MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Evloev Beats Murphy, Title Shot Next? | UFC London Results & Fallout | Adesanya-Pyfer Lookahead

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Luke Thomas, Chuck Mindenhall and the entire Morning Kombat crew are in the house on a Monday edition of the show, recapping everything from UFC London, PFL Madrid and more! Do you think Movsar Evloev did enough by scoring a majority decision victory over Lerone Murphy to get a title shot against Volk? Luke Riley defeated Michael Aswell, Christian Lerory Duncan defeated Roman Dolidze and other highlights from the London card. Plus, Costello Van Steenis finished off Fabian Edwards via elbows in the PFL main event. And this upcoming weekend both the UFC and PFL have middleweight main events - Israel Adesanya vs. Joe Pyfer and Johnny Eblen vs. Bryan Battle. The fellas lookahead to those matchups and more.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime.

988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Look at this now. It's what 11 a.m. Oh, there I am. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want to do it to meet, two weeks, on your marks get set and go on. Degenerates, mount up.

Hi, everybody, on this 23rd day of March, 2026. It is now time for another episode of Morning Combat. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estatus of Nidos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my Connecticut brethren, the Iceman himself, Charles Chuck Mindenhall. What's up, Chuck? How are you doing? Not too much, man.

How's your bracket doing? I didn't get a chance to ask you that. We were talking before the show that, like, I know I had been doing like, you know, reads for the fact that like the tournament, the March of Madness tournament was coming up. And I knew it was like close. I just didn't know who the week I was doing it. So like the tournament starts and I'm like, oh, this must be like the play in or whatever. And then I saw like Duke playing and I was like, oh, this is not the play in. This is the actual.

I didn't even, I didn't do a bracket. I did nothing, bro. Yeah. They used to always, you remember when we do the MMA beat back in the day, we did Thursdays. And I remember like so around St. Patrick's day, whenever you did that Thursday, it was like, boom, it was starting on that Thursday. So somehow I'm like, I default to that understanding that it's starting. But I don't really pay that close of attention.

Did you do a bracket? I did one bracket. Like I've done in the past where multiple people ask you and I suck at all of it. So I'm like, I'm just going to do one. And I mean, like it's wrecked the first round. You know, it's like because you're trying to like take some chances with the, uh, the Cinderella's. And this year, there weren't too many Cinderella.

So I had a lot of teams kind of advancing the second round who didn't even. Uh, the college I went to my senior year of high school. So I did my senior year of high school, I did half at high school, half at a local University. It's Kennesaw State University. It was cool to go to college while you're in high school. Not the most prestigious school in the world. It was not. It was interesting. My high school classes were much harder than my college classes senior year, which was kind of funny. But they made it to the tournament. I think they were like number 14 or 15. Maybe they were 16. I'm not sure. I feel like they've made it before too, right? Like they've actually snuck in before. When I was in high

school, so this is the late 90s, they were nothing. But now they've become something of a like I'll say a regional, athletic powerhouse, something like that, you know? Man, it's only fun if teams like that can have a little bit of a run, right?

Like you want to see, yeah. I mean, I was living here in 2007 when George Mason made the final four with Jim Larenega. I know. Oh yeah. Dude,

that was, that was sick. That was so cool, you know, and they lost the Notre Dame eventually, but, um, you just don't,

I don't know if you, I mean, I'm not super, I watched the wrestling finals on Saturday night. I don't know if you saw those. Funny story. Daniel Cormier for the last couple, or maybe even longer than that, was doing commentary with Jordan Burroughs, right? Right, right.

And you had UFC London on Saturday, but of course, Cormier is not doing that. So I was like, oh, I'll watch the finals. Cormier will be commentating. But he wasn't on there. And then I was like, well, why would he not be on there? And then I recall from last year, do you recall him like crashing out after the wrestling tournament? Do you recall this? No, no, I don't remember.

I guess I'm not sure exactly what the nature of it was. someone will remind me he had some kind of an issue with either the way he was calling the matches or like how he was calling them or for whom or whatever and wrestling fans lit him up and I remember him tweeting being like you know what I'm done. Wow. I forgot about that

and I checked it on Saturday. No, Cormiye. Wow. No, I didn't even understand it. Has Ben asked him part of like there, Tuck? He used to be right? He was not, he was referenced this year because one of his guys made the final podium but no, I didn't see him all TV. Yeah. I mean,

I try to check in on those. I didn't have a chance this year to like pay too close of attention, but they should separate those a little bit, man. I hate that they both happen, the March madness, right? It's kind of crazy. I couldn't agree more. And I brought this up with the NCAA officials and they told me to go pound sand. So enjoy, enjoy getting run over on news like sport. All right. Let's bring in the third member of the show here. He is probably not sober, but that's okay. He does a good job just the same. It's Long Island Luke. What's up, bud? What's up, man? I woke up feeling like shit today, guys. But, you know, I had a good weekend and UFC London was good to me. You know, did good on

the bets, so, uh, good. Did you watch it blindfolded? No, I watched it fucking live and, how could it have been good to you? The bets were good to me. Oh, okay. Money, man. Yeah, come on. I, you know, I win a few weeks without winning a couple weeks. Oh, I see. So it was nice to

get back in the wing column. Very good. Very good. Did you bet on PFL? Uh, I had a Costello Van Steenis bet at plus 105. That's what I was going to say, dude. Why? I was he. Like that was crazy. I also though took whoever Linton Vassell was fighting because I saw some you know the viral video where they the fighters have the five poles and the polls fall and they have to grab them. Yes. You know, Chester reflexes. I saw Linton Vessel go 0 for five on that and I was like I'm thinking of shit out of Linton Vessel this Friday and uh he won. You know that was a stupid that. All right. Yes. You can you can follow us on social. You can see here below the screen. We're on TikTok. We're on IG. We're on Twitter. We're on everything. YouTube included. you can always email the show MorningCombat at Gmail.com. And by the way, we'll be doing fan subs today.

And the reason why that's important is because at the end of the month, the person with the very best memed fan sub is going to win an autographed signed poster. Yes, all that nonsense for free. We're going to sign it for you and ship it to you. All you got to do is just meme us. And of course, you can insult us. We accepted just the same. On top of it, you can go get some merch for a limited time only,

morning combat dot shop. We have three designs here this month. And then, of course, we have one that has the hoodie, the Trasher, basher design. But of course, all three are available for you right there until the 31st of March at 1159 p.m. I think I got to everything, Chuck. Today on the show, we're going to talk about

obviously the big events of the weekend. And then we'll look ahead this weekend. Oh, I want to make sure I make a note. The two events this weekend, UFC Seattle, as well as PFL Pittsburgh. And then on top of it, you've got the PBC event on Amazon, Chuck, Keith Thurman versus Sebastian Fondora.

I made sure I checked him with BC this morning. He is calling those fights. So if you guys want to check that out, it'll be on PBC. You got to pay for the pay-per-view, which... Sorry, Brian, I'm not doing. Oh, you'll find... Did you hear that?

Do it again? Do you hear that? It's Brian Campbell going can't wait for September 11th. So he interviewed a guy and I think they were either talking about like when they were going to like when the rematch was going to be or something and he was in the ring. And the guy gave him an answer like, oh, it'll be, you know, it'll be then. And then he was like, can't wait for September 11. Now it's clear as day. It's like one of those weird tricks, you know, I can hear. All right. With that out of the way, we got to get a showgoer. So let's do it. Topic number one, let's start where else. UFC London and their main event.

Molfsard of Loiv scored a majority decision victory over Lerone Murphy. Now, Chuck, I've got a million questions about this, all about what did you think of his performance, what might be next, do we think Jayon Silva's going to jump the line, all of the sort of standard questions about an important UFC main event, and we are going to get to those. But first, we've got to talk about the scoring on this one. And I will just put my cards on the table. Here you can see the score cards. What you end up seeing is that basically rounds three, four and five, all the judges agreed in round one, excuse me, in round two, they all agreed. Round one ends up being something of a swing round. But of course, there was the point deduction in

round number four, which you can see accounted for there on the left side of the ledger in each of the scorecards. Now, Chuck, I'm going to put my cards on the table. When I was watching this live, I thought Murphy was, I thought it was a close fight, obviously. And then I certainly thought, sorry, Evloib was stepping on the gas late. I mean, there's really no question about that for sure. But kind of, I'm not going to say passively taking it in, because I was watching, but I thought Murphy won in real time. And then there was the point deduction on top of it. And then if Lloyd gets announced as the winner, and I went back and I rewatched it. And again, the rewatching

process itself is also open to manipulation. So you've got to be really careful with what any of this means. However, it did seem like in retrospect, I can very much see a case for him to win. I had it to draw basically 47, 47, but I can understand 48 if you wanted to give it to him.

First, let's just talk about it. How did you score the fight? I had it a draw, man. Like, once that point deduction happened, I was like, I even, I tweeted this out, I'm like, can you imagine if these two guys have worked this hard to put themselves in the position finally to get a title shot and it ends in a draw and they have to do it again. That point deduction is what did it.

And it's all because there was one scorecard there, I think, that was basically my scorecard. I had the third round for Ebleweb. I did not have the first two rounds. But would you say, let me ask you, as you get into this discussion, like, would you say that this was one of the more admirable jobs that the judges did, right? like that they saw the fight I think you know the way it was actually unfolding rather than in a state of anticipation like I think I was watching it just like the commentators were and I think a lot of people on social media like people who are tuning in you're waiting for Evalov to fight his fight and for the first couple of rounds all the way deep into the third it's just not happening but yet I didn't think the judges got lulled into that like they just kind of they watched the exchanges for what they were and they came up I think in the end probably with the assessment as to what happened you know what ben cartilage was one of the judges in this and i find him to be one of the very best judges that we have and put up the scorecards one more time if you can long island he's on the left side of the screen here okay so he had round one for

mowfsar round two for lorone and then the rest for mosephsar again with the point deduction in round number four now i i don't i don't know if i was i'm a little bit i'm a little bit more with you where I probably had one and two for Murphy, but I certainly grant that round one was really close. I mean, listen, here's my view on this after like doing this exercise. It is bullshit to be like, oh, I blame the broadcast. You know what I mean? Like, it's just be like, it's their fault. That seems a little strong.

Like, people should be in control of their faculties. However, I mean, we also just have to kind of be honest, too. Like, at the end of the day, you're responsible for your own scorecard. But it is also true that like, one, we were kind of. of all expecting Mozart to shoot and he didn't. That's weird. That's one. Two, whenever Lorone landed, the crowd would go, woo. And then when Mozart would land, there would be no reaction. That all always has some kind of effect. Listen, again, it's not his fault, but Michael Bisping did seem to think Murphy was running away with it. And I do think that those kinds of things can influence. And then

also Grubaka hit me on Twitter, Caposa on Twitter was sort of pointing out that if you look at all of the tweets they had put up after the first two rounds. It's basically just all like, oh, yeah, Murphy's cruising up to O, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, the accumulative effect of this kind of thing, I do think swayed people because it was we, listen, I'll say this. I'll say this. When you do the second rewatch, sometimes I'll do the second rewatch and I'll be like, okay, I can kind of see things a little bit more for the other side, but I don't necessarily change that much. This one I watched that I was like, yeah, I think I botched this one. Yeah. You know, and honestly, the one thing I did understand, I guess, in the first watch through was that they were close rounds, right?

Like I thought, I was like, these are closer than maybe, you know, I saw, they always flashed up like people's assessment and the score of what they believe is happening. And it's like, I remember everybody was 2018. And I'm like, that's probably true. But they are close rounds. And so you kind of have that. The one thing that you mentioned is that the crowd when Murphy would land at the end of the. Oh, oh. Just two. And I felt like that that was one of those things that they did admirable on. Let's see if we can get him to re-sign in for a second. I'll just, I'll just, hold on just a second, Chuck. We'll pull you back in for just a second.

Let me just freestyle here for a minute. Yeah, so this is kind of what he was driving at, which was the judges didn't seem to be understanding the fight, the way in which it was, kind of, I'm not going to say just being told, but the way we were kind of experiencing it on the other side. We were experiencing it in a way where, again, the crowd was lively for one side, silent for the other. We were experienced in a way where the billboards of tweets they put up were all kind of affirming a certain kind of consensus. And, and we'll talk about this in just a

moment more with Chuck, both sort of didn't shoot for the first 10 minutes. The dude didn't shoot for the first 10 minutes. And you're thinking to yourself, okay, after the first five, I'm asking myself, why did that not happen? And then I remember it. I had a conversation one time with Eddie Alvarez, Chuck. And Eddie said to me, in a 25-minute fight, you can only wrestle 15 minutes. So you can do 1-3-5, you can do 15 up front, but then you're going to have to fight 10 minutes on the back end on your feet. You've got to figure out what that's going to be, but it's going to be that.

And so I thought, okay, Mosaar's doing that. He's saving the wrestling for the end. And there is some truth of that. He didn't shoot at all until the third round, and then he shot like four times or five times. in round five so there obviously was some some truth of that but the reality is chuck back back to the point you were making sorry back to the point you were making is that it had a certain level of expectation placed on everything and expectation bias and then i just end up thinking that if you weren't really like doing one of those numbers you could easily get swept up in the idea that this was

murphy kind of running away with it almost to a degree oh is he is he iced out again uh oh yeah his connections back there you know all right all right i'll keep going i'll keep going then we get it back on just let me know we'll figure this out don't worry so that's how chuck had it scored and that's how i had it scored i think a draw is totally acceptable and i think if you want to have it from mobsar you know can i see a four to one scorecard can i see something like that i definitely can see something like that i can see how you can get that i don't think that's an unreasonable score card all right got you back now Chuck. Okay. I don't know. I'm trying it a different way here. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if that was on my end,

but I apologize. No, no worries. If you had, we were just, I wanted to talk about the way in which he fought, right? He doesn't shoot for the first 10 minutes. When did it occur to you that maybe he's like, it's one thing like, oh, I'm not going to shoot because I want to save my cardio.

Right. But then it seemed like, okay, we're getting passed out at this point. When he was not shooting after two rounds, what was going through your mind? Well, and I mean, I think, I heard you saying basically that you can't wrestle for 25 minutes. That is a big factor. So I thought maybe, because this is his first five-round fight that he was taking a slower approach. But as I kind of watched it, you know, there's been, have you, if you have a level of lot, like, in the buildup to these years,

because I feel like I've talked to him a few times before fights, there's a chip on his shoulder that he really, it really galls him that the UFC looks past him, especially in these last couple of fights. And I really started to believe, as I'm watching it, that he wanted to prove some kind of point on the feet, that he was like, okay, they say that, you know, I've worked, nine fights, I've went to nine decisions. I would like to show that I can, that I can stand with a guy who's supposed to take me on the feet. And this is where it got very interesting, the fascination of this fight, because those first two rounds, even, you know, in boxing you may see a couple of rounds earlier before you get into what you want to do down the stretch and then you take the fight over.

In MMA, it's such a gamble because you only get three to five rounds. So I was thinking third round is when we're going to see Evalov, like start to really put it on. Murphy if he was going to be able to do that. And that round almost played out in the same way, right, like until the very end where it started to switch up. So I thought this is where some of the confusion was as like, man, maybe he's going to be really down on these scorecards and have a long way to come back. And it was, you know, and part of that was, you know, just in that whole optics. But it was strange because I do believe that in the back of his head, maybe he will, maybe he will clarify this at some point. But I think he wanted to go in there and prove a point, man.

And he wanted to go in there. He played with fire in the end, right? Like he's playing with fire, like fighting a way that maybe is not his most comfortable. You're playing there, the other guy's strengths and held his own, but it was like it was a gamble, man. But I think that's what he was doing. What does it say that a guy in a number one contenders fight is purposely handicapping himself, right? Potentially risking losing against a guy as good as Lorone Murphy in order to get a title shot. Like, how do you understand that?

that's the sad part. And then they kind of, they flash to the, they flash to the crowd and who's sitting there. Who's breathing down? Everybody's next to his Gian Silva. Like, and, you know,

he gets a pop from the crowd. And, you know, it's just, it's, I feel like these guys both have been behind the eight ball, this whole way. And it's,

it's an extraordinary act. I was trying to think of this, because we've seen other fighters basically put in this positions where, you know, if you don't do something really to wow people, and steer them off of some original idea of you, right?

And Dana White has condemned, you know, Mosar going back to that Toronto fight with Arnold Allen, which I thought was a great fight. But I remember him saying afterwards, that just sucked the air right out of the room. That fight sucks so bad. You know, you remember this? Like, I was like, man.

So I feel like, you know, in that sense, you feel like you've got to do something extraordinary. It's a bad state to be. And when you've won that many, like that many fights, and I think, you tell me too, like, I don't have a problem with Evalov's fighting. style. I'm always like every time he's in there, I'm pretty entertained. It's not like he's one of those guys

you just start to go to sleep. But I'm like, but he feels like that. And I think that that's been browbeaten him. And then they're showing Gian Silva and and even afterwards, Dana White was basically like, yeah, we'll see. I don't match make right after it. Unless it's a guy that he clearly wants to be in the

title picture because then he'll say right afterwards, yes, he's next, he's next, you know. It's a bad situation. I feel like that's a kind of, that would be a hopeless situation if you're stuck in that kind of purgatory for long. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick.

I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Put up this, the graphic on the wind streak, if you can, Long Island. I mean, just sort of look at the company he's keeping here. These are longest active UFC win streaks.

And for the audio listeners, Islam is number one at 16. Mofsaar is now number two at nine. And then among Chimae of Tuporia and then, you know, one of these is not like the other. Carlos Olberg is in there. But at a bare minimum, those guys are all sharing a nine fight win streak. I was looking at this up. No, sorry.

My friend Ovin, who I think works for me a little bit as well as MMA on point in some other places. Yeah. Listen to this. fighters with nine plus UFC win streaks that did not, or at least have not yet, fought for undisputed title. Mosephar is sitting at 10. Arnold Allen was sitting at 10. Obviously, he's lost since then.

Tony Ferguson was the one at 12. 12. That's crazy too. It's also kind of crazy in Tony's case because, you know, I mean, you could say what you want about Arnold is a little bit defensively oriented. Mosef, not a great finisher. Tony at that time was just bruising through people. Did they ever try to make him versus, uh, Habib, your phone.

Electricity infrastructure got in the way, if you can believe it. Oh, my God. But you get the point. This dude is doing things that are historically, you know, with the upper limit of what we know someone has to go through in order to get it. And, dude, I just think it's kind of crazy. He handicapped himself for 10 minutes, and maybe even longer than that, depending on what your viewpoint is. Yeah. But at a bare minimum 10 minutes.

And he still arguably, arguably, I mean, maybe he didn't win the second, but certainly won, you know, the first on most of the judges. Dude, like, Mosa, with essentially, metaphorically, one hand behind his back showed he's more well-rounded than we thought, got a point taken from him in hostile territory, and still got the job done. Yeah. And you're showing that.

That's impressive as shit. I know, man. And you're showing that, like, that graphic. I know that Islam beat Bolkanowski coming up in wait, right? As a champion, he was already a champion, right, at that point. Yes, they were both champions. Right, right, right. That's right. So, like, when he came up, so I was trying to point out, like,

that's one of the rare moments where somebody on the list you just showed snap somebody else's streak that would be on that list. But that was, you know, that's already as a champion. When you're talking about, like, looking at Movstar and where he's at and having to beat somebody who also would be on that list if he didn't just lose, you know, like he had to beat somebody with an. equal win streak, that's even more impressive, man. You know, it's like he had to beat a guy that was also 9 and 0 in the UFC and fight,

like you just mentioned, all the, every advantage, whether it's kind of like intangible or, you know, being on the feet, all that stuff like fell to Murphy in the way it played out. And yet he's still won. That's pretty impressive to me. He's been in the UFC since April of 2019. And his first few fights are names that unless you're hardcore, you won't really know. Rike Barzola, Nick Lentz was a split decision on one that he had

in January of 2021. But then in June of 2021, listen to this win streak, Hakeem Doiru, who again, was a good prospect at the time, Dan Igay, Diego Lopez, Arnold Allen, Al Jermaine Sterling, and now Lorone Murphy. Again, giving up wrestling in hostile territory and getting a point deducted. That is one of the most, that's one of the best

win streaks currently in the UFC. It's one of the best non-title win streaks I think I've ever seen. So let's kind of ask the question here, Chuck. Not should he get the title shot. There's really no debate. Like, of course he should get it. But what is your actual feeling about to what extent he will? Dude, that's really, this is where it starts getting weird because this year,

particularly they've just kind of, the UFC matchmakers have just kind of put the guy that they want in that fight. And, you know, we talk about Armand Syrucian, right? we say like, well, this guy's done enough. He should be there. And actually, that's kind of like, when you look at Arm on, you're like, well, he's the biggest challenge too. And I think if we looked at Bolkinovsky versus, well, sorry, you'd say the same thing. You'd be like, this is a crazy fight. I think that Gene Silberthite would also be very fascinating. But dude, he's, he came off that loss to Diego Lopez, you know, not that long ago. You know what I mean? Like,

it's just, what, a year ago? To me, that's not, like, when, I know he's put together a nice streak around that, like, he's got, like, five wins in the UFC. That's not. That's not 10 wins against the names we just went through. It's just he should never deserve it, but I'm just saying the UFC may look at, like John Silva is a little bit like Diego Lopez in the sense that they trod him out all the time. He's always on the Jumbo Tron. He's at all the events. They clearly like his fighting style.

He's going to have the approval rating, you know, or whatever, like from the UFC. That's the X factor. Do they just, do they screw, like, do they find that thing and say, like, we're just going with this fight? It could happen. For context, this is the winning that Jayon Silva has done. Kevin Vajos on the Contender Series. Right.

Then he beat a guy with the Wikipedia entry. But then from there, it's Charles Jordan who he C-O'd, Drew Dober, who he T-K-O'd, Melsic Bagdasarian, who he T-K-K-Od, Bryce Mitchell, who he submitted. And he loses to Diego Lopez. And then it was a decision against Arnold Allen, but he surfed on him at the end, which was kind of fun. So, like, one, you can definitely tell this is not a specific. prestigious a win streak. However, it's not a bat or, you know, and there's a loss in there.

But in general, it's pretty good names he's beating. Yeah. But like the fact, dude, the fact that he's finishing them, I mean, finishing is always important in MMA, but for people who really want like title opportunity and they're on, on the rise, it's, it's hard to overstate how important that is. Let me ask you. It is such a demarcation line. A hypothetical. Now, we, we like watching it the first time we think Murphy maybe gets the nod which probably should win. Let's say that he did. Do you see the state he was in when he got to his stool? He barely could get to a stool. He looked in

a very rough shape. I don't know like if they, I don't know what injuries he's sustained or how long he'll be out. But let's just say that he had won. Is there a chance that they would have been like, okay, he needs time to recover. Let's go as John Silva because Volcanovsky is ready to go. Yes.

And that, I mean, that's no question in my mind. Yeah. Dude, they would have been thrilled with that. They'd have been like, well, now Mofsar is not our problem anymore. And Laron's not available. Exactly. Let's just go. I feel that way too. So, I mean, again, it's a swing of fates type thing. But given that Moussar came through, like he deserves it, I think.

And I mean, there used to be back in the day, there was all these people who kind of uphold the meritocracy like they would really complain. And I felt like the matchmakers would listen to that. I just feel like that day is behind us now. I don't know how much the UFC really cares about the diehards with their, you know, their pitch force and saying like, well, this got to be this guy. but for their own sort of, I feel like they have to uphold the merit to an extent, you know, especially in Volcanovsky who just did this whole circuitous route where he has to go fight

the same guy here already beat convincingly once. That's just, I mean, if they don't, if they didn't do Movesar, I feel like it'd be a travesty. Man, I got to say, if they don't do the Movesar fight, that I, you won't find, I mean, listen, the matchmakers, not just in UFC, but in any organization. kind of skirting who a number one contender would be to make a more desirable fight. This is not an unusual practice. This is something that is widely known and widely used. And more often than not, most fans don't complain depending on who the number one contender is versus who the more desirable fight ends up being.

They'll let it slide, you know. But this is one of those cases where it's like, dude, there is no wiggle room. It doesn't exist. This is one of the most prestigious non-title runs. certainly have anyone competing in the UFC right now. Probably the most, right? Probably of anyone who does not like fought for a title yet, this is the best, like most legit run I've seen.

He's at the beginning of the end of his prime. He's 32. So I think he's still in it. But, you know, there's not much time left in it. And, you know, there's no one else for him to fight even. Like this is the guy. If they don't give a title shot to him and they go another direction. And by the way, we all know, you know, if they do get a,

give it to him. He's going to have to travel to Australia, which fine. You know, okay, you know. But if they don't give it to him, that's one of the biggest screw jobs you'll ever see. 100%. And it's crazy, too, that Lorone Murphy gets on the microphone uses his mic time to be like, hey, guys, don't skip over this guy. He deserves the shot. He's basically endorsing him as well. And then you get Volcanovsky, who joins the Paramount Plus desk afterwards in an interview. And he's basically like ready for it. It's not like, you know, sometimes you get a champion, This is not a great style matchup for me. But he was, let's do this.

You know, he was ready for him. We have the clip. Let's take a look. Yeah, it was an interesting one. You know, he's all touched on that. I don't think we all expected Momsar to just want to stand with Lorone. Whether that was something that he felt he had to do, just so, you know, he could guarantee himself a title shot.

I'm not too sure. But you could see that he was a lot stronger when he wanted to take it down. and then was able to outdo him on the feet. So for me, it's quite impressive, to be honest. So Fair Plade him, he's 20 and O now, and I guess he's next. This is my takeaway from what he is saying and what the truth of the fight was, Chuck. It's not just that Movesar is like, I mean, number one contender with a bullet. I mean, forget it.

There's not even a debate about it. But also, not for nothing, he's a dual threat. He is not just a wrestling. threat. He is a striking threat. I don't think he's better on the feet than Volk, but Volk's a little chitty. Mofsar can mix it up. Like, dude, Mofsar is by far, I think, the biggest threat to Volkanowski of anyone in that division. I don't know if you agree. No, I agree with you 100%. I think that when you look at Moussar too, like, you know, you think Russian, what's he going to do? We know what he wants to do, right? But I still, I always think back to that Volkanowski Islam one fight.

where, you know, he can't, he can't, he can went up there and he challenged for that lightweight belt. And, you know, you remember that fight. I'm sure you've probably done an analysis on this. It's like the way he was able to, I mean, he didn't always succeed, but the way he defended the takedown for most of the, like, like, a good portions of that fight was pretty impressive, man. Just kind of like, it was like trying to take down a stump because he was, he would sprawl almost instinctively. And all of a sudden, he's got your, he's got a leg hooked around the thigh or he's like, you know, he's in a crowd, be like, like, he was always doing something to end up in a better position. to then maneuver to get back up, which not always. But he did it enough where it made it compelling,

especially down the stretch. Volcanovsky, this is the reason, like sometimes you see a guy like Evalov coming up. It's just, it's a guarantee that this guy is going to be a champion. Maybe that's why the UFC doesn't want to be in the business. Volcanowski would still probably be my favorite going into that fight just because he's so good at diagnosing what's coming at him. Yeah.

And also, respect to Al Jemaine Sterling, who took rounds off of, of Movsar. Certainly took the first. You could argue maybe the third. I thought Movesar won the second between them, but, you know, certainly gave him a hell of a fight. That's what I mean. Like, the proving ground

there that Moveser's had to go through his nuts. Now, Dana was asked, well, hey, is Silva going to be next? Take a look at not only what his answer was, but how he delivers it. Sean Silva came out and said he was here in London to

make a deal to fight for the title, do you care to comment on that? Jean Silva said that he was here, no matter what was going to happen in the main event today, he was signing to fight Volcanozky next for the title. Is there any truth to that? We'll have to see. When we announce it, then you'll know

it's true. Do you want to put your tin full of hat on there? What do you think? This is where Brian Campbell would come in. He'd have like 10-minute diatribe right here. I uh, that's not, I mean, Dana's a little harder to read in these

situations because obviously he doesn't match or make any more Luke he doesn't even get involved in these negotiations right of course not unless he unless he's telling you he approved specific fights but that doesn't bode well i don't think that bodes well for mosaar man um he's not denying i feel like you know they talk about john jones and even though this was a lie you know he's definitive on stuff he wants to defend he comes at you and he says hey that john jones was never going to fight on the white house guard i keep telling you guys this if you if he could shut that down he should have right there right but he didn't so that tells me that it could be some truth to it. Long Island, who's going to fight Alexander Volkanowski next?

I would hope it's Mofsar, but at the same time, like, I believe Mike Heck made this point last week before this fight took place. And he's like, put those three guys in a list, like, who do you really want to see Volk fight? Like, what would be the most entertaining fight? And I feel like, John Silva is the most entertaining fight. Yeah, but see, this is, it just feels to me it's like, you know, like, how do I explain this? Like, oh, which one? would I be most titillated by? Well, dude, I'm with you. I think it should be mobsar.

Hold on. Let me make a point. Let me make a point. Like, of course, when you're building a card, right? You got to, if you're a matchmaker, if you're an event promoter, you have to think about, hey, do we have enough entertainment on this car? Whether the main event, co-main event, or just collectively, you know, are we fulfilling fan expectation and demand, right?

You have to kind of do that. But at the same time, there are certain fights that come along. that you don't want to like disregard that, Chuck. But for a fight like Volk, the reason why I want him to see Movsar is because I would like to see what it's like when two extremely high-level guys have to problem-solve in the way that they present to one another.

There is a certain mystery and magic specific to elite-elite problem-solving that the requests and demand man for, is this entertaining enough? Again, these are not irrelevant concerns, but I think you have to kind of put those a little lower on the pecking order in a special instance.

One more time, Volk is an all-time great, and Movesar has maybe the very best non-title resume of anyone currently in the UFC. If you put guys like that together, some of these other concerns that are relevant and germane need to go a little bit by the wayside, in my opinion.

You're going to miss Volkanovsky when he goes, right? because dude he's so he's so like I saw that we you know we were talking about you you'd went on about the cage cutting with the you know when we were talking about that with Diego and then he basically goes on there and expounds on that whole thing and talks about this you know the situation of what what he's basically talking like I couldn't believe this dude didn't have the IQ to you know to fight me like this is a guy told you and even in that clip we just played he was basically kind of diagnosed and everything we were talking about here

in a very few words he's saying like you know I was surprised maybe he felt like he had to that but he was very strong when he wanted to wrestle meaning right he could have won this fight a lot easier if he'd wanted to just keep up what he usually does which is condemned by the ufc he puts all that into one quick you know burst and you're like that's how that's when you talk about problems of him that's what he does he gets to the essence of things very quickly it's a great point and you know i'll give murphy some credit i did think that murphy had his murphy's ability to break grip i thought was really good yeah you know certainly a certain occasion certain moments he was making most of our work for it.

But that was the interesting part to me too, Chuck, is like, once he started wrestling, you were like, I mean, that was really the dead giveaway, right? It was like, once he actually started wrestling, you're like, oh, this is easy for it. He could have done it a lot earlier and made his night easier. But he just did, that's why you think that he was doing it on purpose to try to prove a point.

But, you know, he would he end up with. It was something like nine takedowns over the course of basically two rounds. Yes. You know what I mean? That tells you a lot right there. Now there was the injury to Murphy. I think that probably hurt his ability to defend the takedown. But nevertheless, like the idea that like he couldn't have done that earlier is, you know,

he chose not to do that earlier. Yeah. Funny part about all of this, I don't really know where Lorraine Murphy goes from here, but he had a back and forth with Diego Lopez on Twitter. Diego tweets, no, Lorone, we are not the same. Never do that again. I'm not sure what that means exactly. And then the Roan responds, uh, I didn't lay on my back in guard for three rounds, bro.

Let's fight next. I got to tell you, I'm not sure what's next for Lerone, but that fight sounds suitable to me. Yeah, I would be okay with that. I mean, I actually kind of like that they have some heat. That would make a lot of sense. Just thinking about it really quickly here. What does the, I mean, in a weird way, like where does Diego go too?

I mean, you kind of get to the, like he gets his title shot. What are you going to do with him? I don't know. You can't really plug him back into a title situation for a long time. I made jokes about this and people were talking about it. But, yeah, so that's, a good point. Diego still has to get by the White House card fight that he has planned. But he's very, he's very good at like sort of like planting seeds.

You know, I noticed that over his career. Also, Murphy might need some time to heal up to. I'm not sure what the extent of his injuries are. But as I say this, Movesar, a very, in the end, in the end, a close fight certainly early, a little bit more easy to read down the stretch. Some interesting judging. Something to think about how we are going to watch judging or watch performances again. And we can't put all the blame on the broadcast, but we also, I think, cannot be ignorant that the broadcast can have some effect. So, right.

Something to think about going forward. All right. Let's talk about the rest of that UFC London main card. Topic number two. Now, to me, Chuck, we'll talk more about this, too. There were high highs and low lows on this card in both the prelims and the main. But just for the main, I didn't think this was a high or a low. Luke Riley gets the job done, I thought, in defeating Michael Aswell.

But can I just tell you what my problem with the fight was? and then, you know, we could talk about it. Yeah. There was nothing really wrong with the fight. There was nothing really bad about the fight. Riley started a little slow, which the commentators had kind of noted he does sometimes. But then by the end of the third, he was kind of maybe cruising is a strong word, but you could tell he was going to win a, you know, unanimous decision victory in all likelihood.

My problem is, while I understand that they wanted to put him in a co-made event role, between him and Aswell, the competitor, they had a combined three UFC fights. It's like, I don't think guys like that should be in co-main events. And this is my major problem. I can't say the fight was bad because it was not. But I can also not say that the fight was particularly good. It wasn't, it was just, this to me,

this fight to me exemplifies the era that we're in right now. It feels like the Diet soda era of MMA, where the guys are good enough to respect. But no one, main event notwithstanding, but I'm talking about the rest of the car. Like, no one's really doing anything that is noteworthy or special or creative or different. Everyone's just kind of respectably good. And that's the end of it. I don't know if you share that assessment with this fight or more broadly, but give me your feeling on the comment.

Well, I think it was Long Island, Luke, that was making this point about there's been a very different approach to placement on cards, like where guys are being set up. I remember we were talking about oral by. I remember what ended up on the prelims or something. We're like, why isn't it like that fight should be on the main card? This was a weird one because why not just put this early on the main card? Why does it have to be the co-main event? It was very strange in that way, right? I don't think either dude had like a Wikipedia page either.

Like it's like not that this is like the end all gauge, but it's just I'm with you on that sentiment for that reason. Like these guys, the fanfare, even if, you know, even if you've got an English fighter, you know, that's kind of, Even Bellator would try to like sweeten the deal with its co-main. They wouldn't have this fight as the, you know what I mean? Like they wouldn't have that the penultimate fight. It ended up being okay. Like I was kind of like you. I felt like Riley kind of, you know, fed off the crowd.

And it was, that's what you should do in a big London event. That's, if we've seen that in the past where guys are able to do that, he was able to kind of stuff the takedowns and keep it standing. And like there was some Chris Boskin sequences. Like, it was fine. It was a good victory. but I was kind of like you're saying there. You're like, why did this have to,

why is this kind of the lead into what I thought was one of the better main events for a fight night that we've seen in a long time? I'm not even sure. Like, I think they were obviously trying to set up Luke Riley. We had talked about it before. He had a nice win previously. He was boys with Patty Pimlet. Yeah.

Okay, fair enough. But it's like, dude, I want people who are a little bit seasoned or super and or. anyway, super creative or, you know, there's a reason to get hyped about them other than just their nationality. Nationality is important. In fact, it can be critical. But oftentimes it can be a substitute for the other parts of fighting that you actually need them to have more of.

Yeah. And I'm not, again, I'm not saying, oh, it was so bad. It was so terrible. No, no, it was not. It was fine. It was, that was a problem. It was just fine. It was certainly better than the alternative.

if they were going to put MVP's fight on top of it, like if they're going to put him in the co-main, this was the right call. Yeah, I mean, relative to that, it was a better call, but it's like, there's probably a few of these that could have gone into that hole as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about that one. Michael Venom Page and Sam Patterson, just straight up.

This is easily, easily one of the worst UFC fights I've ever seen. I don't know what your reaction. Here's your tweet from it, quote, not sure of the full criteria, but if the judges award caution MVP is running away with this fight. It's a good thing. Chuck, what the fuck was that? I don't know what it was, but actually, I mean, honestly, it was neck and neck because

the other cat wasn't exactly pressing the action. He did try to kind of crowd him a little bit, take away the you know, take away MVP's arsenal, put him on the fence. But I mean, that just kind of added to the dullness of the event, like, just the reluctance, the kind of, you know, constant deeking and movement to get in

and then move them back out. Like, it's just it, the thing that to mind, and I know a lot of people made this reference, was, you know, was the Engano versus Derek Lewis fight only because you're, that particular fight, you have a huge anticipation that something was going to go down the guy, somebody was going to get knocked out, that there was going to be action, and it just didn't end up there. The difference between MVP is that we've seen him in some duds before, man. I went to the Mahican son, and I think it was the Paul Daly fight. You're waiting for a fight to break out and never really did. It was just kind of

like it was it was kind of like a stalemate for three rounds or whatever it was for that fight. I was there and I just remember the crowd just falling asleep during that fight. You know, and so it's there's something about like him in general like at this point that I'm like, I don't know, man. Like he came in with all that fanfare, but it's not translating for me over the course of time. He's hit or miss. Like with the right opponent, he's the electric and with sometimes what you think is the right opponent, it just doesn't work at all.

Like you mentioned the Paul Daily fight. Dude, Sam Patterson, I remember looking this up when I did my post-fight show. Dude, he went into that fight. First round, rear-naked choke over, okay, not the name, but Johann Leinette. Kiefer Crosby, he armed triangles in the first round. Danny Barlow, he COs in the first round.

Trey Waters, who's a respectable striker, he chaos in round one. You're like, okay, you can see what the UFC matchmakers were doing. They were trying to find a guy who was just going to go in there and bring the fight to him. Right. And then he just did it. So like, I'm a training partner though.

Like you don't put a guy who kind of knows the tendencies, right? Yeah, well, that's the thing. It's like there's that too. But this is my point too. It's like I think if people want to blame MVP because he often is somewhat the common denominator in this situation. I think in this particular one, Patterson deserves more of the blame that. I agree. That's why I kind of regretted the tweet because I was like I should have put it on both of them.

If you're going to make the joke, you should put it on both. Oh, fair enough. But I will say that MVP is the ace. side. He's the only reason that anybody cares. So like if there's going to be higher scrutiny on kind of deserving a reputation over the course of time, it's going to fall to him, right?

At some point to get something going in that fight. It just never happened. And it never felt like it was going to. From the first little bit of that like first minute and a half, two minutes, I was like, oh boy, this is going to be a stinker, man. You knew what was happening here. If you get a guy who doesn't really want to engage that much

and has good enough footwork to evade, turns out that like that's going to make for a really bad fight with MVP you know what I mean because if he's not going to chase him down and go for a takedown you know what I mean remember that stretch with Anderson Silva where I mean it's hard to forget but like he the Damien Maya was like the high like the low point right like where he's just like you're waiting for him to rediscover some kind of passion to engage like he was never going to it felt like it was never coming until chel sonnang came along and kind of forced something more out of him. But, but, like, he went

through a few fights where I remember people were complaining about him being, it was, it's just, it's a little similar in the sense, like, a guy who has a reputation for being a sniper and can do some crazy things. Remember, he put the dent in Evangelista, what's his name, Santos head, which

is just, it's still one of those moments that I'm like, I can't even believe that happened. He's had those moments and I just remember it kind of reminds me, Anderson Silva was always more engaging than this. He just was more of a showboat, I guess. like similar with showboat. So there's some similarities there.

But finding the right guy for, that's what it comes down to is like almost finding the right guy for MVP. And that's, I don't think the matchmakers want to play that game with. I don't think they see him as worth it anymore. Do you think UFC will cut him? You know, when they didn't do the post fight,

like where they didn't go in there and interview him, doesn't that usually signal like, dude, the truck is pissed? Like people are, like, whoever's in the ears is like, do not interview that guy. We don't want anything to do with this. because I've heard those stories before.

So the fact that that happened made me think that they just might part ways with him. How old is he too, by the way? Like he's up there in age. Like 38-ish? I mean, if he's not, if he's fighting in a swing type bout and a London card, I don't know what, I know they have a ton of shows, but I'm like, I don't know what use he serves maybe for what he's making in the UFC. Like, I don't know if they'll see him as somebody who's like, nah, the red flags are too many, get rid of him. I guess we'll see.

Also on this main card, Christian Leroy Duncan defeated Roman Delizze via unanimous decision. And it's like, look, the longer that went, the more it was obvious that was CLD's fight. Would you call it a statement win? I mean, it kind of depends on how you look at Deleuze at this point too, right? Like, I mean, I still thought that I thought Delizza would put on a pretty good performance here. But as that fight, especially as it played out, like, there was such a speed difference and everything. So it's kind of like, is Deleidze declining enough where you can call a statement? I will say that this is probably the biggest win in that way of a guy who's had that juice that's kind of been up in that top 10 space.

I feel like this is a big win for him. It would have been better, obviously, if he could put the fight away and make some kind of emphatic statement. But I thought it was a good fight by him. Just kind of, like, he had to kind of do some things in there and showcase his speed advantage. And I thought he did that. It just wasn't, you know, it wasn't like it was going to, I don't know what it does for him ultimately, to be honest. I'm like, it just probably puts him into another situation where he's fighting a guy at the leads A's level, right? I would also say, if I can, like, it's amazing how much, if you've got someone skilled enough at it, how much someone can survive in a fight in Turtle.

Yeah. You know, they used to be a thing where you would just kind of cover up in Turtle like this, and then, you know, the fight would be over soon after you got neat and the ribs or something. and now guys are finding ways to like grab appendages or roll through or you know yeah so so it ended up being that like delizzee would either get dropped or go to the ground and then cover through turtle or trying to grab a heel from guard and CLD couldn't really pour on the offense after that right so it's like it's definitely his best way in terms of name value it's definitely going to move them all up a lot in the rankings I just can't call it a statement win yeah you you pointed this out in the past like Guys have figured out in general and part of the, maybe this is one of the reasons where the viewing experience isn't the same or the excitement level isn't the same, to nullify certain situations where they're in trouble and things like that. Like I feel like this is an evolution,

a small evolution of the game to survive. And when a guy doesn't, you've mentioned this in the past, when a guy doesn't have the next level then to figure out how to put him away, it becomes a stalemate in a weird way, even though the one guy's clearly on top and he's winning the fight. And I feel like we've seen a lot of that lately, just where guys just can't, they cannot,

the other guy has just enough to kind of hang on, and it's clear that he'll do that as long as he has to, and the other guy can't figure out how to put him away. I think people think about developing skills as a question of, like, striking, grappling, or even grappling scenarios. And I don't know the answer to this, because I'm not in gyms enough to really say,

but I really wonder about how much, finishing is thought of as a skill. Not just, oh, if I have backmount, I'll finish with a rear naked choke, but I mean more broadly, how to funnel a fight into a fight ending scenario and then ultimately close that off. It seems like that ability to funnel in that direction

is almost serendipity in certain cases. Like, I'm just going to do my game. And I might win, and I might get a win over a great name, but am I actually funneling? Like Iliot Seporia funnels the fight very clearly. That is true. It's a fight ending scenarios.

And then he's got big power, of course, you know, to make it work. But it does feel like you said certain, but that's what it feels like. It feels like, okay,

I'm in this position. Now what, like I don't, it's just, it's an interesting development. It used to be that guys had no poise in that situation. They'd drop somebody,

they'd launch in there, maybe recklessly and end up, you know, in a bad situation or they would just have a wrong instinct. and the way that they approached it. But these days, I just feel like they just don't, they don't, like, they're getting nullified when they go in for the kill

and they just don't know what to do from that spot. It's just, it's a weird development, but I feel like the game has to keep evolving. Otherwise, we're going to see a lot more of that. Also for Deleidez, I mean, he was coming off the loss to Anthony Hernandez, which was a bit of a beating. He didn't, he didn't look too great to me, Chuck. He looked like, not over the hill, although he's certainly getting older at 37.

He didn't look to me over the hill. He looked to me gun shy. a little bit. Was that your reason? And it might have been from that fight. Like, we see that so often, man, where a guy gets, it really gets pieced up in the next fight. They're just not the same fight. I don't know if ultimately that's what's going on with him, but I did notice that.

And it's always a hard thing because you're like, well, dude at 37, you don't have, like, I don't know how long he wants to go in the game. He's got other businesses. I know he has, like, a grocery store that he owns in his own city. But he's definitely got other interests and other, I don't know if he wants to be in the game that long. So it's at that point, you're like, well, leave it all out there when you can. Otherwise, what are we doing here?

Yeah. All right. In hindsight, given the way that it went, and I got to bring in Long Island Luke here, actually. We should talk about this. Long Island, Danny Silva, just kind of running over Curtis Campbell. Curtis Campbell, did you notice when he was doing the, you know, before the fight, they're sitting in the chair and they're like, you know, tonight I'm going to get the best win in my life. They do all that shit. Did you notice he had the same haircut as the abysableness?

a final boss. Did you see that? I just want to say I was talking mad shit about Curtis Campbell. Like I wasn't even meaning to, but I was like, why the fuck is this guy on the main card? And it was just very satisfying to see how that fight went. Because I've got to give Danny Seguer a shout out too. Danny Seguerra was like, yo, Danny Silva's the truth. I'm telling you, this guy's underrated.

He was like a plus 200 dog. So shout out to Danny Silva. That was a great win. That was arguably my favorite fight of the night. Well, main event was obviously my favorite. Yeah, yeah. Chuck, what did you think? outcome because he had money on. I wouldn't say that I bought into, you know, the full on, like, I felt like he was getting more shine than he should have. What is he like? Like, 23 years old, I felt like they're kind of putting him into a crazy situation here. You know, Garcia, like, he's got more, he has the experience factor. So it was almost like, okay, if he, if the kid goes in there

and he's able to do work, it's going to look good. But there was this, I felt like there was a very high risk of something like this happened. I remember Chase, Hooper back in the day when he was about 20 or 20 whatever it was very young he ran into Alex Casares remember and it was like not that they were the same who didn't he wasn't like being circled in a big way like this yet but there was enough

people who are paying attention to him and you know you see him run into something he doesn't know how to handle yet and that's kind of what this look like to me he was he was trying very hard at his plan A which was to get the fight to the ground and like do something there and when that was kind of shut down and it didn't last long in the second round like you know what I mean

And it always seems to me, like you said, about Raul Rostas Jr., is you don't want to get any, you don't want to get your experience in the UFC as you go on. That's what it felt like happened there. He had to learn some lessons in a real fight that goes on his record here. That's the thing. He's like, I think he went into this fight. I think he's now, I believe now he's 8 and 0, or 8 and 1, or I should say 7 and 1. But I believe he went into the fight 7 and 0.

And I'm like, dude, what is he now? Well, he's got two fights in UFC. I'm on the UFC's 8 and 1. all right so yeah you know still less than 10 fights and you're already you're already in ufc that like i mean again there are going to be cases where that's totally fine but a dog who calls himself the pink panther and looks like the abiza final boss with a weird ponytail like the who's of whoville at the top of his head it's like brother you're going to get washed doing the shit like you're not ready for this at all that was a strange one to me that was um i don't know what to say

about the fight that we all knew was going to go real badly. But it went real badly. You're like, well, he comes down. Now he's dehydrated with a chinny, you know, like, and I'm like, yeah, here it is. It's Ewel Baronevsky. I'm sure Baranuski, I'm sure I'm saying his name wrong against Austin Lane. Austin Lane has been not, this is not, I'm not sure what on the regional scene has

happened to him. But in Contender Series in 2018, he got viciously caoed. He got viciously, uh, there was a could not continue, or I guess, uh, I guess, uh, I guess he had eye poked Justin Taffa. He rematches him, gets knocked out in a minute in 22 seconds. He that has a fight against Jonathan Denise. He gets knocked out, K.O. He then has a fight against Mario Pinto.

He gets knocked out. He has a fight against Vitor Petrino. He gets choked out. And then he drops down against this dude who is, I think, limited, but, you know, heavy-handed and certainly willing to knuckle up. It's, I don't, I, what, why did they make this fight? What was the point of making this fight? I genuinely don't get it.

it. I don't either. Other than if they're saying, like, all right, also you got one more chance, but we're going to put you against this dude who knocks everybody out in the first round. So good luck. And then that's how it played out. Now they can save CNN. Because I don't, I don't really, like we've talked about this before. Sometimes the quality of the fighters themselves is just not,

you know, it's not where it used to be. And Austin Lane is in that, you know, to me. Like, that's, you probably, it just shouldn't be in the UFC, you know? And I don't need to see him keep getting knocked out to prove that point. Dude, I was making this point on Twitter the other day, people have been like, you know, how's a guy like this allowed

on the roster? He's got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven losses to win. So he's two and seven in the UFC dating all the way back to 2018. And it's like, well, understand something. The UFC, and no one does obviously if the UFC doesn't, but like, let's just talk about UFC. UFC. UFC does not have a roster that can make 43 weeks of seven-hour events and not get filler in a bunch of different directions. This is merely one kind of filler. There's other kinds of filler that you can use. There's no, like you could maybe do 43 weeks, Chuck, if you dated them all like UFC White House, five, six-fights. Right. You know what I mean? Right. But if you want seven-hour events, Austin lanes are going to show up left. and right.

100%. And I mean, at least, we were talking about this before, at least it wasn't just a decision where you know that there's no hope of any kind of finish, right? Like, this was more like what we were talking about with the Belator prelims where the sky would get in there and they'd take them out on a stretcher and throw the next

guys in, you know? Yeah. It was more like that, which is unusual for the UFC, but that's how it felt. I mean, but it's just also like if you're going to hold the UFC as the highest bar in the sport, I mean, at some point, you just

can't do that. There are certain guys that are glaringly out of their league. And I feel like that's where we're at with Austin here. Yeah, I mean, quality control is a function of revenue control at this point. And the two are not expressly related in ways I wish they were. Okay. Oh, anything else in this main code? No, I think that's about it. All right. Let's talk about our friends at Draft Kings here very quickly before we get on to the rest of the show. Draft King's Sportsbook, the number one sports book for live betting. Oops, excuse me. I lost my train. Here you go.

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This is now the prelims. And as I mentioned before, this is a case of high highs and very low lows. Let's start with the highs. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything, like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline.

It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Very simple question. Was Mason Jones versus Axel Sola? Is that a fight of the year contender? You know, man, I was thinking about this, and I think it is. So far, obviously, we're young in the year.

But you had like, you had a couple of components there being in England and I think that that crowd really kind of, you could feel that there was a big energy around it. And a lot of times that will translate. If it was at the apex, for instance, this, you may not have felt and you probably, you know, of course would not feel that kind of energy. But the fact that both do just stood in there, man, and just did that. And you always get like, it's just like the Gustavson Jones thing where they're in the hospital afterwards. These guys afterwards are like, they're hugging each other and they're showing you like that they're, it was all sportsmen. and they love each other for going to battle. I love when you get this kind of matchup, man,

where they're just like, let's see if you can last in my wheelhouse along and we'll just keep doing that until the fight ends. Man, Solo was one of these guys that people in Europe had told me about. They're like coming out of it. For folks who don't know, Aries FC is a French promotion. Dude, Aries produces a ton of top prospects. That's a promotion. Cage Warriors is another.

Octagon is another. Aries, you want to keep your eye on them. They got a lot of hammers coming out of there. Dude, Sola looked enormous. He was big comparative, yeah. Because Mason Jones is about a right size, maybe slightly undersized, lightweight, but not by much, right? And look at Sola, he just looks like another weight class above him,

hits him with a spinning back fist in the first round, clearly takes it. Jones to me, Chuck, looked like he was physically outmatched for sure, but just had so much dog and craft. So that marriage of dog. dog and craft, you could see it was enough to overcome some of those physical differences. You were mentioned, like, DeLize and Fluffy. Like, I always wonder when you see guys in this kind of fight, you're like, how many do you have in you like this?

Because some guys have a lot, they have a big amount. They can just go in there and just throw down recklessly, you know, and I like, there was skill to this, but I mean just recklessly in terms of self-preservation. You're not overly concerned with how you're going to feel later, later, tomorrow, or like, a year or two-year, whatever it is. Dude, that dog in him just doesn't let him stop, you know? I thought that that was why when you see something like that unfold, right, where a guy is getting hurt, but then he's still the one dictating terms afterwards.

And you see that kind of fight. There's always the plot kind of switching back forth. It seems like it's teetering on the edge. That's when you get these fight of the year type conversations. Is this when guys look like they cannot sustain something and yet they do. But man, yeah, Mason Jones, to me, like, I don't know how many, I don't know how often he can do that. because I don't know if you can get up for a fight and be like,

I'm going to put it all, I will die for this fight. Some guys have that a couple of times in their career, but that felt to me like one of his, like, you know, one of his cards he used. All right, here's one of the, here's one of the moments I'm going to put it all out there. I don't have many of these, but here's one of those, you know. Long Island, this fight, tremendous, tremendous fucking skill in this one. I did just say earlier that Danny Silva was my favorite fight.

I meant favorite finish of the night. this was obviously the best one. Look at the scar on his face. They put stitches. This is some anime reference. I don't know what that figure is there, but either way, look at that fucking scar, dude. Do you know what that scar reminds me of? Actually, the one I'm going to reference is worse than this one, but they're both pretty

fucking bad. Do you remember the scar that Nick Diaz had after fighting Takenori Gomi? Oh, yeah. He had to get 16 stitches on the inside of the cut and then another 16 just to close it. Right? So it was the, the tissue underneath. had to be bound and then the flesh or the skin it's unusual to be there it's usually like you know you'll see some of the brow or whatever

but it's unusual to see that deep of a cut below the eye and it was it was from those knees that mason kept throwing yeah he just kept adding him to the end of a combination and it kept working it kept working so sola one of those guys to me clearly has a lot of potential but some seasoning to do as well yeah yeah i mean that's what i was going to say we're talking about Mason, but like, that was some newfound respect for him too, man, because his fight, or like the fight, a couple of fights he's had, relatively easy in terms of like how he's up a good. So, like, you didn't know how he, you know, I didn't know if he'd be able to have this kind of fight, kind of with the, with the hype he's had a little bit. So that was, that was cool to see too. I mean, I agree with you. I think he's got a bright future.

He loses probably nothing in terms of the perception of what he's able to do, right? No, just needs to make sure he kind of works on. He could, keep Mason Jones off of him. Yeah. That is, I cannot tell you how often I'm watching that in tape these days. Guys who can move, guys who can land. But fundamentally, they can't keep a guy from encroaching upon them. And Sola, even though he was the bigger physical guy, it just tells you the level of skill that Mason Jones had to overcome that.

Like the fact that Mason Jones was landing knees at all for a guy who had a longer reach and was kind of powerful, just sort of indicates like, like, which is harder to sometimes to deal with. Yeah, exactly. Um, all right, man. God, fucking Jesus. Just fucking get rid of heavyweight, dude. I'm, you know, Curtis Blades, I think got mad at me on IG when I suggested this,

but like, I don't know. We can make it special. Well, if we get rid of them, we don't have to hear his criticisms anywhere. You can just, well, I like Curtis. Like, the thing about Curtis Blades is this would not apply to, him because Curtis is obviously talented enough where I don't I don't this not doesn't apply to him but like it's like Curtis you can't be that mad at me bro

because look at the fucking crop around you Mario Pinto got a win over Felipe Franco and dude Grubaka hitman again who is kind of like a very reliable measurement of quality was like even I've never heard of this guy and Pintu couldn't put him away what is there to say about this fight?

I don't even know. One of Pentu's wins was against Austin Lane. I mean, so. That's the only thing you can say about it. I mean, I didn't really, I didn't, I don't know if you had an expectation on this fight. I was a little bit. I did.

He looks at a little bit, yes. He looks at the part too. He does look the part. I was like, so I guess I had a, I guess I did too. But there's always. this in the back of your mind like I mean these days like heavyweight you just there's always in the back of your mind it's going to be a dud

and yeah I didn't feel like he you know he didn't do himself any favors he got the win but like I just you know there's a kind of going to be any buzz come off his name man I saw this fine I was like bro come the fuck on yeah like can there possibly

be a heavyweight prospect who come can we get a heavyweight prospect in MMA who doesn't have a criminal future or history and doesn't love the N word and is also good at fighting.

Can we get that? That is apparently very, very difficult to find. That's a pretty heavy checklist. Nathaniel Wood, to me, scored a really nice victory. It was via decision, which I don't think is going to help us talk too, too much, but in Lusanae, Kaita, is I guess how you pronounce it.

Kaita, double champ out of Octagon, coming into this, very good fight. you know, it certainly made it a little bit interesting down the stretch of times, but would quality win? I just don't know what it does for him on the prelim card, it almost so like he feels a good role for these London cards because, you know, he goes in there.

It's always such a national pride and he puts on a show and it's a decision. I think, you know, we're talking about Evalove, but like going back to, you know, what is it, 2018 is the last time he had a finish and a fight. Then it was not far behind him. I think it's 2019. So it's like one of those things he started off pretty fast in the UFC, he had some nice finishes early on and since then

has had nice performance and you can tell that he wants to put the guys away but you just can't get it done. It's like that's a similar frustration we were talking about. But a good performance. And again, what's the cast name? He was just fighting. Keda? How do you say his name?

They pronounce it on the broadcast as Lusanae Kaita. Kita, okay. But he doesn't check the boxes we just talked about. I think they said he was in prison for like four months for fighting illegally. So I mean, yeah. Thank you for that. It was a split decision that he kind of had to earn it, but I did think

that Wood was the rightful guy. The right guy won to me. I thought he won. In the end. Now, those were the top three fights. It was Pintu versus Franco, Wood versus Kaita, and then Jones versus Sola. Again, Jones Sola, no complaints at all,

tremendous, tremendous action. But dude, after that, okay. You're going to talk about Shem Rock? Shem Rock got his shit rock. I mean, that was, he got whooped up on, in that one. Antonio Tricoli genuinely might be the worst

fighter in the UFC. I don't know if that's true, but I mean, I don't know what he's doing there. Your boy, Long Island, Brando Perichich, he got a I told you. I told you he was going to get him out of there quick and he did. I mean, it was definitely the worst, like the least

aesthetically pleasing finish of the night, you know, it was just like whatever. And Louis Sutherland, man, he's got big belly, but my boy getting it done, Luke, you know, you got a roof of the I don't. I don't. I don't have to root against me. I don't have to root for him. The only one that was a little bit, the only one that was a little bit interesting to me was the Chanel Dyer win over Havana, Oliver. She does in the second round. Dyer had a tough

ass fight on contender series and lost it, but I think is genuinely a, you know, a pretty decent fighter. Real quick, before I throw it to you, we have video of her. She won one of the bonuses. Let's take a look. Yes. It's good for her. Like I said, she had a tough vital contender series. But dude,

those bottom four fights again, I appreciate what Dyer was able to do. Why are these fights happening at UFC? Why? I will only say in her defense, like I've had Pizzi, you know, Pizzi at the crack,

he is high on her eventually becoming a champion. So if somebody actually tells us. He's hot on crack. No, yes, yes. He'd admit to that. But like,

you see somebody like that and you'll pay a little bit of attention. I have to say, that Muay clinch that she got that she had there like reminded me of Anderson Silva Franklin for a minute like a little bit yeah up yeah so I mean that was that was you know again it's not the highest quality of fight and but I was happy for her you know who was the one that was like give me a bonus I'm broke I'm broke that was that was Danny Silva that was Danny Silva I was like on the main card yeah it's never a good look is it like every time somebody does this I'm like you feel like the

UFC would almost be like hey guys please don't say that you're broke on there, you know. I remember they used to kind of put a mandate, or at least I've very strongly suggested, like, please don't talk about your full-time jobs. Because I remember Shane Carwin when he was fighting. He was fighting Brock Lewis and they're like, please don't tell people your full-time engineer with a day job and you just do this as a kind of lark or whatever it was. But this strikes me even worse because you're like, I know he hasn't had a ton of fights, but you've had fights in the UFC and to say things like that. It's always like, oh my God, man especially right now

where everybody's kind of scrutinizing fighter pay I forget his first name but I think his last name was DeLorme he was a Canadian guy and this was during the Fox era I remember he like did an aerial used to do those backstage at the time remember yeah yeah and we were at MMA fighting at the time and

together and I remember I got one of his videos because what Ariel would do back then is the guys would come back and he would do the interview for Fox and then he would do another one for us at MMA and then Casey would send me the video and we would have to get the video up

and I watched it and he was like yeah my water got turned off I haven't even had water at my house but my god was like fuck dude that's like that's another level of bro you don't even have indoor plumbing anymore holy shit man and and I've heard stories like that too like I've heard them through the course of time sometimes from veterans

at least when I say veterans like at least like five fight type guys you know who've had plenty of fights and you're like what how does that happen man It's just, it's crazy. I don't know. I don't know. Let's talk about the other main, well, main event, but other, well, main event too,

but the other kind of big-ish event that took place in, well, Europe, a lot happening over there in Europe, but the other big organization of it. Was it in Ibiza? See, that's the thing. Like, I learned South American Spanish, so I'm just going to ignore how the Spanish do it. All right, all right. It's a really weird thing to hear because people think it's just on the Z. and it's not. It's on several different letters.

Yeah. Like the verb de seer, D-E-C-I-R, they say D-T-E-D-T-E. It's like... Well, I feel like you know better than me, so I'm different. Or, you know, also like Barthalona. I'm like... Artholonia. Look at me, look at me, Spangor. I'm not doing that. Okay. I'm doing Barcelona. It's all they invented the language. Don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Don't care. All right. Let's talk about this.

Speaking of Spain, by the way, and they went to Madrid, my favorite city, maybe in the entire world. So the P-F-L goes to Madrid. Drid and in the main event, Chuck, Costello Van Stenis finishes off Fabian Edwards via elbows. We can't show the video, but you can see here. So let me set this up. Edwards is going for a takedown on Van Stenis on the fence and kind of gets not stuck in this position, but he's, what would you say, Chuck, hanging out there a little bit, just hanging out a little bit?

And Van Stenis starts to land elbows that are doing damage and they go uncontested. And so he just keeps doing it and he wins the, or not wins the belt, but defends the belt. as a consequence of that. So we talked on Friday show, Chuck, with Jed, who is probably high on meth when he does these shows. But nevertheless, they'll probably do it. Yeah. It's like, dude, I can get a contact high from meth off of his breath

if you stand close enough to it. I'm dub tea and I really want a vape. Oh, man. Tell the people we have a soundboard now. We do have a soundboard now. But again, I'm a one-man operation. here. So it's a little hard.

I'm just staring at it, waiting. Play the Dub T one. I'm Dubb T and I really want to vape. I'm Dubbtee and I really want to vape. That's a real quote. I love it. That's so great. All right.

But this is what like, look, this one, this one, man. I'm going to pitch it to you, Chuck. I don't want to take away from Van Stenis, who was on the high of his fucking career. But does Fabian Edwards have some fight IQ issues? What do you think?

Well, I thought this very, this very thing. when he was like, what this happens, right? He's going to wrestle. Like, I don't know. It was, do you remember the fight was that Gabriel Gonzaga versus Travis Brown? Same thing. It was like, Gabriel Gonzaga got low.

He kept doing that. No, no, no, no. Travis Brown versus Josh Barnett. Is that the one? Yes. Okay. Sure. I'm sure of it.

Okay. Because he started just like, boom, boom, same thing. It totally reminded me of that. Like, where you're like, okay, dude, those are landing. And then all of a sudden, you just see him crumpling. He's out. He's out from this thing. That was what it reminded me of.

It was just, it was a, I don't know why the insistence was there. And I'm like, sometimes you'll see this and like I say, there's poor decision making. And something like that, I'm like, dude, either you've got a really bad game plan and you're sticking to it or you're just not in the feel of what's going on. But that was not, that was not the way to go. Not in that kind of fight, right? They had a close fight the first time. So, I mean, I didn't really think it would go down in some weird way like that. But I'm with you.

it's kind of split. I think Vancena, it was crazy that he was an underdog Long Island brought this up being in Spain and all that stuff. I really thought he should be the favorite in that fight. But dude, I didn't think it would go down like that. No. Dude, I... It's amazing to me

how much fighters spend time in skill development, which, of course, I have no issue with as a general observation. But, like, for example, you brought Diego Lopez. We spent a lot of time you and I talking about

in that rematch before Volk. It's like, it's like, it's like, dude, I'm a shit-ass nobody and I'm like, you need to cage cut. I can see it on tape. And then he goes in there

and he doesn't do it. So like, a big one is tactics. Like, what are the tactics? What are the strategies? And like, are we watching tape to really understand? Are we funneling people that I'm really to fight ending scenarios,

but are we funneling them physically into different places in the cage to then pop them? I can tell you, like, for example, a guy like Eric Nixick, their whole system is built on moving people either directionally or into certain places that they want to, you know, to then do damage or thinking about physical location. The other one is just about, you know, general best practices about what you want to do

beyond, like, you know, more generic or striking scenarios. So, like, for folks who didn't see this fight, the first fight between Van Stenis and Edwards was kind of a ho-hum affair. And, you know, largely even-ish on the feet. Maybe Vancena's a little bit better or at least landing in bigger shots, maybe is a better way to put that. And then using some groundwork to kind of get ahead.

In the rematch, it didn't look like that. Like Edwards was doing really well on the feet. He wasn't like crushing him or anything, but, you know, he was, I thought he was the better guy on the feet. And then he would just wrestle for no particular reason. And it's like, you got mounted and, elbowed in the first fight. I'm not saying you had to like avoid the ground at all cost, but if you're winning on the feet, why are we even entertaining this mixing up position?

Because it wasn't like Van Sienis was like blitzing and, you know, making it really dangerous for him. He was kind of just playing off the other side of that. And we had also said on Friday's MK, Chuck, you know, people ask me like, how would you describe Van Sienis's style? And it's like, I said this on Friday's MK. You can look up the tape. I was like, he's an opportunist. Yeah. He just kind of like, always like looking under rocks for worms, then eventually he just tends to find one. I mean, the Johnny Eblen fight specifically, right? And this one too, where Edwards is not transitioning through the position.

He's like kind of hanging out there. So Van Cienis just looks down and goes, bop, bong, bong, bong. And they close the show. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? There's nothing. One of the most frustrating things is that you see a guy having success on the feet that maybe is

surprising himself with it sometimes. Like you'll see this and like he's landing some bigger shots, but then he keeps resorting to like pushing on the cage and like, and you're like, what are you doing? Separate. Dude, you're doing fine. I've seen this. You too, man. Like we've seen this so many times. There's something just maddening about that because you've got to understand real time your successes, even if you didn't think you're going to have them on some level, even if you didn't think you're going to find the success you're having at some point you got to pivot and be like, no, no, no, I'm good right here. I think that this is where we should stay. But I don't, that was. that was very bizarre for him to kind of default to the wrestling mindset when it clearly wasn't

going to work there. I mean, I don't say this to like dunk on a guy. I truly don't. But what I am going to say is if you're in a fucking title fight and you're winning on the feet and, you know, and again, it's not like, oh, you're winning, but he's scoring huge punches and you maybe want to mix it up. That's a little bit different. But like he's not really scoring huge punches. And you decide to take it down. And as you're taking it down, you're kind of static in a position. Dude, you do. deserve to lose straight up. In high level MMA, if you're going to make those kinds of commitments, you deserve to lose.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't, it doesn't bring me joy to like, dunk on Fabian Edwards, but I'm just trying to say like, you know what I mean? Like there's a certain kind of things you just can't get away with if you want to do special shit in MMA. And he didn't do that. I mean, advancing is if it was, if the whole thing was like, uh, in the Washington general sense of the Harlem Globetrotters series, series, where it's like to kind of give

him his moment and his home, you know, is, uh, is, uh, his home, like where he, you know, where he lived for someone in Spain. Like, he certainly did that because that was kind of a gift in a weird way. And like Van Stenis was already riding this complete high from the Johnny. I talked to him before, like a month ago before all this. And it was like he was still as high on that fight as you could be, right? Like he's talking about it like, it's a movie. And I'm like, yeah, man.

I mean, that's one of the crazy comebacks of the year and all that stuff. And to get this as his encore, good for him. You know what I mean? So you got to give him his flowers too on that level. You know, so funny, Van Steen. I didn't we didn't see this but someone sent it to me when the

he made Van Stenis was made a promo package for PFL where he's at a desk and he's writing a love letter to the people of Spain and he's narrating it in Spanish and his Spanish is I wanted to see how good it was it's native it's really really good okay it's uh and you know he's got the Spain Spanish accent too but well the reason why I was bringing this up is because

obviously he's Dutch too so he speaks English with a Dutch accent. Did you notice that the, I think I could be wrong about this, but the reporter who asked Dana, the question that we played earlier, and Dana had to get the translation, he was getting translation of an English-speaking Dutch guy. Oh, my God.

He's like, I know you're speaking my language, but you have a Dutch accent. Can we get a guy who's got a goober accent like the rest of us, you know? Oh, man. Anyway, anyway, if you haven't seen that piece, I'll send it to you after the show, Chuck, of the PFL, the love. letter. I haven't seen that. He's writing it. He's writing with like a quill-tipped pen in kind of this

orangey mood lighting at a big wooden desk. And then he's narrating as he writes. He was fucking sick. I was amazed by it. And I mean that you know what? Good for them. Like they, I think this was the first, like they said, the first time in Madrid where it was like a major organization going there. And I mean, dude, there's always a sub tweet involved when you're like, hey, we're going to go that you guys have Ilya, right? Like you have this guy, but we're going to get there first. I always kind of appreciate that. You know what I mean? And a PFL's done that even with France, you know, and some of the others. Like they've, they've kind of been there first. And I can appreciate it. It looked like a fun environment, like a smaller room, but a fun environment.

Yeah. Well, Madrid is like maybe my favorite city in the whole world. They had, let's talk about this. They had about 6K in attendance. Now, it was not exactly a sellout. I don't think that's quite right. And it's not like they made a huge amount at the gate, but they had, you know, I would call a decent attendance, including but not limited to a bunch of the players, for Real Madrid. They had Vinnie in attendance, Portoix, Féde Valverde. They had a bunch of, I think Rudiger was there as well. They had a bunch of them there, which was kind of cool.

Their guy won. I'm not sure exactly what it means for PFL, Chuck, but do you have any feeling? Like, like, PFL can't be upset about it. It seemed pretty good. I thought it was pretty good. And also the other Van Scenis one, right? Like he got a knockout. I believe he was an underdog, too.

So in a crazy sense, I mean, it kind of went the way that you'd want it. In the sense, like we're talking about the UFC and the London fighters for the most part, except for Curtis Campbell, like most of those guys were able to come through for their home thing. I mean, that always translates very nicely, right? Like when you have a homecoming, the guys who are supposed to that you want to win kind of win. And it sets up nicely, too. I didn't want to have that situation where you don't get the Van Stenis Eblen rematch at some point because, I mean, that's a big fight for them, right? Right. Right.

Well, that brings us to Johnny Eblen, who fights this coming weekend at the PFL Pittsburgh. He put this up on IG after Van Stenis won. Hell yeah, let's run this back after I get a W next weekend. I got to tell you, now, we'll talk about this in the next topic. But if Eblen gets a W, yeah, I like that fight. I'm kind of pumped for that rematch, to be honest with you. I mean, I love when a dude like Van Stenis, he was, you know, it's just like, boom, he hit, like he's like he hit a jackpot on his last few dollars in that fight with Evelyn. And then all of a sudden he's like on house money now.

Like he's won a lot of money. I was like, hey, I'm rolling. Those guys sometimes can deliver because they get a big belief in themselves and I think he's got that and I mean obviously Johnny Eblen being the competitor he is dude like if he gets by Brian Battle like obviously

you know that he's going to go into that fight like with some you know piss and vinegar type thing he's going to go in there to beat him that should be fun very quickly AJ McKee got a fun but pretty solid win over Adam Borich so we're talking about the right next move for him he's 30 years old I gotta tell you I don't know what

appetite PFL has for McKee to fight Usman Nermakamadov again, but I'd be cool with that. Yeah. I don't know about your opinion. I mean, who else? Who else could they put him with? Let me pull up the rankings, because I'm not even sure who's

available. That's what, that's always the thing with the BFEL. It's not like they, they have their cup of thrunning over, you know. Okay, so you've got Alfie Davis who just got smoked. Right. Gatsy Rabadanov. I'm not sure. I think he lost recently. Archie Colgan is an interesting name. Nobody knows him, but he's undefeated.

Paul Hughes sitting at four Alexander oh this was at 45 I believe so no it wouldn't even be relevant why was I saying Usman never mind I think this is at 45 you got Alexander Shablii J.J Wilson Natanzholt now over at 45 where do they have AJ McKee they got him sitting at two they got Timor Kisriev I guess you could make that um Jesus Panato but I don't know if it was much interest in that Borsch was sitting at four it looks like honestly it's title shot for against Kisriev and then that's it yeah yeah I mean that That's kind of, you know, that's kind of where they're at with. And that title is vacant, by the way, because we're able to be the number one contender, but there's nobody else, you know. AJ McKee, after all these years and like, you know, he's still, it's crazy that he's 30 years old, by the way, because, you know, when we were covering his father, not long ago, and now his son is 30 years old,

that's very strange. I said, I said, Usman de Rigamato, it was Paul Hughes, which was the guy he had lost you. Please forgive me. Also, kind of, so I did wrong myself in real time. Also, kind of funny, we covered his dad's career. For guys who did not cover his dad's career, he was famous for being like the most boring guy on any card he was ever on. That's actually true.

If you saw him on the card, you'd be like, oh, here we go. You know what I mean? Here we go. Yeah. All right. That is it for topic number four. So let's end on topic number five. We kind of alluded to the fact that Johnny Eblen is fighting Brian Battle this week.

you have, sorry, I should say PFL Pittsburgh. By the way, PFL staff, they have to go from Madrid to Pittsburgh. Holy shit. I noticed that, yes. If half of them don't put a gun in their mouth, I'll be surprised. Your least favorite city,

your favorite city is your least favorites. I actually don't hate Pittsburgh, but it's like, it's better than people advertise. I mean, it is, it certainly is. But like going from fucking Madrid to Pittsburgh,

like, holy shit. I remember Dan Hardy was basically like, yeah, we're going to be in Pittsburgh next week. I'm like, wow, what a juxtaposition that is. It's like, I don't even know, I couldn't even, you know, okay. Anyway, we'll come back to that.

But let's actually talk about this, because we actually have this weekend, Chuck, dueling middleweight main events. UFC Seattle will feature Izzy, and you can see the poster here, taking on Joe Pfeiffer. We've kind of talked about some of the dimensions of this fight, which, by the way, I like this fight. I think it's an interesting fight. And then on the PFL side, by the way, you've got Dalton Ross to take it on Impa Kisanginai in the Komen, but the main event is Johnny Eble taken on Brian Battle. This, of course, will be Brian Battle's PFL debut. He did have that one fight, I believe, in dirty boxing.

But here he is back in high-level MMA. So the question is not which one is more relevant for the top end of MMA. It's obviously going to be Izzy and Joe Piper, right? Especially if Joe wins, it kind of really upsets the apple card for a guy who's ranked, I think, four or five in that UFC middleweight division. That's not my question. Okay. My question is not that. My question is on pure excitement terms.

which has the biggest chance to deliver it. And let me set this up if I may, Chuck. All right. Joe Pfeiffer is going to be hunting for a big knockout. But we all know Izzy has a way of stifling that, potentially if he wants to. Now he couldn't do it against him. Mavov, but can Izzy play the touch and go game,

the fainting game if he wants to? Yes, of course. On the other end, Brian Battle is pretty reliable for action, but Johnny Ebblin might wrestle him into oblivion or he might not. So there's these questions of the kind of guys who are older, more established, having ways to smother a surging contender. Which one is going to deliver more? Well, as much as I love the Brian Battle basically, you know, flying into flight in his new promotion and getting a title shot, the Johnny Eblen wrestling factor weighs in there because you could see a scenario where that could turn into a patterned fight where it's like rinse and repeat for the whole time.

Now, I'm hoping that doesn't happen. I'm thinking it could have like some fireworks. But I feel like the other fight, like you're mentioning with Izzy coming back from, what is it, three losses in a row. He's had a, and obviously like he's in a row, I'll look it up. Okay, so he's like, I mean, he's obviously like down the stretch here. This is a guy who we held at the very highest level of the sport. And he's getting a guy.

I think this is strategic in the sense like you mentioned, Joe Piper's kind of a headhunter. He was going to be looking for that knockout. He'll be coming forward. I do think that Izzy's like most majestic performances. and you've probably looked at the tape a lot with him is when he's able to kind of react to a lot of stuff. And I feel like he's going to have those chances. And we know when he does that, big things happen.

At least it has happened for him. So if he's going to get the opportunity to put away Joe Piper and kind of write some of the wrongs, I think he's going to take it. So to me, there's just that explosive component like when they come together, maybe they play into each other strengths a little bit is what's going to make that fun.

Can you believe that the last win that Izzy had. It was not only in April of 2023, so almost three years ago. Oh, my God. But then it was the Poetan comeback win. Oh, when he kind of just bit down and like counted like boom and hit him on the fence. Yeah. Like that super back up against the wall

triumphant moment. You know, that like he was on a huge high. He's not won since then. Man, if I had like if I was on a Long Island's trivia show and this had been brought up, I'd be like there was at least one victory since then. That feels like so long ago.

That was so long ago, man. Yeah, that's crazy. Long Island, which fight has the, of the two dueling main events for middleweight this weekend? Which one has the higher possibility of action? I mean, I'm just so intrigued by the Izzy Piper matchup that I can't choose Eblen. I like that fight better. Yeah, but these are also going directly, I don't know what time the main card starts for PFL, but if I'm not mistaken, these are going directly head to head.

Yeah, PFL making a half. I'm not even going to catch. Yeah, I'm probably not even going to catch. Eblen battle unless it happens to go after the UFC screens my friend well yeah Chuck I mean I will catch it you know what I mean I'm just saying it's so stupid on their end stick to Fridays or something because I would definitely tune in if it was on Friday yeah 10 PM start on ESPN 2 I didn't realize that for the PFL card and for the you have coming UFC card the fight night

card that has a 8 p.m. I think main car 5 p.m. for the oh you know what here I'll let me tell you because I want to get this right actually so give me just one second if you go to ufc.com slash schedule uh they'll tell you there so if the fight card for that one is jesus christ uh 8 pm start so they won't necessarily overlap by the main event anyway there should be enough of a difference i got to tell you i don't love middleweight main events as a rule but the ufc one i think is actually very interesting and not for nothing for PFL. That's a pretty decent scrap too.

I kind of like that one. Brian Battle, like just picking him up. Because dude, do you tell me that the guy not like, I feel like a star power like tripled after he beat Kevin Jusei in France and he had that big mic moment. He sounded like a pro wrestler and he's like, let me hear it. You know, and he's like, and then obviously he's missed weight and he's had all these things. But it didn't really hurt his brand and sense of like,

you know, he goes over to dirty boxing. I felt like there was this special eye on him. like they did a good job of sort of showing you what happened there. And he ends up here, I'm intrigued by this. I just, I feel like that's kind of the component. Like if it was just Johnny Eblen against somebody else on the roster, for instance, it probably feel like, ah, it's a PFL event. This actually makes it feel very different to me as having Brian battle on that.

I think the dude has some talent. I'm like, so I feel like that this is a really fun fight. Well, that's just it. It's like, first of all, the fans have definitely responded to him. I started getting questions about him in my live chat. And usually the questions are only about like, you know, Islam or Ilya or something like that. Right.

So like when a guy who's like getting brought up, I was actually kind of surprised by it. And to be honest with you, I certainly grant that he injects some life into this fight and this promotion. It's a great signing both because he needed to rehab his image a little bit based on the weight miss. And also PFL could use a guy like that. So it's a great pairing. But like this is a great opportunity for him too because it's like I'm not totally convinced he's like a super good middleweight.

You know? Right. Right. But you beat Johnny Eblen, and I'll believe that you're a super good middle way, or certainly deserving of top 10 respect. Both those fights we're talking about have that kind of component, right? Because I mean, Joe Piper's proved that he can go in there and win. But I mean, now you're fighting a guy who I still feel, I still feel like his mystique is still in place to a certain extent, right? Like he's still that guy.

This would be a big moment for him. And if it doesn't happen, I feel like Izzy Adesanya then enters the conversation in this big way again, even if it's kind of late in his career. I mean, those types, I love those types of crossroads, you know, where it's like guy coming up, guys supposedly going down, but it could divert and go the other way. Like, you got them in both fights there. I got to say, there's not many times you could book two dueling non-title middleweight main events. And I'd be like, these are great. That's a great point, dude. This one kind of works out. It kind of works out. Yeah. All right. That's it for our top five. We'll, of course, have coverage of both of the. these events. We'll preview them on Friday's MK. But for right now, let's go to where you guys get to ask us questions.

It's time for DMs from dogs. I'll just never get used to that, ever. All right. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis

hubline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Question one. From our friend Emery Nick Six. Why has Jeremy Stevens been able to do one-off fights in the UFC, fought Mason Jones in UFC, then Mike Perry and BKFC,

now back to fighting King Green? I think it's because they just like him, Chuck. I think so too. I always think back to, like Jeremy Stevens was the guy who, Do you remember like the Minnesota where he was like he gets arrested and Dana White's spinning? He's going to fight. He's going to fight and they're trying to like bail him out before this fight. Do you remember when all this went down like 10 years ago?

Yes. So I mean, it goes back that far. I feel like they've always had a big respect and love for Jeremy Stevens because he's a dude who doesn't say no. He goes in there and he brawls, win or lose. And they have special. There are guys like that that they hold a special place for. So if there was some exception to it, and I don't know his, contractual setup, but yes, he would be one of those guys.

Question number two. From OG 91 pixel. How good is, okay, I can never say his name right. Iman Gazalev from one championship Muay, Mutai spelled wrong. Jesus the kid is a monster. Long Island, do we have any assets to show this guy at all? No. Okay.

Have you seen him, Chuck? I have not. I forget his first name. So if you guys haven't seen it, there's this. I have heard people talking about him, though. Yeah. Joe Rogan wants to blow him, I think. But that's okay.

If you're going to blow somebody, this is a good got to blow, I suppose. He is a Dagestani guy who does the four-ounce moitai stuff in one championship. And he is in there. He just beat Nongo. He's blowing people's brains out. And he looks the part. He's wiry, but you know, you can still tell well-muscled, you know, throws heavy leather, good combinations.

He's technical. He's slick. he's a devastating finisher dude he is fucking awesome yeah and awesome and you know we associate the dog of sannie guys with being more wrestlers and then we'll say oh yeah some of them can strike well well here we found a guy who can strike his ass off i'm i'm compelled man i can't wait to see this yeah if you haven't seen him yet you should make an effort he's yeah he is he is he is he going to be he's he fighting m m a so where's he at right now is he Waitai is my only understanding.

Okay. Maybe I haven't looked at his record more closely. Maybe he's got some enemy fights or something. But, you know, it's hard because you're like, oh, how excited should I be about a kickboxing product? There's something a little different about him. You know, just to see a Dagestanian guy with the Amish beard go in there. And then just don't, I didn't think that was allowed actually in like, you know, Dagestan. What?

Beymoy Thai. Like, I didn't think that, like, you could, I thought you had to, if you didn't wrestle, you know, like, and sit in sauna afterwards. Well, you know what? I bet on some level he can wrestle a little bit, whether he's done it in any kind of... That's why I was asking if he's doing M.A. That would be... Now it's like that becomes the compelling thing, too. Like, does he have a ground game?

Let me see. Gazalev won. Hold on. So it's Asadullah I'm gonna'amazalev. I'm sure I'm saying that the worst way imaginable. 22 years old out of Dagestan, dude, he is beating the fuck out of people. It's insane. Love it, man.

What he's been, what he's been showing up and then doing. So his record on, from what I'm seeing here, 12 wins, he's completely undefeated, eight of them, KOs or TKOs. And the ones that are decisions are mostly in his early career. He hasn't gone to a decision. Well, he had a bunch of, you know, you know, you know how they'll do tournaments, you know. Yeah. But his last, let's see, one, two, three, four, five have all been finishes.

Yeah, he's. Would you favor him against a guy like, I don't know, winged C? Like somebody like that or do. I do not understand why the internet gets behind. I understand why the internet gets behind weirdos. What I don't understand is getting behind weirdos who obviously aren't good at fighting. It's like the most insane thing. So people are like, oh, butterbean wasn't good.

Butterbean was good at a certain level, you know? Exactly. And he had dynamite knockout power. Yeah. All right. Next. From DG. Whatever the fuck.

All right. Why is the women's bansomway division allowed to come to a complete stop while Kayla Harrison heals from an injury. John Jones was vilified for holding of the division for a full year when he was injured. Chuck, I have an answer, but I'd like to hear yours. Well, I would just say that on whole, that women's, because I do the pound for pound rankings

that uncrowned, and so like, you update them every month, and there will be nine women on there that have no news of anything coming up or anything. They just, they hold them idly out for long periods of time compared to the men. I mean, it's just, it's just the way it is, man. It's a very strange thing. But I don't know, like, I don't know what you would do.

Like, if you were to expound on that, like, well, I don't know what the suggestion would be, like, in terms of, you saying, like, have another title fight or something in between, like, or have an interim. I don't know what the question is in that sense. Just keep the division moving. Just keep it going, you know? I mean, well, let's hear your, let's hear your explanation. What are you things going on here? In the words of Habib Nirmikamadeoff,

who cares, brother? Who cares? In all seriousness, in the principle. That's economy of words right there. Yeah. In the principle of it, the question is correct. Like, this is unfair. And my view is if the UFC is not going to keep these people moving, they should let them take fights elsewhere. You know, I do believe that.

On the other hand, I just think you got to look at this realistically and say there is a certain level of prestige and physical, or I should say, there's a level of prestige and like representation about what the heavyweight division means. Right. And if you begin to fuck with that, it has a bigger significance than for a division that I'm not even sure should exist. Right. Yeah, nobody knows. That person noticed, but like not too many fans really notice when there's an idleness going on with the women's bantam weight versus heavyweight, which is traditionally people pay attention to. Yeah. All right.

Next. From I read Raiton 916. have you seen or heard the rumors of Gable Steve's he put Stevenson it's Stevenson versus JDS even Mohamed Mokaiyv versus AJ McKee for the Netflix show in May no but I did he I had heard rumors of Gable Steveson versus JDS I don't know if they're legit or not I honestly don't know I'm a consumer in that way what I will say is it seems interesting that you had Muhammad Mokkaev kind of teasing a fight that Jake Paul was signing at the same time that one just released Adriano Martins,

their former champion. That is a, dude, let me just say it all right. Muhammad Mokai versus Adriano Martins is a legit. Yeah. Legit. Wouldn't that, like, I mean,

that almost goes against the motif of this MVIP because it's that good, right? Like you'd almost say, oh, and now you've got a very vital feeling fight on that card. Maybe that would be the right move is to do something like that. I am anxious to find out what's going on with, with Mokaiyev on that fight. Mokaiyev, to me, like, when he was released,

you know, I was like he needs to be released because he can beat people with his grappling, but he can't do anything else. He needs some seasoning. But after watching what he's been up to, I would like to see the UFC bring him back. I think now he's a little bit more ready to do something with that. It could make flyweight even hotter than it already is. Yeah. I hope they find a way to do that. I mean, they should, right? Like that division is better than it has been in a while, right? Because we were doing our division. And I say you look at it and you're like, wow, there's a bunch of guys up at the top. Now imagine plugging him back into the the mix. It'd be a lot of fun, man. I think there's one more from flannels and jits. Did you catch any of

the NCAA wrestling championships this year? I did. Thoughts on the level of these younger athletes, especially guys like Jacks Forrest coming in and winning the NCAA titles as a true freshman. Dude, check this shit out, Chuck. Check the shit out. There was a guy, a Hispanic kid who wrestled for Oklahoma State. I forget his name, but he wrestled early in the championship evening. So, you know, they do the finals for all the white classes on Saturday. a Hispanic kid. He wins it. Okay.

So he becomes in that moment for Oklahoma State, but for any college, the first wrestler in 79 years to win the NCAAs as a true freshman. Wow. So not a red shirt, but a true one. Then in the main event that night, I think it was either 125 or 133, I forget the exact weight class. Also for Oklahoma State is a kid named Jacks Forrest, who goes, which is by the way, just the widest fucking name.

If he wasn't going to be a wrestler, he was going to go win American Ninja Warrior, you know. It's a great grandson of Nathan Bedford Forrest. So Jacks Forrest goes in there and becomes, so remember, 79 years had to elapse before someone could do it. And then later on that night, one of his teammates in a different weight class does the exact same thing. And I'll up the ante. Wow. That kid, Jack's Forrest, was in high school earlier this year. year. He left high school early, somehow got eligibility to go and wrestle for Oklahoma State

and then ran the fucking table on them and won a national title as a true freshman. Dude, what the fuck. These are Oklahoma State? Yeah. What a bad time for D.C. to step aside. I mean, this is like, no. You think you'd want to be on that one. That's crazy, man. But can you believe that? Like, it's something doesn't happen for 79 years and then it happens twice in the same night. That is wild. I wish I could have, like, I should have paid more attention to it, man, with everything going on. It always falls by the wayside. And then you'll see it like, you all see it like people talking about it on social. I'm like, ah, you know, because you just kind of get caught up in the other stuff. Also, the interesting part was Jacks Forrest wrestled. I forget the other kid's name, but the kid he wrestled in the main event was a kid out of Ohio State. This kid out of Ohio State had not given up a takedown all year. Yeah. What do you think Jacks Forrest did? Takes him down. Took him fucking down. Also, the last part I'll say about this is, you know, the dominant team more generally is Penn State.

Kale Sanderson is obviously their coach. However, the Oklahoma State coach is David Taylor, who was kind of big when we were at MMA fighting together, who went out to win an Olympic gold and, you know, NCAA national title. And he's now the head coach at Oklahoma State. So there's a budding rivalry there. But Penn State has won the team title. the best wrestling team in the country, 13 of the last 15 years.

That's incredible. That's fucking insane. That's insane. That's kind of, I mean, unless you're talking like women's volleyball or, you know, it's got to be something where like,

all the concentration is in one room, like one university, that's so hard to do anymore. You know what I mean? Like to just have that kind of like dynasty that runs that long. It almost does, I mean,

I would guess that it almost happens in, it doesn't happen in any other sports. really. Yeah. And again, your only real threat is a guy who used to be part of your dynasty, who's not an offshoot of it. You know what I mean? Like, there's not like he came from an alternate system, exactly. All right. We'll do fan subs in just a minute, but let's talk about our friends at Cuervo. We, of course, are going to be back in studio April 8th to do a pregame preview around UFC 327. I just want to remind everyone from face off to final decision, Fight Night delivers the adrenaline and Cuervo the energy to match it, whether you're hosting your crew

at home or catching the action at the bar, Cuervo brings the good vibes that turn every round into a celebration. From Margaritas to Palomas, every main event simply tastes better with the world's most iconic tequila. No matter who walks out with the belt with Cuervo in hand, you're already celebrating like an undisputed champion. For every round, keep it fun, keep it Cuervo. And keep it locked with us.

April 8th, we'll be back in studio. Thanks to our friends at Cuervo. We'll do a pregame preview. we'll enjoy some there. Have some good chats about the fights, and hopefully you guys can enjoy us and have a good time with us. Okay, big thanks to our friends at Cuervo.

All right, with that out of the way, let's now go to fan subs. Let's do it. All right. You've got mail. Viewers. Now, Chuck, I'll tell you that the viewers here and the fans of MK, they like you a lot,

so they don't meme you very much. But I want to remind everyone, he's up for grabs. You could insult Chuck just like you can insult me. Come on, Lou. And if you do, if you're good at it, whether it's him or whoever it ends up being, if you're the best one this month, we're going to

send you a free signed poster. So, email the show with your fan subs, morning combat at gmail.com. That's going to be the place to send them all to reach the show more generally, but for sure for fan subs. All right, what's the first one we got? Let's see. Let me read it here too.

A RJ sent a meme. It says, Luke's girlfriend when she finds out there are no fights this weekend. I'm feeling these margaritas, Brian Campbell. Long Island, did you see your girlfriend this weekend? Yeah, it was my birthday this weekend. Oh, that's right. That's right. What'd you do for it?

We went and got drunk, you know, just a bunch of drinking and stuff. And now I'm sick, you know, just, you know, fruits of my labor, but it was a good weekend, good weekend. Has the snow melted in Long Island? Yeah, it's been gone for like a week or two now. We've been good. I am. I still have a good. little pile here, man. It's crazy. Yeah, because it was such a big drift. It was like a 10, like a 10 foot mountain where they had been plowing it. There's still probably two foot, you know. I was going to say, they, they called it Snow Crete here because they froze. Yeah.

They had to take a bunch down by the Capitol and put it on a parking lot. I drove by like this weekend. It's still there. Yeah. That's like, Jesus. That's wow. All right. This is a second one is from Jim, Chuck. Jim says, good morning, donks. Here's a fun one for you. I don't have the creativity to use AI and impose BP doing the foul shit he partakes in on a daily basis. But nevertheless, this one made me laugh. Keep up the great work long on Luke. You're a legend. It says, every time I'm watching MMA and my wife walks in the room.

I think he meant BC, right? Like, I don't know what BP was. I think I don't know who BP is either. This is, yeah, this would be hip is. Yeah. He's a big north-south guy, right? Oh, yeah. Especially at 115.

Yeah. he's a huge north-south guy. All right, from Nick, it says, Ola, boys, hey, here's a design I've spent a few days on that I'd love for you to use however you see fit. Much love for him. Oh, look at this. With the arrow through the head, King Dogg.

My nose is a little too thin for that one. I appreciate that. Oh, wait, this is how we did it? Yeah, this is him making it. Oh, look at the teeth that shit. My nose looks like, you know what. Looks like a potato head. This is the time lapse.

It's pretty good. I'm Dubbedee and I really want a very. Yeah, this is a fair assessment. Love that. Very good. He said another, oh, this is the video. He did the both.

Okay, all right. This is from Atomic Photoshop. Hey, Dons. Longtime, first time. I was watching Friday's episode and as much as I think Jed fits right into the MK universe, he seemed to be getting a little too comfortable with Luke on this one. Love the show and love the rotation of knowledgeable folks mk all day let's see this that's bang do you expect that i don't know i because i could see it

i'm a guy that you can get behind that'll be fun for as long as it lasts which is to say probably not that long unless one or both men come you fucking god that was that was great oh man the internet will just tear you to pieces you can say something like oh i help this old lady walk across the street and they'll turn you to some kind of, you know, molesting demon or something. Also, making fun of Jed is very much encouraged on this show. That's, that part is okay.

All right, this comes to us from Jesse. He writes, two displaced combat sports journalists during the Great Depression era of UFC as they search for job opportunities and dream of their own podcast. Their friendship is a rare bond in a world filled with mediocre fight cards and corporate greed, but their dream is ultimately shattered due to Brian's need to fund his family's future. a growing vinyl collection and monthly and monthly only fan subscriptions. Also, no one dies at the end.

Here it is of mice and men, a novel with real talk like Mendoo, written by one Long Island Luke. I like it. I haven't read of Mice and Men in so long. I was going to say it was back in school, you know. Like a Mice of Men or grapes of wrath. Yeah.

You know? It's been a long time since I've dug into some. I don't visited Grapes of Wrath like as an adult. Like I, like, but this now it's been like 15 years ago. But at some point I did reread it just to kind of refresh everything. It's, it's good book, man. I think you would actually like it. What was the favorite book?

I read it. What was the favorite book you read in high school? I would love to get you and dry. Like, we grew up in the 90s. We had to read Mark Twain. You had to read F. Scott Fitzgerald. What did you read that you like?

I mean, Catcher & Rice spoke to me somehow, like, you know, Hailing Cabs as a kid and just this disenfranchised and everybody was phony and all that stuff. Somehow that really spoke to me when I was about that age, you know? Yeah. Like ninth grade, 10th grade type thing. Last of the Mohicans was a big one for me. Yeah. That was a great one, too. That was really good.

Yeah. All right. This is from Wes. Of all the quotes LT could give, this as placed on this t-shirt, maybe the advice us donks finally take. eat bugs drink piss do something kind of fun what's this from now was this was this from friday's mk long island yes i don't even remember the context but yes you said i think i remember it was like there was we were had a matchup where everyone was boring in the matchup chuck i skew it i and i was like just do something fun eat bugs drink piss that's oh you know what it was bc was interviewing was it movsar

he was interviewing either Moesar or somebody and it was like real dull of him in Movesar so yeah and it was like real dull not by B.C.'s fault but you know just of course you get what you get you know. Yeah. And I was like somebody put it up again one more time and I was like motherfucker,

eat bugs, drink piss, do something kind of fun. It's like an Anthony Bourdain type quote. I like it. Eat bugs. Drink piss. All right. From Saul. He writes.

the month of March has been great so far. My wife's boss gave us free tickets to the rodeo. Wow. So I had to cosplay as a cowboy, followed up by my dog Murphy's birthday. He turned three and loves nuggets. Well, what dog doesn't? I mean, come on. Then my dad threw my mom a surprise birthday party,

but that didn't stop her from getting involved with cooking and serving all her guests. Look at all the MK gear he's got. Great times all while wearing the best merch in the game. MK all day, bro, look at that food. Yeah. I don't, can I be honest? I don't know about the cukes in the in the tacos. Yeah.

What does he have been there for? Like a pallet cleanser, you know? I don't know. I was trying to figure out what all was in that, but that did look really good. When was the last time you went to the rodeo? Oh, man. I don't think I've ever been to the rode.

I grew up in Colorado where there was like, you know, frontier days nearby and all that stuff. And definitely new people who were into that sort of. thing, but that was not my speed. Well, you go to the rodeo? I bet to the rodeo before, yeah, a few times. But this isn't your first. No, no, definitely not.

Hey. Have you been to a monster truck rally? I have been to one of those. When I lived in Orange County, they had like, you remember like Bigfoot and all that stuff? Yeah, of course. Grave digger. I think Grave digger was the one I saw. Yeah, it was.

That was actually unexpectedly a lot of fun. I did. I just went with some dudes who had tickets in a box or whatever, and it actually was a lot of fun. I got drunk as shit and went to one in Richmond. I'm feeling these margaritas Brian Campbell. And it ended up being one of these because there's different kinds like,

you know, all different ways in which to experience it. But the one I went to was like, I didn't know, we didn't know, we didn't know anything. This is the fucking 90s. We don't know. Go to the fucking, let's go see monster trucks in Richmond. We were in college. We drove from Williamsburg. It's like an hour at Richmond. And

I drank in the car on the way there because that's responsible. I wasn't driving, but I was definitely drinking in the car yeah um anyway so we get there and uh it was it ended up being like a pro wrestling version of monster trucks where like there was like oh i was like this guy's from woman to north carolina this guy's from delaware and then there was one guy from richmond so everyone's like woo and then they do the race and you could tell that they were letting off the gas to let the guy from richmond won so everybody in the audience myself included when the race was over we took our drinks and chucked it at the fucking monster truck.

Everyone had to leave at that point. So it was great. Juvenile delinquent. I'm supposed, do you do time and juvie? All right. By the, I've never even been arrested or handcuffed or anything. And I'm like,

do you know how often I have skirted the law in ways that I never should have been allowed to? I try to keep that rolling, man. It's a little too late. Oh, yeah. I'm like, dude, I'm like 46. I've never been arrested. It's crazy. That is nuts, man.

Because I definitely should have been. Let me just tell you that. Who the fuck do you think? you are brother. Yeah. A reprobate. That's who I think I am. All right, Chuck, what you got for coverage this weekend? Because we do have some, as we mentioned, some big fights this weekend. This weekend, I'll be doing the crack. I will have some, I'm not quite sure exactly what it's going to be, but I, you know, the columns are what I've been focused on. So a lot of it is reactive or like previews and stuff like that. So I'll have some stuff on the, on the side of it on Crown coming up

this weekend. Probably a, it's a big enough card, a big enough, like, weekend where I'll definitely have like a reaction to on Sunday morning. As a reminder, by the way, before I forget, you can of course email the show Morningcombat at Gmail.com. Winner of the, or the guy who has the best, or I should say lady in theory, who has the best meme for fan subs is going to win an autographed poster will send to you free of charge. So keep sending them in. Thank you to everyone who did.

Loved them. More of that, please. You saw the socials. I won't go back over it. The merch, excuse me, morningcombat. Dot shop. These are the three designs here. And of course, one of them you can get both in either the hoodie or the t-shirt form.

These will only be available until the 31st. That's coming up here pretty soon. This will be your last week slash weekend to go ahead and do that. Long Island, what do you have to plug? You know, I got the usual this week. You have C, Seattle stuff. I'll have a new prop quiz Friday, watch alongside, you know, the whole nine, the whole nine. All right.

It's very good. Well, we shall see. Chuck, great work today. Thank you so much here for being here. We'll see you next Monday. Follow all of Chuck's work if you're out there watching. Oh, as a reminder, one more time, and I'll remind everyone on Friday,

Brian Campbell on the call for this weekend's BBC, if you guys want to check that out as well on PBS on Amazon. All right. So for Iceman himself, Chuck Mendenhall, for everyone else on the show for Long Island Luke. I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you guys on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.

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