MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Haney Defeats Lomachenko | Francis Ngannou vs. Dana White | UFC Vegas 73 | Ep. 444

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

On episode 444 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian react to the weekend of fights. First up the guys recap Devin Haney's win over Vasiliy Lomachenko. How did our guys score the fight? Next up the guys discuss the back and forth between Dana White and Francis Ngannou. Did we learn anything new? The guys close out the main topics by breaking down UFC Vegas 73. As always we close out Monday with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (8:30) - Devin Haney vs. Vasiliy Lomachenko (51:30) - Dana White vs. Francis Ngannou (66:20) - Mackenzie Dern (78:00) - Anthony Hernandez (88:30) - Rest of UFC Vegas 73 (92:30) - Dm's from Donks 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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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. Oh, it's another Monday. That means people are pissed off in combat sports. Hey, wouldn't you know it? We are too. Hi, everyone. It's the 22nd of May of 2023, and it's time for Morning Combat. Somehow the best and yet the dumbest podcast involved in combat sports that you know of. Hi, everyone. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas. I join you from the capital of Estados Unidos, as I customarily do,

joined by my friend, the king of Connecticut, the CTE of the something something. Hi, Brian Campbell. How are you? Luke, I think we learned a valuable lesson in the R. Kelly trial that sometimes it's actually not better to get pissed off than pissed on.

Thanks, BC. I don't know if we needed the R. Kelly trial to get pissed off than pissed on. Thanks, BC. I don't know if we needed the R. Kelly trial to know that getting urinated on was not an ideal way to go through life, but that's certainly a joke you can shoehorn into the intro. So glad you're here. Wow, wow. Sorry, Dad. Should I check up on your property while I'm here? Hey, listen, I'll turn this car around, mister.

All right, we got a lot to get to today. So Devin Haney and Vasily Lomachenko had an incredible contest in Las Vegas, and everyone is mad about it. We will talk about it. Dude, every MMA fan that we ever convinced to watch boxing is now sending me angry DMs looking for a life refund. All right?

No, the reality is the problem is we haven't properly explained how to be a boxing fan, which I think is part of the deal. They don't really get that part yet. So this feels like something that has to drive them away when in fact it just has to suck you deeper. Okay, we'll talk about that. Hello, Francis Nganou and Dana White

kind of sparred in the media, one at a press conference one on social media we'll talk about the implications of that plus hey we have the results from UFC Vegas 73 and my wedding ring is gone I don't know what happened to it uh so that's kind of weird that's a message they've sent you a message Luke they fixed the glitch okay yeah that's a little weird I actually just noticed I was missing I just literally in this second noticed my wedding ring is gone, and I don't know where the hell it is. So I'm probably headed for divorce.

The only good news about the eventual demise of both of our official relationships is we can move in together in Jersey City and do the MK Life documentary idea I had. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to be washed dads, but to be divorced washed dads in our 40s, that really would put us over the top. Living together with with jake von amsterdam and a camera that'd be great material right there a lot of a lot of frozen food in that refrigerator let's just put it that way uh okay so that's that want to remind everyone thumbs up on youtube of course leave us a nice review on your favorite uh audio platform

if that's where you consume the show on top of it of course morningcombat.store for the merch you can go to showtime.com get a 30-day free trial if you like it you can keep it if not you can bounce and of course you are always able to reach the show at morningcombat at gmail.com is the official uh email for the show bc i want to remind everyone we have a new sponsor for today's show fitbod summer season is uh just around the corner and of course fit bod is an app you can use to get in shape for the summer months one of the new year's resolutions of course we both had is that we're trying to get in shape for great purpose blah blah blah you get the idea of their uh bc as as it gets deleted right in front of me um fit bod what a great app huh oh i didn't realize i was working in the uh main thing here we go luke it's back There it is. Thank you for deleting that as I was reading it.

That was extremely helpful. Yeah. Well, Luke, here's the deal. People are always like, hey, BC, I always see you rocking out with that AG1, trying to get a cheat sheet on your health and nutrition. How about a cheat sheet on my bod physicality as a wash dad? Well, how about this? You know what I love?

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out in a weight room or your living room or the basement like me fit bod has you covered learn new movements the right way with over 1400 demonstration videos you don't even need gervais or ferris luke you don't you don't so here's you can do. There's no better time to level up your fitness habit. Try FitBod today. Get 25% off a subscription or try the app free at FitBod.me slash combat. That's combat with a K. That's F-I-T-B-O-D dot M-E slash combat. Combat with a K. And Luke, one final note.

A full year of FitBod, you know how much it costs? Less than a single session with a kid. And Luke, one final note, a full year of FitBud, you know how much it costs? Less than a single session with a personal trainer. So take that for cost maximization effectiveness. You know what I'm saying? The most important thing you can get, if you've got the reason to do it, you've got the reason why, and you've got the energy,

good programming is what will take you to the next level. Before you start this award-winning show, have you watched McGregor Forever yet beyond our multiple appearances? Not even a second. Will you watch it for... Give me the quick review. Well, will you watch it for a full MK review or no? So here's what I was going to say.

Under that condition, if you want to watch McGregor Forever and then we independently watch it and then we review it together, I would watch it for that circumstance. But as a personal entertainment device, I have zero interest. Well, it's just a little bit of a slow combat sports week beyond today's reaction to finding out what it's like to be

on the business end of a Cleveland Steamer, which is what it's like to be a boxing fan, Luke. So, you know, maybe if we've got some time to kill this week, we can break down the most dynamic combat sports athlete of all time. If you're watching right now, leave us a comment below. Do you want to see us review the new McGregor doc? Do you want to see that for later in the week? That's something we can produce.

If you have interest, you can also, of course, always email the show there as well. Let us know what you think. With that in mind, let's get to topic number one, BC. We start with the biggest fight of the weekend, which is usually UFC, but not in this case. This time, it's for all of the marbles at 135 pounds, the undisputed four-belt championship, and Devin Haney is your guy. He defeats Vasily Lomachenko, BC, in what can only be described as what? Highly technical, very spirited, with ebbs and flows, back and forth. I really did feel like in terms of the fight itself, you got your money's worth. But there is an absolute avalanche of controversy

due to the scoring. It's raging on social media, among other places. So BC, let's start the conversation here. Who is the rightful winner of this main event? Was the fight close enough for your boy BC to say, whoever you had it for, that's who probably won it, meaning it's a fight so close with so many even rounds that

depending on what you're looking for, depending on what stood out to you in so many rounds in which both guys had success that it could go either way. To some degree that's true, but I'm not going to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the avalanche of comments that's saying look BC, this is why I don't watch your sport sport because they break my heart. I saw one guy won and he

didn't get his hand raised. Is it that easy in this case, Luke? It's somewhere in the middle, right between. Meaning, look, this is not the droids you're looking for. If you want to cry about boxing being dead and you want to link this decision by the three judges ringside to what tony weeks did to roly romero and beroso a week before i mean i get it here's the thing though in boxing sometimes there's some loose shit flowing around in the pool right and you got to swim around that this is not that time i do not believe this was corruption or necessarily ineptitude is it somewhere in the middle? Yeah, it might be firmly in the middle.

Meaning, Lomachenko won the story of the fight. If you're judging it as a whole, who had the better fight? It was a close first half. The second half, I felt like Loma clearly had the edge. That could be how you do it. But it is a math problem. People hate when I say that, Luke. But what I mean by that is if there's no knockdowns and no points deducted, it's a math problem people hate when i say that luke but what i mean by that is if there's

no knockdowns and no points deducted it's a race to seven rounds who can win seven out of twelve to win the fight i thought loma had done enough a lot of us did too but watch it a second time and take note that this isn't three rogue judges who protected the younger fighter who's got a brighter long-term upside. Brent Brookhouse of CBS Sports had a 115-113 Loma. Bad Left Hook had it even. Whoever was doing the ESPN blog had Haney by one round. Boxing Scene had it even.

Yahoo had it 8-4 Loma. The scores are all over the place here. Because why? Because it was a great and close fight. It just happened that Lomas rounds, he won wider. It just happened that Haney almost completely fell apart, but put it back together in the 12th. So your eyes and your emotions tell you, man, that 35 year old deserved it. You know what? He might've actually deserved it. I'm not saying the judges didn't get it wrong, but they didn't get it egregiously wrong. And there's no corruption here so Luke I'm gonna

back boxing because this is who I am and I've gotten here and basically at the end of the day for all the people saying stop with your fucking math equation stop with your anything just call it what it is a robbery I see a lot of things in boxing that look like a robbery this just ain't it this is a great fight between two fighters that are great and the three judges favored Haney's bigger punching in the first half of the fight. Do we have a problem with Dave Moretti's 10th round? Yes, we do. Upon further review.

Outside of that, Luke, I'd love to know how you scored it and whether you believe that the natural knee jerk reaction from casual fans and from, let's say, jaded former fans. In this case, this might not be the fight you want to pick it outside on the street corner with. This is a great fight. The three who sit in ringside just thought the other guy won it. Okay, so we'll talk about Dave Moretti in just a second, because that is a really, really bad scorecard.

But let me just ask a couple of follow-ups, if I can, before I sort of weigh in here. First, under the Max Kellerman test, which is who would you rather be when the fight is over, BC, who wins the Max Kellerman test which is who would you rather be when the fight is over bc who wins the max kellerman test yeah sometimes the who would you rather be does equal it does align with the other max kellerman thing he's thrown into our lexicon which is who won the story of the fight both go to lomachenko why because again close fight through about two-thirds of the way i had haney up four two at the midpoint and you saw the aging fighter who was getting beat to the body early actually be the guy who was coming on late. Look, I'm here to tell you first and foremost, the guy who won the night is Lomachenko.

At 35, we're talking about his age, yet in the second half of the fight, he made adjustments and was walking down the bigger, younger fighter and hurting him and snapping his head back. But that doesn't always mean that he won more rounds based on the three people that matter most. And we cannot act like judging a fight from one foot away is the exact same from watching it on TV when you're seeing, how did you have it? Max Kellerman, how did you have it?

Tim Bradley, how did you have it? In a broadcast that I think was definitely focusing more on that story, on what Loma did in the second half. Well, how did the rest have it scored a broadcast that I think was definitely focusing more on that story on what Loma did in the second half well how did the rest have it scored throughout the 12 are we gonna act like there wasn't you know six to eight flip-flop rounds literally rounds that could have gone either way and the punch stats actually back that up well here's what I would say if the task is could I find seven rounds for Devin Haney? Cause there's no knockdown. There's no 10, eight round. So they're all 10, nine rounds, right?

Could I find seven, 10, nine rounds for Haney? I think I could. I think I could. I don't think that's, that's impossible, but I think for people who are going to make the argument that they have seven rounds, they need to identify which seven. That's sort of the issue for me. It's like, I would like to see them identify because here's the thing about Moretti scorecard. We see 10th round up and up.

And I would say the 11th round was maybe even better for Lomachenko, but 10 rounds, 10 and 11 words, two best rounds. Right. And up to round 10, round 10 was like through 10 rounds. That was the 10th was by far Lomachenko's best dude if

Dave Moretti is getting that wrong you begin to wonder where else his judgment has fallen apart like in cases where it was close but maybe Lomachenko deserved the nod did he not get it or vice versa in other cases Moretti's been I want folks to understand something Dave Moretti has been officiating since before I was born. Look at me. That is how long that man has been in that chair. I am very, very skeptical that if you're in your mid to late 70s, you've been doing this for four decades,

your ability to physically actually receive the world and make quick and important judgments about it, I do think that he cannot do that very well anymore. It's not merely round 10. It's what round 10, being so egregiously wrong, says about the rest of his capacity to even do the job. I think under a lot of tests, the eye test, the smell test, the Max Kellerman test, Lomachenko came out ahead in this contest.

But BC, there's a couple of things that really kind of make it hard for me to get full of righteous indignation. Number one, he admitted Lomachenko later he took round 12 off. Cataclysmic mistake. Cataclysmic mistake. And even if he's not telling the truth, he's trying to cover because he was fading or whatever, because folks forget he took like the last 20 seconds of round five off as well,

just kind of posing. He didn't really want to work. Andre Ward called him out on it immediately. He was looking for rest spots in this fight. That hurt him, BC, big time in the end. Did it not? It did. So if he, look, I actually scored the 12th for Lomachenko,

and some people are killing that for me. I would like to rewatch that and investigate that. If I had scored the 12th for Haney, and and some people are killing that for me. I would like to rewatch that and investigate that. If I had scored the 12th for Haney and I recognized that Haney had a monster comeback round from where he was in 10 and 11, I just thought that Lomachenko's work across the 12th was more consistent. But let's say I score that for Haney, which all three judges did. Well, I could have had that 7-5 for Loma suddenly. So my score is a lot closer. And if Loma wins that round on all three judges' scorecards and comes out and is more aggressive,

just to let you know the punch stats, Loma outlanded Haney 13-11 in that final round. That doesn't necessarily mean you win it, obviously, right? Because that's just a jab is not equal to a big body shot or a big power shot. But, Luke, if he wins that round, doesn't it then a majority draw at that point yeah it would it would change the scoring it would at least put it automatic rematch scenario or run this one back which I don't know if that favors Lomachenko either I kind of feel like

this was it like the reason he was I mean here's the other part to me BC like if you're a Lomachenko fan you feel very you know um indignant about the results his better rounds like what's the haney equivalent of round 11 right it doesn't really exist like maybe one of the first like three four round six even then his best round where he hurt loma to the body he outlanded him 12 to 7 and i feel like Loma was slowing down because of that. Okay, Lomachenko outlanded Haney 20-2 in round 11. 20-2 in jabs, 8-1, and in power punches, 12-1. Dude, he beat the fuck out of David Haney. He worked him over. So let me tell you this.

There is no Haney round like that. Here's what's interesting, and I think it's going to better illustrate how close this fight actually was. So can I back Moretti in round 10? No. And I think on the instant reaction that I filed late Saturday, I classified Moretti as a solid, consistent name and fans pointed out recent missteps that challenged that. And you know what? You're probably right. He did score at a 10, 10 round when, when Ryan Garcia got dropped by tank and in the second round of their fight, even though Garcia had success early.

I don't think it was overwhelming dominant success where that shouldn't have been a 10-8 round for Tank or even a 10-9 if you felt like Ryan's first half was strong enough. So if the argument is that, hey, Vegas, you're using these old guys and using the same ones every time and, you know, we got to work in a fresh bunch. Yeah. I'll take you on that argument, but Luke, I scored the entire second half for Loma Chanko,

the final six rounds. I'm not saying everyone else should. In fact, there were two to three in the final six that I really felt at the moment that the round ended, that depending on what you're looking for, they could have gone either way. Round 10,

you can't really defend Loma outlanding them 11 to five. Haney did have some moments late to the body, but you can't really defend. Loma outlanded him 11-5. Haney did have some moments late to the body, but you can't defend it. Two of the three judges got it right that Loma won. Obviously, round 11 is Loma's widest round, and I do think that plays into the romanticism when you're heading to the finish and you're saying, I'm watching a guy peaking over the second half

and he just had the most dominant round anybody had in round 11. But I do want to examine parts of round 6 through 12 from a scoring standpoint. Even though I scored all 6 for Loma, it wasn't just, you know, not thinking and writing his name down. Each one I slightly favored him. But if you do look at the punch stats, Haney did outland Lomachenko in round 6. In 7, Loma only landed 2 more punches. In round 8, their output was equal. In round 9, H only landed two more punches in round eight their output was equal in round

nine Haney landed four more punches and then Loma clearly won 10 and 11 and 12 is another toss-up round so considering I already scored the first half four to do four to two for Haney if you had Haney in the lead at the mid-break and you felt like rounds seven, eight, and nine could have in the end gone his way when you're judging Lomachenko's quick flurrying output with Haney's harder shots. Because let's be fair, it wasn't until 10 and 11 that Loma was really walking down Haney, snapping his head back and demonstratively landing the bigger power shots. Before that, there's arguments for both sides. So did it feel like three judges went out of their way to give the benefit of the doubt to one man? Certainly the guy who scored it 116, 112, eight rounds to four for Haney. A lot of us are seeing that and

going, wow, I just can't get behind that. Look, I don't know if you saw Al Bernstein tweeted, who's not even part of this broadcast or any connection to these fighters. He works for Showtime. He watched the fight with the sound down, and he had it a draw, and he felt like 7-5 Haney was still a good scorecard if that's how you went, but like me, he couldn't get on board to 8-4 for Haney, and I get that, but again, if you just switch one round here,

one round here, how are you not understanding that it very easily could have been 7-5 Haney? I think the second half of the fight needs more examination on some of these little rounds and how close they were. And Luke, could you tell the people how you scored it, since I don't know if you've shared that yet,

and if you have it there, exactly how your round breakdown went? I have scored it multiple different ways under multiple different watchings. Here's the conclusion I come to. I am not super upset about Devin Haney winning. I do feel like Lomachenko has a better argument for it, but I recognize your argument that like, guys, they're just not far apart enough to be filled with righteous indignation.

Again, especially with Lomachenko admitting he took round 12 off. Like that was just such a bad decision. Really, really cost him in the end so i i i am sort of i but here's where i come down to bc this is basically just it like you know when you make it the argument it's a math problem it kind of dissolves what people get really upset about because you're like look there's a mechanism and there's a process we have to follow to

to basically add up these scores in a way that takes some of the feeling of what you have out of this equation but i just i mean i just want to point out something dave moretti is like everyone's beating him up and like he is a symptom of a larger problem and i really want folks to to more closely focus on that we're living in a world where the folks in charge of decision making and officiating they're forcing onto us, not in totality, but in a lot of ways, this kind of like gerontocracy, right? They're forcing onto us people who are, the notion is that their tenure provides greater wisdom. And I really, really, really, really don't think that is true. I think there is a window. I think folks need to think more about

judging and reffing like they do athletes. There's actually a prime and then you can get out of it, at which point your judgment becomes a little bit suspect. We are in a world where so much of this process is far outside the officiant's prime, which gets to this position where, listen, can you make an argument for Devin Haney? Yes, quite obviously you can. You can find seven rounds for him. That's not that difficult. But we keep ending up with what feels like suboptimal results, suboptimal outcomes that don't really express the nuance. It would just be nice if in boxing we had more decisions that expressed the nuance in a way that corresponded with what you were watching on the screen and it always feels like they're divorced at the worst times right but this is also an mma

problem it's the 10 point yes it would be different if we did this by pride rules and to be honest people that are scoring at home with a beer in their hand you know you're not watching it always subjectively on point by point round by round You're watching the romanticism of the older guy making the surge in the second half. But the reason why I stress the math problem that gets people so pissed off is you have to remove the emotion. Unless it's a 10-8 round, unless it's a dominant, obvious 10-8 round, or there's a knockdown. 10-9 Lomachenko in which he outlanded Haney 20-2. I'm sorry, it gets the same points on the scorecard as Haney barely edging Loma in an earlier round in which maybe he landed less overall punches, but he landed more harder shots. That's the 10-point must scoring system.

The judges are literally taught that every round is its own fight. Do not carry over the momentum from the round before the storylines. Luke, I talked to a lot of judges. I happen to be close to a few of them and they, they purposely stay out of like the themes leading up to the fight. They don't do media to talk about who they think could win or should win. They're not focused on the interviews of each fight. They're only focused on what happens in those three minutes. And they're also focused on the letter of the law. They're also watching from one foot away without the internet, without instant replay, and they have to make an instant decision. If anything, the arguments here should be more toward the scoring

structure and the system in this case than particularly this fight and why we, because look, when you look at the punch stats, which again could tell the story, Loma landed 14 more punches overall, 9 more jabs overall, and 5 more power punches overall. But he also had a round 11 and 12 statistically in which he absolutely dominated. So when you bring those more back down to earth, Haney still connected on 41% of his power shots. You know that old boxing adage, if you land at least 40% of your power shots, you probably should have won that fight. There's obviously exceptions. Judges do look at that.

They do look at which fighters walking down the other more landing the bigger shots. If from one or two feet away, they favored more of Haney in the earlier mid rounds before Loma came on. I'm sorry. That's the scoring system. That's, and it's the same thing in MMA. It's just the rounds are longer and there's less of them. I get it where one guy looks like he won more and it should be that unless we're going to change the pride rules in boxing,

you got to win seven rounds to fight, you know, clean, clear, and defiantly the punch stats. Don't tell you that this was clean and clear and neither do the media scores across the board. It's a great fight. Look, I saw people who had a four nothing loma and i saw people who had four nothing haney off the start that's what happens when you have a great fight no doubt about it um i i just i you know it's interesting point like unless we're going to judge um boxing by pride rules you know this is what we've got. I'm not going to show up to commission meetings and lobby for a rule change. So the most that I am doing is just airing a viewpoint on YouTube on May 22nd of 2023.

And I'm not really advocating for any kind of major change. But I just feel like, and I think a lot of fans have a sneaking suspicion about this too. This is much more of a pronounced conversation in MMA. We should be glad that we actually have these conversations in MMA because we actually do have now one coming to the United States, convincing Colorado to use an alternate scoring system. It's in its infancy, but that is a big coup that we now can judge MMA in two very different scoring systems. Boxing does not have that luxury. So here's what I mean to say. BC, the institutions and the worlds that are most ready for change,

that are most ready for disruption, I hate that word, but it really is true, and most ready for updates are the sclerotic ones. And dude, boxing is nothing if run as a sclerotic, slow-moving entity. What the hell does sclerotic ones and dude boxing is nothing if run by as a sclerotic slow moving the hell does sclerotic mean luke can we get back down to more monday morning words that we'd use at the water cooler yeah um unresponsive to change unresponsive to demand unresponsive to need it just lurches along and kind of gets old and just sort of limps to the finish line. And I'm talking not so much about the industry where we're getting some younger guys who are taking on new challenges. What I mean is the institutions that cradle and support and give it direction and, frankly, legal legitimacy.

These institutions are so old. They are so unresponsive. They are so desperately in need of a better way to do it. And I am just saying pie in the sky shit because no one is going to advocate for this. So to end the conversation about the scoring, BC, I accept that a scorecard for Devin Haney is legitimate. And at the end of the day, if you can say that, then it kind of takes away the criticism. On the other hand, BC, I, and I think many people just feel like whether it's who's staffing the seating jobs for the judges ringside or the way in which we do it, this just doesn't feel like we're getting this right. It doesn't feel like we're doing this the

right way. And that leaves a lingering bitter feeling in your mouth. And I understand that. Would you have, do you think that the the the outcry would have been less if it had been a split decision or majority with one card being even probably and of course folks don't understand well our audience i think understands this but a lot of casual fans don't like an individual judge bc as you are well aware cannot score a fight a split decision like they just put in a card and however the math turns out is however the math turns out. But in terms of how the public accepts it, I think they would also people been like, well, 116, 112 is bullshit. I don't agree with 116, 112 at all.

I do think that's fairly crazy, but I get I again, I can understand, given how things work, how you end up in a position like that. But the real question is, did the right guy win? Did the right guy win? And that was my point all along. The right guy could have not won, and it doesn't mean robbery. It may mean, as you said, larger issues with the scoring system or how we pick these judges. But I just want to close with this.

We all come in with a bias. Judges at the end of the day are told and taught not to have any bias. And like I said, I know judges who like purposely won't read preview stories. They don't want anything to influence them to like look out for this. If this fighter is doing this, that might mean they win. So they're supposed to be unbiased and just judge it. Sometimes they get it right. Sometimes they get it wrong. But they are like field goal kickers in the NFL. They're on an island with a

lot of pressure on them for that job, whether they're the right people or not. But let's make an MMA equivalent. Luke, I watched Jones Gustafson won. I remember that went to the scorecards. I'm like, man, finally somebody beat Jones. I never thought I'd see it. Gustafson deserves this, man. He won three to two. And then, you know, I think he lost a unanimous decision. It's like, all right, maybe they saw something different. Now, subsequently I rewatched that fight. I see it. But remember GSP versus Johnny Hendricks, the damage on GSP. I remember going to the scorecards going, man, somebody finally beat this version of GSP. Look at it. It's indisputable. He did it. Yeah, no, he didn't. It turns out.

Dillashaw versus Dom Cruz. There's been a million of these fights where you come in, but to act like you don't have a bias when you're sitting at home and firing on your Twitter, you may have not been paying fully attention because you're drinking or in the eighth row. You may have had money on one guy. You might be from one country and the other opponents from the opposite. And there's these natural biases that are in there those do matter whether you're fan judge or media member and you're tasking yourself with scoring very close rounds if a fighter has the success you expect them to coming

in a lot of times the way you expect that if you think Devin Haney's going to win a jab going to win a round by putting that jab out there and going big to the body, and then he does it, you're going to naturally probably give him the round, even though Lomachenko kept that close. Flip flop, same thing. So look, this is, this is not always the easiest job at the end of the day when things are so even. I'm here to tell you in this fight for the largest majority of this fight, things were very even.

I don't love Luke that we have to sit here and defend the system here, because the system fucking sucks. Let's be fair, okay? But I don't want grenades thrown at Haney, because, Luke, I got killed because, oh, BC, you scored it for Loma, so you must be all about this pro-Ukraine movement that's flooding our screens. Then I got equal DMs of people going, man, you scored it

against Haney, you just don't want to see a black man be on top. So, like, we all have biases coming in here. It's a great fight, close fight fight let's do it again and figure it out is that asking too much am I supporting a broken sport or did we just have a great contest and the people that most people thought won didn't so let's do it again well they might do it again and we'll talk about what's next for Loma but I'd rather ask about this as we move the conversation forward what did you learn about Devin Haney because I found myself BC feeling much better actually about his upside and I do mean that like dude he he had a strong performance he looked to be if not Loma's equal again depending on one's perspective certainly

a worthy adversary I very much got that sense um but I he made a leap without answering all the questions he still made a decent leap i thought yeah i think that's an interesting way to put it because i was going to say this bc we'll talk about the rankings to me shaker stevenson is the best in class at 135 yes and haney might be better than tank but do he gets hit a fair amount and you get hit like that against tank and problems start emerging very, very quickly. Yes. What did you learn about Devin Haney from this experience? Well, what I love about this experience and people that watch Haney is I've seen so many things.

I've seen people go, oh, man, now if Tank fights either of these guys, he's going to get handled. And I've seen people on the flip side go, oh, my God, Tank knocks out both of these guys, maybe Shakur, too. I think that's good that there's still some of that uncertainty and the things that can only be solved by these people fighting each other. But what I learned about Haney is, look, the biggest criticism against him largely outside of the chin minor issue he showed in the late rounds against Linares was he's not offensive enough. He may be perfectly well-rounded in a lot of ways, but he doesn't step his foot on the gas and go after it with power shots. I thought the first half of this fight on Saturday, we saw some very good leaps. I mean, look, that was the message I gave on Saturday night's post show, which people didn't

like of, I know you didn't love this decision, but don't let it cloud what we saw. Was Haney at 24 largely making a big leap and Loma at 35 just doing ridiculous things. But Haney's leap wasn't perfect, which is why ultimately you could have had it scored the other way. I had an 8-4 Loma and I acknowledge that he broke in that second half, Luke. The good news for Haney is he didn't break. And the good news is that it happened against one of the best of all time and one of the best in the world in this moment. So there's certainly some justification. I don't think he gassed out, but I do think, especially in rounds 10 and 11 when Loma just started to completely time him. I mean, Loma had already taken away

his jab, but once Loma really took away his power shots too, with the angles and the daring nature of which he got up inside on him and started to land on the inside, you know, Haney was mentally at a little bit of a crossroads. And this is, by the way, like when someone's so great and they're so young and they're beating a certain level of a crossroads. And this is, by the way, like when someone's so great

and they're so young and they're beating a certain level of competition so thoroughly, these are the questions that can only be answered on the biggest stage. I mean, this experience is so great for Devin Haney. Really win or lose, I'll argue, even though he ended up winning it because he got a chance to go in there and face another super elite. And we got to see more about both his strengths and his weaknesses. So Luke, ultimately, I liked that he was more offensive.

Look, his head movement, shoulder movement, fainting, faking. He was able to match Loma for a large part of this. I thought he made a leap in that regard too. Sometimes facing the best competition brings out a side of you that you're not always forced to show because it's usually out of necessity that you have to bring it out. I certainly didn't love that Haney faded in the end, but the fact that he recovered in round 12, it's almost similar but different to what Teo did.

Teo Fimolopes came out so hot against Loma, overwhelmed him, forced this inevitable change that happens for Loma like Floyd before him, where once they figure it out and make their move, they go after it. Tao was so good early that he forced a late adjustment out of Loma. But to prevent any major issue, to prevent losing that fight, we all remember Tao came out in round 12, sat down on his punches and established, no, let me close this strong. I'm the bigger man, the bigger puncher. Haney didn't fully do that, but he did it close enough to me, Luke,

that shows, okay, we watched him bend. We've seen him bend before. We watched him bend against a great one. But he did figure it out and closed the show and may have been the better man in that 12th round. Not perfect. Could you argue yourself points of why Shakur or Gervonta or anybody else could potentially beat him?

Sure. Don't overlook how great he is and how young and great he is. He's going to be a lot better because of this experience. You got to believe that, Luke. Yeah, there's no denying. I mean, I do. His body punching early was tremendous, tremendous work. He was doing early. I thought the game plan was good.

I also have to say, dude, the connection he has with his father in the corner his father gives him excellent tactical advice he is alert listening and for the most part implements it um in subsequent rounds i mean i just feel like they've got a good thing going can i pause you there please because bill haney father trainer manager of devon who i like a lot and thinks a very smart guy I did not love his second half voice in the corner and I and I did see a lot of Twitter saying man hey Bill Haney looked lost in there I'm not gonna go the extent of loss but I actually turned it down after round six so maybe after round six he was really bad but I get through round six I thought he was really good so after here's as much as we don't like that Lomachenko admits afterwards,

I took the 12th round off because I felt like I was ahead. And by the way, that gives me flashbacks, unfortunately, to Oscar De La Hoya against Felix Trinidad. Do I feel Oscar De La Hoya got screwed on the scorecards in that fight? Yes. Do I feel he also cannot complain about it because he purposely gave up the last few rounds and listened to his corner's advice?

Yes, right? about it because he purposely gave up the last few rounds and listened to his corners advice yes right in this regard luke as much as we want to villainize loma for that move bill haney told the son after round 11 the round that haney got dominated one-sided head snapped back three separate times it felt like he told them oh you're winning the fight you're doing great now it turns out he was right just so so we know, but that's not the advice for Bill. To me, in my opinion, you got to fire that ass up and say, look, you're going to lose this fight if you don't come out in the 12th and handle it and put it, you know, and close the show. I think there were a few moments in that second half, Luke, where we can look back and say, the Haney corner didn't necessarily look fully ready for prime time. And I get why that fuels the anger of people that thought Loma won and go look these

guys are clowns they almost they almost dropped the bag right they almost did Luke to be fair they almost did well they had a tough opponent I mean it's very very difficult to manage those kinds of things in the end okay so where does each go from here BC you talked about a potential rematch I suppose that might happen I doubt Haney wants to do it after having to

go back to back with Kambosis but one never knows what do you think? I think that we can't really talk about what's next until we find out what's next business-wise for Devin Haney. I mentioned on Friday's show that, look, if he wins here and this is the end of his three-fight top-ranked deal, and it is, he could be boxing's biggest free agent. Now, that tag might not stick because, again, there's a lot of people that thought Haney didn't finish the job and lost that fight. But Luke, he's still a monster free agent named 24 years old, the undisputed lightweight champion operating in from 135 to 140, this window of where all the great young fighters, you know, reside along with somebody like Lomachenko, the

old wizard on top of that. It really depends ultimately on who he goes with. Look, if he goes the way of a reunion with Matchroom Sport and Eddie Hearn, although recent comments from Hearn don't seem to lead me to believe that's the direction, but let's keep in mind, DAZN has two other promoters under house. Golden Boy, which I don't think would be the match for him, and Jake Paul, MVP Promotions. I only say that because there's been some there's been some comments from Devin Haney even in the build-up to this fight that said he's he's only he's

received an offer or talk from some point from Jake and MVP and it's something he's considering if he goes that route obviously you could be looking at Ryan Garcia you could be looking at Regis Progray who just signed with Matchroom and has a 140 title you could be looking at a few things if you're re-signed with top-ranked Luke in the ESPN, we're talking about two major fights, Shakur Stevenson, a rematch with Loma, or look, if you want to move up to 140, the winner of June's Josh Taylor versus Tao Fimo fight is massive. A lesser likely option, of course, is the PBC slash Showtime lane where you've got Tank Davis, Frank Martin, Roley, all these other guys. I don't actually know. I don't actually know at this point which side is more likely. But let's say for a minute that it is ESPN.

Is it more likely considering everyone's want, network, promoter, fighters, that we would see Haney defend those titles at 135 against Shakur or run back a pay-per-view with Loma that has storyline, which could fuel into the idea of it selling well. What do you think, Luke? I think he goes to 140 and tries to fight Garcia on his own. That's what I think. I think he looked a little drained.

He looked a little bit weathered, obviously, we saw in the second half. I mean, he has a game plan, right? Like, what was one of the things you noticed early? Tim Bradley pointed it out, where he was able to close the distance on Haney relatively easily now there were there was certainly early on not when I say he closed the distance really that doesn't mean he was able to make effective use of it uh through the first four or five rounds very effectively but over time he certainly did when he had Haney in the in the up against the ropes or in the corner he was doing tremendous

flurrying work and really had a great deal of success. And I think over time that played a role in how the fight was ultimately viewed. And I think that weight cut really hurts him. I think he's going to go to one 40 and try something out there. I really believe that. And then from there,

I think he might look to run it back with whoever is relevant, but I don't, I think this is one and done with Loma. I don't, I don't think he wants to do this one again. That's interesting. Cause I wonder if he would feel more – if it came down to – if he did re-sign with top rank

and it came down to do you want to do the Loma side or do you want to do the Shakur side, that's where we start having some questions here, Luke, about when you look at a Loma fight and go, okay, I did it once. I see where I can improve and make changes. Shakur is obviously the unknown wild card. You and I both agree with the growing sentiment across boxing that, especially with how offensive Shakur was in his last fight,

which was his debut at 135, that it doesn't matter who you put out there, maybe even tank and Shakur is going to get through that. He might be our, this generation's Floyd. I don't know. He might be Luke. He might be,

we shall see it's an important question one more boxing note if we hold on one more luke i did want to i didn't get enough from you about what loma did great and about how great of a performance was this this is a cheeky question but is this loss the biggest win of loma's career is this performance the best we've ever seen of the surefire first ballot hall of famer, given the circumstances. No, no, I don't necessarily feel that way. I think the way that I feel is that, you know, there's a video of him. I don't know if the producers have it. I didn't turn it in. So I, I don't mean to suggest that somebody should have, it was something that I just saw. I'm sure you saw it as well. Circulate on social media

of Lomachenko, like really crying in the locker room. And these were like, this was not just a tear falling down his face with his face sullen, sort of accepting that he had lost. There seemed to be something a little bit more there. And it seemed to me, BC, that I can only speculate, but it just felt to me like he was crying about, I had one go at this and I can't get it back. At 35, I bet that was a very difficult camp to get ready for a dude this skilled,

who is this young, and to produce that kind of a result. Granted, still taking the 12th off, taking other parts of rounds off, which I think speaks to his age. You're asking what he did well. Partly I feel like he marshaled all of his personal forces to make a win here possible. I think that's why it weighed so heavily on him when he lost because I don't think he left any stone unturned in that preparation.

Yes, here's the video. Just watch him cry. This is a deep cry, man. There's different kinds of cries. This is such a profound, saddening one when you really watch it. Like, look how hard it is hitting him. Like, this is getting to the soul of things. So, like, obviously his adjustments were pretty great. I thought his flurrying was pretty great.

I thought his corralling was pretty great. I thought his overall output was pretty great. I thought he had an opponent who was pivoting with him, but he was still able to get the better of the turns and the angles over time. In many ways, it was the most overall both technical and workman-like performance from Lomachenko. So it sounds like I'm actually agreeing with the premise of your question, but I did not necessarily get from it like vintage loma i got maximum loma in terms of like all the different forces and maybe for that reason bc you think it is special and i wouldn't really disagree with that i got

but in terms of like the highlight reel and what will be left there this was not really that this was not there's some reasons why i got shades of vintage loma executed through the the mindset and body of a 35 year old who like you said yeah was harnessing kind of like pouring out the jug of greatness and going one more time but like you can't discount what we saw haney's a massive lightweight who's probably going to end up at welterweight and 154 down the road and loma is a tiny 135 or who as we already know like probably would still be at 126 if that division during that whole run was red hot and there were more champions willing to fight him it does show you Luke that Loma like three losses in 20 fights already first bout

hall of famer in terms of the accomplishments but like what could this guy have even been down at his own weight if he had stayed there this whole time, look at what he did at one 35 at 35 years old against a 24 year old young stud in his first monster moment, he made the adjustments. He walked down the bigger man and acted like the bigger man after getting beaten to the body in the middle point of the, like everything about this to me from a moral victory, almost folk hero standpoint, that may be the best form of excellence that Loma's ever shared with us. And I do want to stop and give him that respect and those flowers because that was just brilliant on Saturday night.

But we'll see what happens with Haney. It's dependent upon a few things, Luke. But as a boxing fan, to close this for good here, Haney Lomachenko too, to me, if Devin resigns with top rank, if they're willing to put up money and make this a thing, I'm down. I know you hate rematches, but I'm down, Luke.

I'm down for that shiz. In the interest of moving the conversation along, BC, I'd love to get a reaction about the Katie Taylor losing a majority decision to Chantel Cameron over under zone it was for folks who know it was a homecoming for katie taylor the first time she's fought professionally in ireland a very very big deal for her as a 36 year old arguably and contender for best women's boxer ever and she did lose now she was going against as we indicated someone who was basically naturally much bigger than her and i have to say cameron had a excellent uh effort dude she was on against, as we indicated, someone who was basically naturally much bigger than her. And I have to say, Cameron had an excellent effort.

Dude, she was on top and pushing Taylor back from the word go. She never let off the gas. BC, it looked like to me, Taylor did have spirited moments, probably claimed a few rounds. I know that some folks had her to draw. I think that's a Homer scorecard. I don't really see a strong case for a draw. But nevertheless, the right person won the big difference to me bc was that even when taylor was landing it didn't really have much in effect of an effect on cameron she was

able to do whatever she wanted physically that was not true the other way around so the question is this did you finally see age catching up at 36 years old with katie taylor yes you did to some degree yes with the katie tay Taylor of you know four years ago three years ago have been have found a second gear to figure this out certainly it's quite possible but I want to give Chantel Cameron a respect because I didn't see that on the tape that effort and it's particularly her right hand that won the fight well one of the fight was she was the bigger puncher she ended up being more active and brought the fight to Taylor right off the start but Luke that right hand I mean she loops that and telegraphs that normally she was direct with it in this fight and I just think the totality early on of a bigger

fighter who's all over you and is landing clean I think that rattled Katie it may have hurt her may have buzzed her and got her off her game plan because in the rounds that mattered as Katie tried to rally her head was in the center line far more than normal. She was there to be hit. Her trainer, Ross Enamel, I think is that, that might be how you say his name, was all over her the whole time, swearing, trying to be like, look, stop brawling with her. Try to box from distance. But it's funny, Luke. Normally I say Katie Taylor benefits from the 10 round, two minute round setup that we have in women's boxing, which I don't agree with. In this fight, I think it actually held her back from winning it

or trying to rally more because Chantel Cameron was stingier and tougher and stood right there with her and just outworked her, and her punches had more meaning, and I think that's what made it look like Katie was having an off night, which she did. I thought the crowd would be able to rally her back, and that atmosphere was good, but the combination with age and sometimes, look, I didn't think I thought the crowd would be able to rally her back, and that atmosphere was good. But the combination with age and sometimes, look,

I didn't think moving up five pounds would matter to her. We've seen Serrano maniacally jump up and down in weight. Sometimes you do hit that wall. For Katie Taylor's style, with Cameron with a strong jab, right hand, and using that volume, she hit a wall, Luke. It's got to be at least partially age-induced it has to be at this point yeah I would agree I just felt like again I do think part of the story really has to be that Cameron was naturally quite bigger you could see that when they were locked up with one another

but she just felt like she was moving downhill the whole fight that's what it looked like to me she was just constantly moving forward on her, pressing her, as you indicated, getting off the better shots in general. Katie Taylor having flurries, having moments, having a respectable effort to be sure, just really not enough in the end to get the job done. Real quick, Luke, Coach Phil McKagan, our guy, I love texting this guy during fights.

He was saying, man, this looks a lot like Canelo Bivol. And I think you can make that comparison, but what about the Canelo Bivol comparison on the way out out I didn't realize Katie Taylor had a mandatory rematch clause and it took her one second on the post-fight interview to mention that hey I'll see you next time I don't really necessarily need or want to see this when we've been building toward the Serrano rematch where do you come in on this it does feel a little Canelo B-ball-ish in that regard yeah it does I don't think it did him any favors for that I mean there's still obviously I mean because

they had such a special first fight I think plenty of folks are willing to be like well we still want to see Katie Taylor and Amanda Sorondo box like it doesn't really hurt it in that way but it doesn't really help it I would not be interested in a rematch this was not again I know that some folks there was one draw was a majority decision I did see some scorecards

for a draw I That's Homer shit. It was 7-3. That's Homer shit. That's just not really a very fair, I think, and accurate scorecard. So to me, it's like, I think they should just move to that. You know, 36, you're wasting time otherwise. Just go in that direction and leave it be. I think it'll do fine.

They could put it back in Ireland. They could put it in New York or some other major market and do quite well with it. And I think most folks would be happy with that, to be honest. Sure. Yeah. All right. With that in mind, BC, let's talk a little bit about UFC. But before we get to what happened over the weekend, I do feel like this was really big

news. So I'd like to start with it here. Dana White and Francis Ngannou basically volleyed in the media related to Ngannou signing with the PFL over the weekend. And my question to you is, BC, what did you learn from this exchange? Well, first, let's do this. We've got Dana White talking about it. This came from the post-fight presser of UFC Vegas 73.

We got a few tweets from Francis Ngannou to respond to that. So let's air what Dana had to say. Let's talk about what Francis said and then react to it. Here's Dana. We also got to ask about francis going to pfl i'm just curious about your thoughts on that deal um you know based on what i know about the deal which is not much um it makes no sense to me i mean you're gonna pay a guy not to fight for a year and it's already been like 18 months.

He's fought three times in the last three years. It's just not what we do here. It's not what we do. And the day that we released him, I knew exactly what was going to happen. And Francis wants to take zero risks. Doesn't want to take any chances. And he obviously didn't want to take a chance against Jon Jones. And after we saw what happened with Cyril gone, you know, I don't blame him.

I think the outcome would have been exactly the same. And I'm sure most of you do, and I'm sure Francis does too. And the media makes it sound like that I'm saying that of you do, and I'm sure Francis does too. And the media makes it sound like that I'm saying that he's afraid of him. I don't think that he's afraid of anybody. It's just the fact that he doesn't want to take any risk. He wants to, you know, PFL is going to pay this guy to train for a boxing match that may not even happen and that they might not even be involved in

how does that make any sense it doesn't make sense to me i mean anthony joshua called it a gimmick fight this week you know he when asked about that fight he's like i'm focused on fighting the best guys in the world you know i'm not interested in the gimmick fight right now and that's one of the big problems with boxing right now is it's it's all about these gimmicky type fights. And that's just not what I do here. It's not what I do. I put on fights with the best fighters in the world and fights that people want to see. Francis could have done a deal here. Hunter threw the kitchen sink at that guy.

Okay. There you have it Whoops, forgot to sit up there, my bad Alright, so Were you playing a little pocket pool? No, no, no, no I was just checking some of my messages on Twitter I apologize Okay, BC, with that in mind So that's Dana's side of the story

Let's put up the tweets now from Francis Ngannou We have them right here So, he responds, and I'll read it out loud for the people who are listening over the podcast. Quote, what is your problem with me? He doesn't tag Dana in it. He's just sort of speaking cryptically, but we all know who it's for. Number one, I completed my contract. He writes, was a free agent and chose to walk away. You didn't release me. Number two, I hate taking risks. That's why I decided to defend my wanted to control my deal and sign a new one and freeze me out. I owe these guys three fights a year. Isn't that what you say? What happened? I always asked for and never said no to any fight in the three years.

And I think there's one more last but not least. say what happened I always asked for and never said no to any fight in the three years and I think there's one more last but not least uh I'm finally getting paid and respected and have a deal that's fair and equal for all parties why are you so against me being free and happy BC your reaction well look you know Dana if you want to stay consistent then uh isn't Nate Diaz scared of matching himself against elite competition which is why he fought out his contract and is now taking on a YouTube boxer. And hey, while we're at it, isn't the great one Habib, you know, afraid of the new generation of lightweights and doesn't want to match himself because he had some promise to his mother and late father? You know, why aren't you out there fighting Charlie Olives and all these other guys, you know, and why don't you fight your own boy, Mahajev? It's humorous, Luke, at the end of the day. So we've already litigated who we think is

right or wrong in this scenario, but it's one of two things ultimately on Dana's reaction here. One, Luke, Ngannou can't succeed because that's the greatest danger to UFC, creating a blueprint for how the modern athlete. Now look, it's already going to be harder because they changed the contract rules and specifications immediately after Ngannou left and did it by exhausting the five-year, what do they call that thing

Luke? The five-year sunset clause? That's not going to be easy to do anymore under the new current contracts. But if Ngannou succeeds and is happier and makes a ton of money, and oh, by the way, Dana kind of misconstrued what Anthony Joshua was actually trying to say. He was basically just saying,

right now my focus is specifically on a big fight that we're building toward and not Francis, but I wouldn't be against that. Because look, it proves that everything that Dana says is wrong. It shows you that if you are wired a different way, and if you do believe in certain virtuous things above just money, that this would be the path to

do it. Dana doesn't want anything that starts trends that leads to further problems of them making money and limiting the business leverage of the fighters underneath them. The other half of it, Luke, is maybe this. Maybe Dana just doesn't understand this. Here's a swinging corporate raider who's monstrously successful in everything he does related to cutthroat business and finances. Most of the time, dangling the carrot and making it all about money is how he solves problems or issues. Fighters are unhappy. Let's give you a little bit more money. They try that with Ngannou a lot. Dana's also not properly phrasing

what that contract would have been. As Eric Nixick told us, as Francis said a bunch in interviews, it was 8 million to fight Jones, but then the money dropped off considerably after that and it was more in line with a lot of the issues Francis had. You also take into account how like Dana's lied publicly consistently for years about Francis. In Dana's world, at the end of the issues Francis had. You also take into account how like Dana's lied publicly consistently for years about

Francis and Dana's world. At the end of the day, money is the God and the boss, and they couldn't get Francis to bend to that. So in Dana's mind, something's got to be wrong with him. He's got to be scared. No, but he's not scared earlier either. Nate's not scared either. Like it's, it's a joke and it's comical

but i'm trying to give dana the benefit of the doubt luke maybe at the end of the day he just doesn't understand what some of these virtual virtuous blocks that that in ghanu's standing on for and standing for and to him if you don't fit in in line of chasing the carrot well you're scared and that's how it is it's one of the two or both, Luke. That's how I justify it. But either way, it's increasingly petty without question. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I didn't have a super strong reaction to really either guy because I sort of understand what the point is here. 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. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Listen, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Dana is saying untrue or half-truth or basically just unflattering things of his opinion,

or maybe not even his opinion, just whatever he needs to say to disparage this move by francis to undercut what the pfl wants to do to undercut what fans should view of francis and the pfl and their deal and right he was just this is what he was this is what this is the playbook i've seen a million times in a million different scenarios over the over the years when there was someone else who was interesting and Sengoku or someone interesting in Pride or whatever the case. Anybody that was not doing business with them that the UFC perceived to be some kind of competitive threat,

and however big or small, enough to address anyway, they do this kind of thing. So in that sense, trying to parse it for what it is was not really all that interesting to me. And then I thought Francis's response was kind of you know pretty fair and legitimate like he didn't really resort to insults like the I mean the idea that like the guy is risk averse is just so it's just so absurd like how do you get from Cameroon to where he is here today being risk averse it's quite silly and you could say well maybe he's being risk averse at this stage of his career at 35 but like if you're trying to lure people away from the ufc you know with money that is basically unheard of outside of the ufc if not for pride i don't really know how risk averse

you're really being but okay trying to get to the specifics of it just seems like a waste of time i just want to point something out dude like john nash has a report out this morning based on the financials that came from this UFC and WEC parent company that was created. There's some financial documents obviously related to what the UFC made in 2022. Folks, they made in profit. Profit, right? This is how much they get to fully keep on their own after all of their expenses. This is take-home pay. They made $387 million in 2022 alone. Profit. Profit. For folks who are wondering what other promoters make,

Matchroom, which is one of the biggest ones in the sport, made $14 million in 2022. Guys, the UFC made more in 2022 than every MMA and boxing promoter combined. $387 million might be the most, and probably almost certainly is the most, that any promoter in combat sports has ever made in a single calendar year. They are printing money. Absolutely just Scrooge McDuck swimming in it.

And a lot of that, of course, is very much fair and totally earned. We're not suggesting they're not entitled to a healthy profit. They most certainly are. But when they say things like Francis is making unreal demands, it's like, dude, you can't really believe that with a straight face anymore.

John Nash has talked about this as well. How can you take the claims about what Francis must have been demanding and what his value is in a world where they're making, truly I mean this, historic levels of not just revenue, not, you know, we're making more on sponsorships than we used to. No, no, no. The amount of overall money they are making is without precedent

in the history of fight sports. Just noodle that for a second, and then what Francis wants is out of pocket. And before that, by the way, because everyone's talking about Jon Jones not getting Deontay Wilder money, can you now see that they could have paid him Deontay Wilder money and never even noticed it in the math? I mean, that's the level.

Can't you see that we could have had Jones and Gano at Raiders Stadium like a year ago, a year and a half ago? We could have had this a long long time ago so you can blame John Jones for ducking you can blame Francis for ducking you can blame whoever you want for this but dude the idea that there's not the money to satisfy everyone's demands and move this process forward is just simply not fucking true it's it's the least true it's ever been in the history of mma just see it for what it is yeah and and also like was dana risk averse luke because he didn't stand up to the boston mafia when they went into his kickboxing cardio gym and he didn't defend his ground and

he went running back to his old rich friends and no come on what are we doing here you know what i mean and look it's great that they can make this record money and I want them to do great. I want UFC to expand to other countries and make P I love this sport. I do love this brand, but you're making all this record money and we're still seeing questionable matchmaking week to week and wondering if this is all the help endeavor pay off buying the WWE. So, yeah, I think there's some questions that we can throw back at you too there, Dana, that we just want truth. I really, I just want truth. I'd much rather respect Dana if he came on the microphone and been like, you know what? I don't really care about Francis Ngannou. I'm not going to comment about him.

I hope he fails. You know, he didn't, he didn't, he doesn't want to match himself against the top. Whatever, like just say what you really feel and move on. But Luke, maybe this is again, and which is why I gave that second scenario. Maybe this is what he really feels.

Maybe Dana just doesn't understand a world where somebody would want to do this. And, you know, they got to bury him as much as possible, Luke, and pray and hope he fails so that nobody else does it too. Yeah. Yeah. There certainly is that it just, you know, it seems to me, BC, like you're with the last week or so, the last couple of weeks, you've gotten a glimpse of like 2008, 2009 era UFC, 2007, even 2007 era UFC, where they had a super hardcore competitive

mindset about what they were going to even allow their competitors to do and what contracts were going to look like. And they went balls out hard nose to win. And again, like if you've got contracts, it wasn't like they were the only ones who had bad contracts, by the way, like a lot of promoters in the space had messed up contracts at that time. But you get the idea, like they were, they were obviously the beneficiaries of some of those controlling mechanisms as well. And you see that they won, but the problem is they've like, not only one, they've won times a thousand and then they're still doing that. Like they're still doing that at the point where they're barreling down on probably this year they're going to make over $400 million in profit alone. In profit alone.

They're headed towards a system like that. Just in 2015 they only had I think $98 million in profit. Here we are in 2023 and it's $387 million. They've got the money to pay for every fight you want to see three times over. Three times over. They could afford it and never even notice it. But I think you can argue how much of that is going to still pay off the $4 billion that they spent on buying the UFC. How much is going into what they bought on WWE?

How much is this going to slow down? I guess the point I'm trying to make is people look at this and say, oh, man, they're making so much money because it's proof of concept of what the UFC says is good for making money. And on some level, of course, that's true, right? I mean, they are a successful, well-run business at its core. I don't think any of that is necessarily false. But what I'm trying to point out is, right, but it gets to a point where one firm in the market can have such control that they actually don't have the same level of competitive pressure to adjust their market they aren't as responsive yeah to fan demand and then they can still make shit loads of money hand over fist by virtue of what kind of control they

exercise over the industry at large i think that's the takeaway francis's demands in no way seem like they're are they going to break the bank? Are they going to ruin it? Maybe they would do nothing other than be a small change in the overall amount that they're looking for. You didn't get it because they've got this insanely hyper-competitive worldview that I, I wonder if that's really what is best for the overall industry at this

point. Certainly one can debate. All right. Best for the industry, lobbying privately against your own fighter's ability to negotiate. That's great, Dana. Someone make the case for me that asking state commissions to not report fighter pay is good for the industry. I would love to see it.

All right. BC, let's move on to what actually happened, though, inside the UFC apex. Point number three, Mackenzie Dern storms back and wins something pretty interesting. I'm going to say that she showed renewed promise. Honestly, renewed promise is how I would say beating Angela Hill via a wide unanimous decision on the scorecards, winning several 10-8s, although I think Angela Hill did get one round in the end.

BC, here's the question for you about Mackenzie Dern. Just how big of a rebound was this? Yeah, it was really big. It was really big. I don't want to discount Angela Hill's toughness because that's the reason why this went five rounds. When it looked like she was going to get finished in the first, to be fair, she fought her ass off in what might be at her age, the last big opportunity to get into that rankings and title picture up at the top of the division. But this was domination from Dern.

I obviously knew it was coming. I predicted that. This was the leap she needed for confidence reasons for the reasons of adapting her game further I love which I'm going to be interested to hear how you break it down but I love the aggressiveness standing behind the one two walking out really putting punches together still searching for submissions aggressively Luke she said something after the fact that jumped out through the screen at me, and it's surprising sometimes. I remember Anthony Pettis used to have quotes like this deep into his career where you're like scratching your head, but she's like, you know,

for the first time I'm actually listening to my coaches about how to game plan, meaning I don't necessarily need the finish even though I'm going for it. I'm learning that all you have to do is win two out of three rounds and you win the fight or in a five-round fight, three out of five. She's actually learning for the first time how to mentally look at those five minutes and say, what do I want to get from it outside of just constantly chasing the submission? This is the evolution we need to see from her. Was it perfect? No.

Do I still think even with Angela's toughness, she should have finished this fight? Yes. But Luke, she's a nine lives type fighter because she has such plus assets in certain categories like toughness, like the ground game, obviously, you know, at any given point she could try to end the fight. But for everything she's going through personally, which was very much out front in this build to this fight, the divorce, the everything, she needed a performance like this. She was fighting with emotion, full emotion, almost vengeance. And I think for her, Luke, in a lot of ways, it was best case scenario. Maybe going the full 25 also helps her in the long run further round out her game into the best possible championship form she could be. Is she there yet

no but could she be anybody on any given night yeah i mean she's calling for rosinama unis next luke i'm not gonna like her chances on betting odds wise but i like her confidence which is constantly evolving along with her striking it's coming together luke it's not perfect but it's coming together and this had the chance to be a showcase fight, and I think ultimately it was. I mean, I think in many ways this was a really great showing for her. And she should be very happy with a lot of it. I had a slightly different view than everyone else, but I want to be clear that I'm mostly in agreement that this was a big rebound for her.

I mean, here's where it was definitely a big rebound. I think spiritually for her, I mean, that's sort of the wrong word maybe, but just to feel good, get back, strong, dominant win where you look great, you win wide on the judges' scorecards, you go the distance. She didn't make any cataclysmic mistake, right? Didn't get the finish, you know, but there's so many positive things. So I want to be clear that like, I agree with that overall narrative. She showed clear improvement and I'd like to identify specifically where I thought she showed very good improvement. Number one, obviously she showed great improvement with just urgency, right? Striking first,

getting after it, disrupting Angela Hill's base, not giving her room to move and score nearly as much. There was obviously a lot of clinching along the fence line, but pushing into Angela Hill, getting her to back up, and again, just fighting with significantly more intensity. This clearly paid dividends. Also, if you just look at her output in this fight, BC, it was a five-round contest. She threw 340 total strikes. 210 were significant attempts, landing 126. This is the most amount of volume she's ever thrown in any of her five-round fights by a fairly wide margin. She's really never been that active before. So it kind of tells you purpose, direction, urgency, volume. It was there. I thought some of her ground-and-pound positions altogether improved but definitely much better there right striking for much more controlled positions where you have

the ability to really leverage power and then go after it right these were some really key areas of improvement however this is the only point I wanted to make and I do think this is not in any way being unfair I think it's actually what the tape exactly shows. People keep trying to say, oh, if she had wrestling, this would solve all of her problems. No, it would not. No, it would not. That is not true. I have identified on the actual ground some significant problems with some of the strategy, not her skill level, but her strategy and tactics that she was employing that I think have really set her back on the feet as well here was another big problem just marching head up no movement no bringing the hands back at all doing this did you do that against Jessica Andrade or someone else at the top of that division and

they're going to set you on fire please believe me you will not be able to get away with that with the better women in this division yeah takedown still appear to be an issue there's still some i think some ground positioning issues my point being is one fight is not going to fix all of the problems that were holding her back in terms of what one fight can do getting back she got a lot out of it maybe the most you honestly could it's going to take a few more to fully get back what I think has been lost or has at least gone on the wrong direction so BC how big of a rebound is it huge majorly restores confidence clear demonstrable ways you can identify that she got better all I'm arguing is there's enough other things that still haven't been addressed she just needs more time to get to that place.

Don't think that's unfair. You know, I do wonder if there will always be technical holes in her game. Like, are you always going to be able to bring up the statistics that show she's not as necessarily dangerous on the ground or on defensive takedowns than you think? Yes. But as long as the aggression is not only there, but dialed up as it was on Saturday, I wonder if she's one of those rare ones who can overcome that or bypass that. And what I mean, Luke, is if we didn't see what you mentioned, the just getting after it and being more aggressive on the ground, seeking ground and pound finishes, I would have more questions about can she get to the title level and will she be a threat? She might just be somebody at the end of the day who is the aggression mixed with everything else she has is that calling card. Because, Luke, against somebody like Rose, let's say that's a five round main event.

I mean, from a technical standpoint on the feet, she's going to get picked apart. She's going to absolutely get picked apart and have traps set for her. But can she overcome that with explosion to take you down and to put the threat on of the submission? And look, she does have a big right hand. And look, if she didn't have a chin, this style wouldn't last. She wouldn't be able to be so technically flawed on her feet because people would be lighting her up. I get your point that the elites are going to have a much, but there is a gap certainly between the elite straw weights and everybody else from the standpoint of punching power and the ability to put it together with technique and put you in trouble but Dern does

have a big chin she seems to have a big hunger and a motor to go after it as long as she stays this aggressive and is working on her game she may end up getting there Luke whether and I mean when I say nine lives what I mean is I think she can endure more defeats in key moments where you expect her to break through because a lot of the intangibles are there. If they make this Rose fight, do you think it's must win? Because I still think it's not

as long as she can, I mean she's only 30 Luke. You expect that now is the time you got to put wins together to get to the title shot. But if she fights Rose, that's almost the equivalent of a title shot in my eyes. The egg she laid against Carla in the rematch notwithstanding. If she wins this, this is huge. But I don't even think at this point it's a death sentence if she does it.

It's more about the growth and now getting a chance against a super elite, which would be Rose. And sorry, Angela Hill wasn't to find out exactly what is a non-negotiable change that needs to be there. There's still more growth coming. Luke is really, I think there's, I honestly,

here's the good news. I think if you're a McKenzie Dern fan, I think there's still significant growth potential based. I mean, listen, cards on the table. I thought we were going to get a regression. I thought McKenzie Dern was good enough to beat Angela Hill.

And clearly she was, but I thought that the divorce and the change of camps and everything else was going to, maybe these can be in people's lives traumatic events BC and I have talked about it some athletes take trauma and then rise to the occasion and some it really ruins and I you can't judge them athletes are going to be either way in this particular case it clearly made her even better she really got turned a corner here and all I'm pointing out is she has other corners that can be turned and if she tightens up some of those things like BC she's still going for head and arm throws I mean or head and head throws like hip tosses like that's just not gonna that's not gonna win you a title it doesn't matter

how good your ground game is especially if Angela Hill while getting beat up pretty substantially can avoid submission for five rounds like that's just not enough coming in like this at the championship level is gonna get you decapitated you can it's just not enough coming in like this at the championship level is going to get you decapitated. You can, it's just not enough. So my point being is even if she loses to, uh, Rose,

uh, here, if they make the fight BC, if she shows improvement based off, or I should say from the hill to the Rose fight, and you can be like, okay, this is still moving in the right direction.

Yeah. To me, it doesn't really hurt her stock at all. You're pointing out 30 years old still has more time all i want to see is can she maximize what i would consider to still be pretty incredible potential yeah that's that's all that matters here just taking the next step forward and don't forget rose was at a similar point in ufc 201 where it was like okay finally she's gonna you know get into the title shot to try to win back after losing the inaugural one.

And she lost a split decision to Carolina in Atlanta that night, but in left a little bit on the table, but grew from that, came out of that fight and put together a hell of a win streak. So it's still possible for, for her win or lose here. But Luke, that divorce wasn't easy. And I think once money got involved, the stress riled up, but it did seem to spur McKenzie on to, to put all of that aggression into place. And it wasn't an opponent who could expose her technically,

who was overwhelmed by the pressure in the end. So, hey, look, surviving advance, UFC got what they wanted with her in the main event. A fun fight, but a clear win. Let's move forward. Yeah, no doubt about it. She did exactly what I think the promotion wanted her to do. She looked great. My only thing is, let's just see what else she can do as time moves forward. Any comment on at 38 where Hill goes from here?

I think this was an attempt to see what was left of what she could do. Yeah. Unfortunately, not just levels. Luke, she still can be a certain level in this division and put together win streaks. But I don't think she has had the fire power to get over the hump to truly get to that elite level that was the problem she couldn't really do much to dern right like she couldn't really hit hard or physically control or there's just that she didn't quite like yan shanon has volume striking and there's much better timing about it or whatever

like the big power and just gone drage even zhong wiley to an extent she just didn't seem to have that ace in the hole that didn't didn't seem to be there for her. Okay, BC, how about this? Anthony Hernandez is starting to look like a problem in the middleweight division. He absolutely had a bit of a rough-ish start to his fight with Edmund Shabazzian, but just overwhelms him in the end.

BC, are you impressed with his effort? And more to the point, it looks to me like Anthony Hernandez has one of the best gas tanks at middleweight, and that helps him overcome some technical flaws because his doggedness in pursuit of the fight, even for guys who are technically very gifted, they just can't keep that pace. Yeah, this fight was about a lot of the things under the radar

about Anthony Hernandez because to survive that first round was not easy but Luke I do have questions about how much of this victory came down to the issues that are recurring with Edmund Shabazzian you know switching trainers taking time off all that hasn't seemed to change this he's an electric first round fighter but he tends to fall apart due to a faulty gas tank immediately after. If he can't get you out of there in the first after dominating you and putting you in some very tough spots, both on the feet and sometimes on the ground, dude, he's, I hate to say, I hate to say this, but he's not only becoming, he may have already become MMA's Amir Khan.

Now Khan certainly had more success at the highest level, but the whole stigma against Khan if he didn't follow his boxing career was one of the best first round fighters of all time and skill for skill and speed and explosiveness just can blow even elite guys out of the way. Remember the first five rounds he put on against Canelo in that weird fight but he just did not have the chin or the recuperativeness to equal the heart he had Edmund Shabazzian's got heart he's got an electric skill across the board in multi-categories but look he's got a gaping hole in either his gas tank or his recuperative ability that once you get past you know the first four to five minutes it's not just that he's a different fighter he falls off the cliff and I want to give Anthony Hernandez his

flowers and he had a great win and we should start talking about him more but the wheels fell off again Luke about Edmund and we can't blame head movement this time no we can't I mean he dude his jab looked like he was giving Hernandez serious problems early. I thought he was accurate with his punching. He just looked like he was much cleaner and crisper of the two. But in MMA, MMA and BKFC are two of these sports where, yeah, the skills win fights. Like, in the end, that's what the champions have. They have tremendous skill.

But there are certain levels to it and certain portions of the game where guys who have ridiculous gas tanks can very much make up for the limits. Now, the technical limits that they might have, that ends up stopping at a certain point, but it didn't end up happening in this one. Dude, Anthony Hernandez's gas tank is nuts. It is crazy the level of pace he puts on these guys. He forces them to play speed chess when they want to play more normal chess. And he essentially produces errors on their part because they can't keep up with the pace of the challenges that he's presenting. He gives them one to compute, and the computational skills fade over time by just how much he's throwing at them. It's really quite overwhelming.

But BC, to your point about Edmund Shabazzian, here's when you know that there's a problem. It's not like this is the thing that finally tells us that. We've known for some time Edmund has had some development issues. Again, another guy who went to the UFC very early, right? Everyone, oh, let's send a guy who's 18 years old to the UFC. That wasn't Edmund. I think he was, what, 21 when he went to the UFC?

But you see my point, like very, very, very early. Not necessarily the best idea, but this see my point, like very, very, very early, not necessarily the best idea, but this is what I wanted to say, BC. When the narrative about the fighter is the same after every fight, that's when you know you've got a problem. In other words, like the narrative should be very much a function of what happened in that fight. And then it changes fight to fight a little bit. It becomes new wrinkle here, positive here, something different here. Maybe some things reveal themselves over time. But with Edmond Shabazzian, just the same one every time. It's like he got really close and then faded, got really close and then faded, looked good and then faded, or looked good in the first round and then won. But there was no

question about subsequent rounds after that. It's the same narrative after every contest. Now at 25, again, it would be a little bit foolish to throw the baby out with the bathwater here. But, BC, would you not agree, when we're having the exact same conversation about a prospect after every contest, it tells you that they're stuck in the same place? Well, I mean, it's now four losses in five fights in pretty much the same narrative in all four. Yes, he's only 25 years old, but when you switch camps to try to mix things up and change things and then you're back to the same result Luke we have legitimate questions about his

fighting future legitimate right now we do Luke I mean it's not like when the wheels fell off for like let's say Marlon Marais you know it just kind of became like man we got to kind of save him from himself but he's in his 30s like you know Shabazzian is not getting knocked cold

but dude like I don't know how you fix this Luke how do you fix this save him from himself, but he's in his 30s. Like, you know, Shabazzian's not getting knocked cold, but dude, like, I don't know how you fix this. Luke, how do you fix this? I don't think the UFC is the place for him to be. I don't think you can fix it in the UFC. I think you have to go somewhere else. And, you know, listen, I've said it before, like, what's an interesting thing that Bellator has? They took AJ McKee from pro debut to champion.

You know, Bellator doesn't have as many high-level fighters as the UFC. At this point, I mean, there's certainly no debate about that. But what they do have is the capacity to give you fights that are representative of all the different stages, including the world championship stage. And so as a consequence, you can just really get, you can, it's just easier to nurture development in Bellator by design than it is in UFC and Aaron Pico getting a real soft

touch there for now quite some time I think some folks are like okay let's see him really tested at this point which is fair I think it is time to put some of that laboratory work into practice and they've tried I get the whole thing but you get the idea he got to go back and get really soft touches guys he was much better than to restore confidence to work on a game plan to work on an overall skill set to just re dude rebuilding is hard and it takes time and there's a lot of psychological factors that go into it I don't think the UFC is the best place for a guy who needs that much retouching quite candidly i think he needs to go someplace where he can really dominate get his groove back so to

speak and then make another second charge at it easy for me to say i don't have i don't have his bills to pay but i'm just telling you from a developmental perspective i think it would work better for him there would you say the the dwcs is creating a a microwave system here in which, I mean, we've had this type of debate before, but we're seeing a lot of guys get rushed into big things because they had one spectacular knockout on the Dana White Contender Series, when in reality, they're like five fights into their pro career. And like you said, haven't been matched against tough styles yet, haven't taken early losses. I mean, you know, spoiler alert, if we ever talk about that McGregor doc at all or not, they focus so much in there on just the mindset of Conor constantly being able to do just

that, reset himself, accept a loss as part of the journey, take the, you know, really take the lessons from it and, you know, and bleed for it. Not everybody is that. And then you rush them quickly and put a lot of pressure on them and bring them in at almost no cost due to the Dana White Contender Series financial strategy. It allows them to be quickly disposable, Luke, once they start putting together these type of losses.

And it's tough because offensively, man, this guy is a juggernaut for five minutes. He looks fantastic, dude. He looks great. And he's Armenian, Lukely, man, this guy is a juggernaut for five minutes. He looks fantastic, dude. He looks great. And he's Armenian, Luke. Arm pitch stains. Yeah. I know. I know.

I know. Here's what I was going to say, though. He didn't have just one good knockout on the contender series. Like, remember, he stopped Brad Tavares, I think, inside the first round. That's a big win. Yeah. That's a really big win. Like, Brad Tavares is tough to do that to, especially at the time in which he did it. And so, even I, I think, was like, wow, that's a really big win. Like Brad Tavares is tough to do that too, especially at the time in which he did it.

And so I, I, even I, I think was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. But like, I, I, it's just something I've always known until you have seen that person, no matter what you think of them until you have seen them stress tested in the particular kind of different styles of MMA or in different kinds of fights where they have to fight out of a deficit or takedowns or whatever the situation may be until you've really seen that worked over you simply don't know and the the there's been just too much consistent difficulty with Edmund in those portions of the game I think a hard reset is really in order before quick question about the UFC in general related to this sometimes right now we have questions about why the match making is largely softer than normal but we have a lot of fight night cards in fact there's no ufc fight

card this weekend and i gotta be honest they've trained us to expect one whether we're going to complain about the quality or not it's almost like oh crap what am i going to do they got a week off um but do you feel like because we often see what we think are too many fight night cards that are weak and they're from the apex and you're like what are we doing here should we be seeing more dana white contender series cards not on tuesday nights but maybe on saturday filling some of these and instead of just being a microwave to find who's the most aggressive young finisher willing to take a small contract and get their chance could we see that more as a a AAA promotion for the UFC where you can send people back down and get a couple fights, win or lose,

if they're showing growth in a fight, where you can use their name for marketing purposes to still bring people to the broadcast, right? Oh, instead of getting cut, Shabazian's back down in AAA. Let's see what he does here against this young guy. Would you support that more than just throwing him into the next tough meat grinder fight on the next fight night card?

I would say this. I would not be in favor of that because now the UFC is promoting at the elite level. And then if guys can go back down to contender series and kind of stay there as like triple a, now you, you know, I mean,

I realized by already having contender series that they're already halfway there, but for you to, for them to then do the second part where guys go back to it from UFC and I mean, I realize by already having Contender Series that they're already halfway there, but for them to then do the second part where guys go back to it from UFC and kind of like hold a space, now they're occupying even more parts of the promotional spectrum. Like the biggest problem that we have

is that we have one promotion that has too much control in the industry. I think giving them yet even more or them electing to take even more in this particular case just wouldn't really serve our interests. I'm of the belief that you do want to have some dominant promoters in the space but it's better to have a little bit of parody and a more satellite sort of constellation of promoters i think you get a lot of different looks and it's better for the fighters and

frankly the fans long term when there's more competitive uh juices flowing so to speak that to me is like wow the uf UFC is going to do yet another part of this vertically integrated business. I don't know if I like that idea. That's just me. But anyway, Anthony Hernandez is going to earn a top 15 fight with that and he should.

I was extremely impressed with what he was able to do. Okay, BC, last but not least, to finish on this card, very simple, point number five. Could be for reasons good five could be for reasons good could be for reasons bad tell me somebody out who's somebody else who stood out on this card well look shortly on have you seen the shit we're going to see big time highlights from Buckley

Carlos Diego Fajeda Slava Claus so I won't go there but I'm going to be happy to say I got one okay bet wrong how about Karolina Kovalkevich at this point in her career in her late 30s having survived a fight fight losing streak in which you know you argue she could have or should have been cut and to come back and now win three in a row look vanessa nebopolis not a world beater tough as nails can pull wins out of losses by being dramatic with her jujitsu but carolina was tough as nails behind that jab and that right hand. And just for, you know, 15 minutes, put it on her. Luke, I don't really know what this means in terms of her falling back into legitimate contention again, because again, even though

I love the Stradway division and it's very deep, there are levels between who can beat you in the top seven as compared to beyond that but i gotta give her credit she has not given up she moved her camp permanently to att in south florida and on this level these are three gutsy gritty hard-earned wins for a veteran who's still got something left in the tank i gotta applaud her luke because i picked against her and i was happy to see her pull it off no doubt about it she looked pretty good now demopolis did miss weight and looked terrible on the scales meaning she drained herself big time to get down and couldn't

get it done. That did play a role, but to your point, I think Kovalkevic has recaptured not everything she once had, but has certainly rescued herself from the depths of difficulty she was mired in for some time, and that's extremely commendable. I'm glad you point that out. BC, there's a few different

directions I could go on this one. Natalia Silva looking just like an absolute world-beard. Dude, what a surprise. She's becoming a surprise in that division, right? She looked phenomenal in that contest, but I want to point out the one that I was kind of curious to see how it would go, and it went, I think I went three and two in OK Bed. The two I got wrong, I got like really wrong.

One was the hill fight. The other one was Michael Johnson getting KO'd by Carlos Diego Fajeda. So shouts to him at 38 years old. He got a phenomenal win. That's the story of Michael Johnson, man. It's just a, it's a coin flip. But the one I wanted to point out, BC, how about Joaquin Buckley and Andre Filio? Joaquin Buckley going down to 170.

He just looks so much better in this weight class. He got a phenomenal head kick finish he was I mentioned before he was already physical he could be physical with those guys at 185 but I didn't think it was the right weight class this is clearly the right weight class in BC he called for a rematch with Kevin Holland another phenomenal idea love this debut for a new manza yeah he did look like a new manza in this division he took some bombs from fialho and delivered that so i was happy to see that and look similarly on this for a guy that won't show up and have you seen the shit but i was happy to see chase hooper like buckley

also switched weight classes yes he walks into a lot of big time strikes still but you're talking about a young fighter think shabazzian of another guy who's really young, had suffered a loss, but is putting it back together. He broke Nick Fiora. He went after him and was so damn aggressive, willing to eat any firepower coming back. Does he have to fix that? Yes. I'd like to see more responsible head movement and defense, but from the standpoint of show us what you got in a new division, I'm interested in seeing more of Chase Hooper because he just tries to out will and work you and it worked here Luke it

freaking worked I think 155 at this point is just a much better weight class he was saying he was making 145 and I'm not doing a bit here eating onions and protein shakes basically yeah it's like dude that's not fuel I mean you know it's just not fueling yourself for success. So if he gets a better situation for himself physically at 155, I think that's going to be a great move for him as well. Okay. BC, that's our top five here for today. It's time now for the dogs to ask us questions.

It's time for DMs from the dignity dogs. Yes, indeed. Hit the animation. You guys know the drill. We put up requests for questions on various social media channels, Yes, indeed. Hit the animation. You guys know the drill. Hee-haw. We put up requests for questions on various social media channels on Sunday. You fill them up. Here we go.

Question number one, BC. Cole underscore brown 858. Worst name ever. Coming from a casual boxing fan, is there a similarity to MMA where fans call for corruption or robbery when there is simply just an extremely close fight? Yes, BC. It does seem like the 10-point must system gets us to a place where you can't have a close fight where one side doesn't feel like it's a robbery when in fact close fights you're just going to get unsatisfying results it's just the way the structure works yeah plus remember that quote i just said about mckenzie

during like figuring out like look there's a way you want to win at the end of the day. Sometimes winning just means winning more rounds and it doesn't always look like what really happened. But again, if you're not going to score 10, eight rounds, if it wasn't dominant enough, you're not going to see that change on the scorecards. They want to, I mean, I mentioned a few fights, Luke, is there any MMA fight that jumps out to you as being maybe the right comparison to Haney Loma where it's like, you know, the public, I mean, how about Cejudo versus Aljo? You could have gone either way there.

Cejudo felt like Loma coming back, making that late push, but you know, I scored that one for Aljo and I got no problem there. Yeah, yeah, there's a million of these you could pick from on MMA, like Jones, Dominic Cruz, or um dominic reyes you know like there's just a lot that you have these weird kind of results in um but yes like there's just no real way to get a re i mean this this is the reality like again you know 10 and rounds 10 and 11 were so strong for loma i think also like he left the strongest lasting impression because it happened

later um but you know when there when there's just not a lot of difference in offense between them guys you're gonna make it hard for judges it's just it's just the way it's gonna be so i also understand understand that as well uh bc what about this idea uh madman four five six seven six eight again worst name ever should combat sports judges and referees get an eye test or any physical test when they are over a certain age? Yes, is the answer. Should grandpa be allowed to keep driving when he's 85? Or is there a chance he's going to run through a nail salon through the front door one day?

Yeah, there's that chance, Luke. I mean, don't they have to take tests too? Them old drivers, Luke, don't they? It depends on the state i think but yes in general there are certain um you know requirements for like your cognitive and and also just physical reflexes too i want to point out something i've been talking to a few judges behind the scenes who do actually talk to me and about like the challenges of the job and what they've said is like folks think the things that folks sleep on remember like almost none of these guys like maybe sal diamato is different than this but like almost none of these guys, like maybe Sal D'Amato is different than this,

but like almost none of these guys do judging full time. They've got some other life outside of it. If they're old and they have to travel or how much other work do they do that night or how much work do they get routinely to stay sharp? Like there's all these factors that relate to not just how much work you get in rotation, but your cognitive skills, your physical reflexes, your ability to see things remember them have recall about it to do this quickly right there actually is a physical

dimension to judging that we don't talk a lot about we just feel like oh well they're sitting down just looking at something how much do does that all play a role but if you let me just think about it even if you were in your 20s and you were you were doing this since you were six if you were under slept for a day would you want a referee like if you had to make an MMA debut would you want your referee to have barely slept the night before like obviously not right so we have to consider that there is a cognitive physical component and in your prime situation to judging and officiating that needs to be more of the conversation about who can and who can't be doing these effectively it was good to see steve mazzagatti put out there by nevada as the timekeeper for the haney lomachenko fight though yeah we're wearing the

old uh we're in the old reebok uh shirt all right from our next one i'm not even going to read this name because you know i'm 43 are you talking about Dookie McPoopy Stink, Luke? Yes. I mean, please just delete your Instagram account. All right. What are the top three best weight divisions in boxing currently? What do you say, BC? 135, 168.

If we can include 140 with 135, which is cheating, then that's number one with a bullet. But if we don't, I think there are four red-hot divisions right now. Lightweight 135, super middleweight 168, and heavyweight. I think you can throw in there 140 because a lot of those lightweights have moved up. I mean, 140's got Progray, Jose Ramirez, Josh Taylor, Taylor Fimo. Can I guess the last one? Ryan Garcia, Haney. Can I guess

the last one? Well, I think I just gave you 135, 168 heavyweight, and 140. What were you going to add? Okay, I thought you were going to keep those at the same one and then add another one. Would you add 118? No, I'd rather have 122 with Fulton and Newey. But then again, Fulton's moving up soon.

Figueroa already moved up to 26. Who are you talking about at 18? No, I guess you're right. I guess you're right. So 122 would be against Newey on the bubble. I mean, the other answer is welterweight because it's always. But again, hey, Spencer Crawford, are you fighting each other this summer? Hey, Boots, who are you fighting each other this summer hey boots who

are you fighting you know i mean it's like hey you gotta we gotta we gotta use the pieces on the chessboard to make it work but yeah dude 135 slash 140 right now is it's two divisions but that's that's the money maker at the moment and look heavyweight dude we are in let's not forget we're actually still in a heavyweight renaissance era for some reason the best just won't face the bet each other this year which sucks all the horns luke yeah i know but they're also just each guy but first of all andy ruiz just getting aired out by somebody oh my god i don't want to play that stuff because it's really bad but basically andy ruiz got caught cheating apparently and his and his girl went nuts on him and somebody broke into his Twitter account the other day and posted videos of him what, Luke? Drinking.

No, what appears to be. You don't actually know what it is. But him drinking codeine and something else, him taking blood transfusions to avoid a drug test, like all this stuff. And apparently they accused him of heavy prostitution purchasing. Well, listen, let he who is without sin among my friends cast the first stone. Yeah, you know what's interesting about that, Connor, Doc, Luke?

They don't talk about side chicks at all. All right, keep going, keep going. That's a little bit weird. All right, BC number four, Childish Gambino asks, how will the Bantamweight division change once Aljo moves up following his fight with O'Malley? Is Merab inevitable, or do you think someone like Sanhagen has evolved enough to gain the title and hold it,

or will the division see a lot of passing of the belt around until this generation ages out? It's a great question. Yeah, great question. Luke, could you see that? Could you see a pre-John Jones light heavyweight era where we have great fighters just beating each other from Murab to O'Malley to san hagen i don't

know if peter yan's ever going to be there again luke but you get the point is that where we're headed here i've been i tend to think we're going to get um i think aljo's reign has surprised people in terms of length and so for that reason you have to always remember that somebody is never that far away from getting maybe uh turning corner technically, getting a couple of semi-favorable matchups. There's ways in which this could continue and go. But I would say you're probably going to get parity. You're probably going to get a little bit of hot potato with that title. Murab might have it for a while.

Fuck, dude, that's a tough one. You could see a case where Murab would be able to have it for a fairly long time i could also see one where he is technically outclassed and it's close but he just doesn't quite have enough it's yeah yeah it's a great it's a great question for that reason i unfortunately do not have a great answer all right b, BC. Last but not least, from Art underscore G610, is the PFL Smart Cage eligible to post on their Twitter account from it? They are spelled wrong. What do you think, BC?

Do you think the AI within the Smart Cage, Luke, has been tweeting all along? Probably. No. No. I think there's nothing smart about that cage. I think it's just a today just a fence aren't you talking to pfl brass today about the smart cage yes i am i'm gonna ask them tell me about

what the cage is smart i would love i'm not kidding i expect at least four follow-up questions related to the intelligence of the cage please please i only have 30 minutes so i've got to protect my time but i am going to get one in there at least i can do that all right that's it that's it that's it that's it for oh no more from uh p stains 27 hey let's go over to another shitty segment look this is where i scour the globe for all the good the bad the ugly the high the low the in between of viral videos from the world of combat sports and also beyond because that's where the elders get abused this is called have you seen this shit oh god oh god bc's feces luke we always start with the ufc it was

another apex card and you mentioned it diego carlos fajitas and our guy michael johnson to hell accidental renaissance according to uh gerbaka hitman there when he's holding the head oh my gosh you see the cross leg on top of that luke there's that is that i mean yeah his toes were curled you live by the sword luke you you get ko'd by the sword that's what it was and you know what johnson had not only eaten big shots early in this fight he was putting it on fajita at times and and it's over it's that's why I thought we were going to get more of that, but then Fajita faked to the body, then came over the top and just let him have it.

Hey, for a 38-year-old man at 155, dude, that's a solid, solid win. Yeah, and don't forget Johnson did that to Dustin Poirier once, Luke. Wow, it happens, right? Hey, Mackenzie Duren is our latest in the victory dance here. Luke, this was after five rounds against Angela Hill. Your thoughts? We tend to play a lot of victory dancing on this portion of the show. I definitely feel like, you know.

Hey, is that a shirtless burnt Chrysler over there? Yes, it is. Can we? I was driving my kid to work today. I was listening to my local sports station, and they were advertising. Is there a movie with him? I don't know what it is can we like i did i was driving my kid to work today i listened to my local sports station and they were advertising what whatever is there a movie with him i don't know what it is it's like i don't understand why i don't say why i don't say anything about him can i be honest about that all right i don't get i just don't get it i don't i don't know comedians are creepy to me in general luke i don't know if you've read rolling stone lately i mean it's just

gross let's keep this show moving forward. Okay, Luke. Hey, Slava Claus, speaking of victory dances, I want you to watch the KO of Slava Claus here against Mahashate. And how about this dance afterwards, Luke Thomas? Yeah, this dance is just... This is just excellence. I mean, yeah, watch this one where he does like the decline bench leg kick

whatever the fuck that was that's amazing he was landing bombs against misha tate all night here luke you got to understand that right yeah i guess misha tate is that who he was fighting there yeah yeah well good thing you're not racist maha shate shot it out hey luke let's go to new manza highlights here's joaquin Buckley with a hell of a high kick. Let's add it to his career reel, which is now incredible. Damn. Dude, that was. Look at the bonus punch.

Come on, Cary Hatley. Step in there, right? Yeah, dude. Unbelievable shot. And, you know, he just knew it. Cary Hatley taking his sweet-ass time to get in there. As a consequence, old Fialo has to eat one more but uh good god man that was i was so happy not not to see fialo get knocked out but to uh to see

buckley be at a weight class that made just much much more sense for him i'm a buckley guy don't forget he showed up at our live show the three margarita show in uh vegas that time right after the show ended luke newmanza uh he jumped on the mic afterwards and had an interesting call-up look i love his his uh delivery when he's uh when he's playing the character there uh did you hear he also dropped the n-word about a minute before that and had to walk that back on the air? Yeah, he was spirited. He was feeling good.

But, you know, the N-bombs, they don't love that over at the Mickey Mouse Club. Yeah, indeed. All right, Luke, let's go to Dana White. This is from the Post Press Conference. He was asked about the Aljo versus o'malley fight being announced yet all that talk from the aljo camp from ray longo about the fight not actually being signed let's hear dana's reaction aljo i it's it's i was in the gym this morning working out i got i got a call that aljo said you know i got a call from three guesses who called me today and said, uh, Aljo sounds like he doesn't really want to

fight. Three guesses. A hundred bucks right now for whoever can guess it. Who? Man of his word. Henry Suhudo calls me and says, this little pussy doesn't want to fight. I'll take the fight. I'm throwing my hat right now. Let's do it. I'll fight O'Malley. Da-da-da-da-da-da. So Hunter is my neighbor.

Comes over to my house. What's going on? And I think we got his manager on the phone and stuff like that. It's just, Aljo is one of those guys who just can't get out of his own way. Apparently he's in for the fight. Why he said that, who knows? It's just, yeah. This is my life, brother.

This is my life. But if that fight. The fight is on. Okay, I don't want to. The fight is on. Okay, I don't want to... The fight is absolutely positively on. Look, I thought a fight is on when you get signatures from the two fighters. What are we doing here? Yeah, like the reason why he's like, I don't know what's going on Aljo's head.

Well, according to Aljo, or whatever that is worth to everyone out there, he has to get another MRI, and then that has to be cleared before he can consent to the fight that's why according to Aljo he has not signed like he he said was do I want to fight on August 19th against Sean O'Malley yes I do but I have to clear these health protocols before I can feel comfortable doing that I it sounds reasonable to me I don't quite know but I mean Aljo also came out and tweeted why don't we just run it back uh right away on fight you know ifw in july and then and then o'malley responded on twitter no you know august is the date let's do it there but again you announce all these big

fights without these being full so it's like the constant like i'm gonna go public that a fight is official even though it's really not and then i'm going to shame whoever is holding it up even if they have legitimate medical reasons here or even if they i mean like the whole point is like stop doing this this false fake news public bullying make sure the fights are fully sealed for all reasons like are these guys in line for a negotiation every fight yes right like that's how it works right luke i mean i know you signed a contract for x amount of fights per money, but, like, there are details. They cannot make you fight. They cannot make you fight.

There are details that need to be negotiated. So enough of this, like, public clowning and drowning. But, hey, how about that media member getting $100, Luke? Yeah, how do you feel about that? There was some controversy raised about that over the weekend. Yeah, who ended up outing themselves at it? Was it a photographer, Luke? It was Amy from Fansided. I forget her last name caplan right amy yes that's right okay

i wanted to make sure who who is a very nice and uh very wonderful hard-working lady i disagree with taking the hundred bucks though i don't think that's i don't think it's the end of the world i really don't but um the optics not great you know yeah collecting pet checks from ufc yeah well it's not even that exactly it's just you know i've seen there's already skepticism about the uh the sort of the in-person press about how much they press dana which i don't think those criticisms are altogether unfair and then you know sort of accepting a it's it's a jokey light-hearted gift but technically it's a gift anyway it doesn't really matter i don't think it changes what what you it it's not that big a deal but you know yeah i'll give it to the

fighters luke that's what i'll do all right haney a little time from vegas luke let's not forget what happened friday i don't I never got your take on this. This was the way in, the shove from hell from Haney. Dude, here's what I do want to say. Whether you thought Haney won or lost the fight, I like this move. Is it a dirty move? Is it aggressive? It's all those things.

But a lot of people automatically said, oh, he's scared. That's why he did that. No, dude, he's trying to establish at 24 that it's his time. This is his weight class. This is his stage. All that stuff. Dude, this is alpha shit, shit right why are we killing haney for this he's selling pay-per-views too the only thing that was interesting was remember this is the um this is the state i believe where jeremy stevens pushed jakar close at the weigh-ins and then he could no longer compete so they made haney

go through another medical excuse me they made they made Loma go through another medical evaluation in order to be cleared for this contest, which is unusual, but I suppose necessary. Good to see Nevada having standards, Luke. There you go. All right. This was your pick of the week. Credit top ranks Mikey Williams.

Shakur Stevenson got in the ring, of course, after the fight, and him and Devin Haney shared a couple words, but this picture says it all, Luke. Shakur is lurking like Omar in West Baltimore in this division. You know it. Yeah, dude, Shakur's coming. That is a hell of a photo, man. That is a hell of a photo.

Eli's coming. Yeah, hell yeah. Shakur is on the way. We're not going to play Loma crying. We saw that earlier, but it did show the passion, Luke. Let's go to the undercard from top rank. Junko Nakatani sent Andrew Maloney of the Australian Maloney twins to, I mean, is there a sub-basement of hell, Luke? We found it right there. uh two perforated eardrums yeah is the medical report on on a leader an early clubhouse leader

of ko of the year here dude he burst both of his fucking eardrums i mean damn that is dude what did they put his head next to a you know supersonic jet or something like how does that happen like that is an insane amount of uh punching power i think he was taking abuse before that so who knows exactly where all that went down but that's one of the sickest shots you'll do you don't you just don't see boxers get hit that clean uh very often and he got well it looked like sink it looked like last year's knockout of the year when oscar valdezz stopped with one punch. Look who did it?

Burchell, Miguel Burchell just walked right into it. Almost like Pacquiao versus Marquez four, where he just kind of walked right into the full blunt of it. But damn. Hey, elsewhere in boxing, Luke, we had a little kerfuffle ringside for DAZN here. Here's Kell Brook, who I think is retired, mixing it up with Connor Benn, who gets a lot of, into a lot of these type of deals. Also gets into this with the drug testers, Luke.

But watch out for this action in a second. Oh, they're face-to-face? Oh, there we go. There we go. There we go. This getting you excited for a future fight, or can we let Kell stay retired and maybe... Yeah, let's leave Kel Brook alone. Maybe chase that tequila white lightning, Luke.

Connor Benn is trying to get... I mean, after what happened with the drug testing, and then he claims he's been exonerated, but after all of that, he's in need of an opponent. He's in need of a big fight. I think he's trying to get whatever he can. Luke, you know fat heavyweights always show up on this show right on this segment let's go to the celtic heavyweight title fight here's thomas cardi sending jack mcfarlane to uh wow to the

to the bottom uh what do you think about these fat tattooed whites luke these are my people. Yeah. There is your new Celtic heavyweight champion. There you go. All right. Hey, let's go to the son of a legend. Luke Emiliano, Emiliano,

excuse me, Vargas, one of Francisco Vargas, Fernando Vargas is, excuse me, fighting kids there in Las Vegas. He improved to five and oh, with four KOs,

but he looked a lot like the old man with the walkout here. Check this out. With the bullets around his chest, right? The rounds. They're not bullets, but yeah. Looking like a young Fernando Vargas. His pops there. And then, Luke, in the ring, like I said, improved to 5-0. Just 19 years old.

Here's his body shot KO. I'm liking so far the young Vargas brother. That was a good shot wow oh he spit the mouthpiece out no less yeah he's done zo yeah that ain't ryan garcia right there luke that is a more that is wow wow yes all right polish mma time luke anything can happen anything can happen. Anything can happen. Including a stabbing. Let's see how this foul occurred. Oh, wow.

Oh, God. Dude, they should just make that legal. I mean, it's in Poland. Just, you know, what are we doing? If somebody jumps at you, you can punch him in the balls as hard as you want. That's the future. Dude, someone sent this to me, too. Not this clip, but like, dude, is it me, or are there more people fighting at face-offs in Russia than any other place?

Ever before. It's great. It's so great, Luke. It is, really. They should just have face-off fights. That'd be a new thing. I swear to God, the knockout game is not a real thing, except at Russian press conferences,

and then everyone's playing the knockout game it's it's just a lifestyle hey real recognized real again let's go to the private jet how about Alexander Volkanovsky and western conference playoff star Jamal Murray of the Denver Nuggets just just hanging out in high class situations I've never taken a private jet that's that's on the bucket list all right would you what do you think they talked about the whole time um morning combat yeah yeah they did jamal murray probably watches it i do look seriously we do have some incredible famous friends and you know shout out to wwe's biggie who watches our show love that man do you think there are like now joe burrow for example follows us on instagram but we weren't sure if he formerly followed Schaub and we got him in the transaction

do you think there's a chance that there's somebody like uber famous that follows us but has not outed themselves and right now they're thinking do I DM that dirt hole BC or not you know I knew he told me to my face but I knew Lorenzo Fertitta watched

the MMA beat when we were on wow the aerial guy yeah yeah so I don't know I you know there is but I knew Lorenzo Fertitta watched the MMA beat when we were on. Wow. The aerial guy. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I,

you know, there is no more MMA beat, so I don't know, you know what else he watches, but for a time that was a real thing. Maybe he suck watches us. I mean, the guy loves the Jujutsu Luke. That suck.

No, he doesn't watch us. Luke. No. Okay. All right. We'll keep it going. I don't care. Don't care.

Don't care. Real also recognized Real a week ago backstage at the UFC. They had a dance-off, Luke. It was Jalton Almeida versus Johnny Walker. Oh, God. Let me see. Is he going to gyrate and cavort here? And then they made love to every woman on the property, Luke.

Yes, they did. Sweet love together. Sweet. The sweetest kind, Luke. Yes, they did. Sweet love together. Sweet. The sweetest kind, Luke. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, Johnny Walker. I mean, dude, it doesn't matter.

It's like, Johnny, we're going to do the salsa. You could even do like, dude, it's like, Johnny, Johnny, we're going to do Viennese waltzing. Right. We're going to do traditional old school Austrian fucking waltzing. He's still going to go in there fucking. Oh, yeah. That man just loves to bang to me. Wow.

Yes, indeed. Okay. Luke, I don't know where you shop for groceries, but we honey, we need to be shopping here. Let's check out this store. Luke ring bell for meat service. Yeah. I need one of those in my office. Yes, please.

Yes. Yes. I was sex. Yes, please. All right, Luke. luke ring bell for meat service yeah i need one of those in my office yes please yes yes i was sex yes please all right luke uh hey you've been known to have some stealth mode farts that just linger luke like the mine aren't really stealthy mine are more broadly announced uh well this was both let's go to the videotape tape mad you might want to turn that water off unfortunately luke uh many of innocent bystander have caught strays in our jersey city studio when you went into stealth mode i I have to tell you that, uh, nothing in this world makes,

makes me happier than, you know, either blue collar or middle-class ingenuity. And I think that was a great example of it. Yeah. Yeah. Luke, you know,

in, um, in, uh, new Britain, Connecticut, they have a laundromat. That's also a bar,

but then people were getting into fights when they were waiting for their, you know, tumbler cycle to finish. Um, I like creating things and mixing them together how about an amateur wrestling match that is also a place where you can get your oil changed at the same time okay all right that's a little bit too much pulling for me that's look he's in that man's anus look at that so what he's really trying to do is grip the back end of his tailbone. That's what he's really trying to do. Oh, he got the back end.

He got the full grundle, Luke. Yeah, but the problem is he got, my man got, he was like, you know what? I need all the groceries back there. I need just, I need all that Nutella and the goodness that comes with it. Wow, I can get my oil changed and my salad tossed. All right. All right. Yeah, there we go.

Shout out to that. Hey, Luke, speaking of wrestling, there's some great pro wrestling finishing moves. Normally, you don't like this art. What do you think of this move? i gotta tell you that actually made me laugh that legitimately made me laugh and i thought what he was gonna do was hit the guy and then go hit the line yeah he just dragged my man's face up he's like you don't have this coke bitch yeah i think that's called a bump i think that's what that move is called look wow hey you know what it's time for awesome elder abuse let's hit it okay it's time it's time for some elder abuse all right yes yes hey grandma why don't you get on that unstable log you heifer yeah there you go yeah just collapse that shit backyard wrestling get 2 000 pounds

let me just you know these people dude you know you know how i realized how like terribly out of shape most people are yeah because i ride amtrak and this is why amtrak is the most important like like it tells you more about what's happening humanity anything else because bc if i have to go ride the bus, everyone throws their luggage where? Underneath the bus, right? Yes. If you go on an airplane, you know, if you're checking luggage, that's the heaviest stuff. You just give that to the luggage people, and then they handle it, and you pick it back up.

On Amtrak, you have to put your luggage over your head. Dude, nothing will make you realize how frail humanity is yes when you realize how few people males included can actually put their luggage over their head shocking well luke our next old male didn't ride a train he did ride a bmx bike let's see how it ended luke yeah yeah why don't you keep not riding a helmet, motherfucker? How was that hot yoga session, bitch? Oh, hey, Luke, you know, I did say at Zuck. My favorite is when he falls backwards again, like he just slumps back like a fucking,

like he's an extra in Saving Private Ryan when he just flumps back to the earth. Yeah, bitch. All right, you know I said the at-zuck always gave me vibes of the Foxcatcher, Luke, with the old guy entering wrestling tournaments and everybody letting him win. They didn't let this old guy win. Let's go to the amateur

mat. No one's getting their oil changed, but watch the guy in the red, Luke. He's old. Oh, Jesus Christ. They did some kind of open tournament, and it's like this guy's got to wrestle his daughter's grandfather. You know, I would take it easy. Oh, what the?

Dude, he's just going to turn him here. Yeah, he leg laces him and then just tech falls him. Yeah, that's. And he hurt his. Somebody get Mr. DuPont off the mat, please. It's like, dude, if you have to wear a life alert bracelet when you wrestle, time to leave the shoes on the mat. All right, let's go to the wedding reception.

Old people love dancing, Luke. Look at this guy. Oh, let's give this lady her flowers. Just smash that shit on her head. Yeah, finally that bitch has her flowers, Luke, right? Yeah, here we go. We gave you your flowers. If you were Deontay, you'd start kissing it. Hey, let's pick her flowers, Luke, right? Yeah, here we go. We gave you your flowers. If you were Deontay, you'd start kissing it.

Hey, let's pick her up, old man. Yeah, this is a great idea. Yeah, let's just pick her up. Yeah, you're not who you used to be there. Yeah, just... Is that a belly-to-back suplex? What was that? Yeah, it's like, dude, I don't know.

Was that a stone-cold stunner? I'm not up on my pro wrestling terms, but it didn't go well. All right. Be careful around a horse, Luke, especially if you're an elder. All right? Luckily, though, this man will not be having kids anyway. Get the fuck up off me, bitch. Nice European banana hammock you're wearing, sir, but get out of here.

These guys are like, I'm the horse whisperer. Nah, bitch, you're the horse victim. we got one more old person for you luke this time on a scooter all right this is what you asked for okay yeah this is great oh no just just oh just right into the drink just just just just just like there's no dude i gotta tell you man the developing world i'm not sure where this comes from what you realize is these like little small scooters are way more common all over the world than they are here way more common and dude construction projects like you know things are just constantly in development which is true here but like

you take for granted oh they put cones here who would stop somebody well it's not a foolproof system but it's better than this one where they just leave shit open on the side of the road and this lady just you know natural selection that's what that is darwin darwin awards for these fucking morons where do we go from here on have you seen this shit how about people getting really high luke let's do that all right we into this this is gonna be me right after the show. Dude, I have been sent this clip. This is called Two Girls, One Tube, Luke. That's what this is called.

No, this is called Luke's final passage into the next world. Like, you don't have to cremate me, but if you guys could get high off my ashes while I get high and suffocate off this, I'd be extremely happy about that. How high do you get in that? How high are they, Luke? I mean, they may have died right they probably they're dead in the movie stripes when they ask them are you guys homosexual they give a very important answer to that question which i'm going to repeat here no sir we are not but we're willing to learn i'm willing to learn how high you get from doing this please understand that wow yeah no no august the same room for later yes yes all right all right uh luke uh remember when ahmad rashad asked uh bill cosby's tv wife felicia

on air that time to marry her and she said yes and they had a wedding and then they got divorced you ever wonder who was in ahmad's wedding party no straight killers luke straight killers wait is that oj and bill cosby yes those were his groomsmen luke in this wedding is this a real photo are we doing fake news that's a real photo. Bill walked his TV wife, Felisa down the aisle. OJ was the best man. Wow. Yeah, that is a, uh, you know what?

Have you ever heard stories about Ahmad Rashad as a person? No. Look that up. Is he a good dude? Michael Jordan loves and trusts that man. Luke. No, that's not what I've been reading.

No, quite the opposite. Former NFL star known as Bobby Moore. Luke before the name change. Don't forget that. All right, that man luke no that's not what i've been reading no quite the opposite former nfl star known as bobby moore luke before the name change don't forget that all right let's go luke i got one question for you is this cool or is this dub t you be the judge you can be both right dude redneck fucking ingenuity is what makes the world go round, bitch. Don't think it's not. Don't think it's not.

You into this or no? Is this cool or no? Super cool. Super into this. Now, they need a little work on their physics, but that's pretty good. That's pretty goddamn cool. All right. Let's keep it going, Luke.

We got a couple more left. I don't even know how to tee this up. Just watch it. Oh, my fucking god what you ever try to moon somebody at 75 miles an hour look you gotta hang on tight all right dude dude if that guy didn't die he should have yeah he asked first no less oh my god can you imagine luke would just, I mean, he doesn't need to ask the tattoo artist to work up his cheeks, Luke. Okay, life did that for him. Life tattooed him right on the ass. Dude, you know what I have seen?

I have seen one time, I'll never forget. Dude, there's a, in just north of Richmond, south of Fredericksburg is a big amusement park on I-95 called King's Dominion. Anyone from Virginia knows about it. King's Dominion. Anyone from Virginia knows about it. King's Dominion. Huge roller coasters, yeah. Oh, yeah, exactly. So my dad, one time when I was a kid, we were driving from D.C. to go to King's Dominion. Me and my brother and a couple of his friends.

It was a big thing. And I'll never forget, there were two cars in front of us like this. So this is, what, 87, 88, something like that, right? And so cassette tapes, people had them. I'll never forget one person in one car all the way out arms stretched to the point where the person inside is holding them by the belt another person from another car reached over all and by the way like their their their asses are past the window like that's how far out of the vehicle and they passed a cassette

tape to each other that was it luke i Luke? I don't know. I really wonder. But I remember thinking to myself, holy shit, these are the dumbest people on earth and that must be the most incredible music I've ever heard. Yeah, what are they risking their lives for? Like Wham?

Or like, you know, I don't know. Well, I don't think so. They were, well, it was hard to tell what their ethnicity was exactly. But whatever it was, it was special to them i can point that out bring ethnicity into this luke just well they weren't white guys so i don't know if

they're listening to wham you know what i mean like i don't know i think wham crosses all borders and boundaries luke okay it doesn't though it doesn't that's the thing about it all right i got two more for you luke and one of them um oh great collaborations know, you and me coming together, the MMA guy, the boxing guy, right? Two washed dads, right? That's been a great... Meandcameo.com slash Brian Campbell has been a great collaboration. What do you think about this collab? It does make sense.

Taco Bell could just outright sell that behind the counter there, you know? Oh, sorry, sir. Here's your sell that behind the counter there you know oh sorry sir here's your here's your two-ply yeah you know what i get by the way like who buys the toilet paper in your house uh wife see you are a fucking amateur that's how i know that i don't leave that decision to anybody else because they buy the cheap stuff that just breaks in your hand and now you're like wow i buy the asschapping cheap stuff because that's how I was raised. Everybody in my house wants, like, you know, padding on it, Luke. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want each roll of toilet paper to basically be a blanket for my rear end. That's what I want. Yeah. Well, actually, the guy, every other year we have to get our septic, you know, the big hose comes in and pulls all the poop out of the ground. The guy was like, how many people live in your house he's like you got like four times the regular amount you buying you buying double wide paper again he's like you gotta talk to your kids like thank you sir for having that you know you were like you know what big john visited and uh we just have to let him

we just have to let him have it yeah look the guy that pulls the shit out of my ground looks like a guy who pulls shit out of the ground for a living. Shout out to that guy. Okay. Shout out indeed. You know what I mean? He's talking shit about my shit. Luke.

Okay. I got one more for you. And Luke, you got to be careful near the grill this summer. Okay. It gets very hot. All right. Very hot. Look, I think that's the second straight week we accidentally showed real dong on this on this

program all right yeah there you go remember that guy that take food from a man like this like if that man handed me some food i'm throwing it right in the trash i'm not touching it i'd be like mr mcgregor thank you for showing up to the mayweather weigh-in thank you sir all right yes yes all right dude my man had frozen steak stuffed in his dungarees for that one boy all right that's all the shit we got this week luke another just masterpiece of an episode you know all right so that's it for today's show let's remind folks i got some interviews coming your way be on the lookout for that we might in all likelihood we're probably going to do a bit of a mcgregor forever kind of documentary conversation we'll have that coming we'll

be back on wednesday i don't think there's a fr documentary conversation. We'll have that coming. We'll be back on Wednesday. I don't think there's a Friday show, so we'll have some special programming related to you for that as we get closer to Memorial Day weekend, Monday as well. But we got plenty of things, so keep it locked right here, youtube.com slash morningcombat.

One more reminder, we're all over socials, at morningcombat on TikTok, on Instagram, on Twitter, you name it, go find us. That's one.

Number two, showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you'd like it, you can keep it go find us. That's one. Number two, Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you'd like it, you can keep it. If not, you can bounce. Number three, MorningCombat.store for the merch. And then last but not least, MorningCombat at gmail.com to reach the producers of the show.

Luke, Mikey is updating us, our great producer for CBS Sports, who says, Friday we will have an episode at 11 a.m. Eastern like normal, but it may be prerecorded tomorrow, Tuesday. Ray Longo, Room Service Diaries 2.0. Do not miss this. A great chat with a great guy. And also Wednesday, Luke, I caught up with Brent Stover, the new voice of One Championship,

also in our extended CBS family as a great broadcaster, just to pick his brain about one's future plans and direction, him getting into the MMA space. So good chats, Luke. You'll be chatting to the face and the head of the PFL as well. What's that fellow's name? Peter Murray. Peter Murray.

That's correct. Yeah. PFL CEO. Yeah. There you go. Great. So we have, we have content coming for you guys all the time. So be on the lookout for that.

All right. So that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks to Malka. Thanks to Showtime. Thanks to CBS. We appreciate everyone who made the show possible. Thank you guys so much for watching. We'll talk to you again live on Wednesday with plenty of content between now and then. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.