvidal for a lot of different ways. Yes, Kovalev's after market right now, but good Lord, he's still powerful and strong, which justifies the point you're making completely. All I'm saying is I'm not suggesting he's not older. The point is that he's done. He's Kermit Cintron in his last round or something. That's not what's happening here. That's not what happened here.

And look, what Canelo may end up finding, he may walk through him, go to the body like he did against Rocky Fielding, and look, Kovalev's punch resistance is not the same that it was, but he might walk through him like a hot knife, or he may get hit with that jab over and over again and realize my power at 175 is not what it is at 160. Look, right now, Canelo Kov at 175 is not what it is at 160. We haven't. Look, right now, Canelo Kovalev is not only more intriguing to me than Diaz-Maz,

which always is a fight I have to see, but it's more intriguing to me than Triple G Canelo. The three. Because the only reason you really want to see that is if you're either a huge Triple G fan or you're a guy like me who scored both fights for Triple G and believed overall, how does he come out of those two great all-time action fights without scorecards in his direction? If you want to see him try to get a chance to right that wrong, you want to see that third fight. Plus, it would deliver for everyone financially and entertainment-wise.

But this is a fight that extends what Canelo has already done historically. It potentially extends his legacy in a way that's not cheap. Kovalev is still an active champion who just outboxed Ilar Alvarez after getting knocked out by him. Still got it to a certain level. Talk about his balls. Last time I tried to talk about his satchel, you tried to speed me out of the show. Jay was in your ear. Sit here and talk about this man's.

Finally, Jay is shutting his mouth today. This is the best day of my life. Two points I would like to make about this. The situations are in no way identical. However, what was one thing Daniel Cormier was able to do absent Jon Jones being around? He was able to go to heavyweight. Yes, he recaptured the light heavyweight title, but forget about that for a moment. He carved his own path.

He went up to heavyweight. I know he recently lost to Stipe, but the first time they faced each other, he won. It was a level of sporting accomplishment that had nothing to do with a rival, that it was just all his own. Now, maybe Stipe ends up being a new rival because of this now new shared history. I'm pointing out, yes, Canelo got the better of Triple G, whether he should have or shouldn't have, but he did. But still, pivoting towards Kovalev, it's another way to say, I have these different

parts of my resume that should matter. I don't have to keep going back to the well. I really kind of appreciate that. Second, it really is true. More money, more problems, more attention, right? Going through and seeing what folks are saying about Canelo, oh, he better have some Mexican tacos this time, you fools. I had someone say he popped for steroids. No, he didn't. He popped for Clenbuterol. And this is the situation with Clenbuterol in Mexico. It is such a problem with tainted meat. You have youth players in Mexico. The NFL sent out a warning to their athletes in the offseason.

Yo, if you go to Mexico, please be careful with what you eat there in terms of the beef off the street, whatever, however you consume it. Contamination is an absolutely real issue. Am I suggesting to you that he is some innocent butterfly that the world has misunderstood? No, but here's what I am saying. He has absolute, unequivocal, scientific, plausible deniability. They're trying to find any little crack in the armor to say that this guy is some kind of fraud.

It's the hyperbole, Brian, around him. Oh, he's ducking Triple G. I'm not arguing that. I'm just asking you to talk about the bulge right now. It's enormous. The nuts on this guy. He's enormous. It is an enormous bulge. He's got balls like hippity hops. He's going to bounce his way into the goddamn ring

in a way that's just going to be impressive to all of us. I'm going to think he has some kind of elephantiasis disease even. How are you going to handle that night for you as a journalist and a fan? There's a lot going on. Two screens. I'm going to have up the BMF belt fight and then the light heavyweight donkery on the other side. You?

I'll be there in Las Vegas for Canelo. I've got to see this. I'm so glad. Oh, you know what? I might go to New York for the BMF one because it's going to be hot. How do you not go there? Come on, bro. I don't like traffic.

By the way, I think Dana's failing not allowing the BMF belt to continue. That's my personal take on it. We'll have a different conversation for a different time. Real quickly, very quickly, Ryan Garcia, who had huge issues, the up-and-coming next star, essentially, in boxing, at least certainly with Golden Boy, had huge issues with the promotion, tells them off on social media.

I think the tweets are still up, by the way. With Canelo retweeting them, by the way, because they share the same trainer now and they're in the same camp. Daring Oscar to do something about it. Hires, by the way, a famous attorney, essentially, for athletes in boxing who feel like they've been done wrong. And then all of a sudden, by the way, I had Oscar on my show and he didn't tell me the news and I was so mad. I asked him, like, do you have problems with your athletes? Because we're coming off the whole Canelo's mad at Golden Boy, now Ryan Garcia's mad at Golden Boy.

All of a sudden, Ryan Garcia gets a new contract. He's in the co-main event of Canelo versus Kovalev. Yo, I'm not... The inmates are running the asylum over at Golden Boy. They are. On the one hand, it's smart of Golden Boy because they really had no hand to play here. On the other hand, it shows they had no hand to play. Their weakness as an institution

relative to some of their signees, there is a huge imbalance, even relative to, let's say, somebody over at top rank and what they can do and say to Bob Arum. Well, because this was a unique situation. For all the top prospects that may have necks in boxing, Luke, we're talking about, they're all around the weight class, by the way, the same weight. We're all around lightweight. You got like a Devin Haney, a Teo Fima Lopez Jr., that class of guy. Ryan Garcia's in that class, but he's by far the least

tested. He's by far the one who you look at and says, oh, that guy's definitely going to be a world champion for decades. Also maybe the most popular. But he's the most popular. That's why it's unique. He's got 3 million Instagram followers. He's out there impregnating fans. I mean, it's happening right now. He's in them DMs and they're sloppy. I asked him to see it. He said no, by the way. But the whole point is what Golden Boy's paying for right now is his stardom because he's like, look, I'm the one promoting my fights. I've got more of a reach than you guys do. You need to pay me like I'm a star.

And if you see the release that came out in the quotes, now we didn't see the details, we know it's a multi-fight deal in which Golden Boy's saying it's the most in history ever given to a prospect. This is Golden Boy really doubling down on Garcia's future. Even though just a week before, on DAZN, Oscar De La Hoya gave an interview while they were battling where he kind of ripped Ryan Garcia and was like,

look, in my day, man, I'm fighting anybody. I'm just fighting. Maybe guys aren't wired like that today. So it makes me wonder how much of them throwing the boat at Garcia, who's in camp with Canelo, was also about trying to make sure everything's good with Canelo and that we're all good moving forward. It's interesting. They went all in on Rye Guy.

I'm not saying that King Rye doesn't have the potential it factor, but we don't know if he has the backbone of a other pretty boy named Oscar De La Hoya, a guy who brought all the women to the fights but then could still knock dudes out and win in advance. Ryan Garcia now has even more of a bullseye and a target on him. He gets a co-main event pay-per-view slot against a guy who's calling him out, but the guy, I can't even remember his name. That's how unproven the guy is that he's going to fight in that fight.

It's going to be interesting how this plays out, Luke. Three million followers can't be wrong, though. He certainly can't be. He played his cards well to get the money right now. He leveraged the Canelo situation. I mean, he had a moment. De La Hoya was over a barrel. Just the mere appearance of you losing your grasp on your top star in boxing

and certainly in your stable, and then potentially the next big thing, certainly a popular attraction, and both of them are beefing with you and then aligned against you, you have no choice. And he had to show it. It just shows how weak Golden Boy's institution to rally this guy is. You and Oscar go out afterwards? A little party action? No, we certainly didn't. But speaking of parties coming our way, UFC 243,

by the way, is just two weeks away. I know the next fight on the calendar is UFC Copenhagen, but let's be real. I don't know how you feel about this, Brian. To me, UFC 243's main event, the title unification at middleweight between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whitaker, for me personally, for me personally, is the most interesting fight that's been booked this year, any weight class in mixed martial arts. I absolutely love this fight. And I was thinking, what really stands out to me about this fight? Why do I love it so much? There's a bunch of different ways. I want to get your opinion as well. On this one, I shall say the following. One, simply the cleanliness of the bout. We had this situation where the title was supposed to be unified a long time ago after GSP dropped it. And

of course, you had Whitaker was supposed to defend it against Gaslam, but then he drops out. There's just been two titles floating around, this uncertainty been floating around, frankly, for years, literally, quite literally years at this point, about who is the champion, was St. Pierre going to fight Whitaker, blah, blah, blah. Even before that, Bisping had hijacked that title, and he's suddenly in London fighting Dan Henderson. I get it. So there's been a lot of just who is the best guy at middleweight,

and should he fight the next best guy? Because I've told Michael Bisping, you've got to go fight Yoel Romero. I blame Luke Rockhold for all this uncertainty. By the way, keep going. But anyway, the point being is, we finally get the cleanliness of putting that behind us. It just shows, by the way,

that when a fighter leaves a weight class or gets stripped of a title and has to give a title back, or whatever the mechanism is, that is bad for that weight class. It takes a long time to undo that damage. We just undid the damage at UFC 242 at lightweight with a similar kind of circumstance. That's the first one I'd say.

The second one I'd say is you can pick either fighter here, right? These are just the best that MMA has to offer. You have two guys, Brian Campbell, in their youth, but they're prime as well. So they're not too young to be... It's not like Rodriguez who's still on the come-up. Both of these guys are fully mature, physical talents. They have the best that MMA has to offer, not necessarily in every department, but has well-rounded talents. They're literally both championship caliber.

It's showing the development of overseas markets. But for me, I'm going to focus on Adesanya for just this one case. You could focus on Robert Whittaker, whoever you'd like to. For me to watch somebody, I went back and I watched all of his old fights that are in Fight Pass. Even his old glory kickboxing fights, he doesn't fight in kickboxing. I know it's a different sport, but his striking in kickboxing is not the same as it is now. His wrestling has just gotten dramatically, dramatically improved in such record time. For me, if he goes and beats Robert Whitaker, it not only solidifies him as the best middleweight in the world,

to me it puts him on, not the top, but certainly makes him in a conversation from pound for pound. It would be in a, what would it be, an 18-month, something like that scenario, 16 to 18-month scenario, that it would be the most rapid development I've ever seen of any fighter ever. Even more than Jon Jones, that leap he made with the quick fights when he went from contender to title. I don't think he started as far back.

He had such great wrestling base. And he actually kind of changed as a fighter in a more simplified way, whereas I feel like Adesanya has added a little bit of tools. Both have added tools, but there's been a bit of a refinement with Jon, whereas there was this let's give Batman more tricks kind of thing with Adesanya. No matter which way you want to slice it, MMA fights don't come around like this very often. They are very, very, very rare.

Soak this one in because there's a million ways to dissect it. What do you like about it? I mean, obviously the fight's going to be great for so many different reasons and watching Adesanya go through hell against Gastelum and stand firm. And you look at what's Whitaker's greatest skill. He's a well-rounded guy who will stand in that pit with you and will dig in and walk through 10 rounds of hell against Romero and stay standing. So you want the potential for gore and action and two guys giving their heart and soul. This is maybe to back you the best fight on paper we could see.

But for me, it's Adesanya's true crossover star potential. We always try to groom guys and say, this guy could be a next big star. But certain guys don't really have all the tools. They don't have the real it. If he wins this fight, I mean, this is the toughest possible test outside of some circus fight with Jon Jones that you could book for Adesanya. He comes out of here as a global superstar with the ties in the oceanic region, the ties in Africa, and the right sense as a marketable force, a confident sort of crossover guy that he's really not yet been unleashed on the masses in terms of what he can do in interviews, catchphrases, talking a mile a minute, the connection to the video game culture, everything he can do. This is like the ultimate critical opportunity in beating Whitaker,

but I think it could launch him into the ultimate commercial opportunity, and not just in the States, but worldwide. He gives you the feels of a young Anderson Silva in some ways, of the flashy stylistic, the way he approaches the fights, but even on Andy's best day, I mean, he backed, trust me, he backed, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't talk. He, he, there was reverence and respect. Even in Portuguese, he didn't have that same kind of, and you had the reverence and respect for the way that he, you know, took on the job and all that. But Adesanya has next level trash talk, fun talk.

I mean, he could do it all Luke. This really could be the next real big thing in the UFC. And if he gets by Whitaker, I'm not saying there wouldn't be any other tough challenges for him. I mean, good God, Paulo Costa, Romero's not going anywhere. But this is such a big hurdle that, you know, if he gets by this guy, he could be ruling this division for a while. I certainly agree with all of that. Let me just add one note about Robert Whitaker so folks don't think we're forgetting about him.

Robert Whitaker is a special talent. His coach came out and said he's an improved version, essentially, of GSP. Now, you might scoff at that comparison. You might like it. Let me just lend some credibility to it. I don't know that I agree with that because I think some of that is still a little bit unproven. GSP is such a known, established, credentialed commodity. Robert Whitaker has been off for a little while, right? So that's also part of the story, too. But what I would say, Brian, is people don't realize this. In 2015, he got so good at wrestling, he went to the Australian National Championships and won it not once but twice,

to the point where he actually won a seat on the wrestling team for the Commonwealth Games. The Commonwealth Games are all essentially who are all the donks who got colonized by the British, right? But it's a lot of countries. It's Canada, it's India, it's Australia. It's a lot. I think there's 53 different territories that compete. Now, he had to give up that seat in order to keep his title and defend it, so he had to give it away. But the point being is, who gets good enough in their off time to go and compete in freestyle

wrestling because you got so good through MMA that you could take that to the sport? You know the answer is? He didn't do it, but everyone around him said he could have. St. Pierre. St. Pierre was the guy who was taking down Division I wrestlers, who was beating everyone at their own game, even though he had never competed in it before. So is Whitaker the next St. Pierre? I guess we'll have to see. I don't know if that's really true just yet. However, that ability, and again, you say, well, how good are the Australians at wrestling? Not so great. You know who was pretty good? The Indians are pretty good.

And that's part of that tournament as well. He would have gone and competed against them. And just to be that credentialed, having never competed in it before until you got to MMA, it's astounding is really what it is. So there we go. All right. Enough of our gibbering and jabbering for our agreed upon topics. Now we have to get to yours.

It is time now for DMs with donks. This is where you send us a question, and we get to it. Let me pull up with you. I hope they're good this week, all right? Give me these donks. Let's see. Oh, here we go.

All right, this comes to us from TJ978. What non-combat athlete do you give the best shot at being successful in MMA? Does that mean, like, alive athletes? I guess it means current pro sports team athletes. All right, which way would you go? And tell me why, of course. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you're catching me off guard here, which I mean, you'd have to go into the NFL, right? You'd have to go to get the size and the explosion and the

speed. Did you see Harden and what's-his-face hitting the bag? We should get that in a viral video segment this week. Good Lord, that was pathetic looking. I think you'd have to go. I mean, look, it's often been said by the late Burt Sugar that where's the next great American heavyweight? He's playing linebacker for the Ravens. So I think that would potentially cross over to MMA the same way.

I mean, really, to be honest with you, some of these NFL guys are the best athletes in the world. You're telling me you can't take a linebacker and turn him into an insanely good MMA fighter right now? Christian McCaffrey's a running back. Would you take him? He had a nice 76-yard run this past weekend. I would take yeah, like a Gronk

in his prime. Not now. Not Gronk post-80,000 concussions. But that'd be a good one. I think, yeah, let me think. In other sports, God, there's some of these dudes. I know you don't care about this, but right now it's the World Weightlifting Championships. Dude, some of these guys in the 83-kilo class,

some of these Chinese lifters, oh, my God. Pudzianowski in there or no? That's strong, man. That's different. This is an Olympic sport, Bingleberry. Hey, Antonio Brown's free. He gave up the NFL. Maybe he can cross over.

Dude, you know what? How long before the UFC signs Antonio Brown? Oh my god. He's past his issues, guys. He's past his issues. Yeah, you can go somebody like that. Somebody who, like, some sort of skill position player, I suppose. You have no favorite NFL player right now? I'm really...

Who do you like to watch? I'm a little bit off day-to-day NFL the last couple years. I mean, dude, when you get so immersed in the fight game, as you know, I mean, I cover MMA and boxing,

but then when you add in pro wrestling, I know to you it's like gross porn, like who has time for it, but it's like double the amount of time you need to invest.

So I really can watch all three fight sports and like shows with the wife. It's not a sport. Shows with the wife to keep that fresh and going. You watch two sports. And really, there's not much time left after that, Luke.

I have to show you on Twitter the steps I take to eliminate pro wrestling from my thread, from my feed. The amount of infestation from you circus clowns putting that on my feed, I have to go through seriously. It's like, dude, some of y'all like to drink from the water hose out in the backyard. I like to drink from the filter. I like, dude, it's like some of y'all like to drink from the water hose out in the backyard. I like to drink from the filter. I mean, it would be different, Luke, if you were this like cultured man with an ascot and a taste for fine wine.

Yeah, but then I do have a taste for fine wine. You listen to like exploding animals metal and watch jujitsu tournaments around the globe. Yeah, well, sorry I didn't go see the Cucks and the Betas this weekend at the local venue. All right, let's go to when is the UFC going to re-engineer the gloves to stop eye pokes? These gloves can easily be redesigned to prevent fighters from spreading their fingers. This comes to us from at Rocky Badger. I saw a lot of talk on that on Twitter after the Jeremy Stevens eye poke from Yaya Rodriguez. What would change for the gloves?

Would you put webbing in there? I mean, I think... So, I don't know what happened to it, but do you remember years ago, Bjorn Rebney introduced a glove? It was made by Everlast, and Bellator was going to use it. I think they got rid of it.

It was called the PowerLock technology. Did you ever see this? No. So what it essentially did was, if you look at the hand, it might have a little bit of natural curvature. They were going to force it to go like this. So you could still grip.

You could obviously make a fist to punch, but you might have trouble fully extending the hand. I don't know whatever happened to the Power Lock Glove. I think you could still buy them. I think I checked like a year ago. You could still buy them. But Bellator gave them up for their blue and red that they had borrowed from Strikeforce once Scott Coker came over.

To my knowledge, the UFC is not interested in this technology, even though they've had various sponsorship agreements with Everlast in the past. The answer is, I don't really know, and I never really get a clean answer. The UFC doesn't do, when it comes to like athlete health and wellness with the Performance Institute, they do so much in the way of innovation.

You have to give them tons of credit. But in terms of like changing rules in MMA, they seem to be like, we're done here. In theory, there's not much you can do, but I do think a penalty. But is that can do, but I do think a penalty... But is that really true? But I do think a penalty for someone that hits an eye poke, just to put a baseline in there of like, okay, even though it's an accident, I did this,

I have potential to lose this fight. But that would do you no good in the case of Stevens versus Rodriguez. It wouldn't, but I think you have to go even deeper and really just retrain fighters from the very beginning. It would take years to get to this point where you can't wave your hands at strikes. You can't try to block and catch things with your fingers extended into a guy's face as he ducks in. You're going to have that problem. It has to be, I think there's got to be some sort of penalty in there if you spread out your hands and do that.

These are the power lock gloves. See how it forces your hand over a little bit? And yet it still has the same shape? Here's the other problem. I don't trust anything B.O. and Rebney at this point. Not everything he did the same shape. Here's the other problem that no one... I don't trust anything of Bjorn Rebny at this point. Not everything he did was bad. But here's the other point about this. It's a series of compounding problems.

So one of the problems is the glove technology might be inferior. The other problem is you noted why not take a point. Well referees don't want to take a point because taking a point is so consequential in the 10 point must system. So now you have the problem of the bad glove technology ostensensibly, with bad scoring criteria, which forces referee inaction, which brings us back to where we are. What percentage of eye pokes in the UFC do you think are completely random or are manual error?

It's someone stretching out their hand with the fingers exposed to parry a punch, to block it, to grab it. That's not the right question to ask. You're asking what is the difference? How much of a percentage of it is negligence? Yes. I would say the majority is negligence. That's what I'm saying.

But that's not intentionality. No, but there has to be a little bit of a re-education. I mean, look, in the NFL, they're doing that. At the youth levels, they're teaching how to tackle differently so you're not going helmet to helmet and really trying to turn back generations of dangerous ways. So the rule they teach is that what they want you to do is instead of extending your hand like this, like you're Senator Palpatine shooting lasers out or whatever, they want you to go like that.

That's called Sith lightning, I think. Something like that. So they want you to put your hand, so fingertips to the sky. It's like we're playing patty cake or give me a weird super white high five or something. I don't think they really want to do that. It doesn't really help them. How about warnings for extending your fingers out? How about, look, people laugh at this.

I don't know why people laugh. I thought it was one of the best things Pride did. We need a yellow and a red card system. We need a yellow and a red card system because partly you can take points with that and you can take somebody's money as well, 10% of their purse for the yellow card. That way it doesn't necessarily affect the scoring totals and it still incentivizes some kind of change. And by the way, maybe that doesn't work either, but at least they'd be trying.

Fighter goggles, you're not into that? Not into the fighter goggles. Those can get smashed, bucko. All right, let's go to the next one. Oh, this one's good for you, Brian. Do you think Andre Ward comes back to fight Canelo if he beats Kovalev? This comes to us from at Brad H. D. Oof. I brought you. I don't know. All right. Well, it's interesting now. Andre Ward, the retired former pound for pound king, now the commentator, went out on his own terms at age 33. I think he's

like 35 now. There's a lot of talk and he's been fielding these interviews publicly about, you know, what would happen? Canelo moves up to your weight class? He beats Kovalev, your big rival. Would you fight him? I still don't believe that's a chance Canelo would want to take. And I know there's been people that argue with me on this, and they say, well, he's already moving up to fight Canelo, or to fight Kovalev.

Well, look, Andre Ward's well more. Even at 35, even two years out of the game, Andre Ward is a special all-time talent who doesn't get the love and recognition in this era, partially because of how he handled himself taking long breaks and maybe not always being what everybody wanted him to be, but yet you look back and you're like, this guy did everything right. He's a great guy, family man, man of faith, all this stuff.

He really should be loved and beloved more, but would Canelo take on that challenge? I think that's a losing battle. I think that's why Golovkin never fought him. It's a losing battle. When you've got a guy that big, that skilled, Luke, I don't know. The idea would be the only reason why Canelo would do it would be for historical reasons, for big money.

But the problem is Andre Ward's never been a big mover, Luke. He's never been a pay-per-view draw. He's never been a giant guy. The two times that pay-per-view against Kovalev didn't move money, even though the fights were intriguing. So I say no. I think it's more likely that Ward would be the smaller, skilled guy moving up to fight somebody. Remember, there was talk of him going to cruiserweight. There was talk of him going to heavyweight.

He's now revealing that when he retired, when HBO was still in the game, they offered him this insanely large contract, which involved him moving up to cruiserweight, fighting like a Tony Bellew, then moving up to heavyweight. And remember, Ward's trainer, Virgil Hunter, had said, we see things in Anthony Joshua. We think we could fight him. And at that point, we're like, what are you, crazy? Blah, blah, blah. Now we see some of those same, I guess, openings for Joshua. Still, you fight Anthony Joshua, you get a chance to get KO'd. I think it would be more likely that Ward would go up. I don't know how interested Canelo would be knowing how great Ward is, but you never know.

Just got to follow the Adonis Creed game plan. He knocked him the fuck out. That's all I know. Next, if Masvidal beats Nate, does Usman versus Masvidal happen before Usman versus Covington at Wesley Trent Snipes zero? Only if Colby does negotiate himself out of it, right?

Can we stop saying that? Can we stop saying that Colby is negotiating himself out of anything? I really truly detest this dumbass media narrative. Isn't that it's 99, for me at least, isn't that it's 99% Colby being wrong, it's that

when you get in a negotiation situation UFC is going to use leverage they're going to use dirty tricks too and it comes down to the fighter will I take the money being offered to me or will I try to I understand the situation that he's in and I think he does too which is the following you got no leverage you have no leverage and basically you could probably work around the margins of what they offer you. You can get a little bit here, a little bit there. But in general, we saw in the court case that came out and some of the numbers, they want to keep fighter pay continuously. Even if revenue goes up, they want to keep it at 20% wage share. 20% every year that UFC wants it to go to the fighters, right?

Okay. So if that's the case, how much can you really get? You're talking about a very, very narrow pie year over year. The point being is when Colby says, I am worth this much for this opportunity, this idea he's negotiated himself out, no, it's called a principled stance. And if it was anybody else other than Colby Covington, if it was somebody likable like St. Pierre, everybody and their brother would be like, wow, good for St. Pierre to really stand up for his own interests. Yeah, he's got no leverage, but you know what? That's not the point. The point is we take a principled stance. You accept some of the costs that come with the backfire on that one, which is what he is doing. I don't know that

that's the best way to manage your career in your prime. Fine. Maybe he should take the fight. But everyone frames everything around him as a function of their politics. My politics could not be further away from Colby's, but I at least have the intellectual honesty to look at the situation and say, it's a principled stance. It's not him going, hey, everybody, how do I get myself out of this pickle? It's not what it is. He knows exactly what's happening. He's saying, I'm worth X. You're not going to pay X? Fuck you. Take a hike. That's the answer. Drives me crazy. But to answer that question, I think the only way that it could be... The answer is yes. Well, let's not forget, though.

If Masvidal comes through and dramatically defeats Nate Diaz, and it's this great fight, and it sells big pay-per-view numbers, and they go, okay, he's ready. He's now. You can give him a title shot. You really could. You could. You absolutely could. And yes, the answer... By the way, if Nate beats Masvidal, he might get Usman next. I don't think that's crazy either. I mean, whether you think it should or shouldn't happen, it might, right? All right, lastly, although limited, there are a couple of ways Adesanya can pull out a win. Really?

What do you see as his best avenue to victory at RLI2 Cool 6? Best avenue to victory. So I was thinking about this one a little bit. I was, again, I've been watching a lot of footage on both of them. Number one, I don't really know what to expect from Rob Whitaker in the following sense. We know how good he is, but he's been off for so long, I am certain he's added new tricks, right? So that's something to consider. Like, what will he do differently in terms of his overall body of work that he has not done before? That's one thing to consider. The thing that I keep going back to is Whitaker loves to blitz and angle change all the time,

both blitzing, getting in, and then when you react, reacting to you as you escape the pocket. And when you watched Gastelum versus Adesanya, what did you see Adesanya doing all the time? Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, and then trying to fire either a cross or uppercut or whatever it was. That might get him into trouble here if he waits. So to me... He can end up on his back if he waits. He can end up on his back. He can end up on his back looking up at the lights.

There's a lot of ways that could go poorly. So my thought is Adesanya can fight. I've said this before. He has the most modular striking maybe in all of MMA. Max Holloway a little bit more in terms of stance switch. But if he can get Whitaker backing up, not because Whitaker's bad backing up, but because it might take away the blitz. It's not advantageous for him.

It's just a better situation where if Whitaker has room to charge, that's a tough way to fight Robert Whitaker. Adesanya's got to be, he's got to have a different rhythm in this fight. He's got to be so special in his striking that it makes Whitaker not take the lead, take a step back,

not control the pace and the distance and the whole style and flow of the fight. We're really going to have to see how advanced Adesanya's striking is. Can he do things that gives Whitaker pause, that makes him not want to shoot in? That's going to be the discipline. Last thing on this, so his coach has told me this openly. By the way, his coach, this is a true story, his coach tells his fighters, Eugene Behrman, I love Eugene, when his fighters come on my show, he instructs them to not give me any technique discussion because they want to keep everything super close to the vest. But he did tell me this once on the air. Do you know why those guys at City Boxing in New Zealand have, like, caught up with the rest of the world?

Like, how is it, like, a small gym in New Zealand all of a sudden is putting out great strikers? You know what their answer is? They believe that like when it comes to grappling, they're not the best. When it comes to wrestling, they're not the best. And if it was just standard striking, they're not the best. They think what makes them the best is the game of striking in MMA is really behind the times when it comes to feinting. They're big fans of Winky Wright.

You know Winky Wright. Oh, yeah. Hall of Famer. What they say is the guy who faints more or the guy who faints better if two people faint the same amount of time will always win an MMA fight. They believe that when it comes to fainting and faking, they're better than anyone else as a team in MMA. And they also know that that's going to change too. Like the game's going to catch up. But they say right now the level between their ability to

faint and how that has an effect on fights versus their competitors is what gives them their edge. Something to keep in mind for the future. Okay. We have to do your dumb ass segment now. It's viral, idiots. Luke, have you seen this shit? Luke, there's a big time boxing. Look at this.

New graphics. This is the name of the segment? Have you seen this shit, Luke? Luke, there is a big- I didn't approve any of this. All right. There is a big time boxing grudge match this weekend. I don't know if you're woke to this.

Is this the bagel boss? The bagel boss, Chris Morgan, and Lenny Dykstra, former Mets and Philly star. Poor Lenny. And they had a press conference event, and things got physical. Luke, when you see these two next to each other, Lenny's going to destroy this dude. Is Lenny going to come in sober? I mean, Lenny looks like crazy old man ripped at this point still. Like, I mean, did you see when the bagel boss took his shirt off?

Who's the donk in the middle? He's got to be the promoter. But did you see when the bagel boss took his shirt off? I mean, there's... I had the bagel boss in studio. That must have been something. He's a weirdo. This could get ugly and gross.

Look, sometimes I can get into the circus stuff. You know, it sure ain't KSI Logan Paul. This is bottom of the food chain stuff. This is Todd Bridges and Vanilla Ice stuff. How many debts is Dykstra trying to pay off with this one? I don't know, but... He has a shirt on that says, get paid. Yeah, or go to jail.

Will you search this out in any form? No. I mean, this is like urination porn. This is like end of the road stuff. This is, where is this airing? Like internet pay-per-view or something? I think it's Fight TV, one of those type of deals. Wow.

That's, you know what? I'm glad you brought that element to the show. All right. I do Morning Combat Dissected. You bring in the bagel boss. All right. Let's go to the next one here. Are you ever driving around the streets of D.C.

and some donk just glares at you? Yes, happens all the time. I mean, look at this. Look at this. Look at this. Look at... Oh! That's...

Oh, castigo de vino. That's what you get, bro. Dude, you know that guy thinks he was hard as shit, too. Walking out there, I'm hard as fuck. Yeah, yeah. Right? Thank you for that. Look at that.

Look at that. Oh, you're going to go slow? You're going to go slow? Okay, okay. You're going to stop for me, bitch. Oh, put your hands where my eyes can see. Look at that. Look at that. Oh, you're going to go slow? You're going to go slow? You're going to stop for me, bitch. Oh, put your hands where my eyes can see. I love that right there. Wow.

All right, Luke. This weekend at UFC Mexico City, you wanted to talk about Stevens coming out here. I wanted to talk about you, Betcha. Betcha Koheya back. Close decision win over Serjara Eubanks. And Eubanks had said coming in, I want to do anything to prevent her from dancing. Did you see the twerking she did before this part right here? Not that I'm complaining, but does she have any dance that's not sexually suggestive?

Those hips don't lie. Luke, have you ever even considered passing guard going full mount? No. No. Not for me. She's a character. She's back. I don't really think she deserved that decision, but I was happy to see it.

You have a crush on her, don't you? I was happy to see it. She's fun for this sport. She's great. You love her. She bangs. I mean, she's great. She's my spirit I don't really think she deserved that decision, but I was happy to see it. You have a crush on her, don't you? I was happy to see it. She's fun for this sport. She's great. You love her. She bangs. I mean, she's great. She's my spirit animal for this show.

I love it. She was back. She's dancing. She needed that win big time. Also, like, no BS. That was a huge win for her. That was big. She throws bombs.

She came in there and, look, did you see the end of that first round? She got her ass kicked. She got bullied. Yeah, she got walloped, yeah. Yeah, that was like first night in jail stuff, and she came out of that, right? I'm telling you, man, she just can't dance in a way where you're just like, you know.

I wish they had the full thing. It's hard to look at that and be like. It was much more suggestive, the first moves that she did there. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is the Clint cleaned up version. I'm just saying, every dance is not. This ain't the Austrian waltz she's out there doing.

I'm a happily married man, but in another life, she's got the right funk. She does have. She's got the right funk. She does? She's got the right spirit. All right, man. To each his own. Thank you.

Okay. Is that all the videos? No. No. We're going to keep going. We're going to keep going. Did you see PBC Boxing over the week? One-hitter quitter.

Look at this. Was this after he shook Adam? This was, was this guy's name Jesus Flores J in the back? Was that the guy's name? It was a left cross. Dude, off the glove, no less. Jesus Ramos. Look at this.

Left cross and as the old great fight doctor Ferdy Pacheco used to say, Luke, when they fall face first, you don't need to count. Did you happen

to hear this call? We got Ray Boom Boom Mancini on Fox here. He has these moments called raygasms, I call them, when he just lets out all of his fluids.

Also, it's not just face first. It's face first ass up. Well, he teamed up with Sweet Baby Ray Flores, our colleague there at Showtime. And these two guys were just letting fluids go. I mean, you got to hear this call. It was out of control. Yeah, you're bitter that we don't have the audio. Why don't you just tell the audience about that? Yeah, yeah. How about great work in the back here. At least we're live this week. Nice shout out. There's also another good, Chris Colbert, another prospect, had a good knockout on that. Yeah, that's a vicious thing. Off the glove, no less.

Oh, and to go face first on that, you don't need to count. Finally, you know the unbeaten kickboxing phenomenon, Tenshin Nasukawa? Yeah, he does. The guy that Floyd sent to hell in that weird boxing match? He was back this weekend in the Rise promotion. He's been back a couple of times. Look at this flippy shit right here.

Look, hey, shout-out, by the way, to Michelle Pineda. You only get to do this stuff if you have the intent to kill. And that's why Betch dancing is the best. Because she waited until she won to do it. Look at tension here. You guys keep acting like I'm defending Pereira. I'm saying he got what he was coming to. Look, did you see that? Look at that move where it's the left cross and the spinning left. I know. Can you imagine the people who said after the Mayweather fight that like Nasikawa benefited from that experience? No, no. I'm like, word. Watch that move where it's the left cross and the spinning left kick. I know. Can you imagine the people who said after the Mayweather fight that, like, Nasakawa benefited from that experience? No, no. I'm like, word?

Watch that move right there. Good Lord. Did you know that his sister was on the undercard? She's 17 years old. Yes, I did know that. We got footage of that. I believe her name is Riri. She connected with her first career knockout on this undercard.

Watch that. Oh, good night. Jesus. Check, please. Ooh. Ooh. Sat her down. Let me see the KO again.

Pop on the neck and throat. Those are my favorite, dude. Are you a big Rice fan, by the way? A little bit of it when it comes on. The KOs that hit on the neck and chin, like the Adriana Martins, the Donald Cowboy Cerrone one, dude, those are the ones where I'm just like, oh, she dead. She dead for real.

You've seen this shit? Good stuff this week, Luke. Yeah, there was some good stuff. Are these all your dumb ass videos? That's all my dumb ass videos for the week. Oh, we're not done yet. I have a little surprise for you. Oh, no.

Oh, no. I'm sweaty enough here, Luke. Yeah, well, you know what? Let's add to that a little bit. So last week, you decided to do a little internet sleuthing. I got to tell you, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. The show was over, and I'm on my train ride back because I have the worst life ever.

And I'm flipping through my DMs and someone sends me this. And I said to myself, wow, the internet never loses. You got a picture of me in high school. Allow me to return the favor, ladies and gentlemen. Why don't you put that up here? Make that so it's a little more legible. Look at that part down the middle. Motherfucker, you look like a 19th century bank teller. I can't defend this, Luke. You know, here's the deal. I was big into the Beatles. Is this your high school picture or is this though your tryout for the trench coat mafia? What were you doing? See, that's what I hate about the senior picture. You take that the summer after your junior year. So you're still kind of a young dog. I just like that that morning you got up and parted your hair in the middle.

Yeah, dude, I'm killing this shit. I had some big salad because I was trying to be George Harrison at that point in my life. Killing the game, bro. And I didn't know what to do with it, so my mom watered it down there. That was just not a, it's just not a good look. The only thing I don't understand is it says, the only thing it says at the bottom, I don't understand, it says Brian Campbell.

Shouldn't it say McLovin somewhere in there? I was much cooler than that picture suggests. Yeah, I hope. Shit, you can only go. I mean, this is rock bottom. I mean, this is rock bottom. Bro, showgirls opening night. Opening night for showing, all right?

Oh, look at that. You had the temerity. The temerity to make fun of me. I was a nerd. I take no issue. My friend, you were the Voltron of nerds. That guy's not pulling triggers, though. Come on.

The picture of you looking up, I don't know where you're, what headspace you were at, all right? Oh, you mean not in the Trenchcoat Mafia? Yeah. Yeah, well, as my friend self-titled. You listen to Ramstein? As my favorite MC self-titled would say, well, you were arguing who's getting the top of the bunk.

I was arguing who's getting the glock of the pump. I'm just saying, okay, my friend? All right. Anything else? Oh, we have to- Odds and ends. Oh, odds and ends. What's your odds and ends?

I always forget odds and ends. Hey, did you see that video that Gary Russell Jr., the great unbeaten feather, or not unbeaten, but featherweight champion put out there? Yeah, that one fell a little flat, didn't it?

He's trying to lure Leo Santa Cruz into a fight that we all want to see, so he put his hand around Leo's dad, who's been battling and beating cancer, and was like, come after me, come after me. But at the end of the video, he walks out into the hallway and goes,

I put hands on your dad. I'll do it again. I'll take him out. And this has everybody from Lennox Lewis to everybody saying, no, that's too far. I don't know, Luke. It's kind of, you're trying to lure Leo Santa Cruz into a fight everybody wants to see.

This is the kind of pro wrestling shit that I get down with. This is like- He later apologized. He told Marcos Villegas out of Fight Hub TV. He was like, oh, everyone misinterpreted it, I guess. To me, I didn't misinterpret it. I thought, look, this is spicy. This is juicy.

I want to see this fight even more. People can chill out and relax a little bit. Yeah, I guess. No one got hurt in the making of that video. Also, though, did you see PBC over the weekend? A little bit of a washed 168 battle, but Kid Chaka, Peter Quillen, lost a split decision there to Alfredo Angulo.

Turn him back the clock. Two divisions above his prime. Sloppy. I legitimately... We know we like him extra sloppy, but... I'll be honest. I haven't paid attention to Angulo since when he lost to Canelo,

however long ago that was. I was working for Glory at the time, and I was like, oh, that's the end of him. Yeah, I think he took it. Nope, turns out not. Yeah, that was a fun little sloppy battle there. And by the way, Rashad Evans, I do a weekly MMA podcast with him on CBS Sports. Coming out

and I have a running joke on that show because he's given up meat. Hold on. Well, normally I would say no to a guy turning 40, but I'm almost saying yes because he's in ridiculous shape. He's given up meat and he says it's changed his life. What about the brain health issues? I don't know where he's going, but

obviously he's getting out of the UFC. You have to believe South Florida, Cocoon, Bellator. It's the nursing home of MMA. And there are names in there. Like, Luke, we didn't talk about it, but this weekend, there's two Bellator cards I kind of want to see. One of those fights has Machida Musashi. I always tell Rashad on the air, you owe

a couple people receipts. Glover is one of them, but certainly, welcome to the Machida era. Maybe that one. All right. Not the Glover one. I would say for odds and ends, certainly the Bellator. There were the two cards that were going to be the initial foray into the featherweight tournament. They already had one earlier this month.

Adam Boric did incredible. The next one, I think, is the better of the two cards. You have former champion Darian Caldwell bumping up to 145 to now be a part of that tournament. Juan Archuleta taking on Patricio Pitbull. I thought that would have been the final before they announced

it as a first round matchup. Utterly phenomenal. What is Archuleta? Got 21 wins in a row? Yeah, phenomenal. That card is crazy. And even that Dublin one, by the way.

You got James Gallagher coming back, MVP coming back, Benson, Henderson, Miles Jury. Yes, that fight is fine, but the other two, I don't even know

who MVP is fighting and Gallagher's opponent fell out last minute, so it's a little bit not so my favorite. But the last thing I want to say is, I keep harping on it, it doesn't get enough attention. John Nash over Bloody Elbow did a ton of work compiling documents about what the UFC makes. He did a huge post last week about how

much money does the UFC make and how. He has one out today on their event revenue. How much do they make per event in terms of fighter costs, production costs, everything? What does it look like? And he also had a post on there about what fighters make. Here's the interesting part that no one wants to have this conversation. If you look at the numbers, it's not clear materially what effect MMA managers have on fighter pay. They might get a little bit bumped one direction or the other.

But in terms of dramatically affecting a share of the pie, unlike in boxing, very much unlike in boxing, there's not a lot of evidence that they affect change. So there's a conversation that needs to be had, like what do MMA managers do? What is their value? I have some good relationships with some that I think do the best that they can given the circumstances, but it's an interesting conversation to have.

Go check that out on bloodyyellow.com. Hopefully next week if we put the lotion in the basket, we can get some AC in here. Only if he gets the hose again. All right, we've got to get out of here. We've got to get out of here. So thank you guys so much for watching. Again, like the video.

Subscribe to the channel. Come on. The least you could do is subscribe. Subsequent videos are going to come out all week. Like and subscribe. Well, like those videos and subscribe either through this one or the next one, whatever. Just make sure you're getting out there. Spread the word, donkeys. We need you guys're getting out there. Spread the word, donkeys.

We need you guys to get there and spread the word. We appreciate that when everyone does that. Yeah, and for folks who already have, thank you so much. And more Bagel Boss this weekend. All right, for my resident version of the Bagel Boss, Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching. Until next time, may all of your gains be Lord.

Yeah, dude, you were pouring sweat. Usually I'm the sweaty type. You look... Yeah dude, you're a boring sweat. Usually I'm the sweaty sweat. I don't understand what was happening to me. We'll be you next time.