MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Eric Nicksick Talks Ngannou to PFL | UFC 291 & 292 Announcements | UFC Vegas 73 | EP 442

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

On Episode 442 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian are joined by Eric Nicksick to break down Francis Ngannou's new deal with PFL. What are Eric's thoughts? Who will he fight? The guys discuss it all. Next up BC and LT preview UFC Vegas 73 and Devin Haney vs. Vasiliy Lomachenko. The guys also break down some recent fight announcements before closing out the show with Fan Submissions. (5:00) - Francis Ngannou News (62:20) - UFC 291 & 292 Fight Announcements (78:20) - UFC Vegas 73 Preview (83:30) - Eric Nicksick Joins Morning Kombat Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, hey, hey, it's Wednesday. Guess what day it is. I don't mean that it's Wednesday. It's MK Wednesday. It's a post-Francis Nganou PFL News Wednesday. It's a big Wednesday here for the show. Yes, 442 on this great 17th of May, 2023. And of course, as you can see on screen, I am merely one half of your hosting duo. But I join you from the capital of Los Altos Unidos right here in Washington, D.C. Joined by a man who's got the kind of gear on that makes him look like he cheers for second and third tier English soccer teams. It's Brian Campbell. What's up brian campbell yeah i am the ted lasso of mma in many ways if that's the direction that you were heading luke thomas but i got my chuck mindenhall inspired and purchased you know uh uh midlife crisis hat so i'm excited to be here at age 44 and what a day not just francis Luke. Hey, the BMF title is back and the UFC dropped like six

bad announcements. Good timing, right? I didn't see that coming at all. But what a time to be alive and Luke, separate from all this MMA and the great, the great guest we're going to have at 1230 p.m. Eastern, which is Extreme Couture's own Eric Nixick, coach of Francis Ngannou, friend of the program, once showed us his ball bag during a live broadcast from London, if you recall, on your phone.

This is also Haney Lomachenko week. So for all my boxing heads out there, all the people that get down since day one, look, this is a fight on Saturday, a freaking fight. I can't wait. Are you feeling what I'm feeling? Or am I masturbating solo at the moment? Are you feeling it? You're doing a little bit of, you know,

just rubbing your crotch up against the walls of the bus stop. But we'll allow it for today because it is a special occasion, as you indicated. So, as BC said, 1230 p.m. East Coast time. It's about an hour and a half. Coach of Extreme Couture and a coach of Francis Ngannou. Eric Nixick is going to be here. Part of what this big story is, of course, BC,

is that Francis is not going to return until 2024. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But there are some big implications for him as a fighter and what that might mean. We'll talk about that with him at 12.30. We're going to get to full reactions with other clips and whatnot related to Francis speaking with Errol Helwani yesterday.

We'll play some of that here on today's show and react to it. As BC indicated, we'll talk about UFC 291 and 292. And then, of course, UFC Vegas 73 actually is happening later on this week with some fight announcements, blah, blah, blah. Fan subs, too, at the end. Hey, thumbs up if you're watching on YouTube, yeah? I'm sorry. Yeah, on YouTube.

There's our socials right down below. You can give us a follow there. And hey, leave us a nice review on your podcast platform if you'd be so kind as to do that. And Luke. I feel like it's a big show. We shouldn't waste much time. Well, okay.

If it's a big show, then we got to share big news. Can we talk about the bun that's in the UFC strawweight oven and congratulate the warrior princess Cheyenne Vlismas on, on pregnancy. Luke, is that something you're willing to do or should we just keep going? Hey, topic number one. All right, here we go. BC, let's get into it. I will pitch it right to you. You know, you know, people can have nice lives and like, you know, build a family. What's your issue with that? Wow. All right.

You, you know what my issue is with that you the horny police were here they would cuff you right now and take you to a horny jail that's what would happen all right but let's get to it right now bc topic number one francis has signed with the pfl i did an immediate reaction yesterday to the news the new york times initially broke the story of course PFL subsequently put out a press release. He actually did an interview with DAZN. He did an interview with Ariel Helwani. He put out a message or video on his own YouTube channel. BC, it's basically three parts to the deal. One, he will fight as part of the PFL Superfight Division, which is their pay-per-view side.

We'll see how that goes. Two more components to it. PFL is going to launch a subsidiary brand, PFL Africa. They're targeting events by 2025. He'll be a minority equity owner and chairman there. And then there's this sort of global advisory board. He'll be the first active fighter to sit on it. Really don't know what that means, but BC, the bigger part, of course, is what we think the terms of the deal might be a $2 million guarantee for his opponents. He'll have the right to box. They can't co-promote on that. He gets to have his own sponsors. He gets a cut of any event profits therein. There is no champions clause. It's for only two or three fights. I could go on and on. BC, here was my overall reaction. I'll pitch it to you. It's not necessarily the most lucrative financial contract in terms of what are the most high-paid ones.

But in terms of how much it is paying, which is extremely high, it's the most freedom I've ever seen an MMA fighter ever get for themselves. When you measure that across those two competing interests, because usually one comes at the expense of the other, ever get for themselves. When you measure that across those two competing interests, because usually one comes at the expense of the other, this is, frankly, in my judgment, a historic contract. BC, your reaction, Francis Ngannou signing with the PFL. I fully agree.

Historic is the word. I could not be happier for Francis, but I do think there's two sides of the analysis here, analysis of what happened here. Theis side and the pfl slash the sport of mma side i just want to hit off the top luke and then you can react and i know you put out a great video yesterday as well on our mk channel instantly reacting but on the francis side look to me this is what building a true legacy is all about and i got so many people jumping as you predicted in my mentions you know

i mean if it's just being a ufc psycho fan and if it's just being upset that we're not getting francis versus john jones i get that but the amount of people coming with just straight francis hate of legacy how are you going to build a legacy beating a third tier pfl heavyweight guys this has nothing to do if we're just talking about the francis side on who he will ever fight and in my opinion really on how much money he will ever make moving forward and whether that will trump what he could have done in the ufc this is about francis looking at the way the business is is is handled the disrespect disrespect he felt he received at almost every turn by UFC brass, the constant public lying, and the draconian contracts that hold so many fighters down.

We always say, until somebody's willing to risk something and take a stand, no progress will ever get made. Here's somebody who was willing to risk it all, to take a monster stand. And what Francis has endured in the past four months from comments from other promoters we talked about it from Chachere to David Feldman and Francis piece by piece with Ariel you know debunked a lot of that I can't believe it like the whole Francis is greedy yet he gave up eight million to fight John Jones in a two-fight series right Francis is selfish even though the platform that he's trying to build here is about changing the way fighters are handled, about having a fighter

representative and almost like the, you know, almost like the beginning of not a union, but true fighter representation at the negotiation table. And on top of that, negotiating the purse for your opponents, like that's selfish. You hear Francis is stupid and he missed the window. He was a free agent for four months, people. OK, he he just signed the MMA end, which will begin next year. He's talking at the moment with the biggest names in heavyweight boxing about a big event. And finally, that Francis is afraid to fight Jon Jones.

I know Jon tweeted about it and they went back and forth sort of cryptically. Where was Jon Jones during the three years that he could have come back? And the fact that Jon Jones came back directly after Francis left speaks a lot. So Luke, first and foremost, I won't go 10 minutes deep, but that's what it is right there. I couldn't be happier for Francis who stood on his own non-negotiable self-beliefs on how people should be treated and what his value could be worth, not just to the PFL. And we'll talk about that because that's the other half of the analysis on this equation. But I think just trying to take a stand and say, look, fighters have been treated a certain way up to this point.

He's risking it all and using his leverage to try to change that the fact that there is this large of a reaction of mma fans that are against that that are calling him names i don't know if they i mean what is it luke do they just not want to see somebody stand up and do something different or achieve something outside of the uf UFC window I just don't get it I it's just really funny to me like half the people who not all of them of course but half the people who are going after Francis like they've got like free thinker and you know uh I don't no one tells me what to do kind of statements in their Twitter bios. And it's like, I'm going to guess that

you get told a lot to do or what to do. And you just don't recognize it. Like this idea that you're a free independent thinker and that your instinct is to run to the side of the monopolizing forces in the industry tells me that you don't do enough looking in the mirror, but okay. That part aside, BC, this is an unequivocal win for francis and ghani like there's just really no way around it i mean i just want to point out something i mean all the voices in the industry who were saying that this was going catastrophically could not have been more wrong you should do some inventorying about who did those messages and how much you can i mean listen we're going to be wrong on this inventory are you talking about making a four

minute video putting all the voices in there? No, that's not what I mean. And listen, that's not what I mean. I don't mean going after them aggressively and being negative to them. That's not what I mean. What I mean to say is we will be wrong, we will be right. Holy shit, BC. We have two segments on this show, Dead Wrong,

where people call us out for being wrong on stuff, and we have to just kind of air it. And then, okay, bet you can see our records like these are obviously more narrower contained i things but you know we get called to task for things we get wrong you're gonna get things wrong what i'm asking for people who do this job for a living to do is you gotta fucking try you gotta fucking try and if you're just aping what promoters tell you because you're taking a side with this promoter or that promoter or you like one better rather than observing what the reality of the situation is, you're just doing a disservice to yourself and to everyone else in the industry. And frankly, BC, look at how much fake news, literal fake news surrounded this we'll play this here in just a second we have some clips i want to get to of francis and ganu saying dude no neither i nor anyone from my team even spoke to bkfc yet we had a whole week or two or more about how he was asking too much i even tweeted maybe too much

for bkfc my mentions were a fucking graveyard you don't know what you're talking about blah blah blah no i actually do know what the fuck i am talking about which is why you're seeing the results here today looking like what they look like bc this has been an absolute litmus test for who is like you always hear people be like oh if you try to do something the others will tear you down it always sounds like who would those others be? Found them. Found them. Not too hard to find. They're there. You can see them. But the problem is, and we don't have to belabor this, we've done it a lot, but the whole point is, again, if

it's just, man, I'm a UFC fan, I don't want the best heavyweight to be elsewhere, or, hey, man, that Jones and Gano fight could have been historic. Yeah, why do you think for a year I was saying, hey, UFC, put it in Raiders, Allegiant stadium, like make it the biggest deal ever.

I get that, but it seems to be this extra level. I don't know, Luke it's because he's a successful African-American man because he defied the great Dana white because he basically said, we're not treated the right way. And I'm sick of being lied to and about. So I want to make a change,

really seeking truth and honesty and, and in fairness, people are against that. It's like in the Bible when they all, you know, wanted to run back to slavery in Egypt because it was hard. It's like, no, like this is dude. UFC should have produced a movie on Francis's life and ran it on, on fight pass. This is just another incredible chapter in the incredible journey of an incredible man. And I'm not trying to lift Francis up as some deity, but he has a track record of doing what people said cannot be done and persevering. He's an inspiration. So that's the Francis side of it.

He's a big winner. Everybody else seems to be a big loser that were mindlessly fighting him. But I do think, Luke, however you want to set up this side of the analysis when we are talking about pfl and the mma landscape moving forward the historic natures of this deal do possess a lot of questions and i think that is something that we do have to listen francis is not entitled to glowing super praiseworthy coverage no one in this business is not you not i not francis not ufc not d, not Joe Rogan, nobody. He is entitled to the best of our approximation, truthful coverage. But this is the point I just want to make here, starting out with this analysis. Folks, Francis Ngannou won a, again, a historic contract that can only be described as good for

him, right? That's the only thing you can say. Now, there's various versions of how it could go. What opponents will he ultimately get? Will he get a boxing fight? Again, there's levels of which it could reach, but who would like to stand up and make the argument that Francis got finessed? Boy, I would love to see that one. I would love to see Chachri Sityatong show any kind of offer that they made that matches what PFL did. And by the way, let's be honest about it. PFL made this offer not because they don't have money. I think they do, but from a relative position of promotional weakness. They're going to give up more to get a guy like this in certain ways. And so there's our questions about how good it is for them long-term. We'll get to those in just a second. I would love stand up today,

whoever you've been this whole time being like, Francis, fuck this up. He fumbled it. He's going to go in his hands and knees begging, make the argument, looking at this contract about his guarantees about his opponent's guarantees about he's going to get paid as a brand ambassador either with a signing bonus or salary or both i mentioned all the other freedom he has with his sponsors make the argument he got finessed you simply cannot yeah you cannot this is a contract bc last thing on this it could be years if ever that you see a contract like this in mixed martial arts again but guess what it does it sets a new precedent about what is possible and by the way i don't know if this is going to work financially for pfl it's a monster gamble we're going to break down why but nothing no change will ever happen unless somebody goes for it he went for it he got it congratulations

everyone's saying, man, what does this do to your legacy? I don't know the level of opponents Francis wound up fighting, but my whole point from the beginning when he walked away from UFC is even if he never makes another dollar, even if he never fights anyone on a level of a John Jones or in the top five of the UFC heavyweight division at the moment. This was not about building like the traditional legacy. We only think of legacy of how much money did you make? How many chigs did you fog? And how many championships did you win?

And how many skits did you bit? Right. But like, how about the other side of it? How about the change you made in the business for others? How about the inspiration you provided as a public figure and you know default sort of role model like there's a lot more than every mention of mine going okay great but show me who he's going to fight he doesn't ever have to fight again he just won people but luke you've got to get into the questions now of what this looks like moving forward

okay just a couple things here i know we will i absolutely will we'll move into that but i just want to say something on top of that like people keep saying well who's he going to fight i don't know let's see who's around in mid-january or march or february whatever it ends up being of 2024 i guess we'll have to see look again there are a lot of ways where it doesn't necessarily end up with him fighting all the people that they want him to fight i want to make one more point before we start getting into like what this means for PFL and what this means for Francis, potential or heavyweights folks. Remember what some of the reporting has been. I have seen people say things like, again, who is he going to fight? And, you know, he's going to fight tomato cans and blah, blah, blah. I just want to point out, we have another promoter in the space who is going

to be paying Francis when it's all said and done for three fights or you know who knows how many fights it ends up being you know probably a safe estimate is somewhere around I don't know between six to ten million and maybe considerably more than that depending on how things go like they are going to end up giving him a lot of money and doing a lot in terms of what we think will happen with PFL Africa. We'll see what happens with the strategy board. I don't even really know what that means, but I just want to point out something. Look at what the other promoter in the space is able to do, and it is still extremely risky for them because even though there might be a $2 million guarantee for Francis's opponents, the dominant player in the space has constructed fighter contracts,

especially the newer ones post-2017, in order to make it more difficult for them to leave the organization. I keep hearing a lot of people talking about competition. Folks, that's not fair competition. It might be legal for now. We'll see what happens with the antitrust suit as it moves forward. But you cannot say that they're playing on an even playing field if the dominant space is rigging the game so that it is difficult for Francis to even get opponents by virtue of contractual let's say hurdles or obstacles that's not competing that's not competing in the open space. Can we talk about that? Look, less than a month after he left UFC, they changed the rules on the contracts,

which became more restrictive. And according to the research by John S. Nash, didn't they put in, basically, you had to sign off that you would not join an antitrust lawsuit against him? Correct. You cannot join an antitrust suit, depending on when you sign on. All those fighters are going to be like that. And I always say, if you want more on this specific francis topic including the sunset clause and how he took that gamble and exceeded it the guy at mmi does incredible job

but john s nash as well but luke they are changing the contracts they are lobbying privately against their own fighters they are purposely signing people that you would think is at the at the end of their careers to long-term deals, to lock them up so that they don't become free agents that'll go. Because this move is largely about Francis, but when you're talking about MMA, it's more about can PFL one day become a legitimate competitor to UFC. Signing Francis is the bait, just like signing Jake Paul was to try to bring in that reality. It's not even necessarily about does Francis go in there and knock out every PFL opponent he faces or all that it's what can they do with that? But to your point, this change in contracts is

aggressive and it will prevent a lot from being able to come through that door and go, Oh, I'll take 2 million. I mean, I don't know if we're doing wants it, you know, there's going to be a lot of aging heavyweights on the UFC side that are like, okay, how do I get out of my contract now? Or, you know, can I make, can I make 75 grand or a hundred grand for in here? Or can I make maybe 2 million fighting Francis? But the, but the game has changed. UFC is so far ahead. You know, we always say drug testing. I'm sorry. The ability to juice is so far ahead of drug testing, like the science that you'll never have it under control. Dude, the UFC is still so far ahead of the game

in terms of the restrictiveness that it is going to be interesting who's going to be able to break free and what that looks like moving forward. And also, I expect, you know, you might be asking, like, why would they go with such a high guarantee for his opponents partly to recruit talent but ufc is going to see that and i you know they're not going to pay anyone else two million but i do suspect in certain cases they might open the pocketbooks a little bit more to prevent guys

from leaving which again goes back to like what happens when like like which by the way is like this is what's supposed to happen on some level not for the one to keep all the talent under lock and key but rather for promoters to make the other ones do things that bid for the fighter services that's actually how the system is supposed to rising tide luke do you remember when john jones who used to for a short season be in the same side of the of the battle as in gano do you remember when he wanted wilder money and he said i want to move up to heavyweight until you make it worth it for me what was the immediate fallout of that guys like adesanya suddenly locked down quote record-breaking contracts right after francis doing this in the long run will actually end up helping so many of

his ex-ufc compatriots yet all of them keep talking publicly about how he made the wrong move thank you all right we got to get to some of these clips we are going to talk about what this means for pfl in great detail but we got to get through some of these clips because i just i want to see these so let's go sort of go through here again i want to just remind everyone how many news cycles are laundered promoter either untruths or sketchy statements at best that just get repeated without any verification people run with it and then all of a sudden they say you know francis is doing poorly here is francis from mma hours with um with eric holwani yesterday

talking about what happened with bkfc hit it i just think he assumed that i'm so expensive obviously because he has to take a loan of his house to put on the show then i think he assumed that that loan couldn't pay me because i never spoke to him my team never spoke to him and then when i saw his comment i'm like where this guy coming from then i checked my phone i call my team i'm like, where is this guy coming from? Then I checked my phone. I called my team. I'm like, do somebody talk with this guy that I'm not aware of? And everyone checked his message. I'm like, bro, we just saw this and they are checking. I'm like, no, we haven't talked to this guy. So I don't know where he came from.

So that's even why I didn't talk about it. I'm like, this guy is just a joke. But, you know, and at some point, he was promoting his show, his event. Yeah, he's going to do anything, take a little bit of PR here and there, everything that he can do. But I never talked to that guy. We never asked him anything. And he never even reached out.

Not to say we weren't interested. We weren't. And he never even reached out. Not to say we weren't interested. We weren't. But he never even reached out. So he didn't know if yes or no, we were interested. Okay. Two sides to every story. That's why I like, that's what I say, like, some promoter out there, hey, bro, two faces, crazy stuff.

Look. Just invented. Invented. Well, here's what it is. Here's what it is. And Francis said it rightly about it. It's really just advertisement. MMA, I did a great breakdown on it.

Because even Bellator, Luke, who Francis said sat down with them, Colker and company ultimately said, we don't have this type of cash at the moment to bring you in, but they talked with him. They kind of did the same thing. I think all the promoters around their next big event were using Francis's name to try to get themselves in the headlines. Either we're going to talk with him, we're going to bring him in,

or in this case, what BKFC did, shit on him to try to push themselves up. If you take into account the amount of fake news that Francis has had to deal with, it's startling, Luke. Going back, like, do you remember, like, even when he wanted, he was knocking people out on this comeback from the two fight losing skit in the UFC when he built himself back up and started knocking everybody out in the first round. He was fighting once per year the last three years.

Luke, he obviously wanted to fight more. He should have been a part of some interim title opportunity, but wasn't. Like, all these turns against him. Remember, Dana went public and was like, oh, Francis is fat. He's not even in shape. Like, all of this constantly across the board, which makes you kind of ask yourself, like, are we getting this wrong?

Is Francis actually a schemer behind the scenes? Is he just as much in this fake news battle? Why is everybody trying to portray this guy as something greedy, too big of a head, you know, across the board on there? Luke, I think it's at the end of the day because he's a different animal than 99% of the fighters. He can't be bought.

You can't just raise the price tag and be like, okay, look, we want you to fight Jon Jones. So how about here's another million? Like you can't do that. So the, because when you get a rare person with leverage and power and something to lose, that's willing to test that. That's it. That's the danger to you because of the long form change. It can be, I think all of these promoters, not just Dana White, look at the change that Francis can do. PFL is not because they've got big investors and they're trying to compete with the number one right now. They're not trying to stay, you know, tread water. That cage is pretty damn intelligent. Like they're literally trying to go all in and I respect that. And it's a big gamble, but

they're going after it outside of that though. Francis is like a cancer to these guys. Not because he's hard to deal with with not because of all these other things because he stands on two feet firm and doesn't shake so i think that's ultimately the foundation for why all these people lie and bad mouth him but i think francis is also right they're using that for their own self-promotion at the end i always wonder it's like do people think francis is stupid because he speaks broken English and he came from an impoverished background? Like, that doesn't make you stupid. You can actually be quite brilliant and come from all of those backgrounds. Like, it's not, I always, I don't know if that's the reason, but I wonder sometimes.

Okay, here we go. Mikey's going to, Mikey, we're going to move through these quicker, I promise. All right, let's hear what Francis had to say. Let's move down now, past BKFC, one championship. Here's Francis on his discussion with Chaudhry. He was a hell of a performance. By the way, I applaud Chaudhry for his performance. When you left the meeting, did you consider it at all?

Did he change your mind at all when you left the meeting? Consider what? I didn't talk to him about business it was just about all this time i told him about what like okay this is my position i come here to listen i don't know what you have to say and you're like yes i can send this number to you i'm like i sent it to markel already i'm like okay if you send to markel then it's enough you don't need to send it and you're like yes i can send this number to you i'm like i sent it to my care already i'm like okay if you send to my care then it's enough you don't need to send it to me my care hundred or that so and then he didn't send it to me i didn't and i didn't engage into like oh i want this i want that i didn't have any engagement i mean i'm sitting on the table and

tell him that okay i'm going with this guy. So I have no reason to even ask him something. And I'm like, why so much? Like, what can I do? What PFL is giving you that you can change your mind? Then I'm like, they are giving me so many things. They are giving me PFL Africa and this. And I'm like, now, yes, we can do, as I told you, we can do road to one uh we have road to one from this road to one i'm like no bro i'm saying pf africa i'm not saying

road to pf is different completely different and then this yeah the structure is there look before we get your reaction he would also go on to add during a lengthy kind of 10 minute rant piece by piece of where you know uh ariel said did you ever consider at any point during the conversation accepting chatri's offer and he was like there wasn't an offer all chatri did was talk about chatri and he kind of laughed at it and said you know he was a good actor he you know he did a good performance at the end of the day. There were some people publicly Luke that were quoting Chaudhry, some very famous people and all along and saying that,

that he was right and Francis was wrong here. This seemed to dispel that. Yeah. Again, I, people keep taking Francis for a fool. I really don't quite understand that. He clearly is clever guy. He clearly is bright. He clearly understands himself and what he wants and what is required to get to places. Now, again, that doesn't mean his vision will ultimately come together, but I just want to just, it's the same lesson I'm going to take from BKFC. I have been warning people about like, again, I like one's product a lot. I think it's a very good product. They've got a lot of people who work in that

organization who I like and respect very much. But Chachri just says a lot of things that are simply unreliable. I'm not even trying to be mean about it. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth without verification. That's just how it goes. And so as a consequence, when he gets out there, he says what he says. Guys, you are not under any obligation to believe any of that stuff. His relationship to the truth is merely transactional. That's it. That's it. So as a consequence, why are you believing anything he has to say until

it's been thoroughly vetted? Okay, we can move along here, BC. Now let's get to start. Let's talk about some of the nuts and bolts of Francis's contract. You do hear this refrain, who he's going to fight. We should be honest, if you just look at the the roster there's not really any names currently that blow me away you could probably get away with a verdum fight maybe depending on how things go my favorite pfl heavyweight bruno capolosa just got popped for peds as did half of their light heavyweight tournament so that also is a setback right there right so fair enough it's a good question let's see what francis has to say about it yeah do you have a of the people available do you have a a dream fight out there right now of the people who are not in the ufc that you could potentially fight is there someone out there that you would love to fight um no yet people out of the u.s. no no yes okay there are not so many free agents there are not so many

yeah but that could change by the time you fight right that can change so that's what we have some time for for that right and this is the area they got their work cut out for them absolutely and this i believe this is the area where if you have questions or criticism this is the area, Luke. They got their work cut out for them. Absolutely. And I believe this is the area where if you have questions or criticism, this is the area to flaunt that. How quickly can PFL, after the Jake Paul signing, after this, after the restructure with the seasonal format and the million dollars and all the things that they offer that's largely different from not only the UFC but the traditional model,

will that be enough to bring in opponents that we actually care about? That's the challenge for PFL here at the end of the day. And I don't think Francis is as concerned about that because I think in the immediacy, which is why he's putting MMA off until 2024. And Ariel did ask him, like, why are you doing that? What about fans that want to see you? And he's like, dude, I'll fucking live my life exactly in the order that i want to live that and by the way francis you've earned that but i think the immediacy here is about who can he get in heavyweight boxing in terms of his legacy but pfl

does have questions to answer who can they get so luke we don't actually know if those rumors are going to pan out about a potential down the road pfl bellator merge let's shelf that for a second this is a big gamble by pfl in general because they're not just trying to build on the seasonal format they're almost pivoting completely going we've got jake paul right now we've still got kayla harrison under contract we know they wanted to bring in cyborg from bellator for a big one we know they want super fights. Can you put your creative hat on here? Like knowing what we know about UFC contracts is one year enough to create two or three guys you want to see, or not that you necessarily are itching to see Francis fight, but that you'll accept in terms of what, is this a viable use of

his MMA time? Well, first of all, you have to ask who would he fight in the UFC? And the answer is John Jones. Okay, fine. But after the John Jones fight, let's say he won that he could lose it, but let's just say for the sake of argument, he won. Who would you like to see him fight? I guess Jelton Almeida maybe is kind of up on that. Don't shit on that. There's a few they're doing good right now. We got Pavlovich, Aspinall, Jelton Almeida. Okay. Right. Fair enough. These aren't bad fights. That's not what I'm saying. None of those are bad fights. They're all very respectable contests, but none of those

are blockbusters. None of those are huge numbers. You've got to remember something. Ten years ago, there used to be a really important question people would ask, which is, if you look at a pay-per-view buy rate, what contributes to that? The answer back then was a little bit from the A side,

a little bit from the B side, whatever rivalry they have might be thrown in there as well. And then that UFC halo on top of it, right? They would throw in a little bit more. And I don't mean to suggest that that's not still part of the equation, but the UFC halo is simply not what it once was as a means of driving high levels of pay-per-view buy rates. It doesn't move people in that way. You can look at the way in which the product is just currently organized. Yes, they're going to do better than the other promoters by virtue of a lot of reasons, but the UFC halo isn't exactly the same. So I want to point out something.

The idea that past Jon Jones, he's got a series of 500K buy rate opponents in front of him, doesn't check out that that's really not true that's the first thing i'd say but bc i'm going to echo your concerns here this is a gigantic gamble from pfl because everyone wants to say is pfl going to stay in business is is is uh francis going to bankrupt him he might he might but He might. But here's the truth. Here's the honest-to-God truth. Putting on tournament fights with people that you tell me you don't care about, right, those of not UBC, but the proverbial you out there who tell me, I'm not watching.

What the fuck am I going to watch BFL for? Right. Putting on fights with those guys in a tournament format on ESPN Plus is a path to nowhere. They will guaranteed go out of business doing that. The only way to survive with the amount of money and investment that they have put in is to get to the premier side of pay-per-view.

Francis is a big, big step in the right direction, but there have to be many more that follow. And I want to point out something. BKFC didn't have the money. Bellator looks like probably didn't have the money. Bellator's in a bit of a strange place these days. We'll see how that goes. One kind of had the money, maybe sort of, but it wasn't really all that clear. Here's the point I want to make. We are not talking about a promoter in PFL who can't afford what fighters are now currently asking for, 2 million guarantees, whatever.

They literally are going to give them the money. What they are hoping for is to get around the lock and key of onerous contracts by the dominant brand in the sport. Noodle that for a second, everyone, and ask yourself what the real difficulty is in making these work. It's not a promoter who doesn't have the money, and it's not a promoter who doesn't have the money and it's not a promoter who doesn't have an a side that would be an exciting fight for the fans to see it is literally the contracts of a different promoter well and it's all the if you build it they will

come now they may not come but if you don't build it nobody's coming so that's why in this case even though they had to give up a lot to get a lot in Francis, meaning when I say a lot in Francis, I mean, there's, there's two sides. One, you have the credibility of being the best heavyweight in the world at this moment. Obviously the John Jones coming in and winning the title makes that a closer debate. You also get the extension of who Francis is. Can this actually lead to business in Africa and opening up a whole new market and all that. But separate from that,

it's up to the PFL to now make this work with Francis. So can this bait be enough, Luke? I don't know. I don't know your swing. You know what I'm saying? Like I think ultimately the Jake Paul pickup is going to be a smart one. He's not going to fight MMA as well until 2024.

Maybe that's a rematch with nate diaz after their boxing match who knows i mean who knows how realistically jake can become an mma fighter but you've got to start put the chest pieces in place to try to use it as bait to attract others um i don't know i mean because if you were like hey bc the bellator roster absurd absorbs into PFL within a year. Okay. That's a great start. But if not of that, they're going to have to move briskly, but now they have the right person to bring with them in the living room for the negotiation period. When it's like, you can come fight Francis, but look, let me, let me say this. Like Francis is not going to be around forever. He's got to come back from this knee injury.

He's going to be 37 at the end of this year. Do you think people will, because of the price tag, the $2 million, all that go out of their way to get free, to try to get here? Like, like that's first and foremost, even though this man is still the scariest opponent in the world, is the money going to just Trump that and just help make this happen? I think they're going to have to get creative.

I have a feeling that they're going to try and sign like interesting light heavyweights away you know what i mean to make something possible i don't know what that looks like but i'm i doubt they would make this also because he's under lock and key at least at the moment uh but like they're gonna have to get creative in this way like francis versus yoel romero something kind of weird like that because i honestly think it's going to be at least difficult at first to get away premier ace or premier b-side heavyweight talent UFC is going to do everything they can to get these guys new deals more lucrative deals not the kind of money they would make fighting Francis at one time but you know the kind and also they're going to put pressure on them too probably as well you know

they're going to make sure they can keep as many of them under. It's going to take someone having – honestly, here's what it's going to take. This is why I'm, like, nervous for PFL. It's going to take someone having the same kind of commitment that Francis does. Because if you walk out the door on UFC for Francis, there's a good chance UFC is going to tell you you're not welcome back at any point, and you have to be ready for that. And I think a lot of guys are probably going to be you you're not welcome back at any point. And you have to be ready for that.

And I think a lot of guys are probably going to be very scared by that. Understandably, understandably. And so they've got their work cut out for them, man. They really do. All right. This one I got to say, BC, I do think is a mistake on Francis's part, right? 2024 debut. I understand why he wants a carve out in 2023 to box.

I do get that. But at best, it seems speculative. So Ariel asked him about it let's hear it and then i want to get your reaction first thing afterwards it's my life i will need it on my way if you're happy good if you're not oh no i'm sorry first of all secondly as i, this deal is exclusive MMA. And also, we will need, PFL will also need time to find an opening for me to build up the opening. Right? Because I'm not going next month to fight. Right? And also, there is a boxing component that is still in consideration. We don't have an announcement yet, but as I said, there is a lot of timing in this.

We can have a big fight or not, or just a tune-up fight sometime soon. And that's what I'm hoping to have a boxing fight before fight in PFL. So that's also one of the reasons why 2024 is the best fit. So everything has to happen. Tyson Fury is out there. Deontay Wilder is out there. I don't know about Anthony Joshua. All those guys are out there. And there is an about Anthony Joshua. All those guys are still out there.

And there is an opportunity as well. There is a possibility as well to take a turn-up fight, you know, to get there and have a feeling about it once before the big fight, whenever it comes. Now, Francis would go on to say that he felt he was very close to a Wilder fight then he says Wilder was offered a title shot and went in a different direction we did hear rumors of a possible Anthony Joshua Wilder fight this December although there's no title there and that would probably need Saudi Arabian money but I think it's interesting Francis also mentioned that Tyson Fury

is also kind of in an open spot right now not going in the direction of Usyk right now. There were some talks of other fights that now Joe Joyce can't be a Fury opponent next because he activated the rematch against Zhang, who upset him. So, look, does this kill the momentum of the signing to not come back next year in MMA? Yeah, not kill, but does it hurt it? Yes. I mean, I think the same thing happened when they announced Jake Paul, the PFL, and then it's like, oh yeah, but he's not going to be starting his training for a while. It's like, okay, I guess I'll wait. But you do have

to wonder if Francis and his team who have had time to really calculate this move, right? I mean, this move that came out yesterday, it didn't start yesterday. I mean, this goes all the way back to their decision to fight out their contract with UFC and take the fight with gone on a bad knee and all of that, that played into it. You have to believe Luke, that they believe that the onus right now is, is boxing because he can make the most money. And there's a window here to potentially get a monster name in it. But as it pertains to both his immediacy in boxing and his comeback in 2024 to MMA. And Francis is right, by the way, he can do whatever he wants. He earned that.

And don't you love Luke, how politely Francis can talk trash and how much respect he shows for people, even when he's like dunking on them. It is, it is impressive in that regard. There's been some sort of network related rumors tied to this that I want to get your take on if it's, if this makes any sense, PFL did resign with ESPN, but obviously we know this creates an interesting scenario in which PFL airs on ESPN plus pay-per-view, right? Like that's where Francis is going to be fighting in theory, and that's competing against the people he just left. DAZN has international rights on PFL and was heavily mentioned in this press release.

Jake Paul is launching a boxing series on DAZN. Jake Paul also is now, it looks like after a one off on ESPN, going to be boxing on DAZN moving forward. Are we led to believe that some of the delay here is not just smart because you do need time to attract legitimate MMA opponents who may need extra time to get out of their deal or let it expire. Does it make more sense for PFL and Francis's both MMA and boxing future to, if that's the direction they're going, do you think this is a setup for PFL to, let's say they signed a two-year deal? I don't know if we actually know the specifics of the most recent deal they signed in January of 2022 with ESPN, but is that possible that it expires just in time for him to make his debut on the other side because maybe that means more money or more whatever does that mean anything

to you could i don't think it's all a bunch of coincidence and the fact that he did an interview with the zone before he did an interview with ariel ultimately i think is kind of telling as well that means like a partner might have requested it. Yeah, it's like that. When you see something like that, it typically means that the broadcast partner requested it, and because they're a broadcast partner, they're going to get whatever they want

in certain situations like that. I mean, here's the difference for me, BC, between ESPN and DAZN insofar as it relates to Francis' future, as best I can tell. Dude, on the UFC side, ESPN is obviously a hugely important partner, right? For any number of reasons, not least of which is the amount of storytelling that ESPN does and the amount of coverage it gives through its shows to the UFC product.

That is substantial and real. And I think that UFC aligning with ESPN has been just phenomenal for both brands frankly it'd be hard to argue otherwise right but on the PFL side do we really see a lot of evidence of storytelling from ESPN to PFL to boost that product they seem happy to have the content they seem happy to put it on TV when they need content but they don't seem like really behind it so in the same sense like one of the problems with Bellator on DAZN was that DAZN just wasn't telling their story. It's not in a very interesting way. And I think the product really languished on DAZN to be quite candid with you. So in that sense, I don't see much of a difference. Here to me is the real difference. You've got already a bunch of MMA fans who are already ESPN plus subscribers, who I think would,

you know, it makes buying the pay-per-view just a little bit more, I don't know, easy, or they're already in the universe. I guess you can just buy the zone pay-per-views outside of it. So maybe it doesn't matter, but to the extent any membership is required, that would be, I think a hurdle for MMA fans are not going to pay for that. Like they're just not. Yeah. But do you, would you agree that there's a potential strategy in taking boxing first, not just because you could commit yourself to that skillset and then go back to MMA full time, but because is there more value him entering a big boxing match against one of those giant names after he has returned and debuted at MMA, NFL, like win or lose?

No, the value is right now. The value is right now. So that I think. Exactly. The value is now. And plus, dude, no, before. No, the value is right now. The value is right now. Exactly, the value is now. And plus, dude, like, man, we've seen these guys from UFC. I do think Francis is probably still the best heavyweight on Earth or has a claim to it anyway. You can debate who that is. But, you know, like these other guys, man,

if it's the biggest night of their life, they can make it close. Like, you know, you could lose those fights. That's all a possibility. I do think it makes sense to hold out. But, BC, you know, listen, my reach into the boxing world is quite minimal, but like I'm on boxing forums and YouTube channels and sites every day. No,

one's talking about Francis right now. That doesn't mean that they won't, but right now he's not really a part of the conversation. The problem was when, when, when Tyson Fury knocked out Dillian white and then Fury welcomed Francis in, that was a moment where we were like, Oh wow. Like, are they they really going to do this I think that would have been the time there was buzz there was even an idea with Francis under contract with UFC Fury under contract with ESPN

both or with top-ranked co-promoter both being ESPN that maybe that would be like a Disney super fight special but that has you know there has been enough time since there where i agree there's no monster buzz at the moment you'd have to have the monster buzz of bringing in that crossover mma audience to really make it worth it okay so i want to skip bc if we can just the one on what the board is this global board we have more time i would sit with it i appreciate you pulling it mikey let's go to the next one so we think it's either two or three fights. Let's get some clarification here. Here's Francis discussing what is the length of this new PFL deal.

It's not about years. It's about fights. Let's not just say it's not for many fights. I'll keep it that way. It's for multiple fight deal. But most importantly uh what you have to understand here this is a partner like a partnership with a strategy partnership like for example pfr africa it's not going to be something for two for two

years it's for life you understand right like uh yeah do that something that we're gonna work on it like basically forever so there is not a time time limit on that the amount of fight year uh doesn't really matter we are already in the business and then even if we have had a certain limitation of fight uh that's that's easy to work on not that many fights here's the part that i wonder bc like i guess because he's the equity owner and chairman of pfl africa that doesn't change if he ends up leaving pfl after two fights or something like that but i guess i don't understand the significance of like the again he, he explains the board, but I'm just sort of pointing out, it's like to what extent is him fighting for the brand contingent upon having any relationship to these other endeavors that are part of the deal?

Well, if he's an equity chairman and the idea of PFL Africa, which isn't just going to, you know, open up shop tomorrow, even though as Francis indicated, they were already in the works of this idea before they spoke to him, you know, maybe to attract him, maybe not. But I think ultimately Luke, um, if he's an equity owner, there, there is a future there. And that's a big part of why we say legacy here in this decision, because Francis is not only helping the current fighters potentially in pay and his opponents, which we've gotten to, but the idea of helping his, not just as countrymen, but his

home continent start to really grow in those areas. So, look, I almost feel like the fighting, like this is why I felt people really haven't gotten or understood what this decision really is. Like, it's almost, to me, the fighting is secondary. Honestly, you know what stands out to me about this deal, BC, just a little bit, if I may? Dude, there's nothing

i mean i guess the fact that there's a carve out for another sport makes it different okay that part aside dude this is a fucking boxing contract for an a-side guy like i guess the pfl africa part's a little bit different but even then not really because those guys set up their own promotional companies which get partnership deals with the, with the major promoter, whether it's match room or something else. But like, you know, they get, they get money from the events profits. That's what a boxing a side would get. They get a big chunk of the pay-per-view. It's what a boxing a side would get. They get their own sponsors. It's what a fucking boxing a side would get. It's for two fights, three fights. It's what a fucking boxing a side would get. There's a major difference though.. The boxing A-side is often looking to exercise their A-side advantages

to use their leverage to get more advantages. A lot of times that's financially. Sometimes, as we saw with the weight dehydration thing with Ryan Garcia and Tank, it's strategic. But again, if you're labeling Francis as selfish, if he was really selfish, he would have already fought Jon Jones for $8 million and would have been getting ready for the rematch, just so you know. But the reason why I pipe back on this being a boxing A-side contract

is because Francis is lobbying for whoever his potential opponents are, Luke. Right. By wanting them to get a certain amount of money. And as he said, it was not just so they could be at their best, so we put on a better fight, because he said it takes two to tango. We're in the entertainment business, which is all true. But like he's sacrificing,

he doesn't want to be an albatross that sinks the PFL because they said, look at all the money they spent on him. And it meant they couldn't bring in star opponents. Like you have to respect that choice. Ultimately, we don't actually know the financials, but do you really think

he would be getting 8 million per fight in the PFL? Like he was offered for that for the two John Jones fights? I don't think so. Luke. No, not as a guarantee. John Nash has run the numbers. Basically what he said was if he fought John Jones and then two more fights on a three fight deal, and he won all three of those, because by the way, if you lose, then the amount of money you get next time goes down pretty substantially for no other reason than you're losing paper viewpoints. But, okay, let's say that he beat Jon Jones. It does what industry experts think it would.

Two more fights. Under that consideration, he would make more money with the UFC deal. So the UFC deal is probably still, in terms of its potential upside financially, still the most lucrative one he could get. However, there are other ways in between the events profits,

although, you know, obviously PFL doesn't do well at the gate, but maybe Francis will change that. And then on top of it, of course, have his own sponsors, which is huge. There's a potential large amount he can make up. BC, one thing I want to point out too that I don't think folks are realizing,

remember PFL launched PFL Europe, right? Now that's obviously expanding a vast amount of territory, a lot of different cultures, languages, nations. But I saw some French MMA fans saying yesterday, just ask yourself, what would you rather see, Ghan and, you know, Imavov on a card in Paris or Cedric Doumbé and Francis Ngannou? Dude, I'm just telling you right now in that French market,

Dumbay and Ngannou are going to clean up if the UFC, excuse me, if PFL ends up going to Paris. So like, man, there's just a lot of ways where it's just, you got to understand this is not a, this is only unusual because our usual is fighters having absolute nothing but marching orders. And now these guys are given the marching orders and it looks different um can i ask you i think we wrapped there on on francis

and we brought out the questions that pfl has to face about recruitment and all that but what about the ufc they had a pretty quick reaction from all the breaking news and we're going to get to it and a lot of it was great and impressive. And it's like all these weeks we've been talking about how bad matchmaking is watered down in UFC. Like thanks for unloading the good stuff on us. But what does this mean in your opinion for the UFC going forward and UFC fighters outside of Dana,

probably ignoring it and saying Francis will never fight there anymore. What are the, what's the ripple effect there? I mean, fighters may end up getting paid more, right? Like, that's the ripple. Yeah, but not substantially more. Only the ones that they have to. Like, this idea that it's going to result in, like, a blanket salary raise is no chance. I mean, the numbers came out from North Carolina.

They still publish the numbers. Ijo Portilleria fought Carlos Olberg on the main card of UFC Charlotte for 12K. 12K was his pay. 12K. You know, that's before taxes and what you owe your team and everything else. Like, that's a substantial amount of money he's losing and not making hardly anything. So, you know, the idea that, like, he's going to get a bump. No, he's not going to get a bump.

But I, I wonder for the guts, I'm going to, I'm going to imagine something, right? Let's imagine Pavlovich has one more fight on his deal. Let's imagine that Almeida has two more fights on his deal. I would imagine, or even Aspinall, guys like that, they're going to do everything they possibly can within reason, unless they have the same kind of mental commitment as Francis to keep them under lock and key, whether it's giving them an extension, whether it's leveraging them,

whether it's pressuring them, whether it's giving them a raise or all of the above, like they're going to do whatever they can. That will restrict them more that we talked about. Cause like, you know, even Francis went through that and they attempted in his last two years. They're like,

if you turn down an opponent that they offer you, they can extend your contract multiple times. Right, so they can do that. The other one they're doing now is it used to be the case that the day you signed the contract was when it starts. Now what ends up happening is the day you sign the contract for the newer versions, it's not when it starts. It actually starts once the fight begins. So if they sign you in January and then don't book you for a fight until August, your, your contract didn't start until August.

So that's another eight months that they held. I mean, I'm giving examples of things that could look like, but that's the idea among other things as well, in terms of when they sunset and how easily they can retain you. There's a still champions clauses like, man, there's,

I mean, the PFL is go. This is one thing I want to say for PFL. I really think is important right now. This news, all the news about PFL Europe and Pfl africa and all this kind of stuff we'll see what it looks like but with the bellator news on top of it man pfl is taking all of their chips bc and they're pushing them right to the middle this is why i hope people understand could francis's deal hasten the demise of pfl it certainly is possible sure sure it is possible however the path they're

on without him is certain failure there's no path forward with that it will fail so this is their chance to go fuck it all the chips in the middle let's do exactly what we can and honestly dude mma needs a number two promoter who's kind of nipping at the ufc's heels a little bit they need that space you can misrepresent everything we say as you know these guys hate dana they hate the ufc they want this or that to happen you know do i want the best heavyweight to not be in the ufc under normal consideration no and circumstances no but ultimately i want them to get taken care of i don't want potier to be fighting for 12k and nothing else look like i mean in in the fact

that this whole news exposed all the people that really don't give a flying fuck about that including ufc brass it seems that's where we are that's why this news was huge that's why we just spent an hour on it luke damn right last one last clip this is it and we'll close the show on this we hit that already we already hit no no there's one more there's one more i want to hear i just want to hear what francis has to say for my own personal satisfaction i'll call it a day on this on francis talking about why his opponent is going to be making what they're making last one because i didn't want to get if they give me a lot of money and then don't get don't pay my opening i will feel like oh i came and i collect everything you know like sometimes uh some uh in this business some what i have learned is that

this is little is little weird right and they can cut somebody pay to pay you because that's what they want that's you that they want and i didn't want to have that feeling even though he wasn't true i didn't have a want to have that feeling that is all about me it's about fight and it's about fighters and yes let's make sure that the guy that i'm fighting um is going to have his own money he's going to have a proper training card he's going to afford a good training partner he's going to afford a good training partner he's going to afford anything that he needs to be at that level you know uh so fair enough fair enough well what a huge and monumental day we had just talked about that impact but i one thing we didn't talk about it was here's three tweets i do want to share that

john jones put out immediately after the news, Luke. One was calling yourself the baddest man on the planet from across the street. Who does that? LOL. Secondly, my man wins one Super Bowl, transferred to a top arena football league, and then claims to be better than Brady. That's what I'm hearing right now. And Jon would close with wasn't calling himself the baddest when he was still a free agent, he signed safely behind a new organization.

And now suddenly the baddest thing walking, like we all haven't seen him quitting inside the cage before. So I want to ask you to close on this. I can't believe that John actually believes what he's saying. Ultimately, let's not forget that when Francis first left UFC in January, the first public comments from John were supportive. And then suddenly a couple of weeks later, they were all negative because he went in there and beat gone and won the championship.

And of course they're calling him the goat. John doesn't want to debate over who the best heavyweight is. So John can use this stance of, well, Francis, you ran and left Luke. What really happened? Why Francis, why John sat sat out three years why he didn't come back until exactly after uh francis left and is there any conspiracy hope to the idea that ufc told john we're not making a move with you until we figure out the francis thing is that i definitely think yes i definitely feel like the last part is true that they were making it conditional upon that and so um there was probably a little bit of playing ball on John's part for the UFC's ambitions to make that work like just kind of leveraging him in that way I agree with that I agree however I will say this I really don't buy that either guy ducked the

other guy again everyone's gonna forget this and I'm not bringing this up to bag on John. I swear to God I am not. I'm really not. But remember, everyone's like, well, what happened? He took three years off and he could have come back. He got arrested twice during that time, and for not like awesome things, like for pretty, not the end of the world things,

but pretty suspect things, things that make you worry about his mental health, make you worry about, in certain cases even his physical health or or the physical danger he might be posing to himself and others like it was not an awesome time so i don't know what he was going through during that time and i've said it before i hope he and everyone else who is struggling with any kind of substance abuse or other issues gets the the actual help that they need and i and i stand by that today but like i'm not convinced that a a guy like John Jones was achieved in the level that he has is like,

like frightened to fight Francis and Ghanu. And conversely, dude, the amount of demons that Francis and Ghanu has stared down in his world and walked past, you know, he has courage. Unlike any of us,

quite frankly, I mean, he really, and perseverance, unlike any of us and self-belief, unlike any of us. I think that you could make that fight under different circumstances but the way it works today it's got to be all business and that's then suddenly john was the favorite son again you know the second francis ran out that door so um i don't believe anything john just said right there

francis said we'll cross the side of the street then come on over they're not gonna fight each other anytime soon all right so let's chill the hell out all right topic number two let's move along if we can bc there were a slew a slate whatever the word is of fight announcements yesterday regarding the next two ufc or the two new i should say ufc pay-per-views ufc 291 and1 and UFC 292 before I give you these fights because most of them sound pretty awesome in fact many of them sound amazing if I can just be perfectly honest with you I just want to point out something number one the fact that they came out on the day that Francis announced this huge historic deal is obviously not coincidental no UFC has the right to do that I'm not in any way saying that they don't in fact I got to tell you, I hadn't seen the UFC try to

run over someone's good news in a while. I was like, wow, they're really going for it this time. Glad to see they're not asleep at the wheel. But BC, I'm serious. No one ever makes them compete anymore. Finally, someone made them compete. But okay. Here's the other part, BC. I want to just

warn folks. I would be cautious about accepting all of these fights as being made. We know for a fact on record, multiple times across many years, they have announced fights that were either agreed but not signed or just made up in certain circumstances, and they needed a big bang to counteract the Francis Ngannou news. I'm going to read these fight names and these fights on the card to you i would take it with a grain of salt until it is confirmed at a later date that's all i'll say but with that in mind bc let me read it through one time and you get the first reaction here we go for the vacant bmf title who knew just right there can we just stop right there quickly okay

data's justification in that two-minute video. And by the way, I love the BMF bullshit. Like, I was like, leave it around. Make it an attraction. You can make pay-per-view main events with that belt. It's no problem. And by the way, this fight freaking rules. So I'm not here to be negative.

But I love Dana's justification of, because Jorge Masvidal retired, the BMF belt is now vacant. Right, right. Even though Dana is- He hasn't won a fight since then. Yeah. Dude, dude, he hasn't won a fight since then. And more to the point, Dana was- I couldn't- Go and look it up.

I Googled it one time. You can Google Dana White BMF won and done. Put that into Google. He told the media extensively. was i covered that i was at madison square garden yeah i was at that uh that fight week he told everyone with a microphone we're doing one of these and never again they needed a little pop on this they needed a title he said it like they ask him every month and he says the same answer so it's done we're never doing it again but back to your list i like it i like okay okay that aside whatever you want to make of it whatever

gaethje versus dustin poirier too i mean two thumbs up i mean who could possibly hate that fight this is hugely interesting we're going to talk about it jan balohovic taking on alex pade up at 205 now this one i think is fucking insane and weird i'm not saying i hate it but it came out of left field paulo costa taking on ikram alice carob what yo mike hold on hold on let me get through michael chiesa taking on kevin holland two thumbs up i love that fight this one gives me a little bit of the heebie-jeebies because tony just had that incident where he wrecked his car but tony ferguson is back against bobby green derrick lewis taking on marcos hogerio de lima hold on michelle pareda steven wonderboy thompson and lastly vanessia salvador taking on Marcos Rogerio de Lima. Hold on. Michelle Pereira, Steven Wonderboy Thompson, and lastly, Vinicius Salvador

taking on CJ Vergara. Okay, BC, hit it. Your reaction. The stinker here is Tony Ferguson back so soon. Five-fight losing streak. Stopped a bunch of times taking incredible damage and then just flipped his truck in a DUI. So we're going to run him back right

now. I got issues there, although matchmaking wise, like you, you get it. This might be the last ride in theory, you know, especially if he loses this one, but I don't want to see this right now. Um, and also Luke Alex potato is coming back quickly after a clean knockout loss. That's a little bit too quick, but if Blachowicz and Pereira for his debut at two, if I mean, that is just great matchmaking, a great potential fight. And Luke, while I'm not here to bring up the negatives here

and pick it apart, because again, like I want Gaethje Poirier too more than anyone, because this has been an incredible lightweight era of action fights. And these two, I still believe put on the best one. We talked about that a lot. I just rewatched it the other day. Like I love this first fight.

Let's see it again. Bring the BMF out of marble ball, you know, out of the closet. Like I'm all in on that. Love it. But Luke Thomas, if I could package the per data coming back quickly with the Ferguson

concern and the altitude of Salt Lake City. Like that affected the fights last time, like without question. Do we just say, look, it's America. We can go wherever we want or it's global. Like some places are short. Some places are tall. Do you care at all about the elevation factor that is going to affect all of these fights and may actually have a factor in

fights that we expect to go certain distances with great action you it's a wild card at this elevation true or false uh it's a super wild card i mean anytime you go to places like denver or salt lake city um it can you know not just for i mean we used to joke oh well the heavyweights are going to be huffing and puffing. Dude, it ain't just them. It ain't just them. So, you know, listen, Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier are pros pros. They're as experienced as it gets. They know what they're up against.

They know how to train. Really not worried about it for that. But for the other folks on this card, especially your 205ers, we got in the NACO main event and other ones. Yeah, that's like, again, it's like, dude, why the hell did they go back to Salt Lake after, to your point, all those issues? And there's no one on the card, to my knowledge, really like from the Salt Lake area. It just seems kind of random. I don't quite get it, but okay, it is what it is. They get to make the rules. So there's that.

BC, you mentioned about Pineda, the fact that he got knocked out very quickly. I totally agree. I think it's bad on the other hand i just still wonder how much of that was weight cut um affected so at 205 will he just i mean 20 more pounds i do wonder if i'll be more resilient you know i mean there was a few fights between this one and 292 in boston that we'll get to in a second that felt a little bit rushed that are sort of like okay i know you're trying to make a big announcement is that the right fight timing wise i think it's the right matchup if you're going to debut this former champion at 205 like you want him in there against the best right away blohovich is that perfect like okay you beat him you're probably

fighting for the title love it uh what do you make apollo costa who i think just recently re-signed and now yeah dude they're gonna they're gonna run him into this the the hottest buzz saw the moment right i mean this is this so this one is just bizarre it's like paulo costa should be fighting you know he fought vittori so he should be fighting like something like what the cannoneer i know he's got a fight coming up too but like sean strickland is fighting abu smegger madoff it's like he should be fighting paulo costa like that's that makes more sense given where they're at ikram alaskarov i mean please don't misunderstand me he's very good and honestly i would say he might even win this one like it's possible he might he

might but there's other ways where he might get absolutely fucking flatlined and i don't quite understand fast tracking him except to make a Hamzat rematch. That would be the only reason. But Hamzat's still at 185. I don't know. It's a weird one for me. Oh, that's a light heavyweight about the Costa one you're saying. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's.

It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. limited time only at participating mcdonald's in canada um no i think that that should be 185 right then what's the problem if your belief oh sorry i misunderstood yes my brain is not working yes you're right i apologize so yes they could fast track down i apologize Does that tell you that they believe... So would that... Do you think the fast track to the Chimaev rematch

with Alaskarov, the only guy to beat him, correct? Or maybe the last guy to beat him? I believe that's right, yes. Is that because... Would that have to be a title fight, in your opinion? Or would they make that on the way up, prospect versus prospect? I think they would want Hamzat to be champion at that point, right?

Because even if he wins this one, he's supposed to. How do we get there then, Luke? How do we? I'm asking you a legitimate question. How do we get there? So, okay, we got Drikus and Whitaker fighting. I suspect Whitaker's going to fight. Izzy will fight Whitaker, winner of that.

Assuming Hamzat takes fights in the interim, he'll just get fast-tracked to that one too. Because they basically, if Izzy wins, if Izzy ends up being the winner of that, all that little series, they're going to want to put him up against Hamzat. That just seems inevitable, right? Izzy versus Hamzat, which in our pay-per-view challenge where we drafted cards,

I still think if I would have been smarter and I made this change and I changed it back, if I would have went Izzy versus Chemaev in the main event, I would have just crumbled your John Jones versus Whitaker wet dream or pipe dreamer. I like how you talk about that one and not the four other ones, but okay. My other fights were great.

Bo Nickel against that guy. The other fight, no, the fights that you had were Bo Nickel, Chemaev, which is legit. I'm super legit. I'm not going to hate on that. And then multiple reruns. And then just rerun, rer then just rerun, rerun, rerun, rerun. Seriously?

Izzy versus Chemayev for the middleweight title is one of the best three fights they can make in the entire promotion and or sport, and I would be jumping out of my underwear for that fight, okay? I want you to understand that. Kiesa versus Holland, I think both guys are looking to get right

at 170. Holland obviously had a bit of a rebound performance. Actually, let me double check that. My brain's not working right. But I still believe two guys. Where are they in the rankings, BC? Let me see here. The rankings at 170 right now, this is where they currently sit. You've got Michael Chiesa at 12.

And you've got Kevin Holland. I don't even know if he's on there yeah he's not even on there um so this is about kevin holland just getting into the rankings i guess and for kiesa staying inside of them yes um that's really about it right it is it is look let's go to boston there's some things to talk about here all right are you right and then lastly with tony ferguson i share your concern about like why that came together as quickly as it did. So to your point, UFC 292, this is scheduled for Boston on August 19th. I have seen, by the way, that the Irish media is saying we should put a bunch of Irish fighters on this card.

I agree with them. I think that's exactly the right thing to do. Sean O'Malley has the Irish name, BC, but I don't think he claims the heritage necessarily. Jean Wiley in the co-main event defending her title against Amanda Lemos. That's interesting. I guess it would be better for them to go Zhong Wai Li versus Yuan Shaonan, but looks to me, BC, like they needed to just book a fucking fight, make it happen, get this announcement out, so they rushed this.

Here's what I don't understand. Here's what I don't understand. Is Sterling versus O'Malley a bad fight? Not at all. it's the fight that makes the most sense but did I did I miss here was not Aljamain Sterling on the MMA hour just the day before this announcement saying he wasn't sure if he was going to be ready to fight O'Malley in August and then the next day there's this announcement again I don't know for sure that this fight is or isn't happening but I would wait for independent verification to be sure.

Yeah. I got some questions about that. There's also rumors that's a hood over versus Murab could also be that night on this card, Luke, which would, I think really even amp up the main event. You're almost have like a final four right there of the top Bantamweights

and the best division in the sport. So that would be very interesting. I don't understand John way Lee here, Luke. I was the only one who wanted that Rose trilogy apparently to me it's historic it's the two best fighters in the division the champion has refurbished in zhong weili but she lost twice in a row to the great rose they both have done nothing for like almost a year why did that fight not get made i don't know but why are we rushing am Amanda Lee motion to this fight? Is it because she's 35?

Luke, I don't know. My point is this. If you have a window to make Zhang Weili versus Yan Shaonan, and it didn't seem like Shaonan took a lot of damage or had an injury. If you have a window to make a potential historic giant fight like that in China, don you do it or does this suggest that that fight takes time and Zhang Weili's been out for so long already let's just make this happen it just doesn't feel like the rankings wise it doesn't make sense to me yeah so for folks who don't know as BC indicated Carla's sitting at one Rose is at two she is available Rose competed at the recent ADCC trials like last weekend um and then Yan Xiaonan Non sitting at three, Amanda sitting at four. She's on a two-fight win streak after getting finished by Jessica Andrade,

or maybe two or even three. Let me go back and check. Yeah, she beat Michelle Watterson Gomez and Marina Rodriguez to win this title shot, BC, which seems a little weird. And then Angela Hill and Montserrat Ruiz before that. Did she beat a single top five competitor to get this title shot? I don't think that she did to be quite honest with you. So that's kind of weird that she got this title shot for those reasons.

Dude, there's no doubt in my mind that they rushed this one. Just there's no other explanation. Rose hasn't fought since last May when she lost to Esparza. Esparza's out on pregnancy maternity leave, basically. Maternity leave, excuse me for screwing that up. And then obviously we haven't seen John Whaley since last November, so it hasn't been a like a stupid amount of time but

it's been like enough where here's my only issue though amanda limo's good ass fighter like you know what i mean like she might she might win this like seriously this division at the highest level unlikely incredible parody in a lot of ways i just don't know why you would then risk okay maybe the ufc doesn't covet a rose trilogy with whaley for the title like i do maybe they think you can make that fight anyway who cares and maybe they don't cover this yon shan on fight as much as i think they should because it feels no they they i guarantee i guarantee they do they have masters to serve they have to do pay-per-views basically 13 times a year

they need title fights on them they didn't have one for 291 so they just they just pulled the bmf title out of wherever place it was and then you know reinstituted it here and sterling versus o'malley is pretty big but they have to keep the other ones in rotation so they were just like fuck it let's we just got to make it like it seems to me like this is very much calendar driven, not like what's the best place and time to put this fight driven. And so you get this as a consequence. Mikey letting us know that Murab could be heading into hand surgery today, he believes, which maybe pushes off the idea of him fighting Suhudo instantly.

Although Murab, I think, told Ariel that he wants that fight next and he'll be back as soon as he can. And also Luke, Mikey believes you agree with this, that the return of the BMF title is only so that Conor McGregor can have a title to fight for win or lose. I'm adding win or lose. I think he's suggesting win,

win or lose against Michael Chandler in their tough matchup as coaches Luke is that true is there any connection there I mean how do you exclude him from that right now they're putting it in the the only way no and even then you wouldn't exclude it because it's not a 155 thing like if Connor wants the winner of that or wherever he ends up and then he wants it they'll just make it at whatever weight the fight is going to be at 155 170 whatever like it doesn't matter so no it would just be a creative way to make connor non-title fights super important yeah of course or seemingly indicated the chandler fight's not signed yet luke still not signed the usada what is the story with that one do we have any update to that nope and the usada thing

still not figured out the only update we have is i mentioned it on our last show dana told the media that they hope to have a deal by like the end of the tough airing season the tough uh reality show like that's starting soon um interesting by the way you and i as you pointed out we're also in the uh conor mcgregor netflix series McGregor Forever, whatever the hell it's called, Luke. We're in there, dude. Episode four, it appears. Spoiler alert, Luke. I'm in the Andre Ward Showtime doc June 2nd, right?

Are you really? Yeah, and it's like a shout out to me back in 2014 when I was still at ESPN. I don't know where they found this footage because I don't think there's actually a copy of it anywhere, but I was in there, Luke, all right? What were you saying? Andre Ward is a bitch. Something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's what I said, yeah. Now, as a reminder, we're expecting Eric Nixick. He actually texted me, so I think we're going to be good to go in about 10 minutes. BC, with the 10 minutes we have here, we can obviously hit some on the back end too. Yeah, we may have to shelf some of our

original uh offerings here just to just to you know all right fair enough uh but let's talk quickly if we can what we know from UFC fight night Dern versus Hill Mackenzie Dern at 115 fighting Angela Hill Mackenzie Dern a 12 and 3 record but BC she's riding um well she's won one in her last three by contrast Angela Hill enters this contest with a record of 15 and 12, which is nearly 500. However, she is entering off of a win, two wins in a row, actually, Emily Ducati and then Lupita or Lupi Godinez. BC, I did a tape study on Mackenzie Dern.

I hear everyone say, oh, she just, you know, if she could just work on her wrestling, if she could just work on her other stuff, she would be good to go. Actually, that's really not true. I mean, obviously her jiu-jitsu is good, but she has, to me, really not adapted that either. I went through and showed there are a lot of moments where she rides in certain positions or doesn't engage in pins to ground and pound in order to really open up opponents, which means the submission isn't there nearly as easily. And she just puts herself in mechanically disadvantageous positions.

It's not just that the striking hasn't come along or the wrestling. The jujitsu is still, for the most part, in my judgment, much more geared to the sport rather than the MMA side. And I really don't know where she's at at this point. Yeah, I think there's a legitimate concern there. That last close-up loss, who was that to Luke? It's running off running off the top of my head that for for dern yeah she lost to what a majority decision in the five round bout there too she lost the majority decision to uh yon shanon yon shanon correct um that that seemed to be another one of those like see she's not ready for time prime time moments when what does the promotion want to do make her a legitimate title

contender because she's a star it's why luke she's main eventing here in a fight that we don't really think should be a main event but it appears the ufc is trying to ride the the star power that she does bring um no it's not a complete package it may never be we all have these same questions but i have said it long ago and i'll stand by it luke she she's got nine lives privileges with me whereas like i do think that the championship pedigree is in there. Yes, there's still a lot of work, still major mistakes, still things that aren't complete, but I still think it's in there. The problem is, Luke, I don't love this fight.

I don't even think it's going to be competitive, but the odds tell me I'm wrong. What do you think about the fact that Vegas has Hill as only a plus 145 underdog? 38 years old, I get the two-fight win streak. And by the way, that win over Ducati is like solid. She looked good, Luke. But Dern only minus 170.

Am I wrong to look at this matchup and be like, oh, this is a Mackenzie Dern showcase fight that is also a get-well fight that is also a main event just for her star power? I think that's the blunt truth luke bc angela hill's takedowns per 15 minutes her rate is 0.58 pretty low meaning for every one fight she's halfway towards the takedown so every two fights she gets one if they go the distance

right not much mackenzie Dern is at.61. She's barely better. How about this? Take down accuracy for Mackenzie Dern, 11%. Angela Hill, 29. Neither of those are great numbers. 11%. Take down defense for Mackenzie Dern, 40%, which, of course, is not, you know,

who wants to take her down all that much? She's going to find a way to take the fight to the ground, though. This is a matchup. She's going to find a way to bring this fight to the ground, and i don't think hill striking is a threat to stop her or dominate her i totally disagree hill lands 5.68 strikes per minute for a ranked fighter that is very high she could absolutely rain on her now could she put a lot here's what we know about mckenzie she doesn't lose her composure standing right and she doesn't lose composure over the course of a fight in terms of punishment. Like she really can grit and bear through it, which I do give her a lot of credit for. I think in some ways she's actually suited for that with

her grappling game, being able to make the transition to MMA. Uh, but the problem is strikes landed per minute for her three strikes of sore per minute for her 4.39. She gets bombed on and doesn't have a reliable way to get the fight to the floor ever now you might say she could pull guard against Angela Hill and do something from there yes that seems to me some kind of a legitimate threat that you have to take seriously and I see why she is the favorite I get that but I gotta tell you I don't I agree with the odds makers I don't think she should be the favorite by any substantial margins not to say she couldn't go in there and backpack angela hill in 30 seconds and then i think you're gonna get a second round submission luke but i'll hold that thought for friday as we will the rest of this

card luke i believe we've got a very special guest ready in the bullpen uh no he's not quite ready just yet not quite ready just yet mikey will let us know but i want to make this point bc before we get it going here uh okay now we got him going I just want to point out, I think that Mackenzie Dern's submission skills, while not adapted for MMA properly, are enough to give her the nod as the odds-on favorite. But remember, even the one win she has against Tisha Torres was a split decision. She is lucky to not be riding a three-fight losing streak. Yeah, she's got holes in her game,

but I think Hill's stats work better on a certain level of competition that she beats. She doesn't beat when she steps up, Luke. I don't know that this is the step up that you imagine it is. We shall see. We shall see. Okay, let's put that to the side for just a moment. Let's put it to the side for just a moment,

and let's get joined by the head coach at Extreme Couture, and of course he is the head coach for at least Francis Ngannou and many other fighters. He is my friend and yours. It's Eric Nixick. Hi, Eric. How are you? What's up, fellas? Miss you guys, man.

I know, I know. Last time we were in Vegas, we didn't have enough time. Next time, we've got to really come through and spend some time at the gym. But okay, let's pitch it to you. Hold on, Eric. I don't mean to cut you off, Luke, but Eric, I appreciate that you played ball during our London live show

and you were willing to show Luke your hog because it was a potentially dicey situation there and i just want to say i appreciate that bro right when i got the text i'm like oh something's up but all right all right here we go uh yesterday a big day i want to get your reaction to the day actually and from your perspective and what you've seen, give us a sense of how Francis has been over the last four months. Well, when we knew that he was going to sign the deal, he called me and, uh, you know, a little much, too much TMI, but I was going to the bathroom and he kept like FaceTime. I kept declining him. I'm like, and finally he's like, bro, answer your phone.

So I answered the phone. He goes, how come you don't answer? I'm like, go in the bathroom, man. He goes, I got some big news. We're signing today. And I was like, all right, man. Like, you know, let's do it. And he goes, I want you on the phone.

We're going to FaceTime. I'm like, I'm going to the bathroom? He's like, yeah. And then as he goes to sign, he's like, wait a minute. It's on my phone. I got to hang up and sign it and I'll call you back. So it was the happiest I've ever seen him, yeah. And then as he goes to sign, he's like, wait a minute, it's on my phone. I got to hang up and sign it and I'll call you back. So it was the happiest I've ever seen him, man. I mean, really, like obviously when he beat Stipe, I think that was, you know,

there's levels of that happiness. But it was visible. It was visible to me. It was a weight lifted off his shoulders. And he was happy about the decision. And the first thing he brought up to me was PFL Africa. You know, he said, and a couple other things he mentioned too, and to the credit of PFL, he mentioned that

they were always there. They weren't ever pressuring him. They weren't ever pushing the situation. They weren't overbearing. They weren't trying to get him to make a decision on anything. They, I think, respected his wishes on trying to find what suited him best. And they said, Hey, no problem. We're always going to be here for you. And those are little things I think respected his wishes on trying to find what suited him best and they said hey no problem um we're always going to be here for you and and those are little things I think that like when I I mean I know Francis to the level that I know him those things that are the things that he appreciates the most so I think that's really really felt like he was wanted the most let me follow up if I may which is you know you know Randy Couture and obviously you know Francis these

are two figures who have butted heads with promoters really over the course of their career and I wonder seeing some of the reaction yesterday I think a lot of people were positive for Francis but of course there were a lot of people that were negative about it as well but you also probably lived through Couture having some of his issues as well what lesson do you draw about the sport and the fighters who try to do things like they do and what kind of challenges they're up against i mean i was here when randy had that press conference at extreme couture where he announced that he was going to sit out or you know i think it was prior to the tim silvia fight and all those issues that he had

um when they didn't sign fedor so i was here i saw that firsthand but um you know i have the best history teacher in the world when it comes to MMA, whether it's on the mats or whether it becomes business, it's Randy Couture. And Randy was, to his credit, he was a resource. He wasn't ever trying to tell Francis what to do and what not to do. But his door is always open, if you will. So when stuff like this came down the pipe, it was very easy to pick up the phone and talk to Randy about it through his own experiences and you know just from an analytical standpoint like he was like hey here's the things I think they're going to do or x y and z but here's what I think your worth might be and you know he never told him where he thought

he should go or anything like that just almost his own experience and that's and that's really you know a guy like Randy Couture no matter matter what it is, when he talks, you listen. And he was a great help for all of us. Coach, I've really, really, really respected Francis throughout this process. Publicly, never breaking emotionally. I mean, you know, he's a free agent for four months and people are trying to act like, you know, he should go crawling back here. And look, he had this plan all along. You know what he's really made of. I feel like his name was dragged through the mug a lot, specifically by Dana White.

But we don't need to get into the soap opera side of that. But just in how that weighs on a man. Like, you know Francis better than I do. How does he deal with all of that stuff, all the doubt, all the negativity, and just kind of brush it off and stay focused on his mission? He's very cynical in a lot of ways. He has a pretty funny sense of humor. We make jokes about stuff, or we'll poke at stuff. I'll send him memes or stuff that people are saying, and we'll actually have a good chuckle about it, you know, but I think BC, what you, you nailed it, man. Like the thing that I was most disappointed about, and I think this is kind of where our society is today is, is people cheer for failure. They want to see people fail for, for no reason whatsoever. And I remind people like, you know, I even tweeted that to somebody, I was like, Hey, success isn't finite. It's infinite. And there's enough to go around for everybody. You don't go

to the store and say, Hey, we're fresh out of success. Sorry. You can't have any more. Right. It's, it's, it's there for everybody. Why not cheer for people? Why not welcome that into your own heart and your own life and hope that people make the money that they deserve or have that success or find the value what they feel that they're worth? I was kind of disappointed to see some of that stuff because it really has no effect on them whatsoever. It doesn't matter. You're just on there saying shit, you know? So for Francis to kind of go through all that and just really brush it off from what I saw, he didn't, he didn't care about really anything to be quite

honest with you. We went to dinner last night and we're laughing about a lot of that, a lot of the tweets and memes and everything else. So, um, I think it's just the information that you take in, right? Like talk about your diet. It's what you eat, but it's also what you're putting in your mind. So he's's uh he's pretty iron cloud when it comes to that stuff and he never wavered on any of this and it's it's an incredible move i believe for his legacy but like he's had such an incredible life journey to get here and how you described for us uh your last

visit with us the the breakdown of of the pain he went through and getting not getting doctor's clearance for the gone fight but still persevered and we know what that meant to his contract what do you think this decision says about what his true legacy you know will be or is right now as a fighter well i think it's groundbreaking for this generation of of combat sports you know he he really bucked the trend and he broke the mold and stepped outside the comfort zone of which most people are moved by money. Obviously, money does play a factor in things, but it's more his worth. He said it best in his post,

I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man. I think that it's going to open the eyes of other people within the sport and see what their worth might be. And whether it's within the UFC or outside that organization, he set a huge standard even for his opponent, man. Like, who does this? This guy's out lobbying for his opponent to make sure that he makes at least two million dollars. That's going to bring people over. People are going to say, man, like I'm, I saw the numbers for, um, Charlton and, and Jairzinho main event. You know, you don't think those guys are looking, uh, man, man, I'll go over to PFL and fight for 2 million. So he's doing a lot of great things. I think BC, and it's very innovative in this day and age of MMA. The other part of this deal that was, I think to me, I mean, there's a lot of it that's PFL is risking. There's some that Francis is

risking, although the amount of guarantees he has are pretty great, but let's talk about 2024. So I get the logic about why he wants to keep 2023 open to box and then return in 2024. But for folks who may not remember, he fought gone in January of 2022. So there is a couple of weird things. One, he might get a boxing fight, but that's different than MMA, of course. And then the other part is he may not get it, in which case he doesn't fight for two and a half years. You're his head coach. Walk me through what you guys are going to do to prep him in all the directions he needs to be to get this to work

and maybe what concerns you have about navigating that process. Well, you know, you and I talk about this all the time, Luke, is in between camps is when you are looking to grow and you're looking to make your game better in areas that maybe you weren't working on. When you get into camp, it's very specific to opponent in your game plan. And that's where we thrive our best. And we've got to see that out of Francis, you know, between Jairzinho and Stipe and then the Garn fight. There's new tools that we were able to show. And I think that's the most important part when it comes to mma is the constant evolution of the sport that you're able to keep doing those things in the training room which is very important and um you know unfortunately because of all this stuff going on the last time he was really doing hard pro practice was in

december he went back home then he came back and he was been still rehabbing his knee and working through some of that stuff but all the while now he's been back home he's back and he was been still rehabbing his knee and working through some of that stuff. But all the while, now he's been back home. He's back on the pads with myself and Dewey. He's been back to pro practice and doing those things as well. But for me as a coach, to answer your question, man, I like having our guys in here full time and growing. But not only that, the camaraderie and being around the team, I think it's very important as well. Now, when he does decide to transition over to boxing, you know, I think it's going to be different for all of us. I think, you know, we talked about who would coach him for boxing. We don't really have an idea. He's not the easiest guy to hold

pads for either, let me tell you. And myself and Dewey, you know, we can hold pads for him, but it's going to be specific on what certain certain coaches want dewey does coach boxers man and he's a very good boxing coach so if he wants to keep it in house i think he's able to do that as well so there's a lot of questions i think we still all have with this situation but in my mind it was like okay one step at a time let's get this done and then we'll move on to this next thing as long as his ass is in this gym and he's getting his work in, then I feel a lot better about the situation. If he had signed with UFC back in December or January or whatever, and let's say there was a big re-announcement, or maybe let's say yesterday was an announcement that he was going to rejoin UFC or something, right?

In your mind, how soon would he be ready to fight? It would probably be Jon Jones, so I guess I'll ask it that way. How long would it take, in your mind, from today to be ready for a challenge like that? If you if I had my way about it, I would say July. I think July would be the perfect date because I'll obviously international fight week. But the time in between of preparation and making sure that, you know, we game plan for him. We did things in the past because remember, you know, when we beat Stipe Miocic in March of 2021, we were told all leading up to that, the winner out of our fight is going to fight John.

So we had research done. We had game plans done. And then it was back burner, back burner, back burner. So really just kind of getting back in that car that's been sitting in the garage for five years. You just got to turn the engine on and get going again. But to be fair, I think July would have been the perfect date for us. Okay, last one for me on this particular issue, namely, you know, Francis heavyweight

ages well, so it's not like he's old. I think he's 36. He'll be 37 or so in September or something like that. So he's not old, but he will have missed between 35 and 37. If he doesn't end up competing until about this time next year. Do you worry about losing what is sort of like, not quite a heavyweight prime, but 35 to 37 can be a quite lucrative time for winning for a top-end heavyweight? I mean, you can. You can worry about it. But I mean, I really don't have a choice at this point. So, you know, it doesn't really matter now.

Like, we can't cry over spilled milk. It's moved forward. I'll tell you this. He still hits hard this point so you know it doesn't really matter now like we can't cry over spilled milk it's it's moved forward um i'll tell you this he still hits hard as shit you know he still punches he'll still knock a mule out if he had to but um at the end of the day like we were talking earlier to me it's about growth and progression in your in your craft what tools are you adding to the tool shed those things are are important to me. And by doing so, when you get certain opponents, you're able to change your look. You don't have to be reliant on the one-hit power. You're still able to wrestle. You're still able to do some other things.

So that would be my one worry is obviously time in the gym of growth. That's the one thing that kind of bugs me about the whole situation. Coach, how much do you believe the wrestling that you guys used to beat gone and you know to be fair i think there was only one man in the world that saw that coming besides your team and francis you know and now while you're looking at him well francis pulled that off and i you know we've always said that the ground upon he showed in the steep a rematch was like lesnar versus me or like i mean it was like damn um how much did that open the idea for you guys as a team that this is a great direction that could round out his game moving forward well it was it was the

the approach that we had to take with him and we're actually talking about that last night at dinner i think you know each fighter you have to my dad always said you have to have a ball of janitor keys right each door is a different key key opens a different door how is your approach with it and i remember sitting with francis and talking about the things he didn't like or the things that he was afraid of or how you know made him feel when he wrestled um so i had an idea of what i wanted to do is i wanted to flip the script i wanted to make it fun for him um in a way where instead of thinking about defensive wrestling and defending takedowns over and over and over again, I wanted him to learn offensive wrestling.

Let's take people down. Let's beat people up on top. Let's give this dude a new shiny toy where he's like, oh, shit, this is fun. But inherently what's going to happen when you do offense, you're going to learn defense. You're going to wrestle. So it was almost kind of just a little trick that we tried to use on him, and it worked.

And later on, all they wanted to do, like in rounds, was take people down and ground and pound and beat them up where we had to tell them, hey, bro, you got to stand this guy back up. It's a TKO or you just can't get up, you know. So giving him a new tool and a new resource really opened his eyes to, you know, I think all the values of what full MMA skill sets can happen. So, you know, credits to him. He's the one that, you know, believed in it, was in here.

During COVID, myself and Randy, we spent a lot of time together, and I took my ass beatings, man. You know, there was a lot. There was no other bodies in here, so it was me, Randy, and Francis. So we had a lot of help. Dennis Davis and Nate Pettit, they run the wrestling program in here. And you've seen the guys like Chris Curtis, Sadabusi. You know, these guys are able to defend takedowns and that enhances their striking.

They're more confident in what they're able to do on the feet because they're not worried about getting taken down. And if they are taken down, they bounce right back up. You know, Brad Tavares, for example. Right. So to me, it's a lot about the program and the system that we have here at Extreme Couture. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. Whether or not you end up being part of Francis' team in the boxing transition,

it's been a little bit hit or miss at times when guys make that transition from MMA to boxing. I think if anything, and we look at Conor against Floyd, it's like he looked the part, but I don't know if the transition between stances really worked in producing the kind of power that he was known for in MMA. Talk to me about how you would guess Francis would transition beyond just having otherworldly power that gloves or not would, would wreck a farm animal. I think you'd be silly if you try to approach a fight, um, and try to outbox a guy who's been doing it their entire life. And so, well, what tools can we use from our MMA skillset? Well, the first thing I noticed when we sparred Joe Joyce was when we tried to outbox Joe, just with jabs and crosses and just, you know, rudimental boxing, we were getting smoked. And then we came in the corner and I was like, Hey man, why don't we start doing our stuff and

let's get in some stance switches and getting into some, some level changes and, you know, stance switches within motion. We'll store a right hand and roll into a left overhand and do things that aren't really a custom in traditional boxing. And let's see how, let's see how we do with this. And sure as shit BC, he was, he was cracking them and he hit him with like a switch cross hook. And Joe Joyce was like, wait a minute. He didn't expect, he never expected that. That's something that these guys don't see on a regular basis.

So like, why would we show up and try to beat them what they're already great at? We need to come up with new wrinkles and new ideas and new concepts that maybe they haven't seen. Maybe they're not accustomed to, right? Like when you see guys switching stances, not, you know, a lot of guys can do it, but it's not a regular thing that I think these guys

in boxing really handle. So does that mean we're going to come in there and smoke everybody in boxing no but i think it gives us a little bit of a different approach than most and it's a one thing the boxing go ahead go ahead uh in terms of the ambition do you feel like knowing him and talking to him that this is one time this year, let's max out the money, let's get a legitimate name, and, you know, heck, if it ends up leading to something, that's fine. Or is he hoping that this leads to something? Because, you know, we know he's going to be back in the cage in 2024, and this will mean a lot to the larger MMA sphere

of whether PFL can use Francis as bait and make monster fights, and that'll keep them there. One and done for boxing for right now. How do you guys look at that? I don't think it's one and done. But I mean, look, we're all still sitting around waiting on this whole boxing thing, right? Like there's not been there hasn't been a lot of movement.

I know there's been names brought up and everything else for him. But, you know, I would like to just get something down and know. But from the way he sounds, man, it's not one and done. He might do two or three. And then with the freedom of what PFL is offering with their deals, he can mix those fights in and, you know, hit an MMA fight, get into boxing and do it all over again. So if he decides to box and do two or three

men, he's got my full support. I'm happy for him and I hope he makes as much money as he can. All right. So let's talk about something else that Francis mentioned, which I thought was for you pretty interesting, namely that he could take a tune-up fight, a tune-up boxing fight. What, what kind of an opponent would you be seeking in that circumstance? Because that could be risky if they're at all with a big name. So walk me through what that looks like in your mind. Yeah, that's BC's world, man, that boxing world. I have no idea.

I just know that some of the names that I saw on the list, there were some trap fights. There were some trap fights. I'm like, I don't know about boxing that dude, man. Like, you know, I think you go out and try to maximize your value right away. And to me, the guy that was the most willing dance partner was, was Wilder. So, uh, and I don't know, I have no idea where that's at anymore. So, um, but I'm with you, Luke, like you, you go out and you try to block some, some young kids, some up and comer, um, and you get tuned up, man,

like how does that work for your value? I really don't know, and I don't know the boxing industry like that. So, you know, it might work out for him, it might not, I don't know, but I feel like you go out and go try to maximize your value right now and box one of the top three. Go get Joshua, Wilder, or Fury if that's something that's on the table for him. Walk me through just a little bit the taxonomy of Las Vegas gyms. Is there any kind of – I guess Dewey Cooper kind of crosses them both. But, like, is there any kind of integration between the boxing gyms and the MMA gyms in Las Vegas in any capacity?

Me and Capitillo, we coach quite a bit together. And, you know, I send guys over to him because I think it's important. There's guys in the room that think that they don't have defensive flaws in their MMA game and they can get away with this, this and that. I'm like, man, I'll tell you what I got. There's 13 year old kids over here that'll take your head off. You need to go box over capitals and guys go over there and spar and they're like, oh boy, you know? And I think that, I think there's a, there's a level to this. And when you're able to step outside your comfort zone and go experience that level, it's important. And, you know, to be honest with you, Luke,

I'm a big open door guy, man. You've been in my gym. I got coaches from all around the world that will be here, be in town. I always allow people in. I don't think there's any secrets in this game. You know, it's all about the energy. So if guys want to train elsewhere or get other looks don't think there's any secrets in this game. It's all about the energy. So if guys want to train elsewhere or get other looks, I think it's important, man. I don't think you should hold anybody down and not allow guys to train. And when it comes to boxing gyms, I welcome that. I think it's a good look for them.

All right. One more on Francis, and then I want to talk about Chris Curtis, actually, because it's actually relevant given what happened last weekend to Cody Stammen. But last one on this. We started the show talking about this, which was it wasn't just like Francis having to deal with slander from other people or bad things. The amount of actual fake news, news that is reported, that ended up literally having no bearing on the truth.

I wonder as a coach and someone who participates in media at times, here you are on our show, what you make of that and like what fighters or whoever is up against in an industry that will just print basically whatever. Yeah. I think over time we all started to see that. And I think again, like we were saying earlier, you have a choice to, to filter what you see and don't see on, on Instagram and Twitter. You know, I think a couple weeks ago, I just deactivated my Instagram just because of access. Like everybody can get a hold of you. It's like, man, I wanted to focus on my family. I had some family stuff going on. So it's like, I didn't want to be bothered by anything. So I encourage people to kind of get off of that

social media platform and stop reading in all the BS, you know, because gather your facts first. And instead of retweeting it or jumping on it or not really understanding, I remember, I think the one thing I ended up posting in for a while was some guy said Francis was offered $8 million per fight for the UFC. And I'm like, no, it wasn't. It was $8 million for the Jon Jones fight. And that was a lot of money. And I completely understand that. But each fight thereafter, that was not the same pay structure. And there was a lot of differences there. completely understand that but each fight thereafter that was not the same pay structure and there was a lot of differences there that's why Francis was like well I don't know like I'm risking a lot taking this and then if this happens and this he's a thinker he's just not going to jump on something and sign on the dotted line you know because people think that that's a good deal for them it wasn't a good deal for him you know so um

I think as much as you want to buy into social media Luke and look at those things the more it's going to consume you and eat at you so I just got to the point where man I'm not even turning on my Twitter I'm not even looking at the thing I'll tweet something I'll troll something and I'll just send it not even look post and ghost all right let me switch gears if I can I wonder as a coach what you feel like you can do maybe the answer is nothing but I've been thinking about a lot so Chris So Chris Curtis, who trains with you, he clashes heads with Kelvin Gastelum. They don't recognize it in real time. He basically gets knocked out and has to wake up, loses as a consequence,

and he has no real recourse. Cody Stammen gets illegally kicked while his opponent's on the ground, and he's down as well, and then they restart him on the feet. As a coach, what do you tell your fighter about this afterwards? What can you do reasonably going forward to prepare them for consequences like this? Well, how do you assess the rank commission unfairness? And it's not necessarily in Las Vegas all the time either. What do you do about that, if anything?

Can I add one more? Sure. Rafael Asensio and the cage grab against davy grant and keith peterson taking a point away but not giving the position back right you know and um that cost him the fight that cost him the fight now credit to keith peterson you know i don't know if i'm allowed to say this but he pulled me aside and we had a great conversation and it was a human error right there's there's things he could have done better and he admitted to that and look we're all human beings and i'm okay with that the the kelvin gastelum chris curtis fight luke i'll be honest with you man like my vantage point i didn't see

the clash of heads i saw the the reaction to chris and i was like what happened later on i found out i saw it was a clash of heads so i missed it i think it was pretty easy for mark otter to be able to miss it too you know um you wish you were able to go back and change that. I think Mark Otter is a great referee. And I think if he would have saw it firsthand, he would have taken the appropriate actions to do so. But I think there needs to be a little bit more with the commission and not necessarily holding people accountable, but allowing that review. And the hard part about it is, is the commission is the judge, jury, and executioner of their own people. And they don't want to look bad. So if I'm in trouble and I got to go see dad,

dad might let you off the hook for something you did wrong because they don't want to make any problems or make any noise or make you look incompetent as a commission as a whole. I think that's where the problem is at. So I think maybe some help or like having one governing body from a few different sanctions, like I have Nevada, I have California, I have another Texas, let's say, and they run a combined commission to where they would be the ones to oversee whoever, you know, penalize the ref or whoever it may be. So there's not any like, oh, well, you know, we're trying to take care of our own sort of situation. Right.

So a basic idea here would be that what you would like to see, and I think a lot of other people is, you know, we don't want to beat up on referees. But if in the NFL they get the chance to look at replays, and I realize they get it wrong there too, but just creating extra layers of the right to appeal and then a mechanism by which to enforce it, you're saying that's sorely needed here as well. I think so because we see this weekly now. We do. We see this weekly now. And we're talking about people that are making decent amount of money, but the win and the show and the win bonus is astronomical when it comes to fighter pay.

And we're talking $30,000000 and 30,000, right? And then, you know, Elliot Marshall did such a great job of breaking down when it goes to coaches, taxes, you know, all this stuff. And if you lose a fight, a lot of times you're ending up damn near breaking even, right? You're broke. If you win a fight, yes,

that's when you make a little bit of money. So you can understand how, you know, how pivotal it is on some of these decision-makings, not only by the referees, but by the, by, by these judges as well. So where's the accountability come into play? Where is the, you know, the resources for them to improve and get better? What classes are they taking? Right? Like what are their day jobs? You know, I've always opened my doors to judges and said, Hey, I'd love for you guys to come in and watch grappling practice or come in and watch sparring. Cause we're getting our reps

in. When are you guys getting your reps in? When are you guys always continuing to grow? And, you know, I think those are some of the issues that we see in this sport, but you know, until something big or something changes, man, we're, we're stuck with it. So, you know, obviously Chris was upset with the whole situation after, man, there's, there's nothing you can do about it. Kelvin won the fight. It is what it is. We've got to move on, man. Yeah, Eric, you may have to go to their world.

If you're willing to go in a Turkish bathhouse with Douglas Crosby, then that may be, you know. No, that's not it. Hard pass, brother. Hard pass. Not your thing right there. Coach, quick transition just for a second, though. I wanted your thoughts on how quickly Cyril Gantz succumbed to Jon Jones fighting for Francis' former title.

You guys game-planned against him. Wrestling was surprisingly such a huge thing. I still didn't think it could end like that. I mean, I'm not here to take anything away from Jon. He turned around three years like it was nothing. But Cyril Gantz kind of shit his pants out there. Let's be very fair with that. BC, you nailed it, bro.

Like I was, I was disappointed to be honest with you. Like I really thought that, that these guys were going to, you know, look, if, if, if you can't do it as a coach, you got to hire or bring people in to help you. It's okay, man. Like there's shit that I don't know. There's, there's things that like, I'm not going to be able to coach the level of certain, certain people, but it's all about your fighter, man. Like you want the success for your fighter, which means you have to put your ego aside and maybe bring somebody in more qualified than you, or maybe pay people to come in and help as training partners. You know, I know a lot of

the backstory of what goes on with that gym, um, per Francis. And it's not my place to say anything. But at the end of the day, I think if you're if you're not getting the resources that you need as a fighter, you need to start looking at what you're doing and where you might need to go to get those things done. Because I think what kind of happened in that fight, the blueprint was laid out. And I talked to Brandon Gibson. You know, he's a very good friend of mine. Brandon's like, dude, you guys laid the blueprint out. You know, go take this dude down down he has no answer to getting back up

we talked about you know bottom leg turk top side half splitting pins kill the bottom leg that's a wrap credit to john jones he went out and executed and found a submission like that and made him look like and is the goat so um for me when you look at cereal and those guys uh especially with that gap in skill set skillset, man, don't be afraid to go out and train somewhere and go out and get some help that you need to improve. Yeah, indeed. I got one more for you coach to wrap up our heavyweight MMA discussion. Cause you're a bright mind in the space.

If John Jones hangs around with the UFC heavyweight championship, if he beats Stipe and wants to fight again. Bigger threat to his title, Sergey Pavlovich or Jalton Almeida? Ooh. Tom Aspinall. Ooh. Off the menu. Wow. Wow. Tom Aspinall. Tell us why.

He's been on my radar for years, Luke. I think this dude is uber talented. It's unfortunate that he injured his knee in London. You know, Sergey and Tom Aspinall have been on my radar for a while. He's a guy that coming through the ranks, I'm like, we're going to end up having to fight this dude. I think he's very complete all around skill set. Mentally, physically, his wrestling, submission game his striking, his ability to switch stances.

I think to me, I think Tom Aspinall might be the guy holding the belt for a little while at the heavyweight division. In my opinion, I think he's a stud. Well, give us a sense, too, if you can. We'll wrap up here in just a minute. But I will be honest, coach. I'll be honest. I get him wrong.

I get him right. I wasn't sure what to make of Sergei Spivak when he first got to the UFC. For starters, he had the world's most incredible widow's peak. But beyond that, he has gotten legitimately very, very good. I'd say in the last year or so, you could just see he's turning a corner. I know he's working with you guys now. Tell me from the training room what you've seen from him that has enabled in your mind this this last his last bit of fights have gone just so well for him yeah so uh sergi's

actually been trained a little bit more over at drysdale's with bigger heavier guys um but i think when you know for him it became more of a concept thing we talked a lot about where he mentioned i've never knocked anybody out i've never knocked anybody out. I've never knocked anybody out. And I think as a heavyweight, that's kind of how your typecast is. You're supposed to have this incredible power and knock people out. But he has a skill set that a lot of heavyweights don't have. So my mindset with him was, well, you don't have to knock people out, but they do have to respect your punch and able to make them, you know, utilize their guard and get their hands high because of the threat of a,

of a punch. It's going to only open up your wrestling and getting into your body lock sequences much better. So I think giving him the proper routes and understanding, Hey, if we throw a right overhand, it's going to lead into an underhook right to your body lock series. That's where you want to be. That's home base for you. If it's a Southpaw, we're going to do this. We're going to do this.

So giving him routes where he's comfortable and throwing these specific punches to disguise his fit-ins, I think was the most important thing for him. And look, I don't care how you win the fight. I don't care if it's a takedown and you beat this dude up on ground to pound and get a submission or you knock a dude's head off. It doesn't matter to me one bit. As long as it's functional and it fits your system and it fits your ideologies as a fighter, but we're always growing and adding other tools

so we're not just a one-trick pony. I think you're developing well, and that's the best thing we can do for you. Well, I got to tell you, I really appreciate this conversation. I always learn a lot from talking with you. I know you're not Francis, but I know you've seen what he's been up against and what he has now achieved, so congrats to him and your team and everyone else involved. I hope that we get to see him in 2023, but either way, we'll be looking forward to 2024

and everything else you have between now and then. Eric Nixick, thank you so much. My pleasure, guys. Always great talking to you guys, man. There he is. One of the very best in the sport. One of the best in the game. Always making time for us.

Hey, is that Reggie Jackson? Reggie Jackson walked in, Luke. He knows how to open doors into our lives. So here he is from one great guy to another. Eric, nice sack over to the old Reg Master, right? Well, I hope aside from your very dumb joke that this cat opens up a cut on your face. How about that? Oh, stop that, Luke.

Luke, that was a great chat with a great guy. Expertise at a high level. How do you want to continue the rest of this fantastic program we've developed here, Luke. Luke, that was a great chat with a great guy, expertise at a high level. How do you want to continue the rest of this fantastic program we've developed here, Luke? Well, we've got a lot going on. I think what we do is we go fan subs and then close. And then we'll get to everything we missed either tomorrow or Friday. Yeah, we're going to bang the drum hard for the boxing this weekend. Katie Taylor back in an undisputed fight.

Loma, Haneyaney luke can't wait but uh we like to give the fans a chance to have their their voice heard they wanted more reggie jackson can you not just make out with reggie jackson in front of us i don't think him and i have done anything gross or creepy yet yeah yeah luke okay all right um so luke uh morning combat at gmail.com is the email address uh for uh tight t-shirts and uh artwork here's you see how how mad we you've got mail viewers how mad would you be if i just took reggie jackson without looking just euthanized him just let him what is wrong with you looks like would you mind if i bombed your house you know okay all right oh man

i one time saw these teens in high school i felt so bad for this old man this old man was like walking through this parking lot on his walker and some teens walked by and with it i don't know if the old man heard it but it looked like he did and some teens walked by and go man someone needs to euthanize that bitch wow it's like that seems aggressive for a man who's just a little bit slow in the parking lot yeah if you like that stuff then the ending of million dollar baby will be fantastic spoiler alert all right yeah yeah directed by cavorkian hey let's go over to adrian he says what's up luke and bc i'm a p1 that's been following luke since the bloody elbow days but never bothered to write in.

That means he's a first-time caller, Luke. Long-time listener, this jerk. That's right, first-time, long-time. Figured I'd help you guys feel better about the demographics of your show by letting you know you have at least one black fan. Yes. Hey, there is one. Sorry we just dunked on him.

Sorry. Also, despite Luke's thinly-veiled contempt for the MMA fan base, this hardcore MMA fan happens to be Princeton educated, and I've attached a picture of my Princeton diploma next to my OG MK hat as proof. Despite my education, I'm a huge fan of B-Seed's puerile sense of humor, where he started off one episode by saying, buggery, buggery,

buggery donks almost had a heart attack laughing intro aside. The real purpose of this, of this email is to submit a deadlift video for Luke's feedback. I'm turning 40 in five months and just hit a PR of 515 pounds. I had to risk getting kicked out of a public gym to make the, the hold on Reggie's breaking shit to make the shirtless thing happen here. But he wants to show you. I hope Reggie sprays you with cat piss. Not every man in our age group is totally washed.

Okay, Reggie, stop. It looks like a flabby sack of shit. Hopefully my pecs compare favorably to Bala Muhammad's and my form is tight enough that I may one day fulfill my dream of having Luke invite me to the front yard workout. Wow, that was long, but. damn bro let me see it one more time one more time so first of all he could put a shirt on that would not be illegal according to gym protocol you can do that it's okay okay um it looked pretty good he hitched it above the knee a little bit using the straps he kind of leaned back and kind of just ever so slightly sat it in his lap and

then he didn't quite hit full lockout but fair it sounds like a picket on him that's actually fairly minor ish and he could easily do that with a little bit of cleaning up. Also, his knees kind of went caved in a little bit, so he might have some imbalances. But all in all, pretty clean. Pretty clean. Yeah, we've got black male viewers, Luke. Yeah, look at that.

The question is, hold on. Do we have, serious question, do we have one black female listener? One. No. No. Definitely not. Definitely not. definitely not no no no i mean you know morning combat is for the uh for the people luke diversity is welcome i mean we had to repair the

japanese connection but that's yeah it was misdirected hostilities all right let's go to paul what's up mk i found an animal that loves gas station hot dogs more than BC. It's a catfish. Here's me repping the MK while enjoying my rest days by fishing. I included a size picture of the teenage catfish because I'm a hilariously large 185-er. So it looks tiny without reference, kind of like our big beige from Connecticut. I'm currently working a lot in training while awaiting my next opportunity to compete as one of the Donk Hammers Thanks for introducing Phil DeRue to the rest of the fan base To his point on RSD, strength and conditioning alongside training has significantly lessened my frequency of injury to zero The gains are now loyal

Still waiting on Middle Nog merch It's Paul from Texas Dude, we should just do an MK shirt that says Middle Nog merch. It's Paul from Texas. Dude, we should just do an MK shirt that says Middle Nog, UFC Hall of Fame or something like that. BC, have you ever been fishing? Not with a pole. I've drank in while other drunken friends have fished, Luke, but it's not really my thing, to be fair.

Yeah, as a kid in Georgia, I went fishing a lot. I didn't like it that much it wasn't really for me yeah i don't hate on it though like for the right kind of person man that's that's that's that's life centering you're out in nature you're you're quiet and contemplative you're you know you're getting food you can feed your family i mean that's the food chain that's the cycle of life right there louis well i ended up uh this is true i ended up fishing in two areas basically the same uh territory one was the chattahoochee river way down yonder on the chattahoochee and then the other one was the with lakoochee which is a subsidiary version of that and there was an invasive species at the time in the early nineties called Gar. You can look them up.

And I remember we would go catch a Gar all the time just to pull them out of the water, but felt a lot of good. That did. I was once lucky enough in college to be at a with Lucucci, Luke, it was a one nighter. I knew, I knew, I knew I couldn't say that without you doing something dumb. I knew I couldn't do it. Sorry, Luke. Let's go over to Frankie. He says, I had table seats for LFA and it was a great experience.

Thought those scores were a little shoddy. Yo, that's our dude. Tuna. You did it, buddy. I feel like you heard that, but you had a game plan. Did you know? Yo, that's our dude. Tuna. Old Big Tuna. We got to get him on the show. We got to do RSD with him. I would love to hear.

Because remember that time Big Tuna on the mic was like, yeah, my family's in the Midwestern Mafia. I was like, that's my guy right there. Yes. There's a story there that I don't know that I need to hear. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Frankie, for sharing that great video and looking out for one of ours.

Let's go over to Scott. He says, when are the MK rash guards dropping? I'm out here paddling on Lake Mead with the family with my, I need an MK kid size rash car. All right. There you go. Look, there it is. Have you been to Lake Mead?

I have not, but shout out to Scott for taking the family there, right? I have not. I've also never done standup paddleboarding. Although my sister tells me it's a lot of fun. I've done that. That's,

that's a workout. Cause you got to really stabilize your, your core and your base. You know what? I feel like there are certain kinds of people in the world, world who are like Lake people, you know? they do lake things yeah are you a lake guy i am a lake guy we're taking the dogs this summer on to the lake for a week luke uh so spoiler alert we both have vacations in august yeah all right uh thank you scott let's go over to history hd hey luke and bc i love the show

i think luke should be about it and take zuck on a no giga mission submission grappling contest the haters think zuck would pass luke's guard with ease yeah he wouldn't he would get smashed up real quick real quick okay. Okay. All right. Maybe he'd be surprised. He seems to be in shape, Luke. You think he takes the roids? He probably takes some kind of proprietary billionaire, the blood of babies kind of blend.

Who the fuck knows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's hear from Will. He says, as it turns out, Columbia is not the only word that bc pronounces incorrectly fortunately at this swing yeah uh that's actually luke who says at a sonia thank you i don't say sonia i say sonia like red sonia yeah and it's wrong there as luke would say ain't a motherfucker around calling him outesonya, Luke. It's right. No one is calling him Sonia.

It's Sonia, Adesonya. People are trying to sue him for his money, though, Luke. You see that? I've tried to stay as far away from that fucking story as possible. Wow, okay. I don't want to ruin any more of your friendships than I already have attempted to. No, no, no. It's not that.

It's just that it's his fucking business, not mine. I don't really care. That is true. Will also says that fortunately for us all, Luke was kind enough to gift Brian that hat so that BC can too sound like he's having a stroke when referencing the current middleweight champion. Keep up the high T work, gentlemen. Thanks for all the content.

So, Luke, I think he's trying to speak for our fan base by saying this to you they don't actually care if you get it wrong they just don't want you to do four pronunciations of the same name every time to try to please everyone they'd be fine if you called the shit said instead of sharday you know what i mean like they're not into that that's why i try to go with izzy more than everything else you know i try but uh yeah yeah it's tough. Yeah. It's yeah. Saggy,

saggy nips and all let's go to JP. Good day, Luke, BC and MK nation. You know, this guy, Jay Paquette, right? With the departure of our MK.

Does he have a 45 minute reel of him? Just talking about himself. Here we go. With the departure of MK merch, master extraordinaire, RJ Dunkel gangbang. I want to dedicate the following fan sub to him. I can honestly say that this video may have been

the most fun thing I've ever done as a fan. It was hours of fun digging through the archives. I had a blast. Hey, RJ, thank you for your service and all the best going forward. Love you guys. Keep up the multi-time award-winning show. Luke, Jay Paquette has a presentation for you.

Let's see it yeah normally it's not good news but they sent a new merch guy to our pre-show meeting to pump us up with confidence and hey uh hey hey grundlemaker i'm confident here i'm fired up i'm ready i feel like we're getting better with the merch. Yesterday was better. We got smoothening out a little bit. Do you want to shout out our new guy, RJ Grundlemaker? I mean, he's made a big difference in a short period of time. I don't think that's his actual last name, but we can call him that if you want. Krupp and RJ Grundlemaster will give us an update on that. But the big update today, Luke, is for a limited time,

we have the exclusive rollout of the BC Hawaiian shirt. Sent off. You got to go get it now. It's not going to help you get laid, but it will make people afraid of you at the bus stop. Shout out to our guy, RJ Dunkelmaker, the new merch guy. He's fantastic.

Why don't you tell the folks what you used to call him? Oh, RJ Grundleman. I think that's actually his real last name. And then you called him Grundlemaker for a time as well. In a very big way here that we're going to throw to. Where in the world is RJ Dunselfucker? We had put the call out on a wellness check on good old RJ Dunkelfucker, and JP answered that call.

Morningcombat.store, already the house that merch built, that RJ Dunkelcracker put together. Big thanks to RJ Dunkelkel gangbang i haven't seen rj dunkel fucker one time one time bro no he's the goat of merch and we'll give him a pass because he's rj dunkel red tube yeah i mean he is just he's taking that no hitter into the ninth rj um what was his real last name luke i think it was uh dunkel gangbang i think that's what that's it that's it got it alright good old Big Ray I didn't want to sneak past this point

and just reiterate like he's one of the most valuable people that we've had linked to Morning Combat in it's history so we wish you well moving forward on your next adventure RJ and just remember bro you did great shit for us and we appreciate it but uh it's a big fish luke it's a real big fish right it's a long video long it was a nice tribute to a great man right yeah it was a nice long tribute oh you, you're turning on the Paquettes. I can see it happening.

I'm not turning. I'm not turning. But, you know, like I had a rule on my radio show when guys would start like, hey, can you refer to me as like, you know, make up something like the hangman? Like, no, I'm going to hang up on you now. Click. And I just hang up on him. Like, I don't play those games.

Speaking of real big fish, Luke, did they have that hit? Or do I have the wrong band? By the way mikey's saying mikey's saying it was actually longer than that and they cut it down for show and show needs oh i would have liked to have seen the full version of that for because i think we had on the only pipes patreon all right all right luke do you remember that song sell out with me oh yeah sell out right yeah that wasn't real big fish was it who was that i i don't remember the record company's gonna give me lots of money and everything's gonna be oh all right

remember when scott was in dude scott had the 90s the 90s don't you remember propaganda and all those all those bands no i remember the urge they were awesome no one talks about them anymore remember that yeah sellout is real big fish yeah Yeah, exactly. All right, nailed it. I'm back on the wheel. All right, let's go to Alan W., Luke. He makes very good fan submissions, and he says, in an ideal world, Tony Weeks would retire from his position after the controversy of Romero versus Barroso. Whether you question his integrity or competence, the guy has to eat.

Here's Tony Weeks' new occupation post boxing 223 mk math con uh winner is brian campbell for looking less old and washed fuck you luke thomas so day one was that is that is amazing that is amazing see, I can do it now that it's written out, Luke. It's much easier. You know what I mean? Yeah, it wasn't difficult. I think you just got messed up by the way it was worded. And the edibles.

All right, there you go, Luke. Finally, we got one more from chris he says dear wash dads this week i present to you the logo for luke's future fitness endeavors you just got to get on the 2013 vitor stack i would have suggested a tagline that discouraged oh my god but luke would prefer the tagline gloves are for pussies. It's Chris from Long Island. Luke, what the hell is this? This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. First of all, I've never looked that good in my life.

Never will. But I got to tell you, that's how I dream. That's how a boy dreams. And that is amazing. What do you think, BC? Should I? Fitness. Yes.

See, this should be a shirt we gotta get RJ back in the building alright you put the DC flag on anything with my face on it and your boy is sized for it are you into that yellow and black Steelers colors black and yellow black and yellow not my favorite but it works for the picture

alright wow good fan subs this week shout out to all the contributors across the board. Morning combat at gmail.com. Get your dead wrongs for Friday. Yeah. So Luke, we got to bang the boxing hard, whether it's tomorrow or Friday, but a heck of a show that we put out there in the world.

Heck of a, heck of a week in, in MMA, heck of a week in the sports. It'll require a very special show. I hope everyone appreciated that. Thank you to Eric Nixick for stopping by, sharing some of his insight and wisdom as well. So yeah, so I guess either tomorrow or for Friday, we'll have, we'll make sure by the, I'll say this, by the end of the week, by the end of Friday,

we'll make sure you have your Haney and Loma preview. We'll get you ready for the UFC's card this weekend. We'll make sure you're ready to bang by the time Friday's over. over look do you remember the urge they had that hit jump right in with uh nick hexam from 311 jumping in that song as well i don't i don't really remember all right look it up one day you may you know have all the girls wanted to bang nick hexam in the 90s oh yeah i still might luke he's a great great guy i like that guy a lot you know i would love to see them again i have not seen them in concert since 1997 so i would love to go back and uh would you go to a 311 concert under any circumstances including okay bet

yes okay yes you said under any circumstance yes yes yes that's on the table sure um dead i mean i would go i would go drunk as a fucking skunk but yeah well uh dead and company are on their final tour ever right now luke with otele shout out uh our buddy otele burbridge and john mayer and uh bobby where and all them would you go to a dead show under any circumstances it would require something that is compulsory candidly like a hando like like thanks for watching but you're gonna need to up the offer here you know what i mean yeah all right no i like otil a lot he's very talented musician that's just not my kind of music i'd be i'd just be lying if i said it was so uh mike, I'm in. Do you think he was referring to the... I saw it. He wrote it at the time for 311.

By the way, were you one of those morons in the 90s who was like, 311, K is the 11th letter of the alphabet, therefore it's KKK. My parents brought that up at one point when I told them I was going to go to the concert with my sister's boyfriend and I had to dispel that quickly. As a feature or a bug?

What'd you say say as a feature or a bug no i was telling him that the the band is way more about marijuana than racism so you know you should shift your priorities as a parent here you know what i mean like yeah it's great uh all right we'll be see let's thank everyone involved mikey morms on the ones and twos made everything happen today really appreciate that. Thank you to everyone who watched. Thank you, of course, to CBS Sports and Showtime and multiple other crews and everyone, but Mikey was MVP today as is customary. We will have a

good preview for you for everything that's happening this weekend before the week is over. I promise that. So if you want to reach the show, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to do that. Please give us a ring there. Mikey will see it and then adjudicate from there. And yeah, showtime.com, 30-day free, blah, blah, blah. Pose, loyalty, all that stuff.

But they ain't ever. Morningcombat.store. There you go. And bitches ain't ever, Luke. All right. Well, that's Brian Campbell. Do you think it's creepy how much Arielriel pushes um the katie taylor agenda he loves her i haven't really paid attention what music is this that you're going to get

us demonetized playing i think it's the apollo hook all right well with that in mind bc that's him i'm lt we'll talk to you guys soon thanks for watching mk is out may all your gains be loyal