MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Gervonta Davis Stops Hector Garcia | Jaron Ennis Wins | Khabib Leaving MMA? | Ep 395

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

On Episode 395 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian recap a big weekend in Washington D.C. as Gervonta Davis stopped Hector Garcia. What can we now say about Tank vs. Ryan Garcia in terms of how they match up? Jaron 'Boots' Ennis pitched a shutout against Karen Chukhadzhian in the co-main event of the Davis-Garcia card, but did he look human for the first time? What does it mean for MMA and Khabib Nurmagomedov that he is leaving the MMA business entirely? Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Hey, it's the 9th of January, 2023, and it's time for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. I am one half of your hosting duo. And like I've been all since last week, I joined you from the capital of the status of Nitos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my friend in the great white north.

He is pathetic. He says a lot of things about himself, really just a piece of shit like me. It's Brian Campbell. Brian Campbell. How are you? he says a lot of things about himself really just a piece of shit like me it's brian campbell brian campbell how are you uh happy to be back home luke um you know it's a new year what are you drinking there uh some uh some lime gatorade to uh take down that life hangover you're working on no i wish i had a hangover i'm just old and sad no it's dyed mountain dew or i should say oh wow wow that's great does it come with a vape luke or do you have to purchase that separately dude i haven't vaped one time all right one time all right i'm so far so good knock on wood right okay for one vice to another hey we all got something

right i figured out the dive mountain dew i can get away with plus it's got caffeine which i need uh we have a fun show we were in we were excuse me not new york we were in washington dc last week where the tank davis fight will react to that plus we do have some mma news we're going to get to as well and mma returns to the calendar this coming weekend so the drought that everyone has been suffering under will know uh live mma it is coming to a close uh thumbs up on the video hit subscribe thank you for joining us all that good stuff oh yeah bc who you got a call from hey hey tooey mma's back this weekend let's bang all right great yeah no vaseline just gas and a little bit of vaseline or no a match a little bit of vaseline what am i saying um all

right wait no is it gas or match just a match and a little bit of Vaseline What am I saying Alright Wait no Is it gas or match Just a match and a little bit of Vaseline Or is it gas I can't remember My brain doesn't work anymore It's getting weird Luke It's getting pretty weird But you know

It's the Ice Cube disc song to NWA When he left the group I forget Anyway BC will react to Tank Davis Will react to Habib Potentially Or maybe outright

Leaving the sport All kinds of fun stuff uh there we want to remind folks showtime.com is the label that pays you can go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not feel free to bounce but if you stick around hey look at that first six months 3.99 a month that's a pretty great deal so stick around for that uh just a match and a little bit of gasoline, by the way, is what our team here says. That's right. A matcha?

Are you talking about like that shitty-ass tea I had when we interviewed Aaron Blanchfield? The tea was fine. You were just like, what is this thing I've never had before and therefore is terrible? I'm like, it's quite delicious, actually. I'm just not used to it. An ice cream matcha, Luke, did not turn out well. Did not. BC, I know we have deals going on at morningcombat.store what can you tell us i didn't even realize this until i went on the website this morning and and checked in with one rj uh dunkface and he said look because of the great success of our you know award season which

was fueled by our fans undying rabid love we did win back-to-back world mma awards best mma programming i'm still waiting for the world boxing awards luke to to uh to put us up there under best boxing program we're gonna have to compete with you know take a step back and all the other stars in this game luke but uh i will say right now because of that bach to bach championship award winnings, you can get great savings using that exact code back to back. That's a two, the number two back to back 15% off morning combat merch this morning. I mean, does it get better than that?

Best merch in the game. Best show in the game. Most handsome hosts in the game. Yeah, I don't know about all that. Okay. Thank you. Furthest away from the fights in the game. No longer getting credentialed in the game.

It's these two idiots. All right. So thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. I want to remind folks as well. Morning combat at gmail.com is the place to reach the show when you need to reach the show for Wednesday's fan subs, Friday's dead wrongs, or just to holler at the producers who read that.

BC and I don't read it, but they do. Yeah, that's Mikey's job, and he does a fantastic job of that. He censors a lot of memes that could get us in trouble, Luke, okay? People think Jay Paquette's this great family guy. He's got some saucy memes coming over there from the island of Scotia trouble, Luke, okay? People think Jay Paquette's this great family guy. He's got some saucy memes coming over there from the island of Scotia there, Luke. And then last but not least, in about a month, about a month's time, we're going to be in London, right?

So let's get that moving, folks. Tickets, they are not, I'm telling you, by the time we get there, there's a decent chance there won't be any left. So if you want to get some, now is the time. Didn't we hear, true or false, we heard that there's two rows of tickets left. I have not confirmed that, but I did hear that. Yes.

So this is a 500-seat musical venue, King's Place. They're at King's Court in the King's Place, I guess, section of London, or maybe I had that reversed, but it's in London. Okay, you can't miss it 500 tickets available we're gonna have a star studded uh live show the kind you would expect from the folks here at mk uh if you were thinking about it and and by the way it it does it does make me smile with pride every time someone dms me go hey bc remember me i'm like yeah they're like i'll be there i'll be there okay despite your uk plus idea i'll be there uh if you're one of those people at all huh if you're

straddling the fence right you're gonna be left out okay this show will not air live i think eventually it will air luke but this will be a uh this will be an event i mean as long as appy makes it through customs this will be an event let me tell, as long as Appy makes it through customs, this will be an event. Let me tell you. So there you go. Get your tickets there. You can go to pod-live.com for tickets as well if you're listening on the podcast. All right, BC. When do we get to announce the names, Luke?

The names that'll be joining us. I don't know when we're announcing them. We already have some names locked up. We haven't announced them yet, obviously. I'm not sure. We're going to have a meeting about that show after this show. So maybe we'll get some clarity then but we do have some names so it's gonna be fun did did mikey end up reaching out to harry and megan like we like we asked i

don't know if i don't know if i even give a shit about them being on the show to be honest with you like i tried to watch that fucking documentary my wife was watching it yeah it's uh it's not it's heavily racist luke it's not interesting it's just not it's like it's like it's just another family whose life is fucked up it's like i got plenty of that don't need any more thanks good to go all filled up don't need any extras all right with that in mind bc let's get this party started so over the weekend showtime pay-per-view, Gervonta Tank Davis defended his secondary, technically WBA lightweight title, when he defeated Hector Luis Garcia. He did so technically.

Basically, they could have stopped it between the eighth and ninth rounds. They didn't. So the ninth round began, and then Garcia couldn't answer the bell. They waited him out before they waved it off about 13 seconds it goes in there as a stoppage in the ninth round but there was quite literally no boxing in the ninth round still BC we were asking what Gervonta proved with it now I'm not sure if you went back and watched it a second time I did got a couple extra things I want to highlight here but I'll let you go first what did Tank prove by beating hector luis garcia

that look there's a there's there can be a lot of reasons uh throughout tank's rise to oh time out the rapper here is shy glizzy that was the one that got in the fight with meek mill he's the guy from dc i didn't recognize his face but there you go i heard it was uh some other rapper names i hadn't heard of before. No, it was Shark Lizzy. Okay. Here's to me what Gervonta proved. Look, there's been a lot of reasons throughout his rise to, I don't want to say doubt him, because it's hard to watch Gervonta at the highest level

and doubt what you're seeing. But whether it was matchmaking at certain points in his career when he was under the Mayweather Promotions banner, whether it's been the obvious situations outside the ring, which have been very troubling at times, which played a big narrative coming in here. Could Gervonta pause all that and show us that world-class skill level? He did exactly that. There were no shortage of stakes in this fight, given that the Ryan Garcia proposed April 15th super fight was on the table here, and it could go away with a loss.

The way Tank was able to get in there against a very, very tough, skilled fighter in Hector Luis Garcia, who was willing to go to the end to try to win this fight. And I really thought showed himself well. Look, Tank's one of the best, you know, I mean, it's hard right now. I've never seen a pound for pound list, top 10, so competitive at the moment where there's so many guys that are ranked 10 to 15 16 that just as easily could be five or six in your rankings and that's what we're all right now i mean whether you're liking steven fulton jermel charlo you know there are so many

people on the outside looking in but i don't know how you could watch this on saturday night watch the precision the efficiency and ultimately the power that chopped garcia down and not realize that that that what you know over a span of about three weight classes, Tank Davis is one of the best fighters in this entire game at the moment. And at 28, he's right at the peak of his prime. There's obviously a lot of hope that he can keep this together and keep doing this. But that arena was among the best atmospheres I've been to

in big-time boxing in a while on Saturday. And Tank absolutely delivered, Luke. It's the precision. It's the patience. It's the brick it's the brick by brick taking in facts breaking it down but his power is just different and we saw this at the end of the day and it's not you know it's not walking down type of just reckless power it is sniper one shot at a time perfect placement and he literally got Garcia to the point where he he couldn't see and how to ask out of the fight so uh how is Tank entering maybe the the most dangerous test of his career in a few months against Ryan Garcia he's looking just fine Luke yeah he he's looking just fine I mean here's

a couple things that I reflected on I asked my I had friends and family who were in the crowd and I asked them like when it was all over, how did you feel about it? Obviously the night went pretty late, so they were all pretty tired, but. Yeah. Can we work on that in boxing in general? Can we work on that for us? East coast blokes, please.

Yeah. The show started at nine and it didn't end till one 30. That's a long show, right? It's a long show. I don't think the main event started until one. I mean, that is late. That's a very, very late show. So I wish that would have been a little bit quicker. But in terms of their overall experience, they had a blast.

They had a blast. Tank Davis is, obviously, we can make a lot of conversations about who he is as a boxer, and we're about to, but also as an entertainment figure, as a draw. You saw what he did. And again, I said it all week. I didn't see any advertising in town. I didn't see any bus back buys, any radio buys, any print buys, nothing. I didn't see any buys anywhere for any advertising and they didn't need to. I think they had a near or at sellout

on word of mouth. I mean, it's just shocking how much he can pull. And then on top of it, I asked like, did the night deliver for you guys when I when it was all over and they really really thought so um they really felt like the net and the night kind of crescendoed into like the tank fight and feeling really big when he came out it felt big and he delivered so like tank is really and you know because there's a question about like is he fighting the very toughest guys every time and he's not I think you can say that but in terms of who he is fighting we had a lot to say about good about Hector Luis Garcia, and I stand by all of that. But in general, he's fighting these guys who are tough, but he's better than.

And so when you add in the ticket sales and then the sort of bright stage, and then he delivers with these thundering KOs, whether it's Mario Barrios, whether it's Ricardo Nunez, whether it's Gamboa, whether it's Santa Cruz, or in this case, Garcia, dude, Tank Davis is just an enormous attraction star who delivers on the promise of what you do when you pay for him. Now, you can like those matchups or you cannot, but dude, when you pay for Tank Davis, man, you get a show. You get a show.

No, you didn't. No changing that at all. I will say this. Go ahead. I didn't, in real time, I thought the fight was kind of close. Not that it changed. We all knew what the real story was, right? First three rounds, not a whole lot happened.

You could maybe give two of those to probably Garcia. He was a little bit busier, you know, that kind of a thing. And then rounds four through seven, it got picked up a lot. And then in round eight, which was weird for a little bit, but basically Gervonta took over in rounds eight, outlanding him 30 to three is something we went over on Saturday night the thing I go back to and watching it the second time around was it didn't seem nearly as close the second time watching it the second time it's pretty clear you watch Gervonta here he's trying to gauge the distance and he's just catching the

jab from Garcia for three rounds to see what it looks like how he's going to set it up what the angle is going to look like when he throws it, because you had Garcia with a hand here, and then this one was either parallel to the ground or just hanging, which eventually Gervonta took advantage of, but it seemed to me that once Gervonta was able to cheat the distance,

starting in round four, he was able to kind of crowd him and get around the jab. The fight was basically over from there. It took him a little while, a few rounds, to punch his way through it, but once he figured out figured out okay i know exactly where the jab is going to be i know exactly where my placement needs to be it was over from there garcia had no adjustment that he could make once tank started using the athleticism the speed and obviously as you mentioned it the absolutely blistering nuclear power that this dude has so i gotta tell you like

on the one hand i'm impressed at how well tank looked and again i take everything about hector luis garcia seriously i do wonder though that what lesson is tank gonna take from this fight because i don't know what the training was like but i wonder if he's gonna get someone who's not going to be as easily readable, who won't, not that Garcia wilted, but he was, once Tank decided he got, he figured out what he wanted to do, there was really no stopping him. What's going to happen when the guy makes a series of adjustments to take those things away? I guess what I'll say is I love the fight and Tank looked great,

but against another level of opposition who can make between round adjustments, I wonder what, how that might go. That, to me, we didn't get a great answer about what happened here. Let's get into that. Hector Luis Garcia had the skills and the temperament to potentially, in my opinion, make those same type of adjustments. But this fight, as you mentioned, became a fight in the fourth round when both stopped feeling each other out.

Both operated at very close distance. And by the way, you you got to give Garcia credit. He set up shop in round one, basically in front of Tank, and that's where he was going to operate. He didn't do the same type of straight-on constant pressure he did against Colbert. He told media members in the last few days, you know, I know I can't in this situation. Tank has different power.

But, you know, beginning in the fourth round, Tank started consistently landing the big shots, and that's when Garcia started to turn. He hung close. He hung in there. But ultimately, Luke, he was unable to do one of two things. He was unable to hurt Garcia. I'm sorry, hurt Tank and do any type of reverse discipline back in his direction.

And on the flip side, he was unable to overwhelm Tank with volume to either try to take rounds that way or try to really pull on his gas tank. And I think the reason, it's the same reason a lot of fighters have when they come in there with great intention, is once the Tank starts landing those big left hands and their pinpoint and their accurate, it changes you. It changes your game plan. It changes your willingness. So I give Garcia a lot of credit for basically being in the pocket the whole fight and trying to win it he just never committed full-on to going for

broke knowing he'd probably get stopped and wasn't able to go punch for punch or punch on that level my fear to piggyback on what you said is this you talk about the matchmaking yes there were parts on tanks rise where i don't think the matchmaking was as good as it could have been and i thought some of that criticism was absolutely real. I think that's going away, though. We can all say what we want about Roley Romero, but even Tank had to respect the power in there and had to take his time. And, you know, he fought Isaac Cruz.

He's fighting guys now that are absolutely legit. He's fighting very good fighters. Can this style, though, for Tank of of ultimate efficiency can it work against the great fighters the problem at lightweight in particular for tank is all the great fighters are across the street and that happens in the sport the fact that he's this close not actually facing ryan garcia is a testament as we said to both of them especially king ryan who pushed back on his own political structure to make this happen. The question is, can Tank use the same exact style and use it on the Ryan Garcias, the Shakur Stephensons, the Devin Haney's, who's the undisputed champion,

and particularly, Luke, anytime he's going to bring his brand to the 140-pound level. He did great against Mario Barrios at 140, but it did take him time. He really had to build toward it. To a certain degree, he built toward this stoppage against Garcia. But when we talk about how efficient Tank is and is just able to control the fight with never putting himself out of position, look, he nearly doubled Hector Garcia's output and still landed 41% of his overall punches, which is absurd, and 52.5% of his power shots. So that's how unbelievably efficient he was.

But let me compare that to other fighters who utilize that same style. I would say, you know, as a sniping pot-shotter from the outside, Canelo's probably the best in the game at that, but I don't think that style yet has cost him. Jermell Charlo is a good comparison because there's certain levels of competition, BP plus guys, where Jermel Charlo can completely be that sniper. And sometimes we think he waits too long, but eventually he gets there and he lands that big shot and he stops you. I thought he got into trouble against Harrison in the first fight, meaning Jermell Charlo, and also against Castaño in the first fight,

where at times that uber-efficiency hurt him against a volume opponent, especially against Harrison, who was really using smart boxing to do that. Can Tank, in your eyes, Luke, use this exact style against Ryan Garcia, against Devin Haney, which is probably the ultimate test at the moment in this weight class. Not only does Haney have all four titles, but he has a near perfect looking game from how he operates. That's going to be the test for me. But against this level, just short of the super elite level, it's going to take a special

person to be able to go late into a fight with Tank, have a chance to be up on the scorecards and maybe do that next level thing, which is step over the line and put Tank into some kind of trouble. Against this level of competition, this style, he's absolutely dominant. Do you think he can be this efficient and this picky, though, against those super elites? I mean, Ryan Garcia puts himself into danger because he's so offensive,

but he also has some killer reach, a very quick and powerful jab. I can't wait to see now that we're stepping up to the highest of levels. And especially if he's going to tease moving up in weight, you know, the tail females at 140, all those super big names. I want to see if he can pull this off Luke, but at right now at 135, you don't want to say he's unbeatable because damn, we got to see him against, against Haney, against Stevenson, but he really knows how to control a fight close all of your avenues to victory and then walk right in there and take you out yeah i mean here's here's we'll we'll put a pin in the ryan garcia portion of the conversation because that's point number two we'll get to that in a minute but sticking with point number one just overall and assessing the the question that you raise which was does this sort of

hyper ultra efficient style work against the elite? We simply don't know, but I'm a little bit skeptical, a little bit. I mean, here's the thing, right? On the one hand, just look at this fight as a great example of what the point I'm about to make, which was basically once Tank decided to really start punching, hardcore punching, like big power shots. It was more or less the beginning of the end, right? It was more or less the beginning of the end. That's the issue.

So it's like I can understand why Tank feels like this is a great strategy for him. Take a few rounds, see what's up, get a good read, catch everything, block everything that you need to. And when it's time to go and you can begin to get the punches you want off when this particular case, he was slipping the jab, he was going to the body and then over the top. I can hear you. Oh yeah, I can hear you BC loud and clear. The reality is it all worked just fine. It all, it all just worked. Yeah, it all worked. I got to have to meet you because I can't, I can't do this. This is a little too much. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that if you're so confident that you can be really muted for, let's say, a fourth of the fight, and then once you decide to get going,

it's just all downhill from there, I can see why you would feel that way. That's a great strategy for you. On the other hand, does that really scale against the elite? Can you punt on them for three rounds or so and then hope in the last nine that your power carries you through? At 140, I definitely don't think he could get away with it. So the question is, at 135, could he get away with it?

Maybe. Maybe. I guess we'll have to see. The one against Ryan Garcia, it seems possible because Ryan is very good offensively, but I don't think he's got great defense. I think he's have to see the one against Ryan Garcia. It seems possible because Ryan is very good offensively, but I don't think he's got great defense. I think he's there to be hit. And so I think that will something we'll talk about that in a second against the Stevenson's against the Devin Haney's maybe because I don't think Devin Haney has the firepower to go back at him.

Neither does Stevenson, but he's a good, real good touch and go kind of guy too. So that, the Stevenson and the Haney ones are the interesting ones for me because they both have the capacity to fight at range and at distance. They have good movement and they can score, right? They can touch and move. I just wonder, like there's a certain way that Tank is getting comfortable fighting

that I'm not sure scales up to the next challenge or even more to the next weight class in terms of the elite side of the opposition. I guess we'll have to see. With that in mind, BC, let there should be no obstacles at this point in getting an April set fight between Tank Davis and Ryan Garcia. In terms of what we saw on Saturday against Hector Garcia, what can you now say about how Tank and Ryan Garcia match up? You know, they match up differently. It's a different type of fight than against Hector Garcia. I thought we had the potential to really learn some things because Hector was a southpaw. Ryan's not though, but Hector has long arms and he's able to use that effectively,

usually from close range. Again, Tank's power disciplined him. That was the turning point. That was the biggest question we had for Hector Garcia. Ryan Garcia is different. He's taller and longer, and I believe punch for punch, he's faster than Tank. Now, obviously, that's something we're going to have to see inside the ring. Tank is so quick, but also has the accuracy and power on top of it that he can be such a deadly sharpshooter. But I do think it's a different fight altogether by Ryan Garcia against Ryan Garcia. And the biggest thing, the speed's part of it, but it's what the speed leads to.

Ryan Garcia has a potential threat here, wise to hurt tank and that that distance that they're going to have to operate at because of the size difference puts the onus on tank to need to get inside but my biggest fear to echo off what you said when he does step up to that super elite level and we'll see we don't really know about ryan garcia we don't know if he's you know super early in certain categories can he carry that against the big names and not give in to vulnerability? That's a big thing about that. But the whole idea is this. When he meets the kind of opposition that can take his low output and use it against him,

how do you do that? A long, stiff, quick, piston-like jab would be a big part of it. That's the equation I most want to see. And in some ways, that's asking Ryan Garcia to do more than he usually does. Because he can be a slick boxer, but it's usually in the intention of setting you up to knock you out with huge power shots. Can Ryan Garcia show the kind of poise that can use that jab and use volume to steal a certain amount of rounds against Tank

and then make this an interesting fight in the second half. I think that's where the potential of the lower output can catch up with Tank. But Luke, he's shown us he can fight different ways at different times against different opponents in his rise up these weight classes. Even though it's a different kind of challenge, I like what I saw out of Tank. It doesn't change the same thing of what we're tuning in to see. Separate from the two big fan bases, we're tuning in to see two unbeaten stars, both that can knock each other out and both that can potentially handle themselves if the fight goes the distance.

This is going to be interesting because this is about as big of a 135-pounder as you can get in Ryan Garcia. He's already announced the move up to 140. This fight's going to be a catchweight at 136. It could be his last stop there, meaning Ryan Garcia,, you know, an eventual move up 40 and 47 down the road. But this is a big, long, fast, and powerful opponent. And I think the ultimate wild card in here is Ryan Garcia goes for the knockout. He's willing to walk into danger. Dude, this is going to be some fun theater come April. Now, Luke, I got to, you know, this is gonna be some fun theater come april now luke i gotta

i gotta you know this is about me just for this one second i got a family vacation in april don't don't land on that april 15th day you think they can move it for me luke i don't think that they're gonna move it for you bc let me ask you a question looking back on the career of tank davis how would you say you how is his durability and how well can you say you know how durable he is we don't know we don't know he fought a bigger fighter in mario barrios and did have to exchange to get inside and as we talked about it was brick by brick building that led to that late stoppage and it was just beautiful to see him persevere break through land those big power shots but have we seen tank down i don't remember seeing that Have we seen him in a firefight where it's equal?

No, we haven't seen that. That, of course, is more likely when you're that great and you start to raise up in weight classes because, you know, business becomes bigger for you. That's something he's going to have to navigate, Luke, for sure, and potentially in this Ryan Garcia fight. But do we have a long history seeing Tank in wars? No, because his power has been so

great that he stopped so many guys early and whenever he didn't man dude you what can you say about like we said about his efficiency his ability to box his ability to navigate distance all of that it's super elite so there's still some unanswered questions just the same and i like the way you asked that whereas we know ryan garcia could hurt him we're gonna have to find out if that comes into play in this fight right but let's go the other way around what about ryan garcia's durability you know i know who's it luke campbell who dropped him if i'm not mistaken right yeah there's questions there there's questions there luke so tell me what do we know about garcia's durability either to the body to the head overall all of it well look the big one is what you talked about

what's the best winner ryan garcia's career it's the Luke Campbell one. Campbell is an Olympic medalist, a former, you know, multiple-time world title challenger, never got over that hump. But he's got long arms. He's a slick boxer, not known for huge pop, but he landed basically a knockout punch on Ryan Garcia. To Ryguy's credit, and I know people hate when I call him that, he got up Luke, he shook off the cobwebs, he rallies back to stop him and actually retire him from the

sport um that's the only major sort of piece of uh you know vulnerability that we can use against there's been a couple pockets of Ryan Garcia in fights where he's gotten hit pretty big but I think ultimately Luke it's what you said it's like is that defense and ultimately that punch resistance on the same level as the sublime nature of what makes him dangerous offensively? I would say we just don't have proof that it is. And every time I interview Ryan Garcia, I straight up ask him about that. Because, you know, that is the big, if there's anything that potentially holds him back from stardom in people's eyes. Or maybe not stardom is the right word, but, you know, critical respectability on, you know,

when we talk about guys entering the pound for pound conversation is, does he move his head enough? And can he take big time power? He got up against Luke Campbell, but Campbell wasn't known as a finisher. So who has the most questions to answer? Certainly Ryan Garcia, which is going to be a big part why I believe Tank will be the betting favorite coming into this and deserves to be. But Tank was the smaller looking guy against hector

garcia certainly from the standpoint of reach ryan garcia is legitimately taller and longer than him so yeah uh ryan garcia's got any questions to answer about his chant about his willingness but one thing we do know he's willing to do though is walk into the fire to try to win it and it's like you might say well doesn't everybody try that? No. There are levels to that. There are levels to willingness in a big fight, especially when there's heavy danger coming back, to stand in that pocket and try to do what you do best. That's one of Ryan Garcia's greatest skills. It also could be his greatest vulnerability,

but that's one of his greatest skills and threats, that he's willing to go there to find out. But can he take tank's flush shots? I i don't know luke i'd bet against it but i don't i don't i don't think anyone at 135 can take tanks flush shots not not not for very long like there's only so many we mentioned it on saturday night for folks who missed the fight tank davis stopped him because garcia told his corner between the eighth and ninth rounds he couldn't see right but if you go back and look Tank didn't swell up the soft tissue of an eye that he closed it or he didn't break the eye socket and then swole up and he closed it the guy had two open eyes he couldn't

see because he got hit in the head so hard uh basically his brain didn't work right and it shut off he couldn't he lost vision and he didn't know where he was. I mean, we're talking about like clubbing Hercules level power from a guy like Tank. They just can't stand up to it. BC, I'll tell you this much. What I like about Tank versus Ryan Garcia, I mean, there's any number of different reasons to like it. It's not very difficult to find a reason to like it.

But one reason on top of all the other ones that we've mentioned that I like it is that I think for the first time, we've mentioned that I like it is that I think for the first time we're going to get a real clear sense of the limits both positive and negative of both guys and the reason I say that is because not that Tank is number one on the pound for pound list nor Ryan Garcia but Tank is probably I would say a little bit better defensively than Ryan Garcia but because of the length disadvantage and the height disadvantage, and because Tank needs guys to open to close distance, right? He needs those guys to be in motion for him to then motion, or at least to create some kind of opening through motion. You're going to have

offense versus offense. And if you have offense versus defense, you get a case like Canelo versus, like, for example, Caleb Plant, which is a great fight. It's a fine fight. But you kind of know where the fight's going to go, and you kind of know the contours of it. You just want to see if Canelo could get over the hump, and he did. Here is a case where we're going to actually find out exactly how durable a guy like Tank Davis is. Because he's going to get hit. There's simply no two ways about it. Yes, it's a boxing match, but I mean, he's going to take punches

he probably hasn't taken from any other guys before. Conversely, so is Ryan Garcia. And when that happens, when those kinds of shots begin to land, whatever round that ends up being, BC, we're going to get a test of their overall defensive skills. We're going to get a test of what kind of alterations they can make to their strategy. We're going to get a test of what kind of alterations they can make to their strategy. We're going to get a test about what their real durability looks like.

There have been lots of unanswered questions about Tank. And there's a lot of unanswered questions about Ryan Garcia. The reason why this fight is so great is many of them, not all of them, but many of them are very likely to be answered when they collide in April. And for that fact-finding reason, I am very excited. And officially, Ron Garcia is four and a half inches taller than Tank. That's a lot. Has a three and a half inch reach advantage.

By the way, on paper, Hector Garcia only had a half inch reach advantage over Tank. It certainly looked, you know, bigger when they were in the ring together. But dude, Garcia tried his best. Hector Garcia tried his best to essentially no sell the power throughout the fight. I did rewatch it as you did this morning, Luke. And,

um, man, once the, once the, once the fight restarted after the Meek Mill, uh, crowd incident, that's when tank landed his,

his greatest in succession of clean power shots. And man, each one was, was, was pushing Hctor garcia deeper into the into the beyond and i give him a lot of credit for him hanging in there and trying to win but he lacked firepower what's the greatest thing ryan garcia brings along with the size speed and firepower so yeah luke uh there are people still i get tweets how the hell could

you say tank is pound for pound worthy? Look at the skills. Check the punch numbers. Take the total accumulation of the guys he's beat. Remember that he's won some form of a title. Look, I don't like to celebrate secondary titles, but he has won some form of a title in three divisions. He won three straight pay-per-view fights a year and a half ago at three different weight divisions.

Yes, we're watching one of the best fighters in the game today. And this fight against Ryan Garcia will be as big as everyone wants it to be, Luke. You said it could be, everyone wants it to be, I said. You said it could be above a million pay-per-view buy, which is, I don't know, it's really hard to do in this era,

especially when you don't add a crossover circus element to it. This fight has, you know, nothing holding it back and all the reason to overachieve in terms of what they can do with it. I hope we get the full multi-city press tour treatment. I hope we get, you know, something special on the buildup. I was disappointed Ryan Garcia didn't show up, Luke.

You know, in boxing sense, that's the way you build the narrative and connect the dots together. It would have been great to see him go into the ring afterwards and be interviewed. But, hey, can't have it all, right? Can't have it all. But I'll say this. I, when the fight was over and I was texting my friends and talking to my wife, one of the first questions I got was, hey, when is he fighting again? We want to see that.

Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? Like, obviously all the boxing insiders know, and I think sports fans have some idea about Tank Davis versus Ryan Garcia. But now the casual fans in my orbit are all like, dude, whatever that is, we want more of that. I think it will sell quite well. It'll be really interesting to see how that goes.

Cannot wait for it. Cannot wait to see what some of the prognostications look like as well as we move closer to that date. Did your Connecticut-born fraternity brother enjoy the fight, Luke, in person? He did, although he is an attorney by trade, and he was very sad about how late he had to stay up. Also, a buddy of mine, if you don't know the distance here, I guess it's like a couple of miles, maybe a little bit more than that.

A buddy of mine, when the fight was over, couldn't get any Ubers. There was no Ubers around the Capital One Arena. So he just walked home without a jacket jacket and by the time he got there he had he took a picture of his hands they were solid pink from how cold it was been walking outside i was like well you know i don't know you are an adult you are allowed to bring a jacket in the winter but uh i know you know luke it's it wasn't quite quite barclay center level but the people in in your city maybe need to do their shirt laundry because they were sparking it up inside the Capital One Arena there. There was a lot of marijuana smell in the old Capital One Arena that day. But, you know.

And we would know. You know, we called those fights from the roof, Luke, so all that smoke rose up. We had the full, you know, yeah. We were in one of those you know we could just absorb all of the all of the the the weight of the smoke it was great all right let's go to point number three here BC real quickly on this co-main event Jaron Ennis pitched a shutout basically against Karin Chukazan in the co-main event this obviously was on the

Davis Garcia card and the question is did he look human the first time again i went and re-watched this fight as well i do have some thoughts uh about it but bc give me a grade what grade would you give ennis in this particular contest i'd give him a b plus and anyone that saw that who don't watch jerron enis a lot but you know hear us to be fair regularly talk about him in ways that you know to be again to be fair we don't talk about anyone like that you know not in a long time so from that regard was it a letdown yes this could end up being one of those backdoor positives for Boots because it could make him look human to future opponents who might duck him and certainly could wake him up to like hey there's some things you do have to round out and work on but let's be honest here this was an opponent who was physically tougher than i think a lot of us thought because we just hadn't seen much of him

had much better move erratic movement that really made boots work but you know punch stats don't tell the whole story but they can tell a lot of it. Luke, he landed twice as many punches as Chuka Jin, won every single round on all three judges' scorecards, 120 to 108. The rare times he was touched, which is I can really remember about two counter hooks from Chuka Jin, maybe three at the most that were of legitimate value where you go, ooh, let's see how Tank responds to that. He walked right through him and kept doing it. We got to see a lot of the swiveling, the switching of stances,

the creativity. I would have more negative things to say if one of a couple things happened. If he had been hurt and wobbled and had to overcome that. I remember Devin Haney against Jorge Linares where we're like, ah, man, but what about that moment? I'm not sure. Or let's say he had not tried to persevere through the frustration and tried to go after it. No, he tried for the knockout all 12 rounds.

Was he overly frustrated at times, including round eight? Yeah, he was sort of like, what the hell do I have to do here? But if you're going to give praise to Chuka Z know, was he always trying to win? No. He did try to walk him down late and make something happen, but he was there to survive. He had a weird-ass style. He relied on that to avoid big shots.

Boots is still young, but I didn't see anything that can't scale forward, so to speak, because he comes at you in such a variety of ways to draw you out. This was an opponent who made the decision, is I'm not only drawing myself out to leave myself open to be countered. I'm not going to be here to there to be hit either. That's a frustrating fight.

It happens in boxing. And sometimes, you know, you can only you can only do as good as the guy across from you is willing to let you, which is why when we talk about Naoa Inoue, who just, you know, became the undisputed Bantamweight champion against paul butler who was not there to win was there to survive the inoue's ability to walk him down finally in round 10 or 11 and force that to happen is why he's number one pound for pound in the game boots tried to emulate that he couldn't get it done are there things you can work on yes but i think if anything it's maybe a reminder for us who, when we don't have the answers and somebody looks this ridiculous,

look, it is hard not to paint all the praise on them, up and down, up and down, until they earn it. You know, this is going to probably give Boots a little kick in the ass to go back out there and just, you know, further solidify every category of his game. But he came in there the best shape of his life. I mean, he was in just sick, disgusting shape. He didn't run out of gas. His power

looked legitimate. He just didn't have a willing dance partner who was willing to take him there, Luke. And I did see a lot of negativity, and look, that comes when you hype a guy up. But again, if this was, you know, eight rounds to four and he had been overwhelmed for a period or ran out of gas late, I'd throw up the warning signs.

I can't throw up the flag, Luke. You know, he's still pretty damn great. Check the stats, rewatch the fight. He just couldn't get the finish. Yeah, 10th round was his best round. Went to the body very heavily. Clearly had an effect on Chukadzan, who was struggling to keep up in that particular round.

But then he made a decent show of himself down the stretch. And for folks who don't know, Boots cleaned up on the scorecards. He won every round on every judge's scorecard it was 120 to 108 clean sweep the whole way through so it's not like he had a poor performance in that sense and i agree with you i think a b plus is about right here's what i will say abc i went back and re-watched the clayton and i don't know if this really happened in the delorme fight but it happened a little bit in the clayton fight little bit in the Lipinitz fight but certainly the Clayton one was got my attention it's not a big sample size and it and the numbers don't say that Boots gets hit a lot because he doesn't that's not

true but he does open himself up a little bit to being hit in ways where if he didn't he he takes punches he doesn't have to I'm'm going to put it that way. There are certain situations, like for example, Chuka Zan was making it very difficult for him by he was constantly retreating, but he'd be times where he'd retreat, retreat, Boots would just kind of march into him, and then he would stop, and he would tag Boots

all the time like this, because Boots was just kind of just marching him down in ways where he didn't necessarily have to. And you could argue, well, Boots was winning, and he doesn't fear Chuka Zan's power. Right. But again, we're talking about with this Tank Davis conversation, you are what your habits are, right?

Whatever your habits are in all the times when you're stressed, when you're not stressed, when you're in trouble, when you're in not trouble, that's what ultimately, that's what will reveal who you are, is what your habits are day to day. And in fight to fight, I have noticed he will invite certain forms of risk that I find less than ideal. And he gets hit for it. Now, the other part, I don't think you can kill him too much,

is Chukadzan had very good movement, very good defense. He was hard to even hit clean, right? And as you mentioned, Boots had a 2-1 lead on him in terms of the numeric totals like he was trying he won all the rounds he had a great round 10 i give round 10 was a solid a for me but everything else was like somewhere in the b department because i just felt like if you've got that much skill you didn't have to finish him that's really hard to do but you should not take as many punches as you did even if there is

a lead numerically and what you were able to dish out offensively I don't want to see boots accept punishment of any variety really any noteworthy variety that isn't otherwise necessary and he did invite some I wonder BC do you share some of those observations that i have and do they give you the same kind of concerns no i don't i don't share that i i think in this situation you know again i counted about three legitimate punches where i would have said oh wow chuka jinn is trying to you know he's trying to get back in this that that boots took cleanly look with was that a young fighter who knows about the hype knows that if he wins this fight he's spent his mandatory uh you know probably wanted to do some big call-out.

Tried his best to try to form any rally to get a stoppage. And what's the best way to do that? Sometimes it's being in the pocket and being willing to be hit to draw out the offense of your opponent. I don't think we have a history of that in watching Boots fight. But I think even beyond that is he's a dynamic offensive force which means you have to be moving forward into danger and be willing to welcome that i mean look at you know one of the best technicians of this modern era gennady golovkin it's like you know there were times that people would go oh yeah but but but does get hit yeah he's gonna get hit

when he's walking in on you to try to make big things happen so um maybe when when someone gets praised at this level we expect superhuman perfection i mean look our praise was getting to that level because he was going in there against certain tests and wiping him out in two rounds and not getting touched uh i think when this when the danger level rises you won't see in that same willingness level but uh does this remind you that you can't earn all the accolades until you earn it in the ring? Yes. And Boots has never stopped trying to earn it in the ring. He's willing to fight everybody.

He's played the political system the best way you can. Now the champs, including Errol Spence, have to fight him or give up the title. So we'll see what happens next. But, Luke, you do wonder if he gets that backdoor help that people watch that tape. Because, you know, Spence tweeted out LOL very cryptically right around the time that this boots fight ended. So, you know, if that makes people more willing to fight him, then that's going to help Team Boots in the end. But I just don't, I'm not concerned here. I'm not concerned in this instance.

Yeah, I guess concerned would be a strong word. I don't know if I'm concerned, but I just, there's some, I find young fighters being flippant. Flippant's a strong word because he is strong defensively overall. But I've just got a certain rule, BC. And here's one thing we don't really talk about. Like, for example, in MMA with Izzy, right? The former middleweight champion. Dude, his style is going to scale, not just for championship level ability,

but for the next stage in his life. Right? Yes, he got knocked out against Pereira here. He got knocked out before. But in general, and of course he had the rough Gastelum fight. I mean, he's in a rough business. But in general, you would agree,

for a championship level fighter, he doesn't take hardly any damage at all. That's going to keep him safe in fights, and that's going to set up the next stage of his life after fighting i i just don't really love it when young fighters are like i don't really care about his punches i don't care about those punches it's like you should you should you should care a little bit more about it even if you can take it and you need to take it that's fine but don't run into punches you're too good to run into. I just have a little bit of it.

And I'm nitpicking here, right? Yeah, you are. You could argue that it deserves that nitpicking after the huge praise that somebody like him gets. This is a rare phenomenon who feels like a finished product at such a young age. And you're going to have to feel that out. I mean, look, he may go in there in his biggest test and get knocked out or run out of gas. These are answers we don't have to the questions, but don't overcorrect too much, Luke.

Yeah, don't overcorrect too much. And also, like Chukadzan, we said this when we were watching in real time, right, BC? It was kind of like, obviously they're very different fighters, but there was something to be said about Chukadzan looked like it was Erislandi Laura out there running on the outside of the perimeter. Erislandi Laura is a hard guy to look good against because he especially in his prime anyway because he could move and hit and and then change angles and he was hard to corner hard to land on cleanly cleanly Chukudzan was that at the same time I just you know again if you're gonna give him a B plus you have to say what went wrong right because nothing went perfectly for me a little bit too inviting of things he's better than I would just

like to see him tighten that up that's it that's the only thing I have to say also if they didn't give him Spence next and they didn't give him you know whoever and he ended up taking a fight against Ugas BC I might like that even more like perhaps this is my last consideration about this fight which was listen if they made Spence versus boots next i would hardly complain about it but if this is a learning opportunity let's give him someone who is elite who's got a great name as well let's see how he does against that one and then graduate something like an in-between fight before he gets to the very very very top guy in that weight class whether he's a mandatory or not i'm completely i mean i've loved the idea of the yugos fight from the beginning but notice in the post-fight interview and by the way i do think because the level of

hype equaling the fact that people were booing him so hard i mean look that but that's why he got booed he got yeah i mean he got the shit boot out of him okay i mean i don't think it was a lack of effort of trying to get the finish it just didn't happen but you know afterwards i don't think that would have been the platform to make a aggressive call out to spence and he didn't but he did leave open in saying that like before i'm willing to fight anybody that he would not be against the winner of this fight that's recently delayed because the was an emergency appendectomy to imantus staniosis but staniosis lithuanian product big win over raja butaev has this has one of the secondary welterweight titles he's going to take on virgil ortiz jr

originally scheduled for march they pushed it back now with the appendectomy but virgil ortiz is under the golden boy banner with the zone but he's what 18 and 0 with 18 k.o's you know i mean he is power in both hands aggressive mexican-American style, or just pure Mexican style, walk you down and come after you and go to the body. What about boots versus the winner of that fight, Luke? If this Chukadzin fight did anything for you, maybe it's let's slow our roll just a little. Damn, to me, the winner of that fight, in terms of learning more about boots, I'd be just as excited. But we could also go big. We could also go big and go Thurman, Crawford, Spence, whatever,

because I don't think this is like, oh, you need to go back and really work on your shit. Just didn't happen, Luke. It didn't happen on this night, okay? And I get the fans booing, too. I get it all, okay? Yeah, I mean, most of that goes to Chuka Zan, right? He was the one who was, he's boxing.

He deserves credit for being a very strong defensive boxer, but that's not bringing the fight, so to speak, to Ennis. And I think the reality is booing, he should get a big credit for that. By the way, I'm looking at his record here, BC. Do you realize that in 2017, Boots fought nine times? Nine times he fought in 2017. Let's see, I'm looking at this. Two times, three times he went past the first round.

Once to the second round, once to the third, once to the fourth. This is the first time he went past the sixth. So, you know, again, he is very much, I think he said he was. That's part of why I'm not going to overcorrect and get too mad at him. I mean, he'd been destroying good names to the point where, yes, he could be at the point where he is now in a, in a interim title bout,

which is essentially a glorified number one contenders title bout. Right. And he'd never been past the sixth round. So what did he do? He doubled that, doubled the punch output, landed 46% of his power shots and won every single round. Yeah,

we're good here, but I would like him to be busier. I know he wants to, but it's been just waiting around. But, I mean, do you think Staniosis, if he comes out of that Ortiz fight with that big hulking frame, can get inside and go to the body against him? Or do you think Virgil Ortiz is a legitimate test of where Boots is right now? Do you like that matchup? I like the Virgil Ortiz one a little bit better, personally speaking i just feel like staniosis style is like he might actually be able to do a little bit of something early dude you open up against a guy like boots like that and

you're gonna get eaten alive i mean chuka zan survived because i'm not i'm not i'm not mad at him like he he fucking boxed like chuka zan's. But he ran, right? He did the outside rotational thing. He did not ever stand in front, and that's smart. Like, you got to do what you got to do. But he didn't stand there and, like, bring the offense to boots. He kind of was very, very selective about it. You bring the offense to boots, and he, I mean, the history has shown us he will assassinate you for that.

So I don't know that I like that style. But the Virgil Ortiz one is a little bit more interesting because obviously he'll bring the offense as well, but I think he's a little bit trickier of the two. We'll have to see. BC, any other highlights from the card that you wanted to make note of here? Yeah, I mean, are we allowed to say hashtag holy hammer for what we saw out of Venezuela's Royman Villa,

who had won his U.S. debut on Showbox last September against an unbeaten opponent, but then went in a legitimate step up against unbeaten Speedy Rashidi Ellis. And, you know, through about five rounds, Luke, where Ellis won all five of the first rounds on all three scorecards, I think we all have the effect of, wow, you know, he's not ready for this leap from showbox level to somebody who sees himself as a title contender and a future boots opponent in Rashidi Ellis. But dude, he never stopped trying to come forward and win.

He never got completely reckless, but Royman Villa just kept coming with short power shots. I think that pressure pushed on the gas tank of Ellis, and that finish, that final round, when he rallied to stop Ellis, I'm sorry, drop Ellis twice, which allowed him to come over the top and get sort of almost a surprise majority decision win. He doesn't win that without dropping him twice in the 12th.

I mean, that was just some intense, exciting, dramatic, can't believe I was in the arena glad to have seen it but dude like i don't know how far royman via can go he got pieced up for the majority of this fight but he's probably going to get a good payday and a rematch with ellis and he showed you at the very least that he's a scary individual and he does not stop but i get my donna vibes from him luke they're not the same fighters offensively but just that like i'm not backing down i am coming until i can come no more luke and and damn dude have put this guy on your hashtag holy hammer list okay because this was a monster step up against a legitimate talent and he got the win and even though we may have been surprised that he didn't get screwed or maybe you thought Ellis should have been up one round but dude he needed to hit you know he needed

to hit a grand slam in the final inning and he did it twice you know I mean it was crazy it's amazing a job by him and to your point about Maidana yeah he's not quite Maidana but like he's so reliable for consistent, hard-nosed offense. From the beginning of the first round to the end of the 12th, in your face, throwing punches with maximum intent, vicious to the body, great uppercuts, as you can see here, putting combinations together. He's very, very, very hard to dislike. A lot of things good about him.

Now, again, there's a question about his upside as well. Fair enough. But in this night he did, he waited as long as he basically possibly could to win, but he was patient enough, consistent enough. And when basically his style never dropped off through the course of 12, it was ineffective at first,

but it didn't really drop off. Ellis started off very high and just couldn't maintain. And then, switch happened dude ellis had ellis was trapped in there with roy mon via so a phenomenal job by him for me bc the note for me that's kind of sad is obviously we had a blue andre win but the thing i want to point out was for me lamont peterson actually made his return from retirement on the untelevised portion of the prelims card now bbc and i called it at 6 45 there were three fights on the prelims we did call this was prior to that lamont peterson is um one of the best boxers in dc history certainly one of the more celebrated figures he had a big fight against amir khan whether he won

somewhat controversially but he won it in 2011 and And he had some big fights, but it all kind of came apart at the end. He had a fight against Errol Spence, and that was a big disaster for him. That was in 2018. He retired after about in 2019 with Sergey Lipinets at the MGM National Harbor. Which was a war. It was a war. It was brutal. And it was a brutal, I mean, back to back, the Spence fight, he took a beating. And then the Lipinets fight, it was brutal and it was a I mean back to back the Spence fight he

took a beating and then the Lippinitz fight it was it was rough and tumble and then he retired in 2019 I thought that was a good time to close it all off and he came back I am told he had a falling out with his I guess adoptive father and I don't know what their legal status is now but I guess he and Anthony Peterson his father had or his brother had a falling out with Barry Hunter Barry Hunter is the head of the Headbangers Gym here in D.C., but famously was his coach for a long time, pulled both boys out of foster care. They had a falling out.

I'm not sure who was cornering him here. Lamont Peterson fought Michael Agundo, who is a 16-16 journeyman, basically, and stopped Lamont Peterson in the fourth. In D.C., if you just look at Peterson's physique, he looked to be in really great shape physically. like he clearly had trained he clearly had dieted he did all the road work like all that was great dude he looked brittle yeah this brittle this had you know ortiz liddell three vibes it was really sad to see he fought a 40 year old opponent with a 500 record as you

mentioned and as soon as clean punches started landing and they weren't i mean look they were arm punches they were wild arm punches and those were enough to to badly wobble lamont and you know look when the chin goes it goes luke he's had a great career he tried once more but uh it was that it's about as sad as it gets in this game i mean it gets sadder unfortunately but that that's pretty sad you know yeah it definitely gets worse. But for a guy who, I was there that night he beat Khan, it was at the convention center. I remember when they announced his name and then the place erupted. I remember all the media tours. I remember all of that very, very, very, very vividly.

To go from that to this is like, I hope he stays retired. I don't want to rain on your DC parade and that Khan fight was dramatic and fun as shit, but I do want to remind the world of a couple of things. One, AmeriCon won that fight and got screwed on the scorecards. Two, Peterson punched below the belt routinely and did not get in trouble for it in that fight. I don't know about the first part, but I agree with the second part. Three, there was a big conspiracy about the man in the black hat

at ringside that Khan started. I don't know about that. But four, Lamont tested positive for PEDs after that fight, and they didn't change it to a no contest. He kept that win. So, you know, he showed a next— I think he did have a doctor's prescription for it, but to your point, yes. Yeah, he showed a next-level willingness to go in the trenches in that fight, and it worked out for him. But I don't want to rewrite history completely, all right?

Yeah, we're not going to rewrite history. you're not going to change what that meant for me you know what i'm saying you're not going to do that but anyway that's okay but post script on your city luke and now this is my second helping in a year i'm really liking dc i'm really i mean i mean look the architecture the the history the the culture um you know could you find service workers with a more polite attitude and maybe you know two waters and two coffees don't cost forty dollars luke i'd love to see some of those changes echoing the same complaints from my family vacation last year but um bc and dc i'd like to see that happen more often all right BC can't quite comprehend how he can go to the Starbucks regale the baristas with his charming humor and them not find it charming he's like

well I mean look these guys they all have such sour attitudes you sure it's them you sure the no selling begins when I say hi okay and it does carry through my you know hello my baby hell you know it carries all the way through that. OK, all right. Let's go to point number four. Let's talk about some MMA here, because we did actually have some big news, even though we didn't have some big fights. This one to me, I guess, surprising, but not surprising, right?

Like it caught you off guard. But then when you think about it, you're like, well, I guess it kind of makes sense. Habib Nurmagomedov took to Instagram to announce that he's basically leaving MMA entirely. What he said was, and there was a translation from a caption written in Russian, quote, the year certainly turned out to be very busy and successful. Take care of yourself, brothers. I hope my decision is only for the best. A big hug to you all.

He apparently wants to step away, not, of course, he's already retired as a fighter, but he wants to step away from any kind of promotion around Eagle FC as well as coaching. Now, we don't know what that means for Islam Makachev in his upcoming bout at UFC 284, I believe, against Alexander Volkanovsky. In fact, Damon Martin of MMA Fighting BC says sources close to Nurmagomedov speaking to MMA Fighting confirmed that the 34-year-old Dagestani native will be, quote, taking some time off for his family, end quote,

but that doesn't necessarily signal he's leaving coaching behind forever. A source stated Nurmagomedov, quote, never knows what may happen in the future. I'm going to guess that that source is Ali. I don't know that, but I'm going to guess that. BC, but he could be gone, and he could be gone for some time, maybe permanently. Your reaction to Nurmagomedov essentially saying, I've had enough of MMA for at least a good little while.

It only continues the amount of respect I have for Habib, the person Habib, the athlete. And, you know, is he perfect? Can we dig up some things you could on everybody? And the more we dig in this sport,

unfortunately, the, the, the darker it sometimes becomes, but I've always loved this guy. And to see the quotes, I think Kevin Ioli was the one who caught up with Javier Mendez on Yahoo sports and Javier said, look, it comes down to Habib as a dad.

He's got three young kids. He's away constantly in training camps, promoting his, his, you know, all that. I mean, look, he, he does. You do seem to see him everywhere, Luke. I mean, look, he walked away on top as the pound-for-pound king, undefeated, right, you know, coming off of the Conor fight, more or less, with where his brand was just kind of global level, was just next level. And he walked away as a promise to his parents. And while it was extremely noble to see him carry on in his late father, Abdulmanap's, you know, lineage,

you know, along with Javier Mendez and a lot of the same fighters go to AKA and all that in California. But to show you that damn, like carrying on the father's business and proving to be as great a coach as he is a fighter in the short window that we've seen. But now to say, no family always was.

And still is most important to me. I mean, it's so rare in this game when somebody is able to author the end of their combat story and do it on their own terms. And we, I mean, I could never, but do nothing but applaud people who say,

yeah, I think I'm done. Even when we look at them at their age and what they have left and go, oh man, I still want to see this and this and this. And now he's done that in coaching, which you could get the, you know, you get which you could get the picture that he could just drop everything and just be a full-time coach and stay on where he's going

and keep being that legend and keep finding new young talent and grooming them up. But Luke, not to change this over into a life talk, but you do only get those kids of your own for so long and you do only have such a short window and we may not travel as much as habib but you and i travel too and go through that same battle that a lot of people do of of pushing your own career in this direction for financial you know freedom and fame and all that or taking care of what at the end of the day is more important.

So, yeah, I applaud you, Habib, for being a man. And I don't think that means he's done. I think we'll see him again, and he's probably always going to be a mentor to all these guys. And maybe he does complete the task and go show up in Perth with Mahachev, although as Javier Mendes said himself to Aioli, that's still not certain up to this point. But I love this guy Luke when I look at somebody who represents the sport to me it's Habib Nurmagomedov and this sport's got a lot of shady

characters okay but I love that I love what he stands for at the end of the day I gotta tell you like I obviously we we don't live Habib's life we have no idea what it's like to be as globally famous obviously he's an icon for many different communities, including his own. In the Muslim world, he's a big star there as well. In Russia, he's a big star. Hell, in the United States, he's a fucking huge star, you know. He's a big star everywhere. He's made a lot of money, not just from his fight.

Actually, I would say he's probably made more outside of fighting than he has with fighting, but certainly he's done well for himself. If you've got three children, I'd stop too. Right? BC, I hate to admit this, but if you won the lottery and you won $100 million, I don't know if you would be here for Wednesday's show.

You know what I mean? You would just go do something, and your children are a little bit older than mine, but my daughter's three. I will say this too. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy, consider yourself warned.

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Terms and conditions apply. Don't get me wrong. Please, please don't misunderstand me. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Don't get me wrong. Please don't misunderstand me. We're going to London next month, and you guys had to travel down here. It was a home game for me, but it was essentially the road crew all over again. I'm so grateful for these opportunities. They've been what I've been wanting for so long.

But it has dawned on me. I don't love the fact that when I was single and had no one waiting for me at home, I spent all those years working here. And now that I do have a wife and a kid waiting for me, I'm now on the road much more than I ever was before. And, you know, I wish I could have that reversed. I wish it wasn't necessarily that case, but that's just not the life that we have. And, and so you have to roll with it onwards. But if you're Habib and you've already won the title, you fulfilled your promise to your mother, and then you retired, and then you shepherded it to make sure that the next in line in your own inner circle, so to speak, with Islam Makachev, you made sure that he got the title, and now you want to spend time with your kids, and you're financially successful.

I totally get it. I completely support it. I understand it, at least on some level anyway. I think it's probably the right call. I got one piece of advice when I became a dad, and it's really rung true. And BC, you know this as well, which is, man, your kid's childhood goes fast, fast, so much faster than you realize. One moment they're not walking than they are, and then they can dress themselves, and now they can make complete sentences, and they can run and play and climb and they can talk to you and they have ideas and it just goes so quickly the more you miss that you don't you don't get any of that time back it doesn't ever circle back around again you miss those you're done and so for me i really understand

it what i would say though is i do wonder what kind of impact it will have on that team. Do they have the other resources in place to make sure that they know what Habib would want? But does he as a figure have to be there to make sure that it works? That part, we don't know. It's like the good news is Javier Mendez is there with an all-star gym that produces champions and has always sort of been there behind Habib and helping these guys and not always maybe getting the full credit. So that's great. But you're right.

When we do hear details of people who have trained with Habib or gone in and witnessed, like, they're like, you know, it's a drill sergeant out there who demands a next level work ethic and approach. So can that be replicated? Probably not. But, you know, I'm sure from a strategical standpoint he's still going to be there in a lot of people's lives and it's still going to be available but i mean dude like luke how many people could have been courted by dana white that many times when he was a retired fighter who wanted to stay retired and dana went on that six-month campaign of like well he's not like like really retired like on. I got dinner with him coming up again.

Didn't you just have dinner with him like three times in the last three months? Yeah, I got another dinner with him planned again, and this time we're bringing the whole Brinks truck in there. We're backing it in. I mean, he walked away from that. It's wild, Luke. That's wild. And this is just another step in that direction to me. So

respect. Respect all the way. But yeah, let's see if yeah let's see if everybody can carry on in the same level i mean there's a lot of people in his family there's a lot of people in his extended circle that look to be next right now coming on in this game so uh yeah we'll see luke but i think he made the right choice because look think about it they're in your house for such your children they're in your house for such a short period but then they're in their life for the rest. And that's an extreme, you know, when all things go right, it's an, it's a much longer time. I mean, you, you, you want to be

friends with them during that stretch. You want them to still come to you. You want to still have that relationship that can only be built now. And I don't always get it right, Luke, but I do always remember that showing up is, is 90% of it. You know what I'm saying? Showing up with a smile and a kind, encouraging word and a little lesson there and there. I mean, that is what this is all about. Luke, you can win a lot of MMA podcast awards, Luke, but Tukey Thomas, that's the only measuring stick I've got to whether you've added anything to this world. And so far Luke congratulations okay yeah I tell my daughter she's beautiful and intelligent every night before we she goes to

sleep every single night every single night I want her to understand that that's that's a truth about her I think she will but you're right when I'm not here you have to just you literally just have to be there like you don't have to be like the a plus dad every time half of the problems shit most of the problems just show up just be there right yeah and you know when i'm not here reggie jackson the cat screams at the top of his lungs all day for me i bet he does all right i'd love to take that guy on the road imagine if i became that guy luke dude i okay so it's funny you mentioned that so i i grew up um on up further on the east side of town, and there was this park there called Lincoln Park, and I took my daughter back there because when I was a kid,

that's where you got stabbed and mugged and shit. So we'd go and play there during daylight hours. Now it's, you know, picnics and labradoodles and shit because the city's completely changed. So I took her there because it's now nice, and we saw, I'm not doing a bit here, we saw this lady with a backpack, and in the backpack there was a cat and then the top of the backpack had like this like this old school i'm going underwater helmet you know what i mean i own that backpack luke i own

that back dude she was walking her fucking cat that's you yeah only one of my three cats is willing to go in the bubble uh reggie uh you know he'll kill me to get out of that backpack uh so uh it doesn't work with him i tried to take him on a leash around the neighborhood and he got out of the leash i mean it was almost a disaster luke so i've done the leash bit with the cats you can't put the you can't put the collar on them you got to put the harness the harness thing that they can't quite squirm out of as easily uh all right bc point number five and then we'll wrap it here for our top five uh mma it's back ladies and gentlemen i know that you have been missing it we of course have been missing it even though we've

been enjoying covering some boxing so you've got one this weekend which folks are just not talking about i'm very surprised by that one on prime video six is going to be this week i think this friday then on top of that you're going to have ufc fight night imavov versus gastelum and i think lfa is there as well bc you can go first which bout are you most looking forward to this weekend and why uh you know luke everybody's got different likes in their in their eyes people they'll forgive and give nine lives to. You know, there's a good portion of the CBS Sports MMA editorial team who probably hate me because, you know, I still think Kelvin Gastelum's got something left in the tank, Luke,

and maybe I always will. Maybe I always will. And, you know, he fought like a champion in defeat against Adesanya. Dude, against Whitaker, you know, he brought it. I mean, look, he brought it, Luke. He's gotten close. He's also put together a lot of defeats against some very big

names, and he's still just 31, but you look at the most recent stretch, and it's one win, five defeats. I thought he's entered sort of a make-or-break, must-win sort of situation before, and he survived, and he does tend to show out

against very good competition, as I mentioned. But Luke, this main event against Nasor Dean Imavov, who's on a very good stretch of his own. I mean, those last three victories to get to this level, absolutely legit. I wonder if it's really this time, now or never, for Gastelum. And I expect him to absolutely bring it luke but we have seen him have incredible training camps and say the right things before only to get you know absolutely subbed out by jacker manson in less than two minutes and you know i don't know if i ever told you luke but ufc 236 the co-main event i was there in the press row with an orange pullover. I know how great this guy can be, but I'm going to have to give up

the gag and the routine, too. Is this just, let's give Imamov the biggest name he's had yet and find out if Nasruddin is truly ready to take on top five, top seven guys? Or is this the last stand for one of

the last remaining Cowboys in this game, Kelvin Gastelum, Luke? That's got me tuned in for Must See TV on Saturday. I don't assume you agree with anything I just said, but let me ask you then. Is it win or go home here for Gastelum? It's a little bit.

It's a little bit. I mean, Imavov is on a nice win streak. He's got wins over Ian Hynish, Shabazian, and then his last one, Joaquin Buckley. Now that one got a little bit dicey for him at the end, but in general, he was doing really well in it, and of course, he gets the dub. You know, this is a guy who you would have thought, like, Kelvin Gastelum

at his peak would easily, or you know, comfortably, let's say, beat this guy, but we don't really know where Kelvin Gastelum is. We don't really know exactly what's happening. Obviously, he has already left Kings MMA and had a fight underneath the new banner he's in, I think with Arizona Fight Sports, if I'm not mistaken. So he's still working some things out, and I applaud him trying to switch it up and figure out what's best for him. I don't think any of those were mistakes necessarily. He needed to

do something different. Perhaps that was it. But dude, like if you're going to make a move, man, like now, right now, right now is the time. We have seen him do well. We have seen him do poorly. The question is, could a change bring him back to that glory? If this change doesn't, it's really hard to know what would unless he's able to go back to 170 but of course all the weight cutting issues around that make us think that's probably not a great idea either in other words man it's going to be hard to call any single bout make or

break there are occasions in fight sports where that can be the case I don't know that this would be that case but it's very close I mean mean, if he loses here, although he was never a champion, if he loses here, this would be a big rig level of just like, wow, it's over. Where did it all go? Johnny Hendricks, like, just like, dude, you were just the champion and now it's over, right? I mean, it would be, you know, maybe people don't ever think of Gaslam on the same level I have in rare spots, but, you know, this would be a monster, a guy who's 31 who probably would get big free agent offers outside of this, but damn, and look, this is not an easy fight, dude. Neserdine, Imovov, and we're seeing the pictures against that Buckley fight,

which was wild, and Buckley kept pouring it on late, but, I mean, dude, he's gone in there against Shabazzians, against that level of guy. I mean, who did he stop before that it was uh ian heinous before that the only loss in the ufc was the majority decision to phil hawes this is a guy who's putting together and you know he doesn't always get that same dagastan holy hammer let me grab it out of the cupboard claim because he grew up in france but you know imavov is from dagastan luke and you can take the boy out of the factory, so to speak. You know what I'm saying?

But you can't remove his hammer. You can't remove his hammer, Luke. BC, Gastelum hasn't had back-to-back wins since 2017, 2018 when he beat Michael Bisping, who was coming off that terrible... Well, it was a great fight against St. Pierre, but he had been... That's not a real win. I give that win as much credit as I give Sterling over Dillashaw, Luke. Seriously.

This thing should not have been in that fight. Fine. That's fine. That's fine. I agree with that. He shouldn't have taken that fight. It was terrible for him. And then he beat Jacare.

Split decision, but he got the job done. That put him in the position to get the Robert Whitaker fight, but then that fell through. So then he had the interim against Izzy. Great fight, but he lost. Then he loses split to Till. Then he just gets run over by Jack Hermanson. Rebounds with a nice win over Ian Hynish.

But it wasn't a stoppage. Then loses to Robert Whitaker. Then loses to Jared Cannoneer. Was supposed to fight Imovov before. And Drigas Duplicy. Those both fell through. And now he's back around with Imovov. This is a...

This would be... If he loses this, that would mean he won one of his last, let's see, three, six, seven. He would be one in seven or one in six of his last seven. Would you agree? That's crazy. Ability-wise and game planning. And sometimes I think his game planning has been inconsistent. Sometimes he puts himself into damage too easily and all that.

But you would admit he's not only, you know, better than his recent record, way better, right? Would I agree that Gastelum is way better than his record? No, I think he's better than his record. I don't know if he's way better. All right. Well, Luke, I'm going to give up the ghost if he loses this one. And by the way, he might. Do you have the odds in front of you?

I'm interested to see how Vegas has this. I can tell you. Just give me a second. I'm pulling them up. I've got it right here. Minus 220, our friends at Caesars. Minus 220, Imavov, plus 180, Gaslam. So they are showing him respect.

Luke, how good is Imavov? Because that three-fight win streak has been very escalatory, but that was a tough fight against Numanza, who used every ounce of potential explosive power punching ability he had up until the final second. How good's this guy, Nasor Dean? He's good, but like, you look at all the guys he's beaten. Heinish is good.

He's got good cardio. And that's probably one of his better wins, to be quite honest with you. The Shabazian win, not sure what to make of it. You know, Shabazian is a, either he's shining or he's falling apart. I think the move to Vegas is doing him some wonders, but you know what Iazian is of either he's shining or he's falling apart I think I think the move to Vegas is doing him some wonders but you know what I'm talking about and Buckley was kind of run over early but then surged late I think there's some questions about him above he's clearly well rounded he comes from one of the best teams in all of France I mean he's very very good he's

very well rounded he can he can do a lot of different things I'd say he's probably a little bit actually I'm not quite sure if I agree with that. But Gastelum, again, the version of Gastelum who fought Izzy would beat Imovov. But what version are we going to get? I simply do not know. I don't know. Very fair.

Now, sticking with that card, BC, sticking with that card, I'm actually... By the way, there's a lot of decent fights on this card. Ketla Pinera versus Raquel Pennington's a great fight. Speaking of Nurmagomedov, Umar Nur nurmagomedov who's undefeated taking on hyoni barcelos that should be a lot of fun but the one i've got my eye on bc it's undefeated versus undefeated two guys in their 20s top prospects not yet contenders but everything they've shown us has been amazing

mateus mendoza out of Brazil taking on Javed Basharat out of Afghanistan obviously he fights now out of Extreme Couture Jake Shields is one of his coaches two undefeated guys 10-0 from Mendoza 13-0 from Basharat both coming off the contender series Mendoza had a just an amazing win over Ashik Agyem in his last fight which was the contender series one to get into this one and Javed Basharat has looked very good through the UFC. His last win over Tony Gravely, which was a decision. Both guys, I would say here's what I'll say. The reason why I like it is because two guys in their 20s, undefeated, someone's O's got

to go. Great camps, good athletes. They can do a lot of different things. Basharat, to me, is the more well-rounded of the two. Mendoza, the slightly more dangerous of the two in terms of punching power and his ability to make reads and adjustments. He just seems a little bit quicker in that regard. But Javed Basharat can do anything. Everything he's good at, plus he has good cardio. This fight should be very fun. And frankly, I'm almost surprised that they made it because I kind of thought that these

two guys would be on their own path of like separate contenders and then they'll fight when they're separate prospects I should say and then they'll fight at the top when they're eventually both reach it but they're gonna have a match up now this is one to watch and it's hard to know exactly what might happen Boshra with a little bit more experience and again I would say more well-rounded but Mendoza is a handful and this one should be very fun and luke uh you want a banger how about uh punalehi soriano against roman coppilove that'll be uh that'll be worth your time and investment right there so and people are going to complain that this is the co-main event because like should this fight be a co-main event you know probably not but as just a good fight or a bad fight it's a

good one dan igay taking on damon jackson damon jackson has totally i would say reformed his career and has had a great surge of late dan igay had a strong surge about a year or two ago and is now looking to reclaim some of the lost space that he has suffered as a consequence of some losses against very tough guys you know calah Calvin Cater and many others. So this is a really well-matched combination as well. Does Ige survive the potential of a fourth straight defeat here? He could. I think if he really goes for it, he could. And by the way, Damon Jackson is not going to like,

you know, he's not going to do the Chukadzon bit where he just jabs in circles. I mean, he is an in-your-face, lock-up-on-the-wrestling kind of terms, which Dan Ige would be, you would think, might like some of that. I think Ige would probably prefer to strike in this contest, but he is a black belt in jiu-jitsu. By the way, I would say Ige has also fought overall better guys than Damon Jackson, but that's sort of the whole point.

Damon's trying to get to the place that Ige used to be. Ige wants to get back there, and he's got to beat the guy who's surging. You kind of got to like that one a lot. And also, Abdul Razak Alhassan, who is just a complete knockout artist, he's on this card as well. Jimmy Flick is back against Charles Johnson.

This should be a fun little card, BC. Look, before we get into what one has to offer, and there's obviously some sad news linked to that as well in the news cycle, I don't know if you can call this a super sloppy special because it doesn't necessarily fit into that category, but is it a BC special? Did you see that fight that the UFC booked for February?

I'm not sure. Oh, the Tatiana Suarez bout. Yeah, women's flyweight. Rosso, correct? Yeah, dude Tatiana Suarez bout. Yeah, women's flyweight. She's taking on Montana De La Rosa, correct? Yeah, dude. We've been, you know, it's going to go down February 25th, UFC Vegas 70. I don't know the location there.

But, Luke, we've been wanting Tatiana Suarez, who's been constantly in and out of the lineup with injuries, to arrive here at 125 and find out, do we have another future title contending name to add to this suddenly growing group behind valentina there's a good matchup here martina de la rosa is coming off a defeat luke but she's still kind of putting her game together in motion here uh this is a really good test to find out exactly where suarez is because you can only carry that dark dark horse title contender you know reputation for so long, and it's not her fault with the injuries, but it's time now.

It's time to go here at 125. So, dude, I'm looking forward to that one big time. Yeah, that should be really fun. And also, we should talk about One. Now, One has a card, One on Prime Video 6. This is going to be on Prime. This is what I mean about One. This is the blessing and the curse of One, right? The blessing is, and I on prime this is this is what I mean about about one this is like the blessing and the curse of one right the blessing is and I've said this before they've got the most unique

product outside of the UFC because they do Muay Thai with four ounce gloves and they also do kickboxing and by the way also on this card is Mikey Musumechi who's going to be having a pro grappling contest so they've got all of this weird fun stuff they have a different rule set they have a different uh scoring system I mean they've got they got a weird, fun stuff. They have a different rule set. They have a different scoring system. I mean, they've got a lot of different things going on, which really sets them apart, and that's great. That's a good thing. But the problem is they have largely appealed to a market outside of our own

with a lot of names that come from outside of our own. I don't know if American fans are going to be ready for a main event between Superbond and Chingiz Al-Azov, or Al-Azov. And I'm told from the kickboxing audience that these two are just the bee's knees. This is a tremendous contest. I'm happy to believe that. It's just that's going to be a difficult sell on a Friday night to the American audience, right? Yes.

I think that's not unfair to say. And there is some tragic news, BC, related to a death on the one roster. What can you tell us about that? Yeah, we know the Lee family in MMA has been the first family of sorts for one championship from Angela Lee to Christian Lee, world champions. But their younger sister, Luke, so young, just 3-0, Victoria Lee, world champions, but their younger sister, Luke, so young, just 3-0, Victoria Lee, just 18 years old, right, from Hawaii, had just begun to carry on in the family's lineage there under the one championship banner.

Considered a prodigy, but passes away. We don't know the story in terms of the cause or anything like that, but her older sister kind of broke it to the world. Man, I mean, until we know more of the story, it's hard to react in many ways beyond just being very upset of a talented, young, exciting, passionate mixed martial artist who was, you know, looking to do some big things. And we only got to see her three times at the pro level here, but man, dude,

gone too soon doesn't doesn't begin it luke 18 years old part of a fighting family it's really sad news to to try to take down here to start the week no doubt about it i don't know what else to say about it there was no cause of death revealed who who knows um angela lee and her post on instagram just said you know if you got a loved one hug them tonight which yeah, people want to read into that and say, like, does it mean that something I'm not going to speculate, but I'm just going to say that it's terrible. We send our deepest condolences to the Lee family and to to one as well. I'm dealing with a situation like that, whatever, whatever the cause may be.

Terrible, truly terrible. 18, just 18 years old. Really just awful awful awful news not that i not that i expect some good news from one championship to try to offset that look because it could never live up to it but can i get you excited about a recently announced one championship out can you all right how about this one fight night eight is going to go down friday march 24th a heavyweight world title unification bout in the main event arjan bular and anatoly malikin who just sent rdr to the land of winding ghosts as you would say and is a has the interim heavyweight

strapping now a two divisiondivision champion himself. Dude, this is what MMA fans in this space have wanted. They're getting it, dude. And the more we can see of this guy, Anatoly Malikin, God, he's a hammer. But how good is this fight going to be, Luke? Arjun can bang, too. Arjun can bang.

He's a good wrestler. He fought for the UFC, I think, briefly, and he moved to one, I think, obviously of Indian descent, which is a big source of pride for him and his fans as well. And there was some contract dispute because he didn't want, I think they wanted him to take this without getting a new deal. He wanted a new deal. So if they made the fight, I guess that means that they got the contract situation resolved, which is great for Arjun.

It's great for Juan. It's great for this fight. And it's a title unification. He has been the interim champ, as you indicated. He's actually double champ because he's the interim heavyweight champ and he's the full-on light heavyweight champ. So they're going to solidify that heavyweight, light heavyweight, excuse me, heavyweight interim heavyweight title between Buller

and then between Malikin. But Malikin, a revelation in 2022 about how good he is, definitely one to pay attention to in this upcoming year and in that bout as well and i didn't want want you to forget for for this friday's one on amazon card that rod tang is back in a kickboxing match and uh dude how about stamp fair text who is a women's adam weight mma fighter who just makes incredibly fun fight after incredibly fun fight do you know uh about her decorated kickboxing partner uh opponent excuse me uh anisa mexin have you heard i could lie and tell you that i knew a

lot about her i'm not gonna do okay she's 34 from france but has a very decorated kickboxing background uh coming into this fight this i've heard this is going to be an absolute war and it's going to be kickboxing is perhaps my biggest blind spot in all of the composite sports of mma um it's just the one i know and understand the least unfortunately but perhaps this year we can make a change in that all right bc gary tonin too i didn't want to cut you off there but yes gary tonin's on this card as well but you're a big gary tonin fan so i wanted the world to know that there you go uh he'll be back as well all right i want to remind folks as we kick off the new year, we want to remind you about our favorite sponsor,

Money Lion. We created the Hammer of the Month to spotlight undercard fighters who aren't getting the recognition they deserve. Aaron Blanchfield, of course, was our winner in November and for December,

Ilya Toporia won with his dominant win over Bryce Mitchell. So remember to tweet us at your nominees all throughout January with the hashtag Hammer of the month you can

also use hashtag holy hammer so we can reward someone for their incredible performance you can go to moneylion.com slash morning combat to learn more on how to enter so i've got i've got royman via who was on the showtime pay-per-view main card that we talked about on this list for consideration luke we'll find out this weekend on the one championship or ufc fight night return who can add themselves to that uh i'm looking forward to it luke i gotta find out is the hammer in transit to to to casa tuporia can we get this on film no we have to look into that we'll have to ask about it i'm not sure what the status what that is okay somebody's gonna get a massive hammer to put their hands around luke i can't wait to see it that's right all right let's do uh it's time for when you guys ask us the questions it's time for dms from the diggity dogs hee haw hee haw

uh okay bc from lane maker hi luke and bc Gervonta's scary scrambling of Garcia's brain got me thinking about why we don't see the same lights-out power from more 135ers in MMA. Is this because Gervonta is an outlier, or can this be attributed to the differences in training between the two different sports? Keep up the great work, blah, blah, blah. BC, I'm going to say it's probably

a little column A, column B, but mostly column A. Gervonta is a freak. He's a freak. He has freak level power now he does probably have much sharper technique and much more drilled naturally inculcated understanding of how to throw a punch in a more dynamic way than most 135ers but the real big difference in what he can do and what everyone else can do is he just has he was born with an incredible gift that he uses to dramatic effect right yeah i mean i don't think it's anything of mma versus boxing or or or if these weight classes aren't known part in particular for bringing guys who can bang that's that's not the case at all i mean i used to know a guy named john lineker

luke who used to bang a lot at 35 right right? Yeah, but he throws big, wild punches. Like, Gervonta can throw much cleaner, efficient punches. Yeah, there's something special about Gervonta's power. It really is, where the average punch can land, certainly, with more pop and just that one punch thudding. I mean, dude, look at the Leo Santa Cruz highlight. That's absolutely ridiculous. Dude, we talked, so we had Bob Santos at the weigh-in show, right?

So Bob Santos is the trainer for Hector Garcia, the guy he just fought. But Bob Santos trains with a lot of very high-level boxers and has said that he had seen dozens if not hundreds of rounds of Gervonta sparring because he's been in the gym with him. He's just watched it. And he said he has personally seen a high-level 154-pounder get dropped and finished by Gervonta in training. I mean, that dude can fucking thump, man.

There's a lot of things you can say about Gervonta, positively or negatively, but he has ungodly power for a guy at 135 pounds. It's just very rare. I mean, it's a gift, Luke. Do you remember growing up and playing baseball and there'd be that skinny, wiry kid who can just throw heat? And you're like, how?

I don't get it. You know what I mean? How many great punchers in boxing have been long, skinny, wiry guys too? It's just, you know, could you work on certain things to improve your power? Sure. You know what I mean? You know, your technique and being able to generate power from your legs, all that good stuff.

But sometimes people just have that thing that hits you and you go, you go flying. And that's just the deal, dude. You ever get in a snowball fight with somebody who was like a pitcher, Luke, you'd find that out quickly. Yeah.

And then they put ice inside and then the snow on the outside. That used to be, that was just not all right. From at Cole underscore brown 858 has there ever been another situation in a fight or it was paused due to a fight in the crowd like what happened with gervonta davis in round eight over the weekend now you had mentioned the the what's his face guy who parachuted in yeah the fan man in the second riddick bow evander holyfield fight in las vegas in what 93 the fan man incident the second Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield fight in Las Vegas in, what, 93?

The fan man incident stopped the fight, and Riddick Bowe's corner then beat the shit out of the fan man. Like, he needed to be hospitalized for a long time. You may recall Floyd Mayweather versus Zab Judah on pay-per-view from around 2006, where members of the opposing corners got into a fight. Judah got involved, and that stopped the action. That wasn't a crowd fight, but no. Both of those situations involved what was more going on in the ring, but I don't remember a crowd brawl during a fight.

After a fight, there's been some hellacious crowd brawls. Bo versus Gulotta won is the quick-turn memory one on that one. But no, dude dude i cannot remember this i mean you know if you reach back on the tape gervonta is look he keeps looking back at the crowd then back over here you know and maybe luke because it involved it was so close to the ring it involved everyone's attention shifting which is not abnormal because there's been big fights and crowds during combat sports you know in recent memory for a long time but involved like celebrities active fighters steven espinoza steven espinoza showtime sports is right in the middle of that so i wonder if all that played into it but it was the referee's

discretion and i kind of feel like it's the right call because that was a little too close for comfort to the actual ring you agree yeah yeah because it was i mean it was it happened in the celebrity section i mean it's usually the place that's the most protected or secluded in some kind of way and so that made it a little bit weird because that's why it was so distracting both garcia and davis were like looking over being like what the fuck is going on here and the referee just kind of had to be like all right time He was kind of like bullied into it almost in a way. It didn't ultimately, I think, affect the way the fight was going to happen, which is good, by the way.

Imagine if it did. Imagine if like it had derailed the direction the fight seemed to be heading. That didn't happen. So the movie actually kind of lucked out. And that's what happened in Bo Holyfield. Bo Holyfield, they were outdoors. It was cold at night in Las Vegas. And that changed the complexion

of that fight completely but also both found out his pregnant wife got caught up in the melee and had to be taken to the hospital so that you know a lot of extra factors there as well but yeah it's weird it's weird dude you don't see that often that's for sure uh all right from at ryan wilson underscore films luke has to have a one-on-one dinner with John Jones, Dana White, or Colby Covington. Who is he choosing? Oh, wow. Choosing starvation. You're choosing Colby and you know it. Why would I choose Colby?

What the fuck? The other two would not. The other two would not walk through that door. Look, I don't think Colby would walk through that door either. Yeah, he would. He would. We could probably get him on the couch. Luke, you want colby

on the rs i bet we couldn't i bet we couldn't uh he used to follow me back when i would defend there was a moment where folks were like colby covington sucks as a person and as a fighter and i'd be like well you can dislike who he is as a person but he's actually very good as a fighter and i would make sure to push that line until it became obvious that that was a thing that everyone had to recognize. And he would follow me on Twitter at the time. But then after that, when,

you know, he would just do like the very odious things, he began to unfollow me or he actually unfollowed me. And I got a feeling that he wouldn't agree to it. I mean, I could, I, you could be right,

but I might get, my bet would be, he wouldn't take it. Anyway, I don't have anything to ask any of these people. I'm not interested in agree to it. I mean, you could be right, but my bet would be he wouldn't take it. Anyway, I don't have anything to ask any of these people. I'm not interested in talking to them. All right, at Kyle Hank Levy. Okay, but that's it? It's just like that?

That's it? I mean, what if we got a call from UFC PR that said, look, it's been crazy lately. We've seen your content. Dana wants to do a sit down with you guys. He wants to clear the air. He wants to do it on camera. He wants to do it on camera.

You might as well say, look, imagine, just imagine, just hear me out. You wake up one day and you've got wings on your back and you can just fly around. Would you do MK with wings on your back? It's like, what kind of question is this? Who would be more willing john or dana because you know you've made enemies through your years whether you've whether that's the result of aggressive you know smart sound journalism or whether you're just a raging piece of shit luke and i just haven't figured it out yet i don't think that to be true though uh you know that to not be true um maybe john maybe okay maybe i mean we're talking like

the i'll ask our pr team i'll ask our team to reach out and start the john rsd i mean you know he might as well might as well come on our platform and talk about moving up to heavyweight and stuff it'd be great yeah it'd be an amazing time. All right, from Kyle Hank Levy. Luke, what do you think about Hamzat lifting in gloves? Does this change your opinion about his ceiling? I did see one picture. I couldn't quite make it out.

I just don't understand why anyone would lift with gloves. Short of, I've got a very unique job where I need my palms to be as, you know. Yeah, you don't get those weird gross bumps on them. As low-shitty smooth as possible. My dad made me start going to the gym when I was 14 and made me wear gloves during that stretch, Luke. He made you wear gloves during that stretch luke he made you wear gloves yep he was like these will help your hands not get all calloused up and and that burn feeling use them so luke i grew up in high school going to uh i don't even remember the name of that gym going that gym you know

three times a week with gloves on i mean as you can guess it didn't it didn't do much for me you know muscularly luke during that stretch i was a do much for me, you know, muscularly, Luke, during that stretch. I was a damn beanpole. But, you know, I don't look down at it as such a, you know, you know what I do? If you wear a dress shirt without a tie and you button the top button, to me, that's the same offensive to you as lifting gloves. You know what I mean?

Like, what are we doing here? But it's not the same offense. I keep trying to explain this to people. Your grip is compromised when you as lifting gloves you know i mean like what are we doing here but it's not the same offense i keep trying to explain this to people you will your grip is compromised when you wear the gloves right so if you actually want to get your grip stronger take the fucking gloves off it will actually interfere with your ability to manage your grip like my heroes wear gloves luke okay jim mcmahon played quarterback in the nfl wearing gloves all right um michael jackson famously wore a glove who was brady yeah yeah i don't think he's a hero of mine though he just finished a losing season luke first of his career thank god i've been enjoying his

fucking demise oh are you kidding me all the terrible shit we had to swallow when he was patriots nation the whole time and now that it's finally coming to a close i am enjoying this fucker's decline like you could not imagine but the short answer is people of the world you just don't need gloves they don't serve any other purpose other than i'm a weirdo who needs buttery smooth hands well if you need that i guess guess, then wear gloves. But for the rest of humanity, they don't do anything good for you. And in fact, they interfere with your ability to lift properly. So quit fucking doing that.

All right. Last but not least, at dark underscore M Ziki. Ziki? Let's say you could pick any guest for the London live show, BC. But here's the catch. You only have them on to be roasted who would it be ksi right if we brought on a guest and just roasted him we'd probably have to fight right there luke so i don't know if that's a good business strategy

let's get dylan danis on the live show okay just roast the fucking shit out of him i mean i you know i don't i do is that something you look forward to, the idea of bringing somebody out in person and roasting them, Luke? See, the thing is you've got to roast a friend, right? You've got to roast someone you care about. Yeah. I don't really care about many people. How about Jay Aaron?

How about Pennington hits London? Oh, God. But it's like, dude, we have to give him attention. He just loves attention dollars. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Why don't you tell the folks what you were doing before the weigh-ins that day? You and the rest of the crew.

I was not part of this. I was on the Jason Aaron YouTube channel where he reviews products like blenders, and he bought a massive eel fish tank, two-sided one and put it into his his house or apartment i don't know where jay lives uh and uh every video he does luke which has uh just bizarre uh reactions and dialogue he wears mk shirts in most of them so that was a big part of our uh you know oh wow but you know shout out to jay er, you know, look, Luke, he's part of our family's history. You can't take him out of the MK lore. You can't remove him.

You can take him off the show. I mean, you definitely can. What about Appy? What if we just roast Appy in London? Dude, you love to give attention to weirdos. You love nothing more. Dude, here's who BC likes. Drifters, people who are alone at bus stations,

people who close talk i mean anyone who's a fucking weirdo yes anyone anyone who's a fucking weirdo you just want to put your arms around them and then find you find them deeply interesting and i don't really understand that i just don't get it you know you can you could move around this life too quickly luke and and miss the art that's all around us and you know but i like a little crazy sometimes luke i like a little art sometimes i think that's the real answer and you know and luke don't you know don't be one of those people who misses the greatness and people around them and whether it's you know jake von amsterdam just an eccentric genius you know what i mean what where would i be if i dismiss

that guy luke okay all right uh but you know maybe maybe appy's you know maybe it's all a big bit luke why don't we we should roast you that's what we should do just roast the shit out of bc have those brits the brit the brits can roast too don't think they can't get up there and just assassinate you you always say my type for women is future lunch ladies and i think that's really rude the future waitresses yes but i also support the service industry you know what i mean so it's fine you know all right that's it for our fan questions it's time for bc's feces right. I got off the plane yesterday, Luke, and I scoured the globe for the highs and lows,

the good, the bad, the ugly, the in-between. From the world of combat sports and beyond, there's a hefty pile of shit here that Gaff Pierre had to dig through. This one's called Have You Seen This Shit? Got some bangers in the crate, so to speak. Yep, BC's Feces is going to deliver. Yep, there we go. Your favorite segment is back.

Let's start, Luke. Showtime pay-per-view from Washington, D.C. And here's the video everybody was talking about. Round 8 before the fight was actually stopped. Meek Mill wearing green in the crowd. Some people said he got into it with Wallow. I don't know Wallow. But I do know Gary Russell Jrr was down there luke and

i've watched a lot of videos on it and i believe meek mill was upset that gary russell jr who's from the dmv but has never you know held back from sharing that he'd love to fight gervonta one day was cheering against gervonta as a member of the dmv and that's ultimately what meek mill took exception to and that's why there was almost a brawl what's this deal with wallow who's wallow is that the guy who works at the at the parts store and the phantom menace luke who tells anakin that uh you know is that the guy is that the guy who's just like a casual slave owner yeah yeah that guy in the star wars fandom so yeah he's a bunch of slaves he's great um no seriously luke um a little wild what i mean what do you say about meek mill's performance here

not great he had tweeted he had to go down to see the tank fight so you thought he'd be like cool about it but i guess not you could see him getting escorted out there they had to escort him out he had to leave so he missed he missed the he missed the show when this video changes again you'll see in the bottom right corner, there's somebody dressed in green walking away. That's Meek Mill. But in the top portion of the screen, dressed in green, dude, that's Stack, Steven Jackson, all the smoke.

Yeah, top left, top left. He was playing Peacemaker at an aggressive level, and it was actually a big reason why this didn't turn into something much bigger. So shout out to Stack 5 there, Luke. Yeah, I think someone was pushing and shoving, and it got actually a big reason why this didn't turn into something much bigger. So shout out to Stack 5 there, Luke. Yeah, I think someone was pushing and shoving and it got to his wife and he had had enough, so he had calmed down that side of the crowd. Stack's great. You won't hear us say a bad word about him. All right, before Meek Mill and then his entire team

wearing the Dreamcatcher jackets or whatever that was, I don't understand the reference, they were escorted out. They left on their own. Before that, though, Meek was caught on camera yelling at Gary Russell Jr. Here's what they picked up. Now, Luke, I don't know if we didn't hear the audio. I don't know if the audience did, but the quote was'll really sock you though from Meek Mill allegedly at Gary Russell Jr. so there you go I spoke to Gary Russell Jr. I was walking by earlier in the night I was like Gary

when are you fighting again and he was like summer and I'm like Gary or as they say as they say in this part of the world, gurry. Not acceptable, my man. We got to get you out there more consistently, bro. He only fights once a year. That's what he does, all right? He's a trainer now. His own father recently passed away, RIP,

but he seems to be like Khabib, taking on the training from the family and being there for his brothers. But, you know, dude, he was a champion at 126. He lost that belt to Mark Magsayo in that fight, but he's been talking about moving up to 35 to face Gervonta for a while. That's it. Do you like that idea? No, I think Gervonta has way too much for him physically at that weight class.

No. Gary's got some hands, though. Gary's good. Gary's very skilled. He's a really good boxer, but no. All right. All right. Hey, back to to the fights here's five days before the fight gervonta davis was uh warming up i believe for his media day and he started working on some backflips luke your thoughts dude gervonta's athletic i mean this is not like the most like nimble backflip we've ever seen but the dude's just like playing around you know know. Well, he would. The warm-up was for the finale when he stopped Hector Luis Garcia in round eight.

Here was the victory celebration. This was right in front of where my wife and my friends were. They love this. Yeah, dude, my man's athletic. I mean, you know, you can't say he's not. Yep. Before the fight, Luke, Real ended up recognizing Real when Gervonta was met in the locker room by Kyle Kuzma of the Wizards

and other famous NBA stars. Also by some white magic, Vito Milnecki Jr. checking in. I didn't say this to Vito Milnecki's face because I didn't want it to come off weird. His nickname is White Magic. I feel like you can only have that nickname if a black guy gives it to you which which actually did happen right do you know what i'm saying like yeah one white guy can't call another guy white magic is like do you know what they should call

you they should call you white magic so if i was like yo moving on out from here on out of morning combat my nickname is the white knight you'd be like bc bc no no no no no but but if gaff gave you that nickname i'd be all right with it you know we can't say it out loud because it would compromise certain relationships but gaff got my back in a very key behind the scenes argument that involved mma and women and i'll never forget that luke okay yeah i i will forget that because both of you are just completely disgusting people but you know i gaff gets me okay he he he handles my shit regularly hey luke you mentioned it lifting glove sizzin is back baby here's the aforementioned picture we talked about in dm from donks hamza chamayev showing off his jackedness and luke uh i don't

have the tweet here but did you see, what's the guy's name? The heavyweight from Philly. Chris Daukus made fun of him with a quote tweet that everybody was tweeting at you. Yeah. What'd you think? Look, he looks jacked, Luke. Yeah, he doesn't have huge biceps or anything, but he's got big, he's got them boulder shoulders and he's got gloves on for no good reason.

What about those striations, Luke? Those striations, right? Yeah, striated. Vascular. He's very vascular. He's not the only person wearing lifting gloves these days. Let's see a professional in lifting gloves. All right.

Well, I mean, is he doing ball training? He's got a ball bag the size of a fucking... I mean, look at his body. You're telling me, like, you can't get that jacked wearing gloves? I showed it to you right here, okay? Pumps in the bumps style. Dude, is he literally smuggling in a fucking, like, red panda in his underwear? Like, what the fuck?

I believe there's a family of four there uh getting over the border and his dungarees i'm not doing a bit i think he's got the entire produce section of whole food in his fucking uh underwear there just a giant look if i if i was endowed like that i'd be wearing lifting gloves 24 7 bro okay so shout out if i had i mean well first of all i mean i don't know i mean how do you serious question look at this man's ball bag how do you take a dump without that falling in the water i'm just asking questions about you know how it's accommodated you know okay moving on luke uh you know you want me to roast people to their face what would i look like a pro fighter luke you you fuck around you find out even at 7-eleven let's check out this exchange oh this guy got racist yeah oh god four loco to the face bro

he got real racist and he was taught i've seen this video he was taunting the guy and the guy just stood there and took it and took it and took it until finally he was like yo how's this lemonade iced tea player let me know how that is all right luke your interview of the week happened at cage titans 57 a regional mma promotion here's aaron hughes letting you know what he's going to do with his winning money and where he's headed hey real quick real quick i came to throw bombs and bang moms and i'm all done throwing bombs so where where are the moms at? All the moms, keep it going, Barry. MILFs unite, Luke.

There's a new hunter on the scene here, Aaron Hughes. This truly is the sport of kings. What else can be said? It's time for this week's best fails, Luke. Let's bring a bicycle on the roof and find out what happens, you know? All right, young lady. I mean, this is... That was never going to go.

Just leave her in the dirt. Just leave her. The earth will take her now. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Only the strong survive luke and yeah you saw what happened there hey you ever do yard work with a wheelbarrow they're hard to control luke yeah i don't recommend this yep oh what the fuck

all right uh how do you not realize you have to press it above your head and then march overhead? We have video of Luke on the sidewalk after he drank three margaritas at our live show in Vegas. Here's what we got. This is somewhere in England, right? Hopefully that'll be you after our London show, Luke, at King's Place, King's Court there.

I'm going to have a few pints for sure. Do you remember when our team was like, you're not going to be drinking during the show, just so you know, Luke? Yeah, no, I know, I know, I know. They were like, Luke, we're not repeating Vegas. I'm feeling these seltzer waters. Let's go to the gym. You always find good fails there, Luke, we're not repeating Vegas. I'm feeling these seltzer waters. Let's go to the gym.

You always find good fails there, Luke. Especially when it's. Yeah, here we go. Oh, this is a competition. Okay. That all looked pretty good. Good snatch, right? That was a good clean.

Oh, shit. Yeah. Everything else looked okay and then he's gonna pop his head back right to ah you know what happened okay blow it up one more time blow it up one more time okay so here he is he's gonna bump get under it everything looks pretty good let's see he's wearing a glove on his right hand oh that's probably a couple things if you rest the bar there too long and it's not properly sitting on your clavicles it can actually choke you like a rear naked choke a little bit and then he kind of leans backward and it just takes a tap or nap

bitch uh let's go to a white guy on a on a pier this guy got a pure balls for trying that this asshole get off the bike moron all right hey genius alert luke check out this invention they call it the bicycle chair your thoughts oh jesus christ what's this fucking idiot about to do i mean only a person with this haircut i mean it's pretty pretty inventive right yeah if you're a moron who looks like he cuts his hair after he loses a bet uh sure yeah that guy's got party and business mixed together all over that head luke all right dude that dude has never pleased a woman in his life just never happened hey luke it's clear that this next never pleased a woman in his life just never happened

hey luke it's clear that this next kid has a he's got a stick up his ass you know what i'm saying and his name is plunk he could have used the bicycle chair to be fair luke right this kid is too comfortable for this i don't i don't love this hey look let's play a new game it's called hot or not i'm going to show you a questionable video involving female activity all you have to tell me is hot or not okay are you aroused here we go let's go to the great state of maryland for some for some drunken time i've seen seen this. Yeah, that's hot. Okay. She's an animal.

Yep, the reactions are priceless, Luke. Yep, there it is. Yeah, that's two thumbs up from this guy. Okay, hot or not, it's lunchtime. Let's get some wings, Luke. You wouldn't happen to have her number, would you? you why do you have to bury a body or what you gotta bury something all right hey it's it's uh it's it's bbl time on the hot or not game luke oh god oh god oh okay i mean you just saw this one coming

uh the next entry so that not hot not hot is your answer or what yeah that's a zero for me okay what about this next lady uh she's a performer in a sport called mouth gymnastics once again i don't know if you'd have her contact info but uh if you did imagine if we hired her for the live show in london where she just did this the whole the whole 90 minutes yeah yeah i'd be i'd be willing to uh and plus you could just fold her into your luggage there you go uh you don't have to pay on southwest for her yeah Yeah, it's great. Luke, let's take the same topic over to the inventive smoking machines. They call this a banana bong. Hot or not, Luke?

Stupid, but fine. Okay. You're like, not my type, but hot if you like that stuff. Yeah. And finally, let's go to the wrestling match. Here's some female amateur wrestling involving an oil change. Luke, hot or not? I mean, she's just gripping the tailbone.

Looks more like the taint bone where I come from, Luke, but there we go. I'm not as into that one as you okay all right all right hey let's get back into fails poor lani right let's check this out are you all right yeah Are you alright Lonnie? Yeah No Lonnie's not Terry reverse please Lonnie is not alright Lonnie's not doing great Alright hey it's virtual reality time

Let's check out this poor guy Come on ma'am You can't really go back in the elevator Oh wait Never stand next to someone. That was worse than Derek Minner versus that other guy, Luke, right? Wow. Okay.

Unfortunately, big week for spousal abuse in MMA, Luke. You know, unfortunately. I think every week is a big week for spousal abuse at mma oh jesus is that a is that a scissors kick what do you call that a question mark kick dude that's just dopey white guy looking like a fucking dumbass that's assault brother uh you ever wonder if beekeepers get stung a lot? No. Maybe not because they're professional. Oh, Lord. I'm having flashbacks.

Fucking man on a ladder. Oh, fuck. Dude, of all the ways that could have gone, that went the best. That's bad. Hey, look, come on. Do you know I'm deathly allergic to bee stings? I did not know that. I mean, I probably still should. For most of my life, I had to carry around a little kit that has like an epinephrine pen in it to get jammed with if I get stung.

So I may have to stab you in the heart with a pen if you get stung by a bee when we're working together? I think you can do it just in the thigh, but yes. Damn. Hey, I don't know if you saw this video. Josh Emmett, who will be fighting for the UFC interim featherweight title against Yair Rodriguez coming up. He posted a music video highlighting him working out and preparing, and look at the shirt he chose, brother. Wow. Old MK.

M to the K. All freaking day. He's got a big old scruffy beard now. Oh, yeah. That means he's been putting in that work, Luke. Yeah, it does. All or nothing. 25 minutes to make it all, what do you say?

Make life fair. Yeah, make life fair. Here we go. That's it. That's it, Josh Emmett. Love you. Thanks for wearing that, bro. I mean, we had Raffaele Stotts in the jacket.

We had Christian Deguero put us on his balls, Luke. We're making moves in this space, right? That's what we do. All right. No shame alert. Check out this guitar solo not quite hicks and grayskies ask there with the stomach control okay hey it may be early in 2023 but here are my nominees for fight of the year so far

the original shui oh they got the chanclas out but here are my nominees for fight of the year so far. The original Shuey. Oh, they got the chanclas out. Is this how they settle a beef in their culture, Luke? I guess. It's like a hockey fight with sandals. Oh, yeah. Look at this.

Elder abuse squared. How does this one end? All right, he's got sleeve and then collar control. Oh, Herb Dean's going to stand him up. Look at this. All right. What's he fighting about? Hopefully a woman, Luke.

All right. Let's go to the bikes here. Oh, geez. You punched that guy with a helmet and he's he's losing he's lighting him up too damn god punch punch through the target luke look at that i'm like you got the helmet on fucking do something yeah headbutt the guy do something with it uh let's go to a concert no this ain't uh this ain't uh what do they call that band that you like? Eating my arteries. What do you call it? Oh, Cannibal Corpse.

This ain't Cannibal Corpse, Luke. Oh, whoa, whoa. What are we doing here? My bad. I skipped one ahead. Look at this sidewalk slam in the street fight, Luke. Great fight. Yeah, he catches the kick, although he eats it a little bit,

and then just whips him up on his back, kind of like a weird fireman's carry, and then just slams him into the cement let the boys be boys on that one all right this next one not cannibal corpse but it did produce a great fight ending moment here is this capoeira legend um chef cass i'm not sure no you know it's not chef cass because metal things on his arms that's true that is very true right there oh wow okay well that's a pretty good kick that's not bad and he helped him up afterwards that's very polite damn and finally luke there's spent some great golf course brawls

this might be the best one i've ever seen is it john daly versus water oh here we go oh shit stripped him stripped him oh no shit he got the flag we're just whacking these hoes trying to get a hole in one yeah and you know they're fighting over something fucking insanely stupid yes like who's got the last core's light or something you know looks like john fury right big john yeah i guess he'll hook your eye out luke you gotta be careful okay so it's been a rough month for bbls in this part at least luke you ever seen a bbl on a skateboard oh i keep skipping man i am sorry my bad on this yeah this is going great that's drunken skeeball your thoughts uh pretty cool actually that he was able to do that i have to say although his o face i could do without all right let's go to the bb it's bbl time luke

they've had a rough turn a few times here i mean bbls we got to protect them we got to get them off the skateboard okay i mean what the fuck is this you know and uh sometimes you ask santa for what you really want and sometimes it doesn't come through let's see this next guy's fate guys i can't believe it it's christmas eve and there is no gift here that is shaped like a big, boardy Latino. This is an El Christmas. Is this it?

No. Latino? El Christmas. Look, did you have an El Christmas like that guy? No, I married one, so every day is felice navidad around these parts looks like not only did i study abroad i married her yeah wow yeah very easy for me okay all right hey fighters in the wild luke mma fighters in the wild did you see israel adesanya break out the crip walk on stage at a exhibit concert i did see this but i didn't quite see a break out the crip walk on stage at a exhibit concert. I did

see this, but I didn't quite see a full-on crip walk, like a heel-toe of it. There's a little bit. That's not quite right. I haven't seen exhibits since he was in the 50 Cent video, right? Find him in the club? Yeah, I haven't quite seen the crip walk yet. Oh, there's a little bit.

There's a little bit, yeah. Is he wild now right living he's living that life new zealand was exhibit in new zealand i don't have confirmation on that dude i gotta tell you like it doesn't look like he's taking the loss too hard huh although what is that hanging out look at exhibit on top he's so fat now that is true like like trick daddy when we saw him in miami luke trick daddy was the fattest man i'd ever seen it's gonna be very real about that what is hanging out of izzy's mouth is that a straw or a uh probably a blunt okay okay all right uh he was there luke of the exhibit but in

brazil poeton alex pareda showed up to an indigenous tribe in full gear luke to to bring the belt around to the to the brazilian locals and um this guy looks scarier than he ever has luke look at that wow that is some that's some serious shit right there i don't know what it all means but i know it means enough to know you got to take this motherfucker very seriously indeed i always love this moment by the way when when fighters of other countries when when the ufc title they go show up at the airport or they go back to their people and they have a a big welcome uh this happened for edson barbosa who went back to his brazilian hometown to show off a mural they put together for him kind of looks like hen and brow right yeah i wouldn't

say it exactly looks just like him but you're getting mr he boss tattoo vibes or no it looks like waleed ishmael a little bit and then is that him there yeah i guess yeah sort of. Okay, okay. We got two more for you here, Luke. File photo time. I saw this come across my timeline. This is Tiger Woods in 1997 at a Hooters restaurant, moments after winning his first Masters. Look how happy he is, Luke.

He went to work on these three, believe that. Oh, come on, come on. More than a mouthful, Luke, I believe is their slogan um i don't know if he was wearing pants in this picture but a very happy young tiger um getting thick in there right you know what i'm saying was all right was in the brush and finally your celebration of the week comes from the new york football giants luke we should celebrate the end of each successful episode this way. What are your thoughts? We should end the live show that way.

We should build a human tunnel on stage and have Appy be the dong that just runs through it. What do you think? We're not doing that. You love the weirdos. I mean, you just can't get enough of... BCC stray cats in the alley is like, let's leave them all milk. And I'm like, you shouldn't do that.

That's the shit for the week. Hope you enjoyed it. But Luke, I get maybe your reticence on good old Appleton himself, a comedic genius, but he has to take risks to get there. Is there anybody you're excited to meeting? Are we going to do a meet and greet, a line i mean are you excited to meet all these rabid

uk plus hardcores of the mk brand who are coming out for us i certainly am and if they want to come join us they can we'll put the qr code up on the screen right now you can go to pod dash live dot com to come see us yes i'm happy to meet any of them give them all covid because i'm sure they'll give me covid we can just have a go big day about it and uh but in all seriousness i will meet anyone who wants to meet i we will do some kind of uh you know meet and greet-ish type thing i don't want to call it anything without talking to the producers first but we'll do something to engage with the fans besides just the show itself i'm sure so all right so if you're making that trek we'll be looking to at least wave to you from distance no we'll maybe even touch you i mean i won't i won't offer up that stuff i won't offer up the

harvesting of my organs but i'm i'll at least put myself in a position where i'm where i have to wonder what their intention is right you will always will always do that. So that would be not new. That would be the continuous thing that you do. Okay. I'm looking for all my Welshian men unite because your adopted brother is here, okay? Simru. All right, so I want to remind folks, Showtime.com, 30-day free trial.

If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce, plus $3.99 a month for the first six months. Thereafter, you can go to the website, morningcombat.store, to get some merch. By the way, if you come out to the website morningcombat.store to get some merch by the way if you come out to king's place on in london and you've got merch wear it definitely be that guy show up definitely wear it no problem um that would be a cool thing we'd love to see that if you can so just sort of a bit there as well and morningcombat at gmail.com for wednesdays fan

subs friday's dead wrong plus as the week goes on, we'll preview these upcoming UFC and One cards as well. BC, any final thoughts before we get out of here? Thank you to our viewers. Thank you for everybody who sent in the really nice comments on our coverage of different big-time topics last week. No need to relitigate those, but

those who know, they know, and we appreciate y'all. Thank you so much. It's not easy, Luke. It's why I don't hold necessarily against people who work for different certain companies and can't make big stinks out of things because maybe they have to protect their own job. I'm more mad at the companies in those ways. But a weird time right now in the overall news cycle, and I thought we got it right, Luke, so I'm happy.

We did our best. I can say I'm happy we did our best I can say that we certainly did our best so we appreciate everyone who watched the live stream or any of last week's shows anything anything we did we appreciate it and yeah we're back on Wednesday so for Brian Campbell for CBS Sports for Malka for Showtime all the great crew that was on the

ground there as well as everyone behind the scenes doing all the great work we appreciate you back on Wednesday and until then may all of your gains be loyal