MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Francis Ngannou's Freedom | MMA Media | Broadway Debut | BC's Live Chat EP. 3

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

Brian Campbell is back with episode 3 of the BC Live Chat. Break discusses Francis Ngannou's free agency, the MMA Media, His first broadway show and many more questions you have. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

oh yeah are you experienced have you ever been experienced well i have it's brian campbell this is my live chat live on morning combat it's tuesday january 17th 2000 and 23 this is a little bonus pepper that we sprinkle over that steak. That is the award-winning combat sports home on Showtime Sports Digital CBS Sports. It is morning combat. I'm Brian Campbell. One half of that. Luke Thomas, the other guy that I joined with, you know that man.

It's every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 11 a.m. Eastern. You can follow us on the social channels below for more. But, you know, every once in a while in these parts, BC's got a lot to say. There's an experience going on in my brain that, you know, some of you have said, hey, BC, I kind of like that flavor. You know, I mean, it's not for everybody. It's certainly not for everybody. Right. But what a time to be alive in general. Right. I mean, did the sun come up today? Did you get out of bed? You're back.

Okay, you're back. You got a chip in a chair, and that's all that matters at the end of the day, right? Keep playing. Keep going all in. But we're back at it. And every week and every month thing, it's whenever I can. Eventually, it'll be every day, right? Eventually, it'll be a living live chat and documentary and podcast.

But we'll see if we can ever get to that point, but tip your waitresses, all that great stuff. If you're aware of what we do on morning combat, then you better be aware of the fantastic live show that we have planned on not a live chat. How about a live show? It's the inaugural pod,

live sports podcasting festival in London brought to you by the sports podcast group. They named morning combat best sports podcast of the year in 2022. They put up billboards in London, brought to you by the Sports Podcast Group. They named Morning Combat Best Sports Podcast of the Year in 2022. They put up billboards in London and Liverpool. So MK is going to be in the UK. Tickets are flying. And we don't say that to trick you into buying them. We say that to, look, if you're on the fence, if you're in Ireland and you want to, you know,

if you're in the UK plus, right, but you want to make that leap on over to London for it. Let's do it now. Book that airfare, the train, the ferry, whatever you got to do. Hit that QR code for more information. But it's Luke Thomas. It's BC. It's celebrity guests in the fight world. 90 minute show at King's Place, a music venue, 500 seats.

We're going big here. MK, UK, let's do this thing. All right. We got all that business out of the way. Now it's time for your questions. We solicited them overnight on the Morning Combat YouTube channel page. My trusty promoter, my producer, Mikey Mormyle, behind the scenes on the ones and twos have gotten them to me. We got MMA.

We got boxing. We got music. We got life. We got 90s NBA. Whatever you're in the mood for today we're going to get into it but uh you know what a time topically to be alive was really where i was headed in combat sports but in the ufc mma bubble at the moment i mean what a wild month ufc takes off typically you know the month the last month of the year for holiday season they

do the the final pay-per-view december 10thh. And then it'll come back until January. And I know there was a UFC fight night card a week ago at the apex to sort of kick off the new year, but this Saturday UFC 283, it's, it's the first pay-per-view first, you know, global sort of, uh, opportunity to zoom in here as the UFC returns to Brazil for the first time since 2020. But what has happened in the past month is it's batshit crazy. And it doesn't matter what side of the line you're on. If you're on the other side in some categories, say BC, MKLT, you guys are becoming unlistenable

because you're fighting so hard for certain battles and rights, or you just won't let this Dana thing die. Or maybe you're on this side of the line and you say, no, this is such a great sport. It's such a great promotion, to be fair. That is the face of this sport, the UFC, but not everything's perfect. And some things do need change from fighter treatment to a lot of different things. But could I imagine that everything would go on in the last month, gambling, domestic violence, Francis and Ghanu, a free agent. I wouldn't have predicted it would

all hit the fan at the exact same time. So maybe there's at times a little bit too much, you know, screaming at the moon that the sky is going to fall and UFC is going to go under, which I don't believe or want, but I do want some change to happen. And it's hard not to open up any broadcast without talking about that big story. Francis Ngannou, free agent, he can take MMA offers. He can go over to boxing. He can do celebrities. He can do whatever the heck he wants. I know he's going to be sitting down with Ariel Hawane, our friend in the business for really the first time to get all of this off of his chest since this happened. But the remaining fallout, and Luke Thomas and I covered the reaction to it, of course, on Monday's bonus MK episode.

But, I mean, it's wild. It's wild. And, yes, as optimistic and sort of like Robin Hood-y as I have been on this specific topic, that if there is going to be change in this world of how fighters are treated, of the ability to lessen the overwhelming control UFC has, these contracts that never end. It's going to take somebody with something to lose that's going to stand on their own feet, you know, the phrase bet on yourself and go after it.

That person right now is Francis Ngannou. And before that, that person was Randy Couture, right? Or before that, it was other people who have tried different things. I mean, not counting the Bjorn Rebny, you know, union experiment, which was well-intentioned, of course, but just didn't really go anywhere in the end. You need major moments like this. You know, you can't have where we're at a major league baseball without Kurt Flood and Marvin Miller behind the scenes with the union, you know, fighting for rights. And I didn't want to paint such a romanticized picture that francis is

automatically now leaving the ufc just going to get everything he ever wanted and everything's going to be great i mean it may not be but that's the risk he's taking and i think it's a worthy risk and i think in his unique story of everything he had to go through to get here and the fact that if anybody now we're talking about ian heinous's life deserves to have a movie made absolutely deserves to have a room service diaries made too. But I mean, Francis has the ultimate life story of going against the wind and just finding a way no matter what. I mean, his journey of just getting from Cameroon to France is insane. His journey of sleeping in his car to try to become a pro boxer and then finding MMA. And then, you know, three days later, it felt like becoming a UFC title contender is insane. But I think in this case, the risk is worth it, but I don't want to

overdo not identifying that risk and just be like, Oh, everything from here on out is going to be fine. You know, he, he got the, he won over with the UFC. It may not necessarily go fine. There may not be promoters willing to fall over and throw millions at him for him to presumably walk into their, you know, organization and beat their top guy. It depends, you know, it depends on what he's looking for, for contracts and what he's going to do, but everything he does in this short term near future here is, is new and fresh. And I think every fighter needs to pay attention to, it may blow up in his face. He may take a boxing match and, uh, and, and get served, you know, and, or, or maybe the pay-per-view sales are bad.

I mean, there's a lot of ways this can go bad, but change is never going to happen unless somebody with something to lose attempts to stand out and try to make it happen. And it's not, you know, and I get a lot of people's reaction to is like, okay, MK, you're killing me. You know, you're killing me. You're killing me with this justice thing. Everything's a fight to try to get the man. But hey, we love the man. We love Dana White.

We love UFC. We love their control. We love their matchmaking. I agree largely to that. And I never try to talk about fighter care, pay, treatment without the idea of saying, if the fighters inevitably, and I think inevitably they will, get everything they deserve, will the sport need to make a major short-term adjustment to that? Will UFC need to? Yeah. The fighters getting what they deserve is

going to have a substantial effect on matchmaking and control and the kind of things that UFC already does. I think the bigger question now is, how are we at 2023, 30 years into the sport and UFC can still have some of this control that seems so unfair, the ability to extend contracts and, you know, and, and, and shut down any outside interests, the, you know, everything from, from healthcare to, to the constant sort of back and forth battle with the promotion over how they leak certain things to pressure people, how they announce fights that aren't even signed. All that kind of BS just really speaks

to a lack of representation, a lack of freedom for fighters. Well, Francis just fought to get that. And I think in his life arc, it was worth it to him. I don't think it's really about the money. You know, I don't think Dana was right in trying to do a Dana thing and frame it as he always does that. Oh, this fighter just doesn't want to fight the best. No, it's not that Francis already fought and beat the best.

This is about freedom, Tim. So I don't think it's just about the money. I think it's about, uh, you know, in a lot of clips being played by the way of the last time Francis sat down with Ariel and, you know, to hear him talk about what freedom means to him from the standpoint of calling his own shots um it's I gotta be honest it's inspiring and it may not go his way it may go great his way he may go out there and make a ton of money against the Tyson Fury or Wilder and win or lose it may not matter he may go to another prominent organization and get a ton of money and become their heavyweight champion uh but are there questions about what type of big name opponents could be available to him? Yes. Are there questions about that? He doesn't

have a decorated history as this, you know, pay-per-view star that, that makes big bank. Well, yes, but also, uh, I think you do have to understand the UFC machine and vehicle and, you know, they, they promote and push the fighters that they want to, while at the same time, regularly sort of publicly criticizing the fighters that they want to in that moment, which hurts brand awareness and potential. So, so many moving parts. In fact, there's nothing's a guarantee. I agree that the, the, the more that we get closer to fighters having what they deserve, the, the adjustment period is going to be rough. I don't want MMA to become boxing, right?

But I don't know how you can be a fan or journalist that's a day-to-day follower of the sport. Not just, hey, I tune in once a month or every Saturday for the fight, but a day-to-day follower of the sport in which the human interest becomes a big part of your lure, not just the great fights or the matchups or the championships and all that, and not want more for them when this is one of the most dangerous jobs you could possibly have in here. But so much to talk about regarding Francis and everything else. We'll get your questions here and react to those. Let's hit it up.

Let's go right after it. I've got a small writing here, but this is from Renoups, R-E-N-O-O-O-P-S. Francis seems to have interest in boxing someday. Yes, he does. Could you discuss his options over there, including a BKFC fight? Thanks for the content through some of my darkest days. You are much appreciated. I appreciate you, sir.

Thank you so much. Or ma'am, whatever you are there. Here's the deal. Francis wants to box. He wanted to be a pro boxer from the beginning. So I went to France and sort of made this insane life change, aggressive mood to try to just chase his dreams. It turned into MMA and,

you know, for everyone that's like BC, how could you call him the greatest heavyweight of all time? That's still steep, steep pay of terms of accomplishments. I, yeah, I do want to check that.

Here's what I'm basically saying by that. I don't mean that accomplishment wise and all things considered he you know there's his record stands alone i just mean if he never fights again in the ufc francis and gano let's say he never fights again at all in mma could he be content at 36 to know he's already done he's already you know put in almost a career lifetime of work at the highest level that he can be proud of. Yes, he knocked Alistair over in the hell out in maybe the most ridiculous, violent knockout we've ever seen. You know, Arlovsky before that in terms of ratting up to contenders, knocking out Curtis Blades twice, bouncing back from two tough defeats and the company really turning on him and destroying Stipe Miocic to win the championship,

destroying Cain Velasquez on the route there, and then had one of the grittiest victories over Cyril Ghosn for the full unification that anyone could have imagined with one leg and relying on wrestling of all things. Does that best? Look, heavyweights had a weird history. That's why you know when became the first heavyweight to have three title defenses it was like such a big deal

he's definitely the goat now this is never to bash stipe and daniel cormier i thought after beating stipe the first time had it you know it was suddenly creeping into that argument even though his heavyweight resume overall was limited because of the friendship move he made to go to 205 but the francis that beat stipe was the scariest individual i've ever seen in the cage was the resume overall was limited because of the friendship move he made to go to 205. But the Francis that beat Stipe was the scariest individual I've ever seen in a cage was the idea of a, you know, that a heavyweight could, could evolve to that level. I mean, he also used, uh, you know, wrestling takedown defense and, you know, pure wrestling in that too, to get top position and land ground upon. And we were just like, oh, if he can do that too, what the hell could he be okay now

we're a few years removed from that fight and he's had devastating knee injury that he's been out a long time and has to come back a lot of questions a lot of freaking questions luckily he's in a division that you can age late but i always had a problem calling stipe without a doubt the best heavyweight of all time well first of all because of Fedor but I think this this conversation always seems to just encompass you know just encapsulate the UFC because we all recognize that Fedor is never you know probably the greatest fighter that never had a UFC fight and on top of that even with being in a in a much earlier prehistoric era dude what that guy didn't accomplish it's hard for any heavyweight to try to make the case that they're better all the time, but as great as Stipe was with the title defenses and dude, he's great. And he's still in there, by the way, he's still fighting. I thought Cain Velasquez was the best

heavyweight I've ever seen in UFC, you know, not just one night, but you know, the, the, when he was at his very best, which of course was many times taken from us due to injuries and long layoffs. But the Francis I saw on that stretch that led up to him winning the title and those ridiculous knockouts. And then, you know, you add in the gunfight on top of that. Yeah, that's the greatest heavyweight I've ever seen. So I'm okay saying that. Okay. So if he, so the idea that, that he's always wanted to scratch this boxing itch again, I think it's much more than money. I think it's much more than, you know, I think it's about, about i have this dream i have this goal and i want to accomplish it is it an uphill battle if he's not searching for crossover celebrity fights and is it an uphill battle if he's in

this for anything but the payday that would come with fighting a tyson fury or deontay wilder yes it's a it's an uphill battle he He's 36. He has a very limited boxing background overall, although he's one of the most, you know, fearsome punchers and strikers, maybe the most fearsome that the MMA game has ever seen. The idea that he's just going to walk in tomorrow and fight contenders and take a couple of steps, you know, fights to set up a big matchup against Fury or Wilder. I mean, I'd have to see it to believe it. You know, like that, that it's the whole idea of MMA fighters. Boxing to begin with is such an uphill battle. You need to have these creative matchups in which you either have an old boxer

against the prime and may guy, or you have size differences or you do some type of Jake Paul crossover hybrid there to just make it make sense. I think it'd be a gamble for Francis to go in there and, and, you know, sign a boxing contract and take a couple of fights to set up and go there. Unless his goal is 100% only on, I want to be a two sport champion and I want to live out this dream. And now I have the opportunity to do it and call my own shots. I would tend to believe that there's a little bit more of a hybrid goal for Francis, which is this make the most money

you can in MMA with big opportunities for sure. Do it on your own terms and have the freedom and be able to walk your chin and head held high and know that nobody's controlling you against your own will. You are in the power position and you earned it. All true. I think though he understands he could make more money in one night against a Fury or Wilder in theory than he probably did in his whole career. So in that regard, could there be opportunities? Yes. And I, you know, there's a lot of creative, creative opportunities thrown around. Could he sign with Scott Coker and Bellator with the connection to Showtime boxing and simultaneously join their heavyweight ranks while also trying to set up some big fight, like against Wilder who's on the PBC side? Sure. You could, there's

in theory, you could do that in theory. Could he fight Tyson for your NESPN pay-per-view and a stadium and have it be a big deal, the best heavyweight in the world, an MMA against the best heavyweight in boxing? Absolutely. You know, do I feel like there's a huge need and a call for that? No. So I think we'd have to temper some level of pay-per-view expectations, but I think it would still be a big deal, which still make him a ton of money. I don't believe he could or should go the ranks of like trying to become a legitimate boxer, but I will throw out this asterisk out there and say, if anybody could do it, it might be Francis. And I'm, you know, too in depth on the boxing side to take this leap of faith. Like a lot, like a lot of people, like a lot of MMA fans took for Mayweather McGregor, right? People took this leap of faith that,

well, Floyd's old and, you know, Conor's a pretty good boxer. I mean, like it was that, that fight was designed to test how much you're willing to take that leap of faith. It was also just a circus perfect storm event that we had to see it. Um, you know, if anybody can pull something crazy off, I've gotten to the point where I'm not going to doubt Francis Ngannou. But yes, it's an extreme uphill battle. How would he be in boxing? He'd have a puncher's chance for the most part. But he's also huge.

It will come down to how much he actually trains pure boxing throughout his run outside of MMA. Because boxing and MMA, you know, striking and MMA is different than the stance, than the weight shifting, than footwork, than everything that comes with pure boxing. I mean, could he do anything against Tyson Fury? It's really hard to believe. Could there be a modified rules within that boxing match that could make it more interesting? Sure.

What if he did that in an MMA cage with four-ounce gloves, which Tyson has seemed to say he wanted to? I'm not going to say that these are the type of events that I'm like yeah francis let's do this i can't wait to give my hundred bucks to you but they're out there and he fought for it so hard and walked away as the ufc heavyweight champion with presumably millions on the table and john jones across from him because principle mattered to him more and i'm, it seems like the divide in the contract came down, not so much about money, but instead more about can I box on my own terms? And Dana White shut that down. And I think precedence wise, in terms of how you said it, in some ways he had to, because Conor McGregor is different than an ingoner. When Conor McGregor wants to do something that's rarely ever done, like Mayweather McGregor, obviously they got to a point where Dan was just like, we can actually profit from this

ridiculously. Let's go in business with him. That's not going to happen in this climate right now. UFC is just in a different spot. And we talk about this a lot on the evolution of where the brand is financially. And obviously people like John S. Nash have done incredible work framing that. The new fellow I talk about a lot, the MMAI YouTube channel, uh, it's at MMAI underscore analytics on Twitter. I think the fellow's name is Jason Lee, but briefly talked to him over DMS and, uh, just a very, very intelligent fellow who, who has a passion for the analytical business side of the game. I think guys like that have really done a great job of framing in a layman sense how much the ESPN deal for UFC has changed everything. And I think it was the MMA guy who put it in print and basically said,

look, they're no longer a pay-per-view business, a star making business. They're a content providing business for ESPN plus. And that's why to a large degree, the product is watered down, not watered down to the point that people are rioting and saying, I won't buy your paper. You know, not there, but we have a card almost every weekend. And the quality of these cards at times takes big peaks and valleys. It is more about the churn factory that is becoming Dana White's contender series to bring in the new blood, fill them up on the cards for low salaries and have them fight their balls off to try to,

you know, climb that ladder and become that 1% of the people who actually get paid really well in, in the, in the, in the UFC. But, um, crazy irony, of course, tied into this and Ghana news that John Jones is now the savior and the hero. And everybody, I think rightfully so is pulling out all the Dana interviews and quotes of the last three years where he's criticizing John. And now suddenly John's the one who wants all the big fights and wants it. John was in the perfect spot at the right time where the Francis deal didn't work out and he could slide in and be that big returning star and get the huge upgrade in his deal. And you know what? Good for him.

And I did see the interview with Richard Schaefer, the longtime boxing promoter who's now John Jones is a, you know, advisor manager that he had with ariel yesterday where you know he said at the end of the day it was a negotiation and agreement both sides are very happy and not happy based on the things that they had to find in the middle ground but in that same table when it was dane on ufc and francis on the other side it to me it seems the and maybe francis can explain that today with with Ariel but it seems to me the fact that they wouldn't budge on boxing was was the end of the line for Francis and you know he's been through enough shit with them to be to be very fair

but that's fine I'm fine with that um boxing wise though look if you're if you're PBC which has Deontay Wilder it's such an interesting idea to try to entice Ngannou and make a fight like that because Wilder although had been a champion for so long obviously had you know compensates for his lack of pure boxing skill just with athleticism ferociousness reach you know cardio all that great stuff that that does make Deontay Wilder so dangerous that fight is to me a lot more interesting than Fury from the standpoint of I mean both are going to come out there guns blazing, you know? So that's interesting. Fury fight, somewhat interesting. Uh, BKFC,

you mentioned too, is tweeting at him, offering him, I mean, you know, could they back up the truck for him, but who are they going to get for an opponent? Does Francis really want to get involved in the, it's, it's weird. I look at bkfc even though i give them a lot of credit for how they promote match make in some ways go after certain certain uh individuals it's grimy to me it's not the full grime of the slap league and and even separate from any you know back and forth with dana i mean the slap slap fighting in general whether it's dana's brand or that other one and i think a lot of people saw that that viral video that's floating around in the last 24 hours of a different slap league where the guy got slapped and his face got deformed and puffed up and, you know, and he kept

slapping, you kept going back out there. And it's just like, damn, that's about as gross ass of a sport as I can, I can think of. And, you know, not even nothing to do with Dana and the slap and the wife situation. BKFC is classier than that to me but to me i still look at it as that last stop unless you're like somebody like page van zandt who wants to get out of the ufc and make big money and this is the right this is the step you have to take fighters tend to see that differently though i'm constantly surprised at how many boxers or mma fighters i talked to that are like oh yeah i'd love to go in there and clean up i'd do great in there. You might, but that's a grimy different game in which you can get sliced up pretty quickly in there.

I don't think, I don't see Francis going there, but I think that the problem in general for Francis is gonna be that level of competition. Who can they find that's not signed to the UFC heavyweight division? And I'm not gonna act like this isn't a problem, right? That he could fight. I mean, who, you know, is Kane, is Kane and Brock Lesnar still under lock and key

to the UFC should they ever decide to come back into MMA? You know, how much do people care about that? It's like, could you fight Fedor or Ryan Bader for the Bells? Yeah, I guess. You know, could you go to one and fight, you know, the winner of the Bular-Malikin fight? Yes, but there will have to be some level of middle ground negotiation. If a promoter's bringing him in, they're going to want to have him as champion. It's not going to be as easy as piecemeal, maybe as easy as I indirectly

made it seem the other day of, you know, Francis can now call his own shots. He can't, but he's going to have to be a bull at the negotiation table, just like he was with the UFC to sort of get the idea of short-term deals. I want to do a little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Let's give him the chance to figure it out. He's charting a new course for the most part. He's charting, you know, so he's going to have to ultimately figure that out. We got another Francis question coming in from Caleb Major. Dana's saying they won't match what another organization offers Francis.

Was this a move to lower what Francis would be offered as other organizations now know the UFC isn't going to try to match? I hope that makes sense. So this is unique because the UFC, it appears, and the two big recent free agents that left, and again, this almost never happens, right? Where a big free agent leaves the UFC when they still have something big left in the tank. And I'm not going to try to act like Nate Diaz has a ton left in terms of

fights. You can win, but brand pay-per-view wise. Yeah. He's still got something left. They didn't match either of those guys. The Francis one. I don't agree with your comment,

although thanks for the question in terms of, did they do it just to keep his, you know, his bottom line load? No, I think that the divide in, in the negotiation table was the boxing. Francis wants the freedom to do what he wants.

And, you know, some people said maybe you can go to WWE and Russell Brock. I mean, you know, maybe, but now he has the ability in theory to do whatever he wants. I think that was the breaker. And UFC is like, why are we going to, I think UFC is in a spot right now where the PR machine has swirled up so much shit around them. Most of it self-induced to be fair. This would be really bad pr if they went through the hell they went through with francis they got to this point they almost

made the jones fight and now they were in theory going to just hold them back and constantly match other offers it'd be a waste of money it'd be a waste of time and it would be really bad pr in that regard so um no i don't i don't think that's the case at all. I think the Nate situation was, I'm gonna be really honest with you. Here's what I think really happened to the Nate situation. Uh, they didn't want to burn monster bridges with Nate on the way out. In some ways they didn't care about throwing him against Tremayev, right? Which could have F'd him up, you know, could have, could have gotten him handled on the way out and hurt his brand. Yeah. That was part of it. Although although the MMA gods the karma seemed to come

again back up against the UFC in the situation that led to to Nate fighting Ferguson winning looking good and walking out on his own terms but when we talk about Conor McGregor coming back and the UFC having at least one major lottery ticket to cash in of a big fight when he does return is it against Chandler is it against you know whoever right rda what do you want to do here ufc i still think the nate third fight is something that they want to be able to talk to nate about so i think part of that is is the is the protection of that but if it was a different scenario a different situation would they match and keep someone under contract as long as they could yeah didn't they just do that with gsp who's been retired for five years when he tried to box de la joya like yeah they would in that regard but i hope again that the francis breakthrough

is the beginning of shit like that not being part of it anymore and i think there is a larger problem in general and again shout out to mmi and their new series on on managers which is educating you know a lot of us that weren't in on that, although you hear a lot of rumors, you know, are, are managers really for the fighters in the end, if they're so close to the UFC and their job depends on that funnel of bringing fighters in and get it. I mean, there, there's something to be said there because UFC not only has so much control over so many categories, if they have managers representing large number of fighters who may or may not be willing to fight and you know at the negotiation table and and risk future opportunities by doing

what's right for their for the fiduciary responsibility for their fighter which is in essence the definition of a manager then yeah we have we have a lot of larger issues here but francis living was a major stumbling block and and opening up the door and bringing in more light i think for future stars of the ufc to try to slowly learn how to maneuver a little bit smarter i think you know a major problem and it's why dana and everybody else when the idea of unions come up in mma everyone's like well you know good luck to them organizing yeah there's a large problem in the mma game of fighter ignorance. I'm going to say this and it's not meant to take a shot at them, but I don't think there's enough, you know, boxing too. I don't think there's enough

people with the businessman mentality. A lot of times that is something you have to learn on the job. Oftentimes through missteps of your own, you know, unless you were able to hook up with the right manager, promoter agent, or whatever, you know, who has your back and is a maverick and is pushing through and fighting through. I mean, even Francis's situation, a lot of rumors that he left his manager and was negotiating on his own of late. We, it reminds you that we are so far from the real change that we'll eventually see, but you know, I'm here for a chair and Francis on whatever he's going to do. And there are certain MMA moves he can make that I think are interesting,

even though there are a lack of opponents. And like it's everyone saying, look, PFL has got a ton of money, it seems right now. Although some people DM me and go, BC, how is PFL actually making money outside of the, you know, smaller UFC deal they have? I mean, ESPN deal, excuse me, that they have. I don't know. I don't know. I know they have a lot of financial backing and a lot of celebrity financial backing within that and there's been a lot of investments

made and i think for the most part pfl has made some smart moves but even though they don't have you know a stable full of sexy heavyweights that i'd love to see francis against they also can offer it seems the potential of big money to launch their super fight pay-per-view division and then it becomes, what can you do with Francis after signing Jake Paul to become this home for big money, free agents that may or may not be still in their prime and looking to make the leap. It's, it's going to be an interesting future. It could also,

you know, the walls could come up and Francis could find out it's harder than he thought, but you're never going to find out unless you're willing to risk it and take that. Oh, let's keep the questions flowing here before I get into some other things. There's a boxing news floating around that's somewhat ominous given the, the perennial state of where we're at in boxing, where, you know, the whole thing of the best don't fight the best. It's not always true, but in a big picture sense in some big fights, yeah,

you tend to have to wait a long time or sometimes not at all for them to happen to see Oscar de la Hoya, who his correspondence publicly typically can't be trusted or must be weighed with a large grain of salt. But him coming out and tweeting and saying, you know, we don't have a deal for tank, you know, here's your deadline. If you don't make this fight, Ron Garcia is not going to fight him. If you don't send a contract, everyone's panicking and saying, is this the next Spence Crawford, you know, here's your deadline. If you don't make this fight, Ron Garcia is not going to fight him. If you don't send a contract, everyone's panicking and saying, is this the next Spence Crawford? You know, Mayweather Pacquiao, like we got to wait on this shit. I don't think so. And I, and I, and I saw that Stephen, Stephen Espinosa, excuse me, did it.

Uh, Showtime sports did an interview with a fight hub with Marcos Vegas, where he basically said, look, there is no official con final contract yet, but he, but you know, Steven's a former lawyer. He was Mike Tyson's lawyer. He worked for golden boy under Oscar de la Hoya. I mean, he knows what he's doing. He said most times in big fights, that final contract doesn't get signed until the week of, but a lot of it is already agreed to either verbally or, or in, in writing about a lot of the terms. And what Steven said is this fight, which is proposed for April 15th, Tank versus Ryan in Las Vegas on Showtime pay-per-view.

But obviously, as we talked about, DAZN would have the ability to present the Showtime pay-per-view on their own streaming service and make a certain amount of money from that, is that all the important stuff has been agreed to. So I don't worry about this per se. I know it's another drop in the bucket of boxing can't get

out of their own way. And are they going to pull the rug out from under us again? I think this is just such a unique situation in which Showtime took a hard stance. It seemed and said, we'll work with the zone, but we're not doing 50, 50 equal, equal to network pay-per-view. We don't feel they bring enough in this situation and credit to Ryan Garcia. He appeared to have pushback behind the scenes against his promoters network and all that to get to this point to make it. I think this is Oscar causing trouble and maybe in some backward hope in the back of his mind, hoping that this does fall apart. And you say, why? Well, is Ryan Garcia going to be favored to be tech Davis? No, it's a great fight. We have to see it.

Ryan Garcia has many ways he can win this. It's not going to be favored against him. This is a fight that the experts will look at it, go, love that fight, can't wait to see it. Tank should win. And to be fair, he should, because there's so many unknowns about Ryan still at this level. But, you know, De La Hoya has an obligation to DAZN,

which is essentially keeping his company afloat with the with the streaming deal right now. De La Hoya lost Canelo. That's sued by Canelo. exodus of all his fighters which coinc or late 2014 which coincided of course with richard schaefer leaving golden boy under some heavy accusations that behind the scenes he you know tried to sell the tried to get oscar's signature to sell the company to al him i mean there's there was a lot of shit back then that was being talked about but i think i always gave oscar credit for how he said no i'm not going out like this i'm taking my company back even if we lose you know 75 of our fighters because Richard didn't get them under contract.

It was all a handshake deal with Al. But he's been, you know, largely, I don't want to say barely able to stay afloat because that stretch with Canelo kept him going. And, you know, Oscars credit still got Virgil Ortiz Jr. Joe Dodia still has some fighters you like and want to see. But he owes Golden Boy to, I mean, he owes DAZN to have Ryan Garcia fight on DAZN. This fight technically won't be. So I think that's

a little bit, just more of what we see a lot in this game, which is somebody trying to, you know, spit in the pod and stir it up when you're cooking dinner. And, uh, Oscar tends to do crazy things. And Oscar also, it's been talked about by a lot of people that isn't always the one behind the scenes making all of those decisions. Richard Schaefer was the brains behind Golden Boy's success, which was the second half of Oscar's pay-per-view career, which they became an instantly, almost day one legitimate promoter because you had Oscar and they signed Bernard Hopkins and they signed Marco Antonio Barrera and they were all at ownership. And they were like, this is a fighter's promoters that's going to go after making the best fights.

And to some degree they did, but then they started to do promoter stuff. And, you know, the peak of Golden Boy was obviously right before that launch of the PBC when they had all of the PBC fighters under their banner. And 2013 on Showtime was massive for Showtime and Golden Boy. But those fighters went with Al Heyman to PBC when that launched in 2015. And, you know, now to see in the last few weeks that Golden Boy has cut ties with their matchmaker, Roberto Diaz. I don't know the situation or the reasons, but the only news we got out of that was that Oscar chose not to renew Roberto Diaz. I mean, Robert Diaz, you're talking about a guy who's like a cornerstone of that operation as a matchmaker, as a, as a brains behind the scenes. And now he's gone to who's running that chip. It's a legitimate question right now. Um, I don't think that's going to

get in the way as we build toward what is going to be the next big fight in boxing, unless Usyk versus Fury slides in there first. But I think there's still be a good year for boxing, even with Spence Crawford being up in the air, even with some fights falling due to injury uh you got it you got to hold that optimism close here uh boxing question coming in from screw you oh well screw no fuck you too yeah screw you all right that's great thank you uh random mayweather question out of these three which one would have the biggest chance of coming out a winner against mayweather in your opinion this has always been one of my favorite categories like putting mayweather who's aather in your opinion. This has always been one of my favorite categories, like putting Mayweather, who's a, depending on your opinion, a top 10 fighter of all time, top 15, top 20.

So people say without a shadow of a doubt that he's the best ever. And I think that's not true, but I credit Floyd's marketing skills to sort of put that part of the narrative. And then obviously when you look at Floyd's career as a whole, 50 and 0, broke every financial record. Look, he's one of the greatest of all time. But would he win head-to-head against every other welterweight in history? I just don't believe so.

And the question here asked by Screw You is Thomas Hearns and Vernon Forrest at 147, Winky Wright at 154, or Pernell Whitaker at 147. Who has the best chance of coming out a winner against Floyd? Look, that Winky Wright fight at 154 is a tough fight for Floyd in theory. Floyd fought twice at 154 against Canelo and Miguel Cotto. Cotto fight was close and competitive, eight rounds to four. Cotto bloodied his nose. It was a hard fight.

And we know what he did to Canelo. But Winky Wright's a hall of famer at 154 and is a southpaw that's just the ultimate cockblocker. Can I say that on here? I don't know. Am I going to get demonetized? By the way, some people have had the wrong narrative here right now. They think that, you know, we were talking about sanitizing MK lately a bit. This is not a directive from above.

It's a directive from the idea that YouTube is demonetizing us sometimes when we show a questionable, have you seen this shit photo or had too many swears. And, you know, we've got to play the system here. We've got to figure out how to not have that happen, but I'm not looking to change the flavor of MK yet. I'm also not looking to get fired. So there has to be a comfortable middle ground in there. But in terms of the middle ground, in terms of who would give Floyd trouble, here's the thing about Floyd, the pretty boy Floyd of the low weight classes, one 30, one 35, right? Like, you know, that guy was pound for pound, you know, one of the best when he was 21, he was the fighter of the year. When he was 21, that guy was everything we love about

second half of career money Mayweather. But on top of it, he was offensive in terms of intentions, in terms of his ability to walk guys down land combinations you know he had legitimate hand troubles which put his career in jeopardy i think that was a one of the main reasons why he took such long stretches of time off after the day la jolla fight was only fighting once every year and a half i mean he had legitimate hand problems and then when you talk about him moving up to 47 and then twice to 154, you know, he didn't have the power to go punch for punch on that level. He's also purely more of a mover, a defensive fighter, and, you know, maybe the greatest defensive fighter of all time, to be fair. You know, maybe the sharpest, most technically accurate counterpuncher I've ever seen.

But when you put him in the idea at welterweight against killers, against a Thomas Hearns who has long arms, speed, a piston-like jab, insane knockout ability, and by the way, because he came up in the late 70s before turning pro and becoming a star in the 80s, that was back when boxing was still boxing and a boxing gym on every street corner and when you came up those systems you learned how to box you know i mean thomas hearns could box circles around people prime thomas hearns is a problem for floyd at welterweight could he win it sure but that's a that's a problem for him that's a guy who could almost match his speed can box enough to not get fully exposed and then with that length and that power, that's a rough fight.

Vernon Forrest is interesting because at his very peak, the two wins over Shane Mosley at 147, when he was in the conversation for Pound for Pound King, that version was tough, tall, long, knows how to box, sharp, heavy jab. Just, you know, could Floyd get the edge in that at Welterweight? I believe at the end of the day, uh, you have to be great for Floyd, not to figure you out. Eventually play the margins and find out how to outpoint you because nobody's smarter than Floyd in that regard. Could he beat Vernon force? I think Floyd could, but it would be a close fight. Could he beat Winky right at one 54? I do think that is asking too much. Floyd had to be selective

when he went up to one 54, although he took on two all-time grades, right? And I think there was a reason ultimately why Floyd never tried to do something too crazy and go up to middleweight and try to F around there. With the hand issues, there was limitations. And also let's not forget at welterweight, a monster part of Floyd's success, sneaky long reach sneaky, long ability to keep you at the end of his punches harder to do in the higher weight classes. Pernell Whitaker is interesting because the speed, the defense, and the elusiveness is all Floyd like in some, in some areas, maybe slightly better, but could Pernell be offensive enough?

I like Floyd in that matchup still, but there are certain ones. I think prime welterweight oscar is another one where you go i don't know you know that quick hands can box can punch in a left hook i mean look to give floyd issues at his welterweight peak uh sorry and the third fight at 154 was de la joya don't dead wrong me he had three at 154, the third one being De La Hoya, which was his first one, and that was a split decision, but in reality, it should have been unanimous. It's basically an eight rounds to four fight.

But Oscar showed in the first six rounds, even an old Oscar at 34, who wasn't always living up to his best outside the ring, he showed that there is a blueprint at welterweight that you could give Floyd Trouble, but you've got to have a big jab. You've got to have size, and you've got to also have that technical ability. And I think in, in Oscar's case, that one fight he had with Freddie Roach, he fought his balls off for six rounds. And I thought he was in that fight. And I think he combination of faded late. And also once Floyd makes the adjustment and starts walking you down with lead, right hands, you have to start to ask yourself. And I think Oscar asked

himself in that fight, May 5th, 2007, my wedding night, by the way, it's funny how that works out that, you know, do I want to step on the gas and try to win this and risk getting knocked out by Floyd Mayweather here. And I thought, you know, he, he played the margins. He tried his best to, to, to win the decision, lost a split decision was it was generous, but it didn't happen. Prime Oscar though at Welterweight, the guy who fought Mosley,

the guy who fought Trinidad, the guy who fought, you know, I court a, that guy's a problem for Floyd too. It's interesting, but you know, I'm never going to, I've questioned Floyd's matchmaking in the past. He got it all done in the end. He did it on his terms, but he got it all done, but his ability to figure another guy out and make the adjustments to, to completely turn the fight around onto his terms. You know,

that's where, when, when people like to say that Floyd's the greatest of all time. And again, you know, it's better than sugar, Ray Robinson at welterways rather than Ray Leonard at welter. I just,

I don't, you know, all in all, I don't see that, but he's in the larger conversation and his ability to do what I just said. Very few in the history of this game can do exactly what Floyd can and, and, and, and just, just completely turn the fight around in his favor,

play that chess and just take away what makes you great. Breathtaking. Brilliant. All right. Let's keep the, the fun rolling here. We got, we got questions in a few different categories here. Let's go over to food here. is from i like fights what's the grossest food you've ever gotten from a gas station for me probably egg rolls thanks donk um look if you're buying sushi from a gas station you're gonna you're gonna hurt yourself all right i've done it i wouldn't do it again um i've talked that length before on the mass Pike I-90. They used to squirt the cheese into the hot dog. I mean, as you're eating, you know, beforehand on the inside, as you're eating that, you know, this thing's killing you.

It was gross. I mean, it tasted good, but it was gross. That's the thing. It's like, what does this question mean? Something that I tasted that was just all disgusting, throw it out, can't finish it. Yeah, I've done that at a gas station many times. I'm an expert on gas station cuisine, but there's another category of gross. It's the guilty pleasure gross, you know, almost like going through the McDonald's drive-thru, right? It's like, I know this is going to hurt me. I know I'm going to regret it. I know everything about this sucks, but man, those first 60 to 90 seconds, right? That drug hits the lips. Good Lord. That's something you've been there a few times at a gas station too. But, um, what do gas stations in the modern era, the look, there's, there's the elite ones. There's the wah-wahs and the sheets that know what they're doing. All right. But you know, you drive around America, you hit it, you hit one of those oddball ones, you know, all they got fried chicken at the gas station. I mean, maybe in some areas,

fried chicken at the gas station works in Connecticut. It's pretty damn disgusting. Been there. I really only trust at a gas station and I can't anymore because of my liver for the most part. But, you know, the rollers are fine. Pizza can be OK. Burgers can be OK. Hot dogs is the staple. But you get too weird at a gas station. You're asking you're asking for bad things. And let me be the the one who tells you like Mickey Mantle when he passed away in 95. He's like, don't learn from me. Don't be like me. He was talking about alcoholism. Don't be like me. Gas stations are the silent killer. Just because everything in there for 99 cents tastes like, you know, it's meal replacement, right? Oh, I stopped by, I could fill up on gas. Oh, I can eat with a family of four for 6.99.

Yeah, you probably could. It's going to kill you though, so be careful there. All right, we'll keep the live chat going. Let's go over to music here. A lot people um i'm finding that that are bc live chat fans also tend to like good music so uh 115th dream with the bob dylan avatar shout out sbc in your opinion who are some of the most overrated bands of the night i misread that i thought that said underrated he says overrated uh let me give you one underrated band right now, because for the last six months, they've basically been my favorite band and I avoided them for a long time. And I'm finally into them. Traffic

with Steve Winwood is one of the greatest rock bands of all time. And to truly understand and appreciate traffic, you have to, you got to understand jazz and jazz fusion to a certain degree, because that's a heavy influence in the background. You have to, jazz and jazz fusion to a certain degree because that's a heavy influence in the background. You have to, especially in the early albums, like that intersection. The intersection of the late 1960s between psychedelic rock and the early onset of progressive rock is glamorous. And there's different versions of it. It could be wild. It could be crazy.

Traffic had a polished groove version of it. That's an insanely great band. And I think the closer you get into that, the more you listen to the early Steve Winwood solo records, Blind Faith, the super group record, whether it's piano, guitar, whatever, Steve Winwood's one of the musical geniuses of our extended lifetime. And I'm finally fully realizing that through Traffic. But you want to know what are the most overrated bands of the 1970s um this is hard because my pandemic journey since the pandemic when i got into vinyl and i've got you know 600 records in this office and and uh running out of space and room and i look like a hoarder is that you know it's been unlocking so many bands

that i just assumed sucked from the 70s because classic rock radio liked us i mean they did they you know they played stuff they know that that people would want and a lot of times it gives you the wrong impression of what a band was or you take a interesting quirky song out of the full concept of the album and you can grow to hate that song and then you go back and you to the album as one and you're like, Oh God, that's a journey. That's brilliant. That's, you know, a lot of that going on. So really this has been about finding out that no Fleetwood Mac is not

overrated. No, Chicago doesn't suck. No, you know, insert Alan, John, I used to hate Alan John. And then I, you know, picked up about nine of his out views. He's probably the most prolific artist in the 1970s in general, from the standpoint of consistent top shelf across the board, not all of it's for me, but damn, do I respect the art and the song craft and everything going on there? There's very few, so few. In fact,

that it's hard for me to even jump out and say um i think that the there's certainly some some rough genre of turns in the 70s disco is obviously a monster one in that regard um but arena rock slash corporate rock and to a some degree the connection between yacht rock now i'm not gonna bang on yacht rock because i've got a huge guilty pleasure for it's one of my favorite serious xm channels yes it's the kind of soft rock that makes you feel like you're going sterile while listening to it and yes there are certain bands within that genre that are just i don't even care if i like the song i gotta turn it off i hate that band um but corporate rock is a little bit more of that like doobie brothers boston and by the way i like both bands

i'm not trying to shit on them but the whole idea of this like rock music that's still powerful but it's just like so overly produced and shipped off to the masses and stadium tours and you know then you collide it with yacht rock which has the much more looser vibe to it i mean there are some yacht rock bands that i've discovered like like seals and cro Crofts, like, uh, America that I've just been like, damn, these, these are brilliant. They go, you know, you can't just look at them and go, oh, that's soft rock, that shit. No, you got to dig in and you go, no, this is brilliant. But who's overrated to me. Um, I hate to say it cause I liked them, but bad company to me is a little bit overrated. It's straight ahead. Rock Paul Rogers from Free. I mean, it's great.

There's some elements to it that's great, but it's formulaic and repetitive in that regard. And I just had a few that jumped in my head. I'm trying to remember. It's definitely within the arena rock realm where you get into it. You're like, no, these guys. It's missing me. I got to keep the show flowing. But the late seventies

is really where the, where the real hit and miss comes in early seventies, the, the, the fallout of the sixties psychedelic movement, which became sort of mainstream rock in the early seventies. And the build of offshoots of, you know, heart rock to metal and all that stuff is just absolutely brilliant. The jazz fusion of that era, brilliant progressive rock to some degree, brilliant, but then it gets too much. That's it. Here's a, here's a good one it's like i could tell you that yes is equally the most underrated and overrated band of all time right because the the indulgence emerson lincoln palmer is another great one i could put on their two best albums elp put on the headphones sit in row eight and just be like damn this is great stuff but they got some indulgent shit if

you go deeper down the catalog same thing sticks is another one sticks socks i mean there are you know i got a couple records and you know they'll hit you between the eyes with some good rock but yeah those are the overrated bands that really make me questioning like am i losing my t levels while listening to them hey to each their own right at the end of the day let's go over down to the uh miscellaneous here. By the way, BC can go all day here, speaking in the third person here. It's up to you if you like this and you want to stay for this content, but I could read you the inside of my mind for hours here. Let's go over to AAHS. What advice would you give to people who are losing interest or falling out of love with

one of their passions, how can they deal with that and come to terms with that? Great question. Whether your passion ends up being your job, which is the case of me. And I consider myself one of the luckiest in the world because if I didn't have this as a job, would I still be watching fights? Yep. Would I still be dreaming of getting money together and taking a guy's weekend and going to fight. Yup. I get to do this for a living. Not everybody else does, but when you hit these ruts where your passion no longer feels like your passion anymore. And if it's like, you know, guitar and you do it on the side, you can just give it up for a while, right? You know, it's not a big deal, but when it's your job, you can't fake it anymore. If it's something that you feel like you're just in a season of, of despair or disillusion, take a break, take a break if you can, or pick a different lane

that's slightly connected, but not completely. And that may just re-energize your passion. There's a real thing about life cross-training. And I don't mean that necessarily in an exercise sense, but I mean the same simple theory. And I think I coincide that with when I look back on my life and people say, hey, BC, what would you change? And it is to some degree the whole back to the future effect, when they altered history and people started disappearing from the picture. It's like, you can't alter history too much because you need to take those L's and learn from them. You need to have failed miserably. You need to have experienced awful things to motivate you to never experience those again, or to learn lessons of how badly you hurt people to grow and heal and all that. So many things like that, that, that, but the idea of

cross-training across your life of trying different interests of doing different things, it all matters. When I look back at just specifically my career, there were so many turns that were beyond my control. Let's say I was at ESPN and I was working on something that I loved and I was passionate about, and that thing got stopped and canceled. And they said, no, you're not doing this for your job. Slight things like that have happened. I'm so thankful that those things have happened. I'm so thankful when I was covering boxing only, and I got a new boss at ESPN. He suddenly said, no, starting today, you're the MMA editor. Cause we know that you follow it to a certain degree. And Oh, by the way, you're a good writer. We're sending you on the road. You're the UFC columnist when you're on there. Like, you know, most moments like that, where the door opened

and the opportunity was there, it wasn't easy, you know, but you gotta kick them down and you gotta go after it. Now that's just an example in terms of a job related, but in terms of your passion, when you know, it's your passion and you know, you're involved in it for a reason and you hit that wall of running out of ideas. It's not as much fun to you. You got to cross train. You got to, you know, I always look at Joni Mitchell, for example, she considers herself a painter. We know her as a musician. She always pivoted and went into different projects and different genres in one direction

and did a record here and painted for a year here and then came back and did a record here. If you're able to float and do that, the new experiences in your life tend to offer an experience that translates back to what you were originally doing. It just all matters. It's all connected. And so there's a little bit of two-cent advice from a guy who works in his basement and covers

cage fighting for a living. All right there. So many questions we can get to. Let's go back to the sport of MMA here as the people have questions. And BC might have answers. I'm not really sure. This is from, I'll name this channel later. This channel is called Morning Combat, dude.

Jon Jones signed an eight fight deal. Dana said he didn't have a contract. Does this mean for the last three years, Jon wasn't in the testing pool? I can't speak to the testing part of it because I'd have to ask Aaron Bronstetter, who seems to be all over the testing websites to, to find out who's tested the most and all that. But I thought Richard Schaefer made an amendment during his interview with Ariel Hawane yesterday as to what Dana said publicly Saturday.

Whereas this isn't a new eight fight deal for John. He was already under an eight fight deal, but just hadn't fought in three years. But what, obviously the reason, one of the biggest, but just hadn't fought in three years. But what obviously the reason, one of the biggest reasons why John hadn't fought in the last three years while bulking up to heavyweight was the gap in money. And that's why I think it was perfect timing where Francis was offered a shit ton of money and ultimately said no to fight John. And I think some of that money was easy to go, okay, John, we're shifting now. You are the guy again, let's go. So I think John to a degree got a lot of the money he was looking for when he initially said, I want Deontay Wilder money,

blah, blah, blah. But it was Schaefer who said John's problem initially was that the contract offered no level of bonus or essentially increases for moving up to heavyweight. The amendments to the contract now do. So that's ultimately the difference there. But how that pertains to the testing, I don't have that answer. And I would be interested in knowing, but I do have, I think, the natural level of skepticism that a lot of people have about USADA in general, about the testing, about the privileges stars get, about all that stuff. They moved a fight card for Jon Jones in the Gustafson rematch on Christmas week on five days notice from one state to another, right? Like, all right. Pico grams. So I'm not going to be the guy who's naive here. I don't actually know the answer to this question, but, um, I feel like I already actually do know

the answer to this question. If you get my drift right there. All right. Staying down the line here in a, in a MMA. Oh, good one here from I am somewhere. I am somewhere. Well, aren't we all a Hamzat is now bulking up to middleweight size. If so five top realistic matchups for him at middleweight. Is that official though? I know I've seen the pictures of him with lifting gloves and being jacked, but as we all know, you can go to the gym and get a great workout and get that swole and, you know, take your Instagram picture and look like you're suddenly 25 pounds bigger of muscle. I don't, I don't know this yet to be true, but I still think unless he knows and his

team knows, meaning Hamzat Shumayev in his heart, that he cannot consistently make welterweight, not just for one big fight, but consistently. Then middleweights the move. I think middleweights inevitably the move, right? Anyway, but I still feel like we have to see him play this welterweight thing out. We, you know, I don't know. I don't really know what happened, how he can miss weight that badly for Nate Diaz. There's some weird elements that whole week to be really fair. I'm not doing a big conspiracy bit, but there's, there's, there's some on like, if you only label people based on either they believe conspiracies or they

don't, you'd put me in, in the more crazier side of it. And there were times in my life that I really believed in conspiracies, but I think to a large degree, I've sobered up on some very important ones, but there are certain ones where I'll tell you at the end of the day, I won't say them because they're hot button, but you know, do I officially 100% believe that was a conspiracy? No. But do I believe there's unanswered questions and things that don't match up? Yes. To some degree, the whole situation with Hamza, with missing weight, with how he acted on the microphone afterwards, I just don't get it. I don't get how someone that like, is, was it just the pressure of the situation got to him?

I don't know if he does announce a move to middleweight, then I guess you can look back and say, okay, this is his body's way in some degree of telling him, you know, that, that he, that he can't make that anymore. Or did he just F up because he thought this is an easy fight against me? I don't know any of that situation, but if he can still make it, I think it's the company's duty to put him in line to face the winner of the Usman trilogy against Leon Edwards, which I believe this sounds from, was it March? Does he have to win a fight first? It would be, it would be like, it would be hope it would be.

It would be preferred by me because I don't think you can reward a guy for missing weight that badly and blowing that situation. Now he did come in there and just absolutely destroy Kevin Holland in the same regard in the last minute situation, but let's play that welterweight thing out first, put them against Colby, right? Let's do that. Set that up. If he wins that, give him the title shot because I do believe we have something super special

here, but he will be there in middleweight eventually. And if the move was now you want to know what are the, what are the matchups that make a lot of sense that I want to see that would be the best challenge for him? All that stuff. Well, I mean, it's easy. You just look at the top. I mean, would you not want to see what his aggressive dominant wrestling side mixed with that dog that we know is that that is in him that came out against Gilbert Burns that I think was showcased against Gilbert meaning he didn't have to fight

that way but he wanted to to show you he's a he's a problem for everybody he's a problem for everyone in this division from Adesanya to the current champion Poiton to Whitaker to all of that the matchups are so interesting but we still don't know a ton about Hamzat Shumayev. We know up to a certain level of competition that he can ragdoll folks, embarrass them, put them away in a couple minutes. What about when you start to find legitimate pushback? That's sort of why I want to see this incrementally done at welterweight first, moving up to middleweight. But if he goes into middleweight tomorrow, all the matchups we all want to see but we don't actually know what they're going to look like because you can only answer questions with the fights you've been given to

showcase yourself and most of these fights didn't go the distance didn't show us beyond just an early you know it's why when francis was entering into the steep a rematch a few years ago for the title that it was hard to tell on the destruction path that he had built leading up there was like four first round knockouts whether he really had evolved it wasn't until that Stipe rematch when he showed the wrestling when he showed the confidence the poise the gas tank that you're like oh crap somebody learned to putt right like you know like you're like oh shit yeah in that. I don't know yet for Hamza, but I want to see him against everybody. And I'm sure you do, too. Just the same. All right. Let's keep it. Keep it flowing here.

Let it flow. Let it grow. Great Dave Mason 70s. Yeah. Let's go into the box. We got anything else here in the box? This is from, um, Bada, Bada Latoff rank the following three potential Tyson Fury fights in order of a financial success and pay-per-view sales B interest or importance to Fury, i.e. Which fight would mean the most and be most important to him. Uh, here are your options.

Fury versus Usyk, Fury versus AJ, and Fury versus Nganou. How do these rankings affect your opinion about whether a Fury or Nganou fight ever happened? Okay, I think that's an interesting side to the equation here. We're saying, okay, Nganou's walking now into the direction of he's available in boxing if you want. But don't we have an undisputed championship fight to make first against Alexander? It was like, yes,

Tyson Fury does. I don't, you know, I think we've, it's weird. It's like Tyson Fury shows us so many different tells and teases yet. He's always fucking around in the interviews. That's like,

you never know. Is he trying to sell us on something? Is he just effing around? Is he just like, he crazy today is he telling the truth he's going to be favored against every single heavyweight and i think he beats them all so know that as my foundation but i was nervous leading up to hear that he was going to try to find a way to not fight usic for whatever reason i don't think there's any direction he can go but right through that now i don't think that's the fight he wants the most. So if I ordered these,

you're asking me to order these in terms of overall Tyson's interests mixed with how big the fight would be and how important it could be. I think the fight fury wants more than anything for his career is Anthony Joshua at a soccer stadium, all Britain opportunity for the most amount of money they can possibly get. And, you know, attendance records and all that. I mean, to be fair, he was willing to kind of shoehorn that in December if it was possible. And it wasn't. And I think, you know, Joshua's got a lot of questions to answer about the training team moving forward,

what style he's going to impart. But I do think we will see Joshua two to three times this year. And I think he's going to bounce back and be ready to be a big fight. So I still think we're going to make this fight regardless. And I think, you know, AJ has to be back for this fight to really matter in that regard. But I think, you know, Fury would make it today if, if, if AJ wasn't coming off a loss and wasn't, you know, because I also think when AJ, when Fury looks at this, he knows AJ is his huckleberry, his dance partner commercially, but he also knows he can handle it. And he knows there's enough thread in there to make it fun, but he can do that.

I think next has to be Usyk because I think there's a lot of pressure on Fury with not just the belts, but the sport, the money involved and all that. So it's Usyk number one, it's AJ number two. And that would leave Nganou three. Do I really believe that Tyson Fury wants this the third most? I just think there's too much history in front of him right now with the Usyk thing. That if it was a year ago and Ngannou was free, I'd put Ngannou number one on this list because I think Tyson's smart enough to know I can go and

do this barnstorming thing. I can even change the rules a bit to make it a little bit more even. Because I think Tyson wants the challenge and the threat, but also the knowledge that I have, what it takes to best this guy, you know? So in that, to that degree, I think he wants to make the fight a little more dangerous than it has to be, but still knows at the end of the day, he'll handle Francis. It'll be an easy night out. I'll make a lot of money right now. I still think that would be third on his list, but could we see it this calendar year? It's an interesting question. What if we do see Usyk versus Fury in the first half?

Let's say Fury wins. Yeah. I think we kind of probably start building toward in Ghana because Joshua is still going to need some time to come back. Fury would have all four titles. There wouldn't be a ton of pressure. I don't believe on you owe this mandatory. Excuse me right now.

We got to do this. So if we, I wonder if we do see that this calendar year, it's interesting. It's interesting question. But I think what I'm trying to say on this long wood and this on fury is that he's not afraid of anybody. He wants the smoke, but he wants the, at this point in his career, he wants all the business to match up. The business I think is more important to him than the legacy and history side of it

because he has accomplished so much already. If he walked away tomorrow, he would have some kind of asterisk argument of being the best of this era and maybe among the best ever. But I don't ever question that he's ever ducking somebody. I just think he's at a point now where he's like, I got to make the smartest financial moves here soon. I just think that the Usy point now where he's like, I got, I got to make the smartest financial moves here soon. I just think that the Usyk fight has been pushed off too long. It's time. Let's do this thing right there. All right. Miscellaneous question sliding through here from

Enrique L. Luke often mentions his last breakup. I think relationship wise, when people ask how to deal with heartbreak, do you have any advice to get over a long-term relationship? Yeah. Let's have some real talk here. We've all been through it, right? For the most part, is it better to have loved and been stomped on than have not loved at all? Yes. Yes, it is. It's better to have endured these experiences to feel one of the most incredible, pure, you know, amazing things in this life, which is, you know, a loving relationship with your partner, whether that's in the dating sense or the ultimately, if that's the road, you choose the marriage sense and starting a family. So when that, when that ends, when that

gets ripped apart, when that's somebody you've now looked at and said, I'm, I see my future in them. They are my future, right? That's that, that's everything I ever wanted in life right here, right now. And then it falls apart. You, you, I don't think any of us are ever prepared for how much that devastates everything you ever were any foundation of toughness that you ever stood on or stood for, like anything that you ever leaned on to believe in your own ability, you just get wiped off like a, like wiped out like a tsunami coming through and it's gut wrenching and it can cause you to do embarrassing things. It can cause you to do things you never thought were possible. But I think at the end of the day, there's two competing

ideas that have to be going at the same time for you to properly survive this, whether it's heartbreak care, whether it's really any challenge in life is that the greatest piece of advice I've ever heard in this area is, you know, you hear it a lot come up in Christian self-help talk. If you're going through hell, keep going. You have to go, you have to get through it. Um, because there's two errors that people make in real in reaction to this. One is it is I'm just going to bury it and I'm not going to deal with it because it's foreign and it hurts and I'm too tough for this. And I'm just going to move on. You do that. It's going to come back in and haunt you the rest of your life and screw up your future opportunities and, and hold you back from, you know, evolving and finding peace and freedom.

The flip side is setting up shop in that, in that dirty puddle of despair and never leaving. And, you know, and there's some people who never recover from that first huge life changing monster heartbreak, because for some people that comes, you know, and that comes in marriage or that comes in, you know, some people don't, people are different. We all have different walks of life. Some people have been in and out of relationships, have been hurt and been the herder many times. By the time they get to a certain age, they're veterans at this game. Even though, even though, even though, even though there's always a receipt to be had

in an end of the relationship, whether you're ending it or the other one, there's always receipts in terms of the stuff you have to walk through, the hearts, the feelings. But you can't live in there and you can't avoid it. You've got to live it and endure it and get through it. And it's easier said than done, but it's something to always remember. Keep going because there will become a time when you're finally through it and you finally have a better understanding of who you are, how this world works, what love means, all that stuff that you're going to regret how you acted earlier when

it first happened. As much as you want to contact that other person, whether you're the herder or the hurdy, I think all that does is complicate it more. You've got to make a decision if you've just been hurt and been through, just been wrecked, you know, and usually everyone in life gets one where you just get wrecked. You didn't see it coming and you just got, you know, leveled. Um, you, you can't, you can't chase it back. You got to move on, but you got to walk it out and you've got to deal with your own feelings and, and, and know that it's going to take time. You know, you're not probably not going to go out with your friends and be out in public for a while. You sometimes you got to, you got to do the work behind the scenes in a healthy way and get through it, but you got to be moving forward

because when you ultimately land on, you know, where, where you were destined and supposed to be in the beginning and you, and you meet that one, um, it's going to be worth it. And you will be in a much better position to have gone through the experiences you have to be, to know, uh, what, you know, it's like, you never know how to treat somebody until you try and you mistreat somebody. Right. It's like that's the ultimate teacher in life, you know, and in some in some ways on the flip side, you never know how much you actually deserve in a relationship until you for a long time don't get what you deserve. And but you got to go through those experiences. So keep going, brother. All right. Keep going. The lights at the end. It's not easy, but it's worth easy but it's worth it it's worth it because that's the experience it's life right like you can't underestimate the power of of of the heart

and the feelings and and luckily we've got this great music to uh to you know i mean there's nothing better than a great breakup album right you know whether it's you know blood on the tracks by bob dylan whether it's uh i was trying i was gonna i was making a ranking in my head the other day the top five like divorce or breakup albums in history and there's so many great ones where it's sort of like leave me alone this is my depression let me get through it on my own way and i'm gonna get through it with these headphones on right now okay thank you very much uh let's keep it rolling here as we wind down the uh introducing the new mcspicy from mcdonald's it looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich.

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Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. The back end here of the BC chat. I'm going to close, of course, with some recommendations in a few different categories here but um back to mma quickly derrick alexander smith there's been a lot of talk about how important the john jones fight is for francis's legacy but what if john looks awful in the comeback and part of the way is part of the way we remember francis's departure going to depend on how john looks yeah yeah look nothing's in stone here there's no guarantee that francis goes and makes more money than he ever did and is successful and wins his knee may never respond he's not young although he's not we're not in a

panic situation 36 at heavyweight you know he's he's in his prime but there's zero guarantee there's zero guarantee he doesn't go in there and buy like let's let's say he does something that i wouldn't want him to do which is it's trying to build to Wilder and Fury take on a, you know, credible heavyweight, but who's on the down end. Like imagine if you fought Derek Chisora. A lot of people are saying, what if you fought Chisora? Don't fight Chisora. Okay.

What did he go in there? And you know, you guess how you get knocked out. It goes badly. You're going to risk and ruin that future payday. There are ways this goes bad. Now on the flip side, John, suddenly the hero sliding in here to some weird degree from a UFC sense, you know, and, and, and, you know, there's, there's a chance this three years was everything John needed physically and mentally, even with all the, the self-enforced errors that he's had. I mean, some,

you know, unforgivable errors to some degree in certain areas of his personal life, but he's motored through, he seems to be in great physical shape. There hasn't been a ton of interviews, but the stuff that we're seeing from that Henry Cejudo and the captain, Eric Alvaro Cena putting out who they're now members of his camp. He seems happy. I saw Richard Schaefer's interview. He seems ready to go. It seems like until we see him fight and win or lose right now, it does feel like this in the long run, maybe this break was what John needed in all the crates. They do need a break from that grind. And that could be a great fighter,

a great artist or whatever. Like you'd need to step away at some level in your, not your early prime, but your mid to late prime and refreshed. This wasn't what John had planned to do. No one thought he'd be gone for three years, but there's a scenario where John just goes out there and does to all the heavyweights gone included everything we thought he ever could. And,

you know, let's not forget that when you move up to heavyweight, especially from light heavyweight, there is, you know, like the speed is going to be, could potentially be something. I know gone is not slow. So that's why this matchup is so interesting, but you know, there is a scenario where John just goes in there and does John Jones things. And we go, wow, that three years really helped him kind of just, you know, reboot. And here we are, John Jones 2.0.

But to your point, there is also a reality that he goes in there and just gets handled or fights great, but gets knocked out. I mean, there's so many ways you can lose in this game. And John's ability largely to not have done that right short of the hamill dq and maybe maybe you thought reyes or mahata beat him or maybe gustafson in the first fight i'm not saying that i'm a truther of gustafson had a case but it's not so much gsp versus johnny hendricks for me but i think there's some argument in that first one. But yes, if Jon Jones goes out there and gets wrecked, it's interesting.

There's levels to wrecked, but let's say he gets devastatingly wrecked. And let's say he, or let's say, you know, he loses and then tries to come back and loses again. You know what I mean? There's ways that this can go really badly. And also, as much as I'm not wishing for this on Jon, I do wonder how long karma-wise,

whether you believe in that good things happen to good people, you know, in the long run or not, but he's been Teflon in so many categories to be able to escape major misfortune because of his actions, because of his name, meaning he's created, he's done the type of offenses that would get people fired, put away, like a lot of bad things could have happened to John that didn't. He's been largely Teflon, same thing inside the cage. He's gotten the decisions in his favor. Although in all of those fights for the most part, I did think John, you know,

had the better case of having one at some point, the bad luck's got to, you know, MMA wise, the good luck has to run out to some degree. I don't know. But if John, if John doesn't do it at heavyweight,

if he goes in there and loses this fight, loses the followup. And, you know, I don't know. Is there a scenario where he could cut back down and just continue as light heavyweight? At that age, with that muscle, I would have serious doubts.

We all remember the Roy Jones-Tarver situation. But would that change the way this is looked? Yeah, that would change the way this transaction is viewed, for sure. But I also think, outside of just the precedent of dana not wanting to give into and gone is boxing demands um in that regard is you know they're in a great spot because you know john jones could go out there and beat gone and be the greatest of all time and you know he's already a proven draw and people are interested he crosses over uh even despite his own setbacks that uh it's like okay we may have we may have an aware degree up to upgraded because of

the questions facing france as possible it's also possible if gone blows away france is that you just go okay we finally have it here's your real heavyweight 2.0 that can do it all and do it dynamically there's a lot of ways that can win there's also a lot of ways that that things can change and look back at this it's like that demetrius johnson askren trade i think at various times we thought various things, but now we think, okay, in the long run,

I mean, I don't know. It was, it was almost a push to some degree. It was, I mean, if you look at it as, you know,

Askren was used to, to, to put over Masvidal on a level we never thought possible, then does that help that trade to some degree, but things change in terms of how we perceive them based on different things. If John goes out there and gets wiped out, even with the idea of gone, still being a star, they can build around and lean on. Um, I think you're always going to say what if, and I think certainly on the idea of in

Ghana versus Jones, you're always going to say what if, but there's something interesting and Luke said it on our Monday bonus show as sort of like an afterthought, like, Hey, Francis could always come back to UFC one day. That's the interesting part for Nate too. Right. That's why I left that open for really anybody.

The only thing you cannot completely compare Dana white to Vince McMahon to, even though there's so many parallels and their times, they had been close and talked and I'm sure Vince gave him advice and all that. I'm sure Dana took a lot from watching how Vince operates on the long run. But the one thing that, that Vince had as almost like a superpower, well, he had a lack of shame. So does Dana, but his ability to always forgive for the sake of business, like Vince could,

could get in the same type of things we accused Dana for in terms of holding grudges against people or holding people back or all that stuff too. But if somebody made money, no matter how much they trashed the WWE on the way out or whether they screwed them over business-wise, here's Vince welcoming back Hogan, welcoming back Bret Hart,

welcoming back anybody you can think of. I mean, CM Punk might be the only one right now that would have to break that rule, but who still hasn't come back. But because to him at the end of the day, it was about the business. That was the most important thing. Not even his own personal, you know, cares or beliefs.

I wonder if there's a scenario there for Francis where he does go out, do the boxing thing, make a ton of money, maybe do a one or two fight deal with one promotion or whatever. But let's say two years from now, if John Jones is still the heavyweight champion, right? Like if that happens and he's still the heavyweight champion and Francis is a

free agent. And is there a scenario where everyone's talking about that fight? And it's just like fade or versus Randy, only the windows back. We can get it again. Could he come back? There's, there's a chance there's a scenario.

And it didn't seem like outside of framing Francis is leaving as he just wants easy fights for, for big money, which is not, does not seem to be the accurate way to paint this. It didn't seem like Dana was bashing him. It didn't seem like he, you know,

was offended by him. It just seemed like one, one wanted one thing. The other side wasn't willing to give it and they both said goodbye. So there you go. But wouldn't it be interesting if, if at the end of the day, Francis leaving changed the game enough where somebody could come back in his situation, even with, with whatever is said back and forth. And even, you know, without having to come back and sign an eight fight deal, that's the thing. Can you be a big enough star who becomes a free agent, but then keeps close enough with the company where you can come back and do the type of big returns you want?

UFC understandably tries to limit that unless you're somebody like a Lesnar level who anytime he'd be willing, they'd open the doors back up to a certain degree throughout most of that gap between his appearances. But it's interesting if things change over time, it's interesting if, if in three years from now, if Dana's still in power and whenever Dana does leave, does that radically change fighter treatment or is the fighter treatment more of a institutionalized financial decision by the company in heavy part influenced by endeavor

and the EBITDA EBIT and all that John Nash financial stuff that those guys are brilliant at understanding that I can't even bounce my own checkbook. So I barely can, can speak here, but how much, how different will UFC culture be for fighters in five years and 10 years? It's very interesting. Obviously the guys, most of the stars from today, by the time major change happens, probably won't still be active or still be part of it, but you never know. And it's going to be interesting to see what the long form impact of this Francis decision situation

ends up being for him, for everybody. That's why I do think it's bigger than just, oh, a 36 year old heavyweight coming off of a knee injury, uh, who didn't get everything he wanted walked away. No, to me, it's much, much bigger than that. A food question here from young, dirty flock. Oh, BC, what is the perfect sandwich? Well, it's no longer the hot dog, nor is a hot dog, a sandwich. Although I get functionally why people make that stupid argument because you're just what taking a piece of bread and folding it in theory, right? What's sandwich i mean i guess it depends on your flavor right i mean there's some people like like you know i've gone to subway a million times like everybody else but i tend to

only get the the you know meatball or the chicken parm when they have it or something in that regard although i've tried everything and have a decent amount of respect you know i'm not the type of guy who goes to the italian deli and gets the Italian special. And, you know, it's good. It's just not great to me. It's not my thing in that same level. I'm much more of the chicken, parm chicken cutlet, that, that direction meatball, of course.

But have you ever had a, just a drop dead roast beef sandwich at a diner at a at a luncheonette where and you know not it's not rb's beef and cheddar fast food style it's like the slow cook style and the gravy and the onions and the bun there i always reserve roast beef sandwiches to a category of when i almost put in the same category of barbecue ribs it's like I don't like ribs unless I know their top shelf because it's such a, it's such a gross tease. You know, it's like when you, it's like when you get your first adult VHS tape,

like, you know, you get it through the smuggling system in your high school. Somebody knows somebody who has got an older brother and, and Oh, then somebody's got a gym bag filled with them. Yeah. Those things happen in the nineties.

And then you just get a gross tape and you're like, Oh wow. What a waste of time and effort there. You know, anything short of top time and effort there. You know, anything short of top shelf and in barbecue ribs is just a, it's just an insult. But let's say you get a great one. There's no better meal in the world. Roast beef sandwich is kind of like that.

So that's sort of the perfect extreme sandwich to me, but everybody knows in my life, my, I guess it's my weird guilty pleasure. I don't think it's guilt. I'm not guilty at all. Guys, peanut butter and cheese is a bad ass sandwich has been, will always be. And every single person in my life has said ill when I mention it, but so it's 100% of people have said ill gross when I've mentioned that that's my favorite sandwich. And it has always been in terms of like a, Hey, there's nothing for lunch to make. What am I going to do? Oh, let me make this sandwich. I'd say 25% of those people have tried it. And I'll, you know, after criticizing it and of that 25% say 99% I've said, Oh shit, this is something. There's something here, BC American cheese with peanut butter. There's something here. Guys, don't miss that.

If you haven't there, there's, there's definitely something there. All right. That's, you know, this is the BC live chat. There is some, a little bit of weird breaking news in boxing. We know that Adrian Broner signed with BLK prime and a lot of people, you know, had skepticism over whether he's getting the money he's saying he is, will they ever have another fight card? He was supposed to fight Ivan Redcox February 25th on a BLK prime pay-per-view. Redcox is out and I've seen him on Twitter going after promoter Joe DiGuardia,

accusing him of holding him back from this fight. Hammer and Hank Lundy is going to replace him. And, you know, that's a downgrade. And I love Hammer and Hank and he's still going right but uh and and knowing broners knowing broner and knowing the fact that lundy's still willing to fight anybody every week if he if he you know he's one of those guys he doesn't have shame right now the amount of losses he's piling up he's have gun will will travel we'll fire it uh he may end up giving ab a problem but on a pay-per-view this this is weird. I just don't, you know, Triller kind of just disappeared.

I'm not saying BLK Prime is the next Triller, but I'm not saying it isn't either. I don't know how this thing's going to happen another time. It barely happened the first time. I mean, we got to be honest about something here. I don't think it made enough news. Right before the Crawford-Avenison fight, the local promoter hired to run the event locally, right? Like they, there was, you know, there was BLK prime, the streaming service, but the local promoter, they hired two days before he got off the, what he thought was a sinking ship and, and, and removed

his license from the, and, and from the agreement and saw that he was not, he, he could not, he later said it was, um, Steve bash from bash boxing. He later said, uh, I wasn't confident. I was able to pay everybody what was promised on my team and who's working on this, this thing, you know, and he pulled out of that and they still went forward and they had it. And there's a lot of debate of whether Terrence Crawford got both sides of his, you know, he got the 5 million upfront. Did he ever get the second 5 million? There's a lot of debate. If you actually did, there's a lot of people that said they never got paid from that. So, um, I got questions about that. I'm not chairing against them. Uh, you know,

boxing's weird. It's like everyone that tries to enter the game gets such resistance. I'm not trying to resist anybody from coming, from coming in. I just have serious doubts about where this money's coming from and who's going to buy this and, and you know, how you can last more than without the, without the structural thing built in, you know, if you're going to come in, it's so, I mean, how many celebrities have tried to come into boxing and be a promoter? How many ex fighters have tried to and failed? It's, you have to be savvy, dirty, connected, and have a lot of money to blow. And I don't see all those categories yet from BLK prime who seemed to just arrive like yesterday. So yeah, there we go. Almost done here on the

BC live chat, but appreciate y'all. Miscellaneous question here from Zachary Kazee. BC would love to hear what you leaned in, what you would love to hear what you leaned in when you pulled yourself out of your darker moments in life as a young man. We did just have like a, a self-help hour here with the BC on the relationship question. Luke, I know always gives great answers in these type of life questions. So I don't want to shortchange you here, but I had a quarter life crisis at age 25. I've talked about it before in various interviews. People have seen or heard bits from it where things just fell apart.

And you kind of come to those crossroads of, you know, which side am I going? Am I searching, chasing the light or the darkness here? You know, am I complicit in my downfall here? Do I not know how to stop it? Do I not know any other way? Or can I fight back? I'm very lucky that I was able to storm back. And for me, it was sort of a quasi,

sort of like religious conversion experience. One day, I guess I can tell the story for anybody that cares, but it's a miraculous story. And I've had a few miracles. I've had a few miraculous stories in my adult life. Many involving the health of my children when they were born four and a half months premature and had a million illnesses and told things couldn't happen and things happen.

Body parts grew back. I've seen some crazy things in my life. And when I kind of hit the wall at age 25 and substance abuse and depression and a dead end job and college dropout, I mean, there was a lot of reasons to be another don't come out of it or, you know, or, or, you know, I can't tell you how many people that I graduated high school with are dead now. And, and, and everyone's every, every, everywhere you go that happens. Right. But there's an exorbitant amount. There's a, there's a lot of people who have gone down some dark roads and, you know, and it could have been me. It could have been you just the same. I was lucky to get out of that with a life changing spiritual breakthrough, where I gave my life to Christ and went down that road. And that road has been fruitful and amazing. And it's had various

ups and downs. And sometimes where I was all in, and sometimes I was skeptical. And sometimes I was, you know, and, and you have to walk your own path when it comes to those categories. I believe what I believe and I believe it firm, but you have to believe what you believe for your life. But that changed me. That's what I leaned on. I felt love for the first time. I felt clarity in the way I could, I could think about my role in my life and what my future could entail and how do I get there? And the, you know, the relationships in my life that are positive that I was turning negative. I mean, so many things like that, that was eye-opening to me, but it was, I felt like it was, the circumstances involved, it was a miracle, you know, that the lights got turned on, and I was back, and I'm thankful, and I'm

never going to throw it away because of that, and all that has happened in my life since then, but you have to, at the end of the day, whether it is a, you know, I went through the Christian experience and I, and I, and I stand by that and I'm, and I'm better for it. And, and, but you have to find your own path and that could be self-help. It could be anything, but if you don't have something to lean on, cling to as a family, a support system during your darkest times, you can't, you can't pull yourself out because life is, um, is really hard. And there are a lot of things that are almost like, I don't want to say predestined cause that's the wrong word, but like, it's just sort of born into your

circumstances that you can't control and that can set you up for failure. And, um, how do you get out of it? What do you lean on to get through? At some point, you have to have a belief in something. And that something could just be that there's good in this world, that good things happen to good people or that we can mess up, we can go the wrong direction, but inevitably we can turn it around. You're never too old. It's never too late. All that stuff is true. It's true. We're also in America, which is good or bad, but there's this id, you know, this ideal, like romantic feeling, like anything's possible. And it is, it really is. It actually really is. And you have to

lean on some level of belief because if you don't have that, why are you getting up in the morning? Why are you getting out of bed? You know, I've been there where you just numb your feelings away because you don't know how to deal with them. You know what I mean? But at some point you have to say, I want to be better. I want to get better. I want to get out of this. But if you don't believe in anything and that, that what your belief could be in a process, a 12 step process, whatever, like, but you have to believe in Bob Dylan said it best. You got to serve somebody right. And his famous lyric,

I'm not telling you what to serve. That's your own personal journey. And then maybe it's served no one. And that's, that's great. I mean, like, look, be, be you, but you got to serve somebody and you gotta, you gotta believe at the end of the day that, that you're here for a reason that this life makes sense. It's not, you know, 25 minutes to make it all, you know, like the Poirier line from Teddy Atlas. It's like, you got to believe that no matter what you were dealt or no matter what you, you did to, to, to, to ruin your own, your own prospects that, um, that you're meant for something. And when you find out, or you begin to understand what that is, and I don't just mean career wise, right? Like, I mean your purpose, like, why are we here? Why, what, what do you, you know, like, and then if you're blessed

enough to, to, to be in committed relationships, to have children and to have loving family around you, um, you gotta believe that, that there's, there's something to this, that this isn't all random. Right. You know what I mean? I don't want to offend anybody with like, but you get my point like that, that, that, that there is a way out, that there's a reason. And you have a why. And you got to cling to that why, right? That's it, you know? And it's never too late. And the journey's never too long or arduous.

But life's tough. So you got to arm yourself with something or it's going to fall apart. You got to build that foundation somewhere, right? And some people find that in exercise or whatever your thing is, find it, find it. Because trying to just go through this alone in general, I don't need to listen to that. I don't care about that. Okay, see where you end up in the end, right?

It's tough, it's tough. But I appreciate the time and I got a lot of love for you guys. And I want to close with a couple of recommendations as I like to do on these parts. Okay. Oh, I, somebody had a question real quick that I wanted to hit here regarding MMA and in the one championship card. I just saw that quickly. Gordon Lou, as am I saying that Gordon Lou, am I correctly saying that? No, he's a, he's a regular MK guy.

How would you rate stamp fair texas performance on friday night i thought she did great considering she took on a late replacement opponent that was a full weight class above her and had the height and reach advantage she earned that 50k bonus in my opinion this was the first 50k bonus of stamps career but if you didn't know she was supposed to fight in that sort of kickbox mixed rules, kickboxing Muay Thai and MMA sort of, you know, almost like Rod Tang versus Demetrius Johnson. That fight falls apart. She agrees on 24 hours notice to take on super girl. Jeroen sack,

uh, 19 years old Thai fighter, just like stamp. And they're fighting in Bangkok and it in, you know, to their credit, the two of them delivered what you would expect. Uh,

Muay Thai rules, three rounds, three minutes each. And it was action, especially the first and the third. But I got to echo a lot of people on social media. I don't think Stamp won this fight. She won a split decision in the end. And I thought she would. Round one would be.

Here's the deal. Round one was close-ish. But that eight-inch reach advantage that Supergirl had. And the fact that she came right out, met Stamp in the center of the cage, backed her up to the cage, and then started to land in big right hands. She brought the fight to her. I think it caught Stamp off guard. I think there was even a fallout from that. And round two was the only round that really wasn't super exciting because Stamp really wasn't throwing much, and Supergirl was keeping her at the end of the jab. But in that first round, look, Fairtex ate some big shots. She started landing counter

right hands, and they went back and forth, and it was great. It was fantastic, but I still scored the first round if you're going by that scoring system, and I don't even, to be fair, I don't even remember. Each judge just gave a winner, so are they judging this fight as a whole? I'm a little bit confused in general, but if I was scoring on a 10-point must system, I would have given the first round to Supergirl for just landing the higher amount of volume. Round two, Stamp got wobbled early with her right hand, and she just kind of stopped throwing.

Now, they had some fun interactions of faking injuries and laughing and high-fiving, and Stamp was kind of trying to no-sell everything. And look, Stamp's a star. It took me a while to hear the hype and then actually see see it if you're not watching 25 year old stamp fair text in whatever discipline she's fighting in i mean this is somebody who understands charisma and stuff and and how to project but also puts in the work and is a gnarly you know action fighter who's got good skills too round three stamps finally started to show that she came back could

you give her round three based on the rally she had at the end for sure. But I, I, you know, I'm going to be fair. I thought you thought you could just the same, go three rounds to zero for super girl. So it goes down as a split decision. Each judge picked who they thought once I'm assuming they're scoring that on a whole, which tends to be the case for one MMA, um, and the pride rules. But, uh, you know, I don't know. It was weird. I mean, Supergirl didn't complain about the decision. They were very friendly. And I'm sure there's mutual respect in the same country there and all that. But given the circumstances, I don't hold it against Stamp.

Much bigger opponent. And her ability to rally around three showed that true fighting spirit. I just don't think she won that fight at the end of the day. But I don't think that's necessarily like overly harmful, whether she won or lost, given the she also understands her role you know ultimately there as an entertainer uh but let me close out with this i'd like to give you uh a couple recommendations in the way because some of you do care about that and i appreciate that i love music you guys some of you do too i mean you gotta understand like i was i was texting the other

it's like it's a big humble brag right like i I was texting John Baldwin-Gorley from Portugal the Man the other day. But he's a big monster MMA fan, as the whole band is. Shout out to Zach on bass, all those guys. Huge MMA fans. But John's a big MK fan and mutual admiration society. And sometimes we can send texts about music. And I was texting the other night. I was like, you know what?

I was saying, look, I'm waiting for their next album. And I am, I'm excited. It's on the way. And I'm excited to see which direction they go sonically after Woodstock, which is a big polished sort of closeup opportunity. And it, and it produced the monster hit and all that. But most of my music liking has been of bands that, you know, had either peaked or had had their time and been disbanded 20 years ago. It's like, you know, what are your best times in life as a sports fan? It's following that team, especially during a big playoff run minute by minute, day by day in the eighties was reading the newspapers and listen to, you know, WFAN for me on radio. And nowadays it's, you know,

internet blogs and, and all that, the day-to-day coverage of it, the life and death and debate in sports. There's no journey like that. When day-to-day coverage of it, the life and death and debate in sports. There's no journey like that. When your team makes the run to the championship, whether win or lose and you you'll never forget it, right? Music can be like that movie watching of a franchise or actor or a director can be like that. There's some sports equivalents there, but the majority of my music exploration, especially on an album by album basis, which is how I prefer to do it because I look at each album as, as, you know, an artistic statement. I'm not a big, you know, shuffler guy of, of songs or, or, you know, put it turning on the streaming service and just putting

it on shuffle. No, not even really a big, you know, radio guy per se, although Sirius XM has won me over and it's a monster degrees. um i was doing that of bands that you know that that they've been gone i've been you know 20 years after even some even to be fair even something like pearl jam now did i listen to pearl jam in in its prime launch the 10 album you know the verses album vitality all that yes did i watch the videos yes i didn't own the records at that point though it was more by absorption and osmosis although god you know you ever have those glorious listens of a certain album that you'll never forget where you were what you know i mean how you know what number of times that was that you heard it there was a

couple times in the back of rich brenia's car on the way home from school where he would just stop in front of my house and and we'd sit there as a foursome with 10 by pearl jam that would that had only been out, you know, six months and just no one's talking and you're just listening to the entire thing from start to finish. And you're just like, wow. Okay. I did have that experience, but even Pearl Jam per se, I wasn't, I was buying the record, you know, the, the CDs five years later, I was sort of playing ketchup because I've always been so connected to,

to 1960s music, which is spilled into the 70s. And obviously my exploration over the past couple of years, deep into the 70s has been very fruitful, but maybe it's just growing up worshiping my dad's record collection and not being able to play them, but being able to look at them and read everything that I've had a want and love to appreciate the past. Rarely do I have a band now in their prime where it's like, you can anticipate what direction is that next record going to take? You know, what genre are they going? Is it going to be more commercial or less than the last one?

Is this the time they take a chance and jam out or go acid psychedelic stoner rock? I mean, you know, there's a lot of that, like, like, you know, seeing them in concert on a specific tour and seeing how the lineup or the music changed. That stuff is is wild. I rarely get to do it with bands today because even though I like the I love the indie rock scene of today and the last 15 years and Wilco, My Morning Jacket, that those type of bands. There's something special. That's the drug, right? That's the kick of of being with a band in the moment and seeing how they grow and seeing if they can keep the success going i don't mean commercial i mean critically i mean you know it's rare first of all it's rare the band that can last multiple decades it's obviously rare the band like the rolling stones that could essentially be active

for like 60 70 years and still be touring in their 80s i mean it's wild but on top of that and you know and some forever bands have had the ability to to find the magic again in in the mature years in little bursts bob dylan's time out of mind in 1997 is a great point on that where it's sort of like oh like a reinvention of top shelf material but for the most part most bands you know they have that prime and and and, you know, rare is even a band that can put together a five year prime of four or five top shelf albums. But to, to live that in the moment as a fan is an experience that I don't,

I don't do enough of for how much listen music I listened to. I tend to be too much looking behind. So speaking of looking behind, here's a couple of recs here from your boy, BC, Let's go with a song recommendation. I want you, everybody's got their own streaming service, but I think you got to watch the YouTube video with the audio there to really get the full experience. Search in YouTube, the Bob Dylan song called It's All Over Now, Baby Blue by the band, the former band known as the Chris Robinson Brotherhood. It was posted on YouTube by the SiriusXM channel, and this song was performed live in the SiriusXM studio in 2016. I think it's one of the best cover versions of a song in rock history.

And when you say something like that, you're like, oh, shit, BC. What are we talking about? Like Joe Cocker with a little help from my friends at Woodstock? Like, you know, that level level um okay maybe not that level but uh they nailed this in ways that i i it's it's one it's just just watch it okay just watch it but you know a great almost downtrodden breakup song by bob dylan bob dylan's breakup songs were typically in the first person meaning he's the one doing the, not always, right? But for the most part, a lot of times it's like, he's the one doing the, you know, don't think twice, baby. You know, it's all right. It ain't me, babe. It ain't me

you're looking for. And this one, it's all over now, baby blue. He's doing the damage here. But even when he's doing the damage for the most part, except for Positively Fourth Street, he's delivering it in like a depressive, but you know, soft, like he's trying to give you the soft killing. Like, you know, I'm going to break up with you, but don't worry about it. You'll be fine. The Chris Robinson Brotherhood here, which, of course, Chris Robinson, lead singer of the Black Crows. This was his longtime spinoff band. They do it in a in an upbeat, jammy, Grateful Dead inspired type of way. And the reason why I say they're no longer a band that disbanded in 2019 is they disbanded because unfortunately the guitarist, Neil Castle committed suicide and that, you know,

that broke the band in a lot of ways. He was the backbone and heart and soul and his work in this video is incredible. And, and, you know, Neil was just 50 when he took his own life and he's always been one of those underrated modern guitarists, but those who know, know, you know, Neil was just 50 when he took his own life and he's always been one of those underrated modern guitarists, but those who know, know, you know, and he plays a guitar that looked like it could be right out of Jerry Garcia's hands. And he's always been influenced by the dead. And, you know, he was, I came to know him when he was with Ryan Adams and the Cardinals and he played a big role back then too, in Ryan Adams direction of kind of going a little bit in the dead area. If you remember the double album, Cold Roses from Ryan had a Warfrat cover from Grateful Dead, and he was kind of going in that direction. But his work on Easy Tiger by Ryan Adams, a great studio album, and a couple other

ones piqued my interest. But when he joined up with the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, I mean, he's doing Jerry Garcia stuff, you know, without shame, you know, but also at an extremely high level they take this downtrodden ballad and jam it out for eight minutes and essentially do a repetition of verse and solo and the solos it starts off with a guitar solo by castle that's that's just uh amazing but but kind of upbeat and soft then they go into into an organ solo by Adam McDougal, which is incredible. And then they come back to a third, a second guitar solo at the end from castle. So check it out. Uplifting jam type of feel the band cohesive as shit.

So I did like that band was didn't, it wasn't all over their catalog, more of a Black Roads fan, but you know, the Chris Robinson brotherhood began to get a reputation as a good jam band, and they can go in different directions. But this shows you everything that they were in that song. It's all over now, but Baby Blue, maybe, maybe the best cover you've ever heard. Seriously, so good. Here's an album recommendation here. I could give you a million from the 70s, but let's go somewhat recent history because I forgot about it and rediscovered it the other day and kind of had another religious experience. 2011, have you ever heard of the indie folk band

Blind Pilot? I don't know if you have. They only have three studio albums. The last one was 2016. If you go to their website, any time in the last 10 years, it pretty much will always say they're not touring, but then they do tour and they tour in very small venues and weird cities and they don't tend to be consistent about it. I missed a chance about five years ago to see him at a, like a hole in the wall in Hamden, Connecticut and it, and it sits with me.

I regret it. I will, you know, as much as I regret not seeing the who on the quadrophenia reunion tour in 97, I regret it. Okay. They have an album in 2011,

blind pilot called we are the tide it's the second of their three they're from oregon um this like this isn't just an album wreck where you'll be like oh that thanks pc like that was really good that was cool you know i like that like this is great like seriously um they use a lot of cool accompanying instruments like the ukulele, the harmonium, the pump organ, the dulcimer, the vibraphone. And it's got a the spirit of like a loose jazz feel without being too jazzy. But really, it's just indie rock meets folk with incredible harmonies and those weird additional instruments that I mentioned sort of just paint this sonic landscape and it's got that chilled out pacific northwest modern you know indie folk sound think the head and the heart like it's got that vibe to it but it's different it's got these intoxicating

hooks some clever lyrics uh from this guy Israel Nebuchadnezzar is the vocalist just heart-wrenching clever lyrics on an acoustic guitar there and um there are these these look there's there's things about music that make us keep coming back right and i started off as a lyric guy the poetry side of it right and really have evolved into almost the other direction completely and you know i always say that like the guitar tone that like the grateful dead or dickie betts with the almonds can use while jamming out is like a cat whistle, the stoners and hippies, you know, it's like a joke, but there's just something about that sound. You know, when you hear Jerry jamming and it just hits you, you're like, Oh wow. You know, it does something to you.

It's a power of music. It's a beautiful thing that I don't think people really understand the full power of. But, um um one of my favorite things in those categories is when you just hear a chorus kick in and this hook and it's and it's this it's the spirit of what makes this album we are the tide so good is that it's it's this is music that lyrically that's downtrodden but the choruses are put together in such a hopeful almost optimistic way that the the marriage of those two at the same time, I don't know, it just kind of, it just kind of grabs you and, and freezes you for a second and chills you. And this one has, if you're into that sort of, I don't want to say emo-like, but that

immersive, emotional experience that, you know, it's like, it's like pillow talk music, but, but dressed up and it's, it's um it's incredible the colored night is my favorite track on that so check that out from blind pilot if you care at all and how about a quick fight recommendation here uh bc almost going two hours in the end uh one of my favorite boxing matches i don't think it got the respect it deserved in the 2013 fight of the year discussion 2013 by the way one of the best modern boxing years like an epically great year that produced so many great fights and golden boy brought all the fighters to show time with al heyman and you know hbo still stood firm and it was like a network and network war that year uh

but this fight took place in england the o2 arena it was a rematch a super middleweight title unification carl frotch versus michael Kessler, May 25th, 2013. The last fight of Kessler's great, great Hall of Fame career. And you consider that Mikkel Kessler only lost to Carl Frotch in this rematch, to Andre Ward in the Super Six tournament, and to Joe Calzaghe in a unification fight in 2007 between two unbeaten Hall of Famers in one of the most electric crowds in the UK that you've ever heard. And really a great fight. This rematch. So they fought once in 2010.

It was part of the Showtime Super 6 tournament. And, you know, Kessler got a unanimous decision. And I thought he had done it enough. Frotch kind of started late. And I'd hope to see them do it again and I still by the way lament that they didn't get a trilogy out of this because like I said Kessler retired right after Carl Frotch would take this

win do the two fights with George Groves in Wembley Stadium be a giant you know ADK big deal and then also retire they're not in their peak or prime anymore but they still can dig in and find it this is the beautiful the beautiful cross because like fight of the year we think brawl right but the best the real best fights

of the year are when you have action mixed with stakes emotion high technical skill and strategy ebbs and flows all of that this isn't a drag out war but this is a highly skilled action fight. Kessler hit a shot in round eight, a right hand that would have knocked anyone out. But Frotch's chin is just legendary. But the stats are crazy here. Frotch ends up winning a unanimous decision. The 118-110 card made no sense, but 16-12, 15-13, eight rounds to four, seven to five. It was on point. The theory in the end is that Kessler just didn't do enough,

that he was being too much like that efficient counterpuncher who can land big shots but wasn't following it up with. Frotch would outland him 261 to 194, according to CompuBox. Okay, but the attempts, Frotch threw 1,034 punches, most of them behind that big jab, and Kessler only threw 497. He threw less than half, but Kessler landed on percentages of punches that you will never see somebody connect this amount and lose. He hit 55% of his power shots and 39% of his punches overall,

which basically means he didn't jab and he just was was sniper from the outside he didn't do enough but to get the nod but his willingness to play sniper to land big shots and absorb them those are just two men and um i love it and it's it's part of that stretch that ended carl fratch's career that made him a legend that made him in the conversation for greatest super middle weights of all time here's the last 12 fights of Carl Francis career, the Cobra, um, decision went over Pascal on a title fight, knocks out Jermaine Taylor in the last round to win a title in the super six tournament, takes a split decision over unbeaten. Andre Darrell loses to Kessler in their first fight, takes a decision from Arthur Abraham

in the tournament, takes a majority decision from Glenn Johnson in a tough fight, loses the super six final to Andre Ward, but it's 115, 113 on all three cards. And then he stops Lucien Boutte in one of the craziest live crowd experiences that I know some people that have been there. You know, there's a guy who lives in my town. He's a soccer analyst on ESPN, Craig Burley. If you guys are old school soccer, EPL guys or whatever, you know this guy. I think he's from Scotland. Love that guy. Just ran into him at the town dump the other day. We used to go to the same barber.

Burley was in the crowd that night and used to tell me stories about it in the makeup room at ESPN. Boutte versus Froch, just an electric atmosphere. And then Froch KOs Yusuf Mack, the film star, but that's probably the little sinkhole in this great journey. And then he beats Kessler and then he beats Groves twice. I mean, it's weird. It's like, Frock doesn't always get that like crossover American love that he probably should have. And maybe it's because he didn't come to the States a ton. I mean, no, he did, you know, he fought Johnson, Ward, Taylor all in the U S but you know, never had that like breakthrough Las Vegas pay-per-view fight against American star. But is there, is there a better man than that guy?

He married up to, you know, shout out to the Cobra. They're just the same. I'll shout out to you. If this is your flavor, the BC live chat, it was back today.

When will it be back? Oh, I don't know. Next week. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. It's like a case by case basis. If you want it, tell me you'll want it. Um, but you know, not everybody loves to hear about nineties NBA, although we didn't hit that today or, uh, or self-help scenarios or which seventies jazz album they should put on. Although the answer is clearly Thrust by Herbie Hancock. I was listening to that last night. Damn. All right.

Damn. All right. BC out of here. Live show, February 8th, King's Place in London in the King Court section. There's the Q code there, QRS, QSR, whatever you want to call it in the corner. Buy tickets now.

We only have 500 of them and the majority of them are sold out. And this is not a trap here. Like it's going to be a packed house. It's going to be electric. Appy's going to be there. The Paquettes will be there. It'll be wild. Danger Mouse?

Danger Mouse, are you going to forgive me enough to come out for the show? That's the real question. Are you even watching this? Even if it was just me and one other listener, I appreciate it, guys. Brian Campbell signing off here. You can follow us, like us, subscribe to us every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 11 AM Eastern time is morning combat, your award-winning combat sports showcase. But for, uh, for everyone on the show, Mikey Morms on the ones and twos, we're going to be headlining a podcast festival in the UK on February 8th. I'll be, uh, I'll be

doing a, uh, I'll be headlining in Carolines and then the, the, the, the attic and then the, the, then no, not a comedian here. Just play one on TV. I will be on the air this Friday, this Friday, Showbox, the new generation,

the first broadcast of 2023. Raul Marquez, Barry Tompkins, Steve Farhood, myself on the call. Six unbeaten fighters in this triple header Friday night, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, only on Showtime. You can get 30 days free for now by going to Showtime.com. Hey, come hang out with me and Raul and the boys. All right.

It's a good time. Great. All these right there. Take care of yourself. All right, guys. I mean, we're all in this together, right? Who are you? Who am I?

Right. We're all in this together. right? Who are you? Who am I? Right? We're all in this together. You can do this. We got this. All right? Combat sports is fun. But good change is coming. Serious change.

It's a great time to be alive. BC signing out. Oh, the goat. The goat, right? The goat.