MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Holyfield-Belfort, Hardy-JWP, Silva-Ortiz | Luke Thomas' Live Chat ep. 86

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

On today's podcast, we'll talk about Triller's event on Saturday featuring Evander Holyfield vs. Vitor Belfort as well as Anderson Silva vs. Tito Ortiz. We'll also talk about superfights that never were like Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brock Lesnar and Silva vs. Georges St-Pierre, mixed martial arts (MMA) media collaborations, Paddy Pimblett's upside, Dan Hardy vs. John Wayne Parr, how to interpret Darren Till's ACL injury. 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

Hi everybody! How are you? It is, let's see, the 9th of September, 2021. Almost got the year wrong by two years. And this is the Luke Thomas live chat. I am your host, Luke Thomas. And, yeah. How you doing? Episode 86. We're chilling. I just came straight from the motherfuckin' gym. So, sorry about that. Traffic was really bad. Usually it only takes me 15 minutes to get home. It took me 45, which fuckin' sucked. So I got sweat stains and I look like shit. But that's normal. You're used to that, aren't you? I think you are. Alright, I'm rambling. On today's program we'll talk about Triller.

Whatever else is really on your mind, you guys know how this goes. I put up a thread on Thursday on the community section of the website. People fill it up and then we get to it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so first things first. Thumbs up on the video. Click it. Okay, good. Subscribe if you haven't. Talking to you. Yes, you. In the back, you.

Hit subscribe. Thank you. Thank you for hitting subscribe. I appreciate that. All right, without further ado, let's get this party started. Shall we? And we're back. All right, I'll turn this off, and let's get to the questions. How is everybody doing? I am doing well. Oh, good thing my neighbor has decided to mow his yard twice in the same week. Actually, twice in the last two days. And he's doing it right when I have programming. I really appreciate that about him. Nice guy. All right. Let's do this. Psycho-less. All right. Did you ever think about going to graduate school and pursuing a career in academia? Did I ever think about it? Yes, I did think about it. You have all of the

terrible personality traits required to be a successful academic. Sincerely, academia. Did I ever think about it? Yes, I did think about it. You have all of the terrible personality traits required to be a successful academic. Sincerely, a neuroscience PhD candidate. Well, assuming that that is actually true, I'll take that as flattering. Yeah, my dad wanted me to go into academia. Thought about it, thought about it, but very much glad that I didn't considering there's hardly any jobs and tenure track is extremely difficult to get. You know, I didn't really plan for this to be my life either, candidly, but I don't know. Once I was done with schooling, and not to say I was done, because I've always sort of tried to maintain lifelong learning.

Turn this up just a little bit. But, one more time. It's just a little bit. But, um... One more time. But yes, I did give it thought. Just not much more than a little bit of thought. I'll put it that way. Alright, let's see.

Alright. Many have called Jake Paul and his fights a circus, YouTube boxing, celebrity boxing, but with the fact that Paul versus Woodley did very well in terms of build-up buys and being competitive, do you think Jake Paul fights are going to become normalized in boxing rather than a sub-genre of boxing? No, I don't. I don't really know what the long-term play is for Jake Paul. I mean, you know, this is the interesting part about being... Okay. From what I can tell, I'm not nearly as popular on YouTube as these guys have been, right?

Very, very much not in the same ballpark. But I've been on YouTube just paying attention to some degree about the trends and what happens. There was a while there where these guys were all i don't know if they were proclaiming that they were rap artists but like they were putting out diss tracks and all other kinds of stuff and the videos would do really well in terms of like youtube metrics but it never really resulted in much beyond sort of just that now this is a leap into you know showtime as a partner for the broadcasting and promotional side of things, obviously. But what I've noticed with some of these YouTube guys is that they go through these phases where

they're doing one thing and it lasts a little while. They take it about as far as it's going to go and then they just move to the next thing. And because the audience is interested in them, they just kind of go along with it. Now, there might be more to the market about YouTube boxing where is there a market for people with these large audiences on these online digital platforms for young people and they sort of settle their disputes that way or generate interest for themselves that way. There might be something to that long term, but I have found that, you know, internet trends and developments, they don't last all that long. And this is still from that. And more to the point, like, dude, what is the end game here?

Like what you can say about Jake Paul, I think in a generous way, right? We'll do both here in just a second, but in a generous way, he is an incredibly good self-promoter. He's very good. He's better than most fighters I've ever covered, by far. He's very, very good at that. And I think he understands his worth. He's good at applying that. He ran 50% of that show. For folks who don't realize, the open workouts and I don't know about the weigh-ins, but I think the weigh-ins too, but the open workouts, the presser, and about the weigh-ins, but I think the weigh-ins too, but like the open workouts, the presser, and then the weigh-ins, Showtime broadcast them,

but those were Jake Paul MVP productions. Like they ran those. Those were their things. Showtime didn't run those. Half of the broadcast was controlled by MVP or at least, you know, upfront they made some demands about what kind of things that they wanted

from, you know, what was plugged and what was on the ring and what kind of talent was used. I mean, all kinds of stuff he had a hand in. He has such a clear understanding of what a high-level prizefighter can do in terms of monetary reward, what those numbers look like, how to promote a fight, how to sell a fight, how to find an opponent. You know, like on that level, he is quite adept. But you know, people keep asking me like, is he good? No, he is not good. No, he is not good. He is not good. He's never going to be good in all likelihood. And that's not a knock on him. He might beat fighters from MMA that you respect. I think that's certainly possible. But the reality is this. He picked up boxing in his 20s. Basically, what is he, 24?

He'd been doing it for three years. So he picked up boxing at 21, which is insanely late. I've told you guys the story of Seth Mitchell. Even a guy like that who was a D1 Michigan State athlete in a weak division at heavyweight, even he ran into a roadblock where there was just no coming back from it. Now, granted, he also, I think, had not brain damage in the sense where, like, you know, he was slurring his speech, but he had a career in football,

American football, prior to going into boxing. And I think it didn't make his chin his strongest suit. Jake doesn't seem to have some of those issues for now anyway but what's the end game here right the minute he fights somebody who's actually really good it will probably go quite bad for him so i'm i'm guessing he's going to avoid that so then what he'll do is he'll try to find these other names and maybe that can go on for longer than i expect or you expect like i don't know exactly what the shelf life on that is, but at some point, even that will run its course.

You're just going to have all, you're going to, you know, you're going to have 20 fights against people who everyone sort of universally recognizes as maybe something of an interesting opponent, but otherwise, you know, this is all fairly low level. I don't really think that. And I think also he got a bit of a taste against Tyron Woodley about, like, what happens when you go up against a real athlete with at least some combat sports experience even if striking pure striking anyway is not necessarily there is not at all their background uh striking

was involved obviously in his background but not in this particular way and he was you know uh I think the numbers are pretty clear that Tyron's been gun shy for a while uh or at least you know whatever the situation is has not thrown with volume, whatever the reason why not. So do I think that Jake Paul fights are going to become normalized in boxing rather than a sub-genre of it? I mean, in some sense,

they already have become normalized, but I just don't see this as a long-term trend. I think he's doing the Mike Chandler bit. He's not here for a long time. He's here for a good time. So watch him while they're here or not up to you. Um, but I just don't think it's possible to compete even at cruiser weight, um, you know, or light heavyweight, whatever he eventually gets down to, uh, starting boxing at 21 and to actually get good. It's just not really possible. You've got

guys, you know, who've been doing that and nothing else since they were six or something. For a celebrity, he can box. For a boxer, he's a celebrity. It's the best way I can explain it. Is T.R. Titor going to kill Evander Holyfield, or would the real deal make a decent account of himself? I asked this after seeing him hit the pads in that video. Yeah. So Marcos Villegas over at Fight Hub was in,

I think Danny Segura was there too. I don't know if he filmed the open workout, but there was an open workout. Let me just say this. First of all, it wasn't like Vitor looked super awesome on the mitts either. I mean, he looked like he was having difficulty understanding the boxing combinations his coach was calling for. It wasn't like he was blowing them up himself, but you know, hard to know exactly how much effort is being put into an open workout,

especially with all the craziness that's happening there. Listen, here's the thing with Evander Holyfield, because I've gotten some pushback from folks being like, how do you know it's going to go bad? I don't. I don't know what that is going to go bad. I am not Miss Cleo. I cannot, which is very 90s reference, but I'm not a fortune teller. I don't know how it's going to go. The issue is not how I know it's going to go. The issue is what we know about risk factors related to age and other health-related concerns about Evander, as well as some other promotional concerns, which I'll talk about in just a second, and what that ultimately totals up to in how you assess risk. Here is something that I have just realized over time.

Not that I'm like the old and wise guy of the MMA world. That's not really it either. But I am old enough now where I can see my life in decades. I've got four of them under my belt. Okay. Four decades under my belt. And each one was very distinct in, in their own way. And what you learn, at least what I feel like I have learned, I'll put it that way. What I feel like I have learned is that you get, when you go through school, especially early early you get taught about these big grand world events and two things always occurred to me one they seemed so far in the past and then two they seemed like the kinds of things that would affect someone else's life

not the life that I was in I don't mean to say that it existed in a faraway country but I mean oh this these events are so rare, they won't happen within my lifetime. It will take several lifetimes for that to happen. It turns out it's just not really true. Up to about age 17 or so, the world was fairly predictable. I mean, yeah, there was the Gulf War, and that set off a series of events that later produced what it produced. But in general, it was fairly peaceful. The economy didn't crater out.

Crime dropped precipitously during my lifetime through age 20. You know, it was just fairly... Everything seemed to go where everything was going to be peaceful and normal and ordinary for the most part for life. And then everything after 9-11 just completely blew that up. You had 9-11 where the country was attacked. Seven years later, you had profound financial calamity. And then now you have this sort of decline in the trust of institutions, which has any number of effects in how people see the world. But you might be asking what that has to do with this. Here's what I mean to say.

I do not know that Evander Holyfield is going to suffer a deep physical trauma on Saturday. I have no idea. In fact, I remember distinctly, it was, again, different situation, but I remember distinctly when Tim Sylvia was supposed to fight Ray Mercer, and there was a whole thing there about, are they going to fight in a cage and a ring and blah blah blah what kind of gloves and then Ray Mercer went in there and just completely starched him and toppled him and like that was very shocking at the time granted Ray Mercer didn't have the same documented issues that Evander did he was also I think like 12 years younger than Evander is now or something

but nevertheless like is it possible that Evander could go in there and just absolutely starch Vitor, who himself is not necessarily a young guy? Yes, I cannot say that that is not something that could happen. Of course it could happen, but that's really not what I'm banking on. What I'm banking on is an assessment of a larger picture of risk. You have a 58-year-old guy who'll be 59 in less than a month, okay? So let's say really almost about 60, who even 16 years ago in New York was basically admonished by the commission and was told like, your business in the state in terms of being regulated to fight professionally is over. He had threatened basically litigation with Triller because he was supposed to get to

fight against Peter McNeely, which still would have sucked but doesn't seem nearly as dangerous. And California said, I'm not touching that shit with a 10-foot pole. Y'all can go fuck yourself. So they went commission shopping on a week's notice, probably, I don't know if it's for sure, but probably to resolve a litigation issue. And you've got Vitor Belfort who looks at least somewhat rejuvenated since his departure from UFC. Is he on any kind of performance-enhancing drug? I don't know, but I don't think that question is necessarily out of bounds either.

In other words, between the immediacy of how it was developed, the documented long-time history of Evander's health issues, by the way, financial woes as well, this situation to resolve any potential litigation, and then commission shopping on top of it. To me, when you stack that up, that is not a guarantee of disaster, but it courts enough risk that you should say, I don't really agree with rolling the dice. The big lesson from my life is that, what's the likeliest outcome on Saturday maybe it'll be fine it might be

fine it might be fine but I've lived enough life now just enough to see that those scenarios that seemed so distant that seemed so infrequent they're not that infrequent and they're not that distant bad Bad shit happens in your, if you live long enough, real bad, dude, life will fucking smack you around. Like let it be known. And, and in different ways to different people for different lengths, for different reasons, life will come, life will come crashing down on you. And if you tempt fate long enough, then bad shit will happen. So in this one instance, can I declare to you that I know for a fact Saturday is going to be a disaster? No, I don't know that. I absolutely don't know that. But I do know that you have enough risk factors

here where A, you should be concerned about what happens on Saturday, and B, more to the point, if it doesn't happen for this one and it does become normalized and everyone goes see nothing happened and you find yourself really going down this rabbit hole well then it only becomes a matter of time at that point if this kind of thing sort of serves as justification for Triller assuming nothing terrible happens aha you see look at that we did nothing happened so you should be fine it's oh, I drove home drunk and didn't kill anybody and didn't get arrested. You see, driving home drunk is obviously fine. We all know that he who is without sin cast the first stone. Have I driven drunk? Yes. One time in college, super regretted it. Nothing happened. It was two in the morning in Williamsburg, Virginia, and there was no one on the streets. Fine, and I wasn't all that drunk anyway. But still, shouldn't have done it. Fucking stupid. Really regret it.

Never done it since. Never will do it since. Never will do it. You know, just living at 20 years old and thinking that you understand risk and safety in the world when you really don't. Obviously, we all understand driving drunk is a bad fucking idea, even if you get away with it. This is, to me, sort of relatively kind of commensurate with that. If you live life long enough, you begin to see that those events that seem so impossible,

oh, that will happen when I'm 80 or something. No, dude, they will happen much earlier than you think they will, and they will happen with a surprising degree of devastation, and you just have to ready yourself for it. So this should be avoided. I think the Florida Commission is quite shameful, even if it goes well enough on Saturday. They really are, you know, they're just beyond shame.

They're just beyond shame. Who is the highest-ranked guy that you think Patty the Batty could beat? Not sure I'd even pick him to beat Bobby Green, Drew Dober, Orlando Venata. No, neither would I, but that's not really the point. Listen, there's a lot of hype behind him. I'm not going to say it's not necessarily well placed, but some of it is a little over the top. In other words, if you are from the UK or you like

this guy or he has captured your interest, should you be confident about his upside? I believe that you should. I believe that you should. But I also pretty much recognize that people think, oh, it's just his defensive issues. No, not necessarily. He has phenomenal experience. And probably at 20 fights, he might feel like I'm ready to start taking on these guys. And maybe he might beat some of them if things go right. Again, some of those things are kind of hard to say. I wouldn't bet on it, but certainly it's not a thing you could just utterly dismiss. To me, the issue is not just that his defense needs work. All his defense needs a lot of work work it's that his offense while formidable it's certainly not even reached he's 26 he's 26 so like the way that i think is the most appropriate and people will

disagree but the way i think you should look at his experience is that um it doesn't mean he's ready to start taking on contenders quite the. What it means is that he's clearly ready for this level. And if he still continues to work on his craft, which I'm confident he will, then in two or three years' time, then I think you will begin to see a clearer picture of where he's going to be. Maybe not as long as three,

it could be just two. But I still think that there's like overall game development that is required. First things first would be striking defense. But if you go back to, I mentioned it before, the sword and bock fight. Like one thing is if you look at all,

well, actually let's pull up his record. I don't want to talk completely out of, out of pocket here. So let's pull up his record. I don't want to talk completely out of pocket here. So let's pull up his record. Let's see. Let's see. Okay. Okay. Na, na, na, na, na, na.

All right, let's see here. Oh, Jesus. They don't even have... He doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. Can you believe that? Good Lord. Okay. So, on Tapology, let's look at his finishes. Like, when things went really well for him.

Okay? Including on Saturday. First round win in his last two fights, first round wins, okay? The loss to Soren Bach, five rounds. The loss to Nad Naramani, a decision loss, okay? He's got some decision wins too, to be clear. He's got a few of them, Ashley Grimshaw, Julian Erosa, but let's look at his finishes. Jonathan Fracci, I'm sure I'm mispronouncing that, first round. Teddy Violet, second round. Miguel Otto, round one. Kevin Petsche, round two. Steven Morton, round one. Conrad Hayes, round one. And he's got his own, but this is only back in 2013. He lost in round one to Anna Konachuk.

Okay, Jack Drabble, we're getting back to his like a long time ago. First round, first round, first round. Okay, he doesn't have any finishes in the third round. Now, finishes in the third round are rare generally. But what I'm pointing out to you is he's a strong starter. Very strong starter. The Soren Bach fight told you that if you can withstand the early storm, he doesn't have the same level of intensity later.

And again, you might say, well, isn't that just sort of common in human biology? Yes, of course. But if you look at the UFC level, I can name many guys who are stronger in the fifth than they are in the first. And I don't mean this as a character weakness of Paddy Pimlet, like nothing at all. I think he can absolutely get to that level. There is plenty there. All I'm trying to tell folks is, you went to the grocery store and you bought a banana,

and it looks like you're ready to eat it, but it's still a little bit green on the outside, right? So just wait a second. Just wait a second. Let him get some more experience, some more fight camps to work on everything, including, and I always say this, dude, eventually in the UFC, someone's going to put it on you. Someone is going to put it on you, and what happens when they do? We also need to see that. So what is his upside? His upside is potentially limitless, but what is his current state?

His current state is very, very talented prospect who still needs lots of work. And I think that is fair. I think that is appropriate. And I think if everyone takes their time, he could be extremely successful. If you could magically restore any washed fighter to their prime, who would you choose and why?

That's a very easy question for me to answer, and it's BJ Penn. It's BJ Penn. I saw his post about the difference between me and Habib, and it's like, I sort of get his point, you know? Where, especially in the era in which he grew up, there was an ethos about weight doesn't matter, time of day doesn't matter, location doesn't matter. If you're really about it and you're truly talented, you should be able to beat these guys. And it was sort of part of like the Hoist Gracie and Gracie legend essentially.

And we sort of learned over time there is still something to be said for that. Like jiu-jitsu as a actual self-defense art can really empower smaller people to have success against some of the bigger ones, right? That being that's not entirely misplaced. But as it relates to prize fighting, while it's true that there are some knocks on Nurmagomedov's resume, he didn't really change weight classes. You know, he had some weight cutting issues himself. You know, there's probably more guys, even in his own weight class, he could have beat to really sort of solidify this or that.

The reality is, like, his game is just much more modern, and I think he would have beaten the brakes off of BJ, to be quite candid with you. However, if you could take BJ Penn at his peak and then give him modern best practices, I wonder what that would do. I wonder how well that would restore him to the top. I have a feeling if he couldn't beat Habib, he'd beat just about everybody else. You've got to understand what BJ Penn was at his prime. First American to win the world championships at the black belt level in jiu-jitsu. So he's extremely flexible, utterly dominant in jiu-jitsu from virtually any position

off of his back, finding the back, on top, you name it. Savage ground and pound, great control. When he was with Marinovich Brothers, he had phenomenal cardio. He could punch hard. He had an iron chin. And he was, for his era, at his peak at his peak you could not take him down he is one of the few guys i've ever thought at his prime and i'm not saying this is even true i'm just telling you like what went through my head he was one of the few guys in his prime i've ever looked at a fighter and been like dude right here right now in this weight class he's unbeatable um i've only thought that maybe a couple of times in my life, and one of them was when BJ Penn was there. So, you know, does that mean he can come in here and just rule

the roost? Certainly that's a matter of debate, but I just don't think folks understand. He had a jab when no one had a jab. And this is the other part too, like he would get hit even at bigger weight classes in his prime, and it would barely swell him up he was hard to cut one of the first times i ever knew something had changed with pen was when he fought nick diaz because i remember it was the first time i ever saw him lumped up never seen that i didn't see him lumped up when he fought same i didn't see him lumped up when he fought leota machida you know uh that was the first time I was like, hmm. I've never seen that before.

That's interesting. And then, of course, subsequent encounters that happened with much greater frequency. But early on, man, early on, he had a feat. Again, I'm not even saying this is true, but I felt like watching he He was unbeatable. At his weight class. What do you think Brunson should do? Wait for something not guaranteed and risk being forgotten or sidelined? Because guys like Kananir, Strickland, etc. Fresher matchups could be active in raking up W's in that time. Izzy vs. Rob will happen and the champ recovers or in that time for a possible trilogy. So when, let's see here, when

is the rematch with Whitaker? Do we know yet? Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. All right, here we go. I don't think we have a date yet. Yeah, so here's the deal. I lived through Rashad Evans waiting for a title shot at the time Shogun was champion. And waited and waited and waited. And then by the time he had waited, the division had completely changed at that point.

Jon Jones had surged. And, you know, all the things he was supposed to have done and he was seemingly entitled to fell apart. I think that if the title fight was soon and you could sort of bank on whatever result happening there being in the books, it might make a little bit more sense to wait. And obviously, I'm not Derek Brunson. I don't have to go through camp and whatever else that entails. So what do I think Brunson should do is sort of a separate question than like what I think I would like to see. But if I was advising Brunson, I probably would advise one more fight.

Now, when you take that in against two is a little bit of an issue. But I think if you just wait, do these divisions move? Sometimes they don't. But in general, in in general they move fast dude a year of mixed martial arts fights the world is completely different from one year to the next in terms of where who's ranked where and whatnot there's always a couple of mainstays amanda nunez seems to be just you know utterly dominant forever and but even habib like he would still be winning but he retired and now he's gone and it completely opened up the division and we'll see what happens.

But no, I really wouldn't, I would not wait. I would, the Cannoneer fight, because here's the thing, you eat Cannoneer and you get six fucking wins in a row and you took out Cannoneer where the only people that are ahead of you would be Boasinha and then Rob at that point, right? And then Boasinha's got issues with Vittori, and if Rob loses or even Rob wins, kind of slots you in. But that's the other part too. Like what if Rob wins and they want to do a trilogy? There's a lot of ways where just waiting can blow up in your face

and then you just get passed by. And then you get a harder fight that you ordinarily would have gotten, and then the whole thing just blows up. So I tend to think you've got to strike while the iron's hot, just based on the way the UFC has such control. But very easy for us to be like, here's what Brunson should do. You might be answering more what you would like to see Brunson do, rather than what he actually should do.

Hi Luke, I'm a medical student at Howard University. I live two minutes from Howard's campus, but I also live about 10 minutes from Georgetown and George Washington. This is a university. Despite them being 10 minutes up the road, a little further than 10, closer to 15, those parts of town are like heaven compared to Howard's environment. Okay, what part of Howard though, like off Georgia Ave? Can you please explain to me why that's the case for at least in your opinion? I've never seen such a broken glass with car windows in the street

until I moved here from Richmond. I thought it was bad there, but compared to here, good Lord. Well, first of all, you're a little soft, if I could just be honest with you. Listen, there is no denying, there is no denying that for major metropolitan areas, and perhaps everywhere, but certainly in major metropolitan areas, including and not exclusive to D.C., crime is up. I mean, you can't deny it. Carjackings up, robberies up, murders up. Not just here, New York, Chicago, L.A., any kind of top 10, top 15 market, maybe more

than that. I don't know exactly what's happening in sort of your mid-major cities or whatever, but certainly in your major cities in this country, crime is up. Fact. Can't run from it. Can in this country, crime is up. Fact. Can't run from it. Can't deny it. It is just a reality, and it sucks, obviously,

that that is the case. However, folks, some of y'all are a little bit soft. I lived in this city when Marion Barry was the mayor in the 1980s. Let me tell you something, folks. D.C. is a fucking paradise compared to this place in the 1980s. Let me tell you something, folks. DC is a fucking paradise compared to this place in the 1980s. And I lived through that, you know, not saying it was always pleasant or always easy,

but there's a lot of folks who are like, wow, there's crime and blah, blah, blah. I'm like, I don't think folks understand what the 80s and early 90s were like before crime began to drop, which, by the way, is still very much a debated topic by criminologists about why it was happening. Was it gun control? Was it not? Was it the lead being taken out of pipes? Was it not? Was it a series of other factors, economic revitalization?

Was it not? Was it mass incarceration? Was it not? There's a lot of debate about what caused it, but sort of across the country, crime went down. See, but before crime went down, I was here. I don't think folks understand it is not even remotely comparable. You are significantly safer now at any place in D.C. than you were in that same place in 1985 or whatever. Fact.

Here's a perfect example. I used to live off East Capitol Street. For folks who don't know, it connects essentially the old RFK Stadium all the way to the Capitol. Straight line. Straight line. Okay?

Literally off of the Capitol, if you're looking at a map north and you just go on the east side of it, there it is, right? All the way to RFK and to Maryland. Straight shot. And I used to live close to the DC Armory slash RFK Stadium. In fact, when I was a kid, here's another example, that was where the then Redskins used to play. And when they played there, there was no metro there. So people had to walk from like the nearest place, which was further to our, uh, my house further to the right.

And when people would come to go to the game on my left, they would, there'd be just thousands of people walking down the street at all times. And it just chucking beer cans in your yard. And there was fights out there. Like it was a fucking mess, man. Every time the skins played out there. But the big one is this, um, right near there is a park called Lincoln park. In fact, you guys might remember this from the news. Some of you might, there was a big debate because there is a statue in that park of Abraham Lincoln with his hand on a chained, uh, or he might've been chained, but a guy who either I think was still a slave and here's the story about that that that statue was commissioned

and paid for by freed slaves after the Civil War however if you're if you don't know the context and you go and just look at it it's like here's Abraham Lincoln putting his hand on a slave and there's this big divide in the black community from what I can tell between the older folks who really actually like that statue and the newer ones who have various issues with it. Anyway, there's also other statues there. When I was a kid in that park, dude, if you went there after night, you were getting fucking stabbed. Fact. Like, at a bare minimum,

they were taking your shit. Right? There were all these benches and I used to recall all these dudes drinking beers out of their brown bags and fist fights and my friend got mugged there and blah, blah, blah.

You go there now and it's labradoodles and picnics and, you know, I mean, just gentrified to the nth degree. So I'm not telling you that like crime doesn't matter or that it doesn't suck that there's a difference in neighborhoods between Georgetown and Shaw. Shaw is where essentially Howard University is. Although to me. Shaw has much more character. Than Georgetown. Like by a pretty significant degree.

Georgetown sucks. I mean it's nice. But it sucks. There's zero character to it whatsoever. Fuck Georgetown. But compared. To when I lived here in the 80's. Y'all are a little soft. Buck little camper you will be okay trust me trust me

oh BC is texting me what does he want let's see let's see. Okay. Okay. Let's talk about tomorrow's show. Y'all, I'm sweating like a whore in church. So, you know, listen. I'm not saying that you have no reason to be worried, but I've been back in this city since I grew up here,

and then I moved back in 2004. I've been in this neighborhood since 2005. And my only incident issue is once I walked my dogs, and someone broke in and stole my Xbox and laptop, which sucked. Which sucked. But that's it. I've never had any other issue. And I, I don't live in like what is like notoriously famous for one of DC's. I don't live in Georgetown. Let me assure you. And I don't live near GW either. I live, I live very close to Shaw. I'll put it that way. Like calm down. Which fighter has profited the most from being a weight bully in their division?

Like a guy who could just cut a shit ton of weight. You could say, the biggest one in my lifetime is probably Gleason Tebow. Gleason Tebow was well into like 200 and then would just constantly cut to 155 and be a fucking rock. You know, god damn. Okay, let me put this on mute. BC won't stop texting me. There we go. Okay. So, you know, it didn't turn him into a champion or anything but it definitely like

helped him out in his career for sure. Luke, congrats on UMBC reaching 200 episodes. We focus on the positive of the show, but so far, what are the things you regretted or could have done better? Greetings from Greece. I mean, we had a big meeting today about all the things we're going to tighten up. The only thing I'm going to bring back to the MK channel that's missing, as I sweat

my way through this under these bright lights. Is some kind of technique breakdown. Obviously, I've gone back to my personal channel, but I can't do that alone. I've got to bring some to MK. So we're working on some things to do that. Someone's asking me about Ariel and Brendan. Like, folks, I'm going to say it one time and one time only more. That's it.

Last time. That is between them. Two grown men. I'll let them handle it. Do you agree with me that the elite British and Irish fighters need to move to the States to realize their full potential? I include Connor in that. The best soccer players in the USA don realize their full potential. I include Connor in that. The best soccer players in the USA don't stay in America.

That's true. All of our best are playing typically overseas. Some are from MLS, but, you know, Weston McKinney and Josh Sargent and Pulisic and whoever else, they all play overseas. So here's what I would say. This is something of a complicated question. This was an easier answer 10 years ago. 10 years ago, like when your Dan Hardys and Bisping's, I remember when, you guys may not remember this,

I remember when Michael Bisping was part of Team Wolf Slayer in the UK, brought even Rampage over for a time and blah blah blah or was it michael bisping and team wolf slayer whatever the fuck it was the point being is i remember when there was some like standout uk guys uh hardy and bisping who did really well coming out of the uk and then um in the case of michael bisping ultimately relocated to the united states but in the case of Michael Bisping, ultimately relocated to the United States. But in the case of Dan Hardy, spent some significant time in Las Vegas living and training. And that was the thing where you could just sort of more easily defend.

American wrestling is still quite dominant, but was really dominant back then. And there just weren't as many coaches over there. It was just a hard, It was very, very difficult to maximize potential with wrestling as such a central feature. Even now, today's game was significantly more featured then as a bedrock foundational skill. And there was less ways to get it than going to the United States. So it had been true for a time. More recently, you kind of got away from that. Like where, you know, before these guys were coming out of NCAAs

and they were just sort of wrestling in that style. They had a coaching amount of wrestling in NCAA. And, you know, in other words, they were just bringing a wrestling game where some of that stuff wasn't valuable or even necessary. And then over time, what you saw was guys become good instructors in MMA who never wrestled, and fighters too, like St. Pierre, who never wrestled formally, and then take that back to their countries where some of the big camps in Brazil, they didn't have,

they had some good wrestlers there, but not like elite wrestlers like you may have found in the United States, and they were pulling up guys who had great wrestling and could use it in MMA. And you saw that in other countries as well. It spread pretty far. But, you know, it still remains a bit of a problem. Do I think that the British and the Irish

need to move to the United States to realize their full potential? Not necessarily, no. I would be speaking a little bit out of turn if I said I had the clear grasp on exactly the level of wrestling instruction and sparring partners related to that instruction for wrestling in all of the UK and Ireland. I don't have a full grasp on that. I obviously know some of the more famous coaches.

Certainly in jiu-jitsu, I think you can get plenty of that. I mean, dude, London Shoot Fighters has what? Has Hodger Gracie? I mean, you, London Shoot Fighters has what? Has Hadja Gracie? I mean, you'll be fine training with him, trust me. But I will say that it does appear there are some fighters from that area who, for whatever reason, are underdeveloped in that part of the game. So to answer your question, do all of them need to move?

No. Could some of them benefit by either flying out a coach and some sparring partners or more easily just spending some time at Sanford MMA or whatever? Yeah, there are some that could benefit from that. Again, Till, I'm not sure what to say because he

fought with a 20 cl and we went through it on uh on my technical difficulties podcast like he you know he didn't look great but it's just hard to know exactly what all of that meant uh given the injury but you're right with connor like connor brought in dylan dennis for a time folks forget connor had ryan hall uh as uh as a sort of a you know John Cavanaugh got mad when I called Dylan Dennis a coach but I'm not sure you know to call him merely a sparring partner seems very much incorrect