MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Fury vs. Joshua Delayed | UFC 262 Fallout | Jake Paul vs. Kamaru Usman? | Ep 158

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

MK all day. Every day. The boys return to breakdown all the latest news, including Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua being delayed after an arbiter ruled that Tyson Fury owes Deontay Wilder a trilogy fight (15:30). Plus, they discuss more fallout from UFC 262 (35:30) and look ahead to this weekends Font vs. Garbrandt card (61:05). Also, Jake Paul says he is a free agent, is Paul vs. Kamaru Usman really a possibility (51:00)? Lastly, a quick lookahead to Bellator 259 (67:00). 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the 19th of May 2021 and it is time everybody for a wednesday edition of morning combat hello everyone this is your duo uh dynamic or otherwise we're from cbs sports my name is luke thomas and on the gentleman on that side of the screen is the he's not really the king of connecticut that's because that's ap, but he's definitely the crown prince. You're like one of those Saudi crown princes, but this time, not Saudi Arabia, I guess just Connecticut. All right, I would have taken Connecticut's court jester, Luke, given that I come from the opposite side of the traditional Connecticut tracks.

But either way, happy to be here on this hump day. Luke, you know what I had yesterday? A rarity. Diarrhea? Well, actually, diet-induced indeed. Luke, I had an actual day off. And I mean, do you know how hard it is? Not a Sunday, right? You know, not like where you wake up late from covering fights the night before,

but you still got to plan stuff for the week. No, an actual tell everyone else to F off. I'm going on a day date with my wife. I'm going to my kids track meet, taking the family out for dinner. One of them type of days off, Luke, it is refreshing and spectacular. Your sign today is just ridiculous. You are an absolute buffoon. But aside from that, what? I think that's why, you know, that's why the lord rested on the seventh day luke we all need a good recharging once in a while okay yes they certainly do but i will say this people don't realize this like no one needs to cry about us for the what do you want to call it the labor demands of our jobs you know we're not 12 year old kids in coal mines uh it's not

exactly the kind of work that we do but i will, here's one thing if you want to work in this industry, boxing or MMA, it doesn't matter, or in this case, both, you have to look in the mirror and be like, I'm going to give up most of my Saturdays for the rest of my life. That's a real thing you have to do. And with that, I'm going to give up my friend circle, which happened to me a long time ago. You know what I mean? I'm going to give up most friend circle which happened to me a long time ago you know i mean i'm going to give up most things that would make me a regular person right including

yeah you know friends in your town that you would want to have over no there's none of that you know you don't do that right the truth of having a great job unless you're like dana white or something i i don't know but like for us we have great jobs. We have terrible social lives. It's like our circle of friends is like two dudes, you and me, basically. That's really all the friends that we have. We have pets to like emotionally cope with and then lots of drugs. Oh, well, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.

Purposeful or otherwise. Yes, indeed. Yeah, exactly. I count alcohol as a drug, though. So that's like part of it. Yeah, caffeine too, Luke, which is why I'm using this fantastic mug that you can't purchase. But how good does this look in my head? Wow.

You know what? You can purchase this one, though, if you want to go to store.show.com. I think that's what it is. Or maybe it's store.show.com, and you can get this wonderful tumbler of which I've broken two. I should say, when I say me, I mean mostly my family. Yes. Broken two of these, but we store. Store.show.com, and you can get this wonderful Tumblr, of which I've broken two, I should say. When I say me, I mean mostly my family. Broken two of these, but we have two more, so, you know. Are you trying to say because they're Latina and they're loud,

is that why they broke it, or are we going to be a little bit more straight and narrow here? That was just unnecessarily racist by you. I'm saying it because they tried to do dishes with wet hands, motherfucker. You're always like, you know, my family's having a party outside because they're Latino, and I'm always like, look, please, please, clean that up a little bit. I don't know if I've ever said that, but they definitely did break two of these motherfuckers. I can tell you that.

We do have a merch update, Luke. Speaking of people. Why don't you tell me about it? All creeds. I have talked to the merch man himself today. So here's the deal. The new site is ready for launch and it has been, they are clearing up some final legal mumbo-jumbo that big corporations need to do you don't need to care about that i know you don't but it's coming it's we're like hours slash days away i have seen the site we're going to start with a launch there's a lot more new stuff that's going to be updated as the launch continues uh it's fantastic fresh new merch some of the stuff you've seen on us in various episodes. Some you haven't seen at all. And it's here.

It's ready to go. International shipping. All that stuff we prepared you for. Yes, this is a little Chinese democracy like Gods and Roses. Where's that album? We've been telling you it's coming forever, right? It's coming, though. And we're coming.

And we're ready. We want you to wear us on your skin. All right? Take a little bit of us home with you. It's coming. Get ready. All right? Put your cash bit of us home with you. It's coming. Get ready. All right? Put your cash together.

Get a few shekels on the shelf, and let's go. Let's do this, Luke, okay? All right. Okay, so we have a lot of show to get to today. We've got some big boxing news, something like that. A little more of 262 we never quite got to. Somehow he finds a way into the show. I don't know. Brian loves him. Jake Paul. We'll be talking about him a little bit later and then of course we do

have to look forward to Bellator 259 as well as UFC Fight Night versus Garbrandt one small note BC just prior to the show Bellator announced not for Bellator 259 this Friday but in June for Bellator's 260 and then 261 now they didn't say they were going to have a full arena at Mohegan but they did say limited tickets would be available to fans so they're going to stay at Mohegan Sun I guess BC for the time being even UFC president Dana White saying they may take pay-per-views on the road depending on what opens up or whatever but they're going to have most of their fight nights if not all of their fight nights at the apex because they didn't plan for the country to really be reopened in a way that they could explore until 2022 i suspect bellator

will be doing something kind of similar and i even think what dana said is going to change soon because stuff's happening and as long as stuff keeps happening in the good direction luke which it feels like it is right today in connecticut I don't know if it's other states too. I know I can have my mask off in most places. I mean, look, regardless, seriously, regardless of your political stance, your Fauci stance, all that bullshit, we as a community, whether we're just talking you and I and our MK audience

and our staff and crew or us as humanity, we've been through a lot of bullshit over the past year and a half. We lost some people we love and care about, but I really the the it's not just light at the end of the tunnel the door to the tunnel's been kicked open great news about bellator coming back with fights i know concert schedules are getting launched left and right uh regular life is back and i'm i'm happy luke that we made it through the fire together yeah i mean not not not quite regular life because like i don't know what happened in connecticut but uh in the major cities where i live it's true we lost 18 of our restaurants

they just couldn't make it you know so like you know a lot of people lost their lives a lot of people lost their fucking business their jobs you know um but to your point cases are dropping everywhere here in dc they dropped the mask mandate on Monday. Everything, everything, including sports venues, the whole nine yards, bars, restaurants, blah, blah, blah. They opened completely June 11th. We had a report yesterday out of Texas when the governor lifted the mask mandate. There were some concerns about what might happen, but the reality is what the researchers found was mask mandate, no mask mandate. People's behavior one way or the other didn't really change. Now, the bad news was it didn't result in a short-term boost in employment,

but the vaccines are working, cases are dropping everywhere. But look, that stuff's coming. 2021, BC, is going to be a much better year than 2020. And it's going to be a huge year for MK, a huge year for Fight Sports, but it's going to be a huge year for humanity. I know we lost people, we lost businesses, but stuff's going to repopulate. We're going to be back at it.

And I'm excited, Luke. I'm really excited. So great news there. I'm also excited, Luke, about the really good interviews that you and I have been putting out on MK lately. In fact, right now, sir, people can check out my one-on-one with the Tartan Tornado, Josh Taylor, ahead of

Saturday's must-see ESPN Junior Welterweight Undisputed Championship bout with Jose Ramirez. I also chatted with the great Chris Cyborg that I really encourage people to check out. Always a sweetheart, a genuine person. And then, Luke, some people say I got the short end of

the stick. You got the longer end, is what they're saying you talked with Valerie Lareda rising Bellator star and Luke Thomas I believe we have a clip to throw to about this yeah I guess we do I don't need luck

on Friday but I can't wait to see you fight thank you so much nice to see you again oh god oh god oh my Thank you so much. Nice to see you again. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, my God. You know what's so funny about this? I didn't even request this interview.

Our producer got hit up by one of her people and was like, hey, I'm going to book it. One of you guys have to do it. And before I could even get to my phone to say yes or no brian's like luke's gonna do that shit and he's gonna love it they waited for me to do anything i didn't even see her on the screen because this is the zoom screen this is where my camera is i have to kind of watch but i guess i saluted her after she did that which i didn't even know brian hit me up and then they made this well i mean very funny very funny first of all i hear it's a great interview all things considered i'm gonna listen to it i hope everybody else does too on

youtube i hear it's great it's actually it's actually like one of her better interviews quite candid right no and you told me the subject matter and it's intense it's it's real so that's great it's real stuff but she gave you the she sealed it she sealed it with a kiss and your reaction was like sergeant sergeant sergeant at arm bro i didn't see her i was i was trying to keep it professional i was trying to keep i mean you were in full mass salute luke but you know couldn't you have a better set you're the king of technology you buy all your own shit you know you can put the playback screen next to the camera so it looks like you're looking at both right now luke i'm looking at both yeah uh you're looking at both because you

have the world's simplest equipment and i don't i have three different computer systems all working with two different camera systems it's a little bit more it's a little bit more you know bells and whistles uh i just haven't taken the time to do it the way you're talking about okay but yes those things are up on the youtube channel youtube.com slash morning combat seriously at all and all if you guys missed the valerie loretta interview we talk about the differences between taekwondo taekwondo and Thai boxing for her but more importantly she talks about how it just came out of nowhere her grandfather died during the pandemic from covid and she talks about the story about not being able to say goodbye to him uh really uh in the

hospital it's terrible um but you know what she's doing pushing ahead so uh it's actually one of her better interviews i would argue and then uh as i understand it mr taylor had no love whatsoever for the youtube boxers huh yeah yeah well look look at this fight saturday is the antithesis of the youtube movement so uh shout out to him you know two unbeatens four titles at stake we're gonna get into that later in the week as well but check out all that great content chris cyborg saying she still catches up with gina carano now and then so a little bit of interesting stuff there luke but uh that's all the bullshit i got i'm ready for the show all right all right well uh let's just remind folks if you want to try showtime you can showtime.com for a 30-day free trial or

we'll put up this url right here it's um i think we have it but it's uh show.com i believe slash bellator mma you can throw to that one you can get uh 4.99 a month for the first six months uh let's see uh the email morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to get in stuff for today's it's probably a little late now but today's fan submissions but certainly for friday's dead wrong you can get that in and uh bc anything i'm forgetting anything else of note no that's about it luke i just want to say i love our viewers okay so we're back let's do it let's buckle in let's get ready okay hope everybody out there's doing well let's live our lives it's time luke i'm right i'm all right we're gonna i can't wait to go to

miami with you luke i want to go to vegas with you for we should tell the people we should tell them so showtime asked me when i was in mohegan sun for the the last bellator fight they're like do you even want to go to this main way thing and i told him i was like look you're not gonna hurt my feelings if you don't pick me you know like y'all got a job to do i understand y'all want me to go down there and you know do my kind of thing uh because i figured that because of brian's involvement in boxing right he did the filling for showtime for jim gray he's obviously got the whole thing with uh nbc sports he's going to be a good fit no matter what i didn't know if you know yes mk can do just about anything but i didn't know if

they would want to use me but they hit you know they hit me up yesterday and you and they said as i reacted over text they don't want you luke you know no no disrespect they want morning combat morning combat i understand i understand but like morning combat is it is brian campbell it is me it's not a different version of ourselves it's the version that happens when we come together which is a slightly different thing i understand but it's it's built on authentically who we are. So they still want me to go, and I could use the money. So I'm going to cash that check, BC. That's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to go to sunny Miami. It should be nice. Do you want to go to Little Havana with me, and we can eat some, like, authentic Cuban food? Yes, I do. I want to do it. I want the full experience. All right?

I'm ready. All right. We got dock cameras following. Luke, it's going to be a big deal. That, Condor, Pueblo 3 is good. I mean, let's go to the full experience. All right? I'm ready. All right. We got dock cameras following. Look, it's going to be a big deal. That, Condor, Pau, WeeWay3, let's go to the desert together. Look, we could hug our fans. What a time to be alive. What a time.

All right. Well, with that in mind, we got some topics to get to, so let's get to them now. Topic number one, BC, this is a big one. An arbitrator, an American arbitrator, and by the way, we have found out that this is in fact legally binding it's not a court order but a court could enforce it such a way that there would be a distinction without really a difference in any case an arbitrator has ruled in favor of deontay wilder that tyson fury must face him again before september 15th now they can pick the location they can pick the date as long as it's all within that parameter, they have some degree of flexibility. So top rank, who is in charge

essentially of Tyson Fury, they have said, you know, we're not even going to pay Deontay Wilder to go away. We're just going to book that fight between Wilder and Fury 3. We'll do it somewhere in July, perhaps at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. We're not going to pay him to go away. Others still think that paying him to go away might be something in play. Alexander Usyk came out before the show and I guess had a message on social media wanting some cash, although he might end up getting an Anthony Joshua fight. Okay, BC, we've got to go to you first on this. I've set up the basic details here.

This does seem like really big news. Now, it's not necessarily all bad news, but it's not necessarily all good news. Give me your sense of how important this is and what's going to happen next. First of all, this is so boxing. This is so boxing. I've been on this show every episode for the last three months being like, Fury Joshua is one of the biggest fights of our lifetime. I want it so badly, but I'm sick of waiting for all the details to get ironed out. All these false reports of,

we got a verbal agreement, but you know, we still got to wait for the site money and both sides to sign all this BS. I was like, make the fight. I think they came as close as they could come to making the fight. And then this comes out of left field. So here's the crux of it in my eyes, and I don't know all the information because, one, I don't have a legal background, and two, I don't have access to all these documents. But all along, we have heard Bob Arum,

the co-promoter of Tyson Fury with Top Rank and obviously the connection to ESPN, say, look, we've gone over the documents, and from our perspective, that third fight guaranteed between Fury and Wilder because Team Wilder waited too long to kick it in and because of the pandemic last year and all that, it's expired. They have no legal recourse. Everything's fine. So I can't figure out here, Luke, if this was a monster misstep from Arum, other co-promoter Frank Warren, from even the controversial Daniel Kinahan, who's an advisor

to Fury through MTK Global, if this is a major fuck up from them to not realize that it wasn't 100% and that now that they're going to have to get burned for it, or if this is some kind of like Hail Mary in legality terms that won for Wilder. And I know that, you know, the comments from Arum saying he was as shocked as he ever was that the arbiter ruled in favor of Wilder. Well, you know, whoever's right, whoever's wrong, this is wild. I think there's actually more good news than people realize here, okay? Are we going to get Fury Joshua next? It doesn't look like it. So yeah, there's some lamentable stuff there. You want both to be undefeated. Well, they're not undefeated. Joshua's already lost, so that's already out there. But you want both of them

to be at the peak of their powers, bring all four belts in there. Heck, do it in England, which I've been saying forever, but Saudi Arabia came in because of the site fee and the pandemic and all that. But we may actually be okay in the meantime, because the one thing this has done has speeded up the process of getting through the hurdles that everyone involved will need to get through to actually make the fight they wanted to make, which was Fury Joshua. And let me explain this. You mentioned the potential of a step-aside fee. And Frank Warren, Fury's promoter, came out, co-promoter, came out and said, you know, we don't want to pay Wilder more than $20 million. Well, then that didn't last long because Wilder's new trainer,

former heavyweight Malik Scott, a guy who got knocked out by Wilder in the past, they're good friends, he came out and said, look, Wilder's not taking step-aside money from anybody. He wants Fury, he wants the fight, and he's coming back for blood and he's coming back for vengeance. And Luke, to me, I don't know. I kind of like that narrative, I kind of like the

idea, even though I want Fury versus Joshua more than anyone else does, if you're telling me to get to that, we're going to rush in Wilder Fury 3 with a Wilder who's now had more than a year off, is angry, is coming back ready to attack and be volatile, and has a chance to ruin this for everybody, to me, that's good theater, give me Wilder Fury 3. And on the flip side, if they're going to enforce this mandatory of where Anthony Joshua has to fight unbeaten Alexander Usyk, the former Undisputed Cruiserweight Champion, who finally made that big heavyweight step up against Chisora and look good in a close fight and won it, I kind of really love that fight too. If it all leads to an end game in which the winners of two fights fight each other for that undisputed championship, let's say

early next year, then to me, that's a win, right? Because we're still going to find out what we want to find out. Who's the best heavyweight of them all? Can we get a one name, one champion, one division, undisputed dream? All of that's great. But it's not lost on me, Luke, that A, this is still boxing and this is embarrassing that we're going through the soap opera. And B, that perfect dream scenario I just threw in there and said, well, it's not all that bad. Check this out. That could get screwed up too, because this is boxing right at the end of the day. But look, I don't hate Fury Wilder 3 as much as everyone else. I think that's really my biggest point. It's embarrassing.

It's a joke. It's so ridiculous. But it still may be okay in the end, Luke. Okay? That's really my biggest takeaway. It's weird. It's like you ever had that friend or maybe a relative or maybe a significant other, just somebody in your life who gave you gifts who were perennially not listening to what you actually asked for when they asked you what you wanted for your birthday or for

christmas because you don't want to be a dick about it right they went through the whole process of trying to find something they they thought about it they spent their hard-earned money they presented it to you like it's still a nice gesture no matter what and hey even if they didn't exactly give you what you asked for sometimes they can give you something that's actually pretty cool you might find some use for that's really what boxing is in my life boxing is like the person who gives me gifts i didn't really ask for and then the ones i did ask for i don't really tend to get by and large but i can't complain because doing that would be a spoiled thing to do like you're right let's say joshua ends up fighting Usyk.

I don't think that will happen, but let's just say that he does. Is that the worst fight in the world? Far from it. Deontay Wilder III against Tyson Fury. Is that the fight that I want to see next? No, it's not the fight that I want to see next. Is it the worst in the world? No, because A, your point is no matter who wins among these four,

the eventual winners will fight each other, and then that will be probably assuming, well, the winners may end up fighting each other. And then that would tell us who the world's most dominant heavyweight is. Yes, yes. Yeah, I don't know exactly how it's all going to play out. But there's also some risk, dude. Like, what if Wilder probably won't win? I would not bet on him to win.

But, dude, like, is it out of the question that a guy who was a historic puncher could cause an upset? No, it definitely is not uh there that's a real thing on the other side Usyk didn't exactly dazzle at heavyweight but he dazzled a shitload at cruiserweight and maybe a fight against Joshua if they make it um he could play spoiler you could get a lot of really topsy-turvy results here so it's frustrating that they the only thing i don't like bc it's not that we're getting what we're getting the only thing i don't like is what you refer to at the beginning of your answer before which is how many months have we sat here and we've been performed on like chinese water torture of it's coming it's almost there fury joshua it's gonna be saudi arabia huge fight burst and every week it's just one more battering there, Fury Joshua, it's going to be Saudi Arabia, huge fight burst,

and every week it's just one more battering you, and you're like, okay, where is it? And then all of a sudden, yank. Dude, I feel like something's a little off here. Not with the arbitrator being paid off or something. I don't mean that. What I mean is, do we really believe that Bob Arum had no idea the arbitrator was going to do this I have a hard time believing that or that they made this grand announcement right before not announcement but a suggestion anyway right before the arbitrator finally decided in Wilder's favor something seems off about it to me one way or the other but I guess we're gonna get what what the hell we're gonna get look history would tell you you're right for assuming that because there's been a lot

of shenanigans and this type of stuff. So I wouldn't doubt it. But I guess, you know, to re-clarify or sum up my whole point is what we really want in this Renaissance era of, I don't want to say historically great heavyweights, because again, they have to prove that by fighting each other. Fury looks like a historically great heavyweight to me. But again, he's got to prove it by beating Joshua and really stamping that down. But at least we have fun guys who seemingly have wanted to fight each other, and we have a

structure in place that even though we can't get people like Crawford and Spence in the ring together, we have already gotten Wilder and Fury together in the ring twice, including one time when they were at completely polar opposite ends of the promotional and networks scape. So that's all good news. What we want in this renaissance era is for them to fight each other and do it often. So again, if the fallout of losing Fury, AJ

right now speeds up that process and now we suddenly have two really interesting matchups to get excited for rather than one, I'm into that. But we also do have to take into account in terms of the timing that it goes back to what we said to open the show like the world's just starting to open up again in certain pockets i know it's the numbers aren't great everywhere but uh you know we're starting now where a legion stadium with 80 000 people

is a possibility right jerry world where we saw Canelo with 73,000 is a possibility. I would much rather see AJ versus Fury, and this is no disrespect to Saudi Arabia, in a giant stadium like London's Wembley Stadium with a packed to the gills, emotional, crazy crowd, rather than I would want to see them collect 150 million in the middle of the desert just to put the fight on under COVID, right? So it may all work out in the end, Luke, and maybe the opening middle of the desert just to put the fight on under COVID, right? So it may all work out in the end, Luke, and maybe the opening up of the world will help this, where we had to sit through this ridiculous delay because a fight that big, you're not going to put it on unless you can get a giant crowd or somebody giving you stupid money. It looked like they got close to

somebody giving them stupid money, but now, look, at the end of the day, I just want to see great fights. It seems we're going to get that no matter what. And, Luke, I am really seriously not out on the idea that Deontay Wilder is a very serious live dog if they do end up speeding up a trilogy fight against Fury like July. Like, that's like right around the corner. Because, Luke, Wilder obviously has the outpunch of a lifetime, where it doesn't matter how many mistakes he makes, he can win the fight. But this is kind of a perfect storm, where he got embarrassed on a level

we never could have imagined somebody that elite could. Not just that he was stopped in a one-sided fight in which his corner threw in the towel, but that there were so many excuses around it, and everything Wilder said publicly made him look awful. That time away has to have rebuilt a dangerous energy inside of him. Does it mean he took all that time and became a better boxer? We're not going to know until he gets in the ring, but he could really ruin everyone's plans in such a destructive way. And what's one thing you and I said immediately after the second Fury Wilder fight, this whole idea that, look, it looks like Fury's the better fighter by far.

I don't think we need a third fight. But if Wilder could decide, I'm not playing for 12 rounds. I'm not going to counterpunch. I'm going to attack this guy with everything I have and make it as dangerous a fight early as I can. That's insane theater. The videos I've seen, the language coming out of Malik Scott, his new trainer, that's telling me this is kind of in play. So storyline-wise, Luke, I love the idea of Wilder going after Retribution. This is in a life-changing fight to Fury. For

Fury, this would be a fight I would have to do if I'm him just to get the fight I actually want. There's danger in that, Luke, when you're not as dialed in in terms of like, I need to get the fight I actually want. There's danger in that, Luke, when you're not as dialed in in terms of like, I need to get through this fight for all the right reasons. So I'm into that freaking storyline. Believe me, dude. But we could sit here also and laugh at boxing

for just being boxing. I mean, this is a joke. I mean, you know, I admire your, this is why you're a boxing fan because you have this sort of endless optimism about what it ultimately turns out. And sometimes it turns out just true beauty and joy but what i mean to say is it's funny like in mma they can't make the big fights because there is a lot of injury or um you know

there's no there's no co-promotion right it really usually prevents it none of those things really exist in the same kind of way in boxing but yet because the fighters there are so empowered and have so much control over their career, they find ways to insert clauses, whether they're rematch clauses or arbitration clauses or some kind of way to protect their interests. And it has a way of just delaying what you're actually looking for. It's kind of funny in that regard. Listen, I think your optimism could be... Listen, who the fuck knows what's going to happen? Your optimism, well, could be 100%, 100% on the money. Is it also possible, BC?

And I think you would agree with this. Just as a rational observer, I don't know that this is the likeliest scenario, but it's worth thinking about the fact that Fury could go in there and stomp on him and this was a giant waste of our time. Or Joshua could lose to Usyk and then the whole shit gets turned upside down like it's just a dude this was a weird reorientation of the ship into new seas and i don't know if

they're choppy i don't know if they're smooth i don't know where it's headed but it's a new course to be sure buckle in is what i would say yeah and believe me you have to lie to yourself and be an eternal optimist to stay to stay at this insane and all us hardcores in boxing we know this feeling you gotta keep that up you know if you're gonna stay the course because then when you get the fights and they're amazing and they change your life i mean look i still think about wilder fury one in 2018 in los angeles when i stood up at the end of the fight and my pants were soaked and not because I soiled myself because I was sweating with so much drama and

intensity I mean that's only what super heavyweight boxing could do at the highest level um I mean Fury Joshua would have locked up the championships though Luke in that two fight series probably for over a year so again optimism wide if we speed up the process and get the best to fight the best maybe get dillian white in there i don't know worst case scenario i mean what is the worst case scenario usic upsets aj and gets stuck in a rematch with him uh fury wilder fight to another controversial draw i mean there's a lot of bad case scenarios here luke i'm not trying to be rosy tomorrow's on you completely but but yeah, we'll see what happens. Yeah, I guess we're going to see.

I guess we're going to see. Here's what I don't expect. Arum was trying to suggest that he could make Fury Wilder 3 in July, maybe August, and that they could do Fury Joshua three or sorry what am I saying Fury Joshua one uh in November or December even if even if Deontay loses again let's say loses badly or quickly you know like no big deal do you really believe that fury would fight twice that they could make those two fights in the same calendar year i'm not saying it's impossible but i do find that unlikely as long

as he doesn't take damage it's much more possible against wilder and that's a great what if right because again wilder could lose every second of the fight and still floor him or knock him out but i do think because it's fury luke i'd give this a much better chance because here is a guy luke who let's not forget has been so up and down throughout his career in terms of putting forth the best version of himself that's why between the first and second wilder fights i thought it was potentially dangerous for fury given his issues in the past with substance abuse mental health issues to take so much time off and build up with two gimme comeback fights first. Because that's not, you know, like we've seen Fury play down to the level of his competition

and come in fat many times. I think he's actually at his best when he's active. I mean, Conor McGregor's not too different in that regard, when he's very active and tuned in and mentally focused. So in the end, Luke, knowing that these, look, the third Wilder fight and the potential of a first fight against AJ are two life-changing purses put together, right? I could see Fury being dialed in for that in, in as long as he isn't hurt, turning that around relatively quick. I don't fear that as much. I

fear more for everyone involved that wilder is going to be so much more dangerous than they even realize with this much time off to be this angry i'm less convinced but can't say you're wrong certainly cannot say you're wrong i just don't know either i guess we're gonna have to see but what a hell of a situation jesus christ so i mean any idea on when like is there a deadline i guess there's no deadline the only deadline is september 15th like is there any other deadline they have to reach before to like what do you know about how quick this is my question how quickly can they make a wilder fury three fight uh you know we can go on the reporting of what's out there dan rayfield who who works for

himself now with fight Freaks Unite, his subscription newsletter, I saw some reporting from him where he said even that September date from the arbiter is still up for negotiation within all parties. So, look, if you're Fury and Frank Warren and Bob Arum, I think you still go down the road as much as you possibly can of what's Wilder's price. What could we possibly offer him?

I think the problem here is that Fury versus AJ, originally Luke was going to be a two-fight deal. So that was going to lock them up. Well, we don't know within the grounds of that deal was that $150 million site fee from Saudi Arabia for two fights, for one fight. We don't know all those details. If it's $150 million and they've got a lot to work with here, I mean mean let's

let's take into account anthony joshua got a 60 million dollar site fee guarantee for the ruiz matchup which was like stupid money this is you know more than double that could they pay could they could does deontay wilder have a number i mean a stupid life-changing number you know think 25 30 million where he would step aside if contractually he was guaranteed to fight the winner this calendar year. AJ and Fury couldn't have a rematch, right? It would have to be Wilder next. Despite even what Malik Scott is saying publicly, I do wonder, you know,

everybody's got a price for the million-dollar man. Does Wilder have one? I think that's the first course of duty. Or if not, could you in some way negotiate that September date and push that out a bit, maybe to like December and say, okay, we're going to give Wilder his fight next, but it's not going to get in the way of this super fight unless Fury would lose, right? I mean, I wonder. And I know there's also the Usyk mandatory situation. A lot of people are going to get paid. If we're getting Fury AJ this calendar year, Luke,

a lot of people are going to get rich because of it that aren't in that fight. So, you know, it's a wait and see. It really is. It's a wait and see. We have no idea until the legal course takes its duty. But, Luke, I don't know anything about law. I'm not sure you do, but I know there are people going, who cares what Wilder wants?

Can't they just do this fight anyway and just pay the legal fees afterwards? I mean, I would guess no, Luke. I would guess that they would be... No, the answer is no. They could get a court to enforce it to the point where there could be criminal sanctions involved. Now, how serious are those?

I don't know, but like, yeah, there is a way for... Yes, there is a way for the American justice system to make this... to reject it makes it more than it's worth you just kind of have to go along with it so here we go here we go we're gonna see what happens gonna be amazing uh all right topic number two this is some stuff we did not get to on monday some stuff that we need to revisit in light of what happened since that show now of course ufc 262 took place over

the weekend it was by and large, pretty interesting. One thing that we were wondering about on Monday's show, BC, was the future of Tony Ferguson. Now, I had said, you know, and I've been trying to not draw too many parallels to Tyron Woodley, and even after that loss, I tried to not draw too many. But I have to tell you now, the parallels are starting to get a little bit, not ominous but uh too much in number to ignore to wit ferguson put out a statement following monday or around tuesday or so saying he's not retiring

he's not going anywhere and in fact now he's pissed this reminds me of the fuck it, let's do it kind of attitude that Woodley had prior to the, or I should say just before the Vicente Luque fight. He got nothing to lose, everything to give, blah, blah, blah. Now, Tony, I think by the fan base and by UFC brass BC is more loved than Woodley was in either of those cases. Oh, yeah. But what did you make of him saying after three losses, now he's pissed? Did you not get a little bit of that Woodley vibe from that? Yeah, I mean, let's say what it is, right? I mean, you know, Tony's a little embarrassed, obviously, by this.

And I don't think Tony's washed, washed, or he couldn't handle himself against certain people. I think we just found out right now that whether it's the add-up of mileage and age and all that, whatever the equation is, he lost to three really good opponents in a row. As of right now, he is not an elite fighter, not in the title picture in my eyes. So if he wants to come back and just say, now I'm pissed or now I'm moving up to welterweight, which some people said he should do or now, whatever, that's fine. But he's got a lot more to your point, money in the bank with the ufc

from the standpoint of having been a company man in certain lanes having made quick turnarounds for them having fought gaethje that time when he was waiting out holding out for normaga medoff i mean he's done things for them luke that that i think will give him a longer leash and i think unlike woodley who our problem was more of his fighting spirit during those first three losses before the Luque loss. I know he let his hands go against Luque. He was reckless. It made, you know, I give him credit for having the balls.

It made up for a decently fun fight. I think Ferguson's a different type of age has caught up to him. I think he can still beat a large amount of people. And being that he's out, Luke now of being a for the moment legitimate title contender I think UFC should just go the direction of making fun fights with him you don't have to tell him you have to say okay you know we're playing out the string and your name now you know but his name still matters he still makes fun fights put him in there with other fun aging fighters who he can win against so I don't put a ton of stock into how he's framing this for his own good in terms of to mentally motivate himself. But I think he's in a much better spot

than Woodley was because I think Woodley's issues were more, much more internal mentally where he just, he couldn't pull the trigger. And then once he made the decision to pull the trigger against Luke, it was almost as if he didn't know who he was anymore in there, Luke, and it ended disastrously. And for all, you know know for a lot of reasons woodley should strongly consider never doing this again i don't even know if he will i think for ferguson though luke there's still something there if he wants to you know play out the the end of his career that's right but i don't i think that's i think everything you said is 99 correct 99.9 the one thing i would say though is you have to ask yourself a question

about what it says that after three losses one a vicious beating and then two thorough losses where you know you got your limbs stretched in pretty dangerous and um serious ways that like you're you're being angry is understandable in those circumstances and i also want to be clear i've seen guys go through four fight losing streaks and then turn it all around i do think to your point that where you're 100 correct is you can absolutely put this guy in fun fights i don't get the vibe that he can't will himself even whatever demons he's struggling with competitive or otherwise that he can't get his hand raised in the ufc i absolutely think that he can under the right circumstances still bc the one thing i go back to is if if it just feels to me a little bit like if you're three losses into your career which

is something where that's never happened to you before, not even close. And that you're responding with these things of like anger and like, okay, now I'm going to fix it. There's something else internally wrong, maybe. And that maybe you're trying to do this to like, okay, I'm going to, now I'm really going to force my way into it. Whereas you're trying to repair something with bubble gum that cannot be repaired in that way. I don't know if that's true, but I can't say I don't feel that a little bit hearing it or reading it. It's not surprising. You ever play in a pickup basketball game against somebody who's a lot better than you, Luke,

but maybe they're out of shape or they're still believing in their own legend and it's not there anymore. And you score on them a few times. And then finally they slammed the ball down. Like, fuck it. Now I'm getting, no, I'm serious. Now I'm playing for real. And you're like, where you been the last four or five points, bro. I've been playing for real this whole time. It ball down like, fuck it. Now I'm getting on serious. Now I'm playing for real. And you're like, where you been last four or five points, bro?

I've been playing for real this whole time. It's to talk himself into it. But, you know, to your point, is there something hidden underneath that's negative? Well, I think there always is for Tony. And I think that's what he's always fueled off of. You know, he's been through some shit in his life. And to be a fighter that has that nasty of an edge, I think you have to have something wrong with you. No disrespect to the top fighters.

But, I mean, I think it's true. Rashad Evans has been very open about the healing he's been through with psychedelic drugs that sort of healed the part that made him a great fighter, but that might not be useful in regular everyday life. And I think, look, you remember Tony in that press conference, Luke, a couple of years ago, I believe it was one of the Habib ones. I'm not sure if it was the one where he had the baseball in his hand, but remember there was a somewhat good faith reporter who raised his hand for a question. And he was like, you know, Tony, with everything you've been through with the fallout of the legal stuff with your family and all the mental health that you, you know, came forth and said, you know,

I just wanted to say that, like, you know, I'm proud of you. And I thought that was important that you went public with it. And I hope you're doing well. And Tony looked at the guy and was like, fuck you, bro. You know what I mean looked at the guy i was like fuck you bro you know what i mean that's tony ferguson right so you know there is an aura that i think he needs to protect to preserve himself and so i don't look too deeply into that comment is what i'm saying um you again fun matches we can make with him and i don't think he's i don't want to yeah i don't want to play armchair psychologist any more than I already have, and I probably have exceeded the limits of that even still. But to even your own analogy, BC, you're like, okay, score four or five points on a guy.

He's like, man, what the fuck? Did you have a brother? You had a sister growing up. Did you have a brother at all? I don't think you did. No, I wish I did, Luke. In some ways, I wonder if subconsciously I'm allowing you to fill that role.

Maybe you are. I had an older brother, so I understand the feeling of like... Yeah, a dick losing three four times in a row at chess or something like what the fuck you know uh but that's after three or four like you mentioned four or five points in the game what about like halfway through a season now you're pissed I guess the point I'm trying to make is that feeling of like I gotta get one back you you would imagine that would have been there a lot sooner like it just feels a little bit delayed and you're right I don't know what it means people internalize life's you know difficulties and great moments

all in different ways we need to see what happens the bottom line is I don't think he should be cut and I do think he can win the UFC again but I I kind of felt that was off a beat there was something didn't make sense about that to me and i guess we'll have to see if that actually materializes in the real world the other part bc from ufc 262 we didn't really get to geez louise man i don't even know what to say about this but the fans are angry luke the fans are our listeners are ready to turn and walk away because we didn't mention jacare losing a limb on the show. Sorry. You know, Monday shows are pretty packed, Luke, okay? They're pretty packed.

It's hard to get to everything we probably should get to. So let's get to it now. Jacare Sosa against Andre Muniz, first time ever in his career, Jacare, in MMA career, I should say, gets submitted, breaks his right arm, and it broke the humerus. I mean, it broke that son of a bitch clean now he went through surgery they there was a debate between mike coppinger and ariel hawani on twitter like what constitutes a successful surgery when doctors say it what they mean is like we were able to do the procedure we had set out to do without any medical complicating

factors at this time but of course you know uh Alex Smith had 17 successful surgeries but they weren't successful because later on they had to go back and do them again so like what this will mean for his career in his life long term somewhat unknowable it should be pointed out BC at the 2004 world championships I remember watching this Jacare let Hadra Gracie break his arm and didn't tap so that he could still win on points even though gracie would get the i think the advantage for the attempted submission he just let the fucking guy break it and you can there's video of it on youtube you can go see it it's fucking insane he didn't even blink when he got his other arm broken at 40 years of age. Holy shit. Jacare is another level of tough. Yeah. I mean, look, that's, that's an old school, you know, sort of badge of honor that, that, that the Brazilian

jujitsu masters, uh, have, you know, have been ingrained in them and it's, it's, it's otherworldly. It's just, it's just weird to us civilians. But, uh, Luke, I think the bigger story is he's 41 and he's lost something like six of eight and he's a submission expert who just got subbed for the first time. These are all glaring, blinking signs that, you know, okay, can you hang on and be competent against very low level? Probably. But like, you may want to just pack up your legend and go now. Right.

I mean, because you're a legend, we love you. And that was tough to watch, but that, that was a giant sign that it's over Luke. I mean, it's, it's over luke i mean it's yeah it's really damn close yeah i mean i mean we this is this is the way you should look at it and this is why tony's bad beating against justin complicates it but the fact that he had two losses afterwards which weren't great but they weren't the even close to the same kind of beating that's not what happened to for example tyron with his losses they kind of escalated and

got worse and worse and worse to the point where obviously uh colby uh you know injures him and stops him and then luke just demolishes him if it escalates in a direction bc where you're past let's say 36 37 38 39 years old here we have a 40 year old and you're not only on a losing streak but over time the losses are getting worse and worse like kevin holland just fucking underneath knocking him out and now he's getting his arm broken you are headed in a direction of quite literally quality of life issues being added on at the end of your mma career it's time to call it a day and look i get luke you and i saying that and specifically me because i come in the crosshairs of the and i understand this of the very serious mma fan

who love you luke because you're the rare non-fighter who has had a little bit of fight experience and training not fight but you know the fight game uh and can speak very well to the breakdowns imaginations of what make this sport great technically. And I appreciate that. And I love being paired with you on that. But I think some, you know, there are people who are going to be like this keyboard warrior, BC was tech currently right now in his own basement with a keyboard right in front of him. He's going to tell a man when to retire. No, the reality is we shouldn't. And I'm not a doctor or the promoter, you know, or the head of the UFC saying this. I am a guy with a talk show, though.

And if you like MMA, you do frequent talk shows to hear the things that happen, and MMA fleshed out and debated. So I took a lot of heat, Luke, from Monday's show of this really exposed BC as a filthy casual who only watched his first MMA fight last year for the first time, which is all a big joke. But, like, Luke, did I think the Chandler fight was stopped too early?

No. And I said that. No. Chandler looked. Dude, I'm so glad, BC, I'm so glad you brought that up. Someone DM'd me and go, how could you and BC say the stoppage was bad? I'm like, dude, where did we say that? You know what I said?

I said he looked concussed, and there were enough signs that gave the referee more than enough juice to say the fight was over. What I did say, though, was given his history of being in wars, Chandler, and given the fact that it was a title fight, could it have gone on, right? Was it possibly a little bit too early? I didn't say at the end of the day, man, I got to wait until this guy's brain dead. I need to see more.

No, that was one thing. Another thing of me arguing against Rogan's claim that rushing Barbosa is the best strategy. Yeah, if you're a wrestler, or if you're an elite stick and mover, a super elite, or if you have a combination. Gaethje did it. Gaethje did it. He didn't wrestle. Yeah, if you're a combination of chin and power, which is what I said on Monday, then you can do that. But if you are Shane Burgos, who is really damn close to super elite

in a lot of categories, if you try to fight at range against a Barboza and you don't have the biggest guns in the battle, you're probably going to get stopped. It's what happened at the end of the day. All right. I'm sorry, guys. I watched UFC's four, five, six, and seven and had pay-per-view parties at my house. I've been an MMA editor for national publications for 13 years. I've been a writer for six or seven. I mean, okay, you know, do I know an arm bar from a, you know, anything else? I don't know. You can argue that. But this is an entertainment show about fight sports, okay?

So if you don't like it and you want something else, go find that other person, all right? You know what I'm saying? I didn't see this. Were they challenging your ability to like they were saying you don't know shit about MMA cause I can vouch for you you know a shit load about MMA but I don't know anything I'm not a fighter right I'm a journalist but I'm a pundit

I'm a personality but who are those motherfuckers that are saying that are they any better they're not any better I don't know I just wanted to put that out there and make a statement you know should I have a spot in life to say somebody should retire? Not to their face, not in a legal setting, but on my own damn show, I'll say whatever the hell I want, all right?

Yeah, exactly. It's like if we can't say, dude, what do you want from this show? You want us to tell you how we feel? You can tell us how you feel about the way we feel. That's a fair exchange, I think. But it's like, dude, understand something. Understand something. You as a media person, if you feel like somebody should retire,

and when I say you feel like it, not like it's probably a good time, but like, wow, this guy's really getting fucked up out there. It's not only okay to say, it's the moral obligation. When BJ Penn was getting fucked up out there, you had an obligation to say, dude,fc should not be in business with this guy they should not it is not in their interest and it's sure as fuck not in his interest it is not okay you if you don't you are complicit and the ufc you don't have to worry about this so much but there's a lot of other promoters out there that'll put someone out in a state like texas

that fucking barely reads any of the applications and they will put someone out in a state like Texas that fucking barely reads any of the applications. And they will put someone out there who should not be out there and they will risk serious fucking damage to them. I've literally seen it with my own eyes. Yes, you must. You must. If you feel a certain way, say so. BC, we're not their parents. We can't make them do anything.

And we're surely not trying to insult them. We're trying in our best way possible to just explain dude this is a fucking dangerous game and if you're not really at the best state of your life to be doing it maybe you shouldn't be doing it it's not a crazy thing to say yeah and we're all fans at the end of the day okay i'm a fan yes i also do journalism on the side i'm a fan this is entertainment so enjoy it it or go to Canada. They got great shows over there, right? Please. All right. Speaking of entertainment and nothing more than that, just total vacuity.

Listen, I'm not even mad at these guys. I swear to God, I'm not even mad at these guys anymore. People like what they like. Jake Paul's been making me laugh, getting everyone mad at him and the way that he acts. I legitimately enjoy it. This Logan and Mayweather thing, it's going to make a ton of money. Fine. People like what they like, but I got to tell you, I don't know that we should be talking about

everything that Jake Paul says. BC disagrees and I didn't have much of a better idea. So here we are. Okay. Topic number three, BC, Jake Paul claims that he is not signed to Triller and which was not interesting to me but this is slightly more interesting that not only is he available to sign with UFC but that there are ongoing talks with UFC management to see if there's some kind of an arrangement that can be worked out we have a couple of quotes from him quote look there's conversations happening i believe kamaru's manager is already in talks with dana and i think that's all i can say 100 i'm down for all the smoke i want all the smoke daniel cormier another example now obviously not an mma fight in a boxing fight but whatever i'm a free agent he said look i think that's the way it should be with with all

fighters it just sucks to see these young kids, these young boxers, these young UFC champions get tied up into these contracts where they're owned by the promoter. They're owned by Dana White and they're not getting fair pay. They're not getting the fights they want. Now, this guy, to the extent that he is right in saying he's not signed to Triller, is benefiting from the fact, BC, that by the time he got into the fight game, such as you want to call it that, he was already popular. He could call a lot of his own shots. These guys coming out of the contender series, they don't really have that kind of opportunity. Neither here nor there.

Your reaction to Jake Paul claiming he's a free agent. Big news or not big news? I think this is big news. You know, fourth wall removed. You and I had multiple sort of text exchange arguments about this. Here's why I think it's really big news. Because UFC has shown in the past that they will get outside the

lane of being the number, they're the number one fight promotion in the world. The best typically always face the best. They have an insane reputation. UFC rules, right? Big part of why I make money. I love it. They also are not afraid in the past see Kimbo Slice, see CM Punk,

even James Toney, to go a little bit outside the lane when it makes sense for money and entertainment. So what we know from, look, this was a surprise to me that Jake Paul is not locked down. Now, we're just going by his word here. You know, could Triller argue and say, no, we've got some type of claim on your next fight? I would hope for their sakes they do. Because as Dana has said himself, there is money to be freaking made in however long this window lasts for Jake Paul boxing against celebrities, retired MMA stars, whatever, active MMA stars, whatever you want to do. There is money to be

made. Dana has admitted himself. What we know, though, from any sort of talking about whether they've ever talked is that Ryan Kavanaugh of Triller did that interview uh and said that you know Dana made a request on on Jake Paul's availability to potentially do a fight they asked Dana about it at the UFC 262 post-fight press conference I'm sure you heard the sound Dana went off and said fuck those guys they call me every day I don't care stop asking me I'm not gonna answer their phone call I don't care about Jake Paul what they do is not what we do what they do do, you know what it is. It sucks what we do. And, you know, to a large degree, he's right. But do I think Dana is above this? No, Luke. And

remember this thing they were going to do called Zufa boxing that never got off the ground? Why? Personally, I think Dana was a little bit naive to how boxing actually works and the reason why old-time gangsters like Bob Arum are still in power. And I say gangster lightly. You get what I'm saying, though. Old-time promoters who have been through the wars, been through court, been through everything, they're still in power because it's a hard business to break into. You're telling me that if Jake Paul is truly a free agent

and the hype that he creates, including stealing Mayweather's hat for a fight that he's technically not even a part of, that Dana would not entertain sitting down with him and going, all right, you want to do this? You want to box Usman? You want to box Cormier and play out these fake beefs in fights that will probably draw a lot of interest? How about we do it on UFC Fight Pass under the Zufa Boxing pay-per-view banner? I am sure, Luke, that is a possibility and in play.

So Jake Paul making the first salvo of saying publicly, I'm a free agent, bro. To me, that's fairly big news, Luke. Do you think Dana would be willing to do this, given that it appears Jake Paul is going out of his way to get into beefs, real or fake, with legitimate, active, or just recently retired UFC big names. And we know that these UFC big names realize they can make a lot more money and become bigger stars boxing this YouTube clown

than they can actually winning their own championship in their own profession. I just think that matches up too well for this not to be a thing. Like there's probably conversations going on behind the scenes. Am I crazy, Luke? I don't think you're crazy. I still have mixed feelings about to what extent I think this is authentic news. What I don't want this podcast to become, even in its frivolous state, which it can be sometimes, is Jakeake paul says shit we just react to it whether it has any grounding in the real world but true but no hold on time out but do we this is where mma media is right now if dana says shit or if connor says shit we are there instantly front yeah but that's that's that's precisely the problem that's like that's like the shit i want to get away from. I agree, but it is what it is. We're reacting to like real world events.

Like baking in bad editorial habits that come from essentially websites that need that kind of traffic to fund their ad model. And we're just going to take their best practices when we don't have any of those needs. To me, it doesn't make a lot of sense. But Luke, those websites fuel the discussions on shows like this so we have to understand the the life the food chain and the life cycle okay i'll meet you here's what i'll do i will meet you halfway because i was thinking about this and i was like would dana do something in the way in which bc has suggested well he has been pretty adamant recently that that's something he's not at all interested in and um i saw did you see this bc i guess this guy who was the head of trailer ryan

cavanaugh ryan o cavanaugh whatever the fuck his name is yeah he bought or he promoted one of his tweets like you ever seen a tweet in your timeline it's like promoted and it's from you know whoever the fuck insurance or whatever it was one of his tweets at Dana White being like, hey, Dana, release so-and-so. Why is so-and-so happening? I was like, God, you've resorted to this? This is terribly sad and pathetic. But here's the thing.

I lived through the time when Dana White was battling the IFLs and the Elite XCs of the world, the Gary Shaws, the Scalas. And I remember the years he went on, years, totally bashing Kimbo Slice or at least bashing the fascination around Kimbo Slice, however you want to frame it. And then when the guy became available and they thought they had a mechanism to make use of it,

they did. And it worked out really well, at least for a short time. It created, for season 10, the most watched season of The Ultimate Fighter ever. Kimbo went on TV after that a couple times, had great ratings. They eventually let him go, and he became the most popular fighter in Bellator history. That's a fact. No one is more popular than Kimbo Slice in the history of Bellator when it comes to television ratings.

So, BC, do I think that if he really believes that there's a way to deliver this product without it undercutting the other product which as you know they are very careful about but if there's a way to like that's that was the beauty of the ultimate fighter right it was kind of separate from the ufc you have to earn your stripes through that process and if you were good enough if you were good enough, if you showed enough promise, because yes, the winner got a contract, but other fighters on the shows got contracts too, then you could do it. Zufa boxing is arguably something distinct enough where they could still monetarily benefit without having to be like too tied into the Jake

Paul game. I do not think that that is necessarily crazy here's what i'll say about it i know it was a different time in a different place but let's not forget that dana was going to box tito ortiz and the company was going to benefit from it also do you think endeavor is looking to do anything but make money right now do they care no this is celebrity boxing it's not traditional no one cares about that shit i'm not saying dana's gonna do it i'm saying i believe he's willing to have conversations because one thing he's smart about is he realizes this is a rocket ship this jake paul business it's not gonna live forever but i wouldn't i wouldn't be against and maybe that's why dana

came out so hard in in his responses maybe he doesn't want us to think that this is something he would do i think think it is, Luke. I'm not saying it's great. I'm not saying it, but, you know, I mean, look, it would blow up. It would blow up the story that Dana doesn't want out there, which is constantly out there, which is fighter pay, which is, you know, maybe Jake Paul stirring up the pot too much by constantly calling that out. It would be a negative in that regard because it's basically saying not only,

you know, you're trying to dip your hand into the one outlet in which fighters can dip into to try to make more money than they can within your own league but you know uh if you can't beat them join them though luke okay let me stay with triller before we move on to this other topic i know we're taking a little bit of time today but like i kind of want to get to this so a few few things. Triller's not their CEO, but the guy underneath him spoke to Akin Barak, the DAZN show, and was saying, A, Mike Tyson can't fight anywhere else other than Triller, although Mike says he'll never fight with Triller. And then in the comments section, BC, you brought this up before, but in the comments section, Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated said,

I had Roy Jones Jr. on my podcast two weeks ago, and he told me then he's suing Triller as well. Dude, between that, those two things, and then you add in Dana blocking GSP from going with De La Hoya, there is an argument to make that what he wants to do is see Triller go away and then he might begin to cash in on what the leftovers are that he can make use of that's a little bit more in line with you know the comfort of his interests it's interesting and that's why I think it was a worthy topic it's interesting but I do know that there are hardcores that have actually stayed through our rants in the last 20 minutes and are just like bro when are we getting back to the hardcore shit can you stop let's get back to the hardcore shit? Can you stop talking about it? All right, let's get back to the hardcore shit if we can.

UFC fight night, whatever number it is this weekend, Font versus Garbrandt. BC, if I had to ask you right now as we speak, what are the odds for that main event, that bantamweight main event, between Cody Garbrandt and Rob Font? Who's the favorite? Who's the underdog? We'll go by William Hill, of course, is the ones that does it for CBS Sports. So I already know the answer to this.

I was shocked. Is it still what I saw? Cody Garbrandt is a sizable underdog here? No. It is now a pick'em. It is a flat pick'em. Five dimes, 110-110. Betway, 110-110.

Bookmaker, 115-115. William Hill, 110-110. Betway, 110-110. Bookmaker, 115-115. William Hill, 110-110. It is dead fucking even. Does that make sense to you, yes or no? On paper, when I first saw that Garbrandt was an underdog, I was very surprised because the knockout, the one-punch walk-off knockout that he had during the pandemic, it seemed to announce he's back in

so many ways. And I know we never got to really, let's say, capitalize on that and find that out because, you know, his attempt to move down in weight, which I thought was ill-sighted, never took place to fight for the flyweight title. And he's never been back unless I'm missing something in my brain since then. But, you know, this, maybe it's more to do with, you know, Rob Fonda's a lot better than I've ever given him credit for when you just look at the totality of the names in his three-fight win streak which includes you know Sergio Pettis and Marlon Marais so it's very interesting does it suggest from a Vegas betting standpoint and again I do understand that a lot of this these lines have more to do

with inciting movement in a certain direction with money than always hard and fast. Here's who's going to win. It tells you they got legit fears about Cody's chin still, though, doesn't it, Luke? And also what long COVID might have done to him. Again, I don't think he's going to be like, oh, round two, I can't breathe. I don't think it's going to be like that. But there might be some skepticism that when you really get pushed, are there lingering issues?

Or, you know, if a guy like Rob Font can stick and move, does a guy like Cody get frustrated and then throw away all the stuff he's been learning? I'll tell you this much. If you look at the three losses that a guy like Rob Font has, so Assuncao, which was 2018, that was his last loss, Pedro Munoz before that, 2017, and then Lineker before that. First of all the only stoppage there is Pedro was the guillotine he's got amazing guillotines but he went the

distance with Asuncao and Lineker and in Lineker he showed a ridiculous chin now you're going to need that against Cody Garbrandt but in the last few fights including against Marlon Marais who we know has kind of fallen apart here in the last you know year or so a couple of years um he just showed tremendous overall ability he's always been a guy who was going to give the very elites a tough fight but not going to get ahead and now it appears at age 33 he really might be coming into his own better late than never i always say most people doing as well i would still slightly favor i think the athletic speed and explosion and power that Cody Garbrandt has. Remember, he's training with Ricardo Almeida and Mark Henry, in addition to all the

other stuff from Team Alpha Male. So like he's with a great, great set of guys to get him ready. But dude, Rob Font is the guy that everybody sleeps on. And then when you watch tape, you're like, he's a little bit better than I thought. Totally, absolutely, 100% a winnable fight for him. Even if I do think that Cody, you know, I'm not ready to just say, oh, he had COVID, he won't be the same anymore. I need to see that before I'm ready to commit. Yeah, and I didn't want to forget that when I was breaking down the why all that fell apart.

He had serious COVID. So there's a lot of questions to be answered, but I think even style-wise, Luke, it's a hell of a fight, and maybe that's why you see the pick-em at the end. I mean, this is a really good fight on paper. I'm really excited to see how it plays out. And, Luke, there are some sneaky good storylines up and down this card, though.

I mean, I think for a random fight night thrown in between, I'm really looking forward to it. I mean, there's a couple of really good ones. The Hermansen and Shabazian fight is huge. That fight is on there. Felicia Spencer is back. The big one, we talked about it before, Xiaonan Yang, or however you pronounce her name.

Again, I'm sure I'm fucking it up. Versus Carla Esparza in that co-main. Plus, dude, Bill Algeo is a very good fighter, taking on Ricardo Ramos, the dude who had a fantastic knockout a couple of years ago. Beast Boy, Chris Barnett. If you guys don't know who this is, Chris Barnett is a guy who, I mean, how long has he been fighting? His career is 21 and 6.

I have seen this dude on every Korean, small South Floridian show you can imagine. He made his debut in 2009. He's this big dude who looks stocky, a little fat who is stupid athletic i mean he has all kinds of ability to do one handstands and backflips and splits and everything else he's fighting in the ufc he's going to make his debut against ben rothwell bc you gotta love that fight yeah no i do i do i i'm interested in that one as well look i don't see it in our rundown but i am interested in this whole tatiana suarez headline thing that came out are you into that uh let's get to that in just a second let me talk real briefly if we can

about friday's show for bellator cyborg versus leslie smith we'll do that then we'll get to the tatiana thing this is what i've been saying this whole time bc now william hill doesn't have odds on this fight just yet but just looking at best fight odds which has a just you know adds them all up man you've got Cyborg minus 1000 minus 1100 even FanDuel has her at minus 12 they've got Leslie Smith at plus 700 in most places like I know Leslie Smith's been training hard she's a she's a pioneer in many ways she is talented but dude that's a that's just a fuck ton of firepower 145 i i really don't know about her chances here i well i i feel like this is going to be a another cyborg demolition but one thing i did say luke after cyborg signed with bellator and just the reality of where she's at

she's 35 years old i mean you know it's something in my interview with her this week that that i loved bringing up to her it's just like i mean you were in the pioneering women's mma female mma fight you know to the mainstreams against against uh uh gina carano and you're still the last one of that group who's not only active but like thriving and a champion. One of these days, Luke, she's going to show up a little old and there's going to be a hiccup. Will that major hiccup be a loss? I don't know. You know what I mean?

But one of these days, you know, Father Time undefeated, all that BS we know. But when it happens and when it clicks, it seems to come on quick. So I don't think this is the fight. I mean, she demolished Leslie Smith in their catchweight fight the first time I know it was in her home city meaning Cyborg and Kiritiba and there was a lot of emotion involved in that I'll give Leslie Smith credit for for bouncing back and rebuilding herself in Bellator after leaving UFC you know with some with some

controversial things going on there Luke do you still do you know that in the UFC record book, this just changed within the past few weeks, that Leslie Smith was the number one for strikes landed per minute in UFC history at 7.56, and that she has thus lost that top spot to Daniel Rodriguez. Do you care about

that stat at all? I think that stat needs some work. Okay. In terms of how we interpret it and what it means minimum five fights in the octagon yes yeah they're trying to find like baselines for which you can measure this it might they might need to do a little more who knows i it's a conversation for them i will say this card has just got tons of gems up and down i don't know about the main event for me personally i don't i don't think it's that great but uh down the card we talked about it before on monday darren cald versus Leandro Ego I want to spend a little bit of time

if we can BC we interviewed him on that interview show we had all the fighters come through Austin Vanderford is taking on Fabian Edwards if you don't know who that is that's the brother of Leon Edwards uh is he as good as his brother I don't think so but he's a tough out and Austin Vanderford I've been saying this man you watch this guy dude he's got real championship potential i'm not saying he's there yet but every time i see him i'm like this guy just keeps adding layers to his game i mean he won if i'm not mistaken didn't he win in the contender series and daniel was like don't need him i'm like okay well someone else is going to be wise enough to pick this dude up he He looks good. What's more likely to happen, Luke, next?

Austin Vandervoort competing for and winning the Bellator Middleweight Championship or him privately DMing you the password to pagefanzant.com so you can get in subscription-free? Not my thing, per se. And then, of course, your favorite fight, BC, Valerie Lareda taking on Hannah Guy. Are you sized for that? Seriously, all jokes same management did you know that look i did not but loretta's career is you know she's a personality i mean she's a you know people

flock to her so it is must see tv when she fights from the standpoint luke of seeing is she the real deal she's shown flashes we haven't seen i don't think a complete you know complete thorough performance, but it's so young in her life and in her fighting career that I do, I don't know much about Hannah Guy, but I do know that it is worthwhile. Look, shouldn't they put this on the, I don't want to tell them how to book things. Shouldn't they put this on the main card? Hasn't Lareda exceeded the level of prelim card at this point?

I think probably, depending on how she looks here, maybe the fight after this, because this will be her fourth fight. I've seen a lot of people in their third and fourth fight, they're not necessarily very good, or at least at a bare minimum, they're not nearly as good as they ultimately end up being. Even just a few fights later, they're still kind of in this transitory stage. So I think Bellator is just like, look, we probably could put her on the main card and get better ratings or whatever. But let's just let her, you know, work on her craft and we'll cash in when it's time to cash in. Because once you start elevating someone to a certain place, then the matchmaking expectations really become a little bit more aggressive. And if this is your fourth fight and she's still, remember, she's still transitioning from Taekwondo.

It just takes a little bit of time. I'm not like oh wait wait a little bit longer she'll be champion like i don't know about that but you know will she be a lot better and a lot more ready for the different kinds of things that her division offers yeah i think probably it's a little bit of patience she's transitioning out of the fighting soccer mom stage of her career still so yeah i get i get what you're saying give it give it a little bit more time and then look i'm out of the fighting soccer mom stage of her career still. So, yeah, I get what you're saying. Give it a little bit more time. And look, I'm part of the sometimes maligned Bellator rankings journalistic team of those who have been chosen to vote. And remember, Lorenz Larkin came at me for that. I'm not responsible for all the results of those voting.

But just to defend not only me against him and say he's still not in the welterweight rankings, Luke, so it's hard to vote for him because he's only had a middleweight fight in his comeback. But also, you know, some people have said, well, how the hell is Loretta ranked in that division? Well, you're only given a pool of like 13 names to rank from for the top 10 spots, Luke. So, you know, there are only so many in that weight division eligible for bellator at the moment so she's going to have a quick path to the top luke if she can keep proving that she's legit that's what i'm going with that fair enough and then lastly this is the one you found interesting

i did not well and i also find it interesting i just did not hear it um so why don't you do it you heard i think tatiana suarez spoke to espn's ariel hawani what did she say in that interview that was of note? Yeah, in Ariel framed the start of the interview as saying, look, everyone's asking him, when is Tatiana going to come back? So we reached out to her to find out. And one thing she said, look, about her injury, it's not just the neck, which had been the long injury.

She had mentioned she tried to come back too quick and broke her hand, had back issues, had all these little things pop up all over her body. So, Luke, she's certainly battling a lot. And, you know, the questions are obviously going to be out after such a long layoff, which is going to be two years by the time she comes back, of what can she still be? But I think the biggest breaking news that came out of it is not only that she's planning a fall return for the UFC, but that it'll be at flyweight. And just, you know, full credit to Ariel getting it. I didn't listen to the whole interview.

I only heard the beginning part. So I didn't hear the part where she broke down why she's moving to flyweight. But, Luke, she was like this dark horse, strawweight contender who, you know, if she could ever get back with the wrestling and the size and the, you know, she's got good striking, you know, we're always like, man, you know, she might be the future of that division. And that division's always loaded. Now moving up, where it's not as hard of a weight cut, and the path to the top is much shorter,

maybe still, though, the boss at the end of the video game, Valentina Shevchenko, is more difficult than you can throw at in any division for the most part. But I really like that idea, Luke, that if she could have a less stringent weight cut and still put forth that high cardio style and wrestle and be nasty, she could be a player right away if she can stay healthy at 125 in the UFC. How much of the – what is the chance that she comes back for one fight and retires? I mean, that's a fear.

The fear is that this is like a Cain Velasquez situation all over again. Look, that's the fear. Because sometimes the body just won't do what the heart and mind wants. And we've seen that in so many sports. It's heartbreaking, Luke. It's heartbreaking. It is. I guess we're going to see.

I think at 125, assuming she makes the weight healthy and adds whatever weight she wants to to benefit her game, I think she could be absolutely a player. No doubt in my mind. Am I wrong for saying this? I'd have to double check. Is 125 filled with more people who dropped from 135 or more people who moved up from 115?

That's a good question. I think it's more from the drop down to smaller bantam weights that's what i think luke smaller i'd have to double check um but it's something we're thinking about okay seriously but just seriously just to look at you know we sometimes you can forget when someone's not around for a while suarez's last three wins are alexa grasso by submission a tko of carla esparza and a decision over a very highly ranked at the time Nina Ansaroff. So, I mean, we're talking about when she's healthy. World-class, Luke. Elite.

Need to find out how great she can be. Hope she's still the same fighter. They were calling her the female Habib before she got injured. So we'll see what happens. I want everyone to know, by the way, including you, Brian Campbell, that the NBA playoffs are about to begin. Actually, they've started. Join the early – well, sort of.

The play has started. Join the Early Edge podcast every single day for the best bets, props, and futures for this year's postseason. Jonathan Coachman, you know him, Mike McClure, and Larry Hartstein, won't lead you astray as they bring the best bets to your feed every morning in 15 minutes or less. You can find the Early Edge on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and even live on YouTube. I love the coach. Big fan. Big fan of the coach.

All right. Take it away, good sir. Time for where you annoy the fuck out of me. So every Wednesday, here's what we do if you're new to these parts. There's questions Luke just doesn't want to answer. So on Wednesdays, we randomly make him do it. It's good faith responses to decently faith questions, and it's called the Wheel of Death. Ass barf. All right, Luke. You get what you get.

The people want this back, so as long as they want it, I'm not trying to force this on them. They want it. They're getting it, Luke. Ten categories. You'll get five virtual spins of the wheel, and you get what you get at the end of the day, Luke. I don't know if it'll be a good segment. We'll see. virtual spins of the wheel. And, you know, you get what you get at the end of the day, Luke. I don't know if it'll be a good segment.

We'll see. Here are your ten categories. Endeavor After. Fear Weather Fandemic. Peace Sells, but Luke's Not Buying. I'm Not Impressed by Your Decision. Trevor. Never Met Her. The Cosell of MMA.

Famous Power Bottoms. God. Dana White Was Never My Friend. What's Eating never met her the cosell of mma famous power bottoms god dana white was never my friend what's eating gilbert burns and everyone's favorite one canadian two cups bro i gotta tell you they put one canadia by the way well i don't i don't i don't populate the wheel in terms of typing it in okay that's our producers all right that's have you ever seen what's eating gilbert great yes i have i just kicked my camera sorry okay okay there you go yeah sorry there uh maniche i fucked my camera up but it's okay all right let's roll this motherfucker shall we yeah let's spin this wheel all right god help me fair weather pandemic fair weather excuse me pandemic luke wall great timing for this one luke i just wanted to remind you okay what the segment's all about good faith responses to decently faith questions with that said you refuse to entertain during monday's show while

lambasting cowboys fans for a second time of the origin of your Real Madrid fandom, along with explaining... It's not real. It's not real. It's real. Like I could care a shit about that. While you were explaining why you were not a fair-weather bandwagon jumper in becoming a superfan. This question isn't about exploiting you, Luke, although I do find that amusing, as much as it is about giving you a platform to explain yourself in a fair and judicious manner

because I care about you as the brother I never had. So, Luke, what is the origin story behind your Real Madrid fandom? Okay, do you know why it's called Real and why it's not real? No, Luke, I don't. Because they're not saying that the team's name is Real Madrid, like they're very Madrid. The team's name is Real, which is Spanish for royal. It is Royal Madrid.

Didn't Tony Kukoc play for Real Madrid before coming to the... Yes, I don't know if he did exactly, but Luka Doncic did. He was part of the team. It's a giant sports organization. The soccer team is merely one part of it um okay so i've answered this a million times but people always find it somehow like they forgot what the answer is so years and years ago sometime in the early aughts i have to go back and check the calendar i think 2006 is that right something like that 2007 maybe i have to go back and check but i took a impromptu out of nowhere i got a um do you say do you ever sign up the pandemic has changed things but

before that did you ever sign up for like uh like kayak or a price line or whatever airline alerts did you ever do that no all right so i had signed up like just send me an alert anytime there is a fucking fire sale for trips to europe anything i don't care for shit if it's croatia if it's whatever and i got one direct flight from dulles to uh madrid and and then uh barcelona back no no no madrid back sorry so it was round trip from the same airport. 400 bucks. In fact, it was 400 after taxes. It was like 320 or something. I could not believe it. I'll pause you one third into this. You have not convinced me yet that you're not a fair weather fan of Realface the ending of the story. Whether or not the answer given is sufficient for your, shall we say, sanctioning or blessing is not a thing that I'm in any way interested in whatsoever. Or blaspheming, maybe? Yeah.

I mean, it's like a Catholic priest or a Jewish rabbi being like, oh, you've not blessed or whatever the, you know, baptized or whatever the ceremony that I have to go through in order for me to have some kind of credibility within these religious frameworks, I would look at them and say, I'm deeply uninterested in what you have to offer. But so it goes like this. So I flew over there. And I, at the time I knew close to nothing about Spain. And I'll say this, I, in that trip, which was only about 10 days days I absolutely fell in love with the country it is my favorite country to visit I think everything about it is magisterial the

country is utterly beautiful the places to go are out of a fairy tale um you know their version of Spanish is a little bit hard on my ears. Obviously, you know, I'm used to the Latin American version, but the food is insane. The culture is rich. You just, I was over, I was, I've been to, I've been to 40, 50 countries in my life. I've almost never felt that way about a place. I would move to Spain like that if I could keep my salary. It would, it would be would be nothing for me to go over there. And in the course of going over there, I found my way to the Santiago Bernabeu. And there was big Real Madrid matches at the time.

I actually could not get into the stadium, but there's a ton of cafes and stuff right around. And this was the height of the Messi versus Ronaldo era. And I had no dog in the fight. I didn't know much, frankly, about either team or their history or whatever. And I was in this cafe and I was drinking with a bunch of Real Madrid fans and it was one of the most fun. They won the game. I forget who they played.

But it was just one of the most magical experiences I'd ever had at a Traveler ever. And the answer is, is picking a team like Madrid or even Barcelona they're roughly equivalent in that way is that bandwagoning is that like going for the going to the casino BC and rooting for the house no doubt about it it 100% is but you have to understand something about European sports that American sports is not like that American sports and in particular the NFL is very good about introducing various systems, whether it's the draft or the salary cap, to keep relative parity in the ranks. The

Spaniards don't do that. The French don't do that. The Germans don't do that. The English basically don't do that either. They stack their leagues so that they have these legacy systems at the top, and everyone else can eat shit if you don't root for those teams at the top, so that would be PSG and France. That would be Bayern or the Black and Gold, whose names I forget, whoever, Dortmund. If you don't root for Dortmund or Bayern, your team will never win that league. If you don't cheer for Barcelona, Atletico, or Real,

your team will never win the league. So I went with what the experience was as a traveler it has been one of the most fun things i've ever done not just that experience but cheering for that team i love everything about that country i love everything about that team and everyone else can lick my balls from the back and tell me what it tastes like because i'm never going to change for any of you pukes so luke while i think that your story of travel and and entering into that sporting culture as an outsider and being one with it is refreshing and fun and awesome and they're you know i don't know was the love of your life with you at the

time there may be a real romanticized connection here that's great your joke about the back of your balls was humorous but that's that's still a bandwagon jumper look i mean that's great your joke about the back of your balls was humorous but that's that's still a bandwagon jumper look i mean that's no different than then i don't know anything about the american baseball but i fly to new york and everyone's cheering for the yankees so you know that's but it's not but here's the difference i'm just trying to explain this to you american sport dude american sport you don't watch european sports you don't understand this no but look i understand the system though so it's it's like no no no You don't watch European sports. You don't understand this. No, but look, I understand the system though. So it's, it's like, no, no, no, no, you don't dude.

You got to understand something. If you're a French fan, maybe, maybe one of the other teams might win every once in a while. Same as in Italy, dude, Juventus has won like seven championships almost in a row. Okay. You don't cheer. Fandom is not fueled.

Fandom should not fandom should not be fueled by success only so you're telling me all the fans it's not it's not i could have chosen i could have chosen atletico but i didn't i didn't right but i mean here's the deal you chose a real winner that i mean that's look i'm not i don't care but that's the definition again i don't need i don't need your validation as a fan to be a fan of Real Madrid. It's a global brand. I can do whatever I want. But I got to explain something to people. Look at the teams I root for where you're supposed to have some character about it,

where there is relative parity in the league. I only cheer for D.C. teams. I only cheer for D.C. United. I only cheer for the Wizards. I only cheer for the, well, the Washington football team. And I only cheer for the Caps. I only cheer for the, well, the Washington football team. And I only cheer for the Caps. I don't ever root for anyone win or lose outside. But, dude, if you want to be a fan as an American of European soccer

and you want to pick Fulham, have fun getting relegated. Your ass is never going to see a fucking top of that. Okay, there's a lot of points I don't like there. One, you're sounding a lot like Dana White where it's like, just tell us the truth. You're going to lie to us, just tell us the truth you're gonna lie to us just tell us the truth look just tell us what am i busy what am i not telling you that is obviously quite true here's what i need you to say yes i'm a bandwagon jumper of real madrid because i had a lot of fun watching them and they win all the time so i don't want to root i don't want to root for somebody who's

not going to be in contention but still that's the definition of being a bandwagon just be honest and say that and then but then i think you go too far as you then talk trash to people, fans of other teams that they compete against. You've lost that ownership because of when you came out. Look, I come from a factory town which had rules and fandom. You can only be a fan of a team that's local. Yes, dude. What does that have to do with cheering for teams?

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. BC. BC. BC. When it comes to American sports, when it comes to American. How can I lick the back of your balls if I can't get a word out? You make me answer all these bullshit questions.

Let me defend myself. When it comes to American sports in leagues that build in parity, yeah, if you don't cheer for your local team, you're kind of a prick. I mean, there's some rules around that, but whatever. That's kind of how it's supposed to be. But you an american i'm in the middle of trying to pick european teams what should i have done what should i have done bc should i have picked sporting and then you can react to it you know what i'm saying luke what i was saying is i come from a background that's very rooted in you have to have an excuse if it's not a local team that's your

team it's got to be because your dad is from that city or something right i'm not saying people have to live by those rules but that's a rooted system of who's bandwagon and who's not which in america i do so what does this have to do with cheering for a spanish team so should people never be a fan ever of leicester city or wherever the hell they're called didn't they have some miracle run to get back into contention and then win the epl championship so you're basically saying don't root for them. Do you have listening comprehension issues? If you are from

the UK, if you are from Spain, I expect you to cheer for what you what is in your local community. If that's Madrid, pick your team, whether it's Atletico or Real or whatever. If you're from Barcelona, MESCAY UNCLUB, they don't even speak the fucking Spanish language.

They like to speak Catalan. The point being is this. I mean, you keep getting mad, but I can finish my statement. No, no, no, no, no, no. My turn. My turn. I didn't finish my statement, Luke.

You keep yelling. My turn. My turn. I'll finish my statement. My turn. BC, you have not, in any capacity whatsoever, addressed by what system

is an American who wants to be a fan of any European club what is the system by which they should pick that honestly because I picked an immersive experience of travel by which to make that call just say honesty I back them you didn't answer the question you didn't answer the question if you are an American what system should you pick any of the teams in the Premier League? You should pick honesty. If you're going to back the winner, if I'm going to – I don't give a shit about EPL. But if I'm like, you know what?

I'm going to back Man U because at least they're going to be in all the big games, I would be honest about it. Well, you might be disappointed at the results you get more recently. I would be honest about it, Luke. All people want from you is honesty. I don't deny that – listen, I don't in any way deny that I partly fell in love with the team because of this grand stage that it's on. And the reason why it's on a grand stage is because the system is rigged for them to be in a grand stage in many, many ways.

No denying it. But I went to a place. I fell in love with it. That was part of the experience. Y'all want me to apologize for this in a league that is designed to set them up versus the NFL, which is not designed to set them up, not nearly the same kind of way. I mean, this is a ridiculous fucking kind of trial about fandom that I am easily meeting the challenge of. I could make that same argument about Major League Baseball, which has a salary cap.

No, you couldn't. Dude, you do not understand Spanish football. It is, the game is fucking rigged. It is not at all like Major League Baseball. I don't care at the end of the day. I am a conduit of the people. I'm a representative of the people on the show. You're not, dude.

You're so not. I mean, my son wears Golden State Warriors gear all the time. He doesn't even watch games. I tell him he's a bandwagon jumper all the time, but I love him. Look, I love you, but this is a bandwagon jumper. I love you too, BC, but everyone wants to regulate it because i'm not allowed to enjoy a fucking team from a formative from a formative moment in my life they happen to win a lot do i enjoy that of course but when it comes to the local teams

i'm good dude i have tickets to see the philadelphia union play dc united at audi field on sunday i got my daughter a fucking jersey she doesn't even have a real mad jersey. It's a personal thing from my travels to maybe the greatest country in the world outside of this one. People don't like it. You came hard at the Cowboys fans. Look, this is how this started. They're talking about a horrible owner, which DC has one who's probably worse. You have a horrible owner owner you have a horrible fan base totally delusional you have a reprobate organization they will sign any fucking reprobate off the street who can play football doesn't matter if they've beat up you know 50 people to get there and uh they call themselves america's team when they when they're not like

fuck that team like i'm not gonna say nice things about them all right just be honest with the people luke it works out well i am honest it's my fandom people don't have to like it it comes from an experience i'm not gonna apologize for y'all don't like it don't fucking like it it's not gonna stop me all right so all of you out there lick the back of luke's balls apparently yes wow wow this is great yeah tell tell as our munich just said tell tell them how it tastes too i'm like shack tell me how my ass tastes all right spin this thing it's like 12 30. spin this thing i gotta get out of here

i got a diarrhea i'm not impressed by your decision. So, Luke, this is about your decision to not be honest about your family. No, just kidding. Luke is, just so people know, Luke is ornery because of his medulla oblongata. Not ornery. We referenced this earlier, but Oscar De La Hoya went public last week saying how UFC President Dana White blocked GSP, whose UFC contract was White blocked GSP, whose UFC contract

was frozen upon his retirement from boxing in a Triller pay-per-view main event against Oscar, and in theory, although we don't know, getting millions and maybe more than he's ever made in a UFC fight. Journalists, including John Nash, went on to confirm that was true, and Dana, when asked about it last week, went on that anti-Triller rant, but he never really addressed never really addressed the decision so Luke two-part question here regarding GSP's current lot here number one on a scale of one to one hundred what percentage do you honestly believe in your heart that GSP's role in the failed Bjorn Rebney fighters union played a part in Dana's decision here to block GSP from getting some money? I hadn't even thought of that.

That is a great question. Wow. Fair Cowboy was also a part of that, and he didn't suffer. So just fair point. In fact, I did a couple of videos a few years ago, BC. There's no way you saw them, but I did them with this guy who is basically studying high-level math at American University and statistics, and he looked at some of the numbers and found that not because they got new contracts, like, you know, they didn't fight out their

contracts and then do that press conference. They were in the middle of contracts, but Dillashaw and Cowboy got an unexplained pay raise between that, the fight before that press conference, and then the fights after that came out of nowhere. One wonders, one doesn't know what the reason for that is, but one can certainly wonder about withdrawing their support for that. To what extent did that have an impact on getting a little bit more pay? Using a scale of 1 to 100, what percentage do I believe? Man. Honestly, if you had to ask me, the thing I think most explains it is going to be that Dana doesn't want GSP to potentially look bad

to a guy that not only has been disparaged by Dana White, because, you know, Dana goes after Oscar pretty bad. Well, how old is Oscar? What, 47? I think that's right. Something like that. They don't want GSP, one of their all-time greats, to potentially get tuned up.

Because you're asking me who I think would win. I think, obviously, Oscar would probably win, assuming he was in shape. I think that's the biggest reason. But now that you bring this up, now you're stirring the pot a little bit. It's interesting. Second part, more important're stirring the pot a little bit. Ooh. It's interesting.

Second part, more important part of the question is this, Luke, because a lot of people are saying, how is this possible? Isn't this unfair? Here's a retired fighter. What could and or should be done legally moving forward to prevent UFC from having this much control over a fighter's future when he isn't even an active MMA fighter and was attempting to book a fight in a completely different sport?

How does UFC have control over blocking this, and what can be done or should be done to change that? There should be sunset clauses. There should be sunset clauses. So obviously, it is going to be hard to figure out what exactly the term should be, but a contract like that uh should expire after a certain amount of time the ufc should have a certain amount of time in which to and any promoter

not just ufc we should be clear about that bellator 2 uh pfl2 they should have a certain amount of time to offer you a certain amount of fights and you know there's rules in which they have to make sure that they're constantly offering unless you retire whatever right they can't just not offer you fights but that if a certain amount of time elapses, so does the contract. It expires. Right now, there's just no real sunset clause. Like, if you're two fights into a five-fight deal,

and you retire, those three exist in perpetuity. So you have to find a way to work through those three. You have to just take the fights. But if you're St. Pierre, do you want to take, you know, however many it is? And you've got to understand, the three you have to just take the fights but if you're saint pierre do you want to take you know however many it is and and you got to understand the bigger you are like a saint pierre or a silver whoever they'll be like here's a seven fight deal an eight fight deal i remember you know silva used to brag like i'm gonna sign a 10 fight deal at age 40 whatever it was and you'd be like why are they doing that they're doing that in part so that they didn't have to

offer him anything else um or sorry excuse me they could lock him up, sorry, for a long time. Now he fought through all of it to get to this point, which is why he's going to have that sad little thing with Julio Cesar Chavez. But the answer is a fighter shouldn't have to go through all of those. A promoter has to have a little bit of handcuffs, a little bit, a little bit, with timing. But to answer your question, the first one, dude, I'm going to say 75, they didn't want Oscar to tune him up.

25, let's stick it to him for the Bjorn thing. Well, maybe 10, too, that he left the middleweight title there after telling Danny he wouldn't. Right? That, too. So DSP's not completely innocent here. I get it at the end of the day. All right, let's spin it again.

We've got to get through this because you probably have to crap your pants. This is the third one still? Jesus. It's probably the best or worst wheel ever. We'll see. Trevor, never, never meta. Luke, with respect to the great Eugene Barrowman, there's no other way to say it.

Trevor Whitman is the resident hot MMA trainer of the moment with the most, quote, it factor, unquote, of developing the reputation for maximizing the talent of any fighter who he works with. Recent returns from Justin Gaethje before the loss, Rosnami Yunus, and Kamaru Usman explain that perfectly. But each big name coach eventually develops that same reputation for what they bring. In boxing, everybody knows that if you go with Freddie Roach at a certain point in your career, it typically is done to increase your pressure

and your firepower because Roach's reputation is as an offensive coach. Given Whitman's current reputation and success rate in the UFC, which established elite or semi-elite UFC fighter in your eyes could most benefit from leaving the current team and switching to Trevor Whitman? UFC fighter in your eyes could most benefit from leaving the current team and

switching to Trevor Whitman. If he had done it years ago, I honestly would have said Tony Ferguson. I don't think, I don't think now that's necessarily going to pay the dividends given the, given the advanced age, relatively speaking. Justin Gaethje obviously was a great candidate

for you saw what he did but um i would say honestly habib you know he would never leave his father but to compliment him in the way that he could you know just to add let's give javier mendez some credit i mean habib figured his his striking well i mean but you you it's not one or the other like i said this on my on the post fight show BC which was dude Kamaru Usman under the tutelage of Henry Hooft became a UFC champion yeah you know what I mean like you can't take that away from Henry no matter what Trevor does with him he became a champion with that guy it's just that he was able to maintain the lead on the pack by switching things up once he had reached that advanced stage he got to the black belt so to

speak and now he wants to do other things once he's into that space so like yes javier mendez dude he had maybe arguably the best fighter ever under her b but you're asking who could benefit the most not that he would need it necessarily to win but like how transformative could a guy like that be if you got it early enough on the ground floor working with a striking like however deadly he is with his wrestling it'd be even more of that uh and you people are talking about like oh what would a habib versus a um charles lavera fight be well a habib that would have you know several years in the bag with a guy like trevor you know that would be a much different fight than it would be without it, I frankly think.

So, yes, credit to all those trainers. They're amazing. Javier Mendez's record as a competitor and a trainer is almost as good as it gets, but that doesn't mean that even those guys can't benefit from a little bit of another perspective. I put the reputation thing in there because I think it's important.

I think, you know, the reputation right now, at least as casually as I can understand it, is Whitman can take what you're good at and expand it. So what could he do with a Darren Till, Luke? Could he fill in those holes? Ooh. See, that's interesting. I wonder if that problem is a little bit more comprehensive.

Right. I mean, I think, yeah, of course he could benefit there's no denying no denying he could benefit from it you know who could benefit from it too like neil magny i think a guy who could if he could really learn to uh the footwork and the jabbing i think sometimes he invites the fight into ranges or scenarios where magny is super well-rounded but he's got certain strengths that i think could be built upon that haven't necessarily been. Again, with Mark Montoya, he's turned into a phenomenal talent.

Make no mistake about it. But you're talking about the very specific things that Trevor Whitman could give him. Yeah, I think he... Dude, the jab and working with the jab, it's just critically important. Look what it does to people. And I don't feel like Magny, who's got a super...

John Jones is another one. Dude, John Jones, I i think he's done phenomenally well under brandon gibson but what could trevor provide some cool shit i think yeah it's very interesting thing to think about and eventually trainers become overrated because they get too many clients and they can't fix everyone you know but right now whitman's that guy. All right, two more spins. Here we go. Spin. Hit it, Minnichi. Oh, yeah, here we go. Hey, Luke, during a morning combat interview with DAZN's Todd Grisham two weeks ago,

him and I talked about the art form of calling fights and how a great announcer, and you and I have both said art form of calling fights and how a great announcer, and you and I both said that Todd is good at this, needs to rise to the occasion of the moment in front of them and to provide the proper soundtrack to a knockout, to an upset, whatever it is. Grish, for example, Luke, I think he called the shit out of Justin Gaethje, Michael Johnson, when he yelled, Justin gets his ultimate highlight. We love that call.

Even though Sakuraba, it is what it is. Grish didn't stay there. With that in mind, Luke, what do you believe right now are the three most iconic announcer calls in MMA broadcasting history? Okay. The first one that comes to mind is going to be um morrow saying uh kevin randleman has knocked out mirko crocop that's one two i'm sorry it's infamous but it i think it counts uh gus johnson saying these things happen in mma at the strike force are we are you referring to the to the seth petrozzelli fight where he called it the biggest upset in MMA history, Luke? No, no, no, no.

I'm talking about when Gus Johnson was watching the Strikeforce Nashville brawl with Nick Diaz and Jake Shields and all those guys. We're on live TV, gentlemen. Yeah, yeah. On CBS, that one stood the test of time. The third one's a little bit harder um god there's a lot of rogan moments that kind of stand out the problem with rogan is that he his for the most part his go-to call is unbelievable or it was during the goldberg era of his career so like there's a million great moments that have

joe yelling unbelievable right i would say i don't know if this stands the test of time, but one of the ones that just stands out in my mind was when, and I think this is right, tell me if I got it wrong. Didn't John Anik say when Jorge Masvidal knocked out Ben Askren, one of the greatest knockouts you'll ever see? Yeah, that's up there. That's up there too. I was going to throw in DC's Thug Rose yell after she knocked out Rose Namajunas.

I mean, I knocked out Joanna. And also, don't discount Joe Rogan's slept him call after Conor got Aldo. Oh, yes, that's a good one. I forgot about that one. Man, there's some other ones too you guys don't remember when uh mike kogan who's who is uh now he's a good dude but um he's like he's kind of like a belt horse like now a new matchmaker that's not quite true but he's probably their lead matchmaker they have like a team of matchmakers now as i understand it uh he did a

call on pride i wouldn't call it iconic maybe it was pride maybe it was like dream I don't remember but you know he had some how do I put this colorful commentary you guys don't remember when uh Phil Barone used to do commentary for UFC he did some for pride he called one of his opponents pork fried rice that was that was an infamous moment um yeah there's been some crazy ones before the the tough generation really got here but i think those are the ones that stand out i'm sure the people will let us know in our dead wrong what we missed i look yes i'm sure we fucked up something yeah all right final spin you get what you get here we go that's my rear end bc all right dana white was never my friend that's a fair statement apparently until right now luke imagine you woke up today in an alternate mma universe here's what happened

overnight since you went to bed motivated after going public with their ufc parent company endeavor ceos ari emmanuel and Patrick Whitesell decide they want not only their relationship with the public, but that of their employees in the UFC to dramatically change. So under a new company-wide Endeavor campaign called Going Public So You Can Become a Man of One, Endeavor encourages even UFC president Dana White to make a change in the way the public views him. It's decided that acting more friendly toward the media would be a fairly ingenious, subversive way of building public trust with Dana White in order to help stock prices soar. The pitch to Dana is weird, but not unrealistic, Luke. Like the great MTV rock and jock basketball games of old,

UFC will create an all-star annual weekend type night inside of T-Mobile Arena every year on the night before the International Fight Week pay-per-view. The center point of the all-star weekend, which would air on ESPN+, is pairing white and UFC employees and a handful of prominent fighters in a full-court basketball game against the MMA media,

with all proceeds going to charity. Given your frosty relationship with the promotion historically, White insists that you, Luke Thomas, be chosen as the coach of the all-media team and the GM, which includes you choosing a roster. So here are the five players plus two bench players that you'll be playing against in this mythical game at T-Mobile Arena. Dana White, Paul Felder, Max Holloway, Dominic Reyes, Amanda Nunes, Sean Shelby, and John Anik.

Your job, using the traditional five positions in basketball plus two subs, is to draft a seven-man team that could beat that team and score one for media in the great war against Dana White. Hmm. All right. I would – Jesus, Lord. I guess I'm drafting you like what, power forward? I'll play the four on this team.

Let's do it. All right. So there's you. I'll get the two subs in a second. I guess I'll play on this team. I could be the other – I could be – well, could you be small forward? I could do power forward because I got an idea for center. I mean, I don't have a jump shot, but I can post up, Luke, okay?

Yeah, I'll be small. The game's changed. We'll just shoot. Listen, we'll just shoot the reason off screens, okay? Yeah, I'm a great passer. You know, so just real quick, we got athletes on the other team, but I don't think there's a ton of basketball players. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, there's not. But you know what? We have an ace up our sleeve. He was a basketball player in college he's actually tall and very athletic uh will harris the guy from anatomy of a fighter he actually played college ball okay yeah he's our center because he could be like our shack he could be our big man he could like maybe more like anthony davis you know who doesn't play center i understand

but like imagine he could kind of slowly transition to that role and he could dish to the three so that's us we need some smaller more mobile players athletic people is sean l shotty well so who sean l shotty does he have a game oh you know what he might he's a big he's a big hoops guy all right we could make him we could make him uh some kind of a guard um who's another does okamoto play ball yes he does he does he plays all right yeah he plays in a league in las vegas with ufc employees on his team all right it's a little weird but uh all right we'll put okamoto on the squad and we need two subs right yeah well we need a point guard too and we need two subs oh fuck we need a point guard, too, and we need two subs. Oh, fuck. We need a point guard. So couldn't – wait, hold on. Will Harris, me, you, Okamoto.

Brett at the two. Who's the other guard that I mentioned? Oh, Sean El Shadi's on our team. So that's five. That's five. Okay. I need two more, right? Yeah.

So subs. Think about it. There's somebody we're not thinking of who's probably a dead eye shooter like can danny sagurha hit the three you think uh no no if we were playing soccer i would absolutely pick him first but no he plays on soccer teams he does i know because he's latin that you thought out that's what i was saying but i'm actually not saying that i i'm not i don't think like that. I'm sure you don't. Risen. So not fair. I mean, you karate chop the air.

What are you doing? All right. I was ripping you. I was ripping you. Not them. Oh, you know what? I'm going to put. I'm going to.

Dude, we got. Except for Will, we'd have like an all white basketball team. Just the fucking worst um jesus fuck i don't even know who we could put in there chuck mendenhall i guess no i do you think chuck's got game i don't know i think off the bench he could provide valuable minutes that's what i think okay um and then last but not least oh we don't have any women fuck um gotta have one if they have one i think that's only fair oh you know what she's an athlete she's not quite in my media um i'll go jesus is there any i think dom reyes is going to be a problem for us matchup defense wisewise. Hopefully that would be it.

We have to double-team him for sure. And he'll probably still get run over. I'll go with... I'll go with... Oh, Jesus. Is there a woman we could pick who... Oh, you know what? Hey, how about the Schmo? he could be a wild card he might have game bro yeah but would it be fair if they had a woman on the roster and we didn't have one

why don't we get schmo and ye as our bench players helen all right all right the two yeah that's a deal all right there you go i can work with that got chemistry yeah yeah yeah yeah you never know if one can pick up the other one there's like an injury whatever yeah all right all right that's a. That's a deal. That's a tandem. There you go. There's my team. I think we're going to get housed, by the way.

I think we're going to get housed. Yeah, we get fucked up. What are you going to do? Yeah, there it is. Thank you. That's the shit this week. We almost lost Luke. Wow, what a risky segment, Luke.

What a risky idea this week. Hey, listen. You got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. All right. Hey, let's go into the fan subs. MorningCombat at gmail.com is your weekly email address to send in your shit, and we show it to you. So we've got mail.

Here we go. Mike N. has two of them. So, Luke, greetings, Luke in BC. Been watching and listening since episode one. I live in SoCal, so you can guess my daily commute sucks. However, listening to MK on the drive makes it suck way less three days of the week. I've gotten a few of my friends to follow and subscribe to your show. As a prerequisite, I always make new viewers start with episode 12

before jumping to current in order to learn the origin of tip to tip. Wow. As well as Luke's first explanation of making someone testify. He calls this the MK lexicon. For my fan submission, I've included a picture of me repping mk gear version 1.0 with my wife and two-year-old daughter at my wife's alma mater uc san diego yeah speaking of things that are old and outdated nice cargo shorts i like that i like that so shout out to mike n for repping our merch luke he's got a beautiful family i love I'm big fans of these folks, all right?

Hey, you know what? I don't have any cargo shorts. I only gave them up because my wife made me, but I did love them when I had them. They were very functional. Did you have the ones that were pants and you zipper them off? Those were a little lame, a little bit lame. No, no, no. I had the regular Eddie Bauer joints or whatever.

Mike N. has a second post. He says, at my own risk, I've also included a picture of my new tattoo for Luke to critique for this ink I pay tribute to the two most important people in my life no I'm not talking about you donks those who though who's to say you guys don't eventually make it onto this wall of shame

before it's all said and done my wife's name is Jeanette and my daughter's name is Summer so to not have to go back to get ink twice I opted for a two in one so look from one direction it says Jeanette and from the opposite direction it says Summer is this ingenious ink uh Method Man has a tattoo like this if you go like this it says life if he turns it upside down it says death um you can you can see some stuff like that yeah i was gonna say the reason why you saw me going like this is because the script is a little

hard to read um shading's not great if i can be honest with you but the intent the the mr he boss the intent is love luke the intent is key but if you notice the last letter, the letter at the top of his arm, it's not lined up with any of the other ones. It kind of leans over. That could just be his pimply and pasty skin. But, Luke, he looks like he knows where the gym is, though, so let's give Mike some credit. Hey, listen, listen. He's mostly doing life right.

I'll put it that way. All right. Thank you, Mike, for patronizing us and allows us to patronize you. At El heffy not jeffy he says bc may have lost the bet about full indoor events by a few months but had to make sure mk was still represented at the largest indoor combat sports event in u.s history two plus weeks after our second vaccination shots we were super spreading the gospel of mk matchroom put on a great show but

jerry world had a piss poor performance people waiting over an hour for concessions they ran out of beer and several other items no wonder half dead jerry can't say da zone luke this is uh these are they went to the canelo fight in mk gear i love it bro this is why you got to bring a vape pen and a flask to all sports games yeah you're right you're right uh a very beautiful missus right there for l heffy not jeffy and he's wearing our merch so the guy's winning luke she's her face is uh pinker than yours please no country time lemonade jokes thank you sir for your service to mk and for attending that event and spreading our gospel all right that's right arthur c says what's up luke and bc bbc

here i am with my merch 1.0 on bourbon street in new orleans i was inspired by bill and jen's rv adventures to bring my own mk shirt on the road with me during my travels and i'll continue to do so thank you again for your dedication, knowledge, and enthusiasm. This rocket ship is going to the moon. May all of your big booty Latinas be loyal. Two words, we out. Arthur from Los Angeles. Look, this is perfect.

This is a perfect fan submission. Have you been to Bourbon Street? I have for WrestleMania a few years ago. I spent the whole week there, yeah. Yeah, it's a fun time man bourbon street is as advertised luke i i had a lot of work to do that week so i was in back in my hotel room by like eight o'clock nine o'clock each night which i know sounds lame but even in that time restraint i saw some wacky shit luke that's so that's a wild area all right okay here's

a true story on bourbon street i had a horse bite my hand that fucking hurt by the way those motherfuckers can chomp um so i had that i saw i thought i think i've told a story before they were trying to get this girl to flash who was really drunk and she didn't want to do it so they threw beads at her anyway and they didn't mean to but it hit her in the face and then she got irate but she had just tipped over the point where she was no longer in control of her faculties so she tries to throw the beads back misses and then ends up rolling into the gutter and because she falls over and the gutter is filled with manure and piss and everything you know just the worst and she gets up and then is

still trying to throw beads but like her clothes are starting to tear, her shoes are off, her friends are trying to gather her. That was a bad scene. And then I saw a guy get tased because he resisted arrest and then thrown in the back of a literal paddy wagon. They fucking, and then chucked him in there. To his credit, that fucker fought the whole time. It was broad daylight, but they got him in.

You know what I'm saying? It was a show. So, yeah yeah i've had some fun times and i saw the saddest strippers at larry flint's hustler club oh don't go in there when it's daylight bro that's uh you get that's a sad scene up in that when the buffet is free you don't want to be there yeah shout out to arthur from la for wrapping us i appreciate that clayton says hey BC, I'm a P1 MK guy. My fiance Brittany has an epiphany that her and Luke are wearing the same glasses. She's salty as

hell too, just like him. Keep up the art. Hey Luke, Clayton's fiance Brittany, is that the same frames you're rocking there? Maybe. These are, where did I get these? I got these at the, they're made by Columbia but like the people who make the jackets C-O-L-U-M-B-I-A. I don't know if you can see that or not.

I can't tell if those glasses are hot because Brittany wears them or if they're unisex and lame because you wear them. I can't see. Yeah, no, they're probably fucking lame, but if she wears them, they're probably not that lame. Okay, all right. Thank you, Clayton, for sliding in there. At Alpha Lurker, is this Art B. Campbell?

This meme is shitposted in good faith. That day one-ish MK viewer here got plenty of laughs from the show. Much love from Australia. Luke, when they zoom in, you got to read this. This is brilliant stuff here from Alpha Lurker. The IQ bell curve, Bella spelled wrong, of morning combat viewers. Okay.

Luke Thomas is a lefty asshole. Haha, Brian fun E. Okay, so then it gets over to the now crying face meme. Brian just goes too far. I think he is racist. Luke is insightful, intelligent. No, intel gentent tent and analytical all spelled wrong and then it goes back to luke thomas is a lefty asshole though paired with bc can be funny yeah

that's more like a life cycle than a bell curve but that is the exact life by the way it says brain instead of brian i think he was intentionally trying to misspell everything. Oh, I see. I see. I see. Okay. But, Luke, that is the life cycle of, I'm here for this show because I love Luke. Man, this asshole that he's, this casual asshole that he sits with, why do they do this show? Then, you know, four months later, I can't believe I'm saying

this, but, you know, BC's won me over. And then, you know, six months after that, God, I hate Luke Thomas. BC's the only reason why I'm still here. I guess it's inevitable, Luke. Yeah, you overstate how much you're adored, but it's okay. I'll let you just live under these delusions. All right.

Ben S. has a meme. He says, Luke and BC debating Canelo versus Saunders. Okay, that's fine. That's fair. That's fair. All right right i'm good with that uh let's keep it rolling here ca jumps in he says nothing like a technical difficulty rant from luke i can't see the mysteries that cannot be solved interior of a black hole anything divided by zero i still can't read the bottom it says uh luke thomas's audio issues oh dark matter yeah yeah they seem to be persistent don't don't they bc persistent little but they won't leave

you luke uh basil k we have a viewer named basil wow this is luke when bc talks about being sent to hell from josh thompson damn dude spongebob got hit up bad lord wow wow yeah this is how we look uh every time we go to jersey city on our last day that is 100 true yes it is uh yeah no well said basil by the way look we have fans in india they dm me i mean we we hit all nations right you you have covered cutter us, but we have hit all nations. I don't really cover that base for you, but you do keep saying that. That is a thing that you do. Hey, Alex is here. He says, some people have strong opinions about BC.

I don't know if this is better than Country Time Pink Lemonade, but I found it pretty funny the comment from uh mad skilon on youtube is this dude legit looks like a jar of mayonnaise somehow evolved to be human i mean it's not wrong luke it's it's rude but it's not wrong yeah yeah you know what god 2.2k likes jesus christ wow wow well done people really responded to that one bc i have to tell you uh ke L. says, here's a pic of BC wearing the very masculine colors of white, gold, and black while using the phone that sports the same masculine colors. By the way, my friend's mom also owns the same Kate Spade phone case. If we could zoom in one more time, Maniche, on this, please, so that the people can see. You know what, BC?

I was thinking about this. I've seen all these places do it. How hard is it to get a MK-branded phone cover? I think they should add that to Merch 2.0, and it would sell like H-cakes, Luke. All I'm saying, though, is I got this for like 79 off and it's pretty masculine i mean gold is a pilot when you see a male ufc fighter wear the championship shorts befitting a champion they're black with white and gold stripes so thank you very much yeah but they

don't do it with like stuff you're like oh that'd go well with a clutch you do that i mean that might be fair all right f, Fernando C. is here. He says, BBC on the fourth day of his drunken binge, void of all BDE after having chosen two girls, one cup over navel to navel with Luke. Factory tough. This is a drawing of me, apparently, from a man who owns one of our MK mugs.

The only thing about this that's kind of authentic is uh the terrible beard but also this is you after you gave yourself a haircut so yeah i've said that publicly my wife made me agree that no longer will i do that luke so oh that's right you did say that yes yes yes all right hey we got one more from jonah heat world and he says live from the fruit capital of the world, the fruit fly capital, excuse me. So, Luke, he has zoomed in from you on the Bellator morning combat set, and he actually has found, is that a tip-to-tip fruit fly?

This joke could have been so good, and he botched it with an unrecognizable punch line because it's almost like the remember when the fly landed on mike pence's head in those presidential debates and everyone was like well he's trying to do that bit here uh but i don't even know what the fuck i'm looking at uh could it be too i don't know luke i don't know god bless you but i don't know i don't know thank you that's a terrible way to end a long show it's actually is it jonah eat world and i said heat jonah yeah you did you said although you know what jonah heat world would be a good place for like a hot sauce store that's a fair point him and dustin could get together all right luke we've been here way too long. We almost ruined our friendship over something stupid, so I'm done.

It's okay. People need to understand that you and I can yell at each other and debate and scream, and yet we're still—that's part of the show. It reminds me of my actual marriage, not just my actual marriage. Exactly. So folks should just get used to it. Do you want a show where everyone agrees all the time, do i definitely don't okay uh let's remind folks if you'd like to try showtime you can you can go to showtime.com you can get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not

it's not for you you can go do something else with your life um so that's something you can do we have tons of content up on the channel interviews with valerie loretta interviews with cyborg santos interview just you know i should say, interviews with all kinds of folks, and of course, youtube.com slash morningcombat is the place to get that. You can see all the stuff there for all of social,

for Twitter, Instagram, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah there. Remember, don't forget to email the show for Dead Wrong. I'm sure we've gotten a thousand things of those wrong. You go to morningcombat at gmail.com. Let us know what we got wrong.

Please be sure to properly title the emails. We appreciate that. We have a show on Friday, BC and I. Live chat tomorrow at 3 BC. We should also tell folks we're going to be doing the weigh-ins tomorrow, remotely anyway, but we're doing the weigh-ins tomorrow for

Bellator 259, and there'll be a video on the MK channel, so be on the lookout for that as well. Anything I miss? No, you nailed it, Luke. All right, I'm done, though. All right, long show. Thanks to everyone who watched.

Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe for Malka, for Showtime, for CBS Sports. Until next time, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. May all of Dim Gains be loyal.