MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Holm-Aldana recap | Jon Jones vs. Israel Adesanya | Chris Weidman | MORNING KOMBAT | Ep. 65

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

On episode 65 of MK, Luke and Brian recap the UFC and Bellator events from this past weekend including Holly Holm's win over Aldana (5:55). Did Carlos Condit do enough in his win to get a second chance (18:45)? Onto Jose Zepeda vs Ivan Baranchyk... Where does this stand in the Fight of the year category (27:10)? Chris Weidman thinks that he is the one to dethrone Israel Adesanya (40:40). The guys also take a deep dive into what a Jon Jones vs. Israel Adesanya fight would look like after Dana White said it was the 'fight to make' (47:15). Finally we close out the show with DM's from Donks (57:50), Have you seen this shit (1:12:51) and odds & ends (1:28:10). --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, October 5th, 2020, and it is time, dongs, for Morning Combat. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. I am one half of your hosting duo, the gentleman on the other side of the screen. He is the conspiracy to my theory. What else is he? He's the, I don't know. He's just a donk. He's my friend and yours, the one and only Brian Campbell. What's up, BC? Hashtag fired the heck up, Luke.

It is Monday morning. You know this show, right? We used to do a little. The little wouldn't do it. The little got more and more. Live Monday, Wednesday, Friday, MK all day, nearly every day. We back, baby. I'm fired up.

Fun weekend of fights, Luke. so we got a lot to get into today uh and maybe we can blame ron johnson's greed and pension for buggery that jay is also back with us after taking wednesday and friday off yeah did you miss him on wednesday and friday i thought you know we didn't really miss a beat well that's not quite true we some things missed a beat is that jay's fault or not? I'm not sure, Jay. Can we bring you in just real quick, Jay? Because, you know, I can't anger the listeners.

The fans don't like the Jay interludes, but okay. Yeah, let's go down to the aircraft carrier basement. Hey, Jay, you weren't there on Wednesday or Friday. Are they slowly phasing you out? Are we in the midst of this? I don't know if I could speak to that directly, if that's a direct thing. I don't want the fans to think I was on vacation. I was not.

I was just working hard. I mean, you guys are very big now and require a lot of time and effort and hand-holding and those sorts of things. So, you know, Corey was there, though. Jeff was there. It was a pretty killer time. Well, Jay, just like in lou perlman's back seat in mk there's no escape brother all right all right we ride or die okay luke how long did he work on that what do you think all weekend buddy in the mirror he was

trying that out this morning don't think he wasn't and true story senator ron johnson did get covid over the weekend i saw that we're not sure if it's the same guy. Details. The crack MK investigative team is currently on that. Thank you. A couple of news and notes as always. Please give the video a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. We're hitting record numbers and thanks to you guys. But we've got to keep that train rolling. We've got some goals. We've got

some benchmarks we'd like to hit. We're well on our way, but we appreciate that just the same if you haven't done it. Also, if you want to try Showtime, who makes this program possible, please do go to Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, well, you can go be a loser somewhere else. And of course, I don't have the merch on today. Neither does BC, but you can go to store.show.com. You can get some sweet swag, BC. Yeah, I don't't have any near me but i've got a lot of it in my house all right shout out to the sweet mk swag you're going to want to be wearing this it's getting cold out support the cause international folks i'm working on it okay just like this

shelving under here i'm working on it got back on the horse today on that peloton luke so i'm coming for it luke real quick you benchmarks. What is your career high, your PR on the bench? This is something that people want to know. Right around 400. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Look at the big man. Okay, okay. I mean, it's not as impressive as it sounds, but yeah.

All right. Okay. Well, with that out of the way, let's do this, BC. It was an interesting weekend in combat sports. October is a huge month for both boxing and MMA, but we start with MMA here, and we go to Fight Island. First things first, Holly Holm absolutely just working over Irene Aldana. It wasn't even close, BC.

Now, BC, I want to start with you first on this one. I want to talk about the implication of the win because it looks like home versus Durandamy 2 is what's next. But first things first, what are your thoughts and assessment of home after this victory? What impression did you come away with? Three words, Luke. You know, three weeks out of her 39th birthday,

Holly Holm still got it and still got it in a big way. And here's the storyline coming in that we laid out last week. Holly Holm, she's an all-time great. She's going to have one of those weird legacies when it's all said and done because she has lost the majority of her step-up fights throughout her career. But she's proving that over longevity, over the evolution of her game, she is still that elite, very elite

gatekeeper if you want to prove that you are a legitimate title contender and you are of that ilk you must beat holly holm irene irene ray adonine just wasn't there holly holm was light years ahead of her in terms of distance technique control everything across the board and oh by the way luke really holly holmes career you know something that wasn't her strong game that was a whole her wrestling her ability to take you down and control you that has gotten light years better of course she showed that against megan anderson a few years back but it was on display in this fight age really doesn't matter for holly holm luke because she works harder than anybody else she's a willing student

she's humble really this is the reason why she's still a major star right the Rousey head kick mixed with her persona she really is that preacher's daughter hometown girl turned good type of deal she's a hard-ass worker she's still getting better somehow and as we speak right now there's no reason to talk about retirement talk about her getting out of the title picture yes she's she's only four and five since the rousey fight yes she loses almost all of her highest level step-up fights but luke when it's all said and done i really do believe holly holm is one of the greatest of all time you know it's kind of interesting bc i was thinking about this i'm going to make a case here and let me make it before you say i'm right or i'm wrong i would argue and it's it's debatable, it's very debatable,

but I would argue this is her best win since Rousey. So look at the other three. One was against Betch Koheya, and that was a brilliant finish, but Betch Koheya has washed out of the UFC. It's not, that was a get-right win because she was coming off all of those losses. It just, she was completely overmatched. So it was a nice finish, but I don't know that it told us a whole lot about Holly Holm. Then the Megan Anderson one. That was

very good, especially because, as you indicated, the wrestling was there and Megan Anderson, a natural 145-er. It's very, very hard to battle someone who's naturally that much bigger than you. And then the Raquel Pennington win is validating because of how good Pennington is, but this one, you just got to see the totality

of why Holly Holm is so impressive and such an enduring figure in this division, right? She was getting backed up constantly, kind of like the Rousey fight, and every time she did, she was able to blitz forward or land combinations or exit out. She had the wrestling that she needed to, and she had the good wrist control. She moved to mount and kept it there for a while in the third round. She got credited with seven passes in this fight.

She got a takedown in every single round. She numerically and then qualitatively outstruck Aldana in every which way, coming or going, backing up, blitzing, angling off. It didn't matter. This was such a great showcase of why Holly Holm is to be taken seriously. The other thing I would say, BC, is you remember in high school, man, there would be sometimes certain classes that would have graduate the class of 2000, 2001, 2002. And some of them would have kids that went to MIT. Some of them would have kids that, you

know, didn't. Some would have kids that would get D1 scholarships and some of them didn't. Some would get DUIs, Luke, right? Talking about my class of 96 over here, yeah. That one too. But here's my point. That class of women's bantamweight of the Rouseys, the Nunezes, who, by the way, just shows you how good she is, and then Misha Tate's and Holly Holmes, that original big class of stars out of women's bantamweight, dude, they were not to be trifled with. That was a really exciting time for the sport because of the personalities

and because of the talent. You can still see these up-and-coming figures at 135 pounds, and Aldana's a very good fighter. But it just goes to show that particular class of the Sarah McMahons for a time and space, they were really kind of special. Now, speaking of that class... One more quick thing I just want to add on to Holm real quick before you transition into what's next.

It's too easy to look at her run, and let's say she retires after two, three more fights, we don't know, and just say, oh, one hit wonder, beat Rousey, never beat another big name again. And as of right now, Luke, you can make that argument. But her and Rousey were contemporaries, as you mentioned. We know how Rousey sort of flamed out the first time she took defeat. It was almost like a Mike Tyson bully type situation. Once somebody solved her and took away her her invincibility it was over

well another reason why she lost and was never the same is she never evolved i really want to give holly holm that credit for constantly being that student and evolving her game that i don't think it's out of bounds to say right now luke turning 39 very shortly she may have another giant win left in her to put you know sort of bookend that great career it was the rousy one in mma that's that got our attention that sort of put her in line to maybe become a hall of famer and an all-time great but i don't think there's any reason to believe that she's not going to be able to get one on the other end you don't know what's going to happen you don't know where that 135 belt is going now we transition into that part of the conversation but i really want to give her

that that you know high five you saw nothing on saturday night that would suggest she's going in the other direction or she's getting too slow or anything i mean she's big for the division as you always say and she knows how to limit her inefficiencies and really control fights i mean this was a another brilliant effort in that and i think oddly enough she's only getting better luke i didn't love the pennington rematch i thought she looked there were some holes there she's getting better, Luke. I didn't love the Pennington rematch. I thought she looked, there were some holes there. She's getting better. She certainly is. And then that leads us to the question of what is next.

Duran Demi got a huge win over Juliana Pena, defeating her, actually putting her to sleep, really, by submission, which I don't think, I think the odds on that were plus 2,300 if you had that, but she got it done. And so you're thinking to yourself, like, wait, well, what's going to be next at 135 pounds bc is home versus gdr2 next and if so should we be excited about the different possibilities or wary given how bad the first one was let's hit this hard

all right here's the deal should it be next it absolutely should the only other truly deserving candidate in this division is aspen lad who's coming off an injury and oh by the way got starched by GDR in that controversial quick stoppage this really is the fight to make if Amanda Nunes is going to hold on to her belt and it seems like she is it seems like people like us are the only ones or me really saying well you know maybe they should make her give up the belt or maybe whatever no Amanda Nunes just had a child she's coming back in December she hasn't given any indication that's not going to be the case so that's the fight to make the rematch now about that stinker in 2016 luke i kind of want to give him a culpa here last week you know we did three shows if we brought the topic of good god i hope we're not leading to home gdr2 that first

fight just blew blah blah blah i don't know if it's the recency bias of seeing both home and Durandamy have very strong performances on Saturday in which both really evolved again Holmes wrestling and Durandamy's uh you know submission game and ground game something that was never a big part of her and what she offered in MMA I kind of like this rematch now and I think to make you want to like it and to make the viewers let's let's put out a couple things first fight absolutely blew it was too tentative it was two counter strikers no one really sees control there were fouls it just it just wasn't and that was a crappy card it was supposed to be a big blow-up card at brooklyn the debut for ufc and instead uh what

do we have anderson silva brunson which was a crappy decision and then you then you had this fight. Now, at the time, though, let's be honest. Both were sort of one-hit wonders in their style. Holm was coming off of two straight defeats and was getting a title shot. It was supposed to be Cyborg's opportunity, but she wasn't ready. And UFC couldn't wait, so they just rushed the fight out there. And then the whole setup of the fight was, here's Duran to me with a good resume, but you're probably not going to like her a lot. This is all about Holm's going to win this.

She's going to become the two-division champion. She's going to go out there and fight Cyborg, and we're going to have this giant fight to announce the 145 division. Only it didn't go that way. The fight sucked. GDR barely won, and then she gave up the belt rather than fight Cyborg under what she thought was suspicions of PED use. So I think we were right to rip their performance and right on

the surface to not be excited about it. But here's why you should. There's absolutely no depth in the women's divisions outside of strawweight. Yet these are two elite fighters, former champions, and they're going in there for a chance to set up another fight against Amanda Nunes. And I think when you add in the recent evolutions of their particular games, we could see a much better fight than the first time around. All of those circumstances, wanting Cyborg in that fight, not feeling like Holm deserved it at the time, yes, it wasn't the right night for the fight, and it sucked the horn.

It stunk, Luke. I kind of like how tactical the rematch might be over five rounds between two kind of all-time great women's fighters. It's going to be slow. It's going to be chess. But, Luke, I think when you add in what they can do on the ground, I think it can only get better from here. I'm not against this. It matters.

You can't really talk yourself looking at the top ten rankings into anyone else who deserves it. Let's do it. Okay? Don't make it a main event, but let's do it. I'm in. I'm back. I think that's it well if you i was i wouldn't make it a pay-per-view main event certainly because it's non-title but i would like to see it for five rounds i think maybe i mean here's the thing in

terms of like should it happen you're absolutely right bc you know women's bantamweight reminds me of men's heavyweight where it's like that old guard there's it's hard to get and it's finally happening now but it's hard to get that turnover because they just have this longevity there. Peña trying to break through, can't. Aldana trying to break through, can't. Because Holm and GDR are still there as powerhouses at the elite level in this division. So there's no denying that that is the only fight that really makes sense at this point, whether you like it or not.

Now, to your point, whether you should like it, I like all the things that you raise. I think the last part is the one I would key in on. We don't really know exactly how it might go the second time. Maybe you put him in the small cage at the Apex facility. You don't do it at the big one at Fight Island. Maybe that might force some of the action. It's debatable, but it's certainly something you should think about. Do you want to make it three rounds versus five?

Another thing to think about. But the key for me is you're right. Holly Holmes, still an A-plus athlete, honestly, for 135 pounds. You saw when she got the takedown, she was able then to get, you know, cross-side wrist control, move to mount. She is certainly a much more well-rounded threat than she was the first time. And honestly, GDR, I mean, she went through the meat grinder in MMA, right? She beats Holly Holm, and then she gives up the title because she doesn't want to face Cyborg or she gets stripped or whatever. And she got chewed up by the fan base, by the machine. And I thought many of those criticisms were valid.

Why are you in a title fight if you have no intention of defending it against the number one contender who you knew going into it that was going to be the case? You shouldn't have done that. Okay, fair enough. But the amount of insults hurled her way. She had to reform herself. She had to find a new meaning.

And coming out of that, she has been, frankly, kind of fantastic. She pushed Nunes harder than Nunes has been pushed in a long time. She blitzed through Aspen Lab like it was nothing. And she showed new wrinkles against Juliana Pena in a way that no one ever thought. She was always just going to be the Muay Thai kickboxing sensation, the Iron Lady. No, she's got a whole lot more to her. And honestly, I think both of these ladies realize this title shot, if they win this match, that's probably, probably going to be it for them.

Both of them are closer to 40 than they are 30. So I actually, am I saying i'm excited about the possibility of a second fight i'm cautiously bc cautiously optimistic that the second one could be significantly better than the first and maybe maybe even good yeah and gdr is almost more offensive now than she was four years ago i like the matchup better at 135 and luke looking back at all those losses home had on the elite level, outside of the Nunes fight, she was pretty much competitive with everyone. She was in that Cyborg fight.

She just got outpointed and got hit with the harder shots. And, you know, the Shevchenko fight was a very interesting chess match, which she lost. She's been right there. And Jay's right. I should move on. But she's been right there, Luke. All right.

With that in mind, let's go to one more sort of – I mean, GDR obviously was a big player here. I don't want to look over the fantastic win that she had at Fight Island. But the other sort of note coming out of it, point number two here on our Rundown BC, Carlos Condit got back in the winner's the first round was the best punch he's landed since the Robbie Lawler fight. So he basically outclasses court McGee drops him in the first, but it does go the distance. Brian Campbell, did you see enough in this fight to make you rethink whether or not Carlos Condit should look for the exit door as a fighter? Okay. He shouldn't, he shouldn't be forced out or be told to walk away no he's got something left but let's not fall uh you know victim here to the to the fool's gold of thinking because it you know we thought it might be a brawl between old guys it wasn't it was a technical fight in which condon you know was the the more uh athletic and skilled fighter and he

sort of fought on the outside and did what he had to do to win. Now, he needed to. If he lost here, he's getting caught. It just really is what it is. He should not enter into a fight where he's used to give rub to a rising name or he's pushed anywhere where, hey, you win this one and another,

you're back into contention. I get why the UFC broadcast played up everything he had accomplished before and played up the idea of, you know, I get a win here. I'm going on another run. You're not. And I know that's harsh. I have full respect to the natural born killer.

Love the man. Luke, his reaction time is slow. He was in there against a guy who just made sense matchup wise, who he was able to sort of use a really smart game plan, switch stances, use distance, do what he had to do. There were times in that third round where he's almost doing bolo punches and he's kind of showing off. And I'm like, dude, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here.

We're one punch from losing at any point. You know where I want to see him go? Where I want to see all aging fighters who still are fun and still have a name go in fights against each other. It just so happens right now that we are blessed with a kind of strong senior division in the BMF territory if you're the UFC. So who should he fight next? He called out Matt Brown afterwards. Love it. Cowboy. Love it. Guida. Lawler again. Love it. Love it. Love it. I don't want to see this guy anywhere near someone with a pulse. I know he's only 36, but he's been fighting basically since a teenager at a very high level.

Luke, tell me if I saw something differently than you, but you do have to consider who he was in there with. And I saw a guy who just doesn't have it for the truly elite level, but I'm not willing to follow him into a parking lot like BJ Penn to save him from himself. Yeah, I mean, I'm old as dirt, and he made his pro debut in MMA at the same time I graduated college. I mean, sort of think about that for a second. You're right, 36 years of age, but he's been fighting in such a way

that the miles are overwhelming at this point. So let's start with the credit that he has owed. I think you're right, that dropping him in that first round like he did very impressive didn't take a ton of damage because he was minding his distance very good you showed eagerness to compete cleverness guile right still had to your point something to give where he did not need to be forced to the exit door in a way that you could maybe say for some other fighters we've seen more recently right because after the Lawler fight the worst loss he had prior to competing on Saturday was probably the Oliveira loss but even then I think Oliveira was ranked

barely at the time Chiesa ranked you know Maya ranked that sort of a thing so this was the first time he was well outside of it now it deserves to be noted that on the ground, there still might be some issues. He's never had great takedown defense, although he always had a pretty good guard and a pretty active guard in terms of his elbows from underneath. He kind of got someone here who would accommodate the stand-up a little bit more and in ways I think that suited his style. But to your point, he got the wind. It was absolutely deserved.

I want to see him against somebody commensurate in that way. I just think in MMA, we don't talk about what it means to have these wars. We talk about it in boxing a lot. But in MMA, everyone's like, oh, he got knocked out. There'll be no future repercussions for the future. Oh, they had a long war. There'll be no repercussions for the future. Even on the broadcast, the broadcast team, and I understand that they don't have a lot of leeway

because the UFC controls the broadcast, and so the amount of editorial license they have is limited. But no one on there was talking about the fact, as we've said it a million times, and it's obviously true, the guy's never been the same since the Lawler fight. How could he be? It's one of the most insane things you've ever seen. It was a car crash times five.

And so in in recognizing those limits and then putting those limits into some kind of functional way i think you're right i think the matt brown fight makes absolutely the most sense the donald cerrone fight love that one i think that's totally a no-brainer you could put that anywhere on any kind of card it can fit in on a pay-per-view i wouldn't say it would a fight night, but you could put it on a fight night. I think fans would love it. You know, the Natural Born Killer, it's really unfortunate that a lot of folks missed this, the greatest time of when he was around.

There's so much turnover in combat sports fandom that these new crops come along post-Con or even, you know, post-Con or semi-retirements, and they just don't know what it means to be Carlos Condor, like why he was so special. Dude, you know, post-Connor's semi-retirements, and they just don't know what it means to be Carlos Condit, like why he was so special. Dude, that nickname, the natural-born killer, it's very rare in MMA. You get a nickname that's just not just sort of abstract and mean, but like, you're like, wow, that's really fitting. Like when Vanderlei Silva was Vanderlei Silva, he was the axe murderer.

And you're like, wow, that's a really bold nickname. And then you watched him stomp on people and you're like, oh, that's a really bold nickname. And then you watched him stomp on people, and you're like, oh, right, okay, that actually is totally the perfect one. Dude, Carlos Condit was an absolute gem of a fighter, a fighter's fighter, a fan's fighter. That Carlos Condit, you cannot reclaim it. It's just not possible. We have biological limits.

But should he be shoved out the exit door, BC, I think you're right. I think that Matt Brown fight makes a lot of sense. And we should note, credit to Courtcgee for resetting his broken nose in the middle of that pretty goddamn impressive that was pretty gnarly look you know when those weird times when your wife's like hey saturday you mind i booked us a double date at this couple's apartment or whatever and you're like you know who the heck's this oh you work with her well who's her husband will i get along with him you know those awkward you're like you know so she's like oh he's great and you're like, you know, who the heck's this? Oh, you work with her. Well, who's her husband? Well, I get along with him. You know, those awkward. You're like, you know, so she's like, oh, he's great.

And you're like, what does he do for a living? You know, he's like, oh, he's an IT guy. He fixed his computer. You're like, oh, crap, this is going to suck. And then you look at the Facebook photo and the guy's an absolute nerd. And you're like, this is just going to be awful. And then you go over there and he's like, oh, hey, you want to try my buffalo chicken dip? And oh, I made my own beer in the back. And oh the way uh you like vinyl i got this listening room you're like oh man

holy crap what a surprise luke this is what these old guy fights are how excited do you get when ufc announces a fight card you're like okay love the main co-main's important for the top 10 oh look at that preliminary main event old guy name versus old guy name let him bang i mean it's a gift to us as fans that we don't see coming luke ufc learn how to cultivate and protect this or your guys will keep going to bellator to make it happen there yeah and then the other part about it is like we saw one of these recently we saw it with cowboy and anthony pettis and it's not like we went into it thinking oh nothing bad will happen to them either guy could have been knocked out in that fight you're going to take damage but

you don't walk into it with the like existential dread that you do if it was cowboy versus you know pick somebody at the top of either division 155 or 170 you'd be like oh god this is going to go poorly man and for what end just to build a name off someone this vulturish

kind of way of treating the stars of the sport, and I get it, that is part of it, and that will never go away, but to the extent that you can guide someone and give them not so much a soft landing, but not just boot them out the plane without a parachute, I think you should. And to that point, it's not like Condit

hasn't fought the next generation of guys to maybe lend some names to Oliveras, the Chiesas. He's done it. We talked about it with Anderson Silva and Derek Brunson. The guy has used his name enough to help out whoever was going to come next. Give the guy a bit, just a bit, BC, of a feathered pillow for him to go out the door.

It's the MMA nursing home division. Come on, give it to him. Give it to me now. Thank you. Roll on. I can't deal with jay in my ear he's ready i could see him in the screen he was all perched up and like like a gerbil like all ready to to attack he's got ants in the pants uh all right point number three though bc we move

down the rundown i gotta go to you first on this one i saw you live tweeting and i was like oh this must be interesting and then i turned over and i was without words. Jose Cepeda fighting Ivan Baranchuk. Am I getting the name right? I believe I am, Baranchuk. This is easily, BC, in boxing, top rank, ESPN+, the best fight of the weekend, easily in combat sports, the best fight of the month, arguably fight of the year,

and something resembling maybe one of the more interesting, fun boxing fights I've ever seen. I want to go to you first. Let me just set this up for the fans. It only went basically five rounds, 10 seconds left in the fifth. There were eight total knockdowns. There was at least one knockdown in every single round. And the guy who won, Jose Cepeda, got knocked down twice in the first, meaning heading into the second, he was already down 10-7 and he wins with a thunderous one punch shot Brian Campbell what can you say about the Zepeda Baranchuk fight you wrote the

rundown fourth wall removed Luke of their topics this week you and I sometimes go back and forth we tweak it you wrote a question in there is this the fight of the year and I was actually insulted this is the fight this is one of the fights? And I was actually insulted. This is the fight. This is one of the fights of our lifetimes. It's the best fight of this century, not even a full year in, or I'm sorry, of this decade. It's one of the better fights of this century, Luke. Is it better than Corrales Castillo or Gotti Ward won or Vasquez Marquez or Pacquiao Marquez for Provodnikov Bradley? I think it's just short of those, but I saw a lot of people tweeting that they thought it was right in that conversation I mean look Bob

Canobio the founder of CompuBox love that guy his son Dan was tweeting that you know I just talked to my dad he was ringside at Hagler Hearns and he actually liked this one more because of the how competitive it was in back and forth. And I think the special sauce in this one, Luke, why you can compare it on the level of those great historic ones is this. There's many savage fights. There's many just all-out brawls and action fights. But sometimes those fights are missing character.

Okay? Rios Alvarado won from like 2014 is a great example. We thought it would be fight of the year. They both said they wanted to make the fight of the year they ran into each other for six and a half rounds until one Mike Alvarado got knocked out everybody was like it's one of the greatest action fights ever it was really good didn't have much character what does that mean go back and watch Gotti Ward won swings of momentum drama people getting you know obviously hurt you see the emotion in their face and yet rallying back Zepeda Luke my favorite fighter at 140 pounds because he's such a beautiful slick counting puncher boxer not known as an all-action guy he's down 10-7 in the first round

like you mentioned he starts punching he is forced to fight against an absolute savage in baranchuk and that momentum change just went back and forth back and forth even to the level that right before zapata delivered that knockout sick two punch combination he got dropped again right before that and you're like hey baranchuk might be finally putting a run together here he might be on him you know he got put to sleep and scary. I mean, I don't want to look over that. We love these warriors emptying it out in the ring or the cage. I was, you know, on pins and needles like a lot of people when he wasn't moving for a long time.

He eventually walked out of the ring on his own power, and then, you know, shout out to his co-promoters, Tony Holden and Lou DiBella, who are tweeting out updates and pictures. He's out of the hospital. He's fine. These guys left it all in the ring for a truly all-time great fights and you know you need prestige there wasn't a title on the line here but this was former champion baranchik in a number one contenders fight against zapata who in his best fight up to date i was their ringside in fresno i thought he beat jose ramirez who has

two of the four titles and is building toward that four-belt showdown now with Josh Taylor. Zepeda secured a rematch now, you know, in theory with Ramirez as becoming the number one contender for WBC. So it had some level of prestige. It was a main event, and I got to give a shout-out to Tim Bradley and Bernardo Osuna on the call there for ESPN+. I thought they absolutely nailed it and were building as the drama was unfolding. Luke, it was an instant classic. It wasn't just two jobbers who got in there in a brawl. There was skill and there was drama.

And I think any time you can look at an Arturo Agati getting up from that body shot against Mickey Ward and seeing the despair in his face and just knowing you got no freaking business getting up from that. We had moments like that in this fight. And to me, that's what separates a whole pl plethora go on youtube of great action fights there's a reason why we stick close to certain ones this one with that back and forth pendulum how do you get knocked down four times luke is the pay to did and then win by devastating knockout you don't see that it was incredible uh there's so many things to say here one I want to echo what you said about Osuna and Bradley as the commentators because they had a really difficult job one there were all of

these knockdowns happening in the second round Timothy Bradley on the broadcast implores the audience to call someone because there's a fight breaking out which I thought was really a not poignant but you know a pressing it kind of call, right? So that was interesting to me. And then you had this really difficult moment with the knockout itself because Baranchuk gets absolutely slept. For folks who maybe didn't see it, it was something equivalent to what Marquez did to Pacquiao in their last fight. I mean, stone cold out smelling salts the whole nine yards,

and he did not get up for a long time. So they had this exhilaration of this amazing knockout that had been a punctuating moment for this wild back and forth and then they had to really switch on a dime to this okay well is this guy okay and they did it about as well as anybody else could i really take my hat off to timothy bradley a guy who has been in there with tough fights who understands the price that the game will make you pay, and Osuna, an experienced, dedicated broadcaster in boxing. I thought he did a phenomenal job as well. The second thing I'd say, BC, is, listen, I'm not saying that the criticisms about top rank just, you know, throwing out Drek

early on in the pandemic when they got back to action were false claims. They were very real. But credit where it's due. They put on a very important fight for the WBC and 140 pounds more generally, and it paid off. So when they put on good fights, even if you didn't necessarily get this result, which was amazing, but let's say it hadn't been quite as good as this, you still got to take your hat off to them. Good job on top rank by getting it done. I think the last thing I'd say, bc is it just speaks to 140 pounds you know jose ramirez josh taylor the two guys who are going to try and

unify this those are the sort of the guys who are leading this pack but there's other ones we just saw the two here uh zapata and baranchik but regis progray is on that title by the way or on that list he fights on showtime later this month Victor Postol so still out there as well Maurice Hooker there are many other fighters in this division and it makes it so compelling so interesting so stacked there's a lot of permutations you know you could do Baranchuk versus Zepeda probably down the line again even though Baranchuk took a vicious KO loss he was putting it on Zepeda four knockdowns, as we mentioned. And the thing about it was the reason why Zepeda won to me, BC is Baranchuk was almost off balancing Zepeda, like

taking him off his feet with a punch, but not necessarily like driving through with him to like really take away his legs. Whereas Zepeda was sort of, um, the better boxer finding angles, counter-fighting, right. Finding the moments through the defense. Man, that's a styles make fight thing you could do a gazillion times if there's interest. I love this division. I love the future. I love that.

And if both guys are equal on terms of their willingness, and that's what happened in this fight, you do a lot of times have to favor the guy who can throw the shorter, tighter punches. But good God, Luke Baranchik's toughness. I mean, he would pop back up from every single knockdown, not wasting another second trying to show the shorter, tighter punches. But good God, Luke Baranchik's toughness. I mean, he would pop back up from every single knockdown, not wasting another second trying to show the referee, I'm ready, I'm back.

You know, Kenny Bayless did a nice job there. Although eight knockdowns in five rounds, Kenny Bayless missed one in round two. I don't know if you saw that when Zepeda got it from behind and hit an uppercut on Baranchik. So there was actually nine knockdowns in five rounds. Luke, it was shades of Prince Nassim Hamedmed kevin kelly 1997 the great featherweight war more on that to come by the way later in the show but it it um why i like that bradley comment about you know call your family

and as soon as i call your familial and i'm like call a boy law get luke thomas's mother-in-law in front of that tv right now it's a callbackback to one of Teddy Atlas' great lines on ESPN. It was a Friday night fights war. It was Mickey Ward against Emmanuel Burton Augustus. He said, you know, call your friends, call anybody. You got to see this fight. I love when boxing does this, Luke. This is a broken sport, right?

It's the red light district of sports. It breaks your heart a lot. But those of us who have gotten a taste, those of us who are day one-ish guys, those of us who have gotten a taste those of us who are day one-ish guys those of us who have injected it at some point in our life luke we can't quit it we can't get enough i love when these moments happen when i'm seeing on twitter all our mma brethren are like oh my god turn on espn right now it's it's kind of what max kellerman likes to do for this long preamble he has that boxing actually is everyone's favorite sport and he always gives an illusion of if there were four sports going on at each corner of an

intersection everybody would be at the fight right and this is one of those reminders that you know you may be an MMA fan who's like you know I like some boxing but uh this reminds you why we love it why we stick through it and go through the mud because it is it was just it's so pure and gorgeous and amazing and my final point is this tim bradley luke you remember his provodnikov fight right just savage blood and guts provide the provodnikov in that one was disfigured when it was over and to see bradley go zapata barantic was better than that fight which again you're you know that's that's saying a lot. But to see Bradley, a guy who retired Luke in his mid-30s when he still had a lot left in the tank,

could have won another title, could have really been in some pay-per-view fights, but he walked away after the second loss to Manny Pacquiao in their trilogy shortly after that. And it was amazing to hear him be this real and basically say on the broadcast, this fight right here, that's the reason why I got out early. I could still have been fighting, but watching this fight now, being humbly sitting here,

I'm happy that I did, and it's kind of a contrasting point because we're celebrating this great war, and here I'm complimenting a guy who's like, I got out so I don't have to be in more like this and i'm just happy branching is okay because when boxing is great there's nothing like it but luke often when boxing is great there is such a price to pay and these guys poured it all out in the ring on this night uh yes thank you please see this fight if you have not seen it

please i i say this all the time in in these words because I believe it's the way it should be said. People talk about how he left a piece of himself, and that is a helpful way to understand it, but I always word it, you hear me say it all the time, MMA or boxing. Carlos Condit was the same thing against Robbie Lawler. It's a sacrifice on the altar of athletic greatness. It's really what it is. It is I'm going to potentially disrupt my ability to function as a human. I'm going to affect my quality of life. I'm going to affect my longevity in the sport.

I'm going to give up real important parts of my professional and maybe even personal life and health in order to get this win, man. When they do that, people always ask me like, you know, what happens when you have to give coverage to a fighter you don't like? Man, there's a lot of fighters I don't like, but the reality is this. Dude, when they get in there and they do certain things like you see with Baranchuk and Zepeda, and that's a bit of a hyperbolic example, but it doesn't have to be that crazy. You know, I like Anthony Smith, but as an example, imagine I didn't, and he's handing his teeth to the referee. Dude, when someone does something like that, as a media member,

whether you like them or not, you have to respect that. You have to honor that. You have to really be in touch with what they are giving away. And I always try to remember that. This is what I say about Colby Covington. Dude, he hasn't had wars like that. But it doesn't matter. If he gets in one like that, or he had something kind of close-ish.

Hey, Usman. He was in a war against Usman. Come on, i'm saying like when that was over people were celebrating his broken jaw and i get it dude he talks so much smack you know you do that the whirlwind is going to come back on you i understand but as a media member bc i know you would agree when that fight was over i took my hat off to colby covington you have to that was too much to give away that was too hard to do for anybody who understands what does it cost here to do anything other than pay respect. That's why I think you're one rewatch of Weili Zhang, Ioana from, from burying the hatchet for good Luke.

And I can't wait for that day. But okay. To your point, I don't like her very much, but did you see my coverage after the fact? Number one, I thought she won that fight and I had nothing but positive things to say about her. You have to, you have to, how can you watch someone literally get disfigured through the course of five rounds, never take their foot off the gas, never do anything other than say, I'm going to die in here. Uh, or the, the, the time will expire

in order to get this win. You have to honor that man. And if you don't, I legitimately think you're a bad person yeah it is you are owed that uh the fans can do what they want but media members i feel like it's a different ball game and timothy bradley has now a media member can articulate that in ways that certainly the rest of us cannot uh all right now speaking of sacrificing something let's move on to point four here bc i don't know what to say about this. Chris Weidman has been active on social media to the point where he has noted, I would like a fight with Israel Adesanya. And then on top of it, noting we have two mutual opponents and I did better against them

than he did. And those two then Adesanya and Weidman got into a bit of a back and forth. Okay. Weidman believes he would do really well against Adesanya. BC, I'll go to you first again. Does Chris Weidman have a death wish? He does, Luke, because I don't know if you remember a year ago when he was doing the same thing to Jon Jones about moving up to 205. Look, you've got to love Weidman's belief in himself. It's how he got to where he was.

And could you make a hipster argument, which he tried to make look i beat gaslam and i beat him kind of easy and that was before you went into a five-round war with him you know i'm a wrestler i've got this you know the kryptonite for you all that stuff sounds good on paper and it is true although you know can we not realize that gaslam is an up and down guy and the Adesanya fight night 236 Atlanta I was there he fought like a champion you know that was his best performance ever so it's not apples to oranges here uh move away from the keyboard Chris I say that with love and respect I know that you came out and said look all those losses in a row against elite opponents you still got a lot left he did just bounce back with a win I'll give him credit Luke I like some of the things he showed

but I think he's on the other half of that and And, you know, it was a great American poet, Tupac Shakur, who once said, it's time to fight back. That's what Huey said, Luke. But two shots in the dark and now Huey's dead. Okay. I don't think you really want this smoke, Chris Weidman. This would be a one-sided drubbing. And I do believe that, Luke. And I don't think he's anywhere close to be earning it in the middleweight rankings. And even though, yes, he is a legend, luke and i don't think he's anywhere close to be earning it in the middleweight rankings and even though yes he is a legend you know i don't think he gets the fast forward treatment that jose aldo got or that frankie edgar got against holloway where you're like we haven't seen this match up yet let's see it this b-side old guy would sell i don't have a great feeling about this at all luke you know where i want to see chris weidman rematching luke

rockhold i want to see him against other old names who have vulnerabilities as well you know there's still something in there chris weidman should not retire but he should stop fighting you el romero and he should stop fighting you know that very elite level guys because i think it's going to end badly for him i mean here's the thing for me everybody likes to say when an opponent or when a fighter is doing really well you know what would happen if he fought a fighter and i'll just make something up that had really good distance kickboxing or i'll make another one up they had really good wrist control and takedowns and rides

and blah blah blah and then i'm always like okay that's fine that might be somebody who could beat this opponent this this fighter that everyone is trying to figure out show me on the list who that is and then you get to a point you're like that fighter doesn't exist listen chris weidman i think has a point that if you could muster the very best of what he had which is the you know the the fainting distance closing uh quick shot level change on a single on a double against the fence get him down he does have good control especially from turtle with those wrist controls and whatnot but but like that chris weidman we haven't seen maybe since the gaston fight and again gaston a very different character and then long before that

which is to say chris weidman appears to me again and i understand fighters if you don't irrationally believe in yourself you should not be a fighter you have you have to do what chris weidman is doing i don't begrudge him the is doing. I don't begrudge him the idea, excuse me, I don't begrudge him the exercise of going through this and believing he could do it because while it becomes a liability at the end of your career, it's the very engine that powers you through the beginning and the middle of it and then difficult moments interspersed.

But to me, it's like what Chris Weidman is arguing here is that the idea of Chris Weidman would be a very difficult fight for Israel Adesanya. Okay, but the idea and then the actuality, there appears to be a gap. I mean, he did beat Omari Akhmedov, and that's a very legitimate win. I take nothing away from him. But he only won two of those three rounds. He looked a little gassed. Even he was very undercutting of his own performance i i think people continuously do not understand what

they are up against with israel adesanya and he keeps talking about and saying they all talk this and when they get in front of me they don't do the same things they normally do his takedown defense is better than people realize his mind control is better than people realize everything he does is in many ways better than people realize but you cannot bank on the idea of this fighter who came to throne the champion the idea of somebody who has all these skills you got to look at what is there hey if chris weidman keeps winning bc i wouldn't mind seeing it down the road you keep winning in ways that you know make it impossible for us to deny and make us eat crow i'll be the first one on this show to eat crow but that we are a long way off from that and adesanya has bigger fish to fry in the interim yeah and i don't begrudge if this if any part of this is chris why i've been saying look you know i've

only got x amount of fights left i'd love to be back in a pay-per-view main event with big time money i don't begrudge anyone doing that. And I also don't expect him or any fighter to ever listen to basement keyboard warriors like me. What the hell does BC know? Somebody does pay me for my opinion, though. But at the end of the day, if any fighter ever listened to me sitting here saying, I don't think so, you're done, you'd never see any of these great victories or great stories of comebacks but uh at the same time this is not a style matchup i think that even works even with the wrestling luke he'd get lit up on the feet you know it i know it all

right yeah the other part is absorbing the damage we saw with dominic reyes the wrestling was barely relevant because once he got a clean shot across the jaw that was it and that's the part about it dude it's like again it's the idea of chris weidman as the guy who beat mark muñoz well dude that guy was that was in the words of lebron james a jogger not i mean he was very very impressive he had just an incredible uh improvisation and he didn't have all those injuries and he didn't have all those miles yeah that guy might be something kind of different it's just not what we're dealing with today. But to your point, we are just two jamokes giving our opinion. We don't know what is reality.

How about this, Luke? How about this, Anderson Silva? Last thing. Let me just end it here. If he goes, like I said, if he goes out there and proves it, then we can shut up and we can tell each other how stupid we are after the fact. How about this fight instead? How about for Anderson Silva's retirement fight in Brazil?

Chris Weidman, the guy that twice took the ghost from him, right? Like, let's just do that. It's a competitive matchup. Let's see it once and for all, all right? I'm favoring Silva. I completely agree. I totally agree. All right, last and final thing.

I noticed we didn't really get into it a whole lot last week, more than just sort of as a consideration about big fights the UFC could make. But there appears to be some movement on this. Two different ways. Okay. How might a Jon Jones versus Israel Adesanya fight look? And here's why I bring this up. They go on and extended social media back and forth, predominantly on Twitter,

just killing each other for their various you know whatever okay dana white took note of it and he was asked is this the fight you want to make he expressed pretty clear interest in doing it and not in some kind of oh maybe one day no like we've got our eye on this kind of a way and then shouts to the boys at submission radio whose names i had forgotten casper and dennis i apologize fellas because we love you very much over here. Yeah, I think it's Casper with a C or a K. Yeah, C and a P, and it's a lot of different things. Yes, K and a C.

Nevertheless, they had Eugene Behrman on, I think, their most recent episode, and in it, he was asked, what about a Jon Jones fight? Eugene Behrman has said, according to what conversations with Israel had assigned to tell him him that it doesn't matter if that fight's at heavyweight middleweight 205 he wants it and if Kananir who has a big fight at UFC 254 can't get the quickest turnaround uh they would look to that one next BC how would a fight between John Jones and Israel Adesanya look? That's the question. That is the question. And in some ways I want to and will kind of pin it back on you in one second, Professor Salt-N-Pepa,

because I know you slave over the stove that is watching these videos 49 times, Luke. 49 times. Not 48, bro. Not 50, okay? 49 times. Not 48, bro. Not 50, okay? 49 times. So we talked last week why it makes sense now marketing-wise. And, you know, it really does. It really does make a lot of sense now.

I am blown away that Dana White said it's the fight to make. How does it look? Both you and I gave a sort of knee-jerk, like, look, there's a guy that's rising at the moment, and it's Adesanya. Can I imagine when those two touch gloves at 20 205 can i imagine him having more success yes i can i get the kona argument of hold on bro we're talking about a skinny middleweight here what happens when john jones does what the pure john jones does take you down and ground and pound you that's a big element of it that's that's why you know you love uh matchups make you know styles make fights you love the idea that i do believe adesanya would have a distinct advantage in speed and in cleverness and in a lot of ways on on the stand-up john's got great

defense i'd love to see how that chess match goes would i love john on the ground absolutely but i don't think it's as easy to just count out adesanya because he's a middleweight right now luke you've seen his kickboxing career he fought at cruiser and heavy this is a real fight luke this is a freaking real fight and on the feet i don't know if john would want to stay there with him for five rounds so i would love to see what izzy's takedown defense which has been amazing so far can do against a one of the best wrestlers in the history of this game who's going to have a big size advantage luke i want to i think i need to see this fight i don't exactly know how it's going to look so i want to spin it back on you um let's not forget john jones let's talk about the advantages he would have can is he handle that size difference

in the wrestling i don't think the size difference is as meaningful as folks think it is i mean think about three of his last so excuse me two of his last three fights john jones the last one was reyes okay legit two or fiver i've seen him in person a number of times and i he came to one of my pre-shows at sirius xm he's a big dude izzy is i was next to him izzy and Dominic Reyes came to that party together, and I saw them stand next to each other. Izzy, I think, was certainly longer than Dominic Reyes and nearly the same stature.

Not quite as sort of thick and muscle-bound, but still pretty close, number one. Number two, the other two fighters that would be on that list would be Anthony Smith and Tiago Santos, two former middleweights. Well, what is Israel Adesanya? He's a middleweight. I keep saying this with the Weidman case. I'm going to say it here again with the John Jones case. People have this idea that there's this, excuse me, they have the idea of John Jones and then there's John Jones. Now, to be clear, John Jones would probably, I think in an odd speak to this, be your favorite.

There are numerous plausible scenarios where John jones wins his fight iq is extraordinary his well-roundedness is extraordinary but the reason why he was in those fights with smith and santos uh and in a different way reyes have said it again before i'm going to say it again it's because his defense is tremendous. He is hard to hit. And when you land on him, he's usually covered up in some kind of way, or he's very good at rolling with the punches to take away some of the impact. His takedown defense is maybe the best I've honestly ever seen. Just phenomenal.

His distance management, quite good. He has what's called single shot high variance. Doesn't throw a lot of combos, but throws one here here one here one here one here he too like izzy has good sort of uh jagged rhythms with his strikes but his offense is not what it once was and that includes his takedowns he got two against reyes they didn't count at all he got zero against tiago santos and he did get three against smith but Smith I don't think has as good takedown defense as Israel Adesanya. So I'm not telling you, BC, that he wouldn't get it, but the idea that it's a foregone conclusion is absurd.

There's this idea of John as this guy who took everybody down, including Daniel Cormier, and then there's the reality of the last few fights. John is, what, 32-33. He's got a lot of miles on him, and this is the key insight for me, BC. John Jones is super smart. He is not dumb at all. Is he obviously very brilliant too. He is fighting in a way that I'm not going to call risk averse, but he apportions the risk very carefully.

This idea that he's just going to go out and march down on Adesanya and grab a hold of him and take him down, I don't find plausible at all. I find it plausible he can get a takedown or two or maybe more. I don't think that's crazy, but he's going to have to work for it. He's going to be very careful about it because everything we've seen in this stage of his career speaks to exactly that, the same thing that St. Pierre was doing. And those fights against Reyes and Santos and Smith, Smith to a lesser extent, but certainly Santos and Reyes, very close, very close fights.

What makes you think that Santos can get a card off of John Jones and Adesanya can't? That Reyes, in my opinion, beat him and Adesanya can't. Why is that so crazy? People are overestimating the liabilities of Adesanya, and they are overestimating rather the – they're using the inertia of John's greatness because he's been so good for so long

and just carrying it into 33-year-old John Jones who doesn't fight the way that he used to, even if I recognize BC, a very formidable threat to anybody in any weight class. I want to ask you a question that I want you to answer in 10 seconds or less, and I want to make a point. Do you think Izzy could hurt John at 205, given John's legendary chin? Yes. Okay.

With that in mind here, Luke, this is why I think John should go to heavyweight instead, because we talked about i think you could have a second chapter there with the difference in speed look how great dc was when he got back to heavyweight i think that gap really would allow john to be this almost like you're saying risk averse to a degree floyd mayweather like ability to take a snapshot of the fight and when the guys are slower than him be able to see like the Matrix, you know, coming in and out and react. That's why I think it's a potential bad matchup to meet Adesanya right now at 205,

and which is why I want to see it so bad. Not because I want to see John lose, but because I think John would have the size, the wrestling, the smarts, the defense, as you mentioned, but would have issues with a faster fighter. And I think, you know, even Dom Reyes' speed and angles gave him some trouble. I think Adesanya would give him a lot of trouble. So I want to sort of piggyback this debate and ask you this. If you were Dana White, remember we saw Dana and the Fertittas, you know,

drink the whiskey with Conor and make him a company man and plan out his career. Let's say Dana and Endeavor and company sit down with Izzy right now. Would it be even smarter for them to say, we want you to face John at 205, and plan out his career. Let's say Dana and Endeavor and company sit down with Izzy right now. Would it be even smarter for them to say, we want you to face John at 205, but we want you to go to 205 in general right now because this might be the time. I mean, Izzy's young-ish, but he's also in his early 30s with a long history and glory.

Could he also have similarly wide advantages at 205 against all the names right now considering that division is reloading but not necessarily crazy deep is there anything left for him to prove at middleweight although look i get it before all the haters come at me i know he doesn't have seven eight nine title defenses but do you think he actually should fight in general at 205 towards this idea of eventually moving up all the way and right now would he run the table against these guys run the table i don't know i mean you know you zig when you're supposed to zag in the sport bc you know as well as i do the margin for error is pretty low which is why

john's fight style is so smart right i mean he knows one wrong move and the whole thing just comes you know one jenga piece and the whole thing just comes completely tumbling down so i think that speaks to why he fights the way that he does now I would say you know I don't know that we need to jump the gun and push Izzy in that direction this stage I mean the Whitaker rematch to me is kind of interesting a cost a rematch I think down the road would be interesting to me he still has work to do in cannon here and maybe Hermanson Hermanson also I think would be kind of an interesting fight based on the way in which he competes. There's still some challenges, I think, that he has to answer for.

And some days you have good days, some days you have bad days. You still have to show up as a champion and put your title up for grabs. And Anderson Silva doing that for as long as he did tells us that anybody who wants to even compete at middleweight for some of the accolades that he enjoyed has to do some of the same things. But I just feel like if you wanted to pick Jon Jones to beat Israel Adesanya, I do not in any way think that is crazy. Maybe even that's the likeliest outcome, depending on one's perspective.

But this idea that, like, Jon's just going to run him over, take him down, pound him out, this is not in touch with reality. That is a hugely competitive fight, very interesting, and one with enormous stakes no matter what you do so bc that's what i say all right city cock boxing in the house love it all right uh with that in mind this is the portion of the show where we go to what you folks have to ask us it is time now for dms from dogs and there's the dog all right bc let's go to our first question if we can from gamebread 93 i do not believe this is jorge maz at all they ask uh who is the smallest fighter

that could go back and win ufc one oh great question that's a great question. That's a great question, actually. What do you think? Okay, I got to have you settle it, though. Would they be as skilled as they are today? Yes. Because, you know, the lack of skills. All right. Yeah, yeah. Like you could say, I guess what the question is asking is,

someone you could have now and send them back in time. I mean, those big guys, Luke, UFC 1, just, I mean, they mean they were they didn't have i don't even know if they had one skill some of them right like there was there was some uh all right let's start pretenders there let's start here saint pierre would beat them all right yeah his combination of wrestling and and even you know even average to above average level of jujitsu i mean i'm not i mean he's you know he's an all-time great, but even just that alone, I think could be a lot of these guys, right? All right, so let's go down to weight class.

Khabib? Yeah, dude, he would, yeah. I mean, well, I don't want to get too crazy here. I mean, because, you know, Hoyce Gracie was a light heavyweight, right, when he was doing that? I know he was small, but he looked super small. I think more like Welter Middle. Remember, he fought Matt Hughes at 160.

No, I thought he fought Matt Hughes at... Sorry, what I'm saying. 175. Sorry. Yeah, five pounds above Welterweight. 175. Okay, yeah. When I said light heavyweight, I was thinking boxing. 175 is light heavyweight.

Sorry. Sorry. No, that was my fault there. All right, so he's basically a middleweight in there against them yes gsp is skilled enough and tough enough yeah honestly i'm gonna i'm gonna say i'm gonna say volkanovski could do it dude right well just to just to seal habib their their understanding of basic jujitsu you know outside of ken shamrock or it didn't exist was not there was not there at all

and also and also they have no takedowns like look at what volkanovski can do he can stick and move they don't know how to trap him in a corner they're big but you know the guy played rugby couldn't he find a way i mean it's open weight right so he's going to come in at whatever weight he wants uh he wouldn't get too blown up obviously but the point being is you know we have a little bit of wiggle room he could come come in there, leg kick his way to just destroy those guys. They've never even heard of leg kicks or taken them before. That didn't happen until later on with Marco Huas,

king of the streets. How big was Hackney? Remember Keith Hackney? How big was he? He was a 200-pounder plus. Alright, and he also looked tiny in there against some of these guys. We do have to remember that. I mean, if you try to have a guy.

Okay, here's the thing. There was Emmanuel Yarborough, that big 400, 500-pounder, the sumo guy. So, yeah, because Volkanovski is not going to get him off of him. I don't think. I mean, I'm thinking Keith Hackney is like a Bantamweight just because your memory is tough. But if he's 200 pounds, could somebody like a Volkanovski hurt the – because there are – look, Gerard Gourdeau, Gourdeau, whatever, the guy that fish hooked the guy's eye out.

Gourdeau, yes. That guy had some skills for a big guy. I mean, there were some – all right. There were a lot of fake guys, right? What I mean by fake is they had blown-up credentials, correct? There were some blown-up credential guys. Yes. All right.

There were some weekend warriors. You remember that guy who fought in the wife beater? He had the mullet from Canada, Harold Howard Morgan or whatever, and he would do like the- He had the Rolling Thunder kick. If you're going to come on, we got a saying in Canada, if you're going to come on, come on, brother. All right. I don't know about volkanovsky

now didn't we see in the in the what was the movie that followed hoist's brother um through the uh through the japan oh the hickson documentary uh yeah and there was a little guy how little was that guy who was having success in those fights no no the little the little asian guy who was in hickson's tournaments or Or not Hickson. I've forgotten. I've forgotten. All right, this is devolving into that guy, the other guy. No, the other guy, the brother.

No, the other brother. I'm going to say Habib. Can I stop at Habib? I think, and again, if it wasn't for the big sumo guy, I would even say Volkanovski could do it. But just the ability to reach somebody who's 6'7 or something, that's going to be hard. But Volkanovski is a possibility. I think Khabib is a lock.

Then again, BJ Penn, I know he didn't beat Machida, but he competed at an early time and was competitive. I mean, Tony Ferguson, I'd basically level it out at super elite lightweights. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay, we go next to, I'm not sure what this one is. I'll put it up on the screen. OodPlayer88. Which one you'll pick between these two alternate fight careers? Uninjured Cain Velasquez or Uninjured Dom Cruz?

Which one would have had more impact on MMA? BC, it's got to be uninjured Cain Velasquez, right? Absolutely, because the competition at heavyweight, the skill and cardio level, the advantages that he had over the field, that's my great lament. We've been through this a million times, but Cain Velasquez,

C level Cain Velasquez, excuse me, that guy, Luke, is the eye test, the greatest heavyweight I've ever seen he still is he still is okay that performance of Brock Lesnar UFC 121 I don't think folks understand how big that was that was you could feel he took over MMA with that win and I'm not going to sit here and excuse his loss to Verdum he lost it and Verdum's an all-time great but you certainly can excuse the JDS loss the first one because of the knee injury and how one-sided the second and third fights were I would have loved Luke to have seen him run that table

and even fight a you know as Stipe was rising I would have loved that but I would yeah that's the guy Dom Cruz you got to give him so much credit for what he accomplished you know in and around all of those injuries but I feel like the competition would have caught up with him eventually, correct? I mean, here's the thing. Bantamweight, to me, the talent has passed Cruz by, which is no, like, slide on Cruz. You can't remain the top dog forever. Eventually you will slide, and that's just the way things go. So to me, it's a function of the inevitability.

The ocean tide will always win. You can't fight it forever. That's the way I look at it. To me, you could take the heavyweight, Cain Velasquez, that beat Brock Lesnar, and I'd still put him to beat any heavyweight alive today. Would you agree? Yes. As you look at your phone? Well, yes. Sorry, I was teeing up the have you seen this shit so I don't fall behind when it's time.

Did you not agree that that guy would still be, if not the best heavyweight alive, very competitive with any heavyweight today? Like absolutely could beat anyone on his best day. He was ahead of his time in certain skill elements for that division too, including stamina. I mean, he was way ahead of his time. So, yes, that guy beats them all. I'm a good guy, but I love to see prime heavyweight DC against prime Kane.

And, you know, according to DC, Kane wins that every day of the week. But, yeah, Kane's the guy. Send all your letters to morningcombat.gmail.com to complain. But Kane's the heavyweight guy all time. I'm sorry. He is. It is. I'll never forget after he beat Brock Lesnar, the next headline on Monday was

torn labrum from Kane, torn rotator cuff. And I was like, oh, buddy, you're going to have some problems. And that was just the beginning of them. By the way, I still would have liked to have seen what it had looked like if Ngannou didn't get him in 24 seconds. I know you can't excuse that loss, right? He got sent to hell. And I know his knee gave out too, but I, again, would have loved to see

what that fight would have looked like. And he probably would have got a title shot if he won it. So it's wild, Luke. It's wild. All right. All right. We go to Liam O'Brien, BC. And they ask, who is the better mythical fighter?

Speaking of which, C-Level Kane, TRT Vitor, Patient Gaethje, or Gracie Black Belt Durandamy? I don't know, man. Gracie Black Belt Durandamy is a force't know, man. Gracie Black Belt Durandamy is a force. And what's the end of the question? Up against next matchmaker? What the hell does that mean? No, no, no, no, no. They just ignore that.

It's supposed to end at Durandamy. They fucked this up. So who's the better mythical fighter? C-Level Kane, TRTV Tour, Patient Gaethje, or Black Belt Duran to me? The answer is TRT Belfort. That superhero from 2013, that chemically built and induced legend. I mean, look, 2013 Vitor Belfort is Barry Bonds in 2001 hitting 73 home runs.

That guy is a freak of frigging nature, and I love that he combined it with the freaking Mohawk and the crazy look in his eyes Luke you can't there's not enough hyperbole for me to talk about how nasty those spinning knockouts were go back and watch the tape on the Rockhold one

like that's the tightest spin like if that was figure skating that's like the tightest ass spin to land a strike that hard and he did that against Dan Hendo, Bisping, and Rockhold. That's like the greatest year in Miss... Luke, we could do this one day. We could fill a whole podcast debating the greatest calendar years

for one fighter in MMA history. 2013, juice to the gills. Vitor Belfort is my man. I will put him up against all your heroes, and he will win. Okay? I'm still gonna say c-level cane but the reason why is because vitor was um i mean this was proven he had super elevated levels of testosterone when he fought john jones was actually documentation to this fact

and he still couldn't beat john jones so granted that was the prime john jones he almost did he almost did okay almost did he fucked up his arm but he still didn't he almost c-level cane to me is i'm still gonna go with that but i i would if we had to make a power ranking i would go c-level cane one trt vitor two and then probably patient geishi geishi three durandami four you would go what vitor one cane two geishi three durandami four how about Kane 2, Gaethje 3, Duran to me 4. How about this? How about this? 2013, both healthy. Matchup Monday. No drug testing. Mohawked Belfort on TRT against Kane.

I know you have to favor Kane, but I like the possibility that Vitor can catch him. All right? Luke, he was a superhero. He was a laboratory creation. You're treating him like he was Bane from Batman, like he was born in the darkness. Watch the freaking fights. They're like a minute each.

Believe me, I was there. I'm simply telling you, first of all, he didn't have a mohawk. He had like five haircuts at once. He had like a mullet, a mohawk, like a faux hawk in certain places. I mean, he had a lot going on over there there were different time zones in different uh yeah there was a lot going on there uh i agree he was very very much a force to be reckoned with but still c-level king gets my vote all right from danny warner if you were a genetics mastermind b BC, wanting to clone and raise the next best ever MMA world champion or movie villain,

and could crossbreed any two fighters, whose DNA would you pick? And what discipline would you have the toddler train and master at primary, excuse me, as a primary specialty? Now, crossbreed means, like right now, Mehetta and Yana kunitskaya are crossbreeding right that's right they are sharing their genetics potentially uh to make it under the scenario we don't get to watch the crossbreed uh taking place okay uh look this is this is this is an interesting you're gonna get us fired why don't you take it why don't you take it all right? Why don't you take it? All right. I'm going to say, I mean, just pick your specialties, right? What if you, you know, look at your pound for pounds. It's pretty simple, right?

You could pick a St. Pierre and then Adesanya or a St. Pierre and Jones or a Jones and Khabib or, you know, Khabib and Volkanovski or, you know, just pick someone who's really good one way. Sorry to interrupt. I assumed it was a female and a male, Luke. Why would you? It's a genetics mastermind. You don't need to wait for people to fuck to get a baby. Just pull some DNA and make it in a laboratory, D-bag.

BC's like, okay, who's fucking? Let's make a list. Is Rocco in this discussion at all look he's like nacho vidal and fabricio verdum let's see what happens uh the lot amanda nunes and rocco there it is all right it's like john jones and asa akira let's see let's see which way this goes yikes all right thank you for your questions people We got any more of these, Luke? We got one more. From fuckswidja, that's the real thing, fuckswidja9013. Can you imagine telling a person at a cocktail party for LinkedIn,

oh, what's your Instagram name? I'm fuckswidja9013. My email is bootyeater69 at gmail.com. Please, I'd like this job. Anyway, they make MMA illegal. All fighters are sent to prison where each weight class is a gang. Due to an error, BC gets sent to the women's prison. Which gang do you give yourself to for sexual slavery slash protection?

Luke, same question, but with guy fighters. I got to fuck the guys? Really? That doesn't seem quite fair i don't even know if i understand the question and my answer is still straw weight one one all right so let's say this day of the week yeah so hold on so they send all mma fighters to prison and the gangs are essentially the weight class you get sent to the women's uh you know prison who are you uh who which which weight class which gang are you in whichever one has amanda nunez right i mean so the toughest fighters

are what 35 i mean if you gotta here's the thing 115 is pound for pound better but amanda nunez you know that's the queen bee like you gotta you know what i mean like that's the queen bee. That's the protection I would want. This is a weird question. Reminds me of a movie I just watched on Prime. Brawl and Cellblock 99 or whatever. You asked me about that already.

Dude, that thing is real fun. That's a real fun flick. It's ridiculous. All right. I got to go with... Jesus. which guys are my sexual slaves to for crying out loud this is this i don't yeah this is this is getting weird okay uh i'm gonna just say i don't know but all gangs in prison are assorted by race uh okay is your roommate is your roommate war machine or what is how far are we going with this yeah fuck that i don't care to do this anymore uh all right you got to go to the women's prison

fuck you bc all right with that in mind sir well you know what they always set t.s up bc with the weirdest question leading into the weirdest segment so sir the the reins of the show are yours yeah you know what we do in these parts jay can you hit me with hit me with the horns money thank you uh we scour the globe each week for the highs and lows the in-betweens luke it's have you seen this check this out it is women's um straw weights check out luma lubunmi here against jin you fry luke her uh tie clinch was sick look at the elbows the the slicing forearms that was a vicious performance she She's a beast. And apparently, like, you know, she was like a really decorated tie fighter on the women's side.

And, you know, you can just see the difference. They're strong in the clinch, man. They got great elbows there. And, by the way, like Fry, you ever seen her? I interviewed her in person. I'm surprised she never got into bodybuilding. She has the perfect genetics for it. She is bricked up.

And you can still see her struggling to deal with what this Thai badass could do. Yeah, I'd be her jail roommate, I guess, under that last weird question right there. But that was a nice victory from Lubunmi there. Very good in the clinch. Let's roll on here, and I want to give you a piece of beauty this weekend. A lot of people passing this around from ACA 112. It's UFC cast-off Magomed Bibomed bibula how do you pronounce the bullet the bullets off the bullets off so what happened here he got caught and he's got um he got cut off or he got released off of a

win i'm not sure why he is super close with ramzan kadirov you can look at his instagram you know he's the buddies with him but the dude can fight his ass off there's no doubt about it look this is spinny shit gone great this is as great of a knockout as we've seen i mean that's Look at his Instagram. He's buddies with him, but the dude can fight his ass off. There's no doubt about it. Luke, this is spinny shit gone great. This is as great of a knockout as we've seen. I mean, that's just – that's Terry – I mean, Terry Adams style, right? That's just insane right there. Let me just say one thing.

This is at ACA, which is – they're pretty heavily affiliated with a lot of the Chechens and the Dagestanis, and there's a lot to not like about the politics here. It might be the second best promotion on earth. They have a case to be made for it. Jay, can you play the next slide? We have another angle of this KO, Jay. It's so good. You've got to see it twice.

That is wow. Have you seen something? Wow. Hope you've got a good dentist player. Oh, wow. Like I always say, like in WWE, the floor should just open up and there's a coffin just waiting there luke that guy's ready that is crazy wow yes face down yes all right speaking of head kicks uh check out this victory shout out to the one-armed man this is not the fugitive i don't know what corp what fight promotion book this luke but shout out to this

guy dude is this like nick newell's acolyte yes spinning a head kick ko and he's in the pink tight the pink tight he's on top of that luke what do you think you lost yeah this guy lost to an overweight pink tidied one-armed guy but you know what that dude in the pink with the one arm you know he's been bullied for so long he's actually probably developed some some decent knuckle game yeah uh it looks like it's on the up and up it's a the up and up. It's a clean kick. I mean, wow.

Yeah. Shout out to that guy. He's an inspiration, Luke, to all people. Thank you. All right. Hey, Luke, do you remember when Canelo Alvarez started getting weird tattoos on the inside of his left arm, and then he got his wife's eyes on the outside of it? Your thoughts on that real quick?

99% of tattoos are bad it's just gotta all right well speaking of that uh the great mike perry the ufc welterweight has taken this to the next level not surprising coach latore's name is now tattooed on the inside of his bottom lip she is carrying his child and is uh staying active on twitter working out on Instagram. So your thoughts on this level of dedication and love from Mike Perry? Very on brand. I'm not sure what to say. That is, you know, trying to get him to be like, would you ever regret getting this?

That is not an answer you're going to get from him. It's not going to work. No, I would like to do that question over the phone only luke okay i don't want him knowing my face yes thank you all right let's roll on here uh you know who's been hitting us up a lot lately scott marshall one of our viewers at anya barry look at this video from the dark knight that he put together for this segment have you seen this shit luke uh very on brand luke there's you okay here's me presenting the ish as the Joker. But that's not even the good one because he doesn't kill him in this scene.

It's the other scene. Yes. Thank you. Please, as always, the people sending in their creations right there. Not everybody can be web screen, but we sure do all try. We got another great viewer at bourbonandmemes on Instagram. He asked, look, apparently things got weird between between bc and luke in the hotel room here's our offspring luke 20 something years later after room service

diaries that kid is amazing look at this guy make him why isn't he running for president i'd vote for him i think we go to the same barber this This is great. I don't really know what's happening here. Look at that belt. It's made out of a paper plate. That is great. I love this guy. He's amazing. Alright, hey, let's go on here, Luke. You love animal and human violence. We know cows eat grass,

Luke. Look at this guy tossing a salad. What is going on here? I'm very jealous of this cow. I don't think I've ever said that before. In your life, have you ever said you were jealous of a cow? No, no, but he's going for it. He is going for it right there. God bless this animal.

Well, the first thing I make him do is toss my salad with jelly or maple syrup. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay okay let's roll on here luke uh marriage proposal time look at this it's romantic it's two boats luke you put the two boats together you present the ring she's touched look at this luke but then you lean on the by accident. Did not go as planned. I'm not rich enough to own a boat.

Do they have like a park? Can you put it in a park? Like an e-brake? Yeah, whatever it was. She had to crash into something. I mean, she took off right there. That is insane. That is amazing.

And she took him with her. I'm like, dude, this is a metaphor for your future. Look at this. Oh, she kicked him. Right. I'm like, dude, this is a metaphor for your future. Look at this. Oh, she kicked him. Right where she's standing, there's a throttle, and her hand is basically on it. So the boat's in neutral right now, and then she leans on the throttle and bye-bye. Of course Jay would know how to operate a boat here. Wow.

Yeah. Jay's very independently wealthy as a successful and award-winning director. People don't realize that. All right, hey, let's roll on. Look, I got a little football. All those no escape royalty checks. Damn right. Or maybe the non-disclosure agreement he signed after that with Rod Johnson. All right.

Jay, we're just having fun here. Jay, a little footy for you this week, Luke. Check out this guy Barrera, Barrera from the USL. Have you seen the scorpion kick goal this is some good stuff max bretos serving it up on the twits wow yeah usl is usl is low level trash but that's a nice little highlight there like are you telling me you could get in shape for a year and like make that make the usl as a as a no i'm telling you that soccer is so difficult that these guys would be better than we ever would,

and they're still shitty compared to the rest of the world. That's bad on the goalie, though. This is less than MLS, just to put it in perspective. Well, speaking of footy here, check out this kick save by this guy. He's got the groceries. They're leaving the establishment, but the toilet paper falls. Kick save and a beauty, Luke. Are you impressed? Oh, man the toilet paper falls. Kick saving a beauty, Luke. You impressed?

Oh, man. If he didn't get a Hummer for that, that is unbelievable. If he didn't get one, call me. I'll give him one. Well, they have plenty of cleaning solutions in their arms for that, so that's great there. That is unbelievable. That is great.

Look at that. Let's take it to the streets. Street fight of the week. Here's spinny shit gone from bad to good, Luke. And I'm not talking about the Matchbox 25. Oh, my God. First of all, he's wearing a pink shirt. See, the video doesn't play the full length.

So he kind of slips on his first spin attempt, but then he lines it up, Luke. And he sends that old guy to hell. Is that Florence and Normandy right there? there where are we i don't know but this elder abuse i can get behind this is florida this has to be florida luke this has got to be is that a morning combat t-shirt he's wearing right there i think it is oh wow yeah luke as an adult all right you're not looking to go third world on anybody. Right. You're a professional. Everyone's got cell phone camps. But if it happened, if somebody disrespected your your your wife in public on the streets of D.C., would you consider the the Barbosa on Adam's spinny shit? Would you?

Could you lift your leg above your knee level? Oh, yeah. I mean, I couldn't do this, but, you know, would I tolerate this level of violence? You know, because he didn't, like, hurt him too bad. Bah! His head doesn't really, like, smack the ground. Yes, I would tolerate this. All right. That's a lot of pink that guy's wearing. Shout out to him.

Let's go on. Speaking of public fighting and spinning stuff. Everyone you've shown with pink during this. Have you seen this shit has fucked up the other guy? That's true. Check out this road rage incident. This guy in the BMW. He just spit at the SUV, Luke, and he casually walks away.

It's revenge time. But that's stuff gone wrong, Luke. Yikes. Dude. And he rolled the window down. Don't do this shit, man. So he got spit on and he got flipped, Luke. Yikes.

Bro, I tell people, stay the fuck in your car. Yeah, yeah. Unless you have third world skills and a penchant for violence and death, just don't mess. There's too many people. You can't cross people anymore, Luke. You know, back in the day, you could get in a good fist fight on the side of the road. Now they'll kill you. Yeah, don't be doing that.

No, no. Yeah, this is a lesson in you are not who you think you are. All right, check out this hidden camera pickup here in a bar, Luke. This is everyone's dream, right? Didn't we learn that in office space, Luke? Two at one time? what is happening here dude what is that like yeah that guy uh that guy's like 2013 belfort there just needs a mohawk he's living he is dude that must be fun oh wow right how many. How many times did you go to the bar and this happened to you, BC? I've seen a movie start off this way.

All right. Wow. Good for him. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to that guy. We got it. We got it.

Sometimes you just got to take the L in life and salute those who are winning. So, sir, we do pass that on to you. Yeah, I'd send the guy a shot luke you got all kinds of angry and uptight on the morning combat set in the uh in the mohegan bubble that i almost broke that table because i was so passionate about charlo rosario check out the passion from this tv segment here i don't know what country this is but hopefully they're armenian luke to shout out your folks uh a dispute breaks out and watch out for the table look tables sliders and chairs that's about as well made as the morning combat table let me tell you from experience as someone

whose mother is from the middle east this has to be middle eastern this has to this is this is tea time in doha luke this is like another this is regular tuesday you know what based based on what i see in the background it looks like it's jordan looks like it's jordanian i could be wrong about that look i you know if you which would be very on brand haven't you seen like all these other parliaments and it's like you know they're trying to model american democracy and then half the time it's just like 50. It's like a roving gang of football hoodlums fighting each other over tax increases or some shit. This is very on brand. I love it.

Honestly, I would have much rather seen Biden and Trump do some shit like this, right? Oh, yeah. It looked like we were close there. It looked like we were getting there, Luke. Okay? All right. So stand back. Stand ready. Here we go. Let we were getting there, Luke. Okay? All right. So stand back. Stand ready.

Here we go. Let's roll on here, Luke. Skateboarding, I don't mess with it because there's so many injuries you can have happen. Check this. Check out, Luke, here. Oh, no. All right. Oh, God.

It's like swiping the credit card at the self-register at Sob and Chop, Luke. It's like the Nelly tip drill video. Oh, God. Golly. All all right let's go away from videos they say a picture is worth a thousand words luke how about you share a few words on this one i bet she's fun to party with i wouldn't take her home to mom but uh i might have a couple beers with her yeah Yeah, I'm right there with you. Let's go to Awful Haircuts, Luke. They say that everyone else is playing checkers. This guy's playing chess, Luke. Can you imagine walking into the barber and it's like,

I want you to give me something super intricate that will guarantee I never get late again. And the barber's like, say no more, fam. I got you, player. Oh, wow. All right right let's do a little old school tip to tip check this picture i remember bradley newell said um effing fighting it's all the same luke that's tip on tip brother i don't know what's happening right here clinch break drills i guess yikes all right that is great and to close on the picture segment uh this old look at abuela this old lady's got look at the unit on abuela here you got to be careful luke how you hold that stuff oh god and bro you insult her you insult her akiako she'll beat you over the fucking head with it too don't think she won't yes uh by the way hoagie farts mvp of have you seen this mvp as

always speaking of abuela luke let's check in on her look if you're gonna go to the the sporting event on february 1st don't don't be on your cell phone during the nba game please i mean what do you think they were looking at too we think they're on pinterest looking at karen's curtains what's going on wow yeah dude they were they were definitely on etsy critiquing one of their neighbor's shops yeah exactly this is yikes wow all right we close with this luke uh we have an instagram viewer, Atia's Byte Year. Luke, he's come up with his own MK poster, Pound Sand, with Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell, and that is Conor McGregor ready to throw a ground and pound down.

Is that Tatooine right there? Luke, I like this. I like this one. I'm not sure. The first time I heard Pound Sand, I was like, what the hell is that even supposed to mean? And the guy who told me goes, you ever pounded sand before? I'm like, no. He's like, try it. You won't get anywhere.

I'm like, okay. That sounds about right. It's your Marines instructor, Luke. Your drill sergeant. Drill sergeants are in the Army. Drill instructors are in the Marine Corps. Get it right. There's no such thing as an ex-Marines drill instructor.

Yes. Very good, BC. Is that it? Is that all we got? All right. You've seen it all, Luke. Let me scratch this itch. All right, go for it.

All right, with that in mind, good sir, it is time for odds and ends. What do you got for us? Hey, Canelo Alvarez, remember we saw that report that came out of The Athletic that Dizon was looking to not pay its $35 million per fight guarantee to him, but offer him a middle-of-the-road, hey, we'll pay you $20 per fight. We were wondering if he was going to accept that. It looks like he's not, Luke, as he refiled his lawsuit in California court against Oscar Goldenboy Dizon.

The first time around he had screwed up the location. There's some kind of legal mumbo-jumbo, but the lawsuit is back on. And I don't know if you saw that tweet. I think you did. You retweeted it from John Nash, who kind of dug through it. And it looks like one of the major points of contention for Canelo is that Golden Boy was so public in announcing and parading his salary and what he was guaranteed from DAZN for each fight. And what that did was it was tough finding any opponents for Canelo because every single person was trying to ask for five, ten times the amount

that they would normally or deserve in this circumstance. You know, whatever on that, Luke, but this is back on. I don't know how this is going to end, but this guy's going to be a pretty big-ass free agent in the box game, all right, if this ends poorly or, you know, if we have to go through a long, long process to get there. Could you imagine the fights you could make elsewhere with Canelo? And I think he's almost really getting to the point where he kind of should just piecemeal himself at this point, right? Fight on any network he wants. When you're at that Floyd level, right, you should be able to

just sort of call your shots. I actually hope Canelo gets that because Luke, he's always willing to fight the best. Let's see him fight the best. All the time. He needs somebody. I don't care what anyone else says. He needs somebody. And we work for Showtime. Maybe he goes to top rank.

Who the hell knows? Wherever he goes, if he doesn't end up working out with DAZN, he needs to go to a place that's not going to make him wait for his main event when the UFC show finishes. It's not just the tactics of that. It's the symbolism of it all. You never recover him from that. That's a sin you cannot recover from.

He needs to go to a place that's not going to do that to him. And I don't know if he'll work it out with DAZ or not i mean who the hell knows right i mean court battles are just impossible to predict but uh i i tend to think you're right he could call his own shots and he needs to be in a place that understands he can do that and then treats him like the kind of guy that he is so we'll see uh all right for my odds in nsbc we did have a bellator over the weekend we had briefly previewed it on friday's show and it was a main event james gallagher getting back to action against cal eleanor well james gallagher made absolutely short work of him winning via submission in the first round and basically here's the deal cal eleanor i thought was a decent international class fighter he got run over in this one it was

not close in any dimension Gallagher did exactly what he said he was going to do and everything you thought that he could and then some now after the fight he was like I should get a title shot well I don't know about all that but here's what I would say he had that bad setback against Ricky Bandejas but he to me got the reset that Bellator needed some of these guys you know they need a chance to just get a couple of gimme fights along the way I don't think this was a gimme fight I'm saying some of the other ones he might have had and now he's at a point where getting him back in that bantamweight title mix where he fights somebody ranked moves his way up on an American show a big big, you know, if not a headlining spot,

co-main event spot, something where he's a little bit more visible than just to the European audiences. I know that this aired on CBS sports net, but what I mean is a show that takes place, you know, at the SAP center in San Jose and Scott Coker's doing big media days. He's got a big name opponent that stateside fans know who he is as well.

Something like that. It's not just that he has earned it. It kind of only makes sense at this point because he's too good for the level he's been at. The reset is over. It's done with. It's time to march forward back into the top of Bantamweight division. I think see what he can do.

Yeah, that's four wins in a row. Three by submission. And look, his ground game was really on point in this one. He's looking like he's got it figured out. So, yeah, title shot next, no. But let's continue to build him the right way. And, look, he's a marketable feature guy. He comes out like a badass.

He's got a lot of Conor in him. So I don't think you run away from that if you're the promotion or him. Can we talk about Cal's tattoos, though, Luke? So he's got the tattoo on Titi, but it extends up the neck all the way up to where it's like a sideburn he's got the tat sideburns uh you know that yeah i am too it's it's not for me but you know millennials love tattooing their face i don't quite understand it it's a thing that they do um i could see you with a teardrop right here luke but i long maintain this bc people disagree with me.

Let's see where you're at on this. People say MMA fighters have the worst tattoos. And let me just sort of olive branch a little bit here. I'm not opposed to the idea that that is true. What I'm saying is I have seen John Wall with his shirt off. John Wall's tattoos are as bad, if not worse than virtually every other MMA fighter. You don't see MMA, or excuse me, you don't see NBA players quite as nakedly as you do MMA fighters. I think if you did, it would at a bare minimum be a much tougher claim to make. Are you trying to say, and I'm not saying

you're trying to say this as a racially negative, but as a reality, because the NBA players have darker skin, we're not able to pick up as easily how well you know because here no no because eleanor is white but his he's got such dark colors it all just looks like a jumbled mess i don't mean that it looks like a mess i mean if you actually just look at the tattoo what quality is it how much did this person pay for high level art and if you go he's an nba fighter or nba players dude they have really shitty taste when it comes to tattoos they don't go to very good places so i would argue like like tj dillashaw have you ever seen his sleeve his sleeve is like legitimate art megan

anderson legitimate art john wall just has a friend who scribbled on him oh wow oh wow uh yeah no i'm with that i mean look they mma does have the worst hat since biker gangs but yeah there are some guys that mma and mba who need to be called out and luke um you're a hair guy at least i mean i've never i've never seen you declothed and want to keep that going but uh there was a guy i once knew who could make what he called the uh the bod stash he would have a mustache luke that would go down in a full neck beard that would go and connect with the chest hair and be able to go all the way down, Luke, to the pelvic area. Do you have that ability through your Armenian blood to have a bod stash? Would you be into that?

Are you hiding one right now? I try to keep my wife happy. I don't think that's a thing I'm entertaining. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Shout out to Mrs. Thomas. Thank you. That's right.

BC, the viewers have homework. What is it? So here's the deal. We don't really know what this segment's called, but yes, every Friday, we are going to review a piece of art. Enjoy it. We are going to announce it on Monday to give you your time to handle it. And we kind of want to alternate.

Luke picked last week. He had me watch The Dark Knight. This week, kind of want to alternate. Luke picked last week. He had me watch The Dark Knight. This week, I'm going to pick. Maybe next week, Luke, we have the fans vote on a few choices here. But this week, look, that fight, the boxing fight we talked about, Ivan Baranchik getting knocked out by Jose Zepeda, all it did was give me old-school Prince Nassim vibes for his greatest fight, his mountaintop moment in that rise so

your homework this week and you can find the full broadcast on YouTube and please make sure you watch the full broadcast that has Prince Nassim's entrance because a lot of times that's as good as the fights 1997 Madison Square Garden featherweight championship Prince Nassim Hamed makes his U.S. debut against Kevinlly the big time slugger and luke this is one of the most epic knock down drag out rock'em sock'em robot type fights larry merchant afterward called it the haggler herns of the featherweight division uh it's a great time for us to just re-examine all things that made prince not seem such an incredible draw from the entrance to the post-fight interview.

This will be a fun little look back at a nice little piece of art there. And something to note, Prince Nassim was years ago asked, like, who do you watch in boxing? Who do you pay attention to? And he's like, honestly, nobody, but I'll tell you who I do have my eye on, Conor McGregor. You know, Prince Nassim was not one of these guys who didn't understand a showman when he saw it because he had some blind allegiance. He gave credit where credit is due, so I think it's time we return the favor as mma fans and take a look at some of his greatest work i mean his power is insane luke but what makes it great along with the mcgregor like badassery that he shows is the chances he takes in the ring are just insane

hands down squaring up leaning back doing all the things like when anderson silva got knocked out against weidman by leaning back hamed does that the whole fight i mean he just takes chances and backs it up with the power this was his toughest test uh you know until that that first loss of his career can't wait to relive it with you so a couple of uh pieces of homework we will tweet that link out at mma excuse me what am i saying We will tweet that link out at MMA. Excuse me, what am I saying? We will tweet that link out at Morning Combat. But we have a bunch of social media you can follow. Morning Combat's on Instagram. Morning Combat's on Twitter.

Morning Combat is obviously on YouTube. We will make sure that we share that link at all the available places so you guys can watch that. If you want to send us an email for any reason, question, comments, pitches, gripes, smart-ass remarks, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to be. We're back on Wednesday. We're going to do a deep dive. I don't want to give it away just yet, but I think, you know, if you've seen anybody in the headlines, we're going to do a deep dive on them. But yeah, you see, thumbs up on the video, subscribe, the whole nine yards. If you want to try Showtime, you may. Go to Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial.

And then last but not least, get your merch. Get that merch at store.show. That's S-H-O dot com. Anything else? Yeah, we're going to get into them later this week, but Showtime's giving you two fight cards this week, right? We got Showbox Wednesday night. We got Headline by Charles Conwell.

And, Jay, it's Wednesday, right? Showbox on Wednesday? Am I right? I think that's right, yes. All right, and then, of course, Showtime Championship Boxing back Saturday from the bubble with all-action welterweight at all times. Anytime you're going to get, what's the guy's damn name?

You know, I love the guy. Anytime he fights, I love it. Wow, that was a great moment. Yeah, what a sell job there, BC. Great job. Watch the damn fight because it's going to be great. The guy who lost to Mikey Garcia. It was a war.

You know, the guy. All right, that's great. By the way, last thing on this. I was reading my favorite boxing site is badlefthook.com, and I was reading it, and they were listing the top ten boxing fights for October. And the top two they had as they had Teofimo Lopez versus Lomachenko. And then, of course, they had Showtime's Tank Davis versus Leo Santa Cruz. I was like, wow, those are two great fights.

And then I was thinking about, like, this month for MMA, you know, when you've got Gaethje and Khabib and UFC 254 generally and everything else. Dude, this is a great month for combat sports. This is a killer month. I mean, dude, like, you know, we went through the, you know, public press conference, or I'm sorry, the teleconference that Khabib and Justin did, and it's just a reminder last week of how great this fight's going to be. But you just nailed that.

I mean, you sprinkle on Teofimo Lopez Jr. against Vasyl Lomachenko is next week. For free. There's a lot of reasons. That's pretty insane. And then, good God, Tank Davis against Leo Santa Cruz, Halloween night, San Antonio in front of fans in the Dome. Yeah, this is, you know, Habib Justin alone could have got me there, Luke,

but we're going to have an incredible month, and it's Sergey Lipinets, the guy main eventing on Saturday, brings it at all times for Showtime Boxing. So, yeah, a lot to look forward to this week, Luke. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we're hitting you, but it's going to start unloading and unveiling the bonus content, which, of course, includes Luke Thomas live chat, dissected, a lot of good stuff. Oh, I should tell folks that the live chat this week will officially move on Thursdays to this channel.

Now, nothing about it changes. I'm going to keep the same name just for the purposes of consistency. But Thursdays, 3 p.m., it's going to be on this channel. So you're going to get content live four out of five days and then other kinds of content sprinkled all the way through. So we promised you guys we were going to really start you know hitting the gas pedal and i think you're beginning to see that so thursdays 3 p.m right here on morning combat the channel okay uh all right we see great stuff

as always we appreciate everyone who watched thanks to all the folks at mulca and showtime and cbs that's brian campbell i'm luke thomas until next time may all of your gains be loyal