MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Gervonta Davis Impresses | Ciryl Gane | Vasiliy Lomachenko | Bellator 261 | Ep 173

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

On Episode 173 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell recap a packed weekend of combat sports. Gervonta Davis scored a 11th round tko of Mario Barrios. What does this mean for Tank and who should be next (10:00)? Ciryl Gane got the win at UFC fight night but was it enough to get him a title shot (35:50)? The guys also recap Bellator 261 (46:00) and Vasiliy Lomachenko's win over Masayoshi Nakatani (59:00). The guys close out the main topics with other notable standouts from the weekend (68:00). '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

well it's the 28th of June 2021, and it is time for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am coming to you live from your nation's capital here in Washington, D.C. I am part of CBS Sports and my brethren, who is also part of CBS Sports, although he is royalty. He's the king of Connecticut himself. It's Brian Campbell, B.C. How you doing, bud?

Luke, I'm sweaty. I don't know if you saw my Gervonta Davis instant analysis show from my basement late Saturday night. It was like record heat in good old C.T. I'm sure the rest of the country these days. It was hot as fuck on the streets. My hands were all bloody from punching on the concrete, Luke. G-damn, homie. My show was playing tricks on me.

We still have a show, Luke? Yes. Yes, we still have a show. Yes. All right. All right. Would you say we got waterboarded a little bit? But we made it through, okay?

Interrogation, we made it through. All right? Yes. Come at us. We're fine. Yes, we're fine. If you're going to come. We have a lot to get. All right. Come at us. through alright come at us we're fine we have a lot to get come at us we have a lot to get to today including let's see Tank Davis fights

we got UFC fights we've got PFL a little bit of Bellator to throw in there as well this could be the best show we ever did right here Luke this is a loaded show bro it certainly is there's also Lomachenko stuff we haven't even gotten to yet. There's a ton of stuff, plus your DMs, plus have you seen the show? Hey, a Bellator recap too, right?

When I say loaded, I'm talking Bellator, brother. Yeah, it wouldn't be loaded without a Bellator recap. Everybody knows that. So, yeah, we have a lot to get to here today. As always, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. We appreciate you joining us let's remind everyone bc i'm wearing one of the newer pieces of gear now i don't know if this is

actually available on the store but we do have a 2.0 available luke but our trusty merch man krupp the guy who we equally love and loathe at depending on which time of the month for most probably the 28 days we do uh he said that's our best seller okay very good so i'm wearing this one you can get that morning combat dot store morning combat dot store and again we have heard some of the issues about some of the things they'd like to see with 2.0 your message is heard it's understood we're definitely going to start turning some of that stuff out as soon as possible so i feel like having that store up and ready should make adding some of the things you guys are looking for a little bit easier absolutely we'll get crop on the scene would you call crop the j of merch or

should i just move on i don't know it's a little insulting to jay isn't it oh wow oh wow i'm teasing i'm teasing i'm teasing what a week for this show eating its own. Wow, this is great. I know. I'm teasing. I'm teasing. So there's that. If you want to get Showtime, you certainly may. You can watch boxing there. You can watch Bellator there.

All the stuff that they have. You can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, keep it. If not, you can cancel it. No charges. All 30 days are free for you to use. Yes. Oh, email.

So for Wednesdays, let's see uh fan submissions and friday's dead wrong if you just want to reach the show in general morningcombat at gmail.com morningcombat at gmail.com understand we don't read that email address me and brian so you're sending that to like producers and other folks but if you want to reach the show let's be honest you're sending it to mikey all right you're sending it to mikey really uh but bc before we get the show started here very quickly i wanted to remind everyone it's the summer i mean i don't have to really remind you but it's worth sort of pointing out bc and um our friends at manscaped just launched their fourth gen performance package which includes the lawnmower 4.0 bc and well Well, Luke, if you wanted to get specific about summer,

I'd like to quickly talk to you about below your belt. And no, I'm not talking about shop, Papa. I'm talking about trimming your nut bag, Luke, okay? Because I'm sure it is a wild west of unused. Yeah, yeah. It's just, I mean, it's like if a tree falls in a crowded forest and no one's there to trim it up, you know? Is it still a forest?

Yes. By the way, they sent us a care package last week. I want to make sure I get this right because I did look at all of it. It has a ball toner, ball deodorant, and new Lawn Mower 4.0, which has 4,000 LED lights to navigate. It's waterproof and BC, skin safe to keep you nick free. I know you probably had a couple of bloody accidents down there. So I have.

By the way, I have had some bloody accidents in my time as a manscaper, which went long before this company was formed but this company has come out in front of it luke and they've got the protector on the razor and look it works okay i'm not only the ball club president i'm also a client so why don't you join the two million men worldwide who trust manscaped right now go to manscaped.com and use the code combat that's with a k of course for 20% off and free shipping. I mean, get your franks and beans ready, Luke, for some 4th of July barbecuing

if you know what I mean. I'm talking about after the barbecue, late night when you go out to the club and those lights come on at the end and it's a harsh reality of who's left to swim through the pool of awkwardness. You'll find someone and she'll be very happy that you manscaped.

The performance package, 4.0 by the way bc also has the weed whacker this is very helpful for us aging mother mother effers it gets the nose hair and then the ear hair my friend i used it it works well well luke really works in any hole if we're being honest right right all right so you've seen it there you can go to manscape.com you can use the code combat of course that's going to be combat with the k that's going to get you 20 off free shipping uh what else bc i mean if you go tip to uh whatever you want you want it to be smooth brother so don't have a hot ball summer get manscaped's performance package 4.0 luke i'm very upset that not only did you no-sell my whole joke, it was pre-written in the script ahead of time for me to just deliver.

It was like on brand for the BC. And you're like, I ain't having this. I ain't having anything. I know. I thought it was really lame, so I ignored it. But I want everyone to know the fourth-gen performance package includes, of course, the Lawn Mower 4.0. That's right, 4.0.

As you guys should understand, you can compliment your summer bod with a trim from the leaders in male grooming. Two million men worldwide have trusted Manscaped. Why don't you? You can get ready for hot guy summer. None of you are hot guys. By going to manscaped.com, 20% off, plus free shipping using the code COMBATWITHAKBC. I mean, what is it?

Anything else? You know, having a cleaned up package too good for you, MK listeners? Seriously. Luke, special shout out to all of our new sponsors and also all the people that regularly listen to our shows. Big John and Josh, I see you. Shout out to you guys, all right?

There you go. All right, with that out of the way, let's get to these topics if we can, BC. We have a lot to get to, so no time like the present present we start with really the biggest fight in combat sports over the weekend there's simply no denying it in fact i looked yesterday bc on trending uh youtube which again is not the be all end all but it does kind of give you a sense about what's out there what's hot what's current and gervonta davis had the number two four, and five videos on there. Didn't have number one, but he had all the rest of them. Why?

Because he stopped. He defeated Mario Barrios in the 11th round in what can only be described, BC, as an absolute thriller. I went back and I watched it yesterday just to see if my... Did it feel the same the second time around? And, of course, fights don't ever really feel exactly the same the second time around, BC. But here's my question to you. Number one, I thought that the first half of the fight, totally Mario Baros' fight, you can give him the first four rounds, no problem. From round five on, that is where everything began to change. And I will give Baros credit,

dude. He absolutely gave everything that he could handle. But my question to you is, does Tank's victory put him in pound for pound inclusion because not only did he go up in weight and win BC but he delivered power in the most impressive of ways up that weight class and he took everything Barrios had like it was nothing look it absolutely does and I get that there's people that are critical of Tank because they feel at times he didn't face the toughest challenges available or maybe they're trying to downgrade Barrios with this win. How could you? First of all, what Tank is doing is the very definition of pound for pound, similar to what Canelo has done the last two years, which is now across three different weight classes, he can get in there against, you know,

the best he can find and put forth an impressive performance. Now, I know he hasn't fought everybody at lightweight. We'll get to that in a little bit about how the politics get in the way of that. But he went up there against at 140. We didn't know. He didn't know if his power was going to carry. And Luke, he went in there against a guy who in some ways overachieved, in some ways exceeded expectations. Barrios was unbeaten, 26 years old, in his absolute prime, but hadn't faced anybody of Davis' caliber, yet he went in there and put a ballsy, tough performance, Luke, even when dropped twice in the eighth round, which seemed to be, we thought in the moment, the turning point of the fight for good.

Like, okay, Davis has figured him out. He's caught up to him. Good effort, Barrios. Barrios still rallied back in 9 and 10 after that and kept making it a fight. And how did he do it, Luke? It's a lot of what I broke down in Saturday night's instant analysis. He found a way to be efficient, as did Davis, by the way, who fights a little bit like Prime Canelo, or like Jermell Charlo as well, in a way, where you don't throw too many punches to overextend yourself. Sometimes in close rounds,

that can hurt you depending on who's judging. But there was an efficiency in Barrios, Luke, that I loved, where there were times he established his jab, there were times Davis took it away, there were times Barrios brought it back. But through that all, he never was caught off balance, caught reaching. He put forth a very smart performance, yet the fight wasn't boring, it was thrilling, there were dramatic twists and turns, all encompassing.

This was a star coming in that we already knew in Davis, putting forth a star performance. Luke, did you feel the old school vibes in this fight? You should have. This is a fighter in his prime, taking on a challenge, having to figure out mid-fight twice how to adjust, and then knocking him out. What more do you want?

Okay, I want Davis to fight the biggest names he's gonna he's gonna fight him okay because he's gonna be around for a while making big pay-per-views so get ready buckle up this 26 year old guy is everything we should want in a star save for some of these outside the ring hiccups that i hope luke he can repair up because inside the ring similar in a way to floyd but different he's he's unshaken Luke he's he's the real deal that's right if he can stay out of trouble which still is a big if but because he still has pending issues that he has to settle we'll see what happens with that but provided he can find a way to let's say move on outgrow mature past that and stay on the straight and narrow at least insofar

as he can to not impact his career. He's destined for huge things, man. First of all, like this ended up being very clever matchmaking BC. Like we kind of knew that ahead of time. Like, oh, that's an interesting way for Tank to get a tough opponent and all the reasons that we mentioned pre-fight. But then it played out, I think, exactly as we had hoped it would. Barrios, you could maybe give Tank one of the first four rounds,

like round three, maybe, if you're feeling generous. I gave him one. I gave him round one, Luke. Round one, okay. That's fine. Round one was close, too. I don't have an issue with that.

I gave Barrios two, three, four, and nine. That's what I did at the end, all right? Two, three, four, and nine. But this is my point. So he was up to an early lead. Round five is when things begin to change. Abner Morris talking about how he took away the jab. You begin to see Tank walk down the bigger man like that.

And then finally, he really got through, as we know, in the eighth, dropping him twice. But to your point, I like that you gave him the ninth. Of course, you had to give him the ninth because Barrios came out and rallied in the ninth, landing multiple hard, flush left hooks on Tank Davis. Not intimidated at all. absolutely doing his very best to rise to the occasion. He had a tough 10th round, he lost it, but he stood on his feet and then that body shot in the 11th. Dude, Tank Davis might have the very best left uppercut in the business. He's got one of the very best uppercuts in the business. He might have one

of the very best left uppercuts I've ever seen. That was a very similar punch, not quite identical, at least in the setup to the punch he landed on Leo Santa Cruz. Obviously, he went all the way through to the face, but Leo Santa Cruz under the chin. This time, he went to the body, but you could just tell immediately, obviously, the horrible pain that a guy like Barrios was in, and credit to him, he got off the canvas again. The referee had to save him, obviously, from himself because his body language was not great in the subsequent onslaught, butc i was so impressed by this you know it's kind of funny floyd mayweather has a reputation uh our fights in this here here i'm about to say before everyone's like no there's no way that's true but it is true floyd mayweather if you're gonna beat him

right we're talking about floyd in his prime you had to win inside the first six rounds. Because after the first six, from 7 to 12, he's already got you figured out. The game's over at that point. At that point, he's just going to go and style on you. That's often what he did. And he's in better shape than you. So you're going to go in the wrong direction as he gets stronger late.

That's a key part of his game. And he understood what you were doing and how to take it away. Tank Davis doesn't have the same exact defensive slickness. I'm not saying he's on par with Floyd in that way, but he took his time. He watched exactly what Barrios was going to do. You could say he got one of the first four rounds. Let's just say for the first four rounds, it was all Barrios. But once he had it locked in and once he was able to take away that jab, really invest in the body work that first, I think it was the first drop,

he was jabbing, faking to the body and then came over the top to the head. That was all the body work he had invested. And then at that point, the fight became completely different. Dude, if you don't beat Tank early, trust me when I tell you his power carries late his power carries late up to weight classes and bc it turns out my man's got a chin too wow this kid if he can stay on a path he is going to be a mega star and look it's like what do what do you know there's so many casual boxing let's not lie there's so many casual boxing fans luke who love the sport, but get rightfully frustrated that at times it's hard to follow it, it's expensive to follow it, there's too many

belts, there's too much bullshit. We can all agree that it's true some of the time, right? Or sometimes a lot of the time. You know what transcends that? Hungry stars who go after it. Luke, everyone should go to youtube.com slash morningcombat for all our bonus content.

One of the good ones we have right now is me chatting with Al Bernstein about that Showtime doc, you know, the Kings, about the great times of the 80s, the stars they went after. I mean, look, I want Tank to fight everyone he can, and I hope he will. But at the very least right now,

when he's in there, I feel like he wants the smoke. Meaning, Luke, he wants to be challenged, meaning he knows there's more under the hood than he has had to show in 25 fights where he's had 24 knockouts. I think he liked being in there on Saturday and being forced to show what's inside of him to make the adjustment and then make the adjustment on top of the adjustment, Luke. I think there's a lot to this kid that is going to transcend to the people beyond, you know, knockouts and he looks cool and he's young. So he connects with a young fan base. There's like this humility and hunger as a fighter, just as a fighter within him that speaks volumes and translates to people.

That's why here's what's interesting. You'll probably see him a couple more times at 135. You know, who knows if there could be a big enough name for him to ever cut to 130 again. But I kind of think he's going to be in the higher weight classes sooner than later because for him, that's where the challenges are, Luke. And he's got so much talent. I feel like he wants to challenge it. I feel like he wants to trade big punches

and show his craft is better than others. The proof will be in the putting,in as Floyd says in terms of the matchmaking moving forward. And I don't want to look past the comments Floyd said after about Gervonta's future in terms of promotion that were a bit controversial. We can get to that in a second. But just in terms of what he's made

up of and what he's looking to deliver, we need more Tank Davises. And I think this is going to this was a giant turn in a new direction of of casual fan baiting because you bait them by going after it once you get in there luke no doubt about it and then delivering in the way that he did sticking the back flip and everything else it's just he's a showman like when he talks you know giovante's kind of quiet actually when he fights he speaks quite loudly but one thing I just want to point out again, BC, is, like, listen, if Gervonta goes up against someone he's just clearly better than, they're not going to last too long.

Six or less, probably three or less. His firepower, especially at 130, 135, it's just way, way, way too much. Nobody can really stand up to it. But as he gets to the higher echelons of those divisions, or certainly 140, maybe 147 down the line, we'll see how things go. He's got a built-in style for drama because he does have to take his time watching what you do. He does have to kind of give away a little bit of the early rounds and then kind of, I don't want to say rally in the sense that he's beaten up and he has to kind of rocky his way forward. But you know, if you're down four rounds heading into the fifth, yeah, man, you got some work to do. But because he has so much, I don't want to say just firepower, but because he's got firepower, he's got great shot selection.

He is a born finisher. He's got an IQ. IQ, IQ. I don't want to take it away. I just want to point out, BC, I'll throw it right back to you. The only thing I want to point out is as he really ascends up the ladder, I think you're going to get a lot of this kind of drama when he drops off early and then storms back late. Yeah.

You know, it's always hard to tell because Floyd's been a longtime mentor for him and they've had ups and downs and Floyd played a key role in this part. I'm going to get to in about 30 seconds, but I just want to say, you know, he's had to absorb a lot of great instruction and advice from Floyd. And, you know, I don't know if this is more Gervonta than Floyd, but the IQ of Tank for being such a big puncher, his IQ, the care that he shows in setting up Luke, it's, I mean, it's elite, it's next level. So that's why it's like, you know, if people want to go, oh, he's just a puncher. I don't want to put him in the pound for pound. No, look closer.

I think you'll see. And I think this fight was the perfect showcase of just how smart and crafty he is, which is important in the long run when he's going to move up in weight and be in there potentially against guys who can punch on the same level or maybe even more. And it's what I think is giving Canelo the confidence where he's like, look, I'm going to take all belts at 68 and then bring on Baterbiev. Like bring him on now. I'm ready because he believes in his craft just as much as everything else. So Luke, I want to ask you about Floyd. Let's start with during the fight,

because it was two key moments. You can say it was a turning point, forgot the exact rounds, but this was, you know, in the second half of the fight, when Tank comes back to the corner, the fight's close and Floyd Floyd jumps the barricade, goes up, and is basically like, look, you're down on the scorecards unofficially. And I love that Tank got pissed off. I mean, Tank was like, what'd you say?

And it was Floyd basically saying... We're quickly, for folks who missed it, BC, I know you saw it, Floyd had to reassure him. No, no, unofficial, unofficial scorecard. So he's saying, look, you know, it got back to Floyd that Steve Farhood on the unofficial scorecard who ended up scoring the fight 94-94 and let's say in the close rounds was giving Barrios more of the benefit

of the doubt than I was or the three judges. But I saw Twitter. It was pretty split, right? Because there were some close rounds, specifically in that second half where Barrios controlled most of the action, but Tank would come on late with bigger shots. I love that Floyd was not only insanely honest with him in that spot to challenge him,

but when Davis gave him that sort of like, what? Floyd's like, dude, I'm keeping it 100 with you. That's what you need out of me. Luke, I saw people like, I don't know, criticizing Floyd that that's not his role. He's not the trainer. You know, if he wants to be like that, then become Gervonta's trainer. I disagree. This is his promoter, but it's also like a big brother mentor role. Floyd knows close fights. Floyd knows championship adjustments. He went

in there and lit a fire. And I think it worked, Luke. I thought this was, you know, across the board, a strong move by Floyd in that role. No doubt about it. I mean, I think people are criticizing Floyd for what he's doing because it does seem a little too hands-on. Not so much just the corner work, but then even at the post-fight presser, Floyd kind of, you know, not dominated, but he was so talkative. At one point, they brought him a microphone so that he could just talk while Gervonta was talking so I think people are like

you know Floyd let the guy breathe a little bit let the guy do his thing okay you know whatever you can you can weigh in on that debate if you want for me I'm mostly with you on this one yeah Floyd did he have a cornerman's license for this fight like what was he doing there I don't know but the advice was good uh Gervonta responded to it it seemed to light a fire under him and Floyd you know if you want to say he's a little heavy-handed say it but he seems to understand what gets the best out of Gervonta and I will have to see how Gervonta feels about all of it but he's seemed to work for him. So I understand the criticisms, but I'm like you. I'm like, dude, that helped.

I mean, I don't know if he would have lost without that or something, but it definitely moved him in a pretty serious way. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's talk about Floyd's comments after the fight, and they pertain to... Yeah, that one's a little less easy to understand. Now, Floyd is the promoter, of course, of Mayweather Promotions, which promotes Gervonta. Obviously, Al Heyman and the PBC

are kind of the overarching manager in this situation, quasi-promoter. They're all connected, though. What Floyd basically said is, moving forward, we're only fighting in-house PBC. If you fight at 130, 135, or 140, that's who Tank's going to fight. We're not going elsewhere to somebody else's network

and make it a star. Now, look, these are controversial comments to a large degree, but I think they don't mean everything people think they mean. And so look, at the end of the day, do I want to hear this out of Floyd? No. I want to hear Tank Davis look in the microphone and say, I proved tonight that I'm one of the 10 best in the world. So if you think you're there, Teofimo, Ryan Garcia, Devin Haney, Roo-Garoo, I want fighters, Luke, who want all the smoke, even if they're lying. It's like you and I, it's like I always say to you, Luke, if you're a promoter, if you're Eddie Hearn, Dana White, a lot of what you say is naturally going to be a little bit of lie, but can you put some nuance in the lie a little bit? And if you're not going to put nuance in the lie to trick me, tell me the damn truth. So this is the case right here.

I'd rather Floyd and Gervonta basically say, I want all the smoke. But I don't think these comments mean they don't want all the smoke. So if you're not a regular in boxing and don't deal with the shenanigans that we do as journalists and fans of the promotion and network divide between fighters, you might not really understand what's going on. This was a power move by Floyd to tell the rest of the world, meaning all those young fighters that are becoming stars that want to fight Tank, that Tank's the A-side. I think, Luke, when we look at how Tank packs arenas wherever he

goes, and now he's got two fights on the pay-per-view level that seem to have delivered in terms of action and anticipation. Right now, yeah, he's the A-side if he was going to fight the a side if he was going to fight 100 you know garcia if he's gonna fight you know ryan garcia if he's gonna fight teo femo whatever but in this structure how boxing works people do have to understand something it's not the 1980s unfortunately or even 2000 like ryan garcia is not going to leave golden

boy in the zone to fight on showtime pay-per-view against Teofil, against Gervonta, excuse me, or to do it on regular Showtime because there's not enough money there and they want to get paid too. So the way these guys are going to fight each other are when they both get up to the pay-per-view level and we do a two network pay-per-view. Now, I'd love, Luke, if that's not the truth. And I'd love if next year something changes that, you know, that changes that. But as we stand right now, Wilder and Fury are on separate networks separate promoters yet Fox

PBC and ESPN and Top Rank are coming together again to do it again because there's enough money at stake to afford it unfortunately you can't put Gervonta against another big name on basic cable there's not enough money to pay everybody and those guys are not going to leave their own networks unfortunately to come to somebody else's network to do a pay-per-view that's just the way boxing works right now so in some ways this is floyd saying we're the a-side when it happens down the road but luke unless people change their mindset their mindset to say i don't care about the money i want to fight everybody right now then guys that are 25 and 26 years old

are not going to fight each other unless they're both established pay-per-view brands and everybody can make money off of it this is sobering to some people but that's the business structure right now that is what it is i wish it was different luke you know when we got a gift on friday bc at friday's way and i asked you i'll let you keep going, but on Friday's weigh-in, I even asked you, I said, listen, if Tank does well here and the pay-per-view wins, he's lapping the other 135ers he's supposed to be fighting against to the point where we're not even on equal levels, not so much as prize fighters in your skill, but prize fighters in your draw.

Yes. Now look, if Teofimo Lopez goes up to the pay-per-view level and beats Lomachenko in the rematch, and we can get to that shortly in this show, and establishes himself on pay-per-view, and beats Lomachenko in the rematch, and we can get to that shortly in this show, and establishes himself on pay-per-view, and it becomes a point where everybody can make money, we can build to that and we can make it. Unfortunately, and I know this is unfortunate for people who are used to great matchmaking in short order in other sports, it's not the NBA playoffs. They're not going to advance and fight each other yet. I don't think this means, though, that Floyd and Gervonta don't want the smoke. They are businessmen, though, first at the end of the day. You can say what you want for that or against it,

but that's the boxing model of the moment. Luke, we got a gift last year when Loma and Teofimo fought on regular ESPN. The gift was, as we heard about in the reports, that both were willing to take a little bit less than normal because it was the pandemic, because they wanted to get that fight in for their legacies. That was sort of an old school move by both of those guys. If they fight again, it's going to be on pay-per-view. If Gervonta fights anybody moving forward, it's going to be on pay-per-view. So if you're looking for those super crossover fights, not yet.

But Luke, that doesn't mean there can't be creative matchmaking done on the PBC side, which has the largest amount of fighters across potentially three weight divisions to find who's next i don't know who would be next but would you like to see gervonta against isaac cruz the mexican slugger would you like to see somebody i saw someone suggest this this might be tank biting off more than he could chew at least at 140 uh probably is because of the level but someone was suggesting uh regis progray taking on tank davis that's a hell of a fight that's a tough fight for tank it's a hell of a fight hey here's a couple other i'd like luke manny pacquiao who right now is going to have you know errol spence

this summer but is a free agent looking for big fights i mean would you hate uh mikey garcia another big free agent out there you know these are some other sort of challenges I can get myself into. I will say this, BC. The only pushback I would give, I think your explanation is absolutely correct. It's sobering. It's not what people want to hear. I heard it. I was a little disappointed.

I think fans are right to hear that and be like, dude, seriously? I get it. But this is the other point. It's like, dude, if they can find these creative matchups, whether it's a Pro Gray or a Garcia or whoever it ends up being, then you have to give credit where it is due. I think Tank Davis going up and fighting Barrios at 140 really deserves a lot of credit, but also the fans are going to be on him and Floyd and whoever else about what about Lopez? What about Haney? What about Garcia? And I think the fans are right to apply that pressure, right? The fans have their own set of interests that don't necessarily align with the fighters

or the promotions or whatever, but their interests are no less valid. If you're going to go around what the fan interests are, you cannot expect them to just give up their interests. They're still going to have them. So it's good that the fans over time, I think can still apply matchmaking pressure to get the fights that they want to see.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It is. And anyone who's an MMA fan going, F this, I'll go back to the UFC. Well, look, I mean, there is competition. No, not that. Here's what I'll say. There is competition for the UFC, by the way. There's like four legitimate promotions out there.

Unfortunately, right now, Luke, we're not going to see Kayla Harrison against Amanda Nunes or Pitbull against Max Holloway. And if you're an MMA fan, you got to go, well, why can't we just make that? Well, you know why. They're separate promotions on separate networks. That's why. It's really the same thing in boxing.

It's just that in boxing, there's more of these sort of... It's a little more pronounced in boxing. At least in boxing, Luke, we can do it. At least we can get Wilder fury right you're never going to see that in mma unless some unless everybody goes to the ufc all right we're 30 minutes into the show so let me quickly ask you about erickson lubin co-main event dropping rosario does rosario and finishing him off in the six i think does rosario have body shot issues two fights in a row they went to the body and he didn't just go down he went down writhing in agony he did have moments bc where he rocked lubin the fight was actually pretty good

for as long as it lasted but lubin stuck it to him what do you make of how each one did yeah he's got a weak spot there luke twice in a row on the elite level we found it and it's unfortunate but in a lot of ways this fight played out to like how we thought it could at the highest end it was a bit tactical early but you had two flawed but very good you know quasi elite title contending guys and you know Rosario was a former unified champion that's not lost on me but he did it by upset and they let it go once this fight started heating up it started heating up dude I loved the swings of momentum I love that right when Lubin had dropped him and you thought he had it in the bag. A counter jab of all punches, Luke. A counter jab from Rosario like rocked Lubin and suddenly Bananas back in the fight. In the end, you give the kid Lubin a lot of credit. Luke, he gutted it out. Is he vulnerable at the elite level? Yes. But again, so was Terry Norris,

Hall of Famer. So will Ryan Garcia when he continues to move up against the big sluggers. Some guys have less, let's say, ability to withstand big single shots than others. But Lubin's got balls, and he's got the boxing to back it up. I would love nothing more, should Jermell Charlo get through Brian Castaño and have all four belts July 17th, I would love nothing more than Erickson Lubin be next in a rematch because Jermell took a very very young Lubin to the woodshed in round

one in their fight four years ago. Lubin's not a he's different because he's more mature, Luke. But it doesn't lessen the fact that there's still the vulnerability. But what makes Lubin so much fun is that vulnerability is there staring at you. He might knock you out though before you find that vulnerability. I think that's what this showcased Luke not everyone's

going to be a complete game across the board but he has really sharpened his tools around that no doubt about it I also worry about Rosario the winner for J-Rock was big grabbing two belts obviously he lost him to Charlo but when you lose two times like this it's like you know does that mean that everyone who now knows that body shots are his weakness are going to beat him no because it's obviously a little more difficult than just that but the elite guys you know i wonder if he's ceilinged out a little bit because i still think he'll get wins against you know credible opposition to be sure but but the guys who are really good and that's where all the money is that's where all the main events are

that's where the belts are, they appear to, at least for now, for now, BC, they appear to have his number, and it may impact his career pretty badly if he can't figure out a way around it. Candidly, real quick on Banana, because I love the guy. I've interviewed him before. He's hilarious through a translator.

I love his style, Luke. It's raw and awkward and sometimes not even technical, but he just kind of wills himself there. I think he's got to look internally style, Luke. It's raw and awkward and sometimes not even technical, but he just kind of wills himself there. I think he's got to look internally first, Luke. It may not just be, oh, he can't take it to the body. Did you hear the excuses he gave in the build to this fight about why he lost to Charlo? No, look, Charlo's the best in the division, one of the best in the game, Luke. But his excuse was, I didn't train hard enough for that fight. I had become a little complacent. If you're not training hard enough for a pay-per-view main event against a star in the game and a chance to be a three

division belt holder in one of the sport's biggest divisions, months after you made your name by upsetting J-Rock Williams on national television, if there's a hiccup in your personal life and your training where you can't bring out the best of you, then there's a deeper issue that I hope before he comes back to the ring, Luke, he looks at it and tries to fix. Maybe a body shot will always be there to hurt him. Maybe. I don't know. But I tend to think there's something a little deeper going on. Fair enough. All right, let's move on to some MMA before our audience has a mutiny.

Topic number two, Cyril Gunn. He got it done. He wins via unanimous decision. 250-45, I think there was one 49-46. Volkov was in it. It wasn't the most exciting fight I'd ever seen, but Volkov was in it. It was definitely competitive for as long as it lasted. But BC, in the end, the Frenchman, Cyril Ghosn, getting it done.

And here's the thing that stood out to me, BC. The question for you is, did he do enough to earn a title shot? Did he impress you in some kind of way that made you, I don't know if rethink Cyril Ghosn, but made you imagine the, to use the words I always do, the upper bound limit? Because to me, one of the most impressive things, two things really stood out to me about Ghosn in this fight that maybe I hadn't seen necessarily in some other ones, at least not as much. Number one, Volkov was landing on him, dude, and Volkov is not a soft touch guy. I mean, he really put some mustard on his shots, and Gon kind of took it, and I was actually pretty surprised at how well and composed he stayed the whole time, even under some pretty

intense pressure at various moments anyway from Volkov. Number one. Number two, man, dude, his ability to freeze opponents and get them thinking, and when they're thinking, they're not throwing, and when they're not throwing, he is, dude. He is extremely, extremely good at controlling something we talked about last week, engagement, when to go, when not to go, and on what terms do you go. Boy, he is very, very good at that did he do enough to earn a title shot though i think he did luke i think he really did i am incredibly impressed and i saw people responding to my positive tweets look here's what i said here

gone leveled up and some people are like what you didn't see this in his last fights i didn't see it with this level of intensity i didn't see him this purposely offensive in looking to land big shots because he had to. If he didn't land big shots against Volkov, Volkov will linger in rounds three, four, and five, and he'll peach you up. Totally. Which, Luke, coming in, I predicted Volkov would win.

I felt like Gon long-term could be that guy. But you've got to learn these lessons in this cage. Few ever come through here unscathed or go unbeaten for a long run. It's why we celebrate Habib and, to a smaller degree, Yaroslav Amosov, who's put together an incredible run as well, and Adesanya before that loss. Nobody does this, Luke. He took another level up. So when you said two fights ago, I know it was under the auspices of the wheel of death, and I was sort of saying, look, who might hold this heavyweight title in a few years? And you're like know maybe god he looks really good luke i was almost

like laughing because i didn't see it i saw the skill i saw the sweat stains i mean seriously my basement is look it's like it's like a it's like you go go to hades then ask where the sauna is our basement you're at the you're at the you're at the unmanscaped part of the ass crack of hades i mean seriously by the end of the show i will be swimming um here's what i'm going to say luke the rose and shulk fight was another step up showed you five round stamina showed you a complete command against a dangerous guy meaning gone fought on his terms for pretty much all of it and you're like oh wow okay look this was another level of oh wow and i don't get all the people hitting my twitter going you know sleep

sleep this guy's boring hey he ain't boring to me we understand his connections being french okay i i i marveled at the skill i wasn't bored at all i spent the whole fight going you know what let me find a flaw in his game. You know the only flaw I can find, Luke? He may not have elite fight-ending power. He doesn't have to wear dudes down with his gas tank. But his ability, to your point, to freeze them, to use feints, to use game planning, IQ, strategy.

He's a special, athletic, active, flowing heavyweight. We don't see guys like that. You know, that's like Jon Jones of light heavyweight. We just don't see that type of special movement there. I don't know if he's Jon Jones, but he's pretty special, Luke. And given the marketing potential with him from France, if Ngannou gets past Lewis, we've already talked about this, you're telling me UFC wouldn't let him skip the line and say,

hey, Jon, if you're not going to take the price we want, Johnny Bones, why don't you wait in the bullpen a little bit more? Let's bring in Cyril Gano. Let's put the damn octagon at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, and let's put our flag down in France. They would do that 1,000%. And if they did that right now, look, could you complain? Could you cry and argue?

No. He looks that good. Tell me. Look, I'm drinking the juice. I'm sweating the juice. Here's why the Ngannou fight is so interesting. It's interesting for a lot of reasons. I would point to two, BC.

One is that, just from a fight perspective, like, who's a better striker? Dude, Cyril Ghosn is a much better striker. Technically striking, Cyril Ghosn is significantly better. However, however, one, we've all seen Big Francis has made huge improvements. So while I think Ghosn is better, I don't know that he's better by some, like, we've all seen Big Francis has made huge improvements. So while I think Gon is better, I don't know that he's better by some vast amount. And also, it's MMA.

Maybe Cyril Gon gets taken down by a guy like Francis. There's lots of ways for Francis to certainly win that, maybe even be favored. I'm just pointing out, at least in terms of pure striking talent, I think Gon is better. So that would make it kind of fun. But at the same time, time BC Volkov did land on Gon several times bro you can't play that game against Big Francis he has the most nuclear one shot power I've ever seen in MMA and it doesn't take much for him to put people in really really really bad conditions so like the game that Gon plays is the right kind of game for someone like

Francis but even then you have to play with less margin of error than he did against Volkov. That's going to be an interesting test. Number two, Gon Trains, I'm dead wrong if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right on this. Gon Trains with the former gym that Francis was at. Now, I don't know if they have any beef. I don't know what the situation is, but if you're the UFC, it's a built-in storyline for sure. I tend to think that we might see that fight, assuming, of course, that Francis can get past Derek Lewis. And I think that would be a highly, highly intriguing bout.

That one will probably get to the finish. That's a style contrast waiting to happen, Luke. And Gon did say after the fight that he'd be more than willing to fight Francis, despite their history. Luke, correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Francis leave on not-so-great terms? Didn't he kind of surprise the gym by leaving? That's my understanding.

By the way, Ferdinand Lopez, the guy from that gym, reached out to me. We're going to have an interview with him on Morning Combat. I have to get everything kind of settled. But we talked briefly over social media DMs yesterday. He reached out. So I'll get the full story if I can. Okay. Okay.

Hey, this is great news for the heavyweight division to have another player that's real, Luke. The heavyweight top 10 rankings is loaded in the top end. There's a lot of question marks on the back end, which is consistent with UFC history. But the top end right now, I mean, there's some fun players. And, you know, shout out to Volkov, Luke. He never stopped trying to be in that fight.

There were a couple moments in the final rounds where I thought maybe he could put together a few punches, but, you know, Gon had it. And, Luke, if Gon had any faulty area, gas tank, chin, it would have come up in this type of fight. This was, like, the test. He passed it.

Give him his credit, Luke. He passed it. You were on to something. You're a damn seether. Is that the word? Yeah, seether is. Give him his credit, Luke. He passed it. You were on to something. You're a damn seether. Is that the word? Yeah, a seether is someone who is seething with anger. Well, that would also be true, Luke. I mean, you can't fight the seether. I want to be clear about something. I mean, deadly truthful.

I don't think I've got some kind of a special ability to scout talent in any kind of way. But there are a couple of guys man i keep saying it like a teo fema lopez or a cyril gone or whoever where you just watch him and you're like dude these guys are clearly better if you really dig into the details they're really better one more note about this bc not so much the gone fight i brought it up last week and everyone kind of made fun of me a little bit you're not making fun of me now dude shavkat rukmanov did you watch his fight on the u the UFC card yeah yeah dude let me explain something let me explain something to everyone out there let me explain something everyone out there Shavkat Rukmanov is going

to fight for a title he probably is going to win and I don't know if he's going to win it because it all depends on you know a lot of things outside of his own control but you are talking about somebody who I would put a very high probability at least fighting for gold and probably wearing it at 26 years old to have the cut dude dude he is beyond special he is 26 and this is a show that's that won't back down on its future champion kevin lee claim this is a bold show listen we're gonna We can't be perfect with all of our calls. I could be wrong about this one too, but dude,

for his age to have the well-rounded ability that he does, including to be all of your wins have come by way of finished. And Michelle preserish. By the time he gave up that choke, he didn't even really hand fight. He didn't even want to be there anymore with that guy. He went up against a fucking brick wall in Shavkat Rachmaninoff and the and that pelt that he wears on his head I thought it was like you know raccoons or something his manager told us it's a fucking wolf pelt this is not the same

guy everyone is used to I got the same vibe from him he's a very different fighter but I got the same vibe from him that I got when I first saw Habib start mowing through people Shavkat Rachmaninoff remember that name I am you, he is going to be special. Luke, are we down with people wearing, like, you know, Turk Wendell, the former Mets relief pitcher, used to have that shark tooth of some shark, I guess, that he killed.

We know Maidana supposedly wears the tooth of Floyd Mayweather he knocked out in the third round of their rematch. Would it be gross for, like, you to wear something of your prior female conquests, like a necklace with fragments of lace hanging off? Would that be insensitive? Or is that right along the lines of these warriors, Luke,

that just want to flaunt their victories? I don't quite look at it that way. That's a weird question. I'm not like skinning women alive and then wearing their, you know. I mean, it's a little gross. Put the lotion in the basket just the same. It's pretty gross, Luke. It is, yeah.

All right. Real quickly. Point number three. Let's get to the other. Well, he's not, I guess. I guess Shavkat Raghman is what kazakhstani but over on bellator uh valentine moldovsky defeating uh what i would consider to be a pretty game timothy johnson to become the interim bellator heavyweight champ um the fight itself bc i was a little bit underwhelmed there's been a series of underwhelming that's maybe a little bit strong because i actually

like the amasov fight uh when people didn't but it's a little bit like there's been a lot of these bellator main events where one guy was better than the other guy and by the way the gone and the volkov fight was like this too where there was one guy was better than the other guy and they kind of just maintained that lead but the fight never really changed a whole lot but valentine modovsky got the win he is the bellator interim heavyweight champion. Is this, though, BC, in your mind, he's busy off at light heavyweight, but is this the guy to beat Ryan Bader? I didn't get beating Ryan Bader vibes from him.

We're going to have to see, Luke, because I was impressed. Now, I wasn't impressed on, let's give Bellator credit for some of the names that they've found in giving them platforms to become something huge. Vadim Nemkov is a player at light heavyweight. Amosov at welterweight is a player now. I'm telling you, Magomed Magomedov is coming for that Bantamweight title. He's a player. It just so happens these guys are coming relatively from the same area in Europe. I was very, in Asia too, sorry, I was very impressed by Moldavsky, Luke.

Not as overwhelming as those guys, but part of what made it impressive is I thought Tim Johnson came to fight. We know the good story coming him of him having that three fight winning streak, 36 years old, went from journeyman to like accidental title contender. And I thought he never stopped trying to cut off the angles and corner Valentin. And he had some moments where he let go for some punches and kind of forced a mini brawl. But to Moldavsky's credit, Luke, he got out of those issues, those troubles, without too many issues. And then for the most part, he really utilized

the combination of quickness, feints, and some educated boxing. I think this guy's got some really good tools. And given the fact that look, Bader, he had an incredible career turnaround when he won the two belts, won the Grand Prix at heavyweight.

Didn't, to your credit, really, to your point, really ever take a punch? Now, I mean, can we, in hindsight, say you kind of beat up on washed King Moe. I love King Moe, but washed King Moe. He out-wrestled Mitrione. He landed first on Old Fedor. Yeah, I mean, you could always do things in hindsight. I'm not here to do that for Bader necessarily, but Bader's pushing 40. He's getting there, Luke. He's still certainly going to be a player in this heavyweight division. What I mean to say by saying that is I think Moldavsky's in play to potentially be the full heavyweight champion here, and I think him against Bader would be a very interesting fight stylistically because they both can wrestle seemingly, Luke, on the same level, so it probably would come down to the hands. And I think Moldavsky is a little bit more of a pure boxer, where Bader, who has sort of over time evolved into not just a good boxer, but I think a guy who can finish people with that left

hook. I think it would be a very interesting fight, Luke. I think it'd be tentative at times and technical, but once they let their hands go, I'd like to see who comes out of that on top. Either way, this is a big win for a name that coming in I mean look you and I were very vocal and said coming in man this isn't the sexiest matchup this isn't the you know the the most overloaded card we'd seen but well we were right that platform and he made it his own Luke you know I'm going to give him that credit I'll meet you halfway I'll meet you halfway and what I mean to say maybe even two-thirds of the way BC number one I I agree I think Timothy Johnson deserves a tip of the cap BC number one I I agree I think Timothy Johnson deserves a tip of the cap because even though he lost this contest to your point he was

never really out of it and I just saw some things in the way in which he was setting up his offense and moving to that told me that this may have been a losing effort but his recent success and this transformation he's undergone it's not not imaginary. It's real. Maybe there's a ceiling on it, but he's definitely improved since the days of when he was sort of like wrestling people up against the fence in the UFC. So I'll give him credit. And to be clear, I think Moldavsky gives Bader

the toughest test at heavyweight that Bader's had in Bellator, probably by a country mile. I think my issue is, and listen, this is not like me saying, oh, Moldavsky will never be better than what he is the guy's young too he's relatively for MMA professional considerations pretty inexperienced like he's got a lot of development left to go I'm just saying at the level which he's at not a devastating finisher he does need to work on that

especially at heavyweight when these guys have big power that carries late and a little bit limited in his boxing for me in terms of his setups and what he could do you saw as I mentioned before and then again the gone and the Volkov fight was like that but that's number three versus number five in the world typology has these guys at 33 versus 51 so it's a pretty big difference so in that sense neither fight was especially like oh my god this is you know it wasn't it wasn't Davis versus Marios and I do think I want to give be clear I think Moldovsky's got some skills that need to be reckoned with and Bader will eventually have to do that. But I also think we should point out

if Moldovsky really wants to put a stand with that division and leave no doubt, there is a little bit of, I think, striking development and frankly, like ground and pound development that needs to go in there. He does a lot of positional holding without a lot of damage. He does stay busy work there.

If you're a big, strong kid like him and you're young like him, this is an opportunity, I think, to level up over time. I think part of it, Luke, I think he wanted to – I don't think he knew exactly where his five-round championship-level gas tank was. So I think there were times where he was looking to control the action with as limited amount of you know over exertion as possible which is which is not uh a bad idea to be efficient right and sort of maintain your stamina but that might have prevented him at times from showing some of the explosiveness that would

have won you over more uh is he a complete guy we're not going to know until he gets in there against somebody like Bader but Luke as we've said in the past this is not the deepest division at the moment a title reign could very much be in his future and I know no one but me are talking about it but one day Rumble is going to say all right heavyweight let's do this and uh there's gonna be some fun contrasting style matchups there once he does Luke yeah I mean since it was Boldovsky like could he control a guy like Rumble enough to win and wear him down because we know Rumble's cardio I mean let's see with baldowski like could he control a guy like rumble enough to win and wear him down because we know rumble's cardio i mean we'll see how it is today but probably not you know it's not his best asset um i could see him winning that way at the other but this is what

i mean about moldovsky if you don't get to those positions dude a guy like with hand speed and power like rumble johnson and the setups he is to fucking let a guy like this on fire. So this is what I mean. He's very talented, and he's worthy of respect. But I think to really ascend to that next level, there is some work that has to get done. By the way, co-main event, we shouldn't lose sight of this. Hold on real quick.

Before you get there, Luke, and I know you're trying to get us there because you're probably going to have to drop a deuce soon and kind of ruin the energy and chemistry that we're putting together toward the end of some of these shows. Fedor as coach. Fedor has helped made Vadim Nemkov into what he is. Team Fedor on the rise. Fedor was the actual lead trainer in this one for Moldavsky. Did you catch some old school happy vibes to see Fedor in that spot in a big fight like this?

Yeah. Yeah yeah it's cool man like um it's nice to see guys like that still be intimately involved in the game and clearly he's doing a good job like again I think Moldovsky's got some work to do again I want to be clear I just don't want folks to be like oh Nemkov and Moldovsky they're both Fedor trained guys they must be just as good I think Nemkov is way better, way more complete, way more dangerous of a fighter than a guy like Moldovsky. But to your point, to even have two guys like that, plus whoever else he's got in his stable, he used to have a stable a long time ago. They used to call it the Red Devils Fight Club. This was back in the, you know, 2006 kind of time. It all fell apart for a lot of reasons. His brother used to be a

part of it. but for Federer to have this thing going on now and to have such success in the way that he has, it's definitely good to see. I'm glad he's staying a part of the fight game. Did you see Josh Barnett tweet out, I'll be your Huckleberry? I did not. Would you be interested in that fight under the

Bellator banner in Moscow, Russia? No, not really. I ask you questions, you answer them, Luke. That's how this show works. Just being honest. I would be a little more interested in an Overeem. I'd like a little more slop on that,

please. Hey, listen to each his own. We shouldn't lose sight of Liz Karmush's gorilla. BC, did I call it or did I call it? On the ground, it would be a different story, but on the feet, Watanabe was not on her level. Karmush must have seen it on tape ahead of time. And dude, she didn't just kind of start

out feeling her way. From the moment the bell rang, Karmush did something she usually never does, which she just got right in Watanabe's face and just knuckled her into the canvas. Solid win by her. Absolutely number one contender, leaving no doubt. So let me ask you, BC, not so much about this fight,

but based on what you saw here and the urgency and just the right approach to the game, what kind of chance do you give her against champion Juliana Velazquez? Well, it depends. I mean, is this who she has become as a fighter in her old age, Luke, or was this the perfect strategy against a hungry, difficult opponent in Watanabe, but to your credit, saying coming in, that had a glaring weakness there in terms of elite level striking. Somebody with a judo background, in great shape, young, fighting

experience, but Karmush met that weakness and drilled a hole through it. So it's huge because, to be honest, Luke, both in Bellator and UFC, her last few performances, including the title loss to Shevchenko, I mean, they've just been uninspiring. They've been workmanlike, and that's a tip of the cap to the kind of, you know, hard worker she is, and she's a fairly well-rounded, tough out in the cage with a lot of experience, and no one's ever going to question her toughness. But, like, we hadn't seen anything like like this so the timing on this performance is great

because it really gets you excited could she do something like this against Juliana Velasquez or Luke would she be setting herself up to get counter pretty pretty sharply I don't know if this is the best strategy against the champion I think it was the perfect strategy now in hindsight against Watanabe and I feel really bad Luke picking Watanabe on HQ to get the champion. I think it was the perfect strategy now in hindsight against Watanabe, and I feel really bad, Luke, picking Watanabe on HQ to get the upset here. I went underdog on a few of these Bellator fights because they pressed me, Luke.

I'll defend you a little bit. I think if it had gone to the ground, you would have looked a lot better. I think she would be a lot better than Kamros. It's just that Kamros was never going to allow that to happen. They were like, on the air, they were like on the air They were like, you know Luke has a massive vagine when it comes to picking gambling picks BC We need you right now in HQ pick some Bellator winners. Look, I'm like, I'm like, I like all these under underdogs, man

I like Johnson by knockout. Give me what Nabi give me miles jury. No brother But no seriously for it for gorilla it felt not good it felt great to see this yeah luke i'll spin it back to you can there be a certainly a modified game plan against velasquez because if you come guns blazing she she's she's built to counter that sure but would karmush be better served being more offensive in general yeah um in general yes because honestly when she goes that patient i just don't feel like i mean quite literally when she's like the fight the fight against shevchenko and she had one in bellator like this too but like for folks who haven't seen it just just pay attention to what she did against shevchenko shevchenko it was so reserved as

to not do anything like what do you remember from what Karmush did to Shevchenko? I'll tell you right now. I remember Shevchenko being so angry, Luke, that she just stopped fighting. She was just sort of like, there's nothing here, you know? Right. So this is my thing. I think in general, being that offensive or being much more offensive than much more defensive for her in terms of her orientation about strategy is definitely going to be in her interest. But, you know, it's like threading any needle against elite opposition. Yes, I think it's

probably on balance better against Velazquez, but it carries real consequences against someone that talented in that many dimensions of the game. I mean, she's going to be tall, strong. She might be able to match some of the strength or at least, she's going to be tall, strong. She might be able to match some of the strength, or at least in certain positions, match some of the strength of a fighter like Komarush. And on top of it, dude, she's just devastating in a lot of different ranges. I don't think... Here's the reality. If Velasquez doesn't want to, she won't even give Karmus a chance to be that deserved.

She's going to be probably in her face marching her down. She's going to force that out of her one way or the other. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You know, it would be a great story, though, Luke, if Karmouche could put the cherry on top at the end and get the Bellator Women's Flyweight Championship.

It would be a great story, Luke. She almost twisted Ronda's face off. No, no doubt about it. but she has an uphill climb. I mean, Velasquez is not a champion by accident, so that'll be a fun fight when it happens. All right, number four, BC. This one's not getting a ton of attention, and I understand why Lomachenko handled the defeat to Lopez so poorly, whatever the excuses were, real otherwise it's just you know people kind of got sour on him so he came back against Masayoshi Nakatani on ESPN on Saturday night and stopped the guy in the ninth round no one had ever stopped him before no one had ever

beaten the fuck out of this guy like he did dude from the fifth round on and even before that really from the first round but especially from the fifth BC you know as well as I do, this was an absolute butchering. Nakatani got cut to fish bait by Lomachenko. And here's the deal, BC. Lomachenko looked fucking awesome. He looked like he picked up where he was before the fight against Lopez. So in your mind, did he do the kinds of things he needed to do? Of course, he's going to get the rematch against Lopez whenever they make it. But was this the comeback fight he needed to repair some of the damage and to remind folks, y'all must have forgot, I'm the king around these parts?

Yeah, it was that and then some, Luke. You know what the greats do when they're challenged? You know what they do, Luke? They make really large, overbearing statements that almost it's like you didn't even need to go that far with it, Vasily. You could have just danced circles around him. We've been like, you know, he's back at 33. He's still pound for pound worthy.

No, Luke, he put it in another gear. Why? Because, Luke, he found out to beat Teofimo Lopez. And, again, like even though Lopez had a close but convincing victory in my mind, and he sealed the deal in round 12 by hurting Loma and walking him down, Lomachenko started late, but he figured Lopez out. So he was in that fight. But I think he realized, Luke, to win that fight, not to be in it,

to win that fight, he needs to be more offensive. And we already know that he's punching over his head at 135. He doesn't have big time power, but his setups, Luke, are just next freaking level. Will he look better in these setups against someone like Nakatani than Lopez? Yes. But Luke, his ability to get in your blind spot, which means to take that sort of sidestep right on the side of you and open up that awkward punching angle to land clean shots that you don't see coming is really unrivaled in boxing or MMA it's why TJ Dillashaw in his prime was reaching out before the USADA hiccup to Lomachenko

and they were training together people want to see what makes this wizard tick and you know some of it is that his dad famously pulled him out of boxing when he was a kid and put him in traditional Ukrainian dance for three years and said, don't pick up gloves. You're going to learn footwork. Some of it is he's been doing next level sort of hand-eye coordination stuff for a long time, Luke, to prepare. But I love that he came out with such purpose to show us that not only should the rematch get made, not only will it be big money and deserving of pay-per-view in a lot of ways, but that he's a live dog in that, Luke.

Hey, Luke, I want to ask you about the spirit of pound-for-pound because it's a gray area. Everyone's got a different list. Some people don't care about them. I do, so I don't care if you don't care about them. But I have Lomachenko ranked ahead of Teofimo on my pound-for-pound list. Loma at five. I think I got Teo at seven.

And a lot of people look at that and go, Beast, what the hell are you doing? They actually fought each other. One guy won. It wasn't, you know, what do you see? True. But I still think Loma obviously has a larger track record against the very elite, has done this over multiple weight classes, could go down to 130 or 126 tomorrow and be the best guy in the world so do you justify my voting and does this fight do anything to justify that that although Teofimo beat him in his first truly elite step up that until either Lopez can do it again or do it against other elite guys Lomachenko is still right there in the pound for pound mix not for number one but right there after this fight this is a complicated debate.

The best that I could offer you, BC, is you think about this a lot more than I do, so I don't think I have any particular wisdom. The only thing I could offer as a kind of response is that I tend to separate who has done pound for pound work versus where are they with that pound for pound work as it stands? Let me give you an example.

If you have a business that's on the stock exchange, there's a question about where its stock is versus its market cap. How big is the business? Maybe the stock's low, but hey, we're talking about a company that's enormous. It just hasn't done anything all that great recently. To me, if you want to say who has done better pound for pound work over the course of their career, Lomachenko fight at 135, that's, that's arguably too high for him. I mean, it's not, obviously he was a bell holder there, but I'm just saying like, is that his very best

weight class in terms of physical skills? No, it's actually not. He just has done really good work there. But when you lose to a guy like Lopez Lopez I can understand why there would be some controversy about why you having Lomachenko ahead of him would disturb some people so I just kind of differentiate the two who has done better pound for pound work Lomachenko has done better pound for pound work does that mean he deserves a higher stock rating I'll let people debate that on their own Luke as it pertains to a potential rematch here, which can't come, of course, until Teofimo finishes up that Triller mandatory against George Cambosos Jr.,

which got pushed back, Luke, because of the COVID test. Although, look, there are some truthers out there, Luke. I'm not saying I subscribe to this, but there was even a video of Gervonta Davis in the locker room or whatever, the gym, a couple weeks ago, supporting this theory that maybe Triller pushed the fight out a little bit

so they can pair it with Oscar and Vitor to try to drive more sale. I don't know. I mean, look, some people think things. Well, here's the thing. That's not the argument here, though, Luke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Okay, I was going to ask you. Here's the real argument. I mean, Vasily was more offensive than really he's ever been at lightweight from the very beginning in this fight. Leaping forward with combinations. We don't see that out of him. Is that going to work against Teo? Not maybe to win it because we're going to have to see.

The first fight was close, let's be honest. But can you be offensive from what you've seen of Teofimo Lopez where you can challenge him like this and try to step up to high pace and step all over him. Should this be a strategy that Lomachenko brings to the rematch? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Some version of that. Now, again, the specifics of that we'll have to take a look at.

I'd have to go back and rewatch the first fight to get a real clear sense of it. But there was just a... Lopez is way too slick to counter fight him for that long you can do it in spurts and you saw some examples of that but i really think that loma's best work was pushing a guy like lopez backwards um if you just let him walk into you you might catch him on occasion for sure especially if you're loma chanko and do the angles he was putting on nakatani we haven't even talked about that.

Dude, Nakatani was lost from the first round on. I give credit to that bastard. He hung on as long as he could. God bless him. He is tough as nails. But those angles were just way too much. I just feel like, yes, we all make a big to-do out of Lomachenko basically taking the first half of the fight off.

Was it a shoulder issue? Was it a strategic issue? Whatever. But in general counter boxing a guy like Lopez is not a it's plausible as a method to victory it's not likely it's not probable a probable method of victory is actually putting the Lopez on the back foot harder to do but a guy like Lomachenko I think if anyone's up for it he is look we talked a lot about boxing on this show because it was a busy boxing weekend.

A quick 10-second editorial for our fans who continually pound message boards and comment sections and tweets at me with, good God, I thought I loved this show. I thought it was about MMA. Guys, it's always been about combat, okay? But the difference is we won't steer you wrong in our boxing recommendations. We are on some heck of a run here on morning combat of basically saying hey guys this fight this weekend whether it was gervonta davis or ryan garcia to open the year i mean we you know whether whatever fight it was we said this fight does actually matter so check it out look they've been delivering so i get it if boxing's not your

cup of tea but before you completely dismiss and load up our comment area with um i'm gonna go you know hang out with the canadians because they don't talk about boxing first of all go okay but second of all um taste and see for yourself okay boxing's not dead all right boxing brings it all right there was lots of mma this weekend you know uh some of it was good a lot of it was not so great in general it was fine most of it was, but it wasn't particularly special. Dude, Lomachenko going back and beating Nakatani, he stopped him inside the ninth round. That's what MMA fans want to see. They want to see boxing stoppages, you know, if they're going to watch boxing anyway. You got that. Dude, fucking Tank Davis going up two weight classes and then beating, at least in the end, the brakes off of Mario Barth. Like, dude, this is what you want. If

you're going to watch boxing as an MMA fan, that is what you want to see. So I understand if it's not your cup of tea. Some of us want to get into kickboxing. Listen, guys, peel back the curtain a little bit. If we talk about boxing, high-level boxing, and high-level MMA, we get to go to high-level shit a lot more. We get to be a part of the best that combat sports has to offer as just a

way to position ourselves. It's just more business. Yeah, and if your favorite show talked about the early prelims on the UFC, you know, that's great, but this is morning combat. This is what we do. We'll have some PFL breakdown later in the show,

Luke, right? All right. Last but not least BC for a topic. Number five, as we mentioned, I've been shouting out Shavkat Rachmanov and other people who stood out for me,

but they're not the only ones. There was a bunch of standouts in boxing, in MMA and somebody else. BC, if I may, I'll go first the only ones. There was a bunch of standouts in boxing, in MMA, in somebody else. BC, if I may, I'll go first on this one. If I can hear who else stood out for the weekend, I'll give a nod to Kayla Harrison at the PFL. She beat the living shit out of Cindy Dandois. In fact, I think took a little bit of mercy on her. Systematically closing the distance, taking her down, passing to mount, then going for

Jujutsu Kaisen, which is an arm bar, and then Cindy Dandois. Kayla didn't apply it for very long, but when she separated you could see there was something wrong with her elbow. Kayla Harrison didn't even want to fight her because Dandois is a mother and she's got kids and it's all kinds of stuff, but she did her job anyway, and she did it

ruthlessly. There was not one bit of doubt in this one. I did a poll, BC, asking who people thought was the most impressive main event winner. Some people had Harrison on there, I think by virtue of the savagery of the result, which I can understand. The competition not quite on par with what a Lomachenko or, you know, Cyril Ghosn had to go up against. But given what she was up against against she handled her business and then some yeah looks by these pictures that she had no problem sitting on that mother's face and punching her face in luke you know she pulled a little bit of a glenn danzig on her right luke

tell your children not to walk my way biatch right luke that's right right okay oh look she was absolutely dominant and and i'm not saying the season won't pass. It might one day where we're not as entertained by Kayla Harrison one-sidingly destroying folks. But I was pretty entertained, Luke, okay? I mean, she has a mojo and a spirit this season that is different. Maybe it's sparked by her own first-time motherhood here with the story that she told very well, I hear, with you

on Morning Combat about taking in her siblings' children and whatever it is, Luke, just a want to be great. She's destroying people. I am. Look, I tell you that PFL's kind of got me hooked to a certain degree this year. I'm excited heading into the playoffs here. I want to see if we can get any challenge

on Kayla Harrison. Luke, there's a name that's going to show up and have you seen this shit a little while later in the show. Larissa Pacheco. She finished first, tied with Harrison, but got the tiebreaker due to getting earlier finishes with 12 points overall. And she'll enter as the number one seed in the PFL playoffs here at lightweight for the females. Luke, do you feel like um she could give do you have any kind of background on pacheco that she could give a little bit more resistance than what we've seen so far to harrison yeah i think they fought and she did give more resistance to kayla harrison so i certainly respect her uh you might have it's okay

here's the here's the truth dude pfl first few seasons kind of just bored me i didn't really it didn't vibe for something i don't know why but it feels like everything's kind of coming together for them this season they do goofy shit like put up like this strike was seven miles an hour like wow very very helpful information you love that joke you still love that joke luke you love that shit i just don't understand what the fuck they're doing you've already got the crawl on espn2 you're gonna add another layer of graphics over the fight like it's just abuse to the vic to the to the to the viewer but that being said the product they're putting out it was there was knockout after vicious knockout on friday night on pfl and you know the kayla harrison fight was a

it was a you know it was a mismatch it's the best they can find for her that's not really kayla's problem so there's pfl is not a perfect product by any stretch of the imagination but if you're not watching it you really should be because they've come a long way and it feels like they finally matured into something that not just the fans have gotten behind but like you know Pettis going to PFL after UFC okay we should talk about him too because he's not doing so great but you could understand the reasoning why he would educate you on educate you on Pacheco, Luke, don't go too far, okay? Okay, what's up? I was going to say, I wasn't woke to Pacheco.

I woke up because she had a nice knockout first-round finish here on Friday night. But she fought Kayla Harrison twice during the 2019 PFL season. She lost a unanimous three-round decision in their first meeting, and then they fought again in the finals of that year's playoffs, and she took Kayla the full five, losing a unanimous decision. So Luke, she's pretty damn tough, and she beat Irene Aldana in the past

at Jungle Fight, but lost to GDR and Andrage in her only two UFC appearances. So she's got some ability, to be clear, and that win she had on Friday was absolutely spectacular. So I'd put that there. Anyone else you want to shout out, BC?

Yeah, you know what? Watch this UFC fight card on Saturday night. And Hainato Moikano, Luke, who has moved up to lightweight, I thought he looked really good in a tough fight against Jai Herbert there, getting the second round submission. Luke, do you buy him as a lightweight here? He's in his early 30s. He's kind of restructuring here,

but he's always been a savage in the right fights, in the right moments, and he was freaking relentless in going after this submission. I thought it was a very strong performance. I'll say this. I thought the performance was really great, finding him out, just making Jai Herbert's life miserable underneath.

The losses he had, I mean, he was such a top prospect before the Brian Ortega fight, and he gave Brian Ortega the business right up until he lost. And then he's had a couple bad losses since then, including, but not limited to, the Korean Zombie one. So he's trying to reform himself up a weight class.

I definitely think that on paper, or when you watch him in training footage, he's obviously super, super skilled. But that was a tough run for him at 145 I'm not saying I don't believe at 155 as you mentioned this fight tremendous let's see him keep building let's see him keep building and see what he can produce because at 145 he really jumped off the page and then fell apart against the elite let's see what he can do at 155 but so far so good is what i would say yeah he's two and one at lightweight luke i'd forgotten that he had got knocked out by uh rafael fizzy in the first round of their fight in december but uh you know he's got some big wins at featherweight don't forget he beat cub and calvin cater and uh and a few others there luke so uh good looking

win there um did you want to mention that anthony pettis is 0-2 in pfl that was a wild ass fight luke here well let me ask you what you make of that bc because i watched the fight live and here's did you want to mention that Anthony Pettis is 0-2 in PFL? That was a wild-ass fight, Luke. Let me ask you what you make of that, BC, because I watched the fight live, and here's what I thought. First of all, it was kind of close. He definitely was not out of it. He got hurt later, which was a problem. But here's what I'm noticing from Pettis.

It's like, dude, he doesn't look old old. He doesn't look like he doesn't train hard. He definitely had moments in the fight where he was you know doing very good work here's my read am i right or am i wrong it just feels like the game is really caught up so that in such a way that the things he was able to exploit in years past in his wec days fighters just don't do the same things that they used to they're much more careful about range they're much more selective about shots. They're better about virtually all forms of offense and defense at this point. The game's come a long way, and the game has just kind of passed them by a little bit. He doesn't look terrible. It just doesn't look like he's got the edge anymore. Yeah, I'm glad we're having an honest talk here, Luke. Let's have an honest talk. You're not wrong. I think

you're fairly spot on. I don't think he evolved with the game. I think that became clear because I feel like, Luke, I used to interview him every year. Remember that stretch after he lost the title in the UFC where he would alternate wins and losses every fight for about eight fights in a row? And every time he's coming off a loss, he would basically say the same thing. He's like, you know what, in the past,

I didn't really listen to my coaches. I didn't really care about game planning. But I really care now. I'm changing. And then he'd come out and get a win. in totality that whole run showed Luke that even in his wins and obviously that win against Wonderboy Thompson which saved him to a certain degree was it was the perfect illustration he kind of loses early against guys it doesn't seem to have a plan just reacts but sometimes his athleticism and in counter striking

was so great because he's an incredible explosive athlete that he could make up for those mistakes luke now that he is at a point where he's a veteran and his body is slowing down and if you are not a next level student of the game during those years where you can offset the physical loss by constantly evolving and getting better and this is where you can offset the physical loss by constantly evolving and getting better and this is where you give people like frankie edgar who's lingered at an elite level for so damn long because he's constantly working and and um i don't see that in pettis luke so now he's leveling off as his body is slowing down and this level of competition is able to get him into kind of mini wars and they're

able to rough him up and it's like to your point he doesn't look awful because that's because he can still muster these moments of big strikes but he looks a little lost luke is that too far looks a little lost in there i just feel like i mean it's just natural dude like on some level if you're really, really good, you're going to have an edge over your peers, right? That's why you're good. You're better at them than a certain set of things and it sets you apart competitively in terms of your results.

But you can only evolve so much. You can only keep growing so much. And I feel like generationally a new level of fighter comes along and they just don't make a lot of the same. They make their own set of mistakes, but they're just going to be a lot better than what the prototype was you're used to and then when they ascend and they mature you no longer hold the competitive advantages you once did it doesn't mean you're bad he doesn't look shopworn i mean yes he's a little bit run down

of course he's been in some wars but when you watch this fight like you didn't get a shopworn vibe he was throwing back as much as he could it's just he couldn't really get anything going against these people and like if that level of fighter who's a good fighter but not a great one is giving you those kinds of problems you know you got some bigger structural issues that i don't know how solvable they are at this point you know you do unfortunately look i want to please the hardcore mma fans by closing with this uh three divisions in pfl had their regular season concluded on friday i'm going to read you the playoff members of those divisions, and you're going to tell me who's going to win the championship.

Are you ready, Luke? Jesus, I was going to do a bad job, but yeah, go ahead. Okay, heavyweight. Bruno Capoloza, Denis Goltov, Ante Delija, and Jamel Jones have all qualified for the playoffs. Who do you like, Luke? Jamel Jones had a big win. God bless him.

But that dude, Goltov, and then the first one, who's the first one you mentioned? Bruno. Bruno Capoloza, who had a hell of a good knockout that you'll see and have you see this shit. Yeah, he is knuckling people into the fucking dirt. So I'm going to go with one of the first two. Bruno or Goldsov. I'll flip a coin.

I'll go Bruno. Bruno. Women's lightweight. We're going to see number one, Larissa Pacheco, against number four, Taylor Guardado. And then Kayla Harrison's going to face number three, Jenna Fabian. This is Kayla Harrison or die, right, Luke? And then Kayla Harrison's going to face number three, Jenna Fabian. This is Kayla Harrison or die, right, Luke? Yeah, Kayla Harrison's going to win.

The other side of the bracket's kind of interesting. Pacheco's probably going to beat, who's the other girl's name? Taylor Guardado. Yeah, I think I watched her fight on Friday. I think she's out of Extreme Couture, if I'm not mistaken. She's talented. She's talented. Now, Pacheco's a tough fight for her, but that's winnable for her.

So it may not be an inevitable Harrison versus Pacheco final, but Harrison should win no matter what. At lightweight, Anthony Pettis, Olivier Aubin, Marcier, and Marcin Held and Nathan Scholl all did not make the playoffs. Luke, those were the biggest names coming in. We've got Loic Radzahabov is number one.

Clay Collard, number two. Rosh Manfeo, who defeated Anthony Pettis on Friday, is number three. And Alexander Martinez stumbled in on a tiebreaker to the number four spot with only three points.

Could Clay Collard do the impossible here, Luke? I would fucking love it if he did he is the official mascot of the show man i would fucking love it if he did i don't think so but stranger things have happened man and finally luke at featherweight a little bit of an upset where both shaman maraish and lance palmer did not make the playoffs brendan locken in of course the guy who got cursed for a takedown in the Dana White series is number one.

Chris Wade at two and Bubba Jenkins and Movelid. Kai Bulaev. Hubbalayev. Hubbalayev. Yeah. So that's going to be between. Let me be clear about this. The two best in that division for sure are going to be locked in and Hubbalayev.

That's going to be your final if they're on opposite sides of the bracket or whatever. I'm going to go with locked in, but I got to tell you, that dude, Movled Habalaya, is a fucking hammer. So Lachlan should win, but he's got his work cut out for him. Yeah, Bubba Jenkins in that mix as well. Luke had a nice win over Lance Palmer. We'll see what happens. Hey, PFL, you got my attention.

You got my attention, PFL. Yeah, PFL's killing it right now. God bless them because they had a few seasons where it was not that way. All right, BC, before we get to DMs from donks, I want to remind everyone that no one's perfect. Even the best ball players strike out with the bases loaded. The best golfers sometimes three-putt with the tournament on the line. So if you feel like

BC does and you come up short in the bedroom, it's okay. You can go to GetRoman.com That's R-O-M-A-N GetRoman.com That's R-O-M-A-N GetRoman.com slash combat right now. You see there, you get 15 bucks off your first month.

Listen, with Roman, you can get free online evaluation and ongoing care for ED all from the comfort and privacy of your home. BC loves that. A U.S. licensed healthcare professional will work with you to find the best treatment plan. If medication is appropriate, it ships it to you for free with two-day shipping the whole process straightforward very discreet but to get started it's pretty simple get roman.com slash combat and complete

an online visit take care of your ed bc without leaving home complete an online visit today to connect with a doctor and take care of it go to get roman.com combat 15 bucks off your first month and there you go bc with the ed making it look ec you can go to get roman.com combat we can solve all your problems if you want to get rid of your ed and get a case of vd check out roman luke okay they'll get you back in the game hey luke how i mean seriously i shout out i love our sponsors how on brand is it that Morning Combat is brought to you by Manscaped, your ball wash professionals,

and Roman at GetRoman.com. Yes, trim your disgusting, non-functioning genitals. So, oh yeah, oh yeah. Hey, you know, it is our audience, audience right luke we got a bunch of uh we got a bunch of crusty old dads out there who uh who could probably use some help right we should probably do like gun ads for the folks in our audience who were at the capital on january 6th that's a great point if you plan on storming once again then uh yeah always use all right or yes yes ruger you mean uh okay with that out of the way, BC.

Hey, Luke, Colt is a Hartford, Connecticut company. Colt. As in Colt 45? Yeah, brother. Very good. All right, BC, it's time now for the audience gets to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from donks. As everyone knows, we put up a post on Instagram on Sundays.

We elicit questions questions and then the producers pick them we don't pick them all right bc this one's got your name written all over it at dylan j moran moran tank davis versus lopez i'm assuming he means teofimo right now right now who wins wow spirit fingers there luke that fires me up this would be an incredible freaking matchup at 135 pounds and oh by the way though uh teo fimo's dad saturday night said hey hey bob arum we got to make this loma fight like as soon as we can because tay was going up to 140 soon so luke maybe we see this fight one day at 140 who knows who wins right now? You want my answer? Who do you think is the biggest puncher, Luke? Oh, Davis is the biggest puncher.

Sorry. I think Lopez is a tremendous puncher. He ain't Tank Davis. Who's the better pure boxer? Lopez by a wide margin. I don't think it's by a wide margin, Luke. I think he's unorthodox, and he gets out first, and he's active. But Gervonta is a counter boxer, and he's good, Luke. He think he's unorthodox and he gets out first and he's active, but Gervonta is a counter boxer and he's good

Luke. He's good. It's a fight. I would lean towards Lopez, but I can understand that there's a very clear debate about that. Yeah, as of right now, I would fear that in a super elite fight like this. Luke, you heard Gervonta

after the fight say, I made a mistake. And what he meant was, I didn't throw enough punches. He was trying to be too selective and too cute with his counter shots. Hey, it worked. He finally broke Barrios down and finished him. But I wonder, Luke, if that could hurt him, where if we had a competitive back and forth fight

where they both made some pretty serious adjustments, would Davis throw enough punches, or could Teo win some of the close rounds like that? So the judges favored Davis this time for landing the heavier shots against Barrios. Davis landed more punches overall, but there were some key rounds here where Barrios was more active. I wonder if it went the distance if that activity would catch up with Davis.

Maybe as we stand right now i'd slightly edge teofimo like you would but i need to see that luke i need it it'd be fucking awesome is what it would be it'd be fucking awesome i'll tell you that much and by the way here's the reality about these fights pc if we had the kind of openness we needed to make and let's just say we lived in a world where all these fights could be made and it could be made in relatively short order sure let's say tank wins the first time or lopez wins the first time whatever dude if they fought multiple times i do believe you'd get different results over time like i think that these guys all have certain advantages over the other one um and maybe maybe some of them wouldn't hold up

over time but like a guy like tank davis and lopez given how young they are if they fought when they you know this year and then they fought in three years, and then three years after that, God only knows what you'd get. There's just a lot of possibility for ups and downs and twists and turns that are very hard to anticipate. So I'm really hoping that we can make some of these because just one against each other would seem a little bit insufficient. Unfortunately, you have to kind of chair,

I don't want to say unfortunately, but you have to kind of chair that both become really really really quick dominant pay-per-view brands because that's the quickest way we would see this fight loop basically all right from at io dot not sort of am i the only one who has lost interest in loma chaco fights dude his stock took a hit bc it really did i don't see how you could lose interest after an offensive performance like this it wasn't like he he came out there and he was a wizard but it was unexciting i mean he went after this bigger guy and stopped him have you have you really lost interest is that like you don't like seeing a wizard no no not me not me i mean i watched the

fight i thought it was amazing what i mean to say is this man this man who thought he could drop a uh a question into our inbox and be like hey guys uh it's just me or does this fight suck no bro we just talked about how awesome it was you wouldn't be excited to see him against teofimo again because that's what's gonna happen yeah i i just feel like i thought there'd be bigger buzz for his first fight since the lopez fight and there really was there was some there was some but I guess I thought there'd be more maybe that's my imagination but I thought there'd be more um but you know with a win like that and they make the Lopez rematch I think he'll be just fine you know he hadn't done a great job of selling himself after the Lopez lost Luke he had kind of soiled his reputation for a little bit it's kind of like me how I've soiled this t-shirt

with all with the amount of sweat bombs I've got on it right now luke because of by the uh i can't regulate the the temperature of this uh of this office it's just yeah and the producers are going to soil our reputation with the audience by picking mostly boxing questions so from at dip 3886 although this one is related to audio tar the manager of conor mcgreg. What are the possible implications of Paradigm's lawsuit against Manny Pacquiao to block the Errol Spence Jr. fight? So for folks who don't know, Manny Pacquiao is being sued by Paradigm. Paradigm is run, of course, by Audiotar,

the manager to Conor McGregor. What's going on here? Yeah, this was going to be my odds and ends, but we might as well talk about it now. It's interesting. I think this holds extra scare because Audiotar is involved and it's it's it's interesting i think this this holds extra scare because audiotar you know is involved it's a bigger name than just some manager who has a lot of success with conor mcgregor obviously and because now he's threatening to cancel the fight

or cancel the errol spence fight so but if you're a boxing guy luke this is unfortunately like sort of par for the course in manny pacquiao's career. What I mean by that is how he's operated. There's always sort of been an advisor or a promoter who thinks they have a certain level of, or a manager who, who, who I got Manny under contract and I, you know, I'm his spokesperson. Then you find out that person isn't even a part of the situation anymore. So I think a lot of us saw this and we're like, well, this is Manny being Manny. I mean, you can go all the way back to when he took that loaded briefcase from Golden Boy and Oscar of 5 million and then went out and gambled and spent it and still didn't sign the contract to try to illegally leave top rank. I mean, Manny's always been kind of in these

situations. So part of me does want to point a finger at Manny and be like, is there a lack of communication? Is there a whatever? But Luke, this relationship with Paradigm from the beginning has been weird. Do you remember it was announced by Audie in the beginning that they were together? And then suddenly it was announced that there was never a deal. And then they did an official signing and announcement. And you're like, well, what about the previous six months when you guys were supposed to be together? So not only has Manny's lawyer put out a statement, but Manny himself basically saying that this is baseless, that we're willing to fight above and beyond in court right away to prove that we are not, that they didn't live up to the details of the contract and that this will not get in the

way of the Spence fight. I don't know enough legally here, Luke, to be like, this is a major threat. But if you read the details of the original report, I think I read Mark Ramondi's story on ESPN. It's that when Manny officially signed with Audiotar and Paradigm, the idea and the goal was to get a four-fight deal out of the zone, which would get them a Mikey Garcia fight to start, and then maybe a Ryan Garcia fight, which was also talked about to be the first fight. That all seemed to fall apart,

so Manny's blaming Paradigm Paradigm saying you know you're still under contract with us and Manny's like no I'm not and he went out and signed back again with the PBC to fight Errol Spence so one of the things that came out of that story was Mikey Garcia kind of complaining about how that fight fell apart and you know the quote he said Luke he said uh there was all these people coming forward claimed that they represented Manny but none of them did yeah that's the history of Manny's career so I don't really know who to believe Luke Manny somehow skated a Teflon path out of this in the past will they do it again it seems as of now like yes that we'll see this fight I don't know if Audie can uh you know fast track the court system

and kind of block this and make it happen historically it doesn't seem to work that well look all right from coiled consciousness we kind of went over this too bc i'm not really sure what to add at this point what's next for anthony pettis after his second pfl loss boy i gotta tell you i i'm not saying it's a bad choice for everyone we haven't talked about the fact that tiago alves is now a champion in bkfc and i know he was supposed to retire and then decided not to and went there and he's a champion now like god bless him that's I feel really happy for a guy who has given us so much entertainment that he could find some success in his late career but I don't know if that's the right fit for Pettis to be candid with you yeah look here's the deal unless he's going to make a major major overhaul change to his

training and everything where he's like look look, this is the level I think I'm at, meaning PFL, I want to be at. So I'm going to come back next season. No stone left unturned, best shape of my life, completely dialed in. And I'm going to prove to you guys by winning that $1 million and win the championship. If he does that, Luke, that's a nice sort of thing to put on the end of his career. But if you're asking me what should be next, he's a little bit too young to hang it up. Like, what is he like 34, Luke? I mean next, he's a little bit too young to hang it up. Like, what is he, like 34, Luke? I mean, he's like a little bit too young to be done. Do you know what promotion kind of makes the most sense?

Sorry, it's still Bellator. Why? Because I think that without that season and playoff format, there's a little bit more leniency should Pettis want a certain level of matchmaking, which could still feature his name and important, you know, co-main event and main event fights, but maybe give him a sort of matchmaking that where it's like, okay, let's make entertainment. Let's go in there against old Paul Daly, right? Let's go in there against MVP and just have a batshit wild fight. I think that might be the better lane for him to get the most out of what's left of his name value and also his entertainment

value. Luke, he's still a very exciting fighter. I don't think it'll do much for him to be an also-ran with PFL unless, again, his motivation is slowly, I don't know the length of his deal, unless his motivation is solely on proving that this year was just an aberration and a hiccup and he comes back guns blazing next year. If not, go with the money. He can't beat the names and i mean the whole point of going to pfl was it's a short path to a million bucks and

then some fine i think i'd say at the outset i think it's actually a pretty reasonable calculation and a lot of fighters make it that's why they're joining pfl now more than they have in years past okay deal but if you're down to to clay collard and haush Manfeo, that means you can't win these tournaments. So what can you do? Well, you still got a bit of a name. You could put some other guys with some names on there. Does Bellator give them squash matches? I don't really know what the answer is.

But I think that the initial, I'll say this, the initial gamble he took on PFL, I understood at the time. Remember, he beat, what, Cowboy in his last fight? You know? Last UFC fight fight i should say but now that calculation is looking like uh it was you know i understood the attempt but you got to make a change at this point in which direction i leave up to him all right bc this one's all about you coming in he could win this season coming in you thought he was going to win the season right i thought he would get further than he did i'll be honest about that i thought

he'd get further than he did he's'll be honest about that. I thought he'd get further than he did. He's two years removed from beating Wonderboy, and his last two UFC fights were win over Cowboy and Alex Morono. So, now that fight was a little wild, but still. Also, but the Wonderboy fight, like, go back and watch it. Like, Wonderboy was beating his ass until he just wasn't. So, it's like, yeah, it's a huge win, and that punch was not lucky. It was planned. Or what was it? I can't remember anymore what he landed but um punch yeah the knockout shot that had wonderboy

flattened like that i know it's wonderboy like that yeah yeah so so that was amazing i give him all the credit in the world but like the larger perspective on that was he was already getting kind of beat up and great that's a 170 against a huge 170 or fine but you know the the truth is that that was not going his way until it wasn fine but you know the the truth is that that was not going his way until it wasn't um all right bc this is all about you last but not least from at greg leach 99 given the harsh impact alcohol has on the vital organ does bc's newly diagnosed fatty liver disease spell the end of room service diaries as we know it? So first of all, it's a great question. And this guy, Greg G. Leach, or Greg Leach 99, is becoming a regular here on these DM slides.

Shout out to him. So I have officially, Luke, NAFLD, which is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It doesn't mean I don't consume alcohol, but I haven't been an abuser of it since my twenties. So basically my doctor's, you know, recommendation here, Luke, which is rightfully so, which is like, it'd be smart to kind of avoid alcohol moving forward, but it hasn't been a hard and fast, like I'm never going to touch it. My wife and I went out on a date recently. We went out to dinner.

I had a drink. You and I went out with Maddie Snides, our Showtime producer luke we uh we had a not a little bit of sake luke we had enough sake to the point luke we were considering declothing each other am i wrong all right probably not that much sake i wasn't i listen i had i did have a lot of sake i was not trying to bang you let me just be clear about that. So I've really cut out alcohol in my day-to-day life. I'm not afraid to have a drink out at dinner. So if you wanted to do room service diaries again, Luke, which I love that vehicle for us, even though it could potentially lead us to trouble, it's probably a fast track to trouble. I would be willing to have one drink during that, Luke.

Does that make me a bad person? Maybe you can medicate me. No, one drink is fine. I'm just going to eat a handful of gummies that may or may not have anything in them ahead of time. Okay, okay. That's fair. But, yeah, doing well, Luke, protecting this liver. Look, we've got to protect the home team now, okay? I mean, it's up to me now.

All right, I need to be an example to my sons to the people that listen to this that you know you may have had your day at cumberland farms but that day is over bro good i'm glad to see all right speaking of cumberland farms and the diarrhea that it causes it's time for your shitty segment but i say that in a very positive light yeah i'm sure you do yeah we scour the globe. The highs and lows, the ugly, the good and bad, all that in between combat sports and beyond. Luke, we call this

viral video segment. Have you seen this shit? Yeah. Womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, womp. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Hey, Luke, I love it when real recognizes real.

Let's check out this FaceTime video after Fedor announced he will fight one more time under the Bellator banner in Moscow. Check out who called him. Oh, I saw this. How are you, Fedor? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. John Jones.

I just want to say congratulations and welcome. Thank you. I don't know if the people are hearing it. Yeah, I'm very excited. I'll talk to you later. What does he say? So the conversation's short, likely because of the... Oh, people are hearing it. All right, you can turn that off.

Thanks, Kev. The conversation was short, Luke, likely because of the language difference, but it was nice. It was Johnny Bones just basically saying, congratulations, you're back. Hey, I'll talk to you later, all right? Because what else are they going to say, Luke?

You know, where are they going to... You know, no more dick pills. And maybe, you know, Fedor's like, hey, go? What else are they going to say, Luke? You know, no more dick pills And maybe, you know, Fedor's like Hey, go to GetRoman.com slash Combat, bro We got all the dick We got a swimming pool full of Pico pills, bro I don't know what else they're going to say

But I appreciate that gesture Luke, do you think, can you put your conspiratorial hat on? Is there any chance that gesture Because Johnny Bone's Been tweeting about a few other organizations It seems lately can you put your conspiratorial hat on is there any chance that gesture because johnny bone's been tweeting about a few other organizations it seems lately he's just kind of tweeting about mma in general do you think he's trying to put out there that like hey i'd love to fight in other places i mean there is a contract that holding him back but you're not reading into it right i think maybe yeah i don't know i i i, I'm probably a pretty poor judge of what John is thinking or not thinking.

So yeah, I don't know. He doesn't like you very much. We've learned that already in 2017. I mean, all right. 2018, maybe I don't July of 2017. It was a dark day in Los Angeles. Let's keep it rolling here. Luke, did you see this clip from our three fighting championships in Moscow?

There was a post-fight argument. Your boy grab bag hit man, from our three fighting championships in Moscow. There was a post-fight argument. Your boy Grab Bag Hitman put this out on the interwebs. That turned into a Strikeforce Nashville brawl, Luke, in a second. But the key part was the two guys right there that are talking junk, they took their shirts off, put on gloves, and had a fight unscheduled right after this with a referee, Luke, and the little guy won.

This is a tough part of the world, man. Gentlemen, we're on national television here. Yeah, all right. Plenty of good seats still available. These people are tough, bro. They throw hands under the flimsiest conditions. They'll beat your ass, Luke, okay? Yes. Oh, yeah.

Look at this. Oh, wow. Oh, God. Okay. Yes. Oh yeah. Oh, here they come. Oh God. This looks like UFC two 29, but I love that they settled it in the cage. It looked like right after they were like pro wrestling style. We're going to start this match up right now. I'm into that. Okay. Now I am into that. So, uh, a lot of Russian angry people. They're not just in a hurry. Look at their flashing the lights. Luke, we gotta, we gotta get this under control. All right. Thank you. So, so much COVID there. Keep it rolling. Luke, we got to get this under control. All right. Thank you. So much COVID there. Keep it rolling, Luke.

A lot of fireworks came out of BKFC 18 in Florida, including after Hector Lombard's victory, Luke, when Lorenzo Hunt came up and caught that two-piece. Dude, he just rolled up on Hector Lombard. I'm like, you know who Hector Lombard is? You know this dude was just in a fist fight? What the fuck are y'all doing rolling up on Hector Lombard that way? Yo, how know who Hector Lombard is? You know this dude was just in a fist fight? What the fuck are y'all doing rolling up on Hector Lombard that way?

How about Joe Riggs being the voice of reason here, jumping in, right? That's Joe Riggs? Yep. Who else has orange hair and weird tats, right? I love that guy. Oh, poor Joe Riggs. He used to have the best grounded pound in the business, man.

I love some old school Strikeforce Joe Riggs. Luke, a lot of people tweeted about this BKFC card because there's a lot of shenanigans on it, including Angela Hill. Your thoughts on this, Luke? Big knockers. Dude, Angela Hill's funny. She's a good follow. If you don't follow Angela Hill, you should.

She's got a great personality. She does tell the truth, Luke, right? I mean, if we're being honest here. Yeah, these are some, you know, it's truth in advertising is how I would describe it. What is this, some kind of bust? Yeah, it's very impressive. All right, Luke, hip-hop artist Fahmez.

Hey, Dad, I know you drive the Melissa Etheridge mobile. Can we keep the dad jokes to a min? Luke, the guy in the black shoes is a hip-hop artist named fames i've never heard of him but he had a fight against paul teague and luke the rapper one rap yeah well the other guy switched stances and uh had poor defense as a consequence the other guy stepped in and just you're a big fames fan you're a big fames i I've never heard of him. Yeah, we're dads here. Watch, he'll switch stances here, steps in, and just gets off his center. That's it. He looks a little bit big meat there, like Larry Hoover there with that nice cross, Luke.

I like that. Okay. Big meat, you mean? Corey Manich, yeah, our producer. Hey, Luke, Eduardo Concepcion was in the opening prelim fight of the night, and he only needed five seconds to send Gabe Brown face first Luke he just walked into the punch man look at that he just walks in dude they don't mess around with these bare knuckles bro they'll throw those hands bop bop bop bop just just playing the piano on

this dude's face yeah this is like trailer park Keith Van Horn here. What is he wearing, Luke? I don't get it. All right. All right, Luke. Bellator 261 from Mohegan. Miles Jury trying multiple times to get out of Sidney Outlaw's body lock. Luke, this was a one-sided piece of grappling business. How impressed are you from Sidney Outlaw's story of homeless to hero here under the Bellator banner? He was a good fighter. I saw the odds on this. I was a little surprised that Jury was the underdog,

but Outlaw is pretty talented. He had a bad fight against Michael Chandler, but Michael Chandler gives good fighters bad results sometimes, so that's not all that indicative of something. Even if that sub had never gotten there, he was going to win that one 10-8

on some of those rounds so he was a good fighter he was stuck on jury jury tried four separate times to do that kind of slam thing right there just to try to get him off he couldn't do it Luke by the way you're asking like why Pettis hasn't gone to Bellator I mean there's there's some guys who leave UFC and they go to Bellator man they don't pick up where they left off Benson Henderson I don't think ever quite did that Miles jury left UFC I think was still a pretty high um pedigree and i don't get me wrong i think he's good but you know has he had the run in bellator that he thought he was gonna have i don't think so that's a good point luke you know what i love about bellator prelims

they're savage finishes there's a man named cory samuels who calls himself lightning wolf he only needed 10 seconds for this one lu Luke. Yeah, the other kid with the red gloves, he was the top prospect and he got dusted off in 10 seconds. Boom. Eat that stiff piece of left cross right there. Yes. Look at the replay, Luke.

Stepped on his foot and he kind of right hook. Let's see what he does with the follow up here. I think he's going right down broadway straight down the all the left over the top of the the cross that is fucking nice jesus luke and then he goes on belly hammer fist look at that knee on belly hammer fist oof oh yeah there were lightweights who gave a wild exchange here this is soren bach against cory lee soren bach is the caveman looking fellow lu. This is out of control right here.

I love this shit. Yeah, although this was probably the most exciting part of the fight. It was not especially exciting. Well, Luke, the celebration from the lightweight Soren Bach, who calls himself the true Viking, was pretty weird. Here it is, Luke. Yeah, he's got dead animals. Yep.

Did he slaughter that thing, Luke? Probably. The question is, thing, Luke? Probably. The question is, what is it? He's only lightweight. He looks like a heavyweight there, Luke. That's interesting. And then Shavkat Rakhmanov. See, Shavkat Rakhmanov has head-to-toe wolf pelts.

That's a little more impressive to me. We're comparing animal hair on a fighter's body. Hey, Luke, that wasn't the weirdest celebration Bellator gave us on Friday night. Check out Jalen Bates at Bantamweight. First of all, do you like the armbar? Spinning through like that? I mean, he didn't really need to do it that way, but okay. Okay.

And now check out the celebration. Oh, yeah, this kid's good. I've seen him a couple of times. They're still giving him the slow treatment because he's still pretty young. So he sits with the armbar here. He could have just sat here, but he twists him around so that the guy comes all the way through. You'll see there's like a reverse.

There's an omoplata he's applying there, reverse style. Didn't work, so then he just applies the armbar. So, you know, he's sort of using one submission to lead into the other. Didn't really need to do it all that way, but it was pretty slick. See that? And then he gets it on top. Remember the name right there, Jalen Bates. We'll check him out. He's good. He's very, very good. need to do it all that way but it's pretty slick see that and then he gets it on top remember the name right there jalen bates we'll check him out he's good he's very very good he's giving us some

uh aviv gozali type finishes here luke let's keep it going top rank boxing from las vegas in his pro debut subaru murata luke i love that name the japanese featherweight giving us a KO. What a fucking left hand that was. Wow. Subaru Murata. There's a good-looking kid right there. Yeah, man. All right. Luke, I talked about there was some conversation

between Teofimo Lopez Sr. and Bob Arum after the Lomachenko fight. Let's throw to the audio now. This is some gangster Don shit going on. His father's saying they are willing to make this fight. I know they are because when he signed his new contract with Top Rank at my house before he came down with COVID, he said, yeah, no problem. It's a question of being compensated, and that's the job of the promoter and I'll get

them both well compensated and we'll do this fight because based on his performance tonight, it will be a really different kind of fight. But I can't wait to see it. I really can't wait to see it. And there's Tiafimo.iafimo hey how you doing the man making business yeah he made you a lot of money tonight because yeah that fight that fight when we get it done which we will it's going to be huge huge amazing and you know what i was thinking i wasn't thinking about lomacheco in the past. But after this performance, I think that the public wants to see this fight. I think that I could convince my son to fight him again. I think that after Combosas, it could be made.

It's going to be the biggest fight in the world. And we can make it happen in December in the Madison Square Garden, you know, like we always do. You know, my son's record in the Madison Square Garden is 6-0 with six knockouts. You already know that. So, you know, for the Heisman Awards. So why can't we make it happen there, you know? But I got to talk to him. You're a real man, and your son's a real man, and I hope he's getting better.

Oh, no, he's 100% out of better. He's good. That's good news, and we'll send it to you guys. We're going to do that event. Luke, all is good in the Lopez and Arum households here, it seems. Did you buy that love affair, man-to-man? Listen, money makes everything better. So whatever they were doing before, you know, it's better now. I'll tell you what, dude. They do Loma versus Lopez at the Garden.

We're going to that. We're fucking going to that. That's going to be epic. Hell yes. And how about that? I mean, Lopez Sr. looking like a G, Luke, okay? That was gangster versus gangster. They're real recognizing real. I love it, Luke, okay? Pay me gangster versus gangster. They're real recognizing real.

I love it, Luke, okay? Pay me. Yeah, I guess he could have taken the mask off. I mean, he just kind of had a weird mask on the whole time, but whatever. He was lingering all over the arena all night. All right, Luke, UFC fight night, also in Vegas. Light heavyweight, Marcin Prochnio,

with a body shot kick KO. Oh, Luke, this is pretty vicious here against Isaac Villanueva. Prochnio. Prochnio. Luke, why is pretty vicious here against Isaac Villanueva. Procneo. Procneo. Luke, why do we not see this KO more? We see it in boxing with the left hook to the liver. We see it in MMA sometimes with the left hook.

Why not the kick to the liver? I don't know. It's a good question. You've seen, speaking of Pettis, he's had a couple of times he's folded people. How about RDA folding Cowboy? Liver kick. It's not that we've never seen it. We see it in the Dennis Seaver sort of back kick way,

but just to straight up sweep your leg across and hit the spot, it seems like, you know, I don't know, we're chasing calves left and right these days. Maybe you should chase that liver with the left foot, okay? It's there for you. Good looking win for that light heavyweight. And then after Julia Avila's submission win, Luke, over Julia Stolaryenko, she got a little emotional talking to DC, put a little love on him in COVID times.

Luke. Listen, spreading COVID. I'm teasing. I don't know if she has COVID, but hey, listen, I watched this with my brother. He was over this weekend and we had it on. And, uh, you know, he was trying to explain to his wife he's like dude these people are emotional after this they don't make a lot of money the fights are tough the training is insane

you don't compete very often it's fucking stressful so you know it's stressful Tanner Boser your favorite heavyweight in the co-main event got a much needed win against OSP but OSP is going to to what fight this Luke because he believes there was a fence

grab. Tanner Boser put this video on his Twitter saying, bro, no fence grab. I use a fist against the fence for leverage. Luke, will this be the beginning of this move becoming a, a new thing? I've been wondering why folks haven't done it all this time for folks who don't know either with your toes or your fingers, you're not allowed to like grip inside the fence but if you have a closed fist or even an open hand and you just press against it you can do that all day long so if you just drive your weight into it granted it's not as good as grabbing the fence but you can it's entirely legal yeah dude like like listen i'm gonna apply nfl replay rules for me to a call, I need incontrovertible evidence. There is not incontrovertible evidence here at all that he grabbed the fence.

So, you know, I feel bad for OSP, but it is what it is. Big win for Tanner Bosa, who needed it to make his summer bountiful. So shout out to him. Hopefully, Luke, he got his secret cash off the books. Bonus, John Nash. I'll see you, brother. All right, let's keep it going luke uh sage north cuts is preparing for one championship return and he's fucking jack luke i'll have what

he's having what kind of uh trt cream is this shit luke look at this man i know i do do you understand how many of my family members i would murder with you know slowly to look like this this this man he can't make lightweight anymore can he luke i mean this looks like a heavyweight right here he might have taken this picture right after the workout in which case he had a big pump going but to your point dude yeah he's looking like a fucking hercules over here could he hang hang at Zoo Culture? Oh. Dude, he was bending pans and doing forward flips before he even looked like this.

He is built for Zoo Culture. Yeah. Best brains for the business indeed. Let's go to PFL from Atlantic City, Luke. Before Anthony Pettis' return, him and Bellator Bantamweight Champion Sergio Pettis and his brother doing some sparring, some setting up here with some fun and games.

This made me feel good, Luke. Okay, seeing the brothers have a little fun, roll around. Did you and your brother this weekend take part in this at all? No, we just went drinking. All right, all right. Did he mention the DM that he no-sold of mine? No. All right, sounds great, Luke.

We'll go forward here to Anthony Pettis' loss to Rosh Manfeo. This was the big strike, Luke, that really cemented the victory. Kind of brutal stuff here in close. Hey, could they put more graphics on the screen? I don't want to see the fight anymore. Well, the ref cam is a little jarring, but we did get to see what happened. Where are you on PFL's ref cam? I little jarring but uh we did get to see what where are you on pfl's ref

cam i actually like it as replay i don't like it live for some of these shots no live no live i agree with you on that uh i had mentioned larissa pacheco had a sick ko to secure the number one ranking at women's lightweight this is where this is what it was lu Luke. Look at this. Yeah, but her opponent, I mean, what are we doing here? Just walking and swinging wildly, hands down. No, I could not do a better job. That's why I don't fight, but I can at least identify what high-level fighters don't do, and they don't do that shit. That's a good-looking win, Luke.

I know it was somebody just throwing themselves at her, but she got it. I she's got some fucking power does she not yeah she's got some watch her watch her dude look at her whip her head when she lands i'd like you to play right there entire back luke all right let's keep it moving here heavyweight bruno capoloza luke with this sick ko against muhammad darice this gave him six points and the number one seed at heavyweight as we talked about. Look at this combo. It's not even really a combo. He's just... He's good, Luke.

Luke, he's pretty damn good. He's got finishing instincts, this guy. Finishing instincts. That's not common, or at least that's not automatic, I should say. He's got it luke you know i'd finishing instincts the people who bought front row tickets at this nhl game seven playoff game because they're brawling luke i don't know what sparked this but we're throwing hands brother fuck yeah dude hockey is the best let's see where look at that i don't see the fight oh there we go there we go let's get the camera back

on there oh all right all right yeah look right there look we're grabbing jerseys we're throwing yeah i don't even know what teams these are luke you know what the nhl is luke the thing is lightning and the islanders if you're over someone's house like you go over your brother's house whatever brother-in-law whoever and they got the playoffs on you'll be entertained as shit if you can't turn the channel but yet i'll never watch it at my own house what is wrong with dude play playoff hockey has an energy that is impossible to describe but you're right like regular season i'll watch caps games regular season and i go because those are the only tickets i can afford uh but there's something about playoff hockey man i don't get it but it's fucking so great so good playoff hockey and weed they always went together luke like like peanut

butter and jelly it's great all right luke check out this potential sign for college game day i'm sure you agree with the spirit of it i keep trying to tell you bozos people will People will send me these intermittent DMs being like, hey, what about this guy wearing gloves? Yeah, he's a fucking putz. What do you want me to say? Okay, well, why don't you talk to this man, this famous fellow who put out this video of him on vacation but still working out.

We're talking about Magic Johnson, brother. You know, and the curls look like shit, too. By the way, everything is wrong with these curls. Oh, come on, bro. He's's in great shape he's probably like 60 did i say he wasn't in good shape when did i say that i mean he's a little round around the belly but uh shout out listen my listen my man's got a terrible disease that he's kept under control i think he's absolutely kept his health in good places look at this fucking boat he's on i mean jesus christ but the curls they look like shit sorry luke if i have a boat like that for vacation i'm wearing lifting gloves i don't

care what you say let's keep it going check out this uh uh tour de france or no we start off at the baseball game these are uh padres game with the die oh take that i love rival fans somebody throw a slice of pizza at him. Remember that? Listen, you pull that shit in the Bronx. We're fighting. We're fighting, Luke. You pull that shit in Hartford, Connecticut, we're fighting. But I guess in San Diego, it's all

good, Luke. Let me ask you, did you ever go to any Hartford Whalers games? Oh, yeah. Would get drunk as hell in the parking lot in high school beforehand because they went away my junior year in high school was the last year of the Whalers.? Oh, yeah. Would get drunk as hell in the parking lot in high school beforehand. Because they went away, my junior year in high school was the last year of the Whalers. So that was when we, or no, my senior year. Sorry, the fall, yeah, my senior year was the last one.

So, you know, put down a few Bush Light cans in the parking lot there, Luke, okay? I understand that. Yeah. All right, let's go to the Tour de France. I think this is the Tour de France. Luke, I didn't care enough to check it out but check out this crash caused by the fan with the sign hey lady get out of the road look at the calamity from this luke dude fans are horrific people they don't put up the fence here in france you could climb up the mountain and just kind of get in the way. Look at this shit. Look at what this dumb

fuck did. People are like, oh no, I like sports better with fans. Okay. Well, I like fights better with fans, Luke, alright? I'm not going to take that shit from you. No, thank you. Soccer. Can you get your sign out of the playing field? I mean, look at this. Just full on, just a mess.

Luke, do you ever get into this? You ever get into this shit? Cycling? Yeah, watching it on TV, yeah. Nah, my wife is big into it because it's big in Columbia, but mm-mm. I was the once, for six months, the cycling editor at ESPN.com filling in for somebody. It was like an endurance page they had,

so I had to cover the shit out of this stuff. It's actually pretty cool, Luke, if you're forced to watch it. It's a lot like the NHL playoffs, but a little bit of carnage right there. Let's keep it rolling here, Luke. I don't put a lot of baseball on here because I don't watch it, but check out this play from Pirates third baseman Cabrian Hayes, who goes over the

foul line and deep in the corner, Luke, with a radar gun to get slow as balls Yadier Molina at first. That's a great play, Luke. That is fucking insane. Dude, across his body and the field. What a hole he's right there. Wow.

That is extremely impressive. Hey, Luke. Europeans watching this would be like, well, he just threw the ball. I'm like, you fuckers have no idea how hard that is, what he just did. You know, look at that. Right on point. Yes. Luke, Combate Global made their debut on CBS Sports Network,

a new in-family promotion here. Isn't it Combate? Combate is Portuguese. Sorry, I'm just trying to not sound like an ignorant American, Luke. Combate Global, if you want. Combats, Combates Global? Luke, check out Kaleo Romero slamming Andy Perez on his damn face, Luke. Take that.

Sort of. Sort of. It's a Matt return. All right, I was trying to get a CBS property on our page here, Luke. Sorry, all right? No more in-house favors for anybody. All right? Let's keep it rolling. I've been telling you that for a while.

Boxing in Bolivia. Check out Pedro Tavares. He dropped Saul Farah but then gets disqualified, Luke, for stepping on his face. God. Oh, God. Shout out to Tim Boxale. Maybe that's how they box in that part of the world?

This is your part of the world right Bolivia those are your people Luke oh this was in Bolivia yeah Bolivia's got some problems yup wow there must be a back story to that Luke anyway let's keep it rolling here Aljo Sterling has a new sponsor

Luke check it out God bless him yeah I mean who are we to point luke we we're we're peddling uh uh ball hair trimmers and dick pills luke only on morning combat so uh shout out really i've ascended to the highest level of this profession hopefully aljo was able to use this product luke i'm sure he gets right? Yeah, but wouldn't you rather just not use those products? You know what I mean? It's just awesome without it.

Remember what Willie Nelson said in Half-Baked, Luke? Remember how much condoms used to cost back then? I don't know. We never used them. All right, Luke, let's keep this rolling here. Rate these tats, Luke. This is your shit right here. Glory Kickboxing's nikki holtzkin

has a mike tyson tat on his calf your thoughts uh if you're asking me how well the tattoo is done it's done extremely well that's very good luke you're teaching me about tattoo quality and i think sometimes you go too hard and try to blow yourself by removing a rib in your cage marilyn manson style but this is on point, Luke. That's extremely on point. I mean, look at the detail in the gloves and then the different lighting on the face. That line work and the shading is extremely, extremely good. Tiago Santos' old majeta went under the knife here, Luke. We got a few pictures to show. He put a shark on his right thigh. i want you to speak to the work here well here's the thing i

actually we have to wait a little bit because that's a fresh tattoo and it's going to be a little bit darker than it normally is i actually think in about a couple of weeks or about a month it will lighten up and then when it's a little bit lighter then you're going to get a better judgment because i would actually argue it's a little dark but i can't make that argument until it's healed so i would say it looks pretty good but let's see what it's when it's a little dark, but I can't make that argument until it's healed. So I would say it looks pretty good, but let's see when it's healed. Look, it looks like Tiago is ready to go tip on tip.

It looks like he's one of us, Luke, but his tattoo instructor here is just like, no, bro, no, we don't do that in these parts. But I shout out to the head. It's a little weird that the shark is facing into him versus the mouth going away from his body, but... Is this better or worse than his hammer tattoo, Luke? That's better. That's better.

Okay. Andre Touchy Feely showing off his Steve Butcher performed tattoo on his leg of coach and mentor Uriah Faber. Luke, that's on his ankle, and that's your boy Butcher, bro. Okay, so we've talked about this before. you guys have been asking me all these portraits and people go to people who are not portrait specialists and they end up getting fucked up tattoos steve butcher is a portrait tattoo look at the difference that is exceptional work that you could you do not get portrait tattooers who are much better than this and i want to point out something else

this is not a huge amount of surface it's not the entire calf like the nikki holtzkin one or someone's back where you have a lot of canvas to get to those details this is a small amount this is a small amount of skin packed in a fuck ton of details that is a 10 out of 10 extremely good you see i'm not a hater bc you just you've been showing me some fucked up tattoos because they were nice people and then getting me to be a bad guy dude that that is you you just are not going to get better portrait tattoos than that that's exceptional mr he boss at the end of the day luke but uh shout out to and by the way touchy feely look great until the the unfortunate stoppage there luke of a no contest against uh what's the guy's

name the other panetta panetta yeah finally luke can you please come get abuela i know you guys have been out on the boat enjoying yourselves but you know this is not the behavior that your daughter needs to see luke i mean what is going on here dude i hate to say it but i think she fucks there's probably a category on that app you used in the hotel room uh when we travel look there for this type of stuff there probably is a category there dude how many white claws how many white claws did they feed big bertha here wow she's had as many white claws she's she's ready for the well i'll stop there all right luke that's the shit of the week i don't want to get us in trouble, Luke. Thank you. Enjoy it.

Shout out to all the tats. There you go. BC, time for odds and ends. You kind of already did it. Anything else to add for odds and ends? No. Nothing else? Buy our merch.

All right. Yeah, buy our merch. Real quickly for my odds and ends, and I bring this up only because I feel fucking terrible, but I just don't understand what he was thinking. Justin Jaynes had a fight in UFC against Charles Rosa, and I don't know what the truth is. He says what he did was he bet all of his purse ahead of time on himself,

in which case it would leave him with nothing left over if he lost. Well, lo and behold, he lost. To make matters worse bc via split decision i mean there's lots of ways where this could just be a ruse where he was trying to get attention who knows it was his fourth loss in a row so he's probably gone from the promotion at this point he was trying to bet everything on he had a full camp he was really ready but this is why i didn't like the bet number one it's just not smart financial planning this is the other problem bc he was either being a fighter luke

either is being a fighter in terms of smart financial maybe so maybe so but this was like adding insult to injury here this is my problem charles rosa if you look at all of his losses only one time has he been stopped all the other times he's been able to go the full distance so you're talking about a guy who's probably going to be able to be there at the end which means you are overly relying on the judges to give you a nod and maybe he should have won remember it was a split decision but why would you make that kind of financial investment with that much uncertainty given who you're fighting it was just a fucking terrible bet and now he's got kids and shit man like i really hope

this was a lie because if you bet this money i feel fucking terrible for him you and i talked about this over text, where you think maybe I'm giving him too much of the benefit of the doubt for being a schemer. Here's what I'm thinking. He had three losses in a row. He knew a fourth would mean he was getting cut. Nobody's talking about him.

Until he shows, like, betting slips online, Luke, I think this is a ruse. I think this was an attempt to not only bring attention to himself, and he's thinking, look, it'll motivate me to fight my best because people think I'm doing it. They'll be talking about me for the first time. So even if I do lose, maybe another organization will be willing to sign me. And plus, it keeps playing that whole, you know,

we're not getting paid enough, which it seems like they're not. So we have to do crazy shit like this just to make ends meet and pay the bills. If that's what it was, Luke, it may be kind of quasi brilliant. Would you say quasi brilliant? Yeah, but that seems terrible. I mean, Occam's razor here is that he just actually bet the money and lost. You know, you're right. If, if, if, if, if he did what you said he did, then yeah, there's a way to salvage this

in a lot of different ways. But I tend to think it's probably not what happened in which case it breaks my heart a little bit but i was like dude why would you do that why would you make a fucking bet like that i know you felt better about your camp but you're going against charles rosa dude charles rosa is hard to fucking finish the judges are very likely going to be involved and in the end they fucked them or at least you know the split decision loss like dude it's not dude, not a smart financial investment. Not.

Do you think he got a backroom bag full of cash as a parting gift? Probably not, dude. Probably not. If there was a time, Luke. If there was a time for that. Right? BC, let's remind everybody. If you want shirts like this one and not the sweaty one that BC is wearing

you can go to morningcombat.store want to give a shout to all of the sponsors so far you can go to getroman.com slash combat and uh to manscaped as well you can use the combat code there to get some free money or at least shout out to the North Carolina Fusion Jam Band Zach Mexico who's outfitted me in this fantastic shirt big fan of what they do down there and uh god i had to ride in bc's car last week while he listened to like just bullshit notes or not notes i'm sorry bullshit like jam band i was listening to to maha vishnu orchestra my boy aaron bronster gets down with that kind of extreme fusion you know that i know but i was like we're not peeing sitting down so why are we listening to this nonsense but yeah we're standing up apparently by the way luke

i went into the restroom the other day in our jersey city studio as you were in that in the stall and i'm like i am not going to accidentally watch you stand up between those cracks between the door and the thing that no one wants to look through but as you're walking by you accidentally cease in through there i did not want to see you stand wipe like this is that would have been that would probably would have been the end of us Luke dude the first time I go to your house I'm gonna blow that toilet up buddy

I'm gonna absolutely massacre that thing look you got any text messages during the show I haven't seen you look at your phone at all oh yeah yeah I got a lot of shit going on you know so sorry man i apologize uh all right that's it for us man so let's remind everyone if you want to try showtime showtime.com 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can go pound sand

um that's to clean glasses that you have there bc i'm not sure where you're using that and uh yeah keyboards luke this is a keyboard clean also also lenses i have the same one for my lenses um and if you want to follow us on social media we're all over the place morning combat's name is consistently the same everywhere you can follow me and bc slightly different names on twitter and instagram and of course morning combat at gmail.com for wednesday's fan let's get some fan submissions this week shall we and then friday because y'all are going to be on time with the dead wrongs that's fine you know it's okay but let's also be on time with some of the fan submissions as well bc any parting thoughts no all right for cbs sports for showtime

for mocha that's brian campbell i'm luke thomas we'll see you guys on wednesday and until then may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.