MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Frankie Edgar's 135lb Debut | Nemkov Stops Bader | Povetkin KOs Whyte | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 57

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

On episode 57 of Morning Kombat, Luke and Brian break down Frankie Edgar's bantamweight debut victory over Pedro Munhoz as well as Vadim Nemkov's stopping Ryan Bader and Alexander Povetkin's knockout over Dillian Whyte. Luke and Brian also cover the UFC's heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions plus a weekend preview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is August 24th, 2020, and it is time, donks, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I am joined on the other side of the screen by the gentleman you know and love from CBS Sports and various Cumberland Farms gas stations rummaging through the trash can like a rabid raccoon. It is the one and only brian campbell mr campbell how do you do sir uh full mass luke if you're asking me uh honestly right now okay

because uh we've teased many many an episode about that mk rocket ship right get you know right if you get if you gotta you know let me search it, please. We did. We searched it. And it's launching, Luke. Your big announcement Sunday night on social media. Just the beginning. There are things that we can't even talk about right now, Luke, that will continue to make this show your announcement. The fever, the feeling that's inside of us just grow and get larger. We're going to spread this like an STD on a college dorm room. This show's going places. And congratulations, Luke, on joining the Tiffany Network.

Yeah, the COVID like the dorms at UNC. That's how we're spreading. For folks who may have missed yesterday, it's pinned to the top of my Twitter, at LThomasNews, if you want to see it. I put it on everywhere else, too. Here's the big news. MK is basically going full-time.

I would put it that way. There's a lot of details still being worked out. There's a lot of plans we have in store. We're going to slow roll it to make sure that we do it right, but here's the big deal. This is the last morning combat show as a Monday-only property. I've accepted a full-time position with cbs viacom cbs and uh so starting next week brian campbell i will no longer be able to tell you i have another job

to get to i will not have another job to get to this will basically be the only thing that i do i think it's pretty exciting it's a long time time coming. We have to thank, by the way, the folks at Showtime, the folks at Malka, the folks at CBS for the belief in this project. And that's it, man. There's no other show of faith I could give than to basically quit what else I was doing and devote all my attention to this. And those were good jobs I had with great people there. But I just feel like this is an opportunity i couldn't turn down yeah look and congratulations luke the big story is uh is you know you went corporate and and i'm proud of you for that okay you did it your way uh a lot of years

like myself a lot of years behind the scenes of hard work put in and it does pay off so congrats on joining that team and like you mentioned you know i'm fired up that uh viacom cbs as a whole has such a great commitment to combat and we're a big part of that and uh bright things ahead and you know i couldn't let this happen this moment without having something awkward or weird to just celebrate it and luckily our good friend from greece yes i'm talking about christos christoforos has created another goodie to celebrate this monumental moment. Jay, can you play the hits, please? Let's go to the videotape.

Can I hear this or no? I don't know. You never know. That's my stinger. CBS Sports. Oh, he is so talented it is scary uh the eye the eye luke has joined the eye and they and i you couldn't hear that luke because jay is our producer but uh uh web screen even even tracked down some footage of uh audio footage of dana dana white you're you're one of your best friends in the mma game uh kind of like announcing you into your CBS sports role.

So great work there, well-deserved, and yes, MK's coming, okay? MK going to get up in that ass. We don't know what it's going to look like, the full Monty of it, but you no longer have a job. Jay's no longer going to speed us through these topics, hopefully, hopefully. And we're going to give it to the people here, okay?

This is very exciting times. So let me just say this, BC. I think I speak on behalf of us, both of us, rather, if I say thanks to all the viewers out there, because, yes, CBS show commitment, Showtime show commitment, Malka has certainly made this thing look the way that we wanted it to so that everyone else could get on board. We thank all of them individually for all the contributions that they've made.

But it just doesn't work if the people aren't interested. And the people were interested, and everyone saw it. And so they said, you know what, let's double down on it. They put all their chips into the center of the table. So thank you folks out there who have been watching since day one, who have provided the strong feedback, good or bad, who have stuck around with us through the pandemic shows. And it's been a crazy, crazy time.

But it looks like full steam ahead. So I want to thank everybody for being a part of this operation. And it only goes up from here. All those endless times of saying subscribe, like, saying, you know, we didn't need it or we wouldn't have a show anymore. We knew that we could go places. So, look, all you people out there who did that, that's gangsta, we got special ways to thank you more to come in the future indeed uh wow wow luke i gotta towel off i'm so fired up okay this is great it's a great time to be alive all right

well with that in mind we do have to do a show today besides navel gazing so without further ado brian campbell let's get this party started first topic up we go to Frankie Edgar over the weekend he gets his bantamweight debut victory over Pedro Munoz now it was a close fight I think I scored it three to two for Munoz but a three to two score I think for Edgar is very justifiable I have no issue with it my question for you Brian Campbell lead us off your good sir if you were if you will excuse me how surprising was his win at 135 pounds very surprising and i have to be honest i have been ready to write off the great frankie edgar multiple times along the way luke i've been a little bit more critical of some of the opportunities he got

because of his big name yet when you go out there and put off performances like this and cut down and wait late in your career and make it not look like what it typically looks like. An absolute desperation move. Look this great physically, have five-round stamina against an absolute killer in Pedro Munoz. All you can do is clap your hands. This was a vintage victory for Frankie Edgar, and I think one of those special ones

that'll stand out on the back half of his already great resume. Yeah, I scored a 3-2 Munoz. It could have gone either way. It was Frankie's constant volume and coming back after getting hurt and answering with big shots against Munoz just stalking him and trying to land that big one. Yet, here's the deal, and we knew this coming in. Frankie Edgar won this fight.

He's more than likely going to be put into slot for a title shot. Not next. That seems to be Aljo slot for a title shot. Not next. That seems to be Aljo based on Dana White's comments late Saturday, which is great news for all of us. But Frankie's probably going to end up getting his shot. And Luke, people don't do what he's doing right now. Go this deep into their 30s and be relevant in this many divisions as an instant title contender. He already won a title at lightweight way over his head in fighting uh you know as the smaller quicker guy he went to the title level

three times at featherweight and came oh so close but to come back and do this against a legit guy who was on the verge of a cracking that title shell himself that says a lot exactly about who he is the shape he gets into the commitment commitment, and really the evolution, Luke. He's starting to get into, you know, this almost Captain America, Randy Couture part of his career, where it's like, I don't want to put limits on what he can do. That was a strong-ass performance, and he had to do it over five hard rounds. This probably won't get the love it deserves at the end of the year for things like fight of the year discussion, but this was an excellent fight, and a lot of that was Frankie Edgar just uh just proving us wrong by

being great okay so here's the the initial question I asked was how surprising was it that he won at bantamweight and I think everyone was wrong before the fight and now they're doubling down on their mistake and here's how I know I I feel very confident in saying this. My show, the Luke Thomas show on SiriusXM is ending, but on Friday, and the podcast for this version is available for free and worldwide.

By all means, do not take my word for it. Go double check what I am saying. I spent 30 minutes on Friday saying the odds for this fight, if you had seen them previously, they had Frankie as like a plus 230 underdog.

In other words, a pretty substantial underdog. I did not understand that at all i thought everybody was reading this room wrong here's what basically was happening before the fight people were saying well i don't like frankie's long-term prospects at 135 all that much and then using that to assign value to his opportunity against munoz and saying he didn't have much of one. They're right that I don't think he has much of a chance at getting a title at 135 or beating the

very, very elite. But they were so wrong about his matchup against Munoz. That was a favorable matchup for Frankie against Munoz. I mean, yes, did Frankie Edgar look really bad against the Korean zombie? Yes, he did. But number one, he was already going down to 135, inadvisably changed course on short notice on weight classes and opponent, flew to South Korea and got housed. Now, how good is the Korean zombie? We haven't seen him against Max Holloway or against Volkanovsky, but it appears to me that outside of those two, he probably has a case as the best 145, or certainly with his boxing at this point, he is a force to be reckoned with. So to me, while that was a very, very bad showing for Frankie, it was not emblematic of who he was.

And while Max Holloway had beaten Frankie unanimously and by virtually every round, if you go and look at the rounds themselves, they were actually pretty close. People were burying this guy way too early. Pedro Munoz does not necessarily do all that well with a guy like Frankie who can show all that movement and fakes and feints and certainly the ability to just sort of stay on his horse from a motion standpoint. Now, of course, Munoz did really well. I thought he took three rounds to two.

The leg kicking seemed to me to be a big difference, but not for the judges in attendance, and that's okay. Here's my point, though. Everyone is doubling down, being like, oh, my God, he's back, blah, blah, blah. No. No, he never left. Now, don't use this victory in the opposite way you were viewing it before. This victory is nice. It proves he belongs in the top 10. That should not be surprising to you. He was a title holder at 155. He was a consummate title contender at 145. At 135, he is going to be probably somewhere in that top five until his chin can no longer take it,

which we're not there yet. But this idea that he's going to go in there and beat Peter Jan or the very, very best of that division, maybe he will. I don't like his chances long term to win a title. I could see a scenario where he might even become the number one contender. But I don't think 135 is the refuge that 145 wasn't. And so I think what's happening here is people totally discounted him very wrongly to begin with. Then he shocks them in this because they had the wrong impression. And now they want to double down and say, oh, no, no, no, no. This guy is going to go places.

Don't misunderstand me. The first fighter to win fight of the night across three weight classes Frankie Edgar is special he is very very special but if you got it wrong to begin with don't double down on the mistake and then overstate his chances of 135 take it fight by fight at 38 years old the only other person in the division his his age is Rafael Sonsal and you can see there's a changing of the guard we see yeah absolutely and I don't want to sit here and act like I believe even off this great win that he's deserving of a title shot.

You just know how UFC operates. The last two Bantamweight title shots, despite this division being overflowing with great young talent, has been Dominic Cruz coming off of a loss in a multi-year layoff, and Jose Aldo coming off of two losses. So at the very least, Frankie Edgar beat a real badass top five guy and looked really good doing so so that justifies

it a little more do I believe he can win a title and be the first three division or two I'm sorry he would be a two division champion um yeah no I gotta pump the brakes on there this division is all killer but at the very least luke um you know when i go to predict this fight and i'm looking like sorry frankie i love you but you're probably gonna get stopped here for him to be able to go through that and take away the fear we had from the ortega knockout loss from the korean zombie one you mentioned and again to go down and wait at this age and be forced to go five rounds at the championship level look at that that's a pretty special performance there.

No, there's no, again, I don't want to overstate, I don't want to understate, you've got to get the Goldilocks on this one just right. He is very, very credible as a threat at 135 pounds. I think my only reservation is when people really get the impression of him wrong heading into it. I mean, Pedro Munoz hits hard, but he's sort of a single shot kind of guy you saw that there a little bit and Frankie did a really good job with those takedowns jumping to the other side to not get guillotined he really did a good great job there as well I was like dude this this one's I'm not saying it's tailor-made for him but the way I think I said it on Friday was there's plenty of good reason to think Frankie Edgar can

win this this is not this is not some like lamb to the slaughter kind of operation. It's just Pedro Munoz got outclassed by Aljamain Sterling. And I don't think Pedro Munoz can beat Cody Garbrandt or we'll see maybe he can beat Cody Garbrandt. Well, he did actually. Let me back up a step there. But he beat a bad version of Cody Garbrandt. Can he beat this version? I guess we will see. Corey Sandhagen, Marlon Marais.ais I don't know it's a tough road to hoe for him at 135 pounds so sensational win this guy is the iron man at 38 by the way you pointed out I retweeted you on Friday he looked shredded on the scales at 135 dude he's there to he's there to to to be a competitor just pump the brakes on the title future opportunities outside of what his name value is there's still as dana

white said a ton of work to do so phenomenal first start but you should not be surprised don't bury the guy just yet is there really a ton of work to do i mean this pretty much you know could have given him a title shot here and again dana got it right by putting aljo really over sterling really no i'm not telling you he's getting the next one aljo's getting it and that's the right move by dana but if you don't think they might call frankie next for the winner of that um i don't you know i don't know if i'd favor him you know like you're saying i wouldn't love his chances against either of those guys yet at the same time for him to do this against munio's who is no slouch i don't think you can you can i mean don't overcorrect too far, Luke.

I'm not. I just saw people being like, yeah, he's got no chance. Then he goes in there and does what I thought was pretty doable for him. And now they're like, oh, my God. Here comes Frankie. He's the next coming of 135-pound Christ. He's not that. There's very very very tough guys

at the top of that division and sorry you could make a very credible case that muñoz should have won that fight so again to me it's fine he's not gonna have to go through all those guys oh you're saying he's probably gonna have to go through one more you're saying that one will be a champion yeah okay that's probably true so let's say he beats i don't know the winner of sandhagen and morice probably probably he will get but at that point if you beat the winner of sandhagen and morice you probably do deserve a title shot that would be a win over a top five guy in pedro munoz and a win over the number one and number i'm looking at here four guy at that point you have garbrandt going down away class sterling give you the next one over there against yon you'd be that guy i would be totally okay with that so that's not a problem

for me one more question about this bc a little bit of a curveball for you can frankie edgar make flyweight oh stop that stop that crap come on can he make flyweight uh you know maybe on the on the can tj dillashaw make flyweight and then completely look like a shell of himself? Yeah, I don't know if he can do it on a one-off night to make you happy, Luke, but I wanted to counter your special trick question by saying, you know, should he have been in this division all along? Who would he be right now if he was Bantamweight Frankie Edgar from the beginning? Would he have had, you know, a dominant cruise-like control of the division for a while before the injuries?

You ready for this? It's very interesting because it was weird to see him as the taller, longer fighter had a dominant cruise-like control of the division for a while before the injuries. So you're ready for this? You're ready for this? It's very interesting because it was weird to see him as the taller, longer fighter and sort of the naturally bigger guy. That's never happened. So you know what's so funny about this? Five years ago, before the Luke Thomas Show even existed, I was on SiriusXM and live on the air, we got a call from Mark Henry.

We did not call him. We did not solicit him. He was just listening and then called in from his car and he told us at the time that he wanted Frankie to go to 135 then then he wanted him to go this was a choice he could have made a long long time ago and I got to tell you BC if he was fighting against the Dillashaws back then, or even the Dominic Cruises back then, I don't know if he would have won, but probably, right? He'd probably be a two-weight world champion

versus the guy who was a decorated champion and then obviously has been a top perennial contender the rest of his time. It's not like he's been some slouch, but that extra hurdle that Jose Aldo denied him, I don't know that those other guys would have. Very fair, and I don't want to end the Frankie Love Fest, even though Jay is so

deep in my ear. He won the first title like eight years ago. MMA was a lot different then. Credit to the constant evolution, and even at this age, to be able to have that speed to be able to keep up like this. Look, you gotta love the guy. Again, he's got that Captain America-like

where you've just got to love him. Although a bit of an anti-vaxxer, but a different story for a different time. All right, we go on to point number two. You know, I'm sorry. You can take your politics, lift up that half of your beard, and stick them right under there.

I'm just teasing. It's a sensational win. He should be very proud of himself. I mean that with true sincerity. And I'm glad that people have a, again, some people are making the mistake of overstating things. But at least now I would say we have a much more accurate read on what he'll do at 135 than we did on Friday. I think that's a pretty fair statement to make. Okay.

With that in mind, we go to point number two. Vadim Nemkov, buddy. This was another thing we warned everybody about, man. Now, some people picked Bader, and I put my hand in the air. I thought Bader might get it done when it was all time to tally it up. But Vadim Nemkov was easily the toughest guy that Ryan Bader had faced heading into Friday night. And sure enough, that proved to be a very, very true assessment and warning.

He absolutely demolishes Ryan Bader, BCc stopping him inside of two rounds and that referee carrie hatley there's some debate over the stoppage i don't need to rehash it but suffice to say i think you'd probably agree with this no matter what side of that debate you're on he gave ryan bader every possible opportunity to get out of that mess and vadim nemkov would not let him that dude is a beast so the question for you bc is as follows where in your mind does vadim nemkov rank among all light heavyweights in any organization worldwide uh top five top five is a safe answer i can't go anything further than that i'd have to see him against the you know the the top two or three four guys in ufc the run he's had coming in, you know, I wasn't fully woke to it.

We talked about it last week. I'm like, you know, I remember this guy. I saw him beat McGarry. Well, he put together, you know, four wins under Bellator before this fight, but three against former champions in a row and finished all three of them. So that was the wake-up call that he was something. Credit to you for kind of predicting this during last week's show and saying people need to wake up to this.

The timing was funny, right? Ryan Bader comes on CBS Sports HQ with me. He's talked to other outlets last week and is like, I'm the best light heavyweight in the world, right? You know, DC's gone. Jon Jones is gone. It is me. And I think at that point, I didn't want to argue with him.

I thought, you know, he might very well be. Look at the run Bader has been on. But, you know, you do have to go look back and say it had been three years since Bader had fought at light heavyweight when he won the championship by split decision over Phil Davis in his debut he defended it once and then he went into you know the heavyweight grand prix and we never saw him again so there is there were sort of legitimate questions coming in that at 37 could Bader cut back down to 205 and be the same guy but I don't think there's excuses built in on that on how this performance played out Vadim Nemkov like this was a monster

wake-up call he's at worst right there at the at the edge of the top five of light heavyweights in the world and he has a chance to be a force for Bellator because he finished Ryan Bader with absolute ease and it's not that we hadn't seen Bader get knocked out before, but Luke, we hadn't seen this confident, a well rounded version of Bader as he became. That heavyweight Grand Prix, and you can argue the competition he fought or whatever, but he learned about himself

in that. He grew. His boxing came to an all new level where it was a weapon on par with his wrestling. We saw a complete fighter go in there, and Nemkov just take the wheels off and dismantle him. So shout out to this young kid who's now taking Storm. You know, a little bit of payback, by the way, because he's Fedor's boy. And of course, Ryan Bader knocked out Fedor in disastrous fashion to win that heavyweight championship. So a little bit

of backdoor Sambo revenge. Yeah i i love this guy let me buy some stock on here luke uh did you say you didn't want to unwrap the carrie hartley thing because i'm wondering luke i'm a little worried about you you're getting a little soft on all these stoppages all right okay on friday night i hated it i'm just candidly i hated it then i thought about it some more and re-watched it a few times. And I was like, yeah, okay. I don't hate it nearly as much as I did before. I mean, here's why I think you could have stopped it twice.

One, when he first went down, to me, like a moment he was not really with it. And then he gets kind of hammer-fisted back into some sort of motion. The idea that he was in perpetual motion, I think, is overstated. And then the second time he gets knocked down, you could have called it. Waiting for him to just go limp as he races away from a guy he can't even look at i i grant that that gives it some again it gives it total cleanliness but the problem is it doesn't do much for um you know he was never meaningfully in that contest you get dropped twice with a guy like that on you and especially if you kind of went limp for a second the first time,

I don't know why it needs to continue. So I don't think it's an egregious stoppage, as I did the Friday night. I even said as much on Saturday. But this idea of being like, oh, it was the perfect stoppage, perfect if what you're waiting for is zero controversy about whether he was going to be able to continue. If you want absolutely no doubt about it, yes, fine. To me, I don't think we necessarily need to wait that long.

I just think there's unwritten rules. Like in baseball, there's the unwritten tie goes to the runner. Everyone's got a different strike zone. And MMA, you let the champion get his ass kicked a little bit longer to see if he bounces back. All right, Luke? And all I need right now is Josh Rosenthal, a tattoo artist, artist and an ounce of weed and the four or five of us can sit down and i can reteach you about the lesnar carwin's uh lack of a stoppage it was beautiful it was wonderful that's what

lesnar carwin is one of my favorite fights i love it i love it i love that fight so i was fine with that stoppage but let me throw that back to you how good is nem cough what do you get in the feel here here's the thing i think if you okay worst case scenario worst case scenario i think he beats everyone in the ufc from 11 to 15 like that's the that's the least you can say about him not from there it's pretty debatable right because you've got some guys on the come up we got two more coming up this weekend we'll talk about him later uh alexander rackett she kind of fell short a little bit against ustamir but he is just an absolute monster in that division i think he's ranked inside the outside the top five in the top 10 that'd be an interesting fight for nemkov certainly i wouldn't declare that rackett couldn't beat him i want to be very careful about that so i think if you want to say worst case scenario he's top 10 uh in your

view i think that's probably the most charitable you could put him is in right inside that top five but being very careful so i'm going to say somewhere from five to eight to me is probably where he sits right now that doesn't mean he couldn't be anyone above that he probably could i just think you know pumping the brakes a little bit on the unknowns here from nemkov uh that's you know it's worth it to us you know it's kind of funny to me though the whole thing is i don't i'm certainly no expert in russian society but to me you know has to see fedor uh backing this guy who was the combat some four-time combat sambo world champion in nemkov i think that fedor you know who's like very orthodox christian and from sort of the uh

you know history all school but sort of from historical, but when you associate where people are from in Russia, he's from that kind of population. I always feel like there's been an uneasy alliance between people from that part of the country and then those absolute killers all the way through from Dagestan and Chechnya and everything else. There's a big cultural divide there, if not even just a religious one. It's interesting that those guys have sort of taken over as the idea that we have about what it means to be a top Russian fighter, and I don't think that should change. And again, this is sort of a smaller point I'm just trying to make. But this guy, Vadim Nemkov, sort of from Fedor's I think hometown from his team it seems to me like Fedor's trying to like dub this guy the next big Russian that we should all care about and maybe

we should maybe he actually is that kind of guy it's just sort of interesting to see all the different parts of Russia have different uh output in terms of talent as it relates to combat sports and this part of it has been forgotten for a long time. But here he comes, man. He is a special, special guy. He is young. He is hungry. He is clever.

He is smart. He is athletic. He is going to be a handful. I don't think Corey Anderson or Lyoto has a chance with this guy. All right, two things real quick here. Number one, if we get a chance to ever interview Vadim Nemkov, please don't ask him his favorite Russian books to read like you did when you sabotaged

my favorite interview. Fedor wouldn't give me anything, dude. I was grasping at straws. Number two, Luke, put yourself in Scott Coker's shoes. I think it's an important topic right here, real quick. You got a rising potential stud in Nemkov. You got a decently fun division at light heavyweight because

Corey Anderson just flew in. You got Machida. You got Musashi. You got some names you could play with, move around from other divisions. Do you give Bader a second chance? Do you run this back? Or is it just better off to say, hey, Bader, man, why don't you be the face of our heavyweight division? Let's find out who this kid is. Josh Thompson has, to me, been such a great addition to that Bellator commentary booth i find him to be really really credible as a speaker he is smart he knows what he's looking at he and big john obviously because they do a podcast together they have great chemistry he doesn't suffer mike goldberg very very well either so like he really is turning into a wonderful commentator

and so he noted listen beta 38 Bader, 38 years old, he's way faster, way stronger, way better than these heavyweights. Go ply your trade up there. It's a way to sort of preserve your status as an elite rather than, you know, this guy in Nemkov, man, he's at a different level right now, different age, different stage of his career.

Let him have light heavyweight. You go to heavyweight. I think that's the right call. Wow, Corey Anderson, it's going to be a fun fight. Can a fun fight can't wait can't all right let's go to this so over the weekend on days in Alexander Povetkin was what do you want to say he was losing quite badly to Dillian White having been knocked down not once but twice in Eddie Hearn's backyard it was Eddie Hearn is the new.F5000, it turns out, just a lot richer and whiter. Nevertheless, they're in the backyard of Eddie Hearn,

and it looked pretty good on TV, if I can just be honest for a moment. Povetkin, it was going poorly, BC. Not terribly, but pretty bad. And then out of nowhere, he fakes a jab, he gets White to slip, he pulls his own right hand back, and then he gives, I think, a left uppercut underneath the arm of Dillian White, sends him to the land of wind and ghosts. What did this win show you about a 40-year-old Alexander Povetkin?

What does he get with it? Well, look, he gets a mandatory shot at Tyson Fury for that WBC title, although let's put everything on the table. Eddie Hearn jumped at that microphone afterwards to remind us all that Dillian White smartly had a rematch clause built in there. I don't know what the WBC rules are on this. And obviously, history tells you they'll bend it if they have to. But, you know, you could be seeing this fight a second time with the idea that that interim WBC title, which all that title really is, is it gives you the mandatory next shot. So they could do this a second time for the chance

to face Tyson Fury. I'm not sure how that's all going to work out, but this was monster. This was the cherry on top for Povetkin. He's had a great career. He's also had a failed drug test and a lot of meldonium in the system. But for a guy an olympic gold medalist and was so close to being truly elite in the heavyweight division for so long he held that secondary bastardized version of the wba title years ago he went up there and tried his best against vladimir klitschko and got knocked out we'd seen him go in there just recently against aj and try his best and got knocked out but he's always been a dangerous threat he's never though despite having a really good career and a lot of wins against names you know have that one defining victory it's one it's a it's a wonder if this becomes that and if this ends up lifting him back into one more title opportunity at the

very least luke separate from pavetkin this was a special ending to a fight because it reminded you this dirty filthy whore of a sport that we love. And I know that's harsh, but, you know, boxing can be full of shit at times. And but every once in a while, it reminds you why we freaking love it. And this was an elite heavyweight fight against two guys with something real at stake. And Povetkin down on the cards, just uncorks a left uppercut from you know beyond the left field fence and sends our guy Dillian White to hell uh that's spectacular that's that's why we watch and uh I loved seeing that I love what this can do for Povetkin because let's be honest

he might have retired after this had he lost he was on his way to be losing against a very tough out in in dillian white and he saves it all with one punch and um if it just leads to big money in a rematch with white with that same stipulation at play whatever that's fine but this resurrects what has been a pretty darn good career never great and this was a great win so to me i i go back to uh back to last weekend when we had Jackson Marinas and old Roley Romero, and we both thought that it was a pretty wide margin for Marinas. And then he somehow inexplicably loses. Now, not to rehash that debate, but it just goes to show in boxing, sometimes the promoter's favorite son, even when they're not supposed to, they get kind of the nod. And at 40 years of age, we're predicting, yes, you know, you can be a lot older in the heavyweight division, even the current version of it in boxing,

which is better than it has been in some time. You know, still, that's not a great, that's not an advantageous place to be. But power is the last thing to go. And to borrow from Teddy Atlas, it's what, in this case, 36 minutes to make your life fair. And he found a way to do it. Now, you could argue that the fairness would really be that, you know, Dillian White, excuse me as I kick my camera again dillian white deserved the win here um because he was the better guy but i guess we'll get another shot at it if they exercise the

immediate rematch i'm only pointing out it was just such brutality it was a reminder of what can happen in the fight game um to just especially at heavyweight where one punch can end it all in an instant you cannot blink and for a guy to be on the canvas twice and come back like that even at 40 years of age to me what it showed is when you get a little bit older like that as an athlete you don't have that same kind of hunger anymore to sort of fight back out of a bad spot he had been trying to land that punch a couple of times previously, and he finally found a home for it. So between the sort of promotional, I'm not going to call them machinations,

but just the promotional realities there in play with Matchroom and Dillian White, between sort of his age and this sort of bit of a last stand and this weird pandemic, to go in there and put on a thunderous performance like that, it was not only hugely entertaining for the audience, but a reminder also, heavyweight boxing is still pretty good, even when you're not talking about the big three, big three and a half, if you want to include Andy Ruiz. It is an exciting division right now.

It's a ton of fun. I can't wait to see what they do next. So if you had to bet BC, do you bet they do the white rematch, or do you bet he gets Tyson Fury next? You know, probably more likely they do the rematch. We'd have to see the specificities and the contract with the WBC does to respond if they can still keep the mandatory thing at stake in the rematch. Hopefully Povetkin gets paid big to come back and do it again.

I just want to do that double shout-out that you did off the start to Eddie Hearn. Look, promoters are what they are, Luke, and they always feel like, you know, a little grimy in some ways. This guy just makes me want to give my wallet to him and say, yeah, I'll buy that used car that's missing three of the four tires because he may have won the

quarantine with that Fight Camp series four times in his garden out back. It looked spectacular. The fights were fun. This card was the crown jewel of that with two really good fights atop the marquee and it was a pay-per-view over in england rightfully so but uh shout out to the look and feel that they gave did you did you did you hear that that that epic thunderous music they would play just as the fighters were getting announced i felt like it was like uh old school gladiators or something. It was great.

Well, you know, the Sweet Caroline I could have done without, but Dillian White's combination of Jaws and then Back in Black, I got to tell you, that's a hell of a combo. He rocked that one. It was awesome. And I got to say also the fireworks in the backyard. I mean, we always talk about the UFC sometimes. Yes, they're in the apex, and that has a certain distinguishable feel.

But when they're in a normal situation, and they're in Omaha one day, and Washington, D.C. the next, and Hartford, Connecticut the third, the arena never really looks any different from the inside. The B-roll outside always looks pretty different, but never from the inside. I will give credit to Eddie Hearn, too. It was a little bit different. They kept up good safety protocol it seemed as well and it had somebody was trying to be ambitious and do something different and Eddie Hearn I think in general succeeded now one more note about this card BC I know you were hot and bothered by it I didn't like it as much as you did but I certainly give it respect Katie Taylor

retains her advantage you want to say over Delphine Pursun. I got to say this about Pursun. I did not see their first fight, BC. I saw this one. God, she is an animal. She does not have nearly the technical ability of Katie Taylor, but she does need it to win, but she was all over her like white on rice. She could not be stopped.

Why did you like this fight so much? It was good, but you really seemed to respond to it. Well, Luke, you just named the missing part of that. You were like, I didn't see their first one. I didn't really care about this series until I saw their first one, and I was ringside at Madison Square Garden in April 2019 right before that AJ upset against Andy Ruiz.

This was a legitimate fight of the year contender that time because I try not to, you know, on this show I know we can kind of say what we want, but I try not to call pro female athletes names like rabid raccoons, but that's the freaking style Delphine Persoon brings out there. Just squares up, walks into oncoming traffic and is like,

my backbone, my fighting soul is grungier and more crazy than you are, and I'm going to pour it all over you. And, Luke, that's why I was excited about this, because Katie Taylor, along with Clarisha Shields, really is the face of women's boxing, and she's a hero in Ireland, and she has all four lightweight titles,

and there's a lot of talks about making some really fun fights if we can get a lot of these women to get closer in weight against some of the names that we know. But she had to get by this test in Pursune and show us that she really is of that ilk, that pound-for-pound queen ilk, against a woman who's just determined. And let's pour them all out for Pursune here, Luke. Her commitment is like a war camp survivor level. I mean, she just has a mindset

that I am going to get through no matter what. And yet Katie Taylor made the adjustments this time around, kept her at distance more, didn't get swallowed up from the pressure. Yeah, she had that big knot on her forehead and she got banged around a little bit, but this was both a great win for Taylor, another performance-wise,

you need to see this Belgian cop, Delphine Pursuit. Every time she fights, she's going to run through your TV screen. And shout-out to women's boxing. This was a big fight. This was the hardcore fight of the weekend. And holy crap did it deliver, Luke. I hope you'll allow yourself, okay? Suffrage is a real thing.

I hope you'll allow yourself to appreciate women's boxing. I like women's boxing. The only thing I don't like is the two-minute rounds. Surely this has to change. This is not fair fair to them i don't think it's great the action granted these two had good action because they're talented but to me it feels like that's not the right way with the women's sport to be conducted are you with me on that i agree with you on that i agree with you and i didn't mean to paint you as a picture of a guy who's saying hey make me a sandwich and then i'll watch your fight okay all right no. I just missed the first one because I was

mostly covering MMA at the time. I just didn't have a chance to really go back and take a look at it. Thank you. It's great. Last thing I'll say about this, because Jay wants us to move on because Jay also hates women. Jay was like, who do we get to honor kill when this is over? I'm like, Jay, we don't do that in this sport. But the point I want to make here is

did you see their show of sportsmanship afterwards? They had the scenario where they were standing six feet apart and they were both answering questions from the press at the same time. And Delphine was like, you know what? It's kind of hard for me to eat and maintain this weight class. And I got to say, Katie Taylor, this is her weight class. She belongs here. She's the best here and she deserved to win.

And Katie looked almost not surprised, but like honored that her opponent would say that listen we like the trash talk we like the throwing of the chairs and if you're jake shields the shot putting of the starbucks's but sometimes it's nice to see two absolute animals also give the other you know the old uh collegial salute at the same time i really yeah there's room for class and by the way pursuant had a case in that first fight i thought she won and she said it as much but i like that she said look in this rematch it was katie's night and you know i respect that all right so we move on now to point number four sort of a broader one bc i'd like you to go first i'm in a very generous mood bc i want you to go first on these so let's talk about it ufc's

heavyweight and light heavyweight division is in flux so dc appears to be out we haven't really had it confirmed confirmed but it certainly appears that way Gustafson has moved up didn't go all that great but now John Jones it appears is going to move up yet at the same time we now have a UFC light heavyweight title fight we're going to have Dominic Reyes take on Jan Blachowicz on the I think that's going to be the co-main event to Adesanya and Costa UFC 253 so here's the question, BC. In six months, how have these two divisions reordered themselves? Monstrously. Think about this. The heavyweight division just added a ton of celebrity

by bringing Jon Jones up there, and now that we have two strong pillars in Stipe and Francis and we don't know whose future the division will be and you just drop Jon in there. Look, as we talked about last week in the fallout of that trilogy fight, you are going to make some fun-ass blockbuster fights and just like in boxing,

right? It's more important in boxing for the heavyweight division to matter from the standpoint of reaching the crossovers and the casuals. Look, you give MMA and UFC credit. They haven't needed to rely on that all the time. The light heavyweight division for a long time was that sexy celebrity division. it's still you know the whole idea i know it's corny of baddest man on the planet you still want your heavyweight division to be stocked with legitimate

historic guys we have that but to flip the script on 205 we we've been saying for a long time john needed to go so that we can find out what we have. It's kind of an exciting group that's been left behind. Reyes-Blohowich is a fun fight. We got Maheta coming back against Grover, Glover, Grover, good God, Grover, Glover Teixeira. And oh, by the way, Rumble Johnson just announced that he's going to enter the USADA pool and he has chosen 205 over heavyweight as his uh you know first comeback division uh business picking up in a big way and uh you know it was john's choice i'm sure he got an opportunity to rematch reyes i'm sure ufc would have preferred that he had done that so that look if he lost he could really do the job to reyes and anoint him as the next big thing but i'm a little bit

more excited to find out what we have here, Luke. Look, Reyes-Blohowitz, tough fight. I got to pick Reyes in there. But if Mejeta can get through Grover, so to speak, I am like licking my chops at the idea of what a Dom Reyes versus Tiago Santos fight could look like for future control of this division, knowing full well that that boogeyman Rebel Johnson is lingering. This is good news for UFC in both divisions across the board. And Luke, I've been watching a little bit of tape. I feel like if he can bounce back and it's not,

it's not saying, you know, it's automatic because of the leg injuries he suffered against Bones Jones. But if Maheta can come back, he is at a level of confidence, savagery, and technique all coming together at the right time in his mid to late 30s. Dude, he might be the last man standing. You can't tell me deep in your heart. I know you love some Dom Reyes, but that guy takes souls. That's his attempt. I went back and watched that Jones fight, man.

That's some courageous shit in there. I mean, this guy's for real. This ain't an empty cupboard at 205. It's going to get fun. No, I mean, there's two kinds of reorganization in divisions when people leave or move up in weight or whatever you want to call it, and fans typically only respond to one of them, which is, let's say somebody exciting leaves a division

and then moves up to the next one, and they're like Frankie Edgar, in this case, now we know, immediately a contender. Your mind begins to race. What about this one versus that and that and that? You're like, what a great immediate addition. Sometimes you get the short-term immediate addition, and Jon Jones provides that, at least we think,

on some level at 265 pounds. We don't really know exactly who he's going to fight. I'm being told that Francis is going to get the next one. That's not officially signed, but that's what his team has been told. So we'll have to see how that plays out. But there's a second kind of reorganization, which is what happens when there's an absence. Think about St. Pierre when he first left Welterweight.

Now you had Hendricks there and you had Lawler there, and Lawler took over for a time. My point being is it takes a second, not merely for someone to claim the spot that he previously had, but for the division to fully reorder itself, because then you got what you have now, which is Kamaru. And we'll see what happens with Tyron, but Colby is there and Jorge has ascended. And here comes Leon Edwards on some point. We'll see how that goes. My point being is if you look at light heavyweight now, I agree with you. I like that Tiago Santos, Glover Teixeira fight.

I don't know who's fighting Elmo or Rosita, but I guess we'll find out on Sesame Street next season. I also like this fight at UFC 253. I like this fight at UFC 253 a lot. So to me, I'm with you. There's a lot to enjoy. Anthony Smith versus Alexander Rakic, which we'll talk about in a second. But also, have a little patience. In six months to a year's time, you have no idea what Yuri Prohodchka might end up doing,

or where Nikita Krylov might be, or there's so many, Anthony Rumble Johnson. A year ago, raise your hand out there if you're watching this, if you had heard of Vadim Nemkov. The hardest of the hardcore can say yes, but most people hadn't. Most people still haven't seen that fight against Ryan Bader. And this is my point. You just got to give it a little bit of time. So my plea to fans out there is enjoy the short-term benefits of Jon Jones moving up to heavyweight because then you can enjoy that right away. On the other hand, even if you don't like light heavyweight, and I think you should, give it six months to a year. I guarantee you in that time it's going to be a lot different than it is

today, and there's going to be new faces, new rivalries, new matchups that are absolutely going to capture your interest. By the way, Stylebender might go up there, or he might go fight John at heavyweight. Who knows? A lot of different pieces of the puzzle there. Luke, let me ask you this. We like doing stupid questions like this. Who do you think the betting odds should be

leaning towards in both divisions to be the last man standing in a year when when all these you know i don't know six months to a year and a half whatever you know who are you favoring who are you feeling like will be the definitive champion i mean look it doesn't always go that way where we we find out who's the guy and then that guy defends three or four times. Sometimes we just keep handing the belt off. And if you're telling me right now, we end up with a Dom Reyes-Maheta trilogy

or something like that could be really great for the division. Who do you think's coming out of both of them though when it's all said and done? That's a tough one. I'm going to say, and again, predicting like, well, who can win a fight this hard, much less who's going to be the title holder in a year so i'll go with dom reyes at 205 but to me that one is i'm not going to say

wide open but that's the tough one that's a very tough division to claim in john's absence and at heavyweight say it say it luke big francis say it big francis i'm gonna go big francis that's a leap of faith i am making a judgment there based on information we don't have well but i just like me creeping up behind you in a bar one day luke and i get that thing in there we'll see because i'm sorry i'm gonna say it i said it before i'll say it once more i'm favoring john jones against every single heavyweight until i see differently i think it's his it's to be fun to watch because I think it's his time. Alright, so let's move on to our last and final point here for the five pieces of the rundown.

Let's talk about some of the weekend's best fights. We'll start here. Anthony Smith back in action against Alexander Rakic. We'll talk about some boxing fights too, but let's go to this one first. Very quickly, BC, this is the main event for the card coming up on Saturday. I love this fight.

You know, Anthony Smith, I think, took a bad beating against Glover, but I talked to him last week. He says he feels fine. He's been training hard. The checkups medically have been okay. He had to get some teeth replaced, but, you know, these guys are a bit of a different breed. He showed me in D.C. when we were having dinner,

he talked about this, I think, on Ariel's show, but he had told me previously the same story, which was he was going to get two fingers removed if he had to, to fight some kind of infection, as long as he could keep the knuckle for punching. I mean, Anthony Smith is a different breed. Luckily, it didn't come to that. In any case, I think Anthony Smith is crazy talented, but he also admitted Alexander Rakic, you know, physically is big for the weight class. He's athletic. He's a little bit unpolished and a little bit unrefined, and that cost him against Uzdemir, who Anthony Smith has a win over, but styles make fights, and if Anthony Smith gasses or is not careful against a guy like Rakic, he will have five rounds to work, and I don't think

he's going to gas. He's going to be in a bit of a trouble. So I like the skill differential that Anthony Smith enjoys, BC, but I also think that Rakic, who is, you know, that last fight notwithstanding, still very much the future of the 205-pound division. Yeah, absolutely. And that was as nice and soft of a way if you could have said it. And look, we all have the things we love and they're our favorites. I may or may not have an inappropriate relationship with Ioana's Instagram

account, but you, Luke Thomas, you love three things in life. City kickboxing, talking to coaches, and for some reason, Anthony Smith. So I'm going to be much more blunt here, Luke. Sell stock on him. I'm sorry. I think the miles have added up. I don't think it's his time. Sell stock on him.

I think it's going to go in the other direction. I like Rakic big here, and I'm going to be interested to see it play out. Well, I'll be clear about this. I do love those things, but I also like Alexander Rakic. I did a big segment on my show on him as well over a year ago. What did you drop there? Did you fall something on the ground? I dropped my phone.

It's fine, Luke. It's all right. Yeah, be sure to be texting during the show, BC. I only quit my job over this. All right, we go now to Erislandy Lara. Wait, did you retain producer credits in the CBS deal, Luke? You bet your ass I did. Erislandy Lara taking on Greg Vendetti.

Lara, the Cuban kickboxing sensation who likes to stick and move. Do you like his chances against Mr. Vendetti? Yeah, I like his chances. Overwhelming. I mean, look, there's the chance that one of these days Eris Lani Laro in his late 30s will show up old and he's been in more wars than we've been used to. You know, when you go to the Brian Castagno fight and certainly that incredible fight of the year with Jarrett Hurd, but he's too skilled. This will be a PBC on Fox main event. And if you saw last week's Sean Porter fight against really a tough and determined German in Sebastian Formella, it was one-sided in the end.

I think this is more of a showcase opportunity for him to keep busy in this division. And there are some killers at 154 waiting. This is one of the best divisions in boxing. PBC's got pretty much everyone who matters in that division under their hood. So we're going to see some really good matchups. Where are you on the Jeff Horn, Tim zoo fight do you like this one oh my i love this one look to be clear that's a wednesday fight at 5 a.m on espn plus given its location yeah shout

out to the plus for picking this up it's going to be a you know breakfast at wimbledon early morning treat here look i'm sorry the jeff Horn story's been too much fun to watch. He's, like, unintentionally funny in a lot of ways, Luke. The whole Aussie boxing scene is always, like, you know, they got two hot names. It doesn't matter the divisions. They just jam them together. You know, we've seen Anthony Mundine, the old shapeshifter,

fight from everywhere, it seems, from the tiny weight classes to heavyweight. This is a big fight down there, and it really has the potential to be ugly and one-sided. Look, Tim Zhu is a young puncher. He's the son of the great Costa Zhu, the Hall of Famer, the savage knockout puncher. But he ain't his poppy, and he's going to be moving up to a high level here against Jeff Horn. And for all we can say about Jeff Horn, the gym teacher turned unlikely welterweight champion when he upset Manny Pacquiao down under.

And by the way, go back and rewatch that. Uh, it's not a robbery. I'm sorry, Jeff Horn, like a fricking savage and they, and the referee led it.

So it, it wasn't a robbery. It really wasn't go rewatch that fight. Um, horns, you know, he's hung around and he, and he can fight as high as middleweight and he makes fun matches.

And yeah, he got stopped against that male dancer, Michael's are offfa but he came back and won the rematch in savage fashion it's entertainment it's fun when you get these Aussie Super Bowl fights and this is a big one for bragging rights down there but I think Jeff Horn's going to wallop him and I can't wait to watch it all right last but not least uh also on ESPN I believe this will be on saturday espn plus excuse me 7 30 p.m jose ramirez victor postal ramirez is going to be defending his wbc and wbo junior welterweight titles you had this one circled on the list as well bc why yeah this one snuck up on me i didn't realize it was this weekend until this morning uh look this is one of the best fights of the

entire summer that had been scheduled canceled res, rescheduled, and made. That 140 division is red hot at the moment, and Jose Ramirez has two of the four titles. Yes, we want to see him do the full unification with Josh Taylor, but this has been a mandatory that's been lingering, and we know Victor Postal, he stopped Lucas Matisse in the past, went all the way to the 140 title level to fight Terrence Crawford. He is a tough out. He seems to be reborn and refocused. Here's the deal about Jose Ramirez, Luke. Great human, but for him to win these elite fights, which he keeps winning,

he's got to go into action and go into war mode. He makes fun-ass fights. Postal stands back tall as a sniper. This is going to be a fun event. It's no guarantee that the champ Ramirez comes out with the two belts here. This is going to be a good one. There you have it. Okay, we'll get to

some more fights that have been announced when we do Odds and Ends, but for now, let's go to the portion of the show where you guys get to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. There's the old donkey. Okay, BC, let's kind of run through these a little bit here very quickly if we can.

From at PDWorld99. Oh, we kind of stole their thunder. Does the big announcement mean we don't have to hear Luke say, I have another job anymore? That is exactly what it means. Did you or did you not text me before the show started? Oh, we got to hurry and we got to get out of this hard time. Yeah, Luke, this is the last week of you pulling this crap on us i had okay the people i had somebody email me being like dude make more time and i'm like that's why the show used to be at 12 and now it's at 11 was so we could make more

time like i don't think folks understand if you have a radio show job you cannot be late there's no such thing as being late the show starts at one you it's not like missing a flight you can just get the next one you got to be on that one and you have to sign in and there has to be a show call ahead of time there's all kinds of stuff that has i can't make any more time than we've made here's my question bc are we going to go back to noon uh i don't know look there's a lot of fluid things you know still being discussed and talked about and uh but uh i don't care when we start i don't care if it's nine in the morning i don't care you know it's five o'clock somewhere let's set the time and

let's bang right it isn't it isn't really the morning you see it is it is it is on the west coast and we did noon just fine before. Yeah, but it's not on the East Coast or Europe or for our Asian fans. Morning Combat is just a name, for fuck's sake. Are we going to be literal about this? Fine, be that way. I mean, we spelled combat with a K. I'm sure this is a very serious show.

All right. Jay, can you find some Jigawatch and get off our screen already please here jay all right uh all right at ilia jay i didn't mean it all right i was i was i was yeah i didn't mean it don't get all at ilia 745 is it too soon for ferguson to fight dustin this year which dana white said was probably next why isn't there a mandatory suspension for a longer period of time given the damage he took there is bc here's how it works if you and i fought and we both fought and we looked like dustin poirier and dan hooker at the end probably dan hooker would have a longer medical suspension but let's say they were equal in amount let's say six months blah blah no contact okay there's two ways that works one

you can just let the six months go and then proceed to take a fight afterwards. Or you can go and get a medical checkup prior to the end of that six months. And if the doctor gives you a clean bill of health, in many cases, they will then just take off the rest of that time that's on the suspension. Now, that's not a guarantee, but let me say this, BC, I'm sure you've heard this. It's a very routine practice. That's why some of those suspensions are like nine months. You don't have to wait nine months if you get a clean bill of health. It's just sort of like a way to say, take some time, figure it out. If you can come back before then and a doctor says you're okay,

we're not going to stand in the way. Yeah, that's fair. And even like, let's not remember, remember the time Michael Bisping lost the middleweight title to the GSB and then fought Gastelum down in China like the next morning and got a doctor to clear him. That was a little bit sketchy. I don't think this would fall into that category. By the way, did you see Dana?

By the way, Dana was fired up Saturday night after the fight night card. He was taking shots at our buddy Scott Coker at Oscar's reported cocaine habit. Nothing speaks to a person's character more than mocking another person's addiction. But he was framing the Corey Anderson exit situation as we both agreed he'd be more competitive over there. I mean, look, he was really feeling it. But he did sort of seem to nod his head yes, that we're getting Ferguson Poirier. Luke, seriously, seriously, this is a historic time for the

lightweight division every single matchup with the elites is is bago porn at the at the stag party if you will this might be better on paper i mean name me the boxing or mma fights this calendar year that has the potential to be better than that. Holy freaking crap, Luke. When you think about what are some of the best non-title MMA fights you can make? Because Adesanya versus Costa, pants are around my ankles. You got city kickboxing

and you got a great fight independent of that. I think we're both probably on the same level. But if you had to say, okay, take out either of those considerations, non-title, any weight class, pair them up, what's the best fight you could make? I don't know if Ferguson versus Poirier is number one, but if it's not, it's number two.

I mean, we're talking about an all-time amazing non-title affair between two absolute dogs getting after it. And I still think, I know it was a bad showing for Ferguson in his last fight. There's no denying it. But like Frankie Edgar, be very, very careful about burying this guy too soon. I have made that mistake before. I did it with Orlovsky. I did it with other fighters. Don't do it just yet. Poirier also, a guy people wanted to bury. Not a mistake you want to make. I love that fight. We should watch that together behind separate plexiglass that only shows us from the waist up loop

because that's going to be a great fight. All right, I agree. From at little Cameron with an extra N, what is Covington's strategy, Brian, going into the Woodley fight? Is this a bad matchup for Woodley? And if so, what would this potential loss mean for him going forward? Yeah, this is, let's be, we're always fully honest. He might be cashing himself out of this fight.

And I say that as a Tyron Woodley super fan. I love the guy. I thought his welterweight title reign has gone very much underrated and sort of scoffed at in terms of what he actually accomplished. But I don't think the heart's there anymore to want to do this at this level and empty himself. I think he's willing to win fights if he comes out and he's the front runner and he controls it.

I don't think he's willing to empty himself anymore. That's why after the way he lost that last fight to Gilbert Burns, I was like, you know, maybe you should. Maybe you should finish because he accomplished so much. This is a bad style matchup for him because Covington's strategy should be do exactly to Woodley what Usman did, just tear at that freaking gas tank and cling to him for all five rounds. This is Woodley's opportunity here.

In a pure grudge match, in one we've wanted for a long time, if he's got anything left in that tank that he's willing to pour out and try to make one more run, then he's got to come out there and fight his freaking ass off luke because clevington's gonna make him do that um but i i don't i don't have any confidence that he will and i hate saying that and that's nothing against his manhood that's nothing against anything it's just look at the recent track record it's a bad style matchup i mean he hasn't just lost 10 rounds straight he's's lost them badly. Now, not everyone was a 10-8, but there was a couple of 10-8s mixed in there.

And the other part about it is people are doing things to him that they didn't do before, like taking him down and holding him down or slicing up his face in ways. Tyron Woodley was never the guy who would suffer those particular kinds of scenarios and fights. I think this is a bad fight for him, and I would suspect he's going to lose. Now, let me be clear about something. I still think Woodley's got good athleticism, and I think he's got big, big power. There are obviously scenarios where Woodley can win here.

Let's be totally clear about that. But Covington, at this stage in his career, for either of them, is a terrible matchup for Tyron Woodley. He's got volume for days, control positions, riding constantly on you. I actually think Covington has a pretty good chin, which we saw against Kamaru Usman as well. So Woodley, this is a winnable fight for him, but it's not very winnable. This is much more a chance for Covington, I think, to push Woodley for sure outside the top five and maybe into retirement altogether. It's not a great fight for him. I don't like it. I understand why he took it.

To me, it feels like a go big or a go home moment, and that's the kind of competitor that Tyron Woodley is, but from the outside looking in, I think it's a mistake. At Terrence underscore Kroonan. Brian, who is the... Let me answer this one. Who is the highest ranked fighter at the moment that Kamzat Shumayev could beat in his next fight hypothetically? And do you think he will be championed by the end of 2021? Can we please pump the brakes?

Even I... Yeah, we got to pump the brakes. Jesus Christ. I did. I dissected on this guy because I thought what he did at Fight Island was special. How could you not say it was special? Ten days, two weight classes, two opponents could land one punch on him.

Okay. But the guys who he was fighting, they're talented, but they are far from the elite of either weight class that he was in. It is not a fair representation of what he will face when he goes up the food chain. How will he do against those guys? I have no idea so i'm not declaring to you he doesn't have title futures in his days ahead i don't know that he does or that he doesn't because we simply do not have enough information to make a call other than to say

he's young he's exciting he's got a great game he's talented and aggressive he probably can go far but these are just generalities until the specifics get filled in. There is way too much hype around him too early. Jon Jones had hype around him early because he was beating established guys who were fairly high level at the time. Andre Guzmal, Stefan Bonner, Jake O'Brien. And they weren't even close. That is totally different than what Kamzat Shemaev has done to this point.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to find out all these answers, okay? Have them fight Gunnar Nelson tomorrow. Remember that name? I mean, come on. Put him in there with some live bodies. I can no longer do this because, Luke, you know me. I'm a sucker to flashy packaging.

You can take a product that I don't even like and put it in bright orange wrapping paper, and I'll buy it. I don't care. You don't have to write new flavor on it. I just bought a bright orange car, Luke. Okay. I'm a, I'm a sucker for that. Okay. I thought Maria Agapova was going to be your next champion. You got to find out what's in the, what's in the tank and the backbone and the adjustments and all of those things. I like the spirit of the question though. Style-wise, it seems like it's going to be able to take a lot of people down and attempt to smash them, at least.

But, you know, many have gassed in attempting to do that, Luke. Many. All right, and last but not least, Brian, from at Kevin underscore Michael underscore Kelly, what is your favorite work of literature? Work? Is that what we're doing here? Work? That means book, right, Luke? Not necessarily. It could be a play, right? Shakespeare? your favorite work of literature work is this what we're doing here work does that mean that means book right luke i uh not necessarily could be a play right shakespeare uh i'm really not all

that cultured luke you don't have a favorite book you've read that's fiction big big uh old school great gatsby fan all right that's fine that's good there's nothing wrong with that uh oh okay you know i'd be like i mean i like yeah i like the notice i'm going to name all mandated junior and senior year high school uh book readings like hey catcher in the rye was great but no luke we've had this discussion before and i don't think it's impossible to to gauge that by knowing my personality that i'm not an avid reader i try to be but i would say you know 80 of the books i've read as an adult have been uh athlete and celebrity biographies does that make me a bad person luke okay i read like 500 words on vince lombardi was a great book all right i love that book on

on jordan's failed run in 500 words 500 words is like an essay oh sorry maybe five million i don't know i'm whatever you know i'm not well educated i'm yeah i mean for me if you look at the books behind me the overwhelming majority of them are non-fiction i'm like you i don't read a lot of fiction um i have nothing against it but um uh i just i feel like to me the to me the natural world we live in is so fascinating and i want to understand it and which isn't to say you can't find it that way through fiction but i prefer the non-fiction mode of trying to understand the world in which we live that to me is very very entertaining i'm not really trying to understand much luke you know i like self-help books you know i like to improve myself but that's a lot of that is just junk science and i think you know that

um in terms of well look yeah but sometimes junk science is is the piece of meat you need to chew on to get through the day luke okay i've. Okay. I've chewed on a few. You know, as a day drinker, I can't hate on that. I think that's true. For works of literature, I'm going to go with book, Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner. And if I had to pick a favorite, like, do you have a favorite Shakespeare play, BC? Yeah, it was a big, what do you call it? The guy with the guy uh yeah shylock he was trying to take people's flesh and trying to get their his money back merchant of venice it

was you know it was uh it was a gripping portrayal of uh yeah it was shocker shocker that the guy who has weird banking conspiracy theories the first character he goes to is Shylock. Okay. I'll say this. For me, for movie, we went over this with the Japanese one, which is that Akira Kurosawa's Rand, which is based on King Lear. Also, Othello is a great play.

And I will go with that. Taming of the Shrew's pretty good. Who was the guy who couldn't make decisions, Luke? That guy. Say again? Who was the Shakespearean character who had trouble making decisions? I'm not sure who you're referring to. I don't know. I've read that book, too, and I saw the movies, and it was good.

Luke, Jay, can you chime in here? What's the guy's name? What the frick is that guy's name? Who had trouble making decisions? Yeah, I'm with you. I haven't read much since high school. It's going great. We normally talk about boobs and boxers on the show,

and now we're getting into Shakespeare. All right, well, speaking of that transition, BC, it is time where we look at boobs and boxers. Take it away, my friend. Yeah, that's what we do on this show. What we do is we scour the globe for the highs and lows, the in-between, the good, bad, and the ugly, and combat sports and beyond.

I think I could find that play. I know you have another job, Luke. I do have another job. All right, maybe not. For this week. Yeah, Macbeth, I don't know, whatever. I mean, do I care? I don't care.

You know what I care about, Luke? Fun videos, okay? Let's do it. It's Have You Seen This Shit. Let's start it off from over the weekend luke huge upset in ufc seven vegas fight night how about shana dobson she was the same level of a betting underdog against maria agapova that holly holm was against ronda rousey and luke no way this was a freaking disastrous performance from the kazakh slugger here in Agapova.

Yeah, you know what? Dobson from Washington, D.C. Shouts to her. She was three and four heading into this contest. She evened it up. Agapova has talent, but she fights just like there's a contest where if you don't end it within the first 60 seconds, you lose all your money. So she has no pace that is sustainable at all. I'm nervous here from her

because when she came out with those two UFC victories right away, I mean, she was spectacular and exciting. And she was like, you know, Ioana on steroids basically in some ways. I thought she almost emptied the tank dancing during the introductions and I was getting some Michelle Pineda vibes. And then to see her just fight so for broke and just go for it you can't sustain that i'm sure she thought

she was getting an easy knockout she was like what like plus 650 or i'm sorry minus uh minus 650 minus eight something ridiculous here as the biggest uh betting favorite on the card but um you know this is why they they they have the fights luke you know hopefully she can bounce back from this. Quick reminder about the comms.chamayev conversation. There's a rule that all fans should remember about UFC. Doesn't matter

who you are. Eventually, someone in this organization is going to put it on you. And when they do, how do you respond? We saw how Agapova responded. It's going to happen to Chamayev. We've not seen how he responds to that. So it makes it a big unknown. Well, Luke, I wanted to almost say that Stipe didn't win this fight.

D.C. lost it because, you know, Shana Dobson, credit for winning it. But, dude, Agapova, like, fell apart. Like, she just emptied. Like, the gas tank was leaking all over the floor there. I've never seen someone lose because of stamina that disastrously. We've seen people fade, fall apart, fall to the ground, get choked out. Luke, she was done. She was just done.

I mean, like, that's a tough loss, Luke. Yeah, but Dobson hung on, didn't get overwhelmed, took it to the ground when she needed to, and was able to score sweeps and reversals. That made a big difference. Yeah, yeah, shout out to that let's roll on here alexander pavekian as we mentioned with that giant knockout did you see the heroes welcome he got back in his russian hometown luke one day when i arrive somewhere i want this look

at this cape they're putting on him do they do this in columbia is this going to be my first day at cbs yes sir here's your producer credits thank you for joining us yes all right yeah dude he couldn't even get off the subway before they were putting that on him oh my gosh there's a full old school like uh event going on here this is great he looks like the dark lord or something right there what is he wearing i don't know senator palpatine though has to get to the uh the meetings i guess he's got to get to the Senate briefing with... Remember when they made Jar Jar a damn political member? Come on.

I know. The Gungans. I mean, the Gungans could not have been exterminated quicker. They live under the water in the secret area. Well, let's dump all of our trash in the water then because they need to go. Yeah, thank you. All right, hey, let's roll on. You want just a vicious and random kickboxing KO from over the weekend?

Luke, have that. Wow. I don't even know their names. Oh, he did the testifying too. Yeah, he did. They pulled him up in a suitcase. Yeah. Oh, man.

That is just. Yep. I think it got underneath. That's one of those losses where the kick to the face is obviously terrible and the thing that caused all the problems. But if you actually... I bet later on, he busted his head open, splitting it on his knee. The worst damage came from that.

It's like Arona. Arona... Excuse me. Rampage had that cut when he slammed Arona. And it was because Arona's head bounced off the canvas and slammed back into his. So his face was all bloody when he stood up. But it wasn't from anything else. It was just from Arona going limp. Yikes. All right. Hey, it's going to be hard to keep Web Scream off the show. I just want to tell you, Luke, he has built up a bullpen of just content for us.

You saw his great movie posters before, invoking Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger with Junior. Hey, how about twins? You want some twins from Christos Christoforos? Let's hit it, Jay. This guy's on fire, Luke. I'm sorry, you know? Glory Combat.

Only the hardcore can tell him apart. Oh, that is so good. Oh, that is so good. That's the movie Twins, basically, for folks who are not old and ancient and saggy bald like me and Brian. Why do I get to be, yeah, why do I have to be Danny DeVito? That's great. All right.

Hey, this is not the only fan artwork from this week. A guy named Scott Marshall, he's an artist on Instagram at OnyaBerry. I don't know what the hell that means. This was last year. Someone shouted it out to me. Check out this little piece of artwork invoking what would happen if you and I in the bar got into a little scuffle. Yeah.

I like how they lightened up Francis and Overeem for us. That is awesome. Is this white face or white chest? Yeah. Yeah, this is white washing. I don't know what this is. White washing. All right.

Yeah, I guess that's how he thinks a fight between us would go, Luke. But that's obviously not full disclosure. This one might be more like it of how a fight between you and i would go because that's slaptastic luke check these guys out what are they doing i get to be the guy in the green shorts i'll tell you that much i like his movement i like his rhythm oh yeah slap that shit luke so they can slap each other? I hope this is how this country settles, like, local grievances. Yo, have you seen that tradition in, like, parts of Peru? Maybe Bolivia, but I think it's Peru,

where, like, once a year, if you have a grievance with somebody, you can fight them in the town square. That's incredible. And then, like, all the beef is squashed after that. Have you seen that? I forget what it's called, but it's got this whole religious sort of overtone to it that's the way to do it man i'm not saying you should bring back duels but open hand slapping you'll be all right you know luke i'll slap the shit out of you okay that limits your abilities to win a fight against me if we're going just straight slaps all right stockton slap in the middle of a fist fight

i will 209 your ass, okay? Thank you. Hey, let's roll on here. Spring break, it's drunk chick hour, Luke. What is this called? I used to do this drill in youth football, but do they do this with bikini chicks on the beach? What's going on here?

I did this in youth football, too. The trick is you got to be the first. We saw this with the dude who challenged his dad. Remember that? Yes, yes. The trick is, look here, the first. We saw this with the dude who challenged his dad. Remember that? Yes, yes. The trick is, look here, big country gets up first. Bah! Look at the celebration. Luke, I want to do one thing in my life where people are willing to celebrate

this hard and aggressively in response to it. Is this going to be my first day at CBS? We do this to each other? I think that was you on Twitter last night, Luke. I've never seen people, like, love you so much. Yeah, I know. I was very surprised. I couldn't believe it. I've never had a crowd cheer for me like this either. But look,

that's a hell of a shot, dude. She actually forces a fumble here, no less. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, sign her up here. She could play DN. That's incredible. Alright, let's roll on here, Luke. Check out this beer pong teamwork here. Is this merely friendly work between gentlemen, or is there some backroom benefits going on?

Would you do this with members of the Showmalka staff who put this show together? So in a pre-COVID world, when I was in a fraternity and we played beer pong, you know, I've done horrendous things like this that are totally the transmission of communicable diseases. I cannot hate on these gentlemen. In a post-COVID era, this is, you know,

you know, these aren't the smartest people in the world. I mean, is that impressive? I don't know. It's hard to argue about germs when we came up through a society where you're passing the duchy to the left side to a lot of people in a crowded room, Luke. This is just one of those ideas that drunk white guys get that they think is like, you it's like well as long as

we're not gay we can totally do this meanwhile this is just like kissing the other guy basically you know what i mean that's why tip to tip is not only covet conscious it's it's you know you know what i'm saying you can do that with a we can do that you know like i said trojan you know protect yourself at all times bcs i'm wearing three condoms right now just so that's clear thank you thank you hey luke let's go on this week in bad parenting uh shout out to that state texas forever here it was grandpa's turn to drive the kids around luke i mean this was this was standard issue for like 1984 i don't know if you remember being that young luke but you can't do this nowadays i, I remember riding in the back of a pickup truck, not thinking twice about it.

And then years later, as an adult, everyone's like, dude, you can't do that. And I'm like, I legitimately did not know it was illegal. I had no clue. This is, I bet those kids are like, dude, grandpa is the best. Oh, it's the best. That is great. Wow. Yeah. Come and look growing up. Seriously. I tell my kids this all the dude, grandpa is the best. It's the best. That is great. Wow. Yeah.

Look, growing up, seriously, I tell my kids this all the time. They don't believe me. My grandparents would pull all the seats out of their van, and we'd just get to run wild back there. We'd wrestle. We'd watch. We'd do everything. I mean, yeah, you can't do that nowadays. All right.

Let's keep the train moving here. Hey, hey, Luke. Sleep down in the fire. This was supposed to be some x games shit luke but uh yeah look at that that's i mean that's what you get luke okay that's not a proper setup you know what mr net gator here didn't quite have enough speed built up did he i mean look that's i i don't see how that ends anyway. Also, why is his launch ramp a U-Haul cardboard box? They may have planned this, Luke. We have to be honest about that.

Who knows here? Dude, drunk white guys endlessly entertaining for their cell phones. Luke, shout out to that great website, show.store.com, where you can wear the ultra-comfortable MK gear. And our people are wearing it. Look at this guy, Peter Ray Naga at underscore ray24 on Instagram. Looking good there

in the Morning Combat winter hat. What is the shirt he's wearing? Is that Luca? Could be. It looks like someone with swollen balls. What is that? I don't know, but he's COVID conscious, so he's acceptable in the Thomas house, and he looks good in the dead of summer in that winter cap.

Let's roll. Aaron Gordon, Jay, is saying on the T-shirt there, the Orlando Magic Guard, maybe. I don't know. I don't really know anymore. Macbeth, Shakespeare, I don't know. All right. Hey, shout out to Bill and Jen's RV Adventure on Instagram.

They went on vacation in Lake Tahoe. And check out Bill wearing the very comfy green T-shirt right there. Love it. Look at this old bastard. Cool as a cucumber. Look at the scene where he's at, too. You know, his wife's like, what is that? What is that show?

What is it? He's like, no, I come here for the MMA breakdowns. Really, he comes for the dick jokes. So shout out to Bill there. Real big fan of him. Thank you very much. That's great. Also, we got a listener named Mike Booble of Oregon at MT Booble on Twitter.

He went down to Heseta Beach in his native state and went distance tip-on-tip there in the MK sweatshirt. Shout out. That is great. Look at this. Oh, that is amazing. By the way, where is Heseta Beach? I think it's in Oregon. I didn't do much research on it, but that sweatshirt, incredibly comfortable.

Cannot get it back for my wife. She stole it. Okay? It is what it is. Yeah, I've not put mine on yet, but I'm looking forward for the weather to turn. That is fantastic. Yep, yep.

Thank you, by the way, Mike Buble, for keeping the tip-on-tip tradition alive. And Luke, we started something here, right? With those Slovakian kickboxers. We didn't know what we started, but it's taken off like wildfire. It's gone Hollywood. Have you seen actor Shia labeouf's

ig lately luke look at this this looks like a senior picture glamour shot in an alley going full on tip on tip his new movie sucks did you see it which one is that tax collector have not seen it no no you've missed nothing actually i don't think i've seen any of his stuff since even steven so who am i to talk i did see uh arkansas on uh prime did you watch that no is it good vince vaughn yeah about the drug trade yeah it was it was good it was very good very good i think you should watch that okay let's keep it going here uh check out these bros windmilling on each other tip on tip style luke i'll ask you again oh sorry oscar meyer first latest commercial on hot dogs luke they must be watching this show can we get this sponsored you know what though but they didn't

quite tip it they more like they're more like toasting i don't know there's it's it's close it's close on there we'll have to analyze by the way this is the weirdest bit that we do you know the touching dicks bit i don't know how i feel about it even to this day but i quit my other job so what are you gonna do yeah it's it's too late Luke. You're in too deep Okay, and when you got people out here sending us these videos check out these two grown men Windmilling on each other Luke. I think is what they call it. There's some tip-on-tip touching here So I have to ask you just like the the ping-pong bit there on the beer pong is this just Two male friends getting down or is there some benefits here?

Are they fighting or just fat? I mean, fucking fighting, it's all the same, Luke, right? I can't get down on this, Luke, all right? Living the Louie Dog's the only way to stay sane. Oh, that is, that is, yeah, that's great. That is certainly something. There's many poorly lit bars in middle america for a reason luke okay shout out to omaha thank you uh rolling on here luke i look we know how much we both love the shevchenko sisters uh people flood my my dms with pictures

of them there's now people who have full channels dedicated to them. Have you been on at UFC Sisters KG lately, Luke? All it is is Shevchenko Sister Art. And what do you think about this, of the sisters as old school 1920s gangsters? You got any movement? Well, so it's like a Bonnie and Bonnie, more than like a Bonnie and Clyde kind of thing? Yeah.

Well, I think Antonina's playing Clyde fairly well there. To me, I like what Valentina's got rocking there with the Tommy gun, but I don't know about the rest of it. Old corn is nice. Okay. Okay. Do you have a favorite between the two, Luke? Because let's be honest, you love fiery South American women,

and although they're Kyrgyzstan, they are accepted as full-on citizens in Peru. I know. But Valentina's the dancing champion, so I'm going to go with her. Okay. All right. I switch by the day. I won't show you any other pictures on there, Luke, because they get a little bit racy,

but I do have live reaction video of everyone who watches this show as they pause this to jump on the UFC sisters account. Can we throw to that, please, Jay? This will also be my first day at CBS, I'm guessing. Thank you. And your last. All right. Jay, we are.

Luke, we talked about web screen before. He pointed this picture out to me. Did you see Democratic National Convention producer and director Glenn Weiss, the Emmy Award winner? I did see this. Running the entire show. Yes, this dude ran the DNC from this plastic table in his living room. Actually, a pretty good job. Notice shorts and no socks.

And what Webstream sent to me was that this is essentially Jay's dream peak form. Jay, how similar is your aircraft carrier to this? Look at Jay's gross-ass feet as he dries his balls on the heat of the... Jay, are you wearing pants by any chance, Jay? I am. I am indeed. I am wearing. But we're basically the same.

Because, you know, your hire at CBS was in some ways facilitated by Jay's great work and taking MK, you know, pandemic in our house and keeping the quality the same. Do you think Jay could pull off the DNC? Or were they inspired? Was Glenn Weiss inspired by Jason Aaron? That sounds more about right. Jay can't even pull off sending us audio that we can hear other than his voice, which to me does not feel coincidental.

That is very fair. Well, I have more hair than that guy, but other than that, it's about the same. Well, hey, back to WebScreen for a second luke uh you remember this album cover right how seminal in your life was this little piece of business right that's that's that is the that was one of the most important musical albums of my life vulgar display of power 92 is just you know beyond beyond compare well our friend web screen wanted to put a little bit of an MK twist on that to celebrate your hiring this week. And yeah, there we go.

Dude, how has Showtime not hired this guy yet? What are we doing? Look, he's making a strong case. He's either going to get hired or you're going to end up in a tub uh in an empty apartment missing a key uh organ like a liver you know what's funny those two are going to happen you know what's funny before the pandemic hit we actually did a photo shoot in studio and this is actually that is my fist that is a real photo we took i don't think we meant to use it for any kind of Pantera related

photoshopping, but I'll be damned. It works quite well. It really does. Let's close with this. Luke, we've long had a saying on this show and any podcast I'm a part of that you just don't tease the bag or you're going to get the mess.

Luke, check out this adult male. I'm not sure if you've had dates end like this, Luke, in your life, but that's got to hurt. That's, yeah. Why are you the way you are? Welcome to CBS, Luke. Great to have you. Okay.

It's like, well, on this note of champagne bukkake uh welcome to the company luke oh okay great i did want to celebrate with a drink luke i can't i can't you know raise my kevin nash koozie to you and tap it in real time so uh yeah all right shout out to luke welcome have you seen any of that shit yeah all right go send dick pics to uh bc's instagram uh with that mind, BC, we'll wrap things up here. Time for odds and ends. What do you got for us on the odds and ends? Quickly, last Saturday on Top Rank Boxing on ESPN, shout out to Joe Smith Jr. with a big-time light heavyweight win.

Luke, he went in there against Elider Alvarez, The Storm. If you remember, the guy that sent Sergey Kovalev to hell with one punch and then lost that rematch. He was the former sort of It champion at 175. If you don't know Joe Smith Jr., yeah, he's the guy who sent old Bernard Hopkins through the ropes that time, but he's still employed full-time in manual labor

and moonlighting as a light heavyweight. He made fun fights. He lost when he stepped up, but Luke, this is a guy who's, I think, finally taken the sport seriously. And he went in there against a legit guy and outboxed the hell out of him and stopped him late. An eye-opening performance. I think you 100% have to add Joe Smith Jr.'s name as a legitimate title contender at 175. It took a few losses. It took many a long day at the stockyard at the uh stockyard but he's here luke

he's here to stay so big win right there also i did want to uh oh shout out that big signing for the pbc i don't know if you saw this luke you know rugeru right regis progre yeah he's by the way who trained who is friends with jose aldo his wife is brazilian and loves mma trains in the gi in his free time. You want to talk about a boxer who is not a hater on MMA, Regis Progre is your guy. Yeah, go watch his absolute war for 12 rounds with Josh Taylor for those 140 titles last year.

A great fighter, was a promotional free agent, left Lou DiBella. He was circulating. He fought in DAZN a few times, fought in ESPN. Well, he just got hooked up with PBCc and we're gonna see him luke october 24th against juan heraldes on the undercard of that gervonta take davis leo santa cruz pay-per-view showtime pay-per-view and you want to talk about the matchups that can be made not just at 140 but should he move up to what we call the money division there at 147 he's a fight of the year contender waiting to happen every time out. He gets in your face, aggressive style, managed by some Hollywood elites

like who, Peter Berg, Marky Mark, and at least one member of the Funky Bunch. So big signing there. Can't wait to see him. So that's great. We should note there was a bunch of fights that were announced last week on the MMA side of things. Uriah Hall fighting Anderson Silva, which I don't fully understand why they made that fight, but okay, neither here nor there. I could go on and on, but the one that I want to focus in on was Amanda Nunes

is going to be back against Megan Anderson at 145 pounds. Now, the UFC, I think Dana White said at the post-fight press conference on Saturday, they are going to stock up 145 a little bit more than they have been. So that means that, you know, she'll have more to do than Amanda, presumably if she wins, she'll have more to do than just sort of once a year or whenever they can just find someone. Folks were like, oh, this is a lamb being led to the slaughter. And certainly I would not really argue with that.

I don't think it's fair to say that this is a very, very competitive fight. I mean, no disrespect to Megan, but we're talking about the GOAT here and the individual style matchups also aren't all that awesome for her. But here's the problem that I think folks need to, or at least there's a reality I should say folks should accept, which is, listen, they didn't throw her right into a title fight, Megan Anderson. They let her get a few fights into the UFC,

and some of those didn't go the way they were supposed to, but she is coming off of a win. Felicia Spencer already had her shot and lost they've waited long enough for her to mature into this opportunities no one else really ahead of her under more normal circumstances this is the way they would have gone anyway and by the way if you're a champion you have a responsibility to defend your title so if she wants to do the whole 135 145 thing this was an inevitability UFC has waited long enough I don't find it necessarily all that competitive but BC stranger things have happened so probably Amanda Nunes wins walking away but okay it's the perfect matchup who

else is she gonna fight and I have to say this like that's a fun style matchup a fighter who's that tall and long can do some things on the ground. In no world would we favor her to win, but I don't think this is, I mean, this ain't like when, you know, Shevchenko fought Ai and Chukagian. You're like, you know, I can't even find a path to victory. It's interesting. I do want to ask you as a spinoff to this. Real quickly, real quickly, real quickly. I'll leave it on this one, which is, remember,

Amanda Nunes knocked out Ronda Rousey in short order and Cyborg in less than a minute and Holly Holman under a round. Can Megan Anderson do that? Probably that and more. So the idea that she's going to take a beating worse than any of those other ones, I mean, I don't really find that to be true. No, I don't either. But do you think it's time for the UFC, given that Amanda Nunes has teased the idea of retirement before, given that her first child is about to be born with Nina, to just say, hey, look, give up the 135 title. Stay at featherweight. You can take long gaps as we take time to build enough 135 as champion, you certainly can fight them. Wouldn't this allow potentially the Aspen Lad types at 35 who are chomping at the bit to kind of make a name for themselves? I mean, look, I know if this happens, they're going to throw Holly Holm back in that title picture

as quick as freaking possible. But it might be that time, Luke. Why hold that division hostage if someone's going to be busy and there isn't names anyway? So here is where I'm with you on that halfway. I think we're getting to that point, and I think that is an inevitability. I just don't think we're there yet. Number one, as I mentioned, they do need to kind of stock up 145 before they ask her to just leave, because at a bare minimum, she may find herself winning this one quickly.

The camp was fine, and she's ready to turn around and do it again very soon. I doubt that with the kid on the way, but one certainly never knows. To your other point there, it's not like there's a clear number one, number two contender. They've got some things to sort out there as well. So my thought is in six months, we probably will be there. But for this moment, not necessarily a thing we have to rush. But I think you're probably right on balance. Last point of the show, Luke. Did you like that Bellator double header announcement for september 11th and 12th i

believe it is uh uh the the vacant bantamweight title bout will be the saturday night main event with uh patchy mix against juan archuleta and uh what was the uh the rematch phil davis against two uh machino machino yep that's the other one also uh, John Fitch, Neiman Gracie, and I think Zingano and Liz Karmouche will make their Bellator debuts. Yeah, so there's a lot going on there for Bellator. Really like that for them. That Archuleta-Patchy Mix fight, I got to tell you, that's another one where Archuleta, tons of experience,

hard to defeat, very well-rounded, hard to hurt. Patchy Mix doesn't have that, but what he does have is he is an absolute finisher, a very, very talented guy. He's got a Jackson wink. Great guy at taking the back, great striking, hard hitter. So it's like this guy who's got all these finishing tools

with all this guy who's got, you know, sort of the way to manage around and do well against elite opposition. It's a phenomenal matchup. Sad that Kyoji Horiguchi can't be here to defend it, but we all know the story there. So I love that fight for Bellator as well. Okay, last but not least,

I didn't mention the top of the show because we kind of got carried away. I always have to thank Showtime here. If you would like to try Showtime, you may do so. Go to Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce.

Please give this video a thumbs up. Subscribe to this channel because, folks, we've been teasing it forever, but you now see that there is something we were absolutely being serious about. Please, if you subscribe now. One more time. I wanted to raise the glass to you, Luke, and raise it and just tap you. This is a big moment, okay? And, Luke, these are days to remember right here, right?

Never before and never since. A lot of years. A lot of years grinding, Luke. Taking that stick and banging it against a tree, all right? You've penetrated. So let's do this. Big things coming to CBS Sports, Showtime, all that. MK all day, most days, a lot of days, MK to the ultra, okay?

And hey, look, CBS Sports HQ just acquired a pretty talented combat analyst as well. Yeah, I appreciate that. Well, I just want to be clear about something. I mean, yesterday I had to announce it because I am the one making the most amount of change. But the reality is, BC, this is our announcement. This is our future.

This is our project. This is just as much about you as it is about me. Granted, yeah, I made the switch. But now it's just about what we are doing together and what we are going to do with this audience. And so for that, I am just unbelievably grateful. I'm glad that we got a chance to make this happen and work together because it's been just one of the most rewarding projects I've ever been a part of. And I made the switch for a reason, BC, because I am betting on it to win.

And I think we will all in due time. Of course, as we mentioned, things are going to roll out slowly. We're not going to just jump into anything. We're going to build towards something sustainable and likable and different and cool so yeah that all kicks off next week come on over to the morning combat side all right you don't want to see producers dancing in the video oh jay's always getting in our videos my bad uh but come on over to the morning combat side okay tried to sugar knight them luke but uh there you it. And follow us, by the way, on social media. You can see the Twitter stuff there and as well as the Instagram and YouTube,

obviously, for Morning Combat. All right, BC, I've got to get to my other job. For the very last time, I have another job I have to get to. You'll never hear me say that again, probably. Probably, right? Probably. Forever, I suspect. So until then, everyone, thank you so much for watching.

For BC, for Malka, for Showtime, for CBS, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be you next time. you