MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - EP 12: CANNONIER IMPRESSIVE AT UFC COPENHAGEN, BELLATOR FEATHERWEIGHT GRAND PRIX FIRE! SPENCE OVER PORTER IN A CLASSIC! GETTING READY FOR UFC 243 WHITTAKER VS ADESANYA! CORMIER STIPE....ONE MORE TIME?

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

What a weekend for combat sports! Jared Cannonier has found his weight class and found his groove as he blasted through Jack Hermansson at UFC Copenhagen. What an athlete, the sky is the limit for the 35 year old! Is Bellator doing the right thing with their Featherweight Grand Prix? Are they differentiating themselves enough? Spence edges Porter in a sensational fight to unify the Welterweight Title...what's next for both? Looking forward to GGG on the boxing side and UFC 243 with two of the best colliding in Whittaker and Adesanya. Are we going to have a UFC Heavyweight trilogy to rival Ali - Frazier? Don't worry, we answer your questions and have some for with the odds & ends. What a great week with another one shaping up! Tell your friends to rate and subscribe! YouTube: Morning Kombat Instagram: @morningkombat @lukethomasnews @brianccampbell Twitter: @lthomasnews @BCampbellCBS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support, so whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. It is Monday, September 30th, 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat, Dawgs. Welcome. My name is Luke Thomas. I am the host of this program. Next to my lovely co-host, Brian Campbell, fresh off the bird from Los Angeles. He was at Spence Porter. We got to talk about that. We got to talk about a lot today. UFC Copenhagen, UFC 243.

Biggest week in pro wrestling history. None of that's on the rundown. I just want to let you know that. Thank God. We have a lot to get to. Before we get to any of that, of course, please, as always, give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, donks, and share this around to anyone who you think might need to see it. Your mom, your dog, your friend,

your neighbor, whoever. Please, share it around. We all appreciate that. You've been eating long enough now. Stop being greedy. Yes, DMX, very good. Hey, how was your time in LA? Dude, the best city in the world first of all because it's got the best food and the best people and the best weather, but I've got to give a shout out to the City of Angels. I've covered

many boxing fights. I like the Barclays Center, where you'd be typing, you'd be watching. That's New York. I know, but hear me out. Okay. And you go, somebody needs to do their shirt laundry, and you're like, okay, somebody's getting high in the crowd, that's cool, it happens. Alright.

In LA, they don't F around, they don't hide it. I had a, right before the main event, I ran up the stairs to use the men's room, there were three separate groups of guys, inside and outside of the bathroom helping each other roll the blunt tighter and passing it around. This is like hot boxing the community. You can't smoke weed in the Staples Center, can you? This was not like let's hide in the bathroom.

Bringing it out of the bathroom and passing it around to fellow people. There's little kids around. There's a security guard over there. You smoke weed with other donks in a bathroom, you just deserve to get clubbed in the head. That's how you build a community right there. So shout out to LA. That's how you get the wood shampoo from the Popo.

That's what you get. All right. We have a lot of stuff to get to as well. They wanted to talk to Samson. You know what I'm saying? I understand. All right. Let's get to it.

UFC Copenhagen was on Saturday in, well, Copenhagen, Denmark. The main event was a UFC middleweight contest. Not so much a title eliminator, but an important one, just the same. With Jared Kananier defeating Jack Hermanson via second round TKO, frankly, it wasn't even close. Now, which is interesting to note about that, Brian Campbell, because he went into that one, Jared Kananier did, as not an enormous underdog, but a fairly considerable one. I think like a plus 250 in a lot of places. And it wasn't very hard for him. So the question that I want to start today's show with is,

what's the biggest takeaway from his win, and what does it do to the division? For me, I'll say the following. The big takeaway is, yes, you can say, wow, what a revelation this guy is at middleweight. At 35, he figured it all out. Great, good for him. And he might go on to fight Yoel Romero God only knows what's next for him he's going to jump a lot of slots from this but to me the biggest one is still really interesting it's like dude let me get this straight you're this good and you're 35 years old and it took you that long to figure out what the right weight was and again you could say well Frankie Edgar never fought

the right weight until later on well yeah but yeah, but he won a UFC title. In other words, he reached an objective level of success in that weight class, even if it was suboptimal, so much so that it didn't really matter. He just fought for another one of weight class down. He may have lost for age or mileage or whatever. My only point being is I don't think Jared Kananier is dumb, and certainly

I don't think he doesn't understand himself. It just tells you the ingredients of success can be right in front of your nose and you never really know it. Getting with a good team, look, does everyone need to train at the MMA lab or American Top Team or AKA? Not necessarily. But some of them do.

Some of them should. And when I first interviewed him, dude, he was an air traffic controller in Alaska. He moved down to Arizona because he was fighting in heavyweight and then light heavyweight. And not only has he gotten better, the takedown defense was phenomenal, but he just seems to understand who he is as a fighter. That's a big part. And as long as he does, dude, he is going to be cooking with gas. All the power is there at middleweight. All the speed is there.

My biggest takeaway is, yes, he's a force to be reckoned with. And at 35, I think he still has improvement to gain. Yeah, these are the best stories in sports, if you ask me. When people sort of figure it out late in life. Kind of my own personal story, right? Wait, you figured it out? I was quite a donk for a long time. And look, now I'm here now in this fantastic bomb shelter.

You made it. My point is, look, when guys go on these sort of runs in their 30s in any sport, I mean, we saw it in boxing with a name that we don't like to talk about these days much. Carlos Baldomir. Remember him? Feather duster maker. Suddenly he's the welterweight champion of fighting Floyd on pay-per-view before he molested his own daughter.

But he's locked up. You don't have to worry about that. And the point is that it takes a while. Jared Kananir working for an airline as a 300-pound man, finding other people's contraband. Turns out he's the one hiding the heavyweight bomb inside of his right hand. And that's his asset right now, being a former heavyweight, having the power. But that only gets you so far to beat a guy like Hermanson, who was so red hot, who seemed to be like one more win outside of a title shot. And then suddenly, we got to restructure what's

going on at middleweight, and we're going to take this guy seriously. This was a great story to do it on foreign soil, which was almost Hermanson's backyard, and do it in such a dominant fashion. You're upset. What on here he's not he's not danish right but this is swedish nor norwegian he's not danish okay i like hey luke thomas fought in toronto right in his backyard motherfucker i'm not canadian it's a it's a virtual virtual backyard you know you're just lumping all the whites together is that what you're doing now all the whites in europe live so close together yeah a little bit you know? You're just lumping all the whites together, is that what you're doing now? Look, all the whites in Europe live so close together. Yeah, a little bit. You can get on a train, you can see multiple stops

in one day. Mark Madsen was the hometown guy, which we'll talk about in just a second, but to your point about Hermanson, I'll be honest, I didn't understand his game plan. Now, I understood it in the bigger perspective, which was get this guy down. You saw against Glover Teixeira when Kenanier was at light heavyweight, that was a real problem for him, and he has, or

at least Hermanson believes, he has the best ground and pound in MMA. That's what he advertises. Did it not seem to you like his approach was the right one in terms of like on paper, if you wrote it down, it would look nice? Did it not seem frantic to you? No. He was like, if I don't get him down now, the whole world's going to collapse. You know what it seemed like from a macro view was that this was Jack Hermanson's close-up. This was our chance to find out, like we said, is he a real title contender?

Could he do this in his virtual hometown there? But really, a main eventer in Europe trying to become sort of a brand of his own within UFC. He proved in that moment he wasn't ready for prime time. Didn't have the right sort of style. Didn't seem to fight with the right mental makeup and urgency there. And it just opened the door for this great story in Cannoneer. And just to double back on that, Luke, you love when you don't know a guy's ceiling well this is a topic that's gonna come into play later when we break down Adesanya

Whitaker when you don't know how great a guy can be it's you just get excited and find out the fact that Cannoneer's figuring this out as we are makes a great theater to watch and he's sort of proving I won't say the haters wrong per se but when he went and beat David branch is like well that was wow, that was pretty surprising and cool, but what else is there to do? And then he fought Anderson Silva and had that weird leg kick thing and had this antagonism with the audience. And you thought, okay, well, that doesn't really tell us a whole lot either, although that's still kind of cool. But you can't say anything about this one. This was Jack Hermanson in his prime. Again, not so much in his hometown, but it wasn't like he had to travel very

far for this one, right? He is as good as he is ever going to be and he couldn't really do much to him. He did not want to exchange with Kedanier on the ground, excuse me, and on the ground he could not control him for any amount of time that really mattered and he just seemed to collapse once all of that, he just imploded once he realized that couldn't get done and of course he ate the uppercut. My only point being is however much you want to discount the Branch is, however much you want to discount the Branch win, however much you want to discount the Silva win, buddy,

you cannot discount the Hermanson win. You can discount what he did in light heavyweight, which is not much, because he's figured out the best optimum weight, and now it's like, we're going to have to have a new conversation. Is he well rounded enough for the very, very elites? Yes or no? Do you want him to fight you El Romero next? I just think that fight makes itself. That's

going to be a great fight, yes. I only say ee because that's a tough-ass fight for him right now. But look, when you climb the ladder, you bring it on. You bring it upon yourself. It's so funny. It's like we talk about this fight at UFC 243, which we'll get to later, all these fresh faces, right? 28-year-old Robert Whitaker, brand-new 30-year-old Israel Adesanya.

And yet it's some of these old dogs, right? Yoel Romero, just incredible athletic ability. And then Cannoneer finally getting all the pieces of the puzzle together it's a fresh face it's an old guy but it's a fresh face it's an interesting division right now sort of a tale of two two ages there anyone else from that card stand out to you obviously this was Mark O Madsen's night and look I'm not much as much of a donk as you are on the things like amateur wrestling and grappling. I'm sure you were rocking out to ADCC while I was listening to some ACDC over the weekend. That's why you're a loser.

Wow, really? No, not really. I like you. You're nice. But go ahead. By the way, are you more of a Johnson or a Bon Scott guy when it comes to ACDC? Bon Scott. Come on, player. I can get down with both, whereas he's no Hagar.

Anyway, here's the point on that. Where are we going here? Marco Madsen stepped up and showed you that he just might be ready for real prime time. down with both, whereas he's no Hagar. Anyway, here's the point on that. Where were we going here? Marco Madsen stepped up and showed you that he just might be ready for real prime time. Of course, your fear for that guy is that he's going to be a little bit too wrestling heavy. Does he have as much of a well-rounded game? Certainly, this was obviously not a killer of an opponent and didn't give you a long fight to really map out exactly where he is.

But as far as stepping up to that moment in front of the home fans and being everything he needed to be, I think he exceeded expectations. He's got a killer hammer game there. It was like playing that arcade game there. I want to see what he can be. He's in the toughest division in the sport. But when you have that sort of one dimension that's so damn strong, what can he add to that in a short amount of time? What do you know about this guy that I don't, being a non-donk? Well, I talked to this guy who used to write for Bloody Elbow named Mike Reardon. He wrestled at the

VMI, I believe. No, at the Citadel, excuse me. He wrestled which is Division I. To me, he's always been the best writer for amateur wrestling inside MMA, so a guy who knew both worlds. He tells me that the guy, if you look at his resume, Madsen's resume, it's like the Olympics,

he got a silver medal. And then there's like six European or world championships in a row where he just got silver in all of them. Apparently there was another guy named Vlasov who was like an all-time great. So in other words, it's like at light heavyweight, how Cormier was amazing, but for John Jones. It's kind of like that. But how good is Daniel Cormier at light heavyweight? Pretty goddamn good.

You mentioned that he's got the wrestling game on lock, which he does. He's got that Greco-Roman style. The Matt Linden, the Dan Hendersons, the Randy Couture for bringing sexy back from Greco-Roman. Was it ever sexy? Well, you know, no. It wasn't. But the point being is, look, he's not just good at that, at an Olympic

level at that. Dude, you notice the physicality of him? He is another level of athletics that, even at lightweight, you notice the physicality of him? He is another level of athletics that, even at lightweight, you don't necessarily see a whole lot of that. So he looks to be a natural. He can bang on his feet. He's got good finishing instincts. He seems strong. Even at 35 years old,

another 35 year old. MMA is really weird where you get these guys from Olympic wrestling and maybe they were... Okay, Henry Cejudo got the gold medal and that's great. And there's issues about how you Cejudo got the gold medal and that's great. And there's issues about how you all remember he got the silver medal. It's not clear if that's only up and up. But the point being is this, I like the silver medalists.

I like those guys. You know why? They got a chip on the shoulder, right? They got a chip on their goddamn shoulders and they're better athletes than virtually... Like what's the difference between the athletic ability of a silver medalist and a gold medalist typically? Almost nil. Very, very slight. So you take that guy and then you give him a chip on his shoulder and he

has to go compete against donks who show up to gyms to lose weight. Boy, he's going to put knuckles to chin. That's exactly what it is. Very similar to growing up in Marietta compared to old Marietta. Yeah, well, no, that's more of a class versus, you know, state issue. But just to finish this, I like a good ground and ponder. I like an old school guy who can finish when he gets in position

on the ground. How many times do we see somebody take somebody down, get in that position, and not have those same instincts? Yes, we need to see a lot more from this guy. But to talk about opening statement for somebody like me who heard the name, don't have a clue until I tune in in my bed sheets there in the L.A. hotel Saturday morning to see this, great to wake up on the West Coast and see a live UFC card, by the way. Fun to watch football at 10 a.m. in any event. And also trained by Martin Kampmann.

It was nice to see Martin Kampmann out there. All right. So we go to our second one here. The Bellator Featherweight Grand Prix is set. We know who the eight quarterfinals are. It was already in motion, but now we know who the quarterfinalists are. And so we have an event coming up in, I believe, December. Certainly January, then February, and then I think March will be the last one.

Right? So we have all of those. All right. Up to this point. And now you take. Okay. So here's what I want you to think about, Brian. All the fights that have happened to this point, the selection show, and then what lies ahead. We are nowhere near finished. But if I had to ask you for a grade through where we are, what would you say?

A-. Wow, that's high. And it got to that level because of this selection show. Holy crap, Luke. Did not watch this live. Heard everyone in my life basically be like, get ready for the cringe. This is awful. This was crap reality TV.

Then I watched it, enthralled the entire time. This was genius. This was a great idea. Look, you're already a little bit behind the eight ball if you're Bellator, right? They threw out the tournament, tried to get interest. Yeah, we know a lot of these names, and there's certainly fights that the hardcores want to see. You don't really know the personalities of these guys, and this was such a unique

position to put them in a spot where they had to make very strategic in-the-moment decisions that are normally done behind the scenes, normally done, and you see them standing with Jen Brown with their coaches behind them. They had 30 seconds to sort of chat. You can kind of almost hear what they're talking about, and you saw what goes into this decision-making.

They had a chance to either be big balls and call out and fight whoever they wanted if they wanted to go after the best, or, which is what most of them did, made a strategic decision, either to rest an injury a little bit longer or to get into an easier side of the bracket. I loved all of that, and I loved it even more

when the champ, Pitbull, comes out at the end, and he's got a chance to throw the whole bracket upside down. This was what like a white elephant you know the Christmas game the grab bag game? Yeah yeah. My family calls it the Chinese grab bag which is probably insensitive. That sounds racist. Yeah that's right. Can we pull that one back there?

A white elephant at the end you know everyone knows the first person gets it at the end a chance to go back and do what they want. To see that happen and to see a guy in the quarterfinals there, Pedro Carvalho, who at first was like, I want to fight in March. You know why? Because I want to get fat during Christmas. Well, now Pitbull crashes the pool. He's got a title shot. This was fun TV, Luke. This gave a face and some

personality to guys that, to be honest, really don't. And if you're only sort of a middling MMA fan and you know a little bit about Bellator, it gave you something to care about. It's so funny to me. I don't know exactly why it's happening right now, but between this selection show and the BMF belt over in the UFC, all of a sudden the promoters kind of realized, maybe our fans want to have fun. And again, not every time, not all the time. You have to do some kind of enormous theatrics or a big stage show like they did for that selection show.

I'm not bashing. I'm just saying it doesn't have to be this grandiose rollout every time. But maybe once in a while, manicure the product. Maybe once in a while, take a risk. Maybe once in a while, do something off the beaten path. And the BMF belt sort of created itself, whereas the Bellator Featherweight Grand Prix is a much bigger production, a much more involved procedure. I've got to say, I loved everything about that selection show other than my one criticism is that I think it should have been a standalone event. And the reason why is because you had so much going on there, they had to rush it for television purposes.

Imagine if they didn't, number one. Number two, if you had it as a separate, let's say, press conference, which I grant it's going to cost a lot more money to refly everyone else back out there. I get it. But if you did that, I think you'd get a lot more media attention. I could be wrong about that. I think you'd get less attention. This was a show you had to see if you're an MMA fan, right? Fair enough. But I think if you did it as a standalone event, you could do a lot more with it from a production standpoint. Either way, my only criticism is I don't think they got a chance to maximize what it was. But whatever it was, maximized or not, dude, it was a promoter taking a risk.

And you can call it innovation or not innovation because they're borrowing from the old K-1 model. Either way, what's new or what's old is new again. And what's tried and true, you bring it back. Dude, differentiation is badly needed. I talk about this all the time. People say, well, why can't we fix the rules? Like the NFL can just change their kickoff rules. The NBA, I don't know if you saw this, in their G League, they're going to have somebody,

they're going to attempt, they'll only have a single shot on the free throw line from the foul, but it could be a one point, a two point, or a three pointer depending on the context. The point is, I don't know if that's a good rule for the NBA G League. Here's what I do know. They're trying to do something different. In MMA, you can't. They gave, the UFC and Bellator and everybody else, they gave the keys to the kingdom

for rule innovation to the athletic commissions, which means you are very hamstrung in terms of what you can do. This, to me, Brian Campbell, was a great way to find space to innovate. It's no different than PFL doing a season format, which is a unique thing. And I think in this Bellator thing, the tournament, whether it's the welterweight

one or the heavyweight one or this featherweight one, you could get natural matchups that aren't booked by promoters. And that's what you love about it. I didn't think you could be better than that, right? This made it even better because now you put the choice in the fighter's hands. And in some cases, you're choosing timing or you're choosing opponent. Did you have any issue in the end with the fighters not necessarily stepping up and being big balls, being more selective and strategic in who they fight and when, rather than saying, I want the champion, or, hey, AJ McKee, you just had a giant moment there with an eight-second knockout. I want you next.

Okay, here's what I'll say. That could have backfired, but the way in which it shook out, I should say, for AJ McKee, which I'm going to get to in just a second, and how it pushed the Boric versus Caldwell fight, it was the championship clause that Pitbull took advantage of. The way it shook it up, it made everything great. So in the end, I feel like we're getting, if not the best permutation, a very, very good one. But you're right.

They kind of went down a path that could have gone, not poorly, but sub-optimally. It was just the way it shook out. It ended up being great. Let's talk about AJ McKee for just a second, if we can. He has an eight-second win. He's only 24 years old. He's had all of his fights in Bellator.

Is he the one to watch? Okay, the champions of the tournament. Outside of him, is he the one to watch for you? He is. He is. And Boric had a great first side of the bracket. He really got your attention. I think it's A.J. McKee's now chance to really be the face of this tournament and really do something big.

And it was cool to have his dad, 49-year-old, get a win on that card as well against a... A stoppage, which, by the way, for the big McKee is rare. Yeah, against a maybe not primetime opponent, but that's fine. It's an A.J. McKee's night here, and he came out and did exactly what you want to do. Eight-second win, but then that celebration was over the top and out of control, and I loved it. I think, see, suddenly he's the early wild card on how great can he be.

Giant ceiling, don't know, need to see it now. Did really enjoy Darion Caldwell's victory, even if he didn't really go for the finish when he had the opportunity. So to me, I love this. 24 years old, he's had all of his fights in Bellator. This proves a couple of things, Brian Campbell. Number one, it proves if you are someone of pedigree, if you're a Dylan Dennis and you come from an elite jiu-jitsu background, if you're the child of an established fighter and coach and you don't want to compete on the regional cards, you want to start on the big show, but you need that regional card treatment and you want to get

better and better and better, Bellator is a better choice than UFC. It just is. It's just a much, they can do so much more for you in that regard. UFC is just, you need to be much more senior established talent. Doesn't mean you can't get there because look at the last two fights. He beats Pat Curran and now Georgie Caracani and he is fighting senior level talent at this point. I'm only saying it took them 14, 15 fights to get there, which is only to be expected. They have, Bellator should get criticized when they do a bad job building a guy. They should get praised when they do a good job. They have done an excellent job with A.J. McKee.

But I'm telling you, I've got my eyes on Adam Borch versus Darion Caldwell. And I'll tell you why really quickly. Dude, that is an amazing fight. Because if Aaron Pico can get him down against Adam Borch, you know Darion Caldwell can. But I thought going up to 145, it might open up Darion Caldwell's offense. And to be clear, in the first round, he was getting after it. Looked to me like he took the second round off and then did just enough to win the third. Yeah, he got warned for inactivity in the third.

Buddy, I am telling you, you pull that against Adam Borch, you're going to wake up looking at the lights. That guy waits for his opportunity. He has the best flying knee or switch double or whatever you want to call those kinds of knees. In the game, he is highly offensive but patient and smart. And the best part about him is he trains in Hungary. Yes, he trains also down in Florida. 365, yeah. 365. But he doesn't like, there's a lot of where he comes from and what he does that's somewhat unknown.

There's a tape order from here, but you don't have a real keen sense of his abilities. And plus, Caldwell only fights one way, it appears. That is a huge test for either guy. I will say Caldwell impressed me, though, moving up in weight and winning so dominantly, even if he didn't really take advantage to try to end those fights. And I just want to say this about this selection show and this chance. This obviously works better in Bellator, where they can handle a cringe. They can handle a carnival.

They can put out Dada5000 in a heart attack match. They can do crazy things. Well, they can't do that. They can't really do that. They set up a format here. Could have gone really bad with the reality TV angle. Could have gone really well. I gave it a high grade going really well, and you know what we didn't really get? A ton of trash talk and a ton of potential

over-the-top moments. I think there's potential for this to grow even more and be even more entertaining and probably tiptoe the line of cringe, and that's fine. But don't you agree that if it's going to grow, it has to grow as a separate entity? Like it has to, the selection show. I don't agree with that because if you tell me that there's going to be a selection show at one o'clock on Thursday, I think you're going to get way less viewers and attention

than in prime time on a card that you have to see in a big city. I was all for that. I get it. I don't know. I think if you want to do something more with it, you have to give it space to breathe. So that's just my only sense of things. But so far with that tournament, man, so good. And by the way, Pitbull wins in the main event. It's a whole thing. Okay. So let's get to something else I would love to start with now on the third topic. I'll just pitch right to you.

Over the weekend, we told you, he told you, I told you, everyone really told you that Errol Spence taking on Sean Porter was one not to miss. You had Spence, this great at welterweight, maybe pound for pound great, taking on a bull in a china shop in Sean Porter. And oh my God, did this deliver. Easy candidate for fight of the year. Frankly, an all-time classic insofar as that division is concerned. Brian Campbell, you were there live in LA. What's the story of the fight?

The story of the fight is, let's not forget, when this fight is concerned, Brian Campbell. You were there live in LA. What's the story of the fight? The story of the fight is let's not forget, when this fight is booked, everyone's like, I need to see this because we've never seen Spence against this crazy style against an elite fighter. But Luke, something happened on the way there. Suddenly the Vegas Sharps are telling you Spence is a minus 900 favorite and you have Spence at every

turn, which we talked about last week, predicting I will easily knock out this guy. Nobody told Sean Porter that in the end, and what you had was a great pay-per-view fight in which both guys went after it. Luke, we're just coming off the Mayweather pay-per-view era where you get big shows, but then you get defensive showcases. This were two guys

who were forced, because of the style that Sean Porter set and the pace, to go after it, and you had an exciting fight. And the end-all takeaway is this is almost a moral victory for Sean Porter. This was his best performance in his career in a loss, though, in which he pushed a guy in Errol Spence

who's showing you up to this point, along with Terrence Crawford, all-time great potential. All-time great to be a face of this era. And he made him work in a style, pace, and distance he didn't want to for 12 full rounds. Now in the end, just like in his last fight when Errol Spence outboxed Mikey Garcia for 12 rounds to prove a style, pace, and distance he didn't want to for 12 full rounds. Now in the end, just like in his last fight, when Errol Spence outboxed Mikey Garcia for 12 rounds to prove a point,

Spence proves another point here, that he can fight another man's style, that he can go in that trench for 12 rounds. But don't miss the overall storyline here. Even though Porter lost, he forced one of the greats, Spence, to fight in uncomfortable style the entire fight. Spence was never able to discipline him, slow him down, and basically as a ring general, create control of the fight. Credit to Spence, that

11th round knockdown was huge on my card. That took that, pushed that in Spence's direction to get a win, 114-113. Judges had a little bit, you know, in the other direction for Spence. But in the end, it survived in advance because Porter made it a hellacious night. And Luke, he didn't do it the old Porter way, which is reckless all the time.

Did you see the way he set up his attacks with smart feints, with smart footwork? He always kept Spence guessing. Yeah. To me, it's like, is that the fight that Spence said that was going to happen? Like, when he was talking about what this fight was going to be and what he was going to prove, did he say it was going to look like that? Never in a million years? If you just zoom out, imagine you had, how's your vision?

Is it good? Can you see 2020? I got 2010 in one eye. Is that right? Okay, you're a mutant. That's fine. At 2020, I look at the TV, imagine you had blurry vision and you just saw them kind of fighting the way that they were. You would say, like I always tell folks, for example, when you watch a Floyd fight, it often is a little bit slow.

It's methodical. It's taking place at distance. The one with Cotto, a little bit different, and certainly against Maidana, a little bit different, too. But in general, why do his fights look that way? Because he makes them look that way. The complexion of the fight often tells you who's winning, which is interesting because the overall complexion of this fight had a Sean Porter fight written all over it. It was a goddamn brawl at times, right? It was amazing.

And there were times where Spence was covering up and ducking for dear life. He looked not hurt, but he looked uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable at times. So here's what I took away from this fight. One, Spence is the real deal Holyfield, right? To be able to fight a guy like that who was putting it on you. Best night of his life. Scoring that 11th round knockdown.

And now there's a question about where he goes from here, which we'll talk about in just a second. But for that moment in time, you thought to yourself, dude, he can fight smart Mikey Garcia and then brawling Sean Porter, and he can come out the other end not looking too scuffed up all that much. On the other hand, Sean Porter proved, okay, is he the best welterweight in the world? He's not.

But you better be, and you better be on your A game when you are the best if you're going to take on Sean Porter. He is a tough out for anybody. Yeah, you let him in your house, somebody's getting knocked up. He's going to get inside. You have to be on your P's and Q's the whole time. And, dude, you're right. I had it 115-112.

But to me it was like, you know, I think I was like nine rounds in. I think Porter had it winning. Well, it was one of those where you're literally judging Porter's control of the pace in the fight and the dictation of the terms against Spence landing cleaner counter shots. And I think sometimes people when they're scoring fights, especially at home and they're drinking

and they're not paying attention as much, you only score the scoring blows. If you are making another man fight your crazy style and he doesn't want to, that's a big part of winning a round. But if he can do that and then drop you in the 11th and then find other sort of key precise moments to land. That's where he proved he's the real.

Exactly. That was just that extra edge. So now the question goes to who is next. He had Danny Garcia in there. I don't know how I feel about this. Here's the problem. The fans are really upset about this. Well, hold on.

Let me give you my sense of things. Because I think it was after the Garcia fight, if I'm not mistaken, that Spence called out Pacquiao. Yes. Pacquiao was in the ring as well. That's right. And Pacquiao just had his big win over Keith Thurman. Keith Thurman has his hand messed up. They can't make that fight anyway.

So you're like, oh, man, that'd be great. Pacquiao seems to look revived. You know, when there may or may not be Vada testing, I'm not saying one way or the other. Frankly, I don't really care one way or the other. But let's be honest. He looked great against Thurman, okay? And he still has the ability to pull big numbers on PBC.

That is the fight to make. I think you would agree. I would like to see that one in a perfect world. Or maybe the Bud Crawford one. But here we go. Pacquiao, I don't know that he is available for the moment. And then on the other side, you have Bud Crawford, who is with Top Rank. Now, I know they've got this fight happening between Ortiz and Wilder.

I say, oh, if we come together for this. Well, Fury Wilder in February. Fury Wilder, what am I saying? If we come together for this, we can just make things happen. But the reality is there are more welterweights in the PBC stable. They don't actually need to make that happen in the same way that they kind of need to make Fury and Wilder 2. So it looks like Danny Garcia is the guy. Why should fans, how should fans feel about it?

Well fans are upset because it seemed predetermined and it was, right? Spence wins, PBC, Al Heyman, Fox suddenly has Danny Garcia who was on the announce desk above the arena suddenly right there. Tartle neck and all. And they sort of said matter of fact you get the next fight. The problem with that is he just lost to Spence last October in that vacant title bout in which, I'm sorry, to Porter, in which Porter wins the WBC title and gets into this fight. Since then, he's bounced back with a nice knockout of Adrian Granados.

But he hasn't seemed to, in this season, do enough to earn it. The reason why I'm not upset, there's a couple things. One, it'd be a great stylistic fight because Danny Garcia is an elite boxer with a great chin and he has the type of power, specifically in that left hook hook to counter you that it's going to be an interesting tense chess match the whole time. And number two, I've been talking about this welterweight era being potentially historic. Okay? Not better than the four kings of the 80s and then they all moved up to middleweight,

the Hagler, the Hearns, the Durans and all that. But if we look back on this era and say that we had Spence, Crawford and then a bunch of great B plus fighters like Thurman, like Porter, like Danny Garcia, and they all ended up fighting each other, well, I'm okay with this. I'm okay with this than Spence taking some mandatory against somebody else. He's potentially now going to be in three pay-per-views as an A-side in less than a year. And regardless of how this pay-per-view scores on the buy rate with Porter, I think the way Spence fought, he's going to be just

fine as a brand moving forward as one of the most important PBC fighters because he went out there and had to fight to win it. And in the end, yeah, people will pay for personalities, but they want to pay for something that's going to guarantee a win. The reason why I'm not so upset about Pacquiao is I have my own sort of thoughts in my head.

He's being linked for a Mikey Garcia potential pay-per-view at the early of next year. You can like that fight, you can hate that fight, that's fine. I'm wondering if he wasn't in the ring there because maybe we'll get something called May Pack 2 next year. And I'm not saying this with inside info, I'm saying it kind of makes sense, right?

There's enough smoke here and enough money to be made, maybe it would be smart not to throw Pacquiao right at Spence if you're booking the whole damn territory as a whole and maybe set up that fight. And then if we can get something like Spence Crawford in 2021, which the head of Fox Programming who talked to the reporters over the weekend said, we'd love to do that, you could end up winning out in the end. This is boxing. It's not the organized NBA playoffs.

Unfortunately, we're the best. It's going to keep climbing and fight the best. But if you sit here and say you don't like Spence, Danny Garcia, as a fight, I'm going to question you on that. It's not that I dislike it. It's that if the real claim to why we should do it is for historical completeness, that's not a bad argument, but that's not an argument why I should take Danny Garcia's chances seriously.

I took Porter's chances seriously. I would take Pacquiao's chances seriously. I don't take his chances seriously. I'm not suggesting to you that Garcia is some kind of scrub. He is not. I was there when he fought Lucas Matisse when Matisse was in his power punching prime and he beat him. And his dad, Angel Garcia, let the whole room know about it. I remember that quite distinctly. But at the same time, it's like, dude, however good Garcia is, Spence is a little bit better.

I'm not suggesting he's unbeatable. Well, look, he pushed Keith Thurman to the limit in basically a split decision. Yeah, but that was Thurman that we're now saying was on the decline. No, not at that time. That was before the injury. That was his last fight. That was the beginning of the chapter of his alleged decline. Well, it was the last fight before the two-year break and the injuries.

Right. And it was a pretty damn good fight, by the way. When people bring up his decline, they talk about the Danny Garcia fight whether that is fair whether that is not fair they do they don't say all of a sudden you beat Danny Garcia and it's only a function of the time off I'm just saying Danny Garcia is pretty damn elite he hasn't doesn't have the welterweight resume even though he's hold up held the world title that he had at 140 but he's pretty damn elite and I'm not trying to sit here as company man of anybody and say well this is fine this fine. This is how boxing does it. Is Spence

Pacquiao the next logical step if you're trying to find out who the best welterweight in the world is? Yes, but I also am beaten down and understand how the boxing business works and promotion works and network works and setting up big fights, and Spence Danny Garcia, to me, that's a damn good fight. It's a fine

fight. It's fine. It's just not the best available one. Certainly the Crawford one would be by far. Would you pop for Maypack 2 next year, though? Would you pop? I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. That's a lot of baggage. What if someone told you, you can't get Pacquiao-Spence, but you could get Pacquiao-Mayweather 2 when Pac's coming off that Thurman win and he looks like it?

I would like it because it would drive subscribers to this channel. We would pimp that fight like it was no one's business. But you're asking me like, I don't know. Here, the thing is, man, that experience was so weird and so unique and so in some ways unsatisfying. I don't know that if that's blinding me to what is possible a second time around or rather than that I'm just going to get the exact same thing and I'm trying to delude myself and say, I don't know. The answer is I don't know.

I don't know how I feel about that. So unsatisfying. Check, check, check. Real quickly, so Triple G is going to fight Derevyanchenko. Saturday. Saturday at MSG. You know what was interesting about this one? I was thinking about it.

I was like, should fans get excited for it? I'm going to make the case that they should, Brian Campbell. I want to know what you have to say with him in just a second, but I'm going to make the case as follows. Folks may not remember this. Triple G was supposed to fight Derevyanchenko, what was it, about a year ago, right? August of 2018 or so. He went out and fought Van Ness Martirosyan.

Well, that was supposed to be Canelo. Canelo had the tainted meat, so Van Ness was a late minute replacement. Right. But because he did not get the exemption from the IBF, they actually ended up stripping him. Anyway, so they come back around and apparently the negotiations were contentious, admittedly over some frivolous stuff, but they were contentious. They've signed the fight kind of late.

The point being, though, is against Danny Jacobs, I thought Derevyanchenko looked pretty good. Lost the split decision. That was a good fight. And, by the way, after getting dropped, showed a ton of heart and commitment afterwards. It did not deter him at all. So my thought is, look, you've got two kind of bulls who come forward with this one. One with a much greater pedigree than the other one. Okay, but still, it's not like

Dorivy and Chinko are some scrub from the amateur circuit either. Good-ass fight, Luke. This is a sleeper fight. I'm saying, and it's much better than the initial... For example, when Canelo went to his first fight in the zone, it was like rocky fielding. It's like, dude, this is another fight. But this is... Triple G already had his first fight with Dazon in his back pocket.

This is now the second one. Look, I'm not saying it's as good as the third fight would be with Canelo. No, it's a great fight. It's a hell of a replacement. We already talked last week and in the previous weeks how Kovalev-Canelo to me is the perfect replacement since we're not getting the third Triple G-Canelo fight. Well, on the flip side, you're also getting Triple G back in a title

fight this weekend. It's the belt they stripped from Canelo that you mentioned because Canelo was talking to Derevyanchenko for a while. Derevyanchenko calls himself the technician. He's only got about 11, 12 fights, but in those, he's shown a hell of a lot. Gave Jacobs all he can handle. This will not be an easy test for Golovkin. There's some real suspense here from a guy in Derevyanchenko who can box, can punch, is durable, is tough.

But yet if Triple G wins, I know Canelo's still kind of being, I mean, the word wouldn't be bitch. That would be a bad word. Fans are saying, I don't believe it. But he's saying, Who are you, Trump? He's saying, Many people are saying.

He's saying, I still may never fight Triple G. Well, one of the reasons why he doesn't want to fight Triple G right now, he says, is because Triple G doesn't have a world title. He has nothing to bring to the table. He wins this title on Saturday. It would make a lot more sense to do this, the third fight next year. Canelo, Triple G, a unification bout, big business, all of that. Obviously, depending on what happens here with Kovalev and all that.

But really good fight, really good sleeper, hardcore fight. You want to check that out. Yeah, it is. And they have just a little bit of shared history. It's kind of interesting, these two. All right, so let's go back to MMA, if we can, just here for a second. UFC 243, Brian Campbell. Days away.

The UFC middleweight title will be unified between the existing champion, Robert Whitaker, and your interim champion, Israel Adesanya. We talked a little bit about this last week. By the way, that clip, I don't know if you went back and watched the views. Did you see the views for that clip on last week? I did not. It's the best clip we've ever put out in terms of views on our now burgeoning channel. Wow.

People were interested in it. Yep. They're like, enough of these dong jokes. Let's get down to fight breakdowns. Let's get down to some breakdowns. So here's the question for you. I'll actually pitch this one back to you if I can because I've done not one but two dissecteds on this, Brian Campbell.

Professor Salt-N-Pepa on fire. All right. Oh, you know, we didn't get to one last week, Jay. In any event, give me an X factor. Give me an X factor for either guy. What is something you're thinking about here for maybe either guy that you're not saying it necessarily will make the difference, but it could? Well, I think for Whitaker, it's very obvious to point to the inactivity.

16 months here, coming off of multiple sort of injuries and setbacks. Can he be the same guy in what you can look on paper and arguably say this could go down as the toughest fight of his career. Two 10 rounds with Yoel Romero is as tough as you're going to find. We're going to find out on Saturday if this qualifies under that same regard. But to come back to this level of fight with that kind of time off

is certainly very interesting. And I think without Asana, we don't know how great he can be. I think we kind of have a feeling how good, how great Robert Whitaker could be. Robert Whitaker is a great-ass fighter. He's incredibly tough. He is so durable, carries out a nice game plan, does a lot of things well, Luke.

But I think we figured out through 10 rounds with Romero, he's pretty damn great. Adesanya has that potential next-level ceiling here, and that is so intriguing to watch in this matchup. Can he do the same things to Whitaker that he has done to others? Who is going to get off first between these two and try to take the lead and make the other one be a counter puncher? If it's Whitaker

who does that, is Adesanya going to jump out and gain control of this fight by being the more dynamic, quicker handed guy to come out here? There's so many sort of X's and O's things I'm interested in finding out just as much as if both guys are dialed in and are just about even in terms of overall ability, we're going to have

five hellacious rounds here because Adesanya just went through the hell's oven there against Gastelum and passed with flying colors and he's fresher right now. I think suddenly Whitaker, who is the rightful favorite in my mind, has a little bit more to prove in this one. When you say Adesanya's fresher, you mean because of the time off between the last fight and this one?

Right, because he was just bouncing between camps essentially at that point. Yeah, I'll give you an X factor for both of them. You mentioned the time off. I'm actually going to say that cuts both ways. So on the one hand, with the time off for Whitaker, it's like, dude, you've had two fights in 26 months, and you're now 28 years old. That is a lot of time off. That is a lot of time off. That is a lot of time off.

And I realize some of it's due to injury, the last minute cancellation against Kelvin Gastelum, who could have foreseen hernia or whatever the situation was. These are going to be ring rust. The rule about ring rust is, Dominic Cruz says it doesn't exist. Well, it exists. But the key is, it only exists on most fighters, most fights, most of the time. Not every fighter, every fight, all the time. So the question is, does he have some ring rust?

Which intersects with the other part about that. Dude, when you go from 26 to 28, you're talking about the time any fighter's career, much less any elite champion, where they put together skills, camp over camp over camp. Case in point, Israel Adesanya, right? It's exactly what he was doing from 27, 28, 29.

Okay, so my point being is as follows. It could be the case that he has no ring rust. It could be the case that he has some ring rust. And at the same time, he's got a whole new bag of tricks we haven't even seen before. All the tape we're looking on him from was from over a year ago. And before that, a year before that. So my whole point being is when he comes out there, what setups is he going to have? What different there, what setups is he going to have? What different takedowns is he going to have? All these different pieces of the puzzle, he's never shown anyone,

there's no tape on, he could unleash that on Adesanya. That's an optimistic way to look at it, and I get that. I think it's somewhat, dude, you're talking about a, we're not talking about any old donk. We're talking about Robert Whitaker.

We're talking about Bobby damn Knuckles, yeah. We're talking about the very best middleweight, as we currently speak, in that division. I think it would be very foolish to discount his creative potential. I'll give you that, certainly. But when you're talking about ring rush, your biggest fear is timing. He would not need timing in any other fight in his career more than he would need it against Israel Adesanya. If this turns into a close-range chess match, a kickboxing match,

then this is going to be a style of fight he could potentially lose if that timing is off. But this is my point. If the idea is that he's going to show new wrinkles, again, one of the dissecteds is, what do we know about Whitaker's offensive wrestling? And the answer is, not much. But we do know, in his time off, he got good enough to

wrestle at international freestyle tournaments. If you want to wrestle against anyone, it's the guy who's good at kickboxing, or I should say who is great at kickboxing, who is good at wrestling. That's your peak moment and opportunity, and he's never really shown that this is a chance to flip the script. And to be fair, he was a headhunter for most of his early rise at middleweight

and really started to work in the leg kicks in the two Romero fights, and you'd have to think that's going to be a strategy that's going to be key against Adesanya. Last thing about Adesanya, don't you agree with this? His coach, Eugene Behrman, brought this up. Why is there a consistent and pervasive doubt about him? Every one of his opponents, from Wilkinson to Vittori to Brunson to less so Tavares, although Tavares a little bit, but then you go back to Anderson Silva, I guess, a little bit as well,

and then Kelvin Gaslam, certainly. They're all like, dude, he's not that good. And I'm like, well, no fighter is perfect, and he's got limits, and they're identifiable. But Newsflash, he's fucking awesome, actually. He's very good. Why can't they just say that? Because anytime you're flashy, and you're a trash talker, and you give the appearance like you might be somewhat one-sided, you're going to get haters who need to see and be critics first before they can be proven. He answered so many critics with the backbone he showed against Gastelum. We haven't seen anybody

take him down and make him pay for it yet. That could end up being a factor in this fight. Let's say Whitaker is not having the success on the feet. Let's say he's getting solved in that area. Will offensive wrestling be a big part of it? I think it will. It just seems like Adesanya is answering each question each time that he needs to. Let's not forget, Whitaker was also the underdog in like six of his last eight fights before winning the title.

So it kind of happens to everybody until you consistently prove it on the elite level. But how about this, Luke? Gastelum fought the fight of his life against Adesanya, correct? Up to that point. Not just in terms of heart. He's still young. But game plan wise. Up to that point.

You go back and watch that point. Not just in terms of heart, but game plan wise? Yeah, up to that point. You go back and watch that fight. Gastelum had a set game plan in the angles and the ways that he attacked. Is he potentially more dynamic of a threat than Whitaker was? Whitaker's a better fighter than Gastelum, all well-rounded. And one thing the Reaper does is he will outlast you. He will grit and get through it. But is the game plan and the potential offense that he brings to the table really not as dynamic as what we just saw from Gastelum in the fight of his life?

No, I disagree. There is, to be sure, it was not that I was not sold on Kelvin Gastelum. I always knew he was good. But after the Adesanya fight, I looked at him and said, I have misjudged him. He is much better than I thought he is. Much, much better. I really came out of that fight thinking very highly of him.

On the other hand, what makes Adesanya what he is? It is the level of advancement. So, again, one of the things I did for Dissected is fainting. Fainting is, you know, in boxing, it's so common you almost take it for granted. I won't say it's absent in MMA, but it's not universal, and guys aren't nearly as good at it. Adesanya is incredible at it. And you take someone else who's also good at it, it's absent in MMA, but it's not universal, and guys aren't nearly as good at it. Adesanya is incredible at it. And you take someone else who's also good at it, is Robert Whitaker.

There's a degree of technical advancement to Robert Whitaker, where is he the marauder that Kevin Gastelum is? Is he willing to put more offense together in quick spaces? He's a little more meat and potatoes than Kevin Gastelum. I would actually say it's the opposite. I would actually say those blitzes that he has are perfectly timed, covers distance quickly, full of trickery. Who's got more

trickery in their game, right? Who makes you look this way while they go that way? It's Robert Whittaker. Robert Whittaker does a lot more of that. But the question is, when you meet your match and someone who can do that, how does that play out? And I guess I just don't know the answer to that. And I think when you look statistically, when you get real nerd heavy, Adesanya doesn't get hit a whole ton.

Whitaker absorbs more punishment in these fights. He went in there against Romero and fought in the dungeon for many of those rounds and came out on top. I want to verify that, but go ahead. How much, if Adesanya is able to slip and counter and get consistent in that, will we see Whitaker have to go to a plan B that we've never

seen before? These are a lot of intriguing things. I know there's a lot of haters watching this going, Adesanya's not the real, he's going to get pummeled. I really like Adesanya's chances in this. To me, it's like if you don't take either of them seriously, I don't know what they can do at this point. Is it a legit 50-50 pick-em? Well, which way are you leaning, actually?

Let's ask that. I'm leaning Adesanya. Is that right? Yeah. I think he has more to show us that we haven't seen to go to an even higher level. It's just, to me, it's like, what's better? All that time off, and then developing a bunch of skills, and then getting a chance to show us that we haven't seen to go to an even higher level. It's just, to me, it's like, what's better? All that time off and then developing a bunch of skills and then getting a chance to show it when there's been no tape on it?

Or back to back to back to back to back with a quick break at the last interval and then bringing all that to bear? Which is a better way to get ready for this kind of a life challenge? I guess we're going to find out. Eileen Adesanya, too, but I've been an Adesanya homer, so I'm not reliable. See, I haven't, and I've come around to such a... Is that right? Well, no, it's really so exciting to watch, but the idea

of believing that we're seeing a truly special talent who's only getting better and only has even more in the tank and tricks to show us that we haven't seen. I see. I mean, seriously, sitting cage side for that fight against Gastelum, I mean, that was one of the better experiences as a journalist or combat sports fan of all time,

and it really opened my eyes to, we don't even know how great he can be, whereas Whittaker's damn great. Love him. I'll give you something. Gastelum was more in Adesanya's face. I don't know that Whittaker will do that. Whittaker might give him a little bit of room.

Who's going to end up being the counter-striker in the end? Adesanya. And that's where he's going to have it. That's going to play into his hands. A little bit, yeah. Also, if he waits too long with someone with the speed of Whitaker, it could be problems. To me, it's like you've got two of the very best in their athletic primes. It's amazing.

Are you expecting an absolutely insane atmosphere there? Oh. I mean, this is an all-oceanic hard-on. This is amazing, right? I mean, there's going to be kangaroos in the audience. This is a knife. Koalas, yeah. Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee is going to be there.

The whole bit. Can we get a Campbell's 80's reference coming up? By the way, we have a camera guy speaking. Your 80's and 90's references, our camera guy over here, he must get none of them. Do you get any of the 90's references you get? You do? Some of them? Alright.

You're going to put Jake on the table here and call him out? I'm going to burn him because I didn't say his name. You did. You're out here outing whistle blowers. I don't know what you're doing that for. Can anyone see less than Jake right there when he was like... Raise your hand Jake because they can see you on camera. Raise your hand. There he is.

So while we're warming up here, just full fourth wall renewal here in this nice bomb shelter, we play a little rock music to get fired up. Sit your eyes down. How do you do? How do you work it? And Luke says, hey Jake, take this ish off. What was being played at the moment? Was it Godsmack? No.

What was it? Alice. No, no, no. The shit you were playing. Oh, Disturb. Disturb. Oh, and Luke's like, get this new metal shit off my airwaves. Why don't you put on Alice in Chains?

And Jake's like, how do you spell that? Allison? Yeah, he was like, which Allison? And why is Chains a last name? And I was like how old he's like 25 I'm like well you know what yeah dude how famous do you have to be to have generational turnover the answer is I have no fucking clue like I guess Beatles the Beatles only what can you name two Beatles songs yeah give me two to beatle songs oh fuck it he knows all the Beatles how do you not know Alice in Chains man not your genre you playing disturbed I mean this is

kind of your genre a little bit it's kind of close he's like you know what he's like I'm like I like rock music oh yeah you like like didn't like the stones no motherfucker I like Nickelback yeah I'm a nickelback doing it all for the nookie Canada all right all, let's get back on track. Last topic before we get to our DMs and donks and all the other stuff. Important news over the last week. Daniel Cormier has revealed that he is going to be, well, he wants to, anyway, take on Stipe Miocic for a third time. Now, if he does, A, it'll be his third fight, or sorry, it'll be the third fight. B, his last fight. And C, it probably won't take place until 2020

because apparently Miocic has some kind of lingering eye issue from their last contest. Now, we don't know how Miocic feels about this. Yeah, he stuck his finger in his eye. There's a damaged retina. Fair enough. But we don't know exactly how Miocic feels about this. He has not weighed in on it publicly that I'm aware of. Okay, but let's assume that he takes it.

Let's just assume they find a way to make it. The question is, is there reason to believe that a third fight between Cormier and Miocic would be different than the first or the second, right? Would it be its own kind of fight, or at least different than the second one? I'm going to say the answer is yes. Now, there is not, that's not me saying... That's not a hard answer, Luke. That's not a hard question. Actually, it's a really important question. The people who, if you have a trilogy, and there is space between the first and second fight, not always,

but often, the fighter who wins the second fight is the fighter who ends up winning the third one, right? Because you have shown that whatever happened in the first one, it wasn't illegitimate, but that if you get chances to make adjustments, who makes the better adjustments? And you only have... It's an interesting, I've never heard that put that way. But you're saying, so typically the winner of fight two always wins fight one. No, no, no, not always.

But it happens a lot only when there is space between fight one and fight two. So in other words, you had Dillashaw rebound right away. Not rebound, but you had Cody Garbert rebound right away against Dillashaw. It was too close together. There was no time to make adjustments. But if there's time to make adjustments and there's time to grow and someone gets a little bit older in this particular case, it doesn't mean that I think Miocic is guaranteed to

win the third or that Cormier is, but that when you have a chance to make adjustments, that's different because here's what folks don't realize. You don't have an infinite possibility to make adjustments. There's only really, I won't say it's a finite amount, but it's a fairly narrow subset of things you can do differently. Here's why I think the third fight deserves to happen. One, it's kind of important for, I think, for Cormier, which I'm sympathetic to. It is bad in the sense that if he wins, he just drops the title.

That is a problem for me. But I'll say this. He didn't wrestle optimally. He didn't even establish the takedown threat. And you mean to tell me that they can't find a way around the body shots? I mean, the answer is maybe they can't because he had that dipping issue that Jones always took advantage of. But for me, Brian Campbell, between the ability to make an adjustment for that

and then to reestablish, even if you don't get the takedown, reestablish a takedown threat, that to me makes the third fight intriguing. Yeah, this is an absolute no-brainer. I mean, I'm not going to come out here and be that guy again and Steve Bray didn't win the fight. DC lost it, even though there's a lot of truth in that. You tried. There's a lot of truth in that.

The theme of that is just what you're saying. Stopped wrestling after round one, but even more importantly, stopped listening to his corner, walked into oncoming traffic with no fear or respect for Stipe's power. DC has been documented. He's talked about this. Him coming back with a much smarter game plan, and now with what's at stake in this fight, when I heard him on ESPN talking and saying that

my wife even is behind this, I gotta come back for one more, I can't leave it the way it is, Luke, I was giddy like a schoolgirl, I was giddy like a fanboy, because do you know what's at stake now in this fight? This makes this third fight, look, I had wanted Jones DC3, right? Shout it out right here. I wanted Jones DC3 so badly because I was going to make that hipster argument that this is the most important fight in UFC history.

And had DC not lost to Stipe, it probably would have been. This fight's not more important than that could have been, but in just the heavyweight history, this is the biggest heavyweight fight in history. I think you can argue that this is even bigger than the last great super heavyweight fight in history. I think you can argue that this is even bigger than the last great super heavyweight fight in history before this, which was in Pride, and it was

Fedor, and it was Krokop. I mean, just in terms of what's at stake for their careers at this moment. The idea that in this, everything's got to be the GOAT. In this fight, the winner is the greatest heavyweight of all time in UFC history, and for DC, you really repair that hole from that last

fight, and he can walk away with a hellaciously good resume. And I wouldn't be upset at him leaving the title and walking away because this is a guy who's been so great for the sport and would so deserve it. It does create problems for that division. I'm not worried about his body attack. He fell into that body attack because he gassed himself

and fought a stupid game plan and allowed himself to get lit up with punches. This third fight, stylistically given the mistakes that Stipe made in the first and DC made in the second, has potential to be completely different. It has potential to be hellacious. And there's so much history at stake on the line. Tell me a fight that has had this much at stake. Just seriously, straight up. Well, so the issue is, it is super rare for the last fight of your career to be

arguably your most important, or certainly one of enormous significance relative to your reputation. So for example, the body of work that St. Pierre had turned in was so good that had he lost the Michael Bisping fight, maybe it wouldn't have mattered. But the upside was so enormous that if you can come back from a four-year sabbatical, jump up a weight class, and then grab a title, dude, you are going to be in the annals of history as one of the tops if you already were. So the point being for me is you almost never see someone where they come down to the wire. And I won't say this would undermine his body of work, but it would reframe some of it if he can't get it done against Stipe. The whole framing was, again, second best in college, fourth of the Olympics. You take your pick, backseat to Kane, can't beat Jones, then he goes up to heavyweight.

The whole argument was, well, if Kane's not there, DC's the guy. He may have been the greatest all along, we just didn't know it. Okay, and the whole thing gets reframed. If you lose to Stipe twice, then it begins to follow that same narrative over and over. Conversely, if you win, it's like, oh, wait a second. He finally, he always persevered, but he would really ascend to the top of something special

beyond what he already has if he can get it done. You almost never find somebody in the last fight of their career having to face questions like that. That is exceedingly rare in boxing, frankly, or MMA. Most fighters, as you know, they go out on their stool or they go out on their hands and knees or a stretcher or some sad press conference. Or they go down with stool.

I mean, you can double. Why are you here? I'm teasing. All right. With that said, it is time now to get to your questions. DMs with Donks. I post a photo every Sunday on my Instagram account, LukeThomasNews, and you guys leave comments and then the donks around here pick them for us.

So let's go to DMs from donks if we can. Ready for this one, Brian Campbell? Yeah, let's do it. Make sure I got the right one here. Yes. Okay, does the winner of Masvidal versus Diaz get a title shot? How would you see that going down against either Usman or Colby? By the way, thanks for the best MMA show out there. It is the best MMA show out there.

Combat sports show. I mean, why stick it just to MMA? Fair enough, Brian Campbell. Fair enough. Go ahead. Add Jason Desiquito? Jason Sudoku, I'm going to say. All right. Yeah, I think that the star power involved in this Masvidal-Diaz matchup is so huge and the potential on such a high platform. New York City, Madison Square Garden, a pay-per-view main event non-title, BMF, all that business.

I think you kind of have to, Luke. I think you have to take the winner and give them that opportunity to face the winner of Usman and Colby, which will be UFC 245 December 14th. Three title fights. Can't wait for that. And I think they have a shot at winning. The final four that you have now at Welterweight is insane.

This is great. No, I don't like Diaz or Masvidal's chances against Colby or Usman. I don't like their chances at all. I won't say at all. I just don't like them. Here's what's funny. How is this a question? What I mean to say is the following. Do we really think that...

Whatever else you think about the BMF. Okay. They're branding themselves bad as a motherfucker. They're two excellent fighters. And they're going to fight like dogs. Right? Winter's going to... I mean, at Madison Square Garden, they're going to hoist that thing.

The Rock is going to put a belt around them. Just think about the atmosphere. I want you to go there in your mind right now. It's going to sell out. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be full of people who want to see two real dudes get after it and I have no doubt they're going to do exactly that. Now I don't know who's going to win but that's what it's going to be. You mean to tell me after you get the belt wrapped around you and you go to the press conference and there's going to be tons of New York media there and you declare how bad you are and how awesome you are and what's going to be tons of New York media there and you declare how bad you are and how awesome you are and what's going to be next, they're going to give the

shot to Leon Edwards? Yeah, I mean... Really? I mean, how is this even a question? I mean, the first question is who else would be in line? Leon Edwards and who else? Nobody else. I mean, I want you to just imagine the atmosphere and the buzz and the celebrity and then the

outsized personality that's going to take over for the winner and you think... I'm not questioning the call of the uh... the the the comment here i'm to be said is generally speaking how on earth would they give it to a little asking this is there any chance the winner of that fight because it's such a rare unique situation where just seem to real dudes for a big bmf title in the fund that goes around it actually makes it more important than actual title fight is there any way that they would look down at facing the winner of Usman Covington,

either because they think both of them aren't big enough stars, or they're thinking in their heads, that's a tough-ass stylistic fight. Why am I necessarily chasing that? What I should be doing is maximizing my marketing potential and calling out Conor or Habib. That's the only X factor. The X factor is if the BMF guy doesn't want it, well, then the whole game changes. Right? The whole game changes, right? The whole game changes.

But if the BMF guy comes out there and says, I want next, I got next, I want to have one BMF belt here and one championship gold here, and I want to prove the buff, well, then I just don't. How do you deny? The amount of inertia pushing them forward, it'll be impossible to deny. But you're right. If they go out there and say, I want St. Pierre, if they go out there and they say, I want Habib or a catchweight or whatever the case is,

or Conor, then it gets dicey. And if Conor gets on Twitter, which he always does, after a fight and says, I got BMF next, dude, it's going to be over. That's the only wrinkle. But again, if the BMF person calls it out, it's over. Dana, wake up. Thank you for the BMF title. It cannot be one and done.

Keep this crap going. All right. Are we seeing a wave of old fighters, 30 to 35 plus, starting or moving into their prime in MMA scene, naming Kananier and Madsen as a couple of examples in this weekend's UFC opening? You think that's a trend, Luke, or you think it's special circumstances? Well, certainly Madsen's a special circumstance. I would say it's going to be a couple of things. One, if you had an athlete from a previous career who's matriculating, and that previous career is something where you have these worldwide participatory rates, like it's an amateur sports system, like a judo or whatever,

and they don't have too many miles on them, and obviously they're going to be a tremendous athlete, then that would make it possible. Kananir's a really rare case where all this time the dude was maybe really good and never maximized it because of his inability to train in an elite place and get the right weight class. Those are rare things. I would actually say in general, here's the reality. If you really want to introduce heavy anti-doping and it ends up being at all effective, which still remains to be seen, if it does anything, it'll...

I said this on Dissected. It's like there was a scene there from the... What, a show with some PED talk? Never heard of it. There was a scene there with Jeff Novitsky getting on his feet and clapping, which I would have clapped to when Gastelum gets hit with a triangle from Adesanya. And they both roll up and scramble. He's like standing up. And I'm thinking to myself, Brian Campbell, what is more natural than fist fighting another man for 25 minutes?

When I think about things that are just meant to be in nature, it is the fist fighting of two humans for half an hour. I'm sure that that's a natural thing, but okay. Neither here nor there. The point being is this. I would actually say it's going to trend younger. It's going to trend a little bit younger. You're going to see guys getting in earlier and getting out earlier with the exception of athletes who have a career and are still so good that they can come over and have a second life or people who just kind of figured it out late. But in general, no, I'd actually say it's going to trend except for heavyweight those heavyweights they all hit 40 it appears um anything different on that one or no no no i have nothing to add luke how about that how about what's good to you on this one because it's

relevant to your one of your jobs what's worse brian campbell incompetent mma judge or corrupt judges or corrupt boxing judges from G. Guwo macaroni. Yeah. Guwop macaroni. Guwop macaroni. It's kind of the same thing. They both are awful.

But obviously corruption is worse than ineptitude in my eyes. Let me ask you this. How often do people just look at a decision they don't understand, which could be defensible, and they go, corruption? Yeah, corruption has been an easy way to cover up just differences in opinion. I mean, let's not forget somebody at this table thought Thurman almost did enough to beat Pacquiao. So sometimes it's just in the eye of the beholder in the seat you're watching. But I mean, look, did you see on this pay-per-view undercard of Spence Porter when unbeaten 140

prospect Mario Barrios is in there and it's an action fight. Did you see this against... Oh, Bakhtir. Bakhtir. You know, I can't remember the name at the moment. He had like a 116-111 scorecard. I was like, what? This guy's fighting his life against Barrios and he's draining on the gas tank. And the whole time everybody at ringside is going, watch, he's going to get screwed.

Watch, he's going to get screwed. Why? Because the other guy is the unbeaten house product, prospect and all this and we're talking about a foreign guy who has no promoter and doesn't have a network deal and that's unfortunately that's boxing so that's worse than anything Luke that's where how many times have I been at a giant boxing pay-per-view in Vegas in this big event that's supposed to bring in the casuals and get my friends who are annoyed at me talking about boxing to finally care and then you get another mailed in

pre-recorded scorecard favoring the more, you know, the money guy. Yeah, that's way worse than watching an MMA fight, in my eye, than watching an MMA fight and going, oh yeah, the judge screwed that one up. How the hell could he give that 10-8? I would just say that in general, I don't know how much of a problem corruption, as it's commonly understood, is, like judges being bought off or letting nationalistic pride objectively take over. I would actually say in MMA and boxing, corruption is not the one I would be looking at. It's incompetence or just

a relative lack of ability. Judging is hard. And there's a lot of people like Adelaide Byrd. I mean, how many bad... CJ Ross and these people who sit on these posts. It's like the Supreme Court. They just sit on these posts for years handing out fucked up scorecards. It's really. These people who sit on these posts, it's like the Supreme Court, they just sit on these posts for years handing out fucked up scorecards. It's really affecting people's lives and money. Their ability to make money, their health, yeah.

To me, that is a much more pervasive problem. Here's the thing about corruption. You need evidence to prove corruption. Where's your paper trail of money? I'm not saying it never happens. I'm sure it happens every year. But incompetency, you can see that right in front of your eyes. You don't need a paper trail for that. The paper trail is the scorecard. Well, the problem is that there's so much perceived corruption in boxing that anytime

it's just incompetency, it just gets labeled as corruption, then it's one big gross soup. All right. So this one goes to both of us. What is your number one hangover cure? By the way, I did not pick these. Is that John Riggins by the way? I like how the people at Showtime picked these and then sent them to me. I don't know what you're saying Showtime. I don't know if I like this message. Luke, I know you have a few.

That's great work there. Yeah, I'll say, what's your number one hangover cure? Like if your head is hanging off but you still have to go to work. Luke, I know you have a few. This is at Riggins. This is at John Riggins. John Riggins under the table. John Riggins upset with the Skins game yesterday.

Number one, hangover cure. Well, bro, I got to tell you, at 40, there is no hangover cure. Yeah. See, once you get old balls, it's a Russian roulette. I mean, I could have a glass and a half of wine with the wife watching a sitcom and go to bed at 9 and end up with a javelin stick out of my hand. Dude, if I don't drink enough water during the day and I have like three microbrewery beers, you wake up with a raging headache. If I go on the fruity side of the IPA and you've got some extra ingredients in there, it just f's me up. That's what you get for drinking IPAs.

Well, no. The premise of the question is things you can do. IPAs are for people. For people who have taste of craft and engineering. It's for basic bitches, really, is who it's for. That's the exact opposite of what a great IPA is. No, that's exact. That's exact.

IPAs, there are a couple of good IPAs. IPAs. People who say there are a couple of good IPAs are people who don't drink IPAs and can't hear Jimmy and don't understand. I drink plenty of IPAs. I try. Come to New England, Luke, the home of the IPA. Buddy, New England overrates their own microbreweries. Have you waited in line at Treehouse Brewing in Massachusetts

and tasted the sauce? Do you understand why IPAs are so ubiquitous across microbreweries? Because you've taken shitty ones off the store shelf in D.C. and you think that speaks for the whole wide range, right? You do not know what I do. You don't know who you're speaking to right now. You clearly do not know the depth to which we can take this conversation. Dude, what happened about 10 years ago was there was a hops race among beer makers.

What they tried to do was just dump it in there. So, for example, remember 10 years ago when they had like Dogfish Head, 90-minute IPA? Then they had 120-minute IPA. Do you know why they made 120 minutes? Just to go like this in all their customers' faces. And you were first in line, I guarantee you. This hop tastes great! This is really good! It's just an

arms race. Now, what they've done more recently is, to your point, they've incorporated more floral and fruity elements. They've dialed way back on the number of hops. There are levels to this. I'm only talking about the top shelf right now. I understand. I'll give a shout out to them. There is a brewery in my own neighborhood called Right Proper. They make a Belgian style IPA that is phenomenal.

Don't misunderstand me. First of all, if you're drinking Belgian style IPA, you're an asshole. Because Belgian is the worst. Whoa, I'm a huge asshole. They're the worst style of beer. Belgian style? Are you kidding? Why don't we put a stick of butter inside the bottle here?

You don't like Belgian style? You mean the world leaders in beer making? Are you out of your fucking mind? Belgian style is the worst. I was getting on him for like a Nickelback. You are Nickelback. I will stand and fight that, okay? You have the Nickelback of beer palates.

Number two, dude, come to New England, all right? Go to, you know what I'm saying? Go to Vermont. Go to Maine. Get the real IPAs. Dude, you are the guy who shows up with the frozen octagon pizza and you think that that shit is... No, no, no.

This shit is slamming, don't you? You're not the real. This is the wrong... If you don't like Belgian beers, there is no hope for you. You are vermin. I mean, I have taste for actual craft beer. You don't have taste for anything. They are the world leaders.

Dude, Trapeze beer made by the monks? Do you know what they do in other countries in Europe and Asia? They build statues for people like Michael Jackson and they worship in front of it. David Hasselhoff can have a music career and be a star in Germany afterwards. So you're going to try to say, well, just because the rest of the world... This isn't a soccer argument here.

Just because the rest of the world gets down on some shitty-ass Belgian beer. No, dude. Name three Belgian beers. That's not the... No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't dodge. Name three Belgian beers. No, no, no. Don't dodge. Name three Belgian beers. I've had the very best. I've done the Delirium. I actually went to Delirium

Cafe in Brussels. I've had their entire... Dude, I love the shit out of Delirium. That's the best of the Belgian. That is the middle of the road for Belgian, if anything. That's not even close to their best. Dude, you are super wrong on this one. I'm not.

I'm really not. Here's the deal. I'm not telling you New England doesn't have good beers. They got good beers. And I'm not telling you you haven't had good beers. Okay, but it's not even good. They're setting the trend for the country. Now, unless you live in some...

Colorado's micro-brew game? Very good. Very good. They put everyone... Including my neck in the woods. Okay, there's some parts of California where it's insanely good. But seriously, come to Vermont, Massachusetts, and and Maine and then we can have this conversation. Throw down the gauntlet.

Give me two beers that I need to try from your neck of the woods. Give me two. Anything on the Treehouse lineup? Orange Julius? Treehouse lineup? Purple Haze? I mean, you got to try that. You got to go to, I mean, look, there's some Maine Brewing Company will change your life.

All right, all right. So what we're going to do is, next week, can you pick some up and we try some on the air? See, I'm talking about beer so good that you have to go in a lot of cases. You have to go there and get it. Either deliver the goods or don't deliver the goods. We'll do it on the air. Yeah? Okay.

Okay. And what I will do is. You mean next week when I'm in Jamaica? We'll do it. It'll be great. Are you not here next week? No. No.

Come on. All right. Well, okay. The next time you're back, we're going to do that. I'll bring back some Red Stripe for you. We'll have a real gong off. All right. The spirit of this question, though, is a hangover cure.

I don't want to say this out loud because it breeds up bad conversations, but what's my number one hangover cure? Stretching out a coat hanger and sticking it down my throat. Purging. You want that shit out of your body, okay? You want it out. You want all the problems from the night before out. That's how you begin a hangover cure, okay?

Yeah, I like greasy food. I like getting a kale smoothie. I like doing all that stuff. But give me a nice hot shower. Let me throw up and take a nap. I'll be back in the game, all right? That sounds like a healthy way to deal with your problems. My guess is that's not the only problem

where you recommend barfing as the solution. I would say, honestly, if you can handle it, because sometimes the hangovers are so bad you can't manage it. Yeah. If the hangover is manageable enough to get a good sweat and then to go shower, like rehydrate, get a good sweat out, go back, go shower, get a meal under you. People say the greasy meal. I don't know if I agree with the greasy meal. The theme of the question was if you had to go back to work, and that's another conversation. If you were just trying to survive on a Sunday at home, there are a lot of different factors

you can use. There are some herb factors you can use as well. Yeah, you can do that. And then ramen. I would have like a soup, right? There's a soup that my wife makes. I think the term for it is levante de muertos, like raising the dead. Oh, nice.

Right? Because you eat the soup, it's full of salt and whatever, and it kind of brings you back to life a little bit. I know the rock stars like Pedialyte. I like a nice acai shake, like a nice power shake to kind of shake things up. Honestly, when I was 25, I would just wake up, sweat it out, I'd be fine. At 40, bro, there's... Purge.

Just purge. No, don't. Take that back. We'll edit that out in the post. All right. And last but not least, out of all the combat athletes this weekend, why does Brian have such bad taste in beer? Sorry, I meant to say, who had the most successful performance and why

of all combat athletes this weekend, Brian Campbell? I almost want to say Sean Porter, and it's kind of a stupid hipster argument, but he fought at such an elite level and pushed Errol Spence to the absolute limit, had the best night of his life in a losing effort. All the reasons I just said earlier. But how about I go to the co-main event of that card. I was going to bring this up later in Odds and Ends. But David Benavidez won back his WBC super middleweight title over

a trusty veteran there in Anthony Durrell, the dog. We know Benavidez had lost the title because of a little Bugar Sugar. I mean, look, when you're young, sometimes it happens. He's only 22. He might be the best super middleweight in the game. And when you look at the assets in the PBC, you know PBC, they've got half of the great fighters in the sport. He might be right up there with Deontay Wilder,

Errol Spence, and Manny Pacquiao in terms of the best, most important assets moving forward for the PBC. 22-year-old, big for 168, can brawl punches and bunches, and they are building a long-term kind of super fight-ish. Do you speak Caleb Plant? Are you in on this guy?

Sweet Hands? You know who we're talking about here? Yeah, I saw his last fight. He's a world title holder at 168. He's a pure boxer. Benavidez is a stand-and-trade guy. There's a long-term fight to make here. I know I didn't give the guys in the back enough time to put up the highlights here

of David Benavidez, but he had a big win. Got a cut over Durrell's eye. Finished him. Watch that guy. Watch that guy in the future. All right. Very good. I will go with, and I'll do a little bit more of this in Odds and Ends.

I'm going to go with Gordon Ryan. Gordon Ryan got double gold at ADCC 2019 this year, which is, I won't say unheard of, because Andre Galvao did it in 2011 and you've had other people medal twice in both or medal once in absolute and then medal once in their weight class but to do it in the same year he submitted six of eight opponents the only two who survived were Hulk

who got his back taken and then Boucher who could do basically nothing to him who is a huge man one weight class above him it was amazing to watch what he could do. And he is calling himself the no-gi goat. I don't know that that is true necessarily. But, dude, it was weird to watch him.

I've been watching ADCC for so many years. He would just, he sets up a leg entanglement, and then it is as if everyone who gets in there is in quicksand. It doesn't matter where they post a hand. It doesn't matter where they place an instep. It doesn't matter where they post a hand. It doesn't matter where they place an instep. It doesn't matter where they place their weight. He just either finds a leg lock or finds their back and it's over now. You get off on this stuff.

Well, I see you smirking. Here's the thing. I know I tweeted a thousand tweets about it over the weekend, which I'm sure had to be annoying, but as I said on Twitter, I don't deny that my ADCC tweets were annoying. This is what you donkeys get for your pro wrestling tweets. This is like embryonic fighting. So many MMA journos just flood Twitter with their dumbass pro wrestling tweets.

And I was flooding with my dumbass ADCC tweets. My tweets are just as bad. What's worse? They're just as bad. Me watching simulated fighting that's theater with pomp and circumstance and acting and all and toughness and athleticism. Or you watching embryonic fighting that's like, let me create a new genre of adult films. All we do is kiss.

It's called the Hallmark Channel. I already have that one. Like, when are we going to see some action here, you know? No, nothing. No wonder you don't like Belgian beers, you Philistine. No wonder. You got the palate of a toddler. Hey, Luke, have you seen this shit at all?

Are we ready for this? Yes, let's do it. Let's do viral videos for the week. We want to start off. Look, we combed the globe. We're combing the desert, and we have found shit here. Let me ask you a question about this. Do you put this together?

I do put this together. Okay, all right. We start in Combate, America, Guadalajara. Donnie Matos, get ready. You're about to get short-circuited. You got Johnny Fived. Here it comes, Luke. You didn't set this up right.

I didn't set this up well at all. Yes, disassemble. Wow. Donnie Maytoast, a big one. You get off on combat title? Yeah. Are you waiting for the Tito Ortiz? Referee Jason Herzog.

Looks like he's consoling the guy. I think he's actually reviving him. I mean, I think like, can we get off the paddles? Wow. Let's see this one more time. So it's the right hook? See, my dad told me don't mess around with hookers. They'll take your money, then they'll take your soul.

Right here, Luke. Steps out, creates an angle. Oh, Jesus. Wow. Well, you know what? He didn't do the testifying in church bit. You know what that is? No.

Testifying in church is when the head snaps back and then the hands come up. Oh, yeah. He didn't testify in church. Well, what Donnie Matos' opponent should have had was some good training. Let's go to have you seen this shit number two. Luke, if you ever find yourself on the streets of D.C. and you get in a knife fight, look at the moves on this guy. Look at him.

So if anyone's ever coming at you slowly with a knife, your best bet probably be to wear a padded bra, a blockade if you're this guy, or number two, just turn real slowly, point it at your dong. Wait, Luke, what is going on? No, the trick to getting out of a knife situation is just to be a fat fuck. Wow! Look at the unit on this.

Luke, what is happening right here? So just... It honestly looks like someone is trying to, like, with a finger, poke like a whale. God, even Steven Seagal with his belly right now has faster hands than this guy. Look at this man's face. He's just bored with your bull ass.

So if an elderly woman. Every one of them. Every one of them is built like this. If an elderly woman attacks you, okay, that's all you have to do, Luke. It's just, yeah, all righty, all righty. That's hilarious. Let's go on to the next one here. Have you seen this shit, Luke?

Alright, we're in glory. Alex Panetta. Last guy to knock out Anderson Silva, he became the first glory champ champ. Oh, champ champ in glory. Call him Chris Hansen because he just learned how to catch a predator right there, Luke. Oh, Chris Hansen, I was just here to have pizza with the girl. Bro, she's 13, you're a dirt hole, alright? You'll be doing time with the subway guy Bro, she's 13. You're a dirt hole, all right?

You'll be doing time with the subway guy. What a performance here from Alex Pereira. Why am I not surprised you have watched endless hours of To Catch a Predator? Look at this. Blues Traveler taught me that the hook will bring you back. That guy's not coming back. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You like that?

You get down on that? You're a 90s reference. Is Todd Grisham on that movie call? Oh, shouts to Todd Grisham. Todd Grisham going full on Luke Thomas Salt-N-Pepa. He said he talked to Bruce Buffer about it.

The ladies like it that way. He's embracing it. He's going for it. I'm still kind of coloring it out. I'm a little behind this week. The answer is that's true,

but ask him which kind of ladies. Well, that's a separate podcast there. Todd Grisham's Love Life. All right, let's keep it moving here on Have You Seen This Shit?

Lower level MMA. It's Dirtbag Carnival MMA. Dude, is this a battle of the juggalos? Look, that's what you get for kicking the dong. Double dong kick KO. Look at the guy in the green hair. He's trying. He's trying.

Instant karma is going to get you. They're battling over which Insane Clown Posse song is their favorite. I love that this guy is trying to gut it out. If they let the video play. This is you and me arguing over beer. Yes. Have you ever seen real bottom barrel MMA? Oh, buddy, I go to regional MMA all the time.

Oh, my God. Serious question. When was the last time you went to a regional show? I have never. Do they sell beer or meth? What are you getting down with? It depends. What are they selling in the parking lot?

Oh, look at Double Dong Kale. Even Matt Mitrione is uncomfortable watching this. Wow, yeah. That is amazing. Yeah. Do they each get, is it 10 minutes or is it just 5 minutes starting now? I think the fight's over.

I'd just wave the fight off at this point. That's incredible. Regional MMA, you will see some ass. If you get a haircut like that and bring it into a cage, you're liable. What are you saying? You can't have a nice haircut like that? The video plays out. This guy tries to get up.

He goes down one more time. You can't recover from that, Luke. Which one gets kicked again? The guy on the left, the guy in the green hair. He tries to get up at the end of the video and he goes down again. You can't make it. He's done. Yeah, he's cooked. Yeah, alright. Hey, let's finish up here.

I don't know if you saw the weigh-in for UFC Copenhagen this week. I did. Ajan Kutalaba? Kutalaba, yeah. Against Khalil Rountree. Is this acceptable? If you're Rountree, should you be allowed and encouraged to punch back when somebody does this to you?

Let's see. Screaming like that? That's how Monday screams at me when I hit the alarm clock. That's me. This is me waking up my alarm. That's my alarm every time to get up to come to New York City to do this. Is that acceptable? That's crossing the line. That is crossing the line.

That dude, Kute Laba, boy, he is caffeinated. Yeah. He's caffeinated. Every time he's dressing up like the Hulk, he's screaming in Roundtree's face. Walking around like he's got a big election, just swinging it around. Speaking of. To circle back to Kutaylaba, do you ever see Cannoneer walk him down? Remember that when he was at Light Heavyweight?

I don't remember that. Cannoneer got the crazy eyes and then walked Kutaylaba down and beat him. It's one of the all-time great moments of Cannoneer. Did he pronounce it Ion? Or is it some weird European I-on? Yeah, I don't know. We've had some fun with pictures the last few weeks, Luke. I dug deep for this one.

You want to see intensity? I know what you're going to show. Speaking of MMA face-offs, look at this. Polish regional MMA. You want to see the intensity of their faces? Luke, they're like nose-to-nose. They're like mouth-to-mouth here. They're literally smooching. But if you zoom out a little bit in the back. Whoa!

Tip to tip action. Just for a second. Just to see how it feels. Luke, look at that intensity. Look at that right there. That's like a ying and a yang thing. They make movies about this, Luke. That's incredible.

You know what? They're bonded for life, bro. I mean, how fired up are these guys, Luke? I don't know whether we're gonna fight or F I mean this is great right they're out here touching dicks this is a sequel to chef right yeah right no I want you to know no matter how happy I get with the show we're not touching dicks bro ever I like you. You're a nice guy.

We're not. Wow. By the way, full story. I've been trying to get that. Let me tell this. Let me tell this. So we used to do a show called The MMA Beat. Rest in peace.

Great show. Like, Brian had been on the show. When did you start doing the show? August of 2018. He comes in maybe two weeks after doing it. Because we did odds and ends on that version of the show too. I called that, but more or less. On his phone, he was like, did you see this picture?

These guys are touching dicks. He would go, and after every show, he'd be like, dude, is this the kind of show where we can talk about guys touching dicks? And I'm like, Brian, I don't think that's a good idea. Sure enough, without my knowledge, he brings it on this show. Look, if you're a fighter and you're going to bring that kind of intensity to a fight, that's what morning combat's all about. I mean, look where we are right now. I got another show I got to do.

Odds and ends. What's your odds and ends? My odds and ends is this Saturday at Showtime. We got Clarissa Shields back in the ring. And look, the two-time Olympic gold medalist. And I know that at times men's boxing fans are like, I don't get down with this women's boxing. But here's the deal on Shields is back in the ring. And look, the two-time Olympic gold medalist. And I know that there's at times men's boxing fans like, oh, get down with this women's boxing. But here's the deal on Shields.

She is embraced from day one that she's the face of the sport and she's willing to do whatever it takes to prove she's the greatest of all time. Won titles at 168 in like her second fight. Unified, undisputed middleweight champion. Beat Christina Hammer last year in a, I'm sorry, early the year in a really big fight. And now she's coming back on Saturday against Ivana Habizin for a vacant title at 154. Her eventual goal

is to move down to welterweight if she can and take on Cecilia Brekus, who's kind of the long-reigning pound-for-pound queen. You've got to give it up in terms of a daring to be great, somebody putting the whole sport on her shoulders and saying, I'm going to do whatever it takes to fight everyone in my era. I have a lot of respect for that, and the thing about Clarissa Shields is one of the better podcast interview guests

runs her mouth, tells it like it is. And in the fights, she doesn't have game-changing power in these two-minute rounds, so she's got to fight in these fights. A lot of her fights turn out to be fun action brawls. She pushes these ladies backwards. And by the way, if you want more of her content, I looked this up beforehand. We have a whole playlist right here on the Morning Combat channel. So if you just go to our channel, look at the bottom and see a bunch of playlists for Clarissa Shields and that fight in particular.

I encourage you to go look at more. It's a good one. I'll go back to ADCC. Let me give a shout out to Flow Grappling. Have you ever used their service? No. So I had never used their service. And I finally took the plunge.

Wow. I was impressed. They would have three to four mats. Well, they had three mats, but they would have four feeds going at once. Every feed had its own commentary team. It was easy to toggle between them. It was super simple. The production was smooth.

The event moved quickly. Like, dude, they did a great job. And they had pictures up after a win or a video on Twitter or on Instagram immediately. I was very, very impressed by them. I mentioned Gordon Ryan. One of his teammates deserves a note as well. It was not his brother, unfortunately, who did not do all that well, although he did beat a previous world champion.

It's Nick Rodriguez. Nick Rodriguez, that's John Danaher of the team there. Nick Rodriguez, wow. Do you know his story? I don't. D3 wrestler, enormous muscular specimen, okay? He's a blue belt. Only been training two years now.

After this tournament, he got his purple. So he's a purple now, but heading into the tournament, he's only a blue belt. He got to the finals. He beat black belt after black belt after black belt to get to the finals. Now, by the time he got there, he lost to a guy by the name of Kanan Duarte, who, by the way, I think Boucher should beat in the absolute. No, who lost? Who beat Kanan? It may have, by the way, I think Boucher should beat in the absolute. No, who lost? Who beat Kanan?

It may have even been Gordon. I don't remember. Point being is this. Someone's like, how the hell can a guy with two years of training do this? Well, it turns out that if you think about it just the right way, two years with John Danaher, they showed him, can get you to learn just what you need to do, what you need to avoid. If you look at the ADCC tournament, there's rules about guard pulling,

which you just can't do. You have to kind of wrestle it out. So it's kind of a wrestling tournament to a degree. And you look at this guy, super driven, with a great team. Yes, D3, but okay, that's a lot of wrestling experience. It was a lot of ugly matches, but he kind of got it done. Sounds exciting. His matches, well, it was exciting in the sense it's like,

dude, how is a guy with jiu-jitsu for 20 years, how can they not beat a guy with two? It was kind of wild in that sense. By the time he faced somebody who could match him physically, it was kind of over for him. But it deserves to be noted, Nick Rodriguez over at the Dan Hurd, well, I guess he's part of the Dan Hurd death squad, but the Henzo Gracie system, wow, dude, he opened up some eyeballs about what he could do, but of course, Gordon Ryan being the real winner over the weekend. And by the way, Gary Tonin, who's been doing one championship, kind of did the tournament

late, got bronze. Pretty good for him too as well. Shout out to Gary Tonin, yeah. We're done here. You owe me some beers. We're going to do it, alright? Imagine if you didn't have other jobs, we could actually do a full proper show. I know, show time. Imagine if I could really invest in this

program in a full-throated way. Hey, shout out to Jay in the back. I couldn't hear you all show, but I know you were there for me. I know. By the way, I had my earpiece in the wrong ear. You know what, Jay? You go away. Okay.

All right. Thanks for Brian Campbell. Thanks to me. I don't know why I'm saying that, but I'm going to say just the same. Thanks to you guys. Here, I'm going to point this out. You can follow us on social media below. Please, please, please like the video, subscribe to the channel, and share it around.

We're in our nascent growth stage. We need all the help we can get in terms of getting the word out. Always appreciate it. Yeah, it around. We're in our nascent growth stage. We need all the help we can get in terms of getting the word out. Always appreciate it. Yeah, tell your friends and let all your hoes be loyal. Is that what you say at the end? No. No, that's not what I would say.

I don't want to get fired. Okay, so for Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be you next time.