MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Is Aljamain Sterling the Most Disrespected Elite UFC Fighter Ever? | UFC Vegas 116 Results

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

It's Monday morning and that means Morning Kombat with Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall is back! The fellas break down the latest in combat sports, starting with Aljamain Sterling's convincing win over Youseff Zalal, despite being the betting underdog. Did Joselyne Edwards position herself for a title shot with the biggest win of her career over Norma Dumont? The guys recap the rest of the highlights and lowlights from UFC Vegas 116. Plus more, like Dana White's reaction to the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner and Ronda Rousey's rivalry with Kayla Harrison.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. It's what 11 a. Combat. Oh, very good. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a margarita?

We're going to do it to me, two weeks. Your marks get set and go on. Well, well, well, we're back. You ain't got no job. You ain't got nothing to do. do it's time for morning combat hello everyone welcome on this uh whatever number edition this is here on a monday show i am merely one half of your hosting duo i join you from the capital of the status news right here in washington dc my name is luke thomas joined by my

connecticut brethren who changed hats on us because yeah i did how he was wearing before the show so here he is the iceman himself chuck mendon what's up you know how these wardrobe shifts go look it's like last second you're like uh you got to do some i couldn't see my head so i was like I was wearing a camouflage hat before. What was the, what, I didn't see the insignia on the camo hat. What was that? It's a roots of fight Elvis, like, from his military time. So it's like Elvis themed, like, military hat.

Yeah, they sent me some stuff. Yeah, I love that one, but it only goes with certain things. I didn't feel like it. It was, it was kind of contrasting against my backdrop here. Yes, it goes with fentanyl and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That's correct. How was, how was Iowa, man? I know that you, you were just off covering some fights, right?

for big news promotion. Yeah, let me say this. So I was at XFC 54. This was in Iowa City, Iowa. Second time being there, I had done an XFC card for them last year. I'll just say this. There's a couple of names you really got to remember from that card, man. And I'm going to say, and people are like, oh, I'm not going to remember that name. I'm telling you, this is the guy to remember. Darkenbeck Ergishov. Bro. Yeah. I mean, he beat Ray Cooper in his first XFC fight, finished him off, but a two-time PFL champion if memory serves. And then in this one, he went up

against a guy who was 2 and O'O from the PFL, a Fabiano Scherner Black Belt, you know, I think he was like 8 and 2 or something like that named Sarek Shield. By the way, I asked Sarek, I was like, where does your first name come from? He's like, it's the name of Spock's dad. And I was like,

I was like, your dad named you after Spock's dad? He's like, yes. And then I talked to his dad, he's like, I love Star Trek. And I was like, okay, all right. Anyway, He submitted him. You know, that scarf hold where you're inside control, but you're pulling their chin to their chest, kind of like this. He had the guy in scarf hold and then in the second round

and then transitioned to using his legs while maintaining the scarf hold to then submit him with an Americana. So his legs are turning his arm this way while he's scarf holding him this way. And he got this up. Dude, that was insane. There's no way, Chuck, he doesn't go to the UFC. I love it, man. No possible one.

I saw you post the video, but what weight class is that? Walter weight. Welterweight, okay. And, you know, I was looking at his comments, like Mick Tebeck Oralby, the, like the hammer was in all of his comments, like, big him up. I was like, dude, this dude rolls with. I love it, man. This dude, by the way, Slava Claus lost to one of Ignacio Baimondez's training partners.

This dude named Jose Ferreira. But he won fucking two, man. I couldn't believe it. So, yeah, there was a lot going on. How was your weekend, Chuck? The fights looked good. my weekend was okay you know I just I was kind of hanging around here

you were saying and I know you wanted to save this you had some troubles with your travel let's hear about this what was going on here man bro so Friday after my live chat I had to do a little early I had to go to the two to and I knew I was going to have to go through DC rush hour traffic

to get there like so I had planned for that but a 20 minute trip for me to get from my house to Reagan National instead took an hour but okay okay but I I was ready for that. Then they changed gates on us. Not once. Oh my God.

Not twice. Not three times, Chuck. Four times. And then the fourth time, they go, oh, you're now in a different concourse. Oh, my God. We were in C concourse. We had to go to all the way to the final gate on the e-concourse. And they're like, oh, by the way, it boards now in 10 minutes.

So, of course, I'm trying to fucking hoof it over there. I get there. And they're like, no, it's going to be delayed another hour. instead. Okay, it's delayed. And even all of that wasn't a big deal. Get on the flight. I paid 75 bucks. I got an upgrade to first class. I was like, great. I'll do that. No sweat. We land in fucking Iowa. This fucking airport has two baggage carousels. You understand? Like, we're not talking about a very big place. They wouldn't give me my bags. There was lightning in the air. And what they told us was, unless there's 15 minutes of uninterrupted, no lightning,

they won't they there's a ground stop they won't do shit so i landed at about 10 in local time i got my bags at one oh my one brother and then the driver who was waiting on me because they had a driver to pick me up he had fallen asleep in his car he comes like i finally like you know get him to come pick me up motherfucker he's swerving on the roads like people are honking at him because i guess he was real tired and i was like man if i don't die on this trip it'll be a minor fucking miracle You know what I'm saying? You made it. You made it there, bro. Wow. I made it. All right. You can go direct through, by the way, from, you can go direct into Iowa City from Washington. You can go direct from D.C. to Cedar Rapids. Okay, I got you. And then it's like a 20-minute drive. I don't have that option out here in Connecticut, man. We're connecting everywhere. You know, we have to go through Atlanta and Chicago. You and B.C. were always like- It was bad that way. It's crazy. I don't know how you do it, but that's the situation you're in. Let's quickly bring in the third member here of the show. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. for time from the NFL. I've had a lot of my mind and now got my own show.

If you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms and the IHeart Radio app. Did you have a good betting weekend? Long Island Luke? I did. I think I've won five of the last six weeks and like four weeks in a row.

But I did. I had Aljo. I had a four-leg parlay of just a bunch of overs on the main card that hit because every fucking fight on this card went the distance. Ryan Spend, Bouchetcha, I did have the over, they, they screwed me by like 20 seconds. I was texting you about that. Guys, but otherwise, you know, my car broke down yesterday while I was driving it. That was pretty sick. I just left it on a random street. Got to go get it towed after this episode today.

Good Lord, man. Any mechanics on Long Island, hit up your boy. Email morningcombat at gmail. You guys went through some rough weather this weekend, man. Jesus. Dude, I mean, it's just the travel struggles are real between the two of us. Yeah. At least you got a very good UFC card, right, Luke? That was a pretty good UFC card. Lots of dynamic finishes. Worth devoting all my Saturday too for sure, for sure. Yeah, I've had cars where I did the Bill Murray from

Stripes bit. It's like, oh, you can't park that here. I'm not parking it. I'm abandoning it. Yeah, I know. Same here, man. All right. Well, don't abandon us. We've got a lot of stuff to get to today. He mentioned UFC, Sterling versus the law. We're going to talk about all of that. We'll get to Dana White's, like, wild-ass

reaction to being at the White House correspondence dinner, plus this rival between Rhonda Rousey and Kayla Harrison. Thumbs up if you haven't already. Hit us up on socials if you haven't already. Email the show, MorningCombat at Gmail.com. And just a bit of a heads up on this, there's not much merch time left.

Morningcombat. Dot shop is going to be the place to be to get the Root Beer, Duncan, and MKTV shirts, as well as the bout about it, Luke Baca poster. This will expire April 30th at 11.59 p.m. East Coast time. So you've got to hurry up and get the those there. Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm forgetting anything else. I think that's about it,

right? I think we're good on that. And your nuggets are out of the playoffs now? No, no, not yet. They've got their backs against what they play tonight and they're down 3-1 to Minnesota. I figure when Yokic is fighting people, it ain't going too great. I'm hoping that it has a like a few years ago, they had a situation exactly like this down 3-1 against the Clippers. Paul Milesap got in the guy's face exactly like this and the nuggets came back to win it. So I'm hoping it has that kind of effect on them. All right. Long Island,

what you wanted to contribute? I just wanted to chime in to say that the April meme contest will reveal the winner on Friday's show, but you have up until Friday's show to still send those in. And you get a free signed poster to whoever gets the best one. We'll do fan subs later today. Last week's were awesome, by the way.

That was a very good crop that we pulled from. Oh, yeah. I haven't seen this one. Apparently the guns are trained on you. Yeah. I'm very excited to see. Maybe that's why I'm partial to. them, you know. Let's see, let's see how this goes. All right, without further ado,

let's get this party started. Topic number one, we'll start with the biggest fight over the weekend. Al Jermaine Sterling gets it done. And I won't say easy fashion, but by the time that fight was over, there was really no question about who had won it. Before I get to the question, yeah, thank you, Long Island. Here are the scores. Look at him pretty universal across the board. The only one one you could have given to Zalal was round three. He did have the back for the majority of that round. but then a huge rebound by Sterling in round four. I didn't have it at 10-8, but all three judges did. Either way he won it, and then, of course, sealed the deal in the fifth and final round.

A phenomenal performance by Al Jemaine Sterling. Now, I will say on this show, I feel like on Friday, the show generally, and then specifically in particular, you know, Long Island was really, really high on Sterling, not just because he's from Long Island himself, but because there's a really good case to be made for Sterling. Let me ask the question this way, and we'll break down the fight itself, Chuck. Is Al Jermaine Sterling the most disrespected elite UFC fighter ever? I think he must be, right?

Like, it just seems like he's always fighting an uphill battle. And you tell me, this is another one of those APEC shows where it felt like maybe he was being cast to be overthrown into his role, to maybe be like pushed away with Zalal. I thought that maybe that's what was going to be the case. But I have to say, we've seen this happen in recent times. How old is Al Jain? 36. 36, yep. 37 in July.

So we've been watching these guys. We keep talking about this. It's like kind of a recurring thing about these guys who've been around a little while. And, you know, maybe it's their time to kind of be pushed back a little bit. And then they show up on one of these cards in a main event and they do work. Al Jermaine is the most recent guy to do this. But 100%, man, I just don't think. I know that he was calling for a title shot, you know.

and that's kind of a stretch, but you're like, okay, well, he was a former champion. But when you look at just the way that, if you look at his run and just the hate he gets from the fans, and I always get the sense that Dana White himself doesn't really care that much for Al Jemaine Sterling. And I always get the sense that Al Jermann carries like a, you know, like a chip on his shoulder when talking about the UFC and he's not afraid to voice it. It just feels like an uphill battle for him. I kind of felt bad because that kind of performance maybe should thrust him into the conversation. but at the same time I'm like, I just can't see a scenario where the UFC would actually,

even if they had some circumstances, I don't think that they'd put Al Jermaine in that spot. I was thinking about this, like, you know, in reference to the question, like who's the most disrespected elite UFC fighter ever? And you could not say someone like Nico Montanio, Chuck, because she didn't really have a UFC run to speak of.

She got a title. So like there's a weird footnote there, but I'm talking about somebody who's like in the trenches. You know what I mean? who spent time here. And Long Island, Luke is saying Leon or Ballal, two former champions, you could put them, even that's not the right answer. Ballal would certainly be maybe on the short list of guys who were disrespected.

But even then, I'm going to say Tim Sylvia is probably the other big name. Yeah. Right? Because you were there. And when we say elite, what do we have to mean here? I'm talking about, like, you know, this was the Tim Sylvia experience, Chuck, as you will know, but folks who missed it, he was six, nine. and he was this gigantic heavyweight and he moved awkwardly.

But there was a while there, man, where he was like he was durable. He had some good wins. He not only captured the title. He had title defenses. You know what I mean? Like he was around and relevant for quite some time. By the time I left the UFC and he got blindsided by Fador. Everything went off the rails.

But during that time, he was disrespected by basically everybody. Everybody was comparing him to Fador and everyone was telling him he was garbage. And he was still putting together, you know, really respectable wins. Sterling is a little to me closer to that, except here's the thing, Chuck. Sylvia got made fun of because, yes, he was enormous. He was a huge man, but he was not very athletic, right? He had knocked knees and, you know, he just didn't move great. Sterling is athletic as shit.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And he's has a fancy finish. He's had crazy finishes, too, like a few of them in his career. Yes. I mean, submitting to Kea Mizugaki with a head and arm triangle up. I know, man. Upside down, you're facing the ceiling.

You have to have an absurd fucking squeeze to do something like that. It is for a guy who's got like so many of the bases covered. Honestly, Chuck, Al Jemaine Sterling might be the most disrespected in that regard. Yeah. No, it's hard to dispute it. Now, does this all stem from the, from the Patriot, Yon, like the whole thing about not being able to the can? Does it, do you think it starts there and like, we've just never let this go? Because I fully sense it even going into this weekend.

It's not like it has left him, you know, this kind of perception of him. This is a better question for Long Island. Long Island, I mean, partly it seems to me that the fan base has a love-hate relationship with Aldo, or Al-O, I'm sorry, Al-Joe, where they kind of accuse him of being, you know, I don't know, a little dorky in certain ways and maybe kind of winning on control. But at the same time, there's also this begrudging respect that he's, like, quite skilled in the end. What is the source of friction as? as per chuck's question. What do you mean?

What is the source of friction? Why don't fans really take towards him kind of thing? I think you just like exactly what you're getting at. Yeah. I mean, I'm just saying did it all start then? I feel like there was a little dissension among the fan base and also the UFC

even before then. But I feel like when the whole Peter Young thing went down in the way he got it. I felt like that that was when it really went downhill for him. That's for sure the turning point. Because remember before that he finishes Corey Sandhagan and everyone's like Al Joe's next. he needs to be and he probably deserved it before

the Sandhagen fight too. Like that was like you don't need to take that fight but you're really cementing yourself as the number one contender here. Up until that point I think everyone was high. He was the funkmaster. He'd wear the big chain. Everyone loved it. Yeah, I remember the aphro. You know, he had this whole gimmick. He kind of

fell away from that when he became champ. Now he's much more like businessman. He's got the rum. He's got the cigars. He's just a little more he's kind of just changed up his whole stick and maybe people aren't as into that. He's got a cigar business? Yeah.

He was reping him at the post-fight presser. I think he's like an investor in a cigar business. I don't know if he was. He seems to be at a lockstep too. Occasionally like I felt like he kind of almost played the heel a little bit. He's like, suck it, you know, afterwards. Like he's in, sometimes that's just kind of tone death.

Like he'll have moments the other way too where he's almost trying to come across like a face in the, you know, in the industry and that doesn't work. In a way, it's, who was it that was, it's almost maybe Sehudo-esque or like even you know, Colby Coving, like somebody like that who can't get across fully in terms of their personality. Like he's never been able to translate other than the beginning before all that stuff happened with Yon.

I felt like people were on his side. But since then, it's been kind of awkward. Like his whole exchange has been awkward with the fans, including on social media. I will say, though, I agree with that. I don't in any way disagree whatsoever. I would just say, though, like if you're 36, you know, you've already been champion, you're moved up a weight class, you're, you know, closer to the end of your career than the beginning by a considerable distance.

I'm not going to sit here and say, fuck the fans, that's not my point. But like, you can't live for them anymore. You know what I mean? Like you, I would rather him live authentically, even if that is not necessarily personally interesting to me, which I'm not saying it is or it is. And I'm just saying, like, live how you want to live, bro.

You know what I mean? Your time in the sport, it's still valuable, but it is limited. Just do what you want to do. And I kind of like that he's doing that a little bit more. Yeah. To be honest with you. It works.

Demetrius Johnson for the longest time couldn't get across. And we talked to him, remember the time we were doing the room service diaries and I sat in. Like he couldn't get across. But like there was a point in time where he's like, I don't care anymore, man. I just don't really care anymore. So he just started being himself.

Everybody loved it. He's got a popular podcast. You got guys like Moikano. We just saw him recently. And you can tell that he just. you know, in the same exact boat, he's like, dude, I don't really give a shit how you think of me. I'm going to do my thing. And honestly, man, it's not a bad way to be when you get into your, like any past 35 and besides all Joe has already been a champion. You know what I mean?

Right. He's already kind of done that. So that's exactly what he should do, man. It's just be himself at this point. Let's talk about the fight itself. As we saw the score cards, basically the only round you could give to his law. In fairness, he did win it. He had the back. He yelled it would be round three. But otherwise, man, he was kind of fighting. uphill here. You can see this was in the fifth round just before the end of it. Look at the face on Zalal. Just, I mean, it kind of says it all. This picture really says it all, Chuck. I mean, you see the stats there, 6 of 11 take downs, more than 10 minutes of control time. You know, obviously hit nearly getting close to 200 ground strikes, full control with the back. He's even got risk captured. This is the story of the fight, right? Like, what went wrong for use of Zal here?

I just didn't feel like, and you tell me too, because it just didn't feel like he had. had an answer when something was start to go wrong. He ended up in such bad positions. Like that position right there, that happened a couple of times in this fight where he's just receiving hammer fist from the other side. And he's just putting his hand up essentially almost to buy time to try to figure something out. It's like he just didn't have the answers to do much about what was happening in that fight. And I guess, you know, we've said this a lot. There was just an experience factor in this whole thing. What is it all? He's like 29, right? He's been around. He's had a very good run so far in the UFC, but these are always the fights that

you're like, okay, wait a second. There's still a lot for him to be working on. And that's what these, that's what, like going against a guy like Al Jemann Sterling who's just been around and just knows how to zero in on your weaknesses or to feel out of fight and understand what's effective, that's where he's going to be a, you know, he's going to make it work in a fight like this. And that's exactly what he did. I just didn't feel like, you tell me, but it just seemed like Zalal didn't have answers once he got into bad. positions where he didn't want to be. Yeah. I mean, I think it's

for me when I watched this fight and I watched it again this morning, it's basically two things stood out to me. On the one hand, Chuck, you've seen it, right? Where guys talk about games where they had to play Jordan or Kobe or LeBron and they're like, you know, look, man, like, you know, LeBron's going to get 20, 30 points. That's just going to be what it's

going to be. So like, for example, there were time, and I'm not saying that Algeman Sterling is the LeBron James of M.A. What I'm trying to say is that sometimes you go up against a guy who's so skilled on some level there's like a little bit of ground you just have to concede right so you know by the time he got taken down the ease with which sterling is able to leg weave himself into body triangles effortlessly through transition very quickly without much friction it's one of the best i've ever seen in ufc history he's so fucking good at that on some level dude what are you

supposed to do about somebody that good there's just but of course then you get back to the curt osander which is there's a famous video if you guys don't know this this this uh half gracy black belt named kirt oceander and back in the 2010s he used to make videos about how to like get out of stuff and someone once asked him hey kurt how do you get out of a triangle and he was like brother if you're in a triangle you fucked up a long time ago that's not what you want to hear when you're in i mean i can tell you stuff to try but you should just be understanding there's a series of things you should have done before getting to that point so what i would say is i think two things are three things are relevant. One, Al Jemaine Sterling was pointing out like, hey, I've only had all but,

all but in my third fight. And then from there on, I've only fought ranked guys. I never got cut and had to make my way back. It was a certain consistency of quality. One, two, Zalal is very used to being against guys who either don't know how to deal with his pressure or they try to pressure him and then they walk into his very fleet footwork. Sterling had answers for both. He had answers for both. He how to corral and get in tight when he needed to or when he was accepting pressure to be on his own switch the game up. He was very, very good about taking that away. And then I think the last thing I would say is I don't think Zalalal has bad takedown defense by a stretch of the imagination, but he was just not nearly as skilled up against the fence, how to get himself separated,

prevent his back being taken. It just was not, he was up against it. You know what I mean? You get this sense, man, you've watched him a long time. Like, do you get the sense of Sterling is a very cerebral fighter? Because I think that like when you hear his responses, even like when he was talking in the aftermath when they were talking to him, he says, you know, I expected his speed. Because they had trained together. He was like, you know, I remember that. There's that speed. So it's almost like he's, he's accounting for what he's going to see.

He visualizes very well exactly what he's going to see and he knows what he's going to do encounter. But he's also a guy who I feel like, and I've talked to Ray Longgo about this, you know, back in the day was his adjustment. are very good. You know, once he gets the feel of things, he's able to kind of adjust and know where, you know, nowhere he should be, you know, upping things or going after a vulnerability. He knows those things. I always feel like Sterling's a little unsung on that level, just being able to read the fights. We talk a lot about like Volcanowski and guys like that who, you know, they make the infight adjustments and they put things to their advantage. But I feel like Sterling has really done that himself over the course of his career. Yeah, this is, I, you look at his grappling and, I mean,

he's clearly spent countless hours on the mat. He's clearly been under the tutelage of great instruction for a very long time. So I don't want to take away the hard work that he's put in, Chuck. But I can just tell you, as somebody who has decidedly average at best at grappling, even in my best days, not even near, not even approximate anything you saw from either Zalal or Aljo. You do come across guys who are, yes, hardworking, thoughtful, all the, they, but more than that, they're just instinctually good at it. They just have a natural feel.

He does. And to me, Sterling takes that natural feel and then marries it with all of these other. And by the way, you're talking about making good decisions. If you're naturally good at something, your aptitude to make decisions about it is going to be a little higher as well. And so I just think between the amount of hours at a high level he's put in with his innate ability to just kind of, to your point, feel his way through stuff. dude he's become very very very this is again how can mothar not get the title

because he sterling gave him everything he could handle and he still came out of top look at the fucking quality of sterling it's true man and you know i was uh i spent the day once at syndicate where you know john wood and marab and of course sterling one thing that i noticed uh you know obviously like training with these guys and kind of segueing to the west coast has been a big thing for him and i think being around marab

helps a lot like if you're trying to like get better at certain aspects on the ground especially but the thing i remember most was that sterling would stop walk through something walk through a sequence question everything say what about this he would just continuously do that i think he's one of those guys who is a you're just a natural student of what he's doing and he likes to know every kind of scenario so that he does not caught off guard in a fight and i feel like it's just it's really paid off at 36 for a guy to still be thinking that way like still have that kind of hunger that's pretty impressive to me. On the Zolol side at 29, you could hardly say that, you know, oh, he's damaged goods and he's nothing. He lost to a guy who appears to be very, very good. Arguably, arguably,

second, third best guy in this division. I mean, that's who we're kind of talking about here. But nevertheless, he did come up short. So what would you say about his future, Chuck? You're still pretty high on it? Because he's, to your point, still just 29 years of age. Well, we just outlined, like, of the scenario where it's like, okay, now you ran into a guy who's showing you something. I think he's a, because he was having success, he beat what, he bet, uh, Josh and to get cater right. Like he was, he was beating guys who had experience,

but maybe weren't as well rounded. And, uh, you know, just a, just a skilled ultimately as sterling. So I think that for guys like him, 29 years old, we've seen it before, man. You just, you go and you take everything you can from that fight. You're probably going to learn a lot more from something like this and experience like this, especially in a five round fight. Um, this was his first.

experience with that right like so i think that he you go back you take everything you can and and you still have enough time in your career to really turn that in your favor and like you know for your next run you'll have that i just i he's one of those guys who strikes me as um very capable of that you know i think that he can learn a lot more from his losses than he did from his victories let's put it that way yeah i totally i mean remember it was the losses that bounced him out and forced him to to recollect himself and then come back. It's still just 29. It would seem to me very foolish to write him off.

But ran into a bit of a bus saw on Saturday. Now, that takes us to the road ahead. I want to play you a clip from Al Jermaine about what he thinks could be next, and then we'll talk about it. You're a realist about kind of the division and where you stand, but do you think there's a case to be made that you should get Volcanowski Ness,

given your name recognition, given the fact that you're a former champion? I know Molsar has the head-to-head result and he's undefeated, but is there a case be made that more people would want to watch you and Volcanov than Mossar? You guys all watch Mosa versus Lerone Murphy, and I'm just saying, I let the fans decide, I let the UFC brass decide. I do think Mosser deserves it, but if they offered me the opportunity, I'm not going to say

no. I'm not going to say this guy deserves it. If they offer it to me, then hell yeah, I'm fucking taking it, and I'm going to give it everything I got to the wheels fall off. I think it's a fight that everybody would love to see two OGs of the sport. Why not? It just makes a whole lot of sense. And I don't know.

I just don't want to feel like I'm talking shit to Mozart because it's not. I respect the guy. People might say whatever. I just truly do feel like I won that fight. If not, it's a draw at best or worse, I should say. But at the end of the day, the UFC makes the decisions. I'm just here to take part, collect my checks, drink some rum, smoke some fine cigars after the hard work is done. and just living life enjoying the dream, man.

I'm living the American dream and that's what it's all about. Chuck, I mean, you can't deny the ability for him to put together impressive wins. And to his point, he recognizes Movesar is the guy right now. I mean, do you think it's possible in 2026 we see Sterling get a title shot? I think it is possible. But like I was saying off the top, I just, I get the sense that Dana White isn't his biggest fan. Now, Dana says he doesn't, you know, he doesn't really play into these factors, but we know that he does. But I just, it's, it's not like Sterling has kind of, you know, shied away from his criticisms of the UFC over the time.

I just feel like he does it. He rubs the UFC the wrong way. So it would have to almost be circumstantial. I certainly think that if Movesar went down, I don't even think he'd be the first choice. Do you? I don't think he'd be the guy that they'd say, like, let's do this. We're going to throw you back in there. I didn't feel like they really loved being in the Sterling business when he was a champion, you know?

So. Yeah, I don't think they did. either, but I mean, he keeps forcing their hands. He does. But that's why, like, so you say all of 20, so I'm like, there's a possibility that they end up toward the end of the year where he's fighting for it because he just becomes undeniable at that point. If he puts on more performances like that, did you find this one more entertaining, I guess, than Movesar's fight with Lorone Murphy? Because he was, he's kind of, well, you guys saw that fight. I wasn't, uh, I personally wasn't as bored with the fight as, uh, when I hear criticism, like, well, I thought Movesar was, that was a pretty good fight for me. I didn't. It's hard for me to say. It's hard for me to say. because I watched the Moussar Murphy fight live and I watched this one after the fact. And I do think that takes away from it.

So no, I didn't find it as entertaining. But it's apples and oranges in a sense. Yeah, yeah. Long Island, do we think that Sterling is, I mean, if I had to ask you that, let me say this, true or false, Sterling has a realistic likelihood of getting a title shot soon. soon being in the next calendar year I'm gonna say yeah something like that unfortunately I don't think I don't think so really yeah

I just like I would love the Volk Aljo fight I've been like literally clamoring for this before the Lorone evloev fight I was like let's just do Volk Aljo it'll be fun but uh John Silva's gonna leapfrog him if Mopsar doesn't get the next shot and then you also got Steve Garcia taking on Diego Lopez not that anyone wants to see Volk Diego Lopez but let's just say Volk loses to have Loya.

Now you could do the Diego rematch. If Diego wins, you can do Steve and Steve. There's just too many other things going on in the division. I think he needs one more like, he should fight John Silva and fucking hammer that home as the number one. That'd be a sick fight. Yeah, that would be a sick fight. That'd be a tough fight for either direction.

I love that one. Yeah. But in the other case, dude, he looked fucking great. He looked fucking great. There's really no two ways about it. Who would you imagine with? Who would you imagine with if he's not, if he's not going to,

fight, if he doesn't get a title fight, like, where do you place him in that division? I mean, honestly, I'm with Long Island. I love that. Yeah, that would be a fun one, man. You would need him against someone, like, the one thing you can say for Sterling is that does he pass the test of the idea that, like, is he a credible threat to Volk? Yes. I don't know how you can say he's not. That doesn't mean you pick him over Volk. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is could a guy like Sterling put a guy like Volk through his pace? That doesn't seem to me an unfair thing to think is possible, right? So he passes that test.

But in order for the fans to get hyped for that, he would need to be against someone who's like a threat to destroy him. And Silva may get overmatched in the grappling, but you would imagine on the feet would light up a guy like Sterling. Yeah. So that could be kind of interesting. But beyond that, I mean, you could do, you know, Yair is sitting around doing nothing.

Like there's a few guys you can pull out to make the, what about you? No, I kind of like the, I just don't think that UFC will make that fight because I think they'd keep Jean Silva away from a guy like that. But at the same, I mean, what about Lorone too? Like, you know, just given that he was on the streak and he was there, like he's basically in the title of eliminators. So now you're saying, okay, your default is now to fight Sterling. Yeah, that's a good one.

Like I said, he's got to, and that's the problem. It's like this was such a great performance. But given the obstacles of both what the management thinks about him as well as the division itself, it's not a done deal. It's just not a done deal. It's a little bit that you gave me the vibes of the Kamar Usman, who was suddenly like, hey, guys, I deserve the title shop. But there's clearly like three guys in front four guys, you know, and you're like, well, I mean, you're going off a past name and you're going off of all that.

I get it. But you've got work to do still before you're going to get that title shot. Well, also, it's just a fucking weird argument he was making. He was like, you know, me versus Islam, Islam pound for pound. Number one, me, former pound for pound. I'm like in 2020. And that case, Jim Sylvia should be trying to get the heavyweight. shot again. Yeah. I know it's like Tim

Sylvia versus Tom Aspinall, two former champions or whatever. You know what I mean? By the way, when you mentioned the disrespect thing, I was thinking back to something Monty Cox, he was basically saying this is what the UFC thought of Tim Sylvia at the time, because he had one fight left on his contract. He was getting paid one and one, meaning

100,000 and 100,000 if he wins. They were going to stick them on the prelims. And affliction was a thing that was just kind of bubbling up. And all Monty Cox had to do was say like, hey man, you're going to be paying us 200 grand for something and you're not going to resign them. You know, why don't you just let us go out of this contract?

And you know, the UFC doesn't usually play ball like this, but they're like, we can save 200 grand? And they literally let him go. I mean, that tells you everything you need to know about how disrespect that he was as a champion at that time. They were happy. And he, to their, I mean, they probably were, you know, thrilled to see Fado or light him on fire in the way that he did. Oh, yeah. But he got paid

800K for that Fade. I know, man. I know. Can you believe that? He was going to get like a million if he won, but that was never going to happen. He got sick money for that big As a loss. All right. Before we get to topic number two, guys, you know the NBA playoffs.

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illinois 21 plus in most states void in ontario restrictions apply bonus bets expire seven days after issuance for additional terms and responsible gaming resources. See dkng.com slash audio limited time offer. By the way, speaking of these playoffs, dude, LeBron James is pretty fucking good. How is he doing it? How is he staying on top of the game like this? What's your theory? I mean, it wouldn't surprise.

I'm not, I'm not declaring anything to you. You know what I'm saying? But if he were, if he was, if he's not on Chinese peptides, I'd be surprised at this Yeah, I mean, that's, it is pretty, regardless, it's pretty amazing when you lose your two star play. I know, LeBron's up there too, but like they lose two key players, including their star with Donchich, and yet here they are about to advance to the second round. Nick Wright has an argument, which is basically like, you know, LeBron's not going to play forever, but he's never going to be bad. That's, you know what I mean? Like, he's never going to be like mega washed.

And I'm like, he might be right. He honestly might be right. I mean, we would have seen it this year or last. I mean, I just keep waiting for it. It's not going to happen. I'm with him. You'll get out. I saw some tweet the other day.

And no, it was not written by Brian Campbell. And the tweet was, you know, the Lakers won the, there was a four point differential, right, in the end. Right. And in the game, Brony, LeBron Jr. or LeBron's kid, Brony had five points. He goes, in other words, the Lakers only won because LeBron James had sex. Think about that. Oh, yeah. I was like, yeah, sounds about right.

Yeah. All right, let's do this. Topic number two. Let's talk the rest of that UFC fight night, Sterling-unzelol main card. I mean, first of all, can we just take a step back here? That event sucked.

It was not good. You know, we've talked about it before, Chuck. We don't have to belabor the point, but like this tier of the product, it's not to say that there's never a case that this tier of the product, you know, can't deliver because that Emmett and Kevin Vajjo

card. It did deliver. So it's not like it's not possible. Right. But I mean, it struggled on Saturday. They did not. There was, like, if you looked at all the five, there's 13 fights, there's one that's a five rounder. If you collect all the, you look at all the possible minutes that could play out. If everything went to a decision,

it'd be 205 minutes. They, they fought for 184 and change. They almost, there's only two fights where there was a, you know, where there's a definitive finish. And the rest of that was spent, you know, on judge of scorecards. It's just that kind of thing. I think they said it was

tied like a record or something for UFC 263 for most decision. Even DC. I saw him on like a threads thing where he's like, you know, I love calling fights at the apex, but that one sucked. Did you see that? I mean, he's basically calling it out. And I mean, for one of the UFC's company men to basically say that, I mean, you

that tells you everything you need to know. That is a marathon for commentators, by the way. Imagine that. You just did it. Like, imagine doing 184 minutes of fight time where you just got to keep going. We had 10 fights on our card, and I think only like maybe like three or four of them went to decision. The rest of them were very quick. That's much better.

Can you imagine doing 11 fucking decisions? And I was so funny because I had to, because I missed most of it live. So I have to go back and watch. And usually what I do is I prioritize the ones that aren't finishes first. And I'm like, wow, there's only two of these. And one of them is, Cedric Duma, not even fighting the hands on a choke attempt. We'll talk about that in a minute. All right.

Let's talk about the co-main event. Jocelyn Edwards gets the biggest winner for her career. Feeling on a short notice. Goes from number 12 to number three. Somehow, Chuck, she's tied for third most. What? In Bantamweight wins in the UFC women's division. Sured.

I mean, is she going to get a title shot, Chuck? What the hell happened here? Man, that is a, that blows my mind. That's that. Because it feels like she hasn't been around. Like those other ones have been around forever, you know? It's like, but you know, you look at like Julian Appaena, it's been what? I don't even know, 10 months, something like that

since she fought. And Pennington, like a year and a half. You know, it's just that the top of that division right now. And then you've got the tie up, obviously, with Amanda Nunes and Kayla Harrison. So, I mean, I would, I would be okay. Like, did you think that she performed? I thought she looked very good. She looked very strong, quick. Like her hands were fast. Like, everything about it was fine. But I don't know where that division sits at the top at this point. I just don't even know what's available to her. I don't either. I mean, the fight itself

was weird. First of all, Norma Dumont thought she won at the end. Did you see her? Look at her face. Look at this face she's making. I know. I thought she was just playing it up. I thought she was playing it up when she was good before they raised the, before they made the call. Like she's sitting there kind of like confident. And I'm like, oh, she's just doing that thing. Some people do that, you know, and then they start clapping because they concede.

That was, I did not expect her to be like, what? What? You know, I was like, it seemed pretty definitive to me. It seemed like insanely definitive. It's like you were on the back foot and you weren't successfully counterboxing. You lost. You know what I mean? Like you could be on the back foot if you can counterbox.

You can't counterbox. And it's not like I guess Jocelyn Edwards. Right. And so she lost. Like the thing was when it was over, it's like, wow, man, like on paper Edwards did a very, very difficult thing, filling on a short notice, jumping up a huge, you know, nine spots. By the way, UFC doing a lot of this, like letting people jump big spots in the rankings. Right?

To kind of shake things up. and it worked in this case, but it's like, what was your favorite part about the fight? It's like Edwards landed some good jabs, some good push kicks. Yeah, there was like a reversal in the first,

like toward the end of the first round. Yes, you had a reversal. But it was like, it was like, it was very subtle stuff. It was not like there was it. Yeah,

that was it. I just didn't have much to say about it. It's like, I'm not, I don't know what the UFC is going to do with this division, but it's not like this was like a mandate. Oh,

you know, I'm going to stake my claim. I don't know. All right. How about this one? How many Barcellos? This old goat got it done again. And by the way, let's talk about this.

That was a rough fucking start for him. I didn't know if he was going to make it out of the first round. As you can see, he loses 10-9. And then, of course, that third round, kind of interestingly, Sal Diomato giving it to Jackson, which I don't really understand. But right guy wins in the end. Chuck, his win streak, I mean, we're talking, you know, Montel Jackson, Ricky Simone, Cody Garbrandt, and other names.

this fucking guy is great. Peyton Talbot. Patent Talbot was like when it first shows up in a weird because you're like, you know, he was something like a plus 1,200. He was a huge underdog in that fight. And obviously that it ended up being kind of a foolish line when you watch the fight play up. But man, what a what a rugged, sturdy, wily old veteran he is, man. He's either the tough dude. Like, and he just makes it hell on the guys he's facing, right? Like he's been, I think he's been an underdog except for the, was it the Calvin Cater one? like, or which one was? I'm just looking back right now. So he's been an underdog and three of the five on this wind

straight. Exactly. And one of them was like a coin flip. Like the one. Yeah, the Kenyonez one was close. So it's like, you know, he's been basically booked to lose in a weird sense because, you know, for Peyton Talb, I guarantee you he was just kind of like, all right, man, you're going to stand in the way of this kid who were trying to get across. And he didn't allow that to happen. And here he is again. I think he was, what was it, Luke? It was, uh, he was something like plus 200 here, right? Like he was pretty sizable underdog in this. fight and he comes through again. Yeah, he was like plus 170 or something.

Yeah. So, I mean, it just looks like he makes life hell for the guys for whatever they want to try to do. He uses that wrestling to great effect. He crowds you. He puts you in bad position. He chews up your leg. Like, it just, he just makes life hell on these guys.

And it's been working, man. It's amazing to me. Like, there's a type of MMA fighter who is not the best guy in their weight class ever, but is the kind of guy who's surprised. surprisingly puts it together right before the end of their career. Right. You know what I mean? You've seen this before where they're just a,

like something clicks and they make this one last push. I'm not saying if he loses, he won't keep fighting, he can keep fighting, but I'm saying like he's, he'll be 39 on Friday at 135 pounds. And he's win streak is Christian, Quinoeas, Peyton Talbot,

Cody Garbrandt, Ricky Simone, and Montel Jackson, dude, those are no bullshit names. You know, that's a quality ass win streak. And like, by the way, if look at the names he lost to, Kyler Phillips, who has underperformed recently before a time was good. Umar Numergumatov. Need I say more.

Victor Henry, very good, Josh Barnett, train fighter. And then Timor Valley, have another pretty good fighter as well. You know, like, it's just, it's just fucking amazing to me. These, I don't know, I don't know what it is about why some of these old goats don't get it together until the very end, but he did it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what you do with that kind of guy, because I feel like they keep booking in, in these situations where they think they're

trying to get the other guy. and it just doesn't work. So I don't even know what you do with him at this point. Yeah, he's ruining everybody's plans except his own. God bless him. You know what I mean? Yep. That's like me going to Joseph A. Bank and just blowing it up and then not buying anything, you know.

Works for me. Fuck the rest of y'all. Okay. All right. I got to talk about this one. Oh, my God, bro. I like how you worded it. Like Luke puts out like a little, you know, sheet.

And it just kind of gives you the idea of the topics. And you said, why did this fight exist? Yeah. We'll get to that one in a minute. Oh, I thought this is one you're talking about. No, no, no, we're not there yet. Okay, okay, okay. So you got two head scratch.

All right, let's hear the first one. Bouchetia. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bouchet. I'll let you have first. Ryan Span sends him to the land of Winding Ghosts, lifts him off of his feet. Well, you know, listen, no hate.

I'm a large man myself, but looking a little extra chunky even by his own admission. Nevertheless, gets the dub, shouts to him. Chuck, what the fuck? Three fights in. he's 02 and 1, Bouchetia in the UFC. What the fuck, dude. And I mean, when he came over, like with the one streak and everything,

I felt like he had a lot of buzz to his name. And, you know, even with, you know, people like, what's your name, be a mosquito, you know, like people like that where you're like, okay, how are they going to do? And they trans, they come over and they look very good in their performances. This is one of those situations where he just hasn't looked good. He should be 0.13. There was like an eye poke, right?

and the one that was kind of turned around. Like he should be 0 and 3. And I don't know. Like this should be an opponent he could he should beat, right? I just feel like, you know, even if you're one dimensional, I feel like Ryan Span who's put on like, I don't know how many pounds over the last like couple of years to be like the very tippy top of heavyweight at this point.

You should be able to put it in your realm and win this fight. And it just, he had a couple of moments early, but then it just, it just wasn't there, man. And at some point you're like, okay, this twilight, this segue into MMA, it just, doesn't look like it's going to work out for him so funny i've told the story before i won't say who it is chuck but i'll tell you off air all right but i had a person in the fight game who knows the fight game really well okay like like this is not somebody who's like and it and it had worked at the highest levels of it and i remember this was like before he had transitioned he was like at the

end of his jihitsu run and he hadn't made it over to mma yet but was like you know starting to hit the pads and roll over at aka and they had watched him train and they had message me and they go, I don't think he's going to do too well in MMA. And I was like, you know, okay. I mean, maybe he doesn't look the part now, but like, how could that possibly be? Wow, he was right. And this was, this was over 10 years ago. So this is a while ago, you know, and he nailed it completely. Now, part of what that person had told me was that Bouchet didn't like to get hit, which is true. Yeah. But dude, it's more than that. Like, it's more than that. Okay, let me tell you, let me explain something to you. For guys, if you missed,

because I've seen people just fucking killing Bouchetia on the timeline, you know, and it's kind of bothered me a little bit, but I mean, he's earned it. What can I say? But people are like, oh, he's a fraud. He's not a fraud. Now, obviously, this run in MMA has been a disaster.

That's an ideal. Yeah. But if you missed his prime, I did not. I caught his whole prime. He, this is what you have to understand about Bouchetia. And this is why what's happening now is kind of weird to me. I had several world. champion black belts tell me, yes, of course.

Bouchesha obviously has high level technique, like, of course. But the way that they explained it to me was, and you know, you could just watch him do this, a lot of the reasons he was able to like get that extra edge in these very competitive bouts was by virtue of his athletic advantages. He was so big. He could move like a fucking Puma. He was just able to, you know, find, find ways to make that his advantage, even in the game, which can be very slowed down.

Dude, is there any detectable athletic advantage that you're, that you see here? And like, I want to make a quick point. There was one time where he would, he level changed into Ryan Span. And one thing you should know is like, if you see like a really good wrestler, you know, when they make contact with a guy off of a double leg, they're shooting through him. And that guy either gets picked up and then they land or he's moving his feet and trying to underhook and whatnot. But like, you know, there's a.

push that happens. Go back and watch this fight, Chuck. Bouchesha shoots into him and it almost is like he shoots into a wall and then just collapses. Like the athletic advantages that were decisive for his prime have just melted away. I don't know what happened. Yeah. And I mean, what is he? He's 36 or something like that. Like he's and I'm, I just don't know. I mean, I was with you, man. Like, and I didn't know you, I know you paid a lot more attention to it, but I certainly saw plenty. I saw plenty of his his early stuff to know what you're talking about. But it just doesn't seem like he's able. Like if he's a guy who needs it to be in a, you know,

to take it to the ground and he's going to have to do work there, you've got to have those skills and you've got to have that ability. And I just haven't seen it. Like I thought honestly on paper, I was like, this might be the best matchup from the UFC so far, just given that Ryan Span, you know, this is a guy who admitted he didn't even have camps back in the day. He would just kind of like, he didn't take MMA real serious.

And I'm like, that's just something that sticks with you. you think about that as it goes in and now he's a heavyweight and he's joking around with D.C. And I just thought this is the guy, this is a setup for Bichetta, but to see him get knocked out like that, man, I was like, I don't know what's left for him in the sport, to be honest.

Nothing. And I'll say this too. I think it's an important part. I think a lot of people been like, oh, you know, he's not as good, no ghee as he is ghee. There's some truth of that, certainly. I don't think that's as big a contributing factor. The one thing I do think is a big contributing factor. And Ryan Hall,

told me this years ago. I one time asked him, you know, in trying to get, uh, the transition made from jiu jitsu to m.m.A. And I was like, I know you're spending less time doing jiu jutsu, but it's made it more functional, right? Because there's people raining punches down on you. And he was like, he goes, well, in terms of pure jihitsu, mine's gotten worse. That's what he said. He goes, but the thing you have to really remember is one of the key differences is, and you saw this, for example, here's a great example of this. J.T. Torres, who was, you know, who was. a two-time world champion. He took on Rory McDonald in MetaMorris.

And I think that fight ended up, or that match ended up being a draw. Not because J.T. was not as good as Rory or they were commensarily good. No. But the big difference was any time Rory would get close to trouble, he would just find a way to stand up using his MMA skills. And the big thing about Jiu-Jitsu is if it's you and me, Chuck, I'm going to try and beat you with Jiu-Jitsu. you're going to try and beat me with jiu-jitsu.

But MMA fighters have an avoidance game. Ryan Hall made this point to me. He's like, you have to force your jiu-jitsu on a guy. And a lot of these guys are not used to that. So if you watch, he tries that back take, remember? Yeah, yeah. And if you'll notice, one thing is he doesn't, like the posture of span is bent over. Sorry, it's not bent over.

It's straight up. And so you can see he falls over. But the big one is he actually captures that leg. You can do a little trick with a little kid. If your leg is higher than their head, they can't sit up. Right? So always hold that leg higher than their head. And you'll notice he grabs the first side hook and just pulls it up and then sits up and then stands.

Bushisha has no answer for this because he's not, the guy's not reacting with, oh, I'm going to use my jujitsu to get out of this. He's just doing the MMA fighter, keep away bit. And I just can't believe it's gone as bad as it's gone. And by the way, in Mennamoris, I think they all ended in draws. I was at a couple of those and I think just about all of those matches ended in draws. Okay, but it was elite blackthal

for the most part versus elite blackthal. I've just pointed out, I think that's why I met Amoros sitting, didn't last. They didn't have a, it just, all of them ended in stalemates, you know? But I was at the one you're talking about, by the way.

And yes, I do remember Rory, you know, basically doing that, getting up. Yeah. Just standing up and then it would, J.G. Torres has to go back to the feet. And it's like,

it's a lot to do here, you know? Yeah. That was fucking bad. Yeah, I don't know what to say about that. All right, let's see. What else do we have on the... What else in this card? On the main card.

On the main card. Had you interested? I mean, the Davey Grant one, right? 40 years again, we're talking about an old dog who showed up and did work and he seemed to be enjoying himself capitally in there, just kind of putting it on this dude. That was fun. I have to say, out of all of these of the decisions, this one was the one that I was like, okay, now that was entertaining to watch.

I'm not sure if it's just because he's 40 and he put on that kind of performance. But there's some. something about the glee and he takes it right. And then the microphone moment, I feel like he kind of stole the show. I think he got the performance part. Or like he got it bonus, right? For that fight or a fighter. Yeah.

So that's good for him, man. Yeah, he just, you know, it was interesting. Martinetti just wanted to kind of, he just always wants to clash. And Grant was good about sticking and move in, yeah, or intercepting him or whatever. He just couldn't ever get an offensive rhythm going. Also, dude, let me just say this out loud. Okay, Chuck, you always ask me like, oh, what do you see on tape? What do you not see it?

Boys and girls, I'm going to say something. Okay, please hear me on this. Sometimes if you watch a lot of boxing, it's actually really hard to go back and watch MMA striking. And I know what some folks are like, oh, you're being a snob, I'm not. There's something I want you to notice, which is that at the end of every offensive action standing,

so throwing punches or whatever, notice how often MMA fighters do not finish with a defensive reaction. So what do I mean by that? One, two, roll. One, two, slip, you know, block block. One, two slip. They never, ever marry a defensive action at the end of their punches.

Not never, but so few do. And Martinetti got chewed to fucking pieces in this fight. Because Chuck, what would he do? Bop, bop, stay right here. Yes, he did. And good boxers, never do this. They go, bop, bop, roll. you know what I mean?

Yeah. And it's a huge problem. That is a great point. I mean, he just, that kind of aggression, you know, it's like, you see this time and again. When you watch MMA, there's a certain kind of fighter who just comes forward. And it's like there's just not a sense of self-preservation. So they're trying to get their offense off without worrying about the repercussion of it. And that's a clear example of a guy who got pieced up by being stubbornly moving forward the whole fight.

I'll also say this. Shouts to Rafa Garcia had a nice win over Alexander Hernandez. Hernandez had, I thought, a pretty decent third round rally to his credit, even though he got boxed up real bad the first couple of rounds, but he did, he ended on a relatively high note. But I just love Garcia's answer because, you know, D.C. asks him, how do you make it so entertaining and how are you able to land such great punches, blah, blah? He's like, dude, I'm Mexican. That's my superpower. I was like, there we go. There we go. I mean, again, it was a pretty entertaining one. Like, some of these at least were,

they were pretty entertaining fights, even if they went to the scorecards. All right, with that in mind, let's go to topic number three, which is that bullshit-ass prelim card. I don't know what else to call it. Jesus Christ. Okay, let's start. Here's another one. Hidalfa Vieira, just getting, he put up a better fight than Bouchesha. All right.

Let's be honest about that. Not a great one, Chuck, but he put up a better one. Here's what I don't understand. If you don't have a reliable ability to capture the back or get the fight to the ground, and you're getting fucking your head boxed off every time you go into the octagon. Why are you doing this? Like just fucking up the quality of your life

for like low amount of money making wins or losses. I'm sorry. Why? Why? I don't know, man. But what's the guy's name? Eric McConico. He seemed to have,

I mean, he seemed dialed in perfectly, right? In the sense, like he's like, all right, I know what's going to happen in this fight early. I just need to survive it.

Hopefully I get a moment in there. But if I survived the first round, then I'm going to make it my fight. That's exactly what he did. He just started boxing him at that point when, you know, he thwarted, I think, a few of the takedowns. There was like five or six attempts early on and just kind of made it his fight from that point on. And it just, it was almost just like so simply strategic that it was, it got boring very fast. Midway through that second, I was like, okay, this is this is how this one ends. It's going to coast through, right?

And that's exactly what it did. Yeah. Once again, it's like Charles Levera. can force his jiu-jitsu on you. Adolfo Vieira cannot. And to me, everyone's like, oh, gee, no, he's old, he's washed. Yeah, all of those are factors,

but that's not the real factor. The real factor is, do you have jiu-jitsu that you can, like, lay on, not physically, literally, although it may be that, too, but that can you impose your jiu-jitsu? Is Charles, all the best? Yeah, I was going to say,

is he the best guy, I guess. He wasn't nearly as decorated, though, as these guys we're talking about in the jiu-jitsu, world, but at the same time, was he that? I don't feel like he was that. He wasn't quite on the level of Bushation, but he's a multi-time world champion too. He's very good. But like Charles, like it feels like he would be up there in terms

of guys who, you know, were able to kind of put it in their world. They worked on the stuff to put it and to keep it in their world. And I thought that the other guy who really did a good job that was Damien Maya down the stretch. Like he, he learned the stand-up, and which is just so many of these guys just, you just don't see it, right? Like, you don't see it.

Even like McKinsey Dern from if you go back and watch her first you know her first fights in the ufc or even in mma just in a m m m a how green she was and standing and just how awkward it was for her to try to figure out how to get it into her realm um these guys that we're talking about i just feel like they they just never evolved that way they never added enough dimension to their games you know to kind of be effective in it i stupidly believed in the 2010s when guys like verdume were kicking ass yeah verdum obviously wasn't Verdum was a world champion in the ghee and out of the ghee. Right.

And so by the way, it was Jacques-Arey. Jacques-A-Rae was in the ghee and out of the ghee. ADCC champion, world champion. So to me, it's no surprise that their jiu-jitsu worked, you know, in their version of the modern game and in MMA. But Verdum was one of these guys who got so good at stand-up that he could go to the, to the jiu-jitsu if he needed it, but it wasn't like, you know, like he only got Kane with the guillotine

because Kane tried to take him down. You know, right. Yeah. He could be reactive. I remember the Emilyneenko fight, man. That was a crazy one, man. Yeah, exactly. Exactly what I'm talking about.

He just used it as a back guy, yeah. But like, but I, I naively thought Chuck that around that time I'm like, wow, we're finally teaching grapplers how to do the other things. This is going to make their game come to life. Like we're going to fix some of the problems of, you know, some of the guys in the early 2010s, like a Hodra Gracie who couldn't quite get over the hump. Right. And then, no, it just turned out that Fabricio was something of a,

Savant and that we've actually gotten worse at it in certain ways. Now, I will say this, the current era of grappling, I don't know how many of these guys are going to go into MMA, but the current era of grappling is much better about wrestling. Yes, it's also much better about wrestling up, but it's also much better about pins. So I actually feel like if some of these guys get over into MMA, they've just got, and by the way, it's mostly Nogi these days anyway, too. Right. So you've got a style of jujitsu that to me is a lot more suited for the modern

MMA game than the one from the early 2010s in the geek. Yeah. How about this? Jackson McVeigh. Yeah. Make short fucking work of Cedric Dumao. This is the one. This is the one.

This might exist. What do you want to say about it? Because you were talking about the finish here, not using his hands out of this. I mean, I don't know why. I can't answer that question because I'm not sure why Sadiq. We're at the one year anniversary, by the way, of him being arrested on felony charges of like battery and home invasion and like whatever that way. But the one of your anniversary is the dude's still fighting.

And I just, you tell me why it exists. I don't know. I don't fucking know. Long Island, did you bet that fight? Yeah, I also had the over one and a half.

And as you could see on the clock there. Oh, wrong graphic there. As you can see on the clock there, he taps out with, uh, you know, like 15, 20 seconds. That's the worst. Yeah, so that's, but you know where that fight existed? Because both of those guys are there to get their ass beat by an up and coming prospect. Yeah.

And both of them were coming off losing streaks and you need to get a win in there every once in a while so they can justify keeping them around. So it was like, that is not a convincing argument to me. Can I be honest? I'm not saying it's a good reason. I'm just telling you why they made that fight. Well, McVeigh, hey, we need to keep guys who aren't on the level here for guys who are on the level, but that means sometimes we're just going to have two guys not on the level.

that's like, do you think that like Terrence McKinney watches this fight card and he says, fuck my luck. I never get a bonus. I look at McVeigh, anyone, just because he was one of the two people who had finishes in this whole fight card. Terrence McKinney cannot find himself on one of these cards, man. He just can't do it.

But like you get these ones where they're like, I guess on default alone, we give it to McVeigh. He's too good. Yeah. Terrence McKinney, or at least end up, I mean,

he doesn't win all the time, obviously, but he's so electric that. that they're like, oh, we got to put that guy on the pay-per-view main card, which I totally get, you know what I mean? But to your point, it just makes getting both. That's the problem. It's like, oh, you're going to be on an Islam-Machachev card. Well, good

fucking luck, you know. Did you see like, I think Ariel posted about this, like, the pay structure? I didn't understand this about the pay structure, the bonus structure, where if you win $100,000 and that, like, you knock somebody out, right? Like, you'd get just $100,000. You don't get $125,000. Did you see this thing that he was talking about?

I didn't, but that doesn't surprise me. But this was one of those things. We're like, okay, we've got two guys with finishes. We're going to give them just the $100,000. Because that saves them $50,000 in the end, right? Like, if you go with somebody else and you say, like, you get like a performance of the night, you know what I mean? Like you just give it to the two guys and you don't have to pay the $25,000 bonus. The $25,000, the $100,000 is already factored in, you know, for each.

So it's, they save themselves $50,000 is what I'm trying to say. Well, I mean, if there's an organization that needs to be careful about its money, you know, It's definitely the one that's the biggest one. Well, you want to see the sport keep going at this point. So it's like, you know, anywhere they can pinch their pennies, I'm down for it. Yeah, yeah. Well, definitely not in that executive compensation package for Ari Emanuel, which more than tripled. Oh, man.

Okay. So Cody Durdon got a win. By the way, I was kind of surprising. Francis Marshall got a, I wouldn't say an easy win, but it wasn't that hard to get. Victor Valenzuela got a win. Tolita Allen Carr got a win. Who was the best one of those names? Durdon, Marston.

Marshall Valenzuela Allen car. It was not a very fun portion of the card. I'm not going to lie to you, Luke, but I would probably give it to Valenzuela, only in the sense like, I still like Max Gavitt. Like he's been around the game, a long time,

40 years old, one of those sturdy veterans. And I thought, especially in that third round, you know, Victor came out like with the sense of urgency to try to finish it. Like he came out there trying to finish the fight.

So I gave him the credit of not just, you know, kind of coasting through or, or just letting, I don't think he wanted it to go to the score because you're just fighting a tough guy. So I thought that was a good victory for him. Long Island, of those names,

I mentioned Durden, Marshall, Valenzuela, Alancar, who was the most interesting to you? I mean, we got to give credit where credit is due. Cody Durden was like the biggest underdog on the card and he won. So, you know, credit where credits do. That's all I'll say about that fight. As Chuck said, man.

That's because he lost on the way. That shit is all out of my mind at this point. That's why most fights were bad. But I do want to point out, eight of the 13 underdogs on the card cash. Wow. If anybody had these dogs, I mean, especially like Cody Durdon bet. Shout out to you.

Yeah, and five of six on the main card, too. Huh. Good for them, bro. Good for them. Who wants to, like, who bets? Do you bet the over a lot? I just feel like, yes.

Betting you. I mean, it's probably pays more because it's like one of those anti-instinctive things. Like, I don't want to root for a fight to go to the score cards. So people just generally don't want to root. for that. Like it's the same thing in football or anything like you're, you know, you're betting the under. You know, and you're like, I don't look at it like what I'm going to root for, Chuck. I look at it more like I can't tell who's going to win this fight, but I know this fight is going to go long. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, like. All right. Well, before we get to topic number four,

let's talk about one of our, uh, our big friends here at the show, rag and bone. Oh, rag and bone. Look at this. Chuck, you're wearing your rag and bone right now. I am wearing my rag and bone. Look at this. I got my shirt on. Just got it last week. Beautifully made, man. I mean, this is like some premium stuff. So nice. I was telling on Friday show, Chuck, I've been buying Rag and Bone for my wife for a long time, but I never bought it for myself. Yeah. And then I told her, hey, I don't know if you know this, but Rag and Bone is going to sponsor MK. And she was like, why is it sponsoring YouTube losers?

And I was like, but we're really happy about it. Yeah. And I was like, and it looks and feels so great. So I want to talk about the infused denim. I don't think that's the one you're wearing, but it's the one that I'm wearing here. That's, you got the pullover, right? The quarters of it. Yeah.

It's like a button. But yes. It's like a great, great product. First of all, wife approved. What more could I possibly say to get you to at least consider something like this than saying I've been buying this kind of clothing for my wife and now they're making stuff for men and she's all on board with it. And it doesn't matter. Slim fit, relaxed fit, athletic fit. I don't know.

Which fit do you have? Chuck, just standard? What do you have? I got like the straight fit on the jeans and they're like a little bit like of a worn in look. Very cool. They fit perfectly. It's so hard when you pick jeans like for them to fit like this, but these ones, and they go well with the hat. You know, and also like, you know, I know more and more Americans are buying clothes, not necessarily in a store,

although Rag and Bone does have brick and mortar stores, but, you know, not everyone's going to get a chance to go to them. So you're buying online, like, you know, how much can you trust the quality? The answer is completely. It's broken in right away. It's got a perfect stretch. It's the overall comfort is great. Different high quality materials. that are used and of course all the colors you could want,

certainly as well. And by the way, these are the kind of things that seems to me like they're built to last, Chuck. And I guess I got to say this too. This is what I love mostly about Ragged Bone. I mean, here we're hosting an MMA podcast, but if I wanted to take their stuff, Chuck,

and you know, dress it up a little bit, I'd look fine. And if I want to just hang out with the boys, you know what I'm saying? Right? Versatile. Yes. Yes. Yes, 100%.

And Rag and Bone. I mean, that sounds hand in hand with what the sport we cover. Does it not? I mean. Yeah. it certainly does. And you know, dogs, listen, you don't have to

you know, I don't want to put a lot of pressure on everyone, but like you should buy stuff that you treat as a little bit of an investment in yourself. And that's kind of what rag and bone is going to be there for you. And this infused denim, I think, is going to be, you know, not just the kind of thing you can use different seasons, but the kind of thing that's going to last, you know,

a really long time as well. And by the way, as you indicated, quarter zips, yeah, button up shirts, jeans. I mean, you name it, fall colors, spring colors, tons of different stuff. So here's what you guys are going to do. It's time to upgrade your denim with rag and bone. For a limited time offer, our listeners get 20% off their entire order with the code combat, that's combat with a K, at rag dash bone.com.

That's 20% off at rag, R-A-G-B-O-N-E dot com with a promo code combat. When they ask you where you heard about them, please support the show and let them know we sent you. Combat with a K, rag dashbone.com. Big fans of our friends over at Rag and Bone. All right, Chuck, we can't spend any more time talking about that card. So let's talk about the weirdness about what we saw on Saturday night. So I'm actually calling XFC and then I get a text from Oscar from the Mac Life being like, there was a shooting at the White House Correspondents dinner.

I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ. all right what is this so there was as we all know there was an active shooter situation the man was apprehended somehow did not die but he is apprehended that's not the point the point is that dana white i just want to point out dana white was like get me as far away from this fuck-ass apex card as humanly possible and he went into this correspondence dinner which by the way like anyone who takes journalism seriously should never go to those things but okay putting that aside. Let me play you

the reaction to the shooting from Dana. We have a clip and then what I want to talk about it. Here's the reaction. It started getting noisy. Tables getting flipped over guys running in with guns and they were screaming, get down. I didn't get down. It was fucking awesome. I literally took every minute

of an end and it was a pretty crazy unique experience. So you were on the aisle? What exactly did you see? We were sitting right in front of the table. Okay. Right in front of where the president was in the table. Yes.

And what exactly happened? And so someone got tackled or like what? Nobody got tackled, but guys came out looking for shooters. They came toward our table. I thought the shooter was over by us or something. So you didn't see the actual attack of yourself. This is the Washington Hilton, which is kind of on the top of this hill. It's at the intersection of Connecticut and Florida.

In fact, when the UFC was last here, which was the, overreem versus Giorzino Rosenstrike card That was the host hotel Is that one Now that was what he said He called it fucking awesome We also have do we have video of him

Yeah here's look at Dana Mouth breathing through this Look at him He's looking around like a kid in a toy store For the first time He did not get down No no I mean none of that was happening

There's Pete Hegseth Probably drunk I don't know that for a fact I'm just guessing He looks a little boozy yeah and then here's Dana you know shuffling his way out of it and you can see all the secret service and i don't think anybody was enjoying themselves quite like dana was that night that looks yeah yeah i mean you get the idea here this is the ballroom there this is why trump needs a ballroom you know

this is why he needs to build that right right right i mean i don't know what the fuck that's supposed to mean but in any event putting that putting that aside chuck uh what do you make of his remark that the shooting itself and being there and watching this was awesome. What does any of this mean? It was like he just came out of like a Michael Bay film or something. He's like, man, it was awesome. Wasn't it? It was like that. That's what I was

like. That is the exact opposite response you'd expect from somebody in that situation. I know it didn't escalate to the point where there was like a gunman in the room with them, but it's just that's not the like when I was watching, I was, they interrupted I was watching the Denver Nuggets game. They interrupted that and I'm like, oh boy, what

happened? So it's sort of like you. And you know, you're just trying to piece together exactly what happened. And then I start seeing that like later on and I'm like, that is not the response you to expect from Dana White. I mean, I guess maybe from Dana White, but like that was not the type of thing you expected to hear from that. Right. And also the puffing up of the chest. Because I think Trump too was like, you know, they wanted me to get down. But I wanted to see what was going on. They kind of had the same ringtone on this. They were they were kind of both saying that I wasn't about to get down, you know? I would say this. Like, if I'm trying to be fair,

one thing that I think is probably true is that if you're in one of these situations and it ultimately is proven to be safe where like nothing happened in the ballroom itself and security took it over and that it more or less more or less

quickly resolves itself and then you're fine you probably look back on it with like the adrenaline dump and it has a certain kind of buzz to it right? Yeah yeah yeah You know, so I think it's because I mean, if he had seen people shot in front of him, women in particular, right, or what, I mean, not even just that, but I'm, you know, I'm saying some kind of like really terrible, desperate scene.

I don't necessarily think he would have this reaction. I think part of the reaction is that this kind of thing didn't happen in front of him. And I do think it's worth, it's worth being fair in that regard. But it's like, it's like, dude. The guy who says that watching Secret Service shuffle people out of a ballroom, because someone tried to kill either the president or administration officials. Does it surprise you that he underpays athletes and also thinks a slapping league is a good idea? You know what I mean?

That's a great point. It requires you to lack a certain kind of humanity. Yeah. You know, there's a certain amount of humanity that has to be missing to think that, like, that's awesome and that you should profit off of this, like, very questionable form of violence. you know what i mean yeah that's kind of why i come down imagine uh imagine don king you know being there for the hinkley when hinkley shot it uh shot regan and he's like man wouldn't adrenaline rush afterwards you know he sounded like my daughter after i took her on the

incredic coaster at disneyland or something you know he did like he's kind of giddy about it he's like daddy we went upside down and like you know dana's like there was stupid it's yours guess like violetta is that you uh but you're i think you're dead on i think it was like you know from the from the idea of safety you know you have this adrenaline like wow man that was crazy what an exhilarating moment um i i i like to think that at least but can you do you do not find it fucking hilarious that he's in my city and not laws of it he's like he's like he's like bro where is the uc fights this weekend i want to be on the other side of the motherfucking and also like i understand celebrities go to the white house correspondent center

It is affectionately known here as nerd prom in D.C. Why is Dana White there? Why is Dana White at an event ostensibly dedicated to rewarding excellence in journalism? This is his way of showing that, you know, that the White House thing has nothing to do with politics, Luke. He's going to go to things like this. It's like, what the fuck are you doing at an event? It's like a man who has spent his life angry at journalism is at an event that is, again, I realize that, you know, whether they hold up these ideals is somewhat questionable, but

are actually quite questionable. But it is in theory designed to be like, oh, the best of the business, you know, we're going to honor them here tonight. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I don't know how I feel about that. Weird. Psycho reaction, you know. Yeah.

Nothing should surprise us, but somehow these things still catch you like, what? You know, at least I was, but now at a little bit of a move, it's funny here. The last thing I'll say on this is like, again, everyone's entitled to their own. reactions and who knows how anybody else would have been, although I don't see a lot of people repeating this one per se. But the interesting part to me is it's like, this is why, I mean, among other reasons, but this is why when people are like, oh, you know, it's not just with Dana. You'll hear it in other cases too. You know, so-and-so tells it like it is. And I'm like, they're fight promoters. Right. Like, first of all, fight promoters, on the one hand,

again, you can't be, like literally, you can't be a good fight promoter if you don't lie a lot. Like, lying is actually like critical to the job. I mean, that's seriously. I've written about this many times. Yeah, the worst liars don't last. I mean, if you can't lie and you can't sell that sort of thing, you don't last as a promoter. Totally. You have to be good at it.

The other one, though, is that like, you kind of got to be, like, you don't want a promoter that's like absolutely unmoored from any kind of ethical constraint. But like you're not looking at them for moral leadership either. You know what I mean? It requires that. And this is why people are like, oh, I really, I've seen some people being like, oh, I love his reaction. It's like, you love the reaction of a guy whose job it is to be amoral and lie?

I know. What? What the fuck are you talking about? And for the longest time in the sport, he was looked to, Dana White was looked to as somewhat of a moral compass. Like people talk to him all the time. You know, he'd always point out, almost an attempting way that there had never been a death in the UFC.

He's trying to compare it to boxing, which he eventually got into anyway. But there was like this, he was trying to present it. Like there was a high art associated, a lot of discipline and the safety of it. And they, you know, the Cleveland Clinic and everything that they did, they went to all these lengths to basically say that their mind was foremost on the fighter's health, which all went out the window with power slap. Did it not? I mean, like, once he does that, and you're like, wow, we bought into this idea that Dana White really cared about

brain health. It's like, you get to this point where they introduce power slap and you're like, okay, that's the bigger ruse that was in play for a long time was that he had that interest in mind. I don't know what else to say about it, but a strange situation to put it mildly. All right, topic number five here. We'll wrap up on this.

I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind and now got my own show. To have retired to lazy takes if you want honest conversations join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the IHeartRadio app. I don't know if I'd call it surprising Chuck, but

a how do you want to say? An unmasked or now more broadly revealed rivalry is emerging between Ronda Rousey and Kayla Harrison. Now of course they're not both in the same organization as it stands today. They cannot fight. And that's not to say that they wouldn't in the future, although even that remains somewhat of a, I don't know, not even a real thing or even suggested. But there is a

war of words between them. And in the war of words, they've kind of laid out competing visions for what powers their action. Put up this quote here from them. And I'm going to ask you a question about it. This is from Rhonda. I could be meaner. I think that it would be really hard. Sorry, this is Kayla. I'm sorry. I apologize. I could be meaner. I think that it would be really hard. I can't imagine what it would be like for someone to come in and beat everything I've ever done. That would be hard. I get it. Rhonda is probably the most important female fighter.

If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I'm at. I wouldn't have a job. But this fight is not the greatest fight of all time. I'm chasing greatness. You're chasing money. We're different. Chuck, what does a dispute like this reveal about their professional differences and perhaps even the state of the sport itself? It's kind of cutting in its own way, isn't it?

Like when you say stuff like that, a person who I think, holds herself to the highest standard Rhonda Rousey and understands that she was the pioneer and obviously the one who busted the women into the UFC. But at the same time, I know that in back of her mind, she sees herself among the very greats for her accomplishment. But it is, it's very biting when somebody says, you're doing this for the money. And it's actually indisputable. Do you remember when, you know, when Rhonda was coming up, she had those, she had like four, she busted out of the gate 2011. She had like four consecutive inside of a minute arm bars of women, two of them on the strike force challengers, before she had this big main event against Misha Tate.

On that press conference, she would just say things like, you know what, I don't really care about these heated rivalries so much as I care about like having to cash in my coins and like pay my rent. And she made it very clear that she was like, you know, I'm in this to make money. And I think she almost manufactured, you know, the heat with Tate at that time. She even admitted it like, you know, I had enough friends in the industry. I need some enemies. I needed to like big picture this a little bit and be like, you know, draw some bad blood so that like people would pay attention. And she's always had that, you know, she's always had that.

She's had a sense of the escalation, what that means in terms of money. She capitalized on it the whole way. There's nothing wrong with it. It's price fighting. But I would say that Kayla is on to something. She's probably hitting a nerve that she doesn't even fully realize she's hitting in this because I think when you really look at the career of Ron Rousey, that's what you would arrive at.

Like, she, she got the most out of prize fighting. She definitely made more, like she probably is, right? Like, 10 years ago, when she found in the UFC, she was making a lot more than Kayla's going to make in her fight against Amanda Nune is. I never know how to answer this question in the sense that like,

when fighters are like, oh, you're chasing greatness. I'm chasing, or vice versa, I'm chasing greatness. You're chasing money. And it's like, I actually think that like those are both relevant,

I'm not going to say equal. because that depends on your perspective, but relevant sides, the two sides. Dude, these are the two sides of the combat sports coin. Of course. That's what they are. And usually it's the same coin, although there can be differences there too. But it's like part of sometimes part of chasing greatness is also chasing money. Sometimes they are in lockstep.

Sometimes they are separate. But like to me, I mean, on one level, obviously you're going to value the fights that were greatness is on the line more often. and I certainly recognize, but like, do fans really care if someone's chasing money? No. Is that a real thing? No, I mean, look at Floyd Mayweather, for instance. Like, you know, the criticism of him is like he did cash in a ton of big fights, but he's catching this guy too early, this guy too late.

I felt like he kind of was, when you talk about the marriage of the two, he did an admirable job. Connor McGregor did an admirable job, right? Like he built an empire based off of this, but yet he also won. He chased his. in the sense that he wouldn't want a second belt at lightweight. And he did fight Habibnurmagamato, just like Rhonda did fight, you know, Amanda Nunes. You know, there's a, I think they're chasing great.

They were trying to do both. But in the end, what Kayla's basically saying is like, I have a chance to finish now what you weren't able to do. I'm able, especially if she goes and beats Amanda Nunes, I could be considered the greatest female, you know, MMA fighter of all time. And I think that that's, that's a tough pill to swallow when you're, as competitive as Ronda Rousey is. Long Island.

Is it disreputable to you for a fighter to just chase money? No. I mean, isn't that what they're in it for? They're prize fighters. Well, not necessarily. Why not? Depends on the what if the prize is a world title? What if the prize is best records?

What do you win it for, I guess, would be the thing, you know? I'm not a professional fighter. I could care less about a title. I'd be in it for the money. I don't, you know, There's plenty of guys who probably want the title. I have no idea. But I do feel like majority of them are still in it for them. They want to make a career out of it because they love doing it.

And they want to do something they love for a career. But at the end of the day, you got to make money to be able to do what you want. The other part too about Rousey is that Chuck, it's like, you know, part of Kayla's argument is inarguable, which is like, oh, you're chasing money. And it's like, well, what else could you chase at age 39 outside of the U.S. You never come back unless it was Gina Carrano and it was the money and it was never. It was all the perfect storm, right? Like it has to be perfect storm for her to come back.

I mean, that's all your change. But also like 39. Like what is it? Like that's all that's left. You know, there's not much left to be had. That's glory. I mean, I suppose she could go back to the UFC and take a pay cut and yeah. No, no.

I mean, fight her way to get another title shot. It's sort of brilliant in the sense of like Ronda Rousey. I mean, this is the one example of something where you, you've saved something. something in your back pocket for your twilight years. And here it is, like, 27 years of inactivity combined. And you're going against a woman who hasn't fought was to 2009. And what is Gina? Like 42.

And even if they'd fought in their prime, I mean, Gina, Gina had a certain appeal. And I mean, she was early in the game. So people paid attention to her. She, you know, the CBS when she was with the lead X. So she was kind of like the pioneer in the sense of like breaking through on this big audience. But even if they'd fought back then, I mean, Ronda would have torn her up. I just think the Ronda one would have went right through her.

It's also interesting too. I think Rousey would have to stick around for a while for this to be true again. But honestly, the way in which if Rousey was able to compete and get, you know, reasonable main events, like I don't know how many Ginas they're going to be for her to be able to fight, what she could do to reignite passion in the women's game might actually be greater than what Kayla could do, which I'm not saying is any kind of slight to Kayla. Right. Yeah, no, I get it.

It just means the celebrity factor. Because, I mean, when Rousey was going through and mowing through people, Chuck, the casual fans, they didn't know who the fuck she was fighting. For the most part, they didn't know who the fuck she was fighting. They just wanted to see the Great White Shark feed. Yeah, it was like the early Tyson years when he was just beating up dudes before the burbic. You know what I mean? Like he was just kind of beaten up the numbers.

I don't care. They're just watching a guy destroy everyone. That's what they were watching. And that's where we were. It's just lightning. It was lightning in a bottle. You know at that moment? I look back on it sometimes like, man, that's crazy that all that happened, you know, the way it did.

But she always had a big picture idea of it, you know, and that's, I think that the people who have that, like, they are able to marry like, I'm going to do this. Like, she wanted to come in, Ronda Rousey and save women's MMA. I can remember the quotes from that Columbus when she fought like she was like, I felt like I needed to be the face of this. I needed to come in and do this. Otherwise, it was going to die. Cyborg at that time was suspended. Corona had been gone a couple of years. she just knew what she wanted to do.

Like in some ways, having that kind of vision deserves like some greatness. Like I don't know on the greatness scale. It's so it has to be at least measured there too, you know? Yeah, it's interesting you bring that up. Like the last thing I'll say on this, Chuck, for me is Rousey has always been trying to fill a gap that has been existing in the game. So when she came up, it was like to make women's MMA a real,

herself rich and everything else too, right? But to fill, like, to make women. MMA a thing like really establish it you know and now what she's trying to do is make m mma fun again you know what she might fail the whole thing might completely come undone but you can at least understand she's trying to fill that and it's like to your point that that does that's not the same thing as you know consecutive title defenses or strength of schedule but as a contributor to the game there's a certain level of greatness associated with that if she's able to deliver on that promise too you know sometimes i play a game of what would bc say when you say like

She wants to make the fun, the game fun again. And I imagine him saying something about a jello fight or like a, you know, yeah. And I'm like, am I missing my BCQs? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd be like, you know, is this the, uh, is this the old panties league or some shit? I'd be like, God, BC, that's not appropriate.

All right. With that in mind, that's our. Real quick, real quick. Someone brought up, uh, B.C. would have really gone in depth on the whole Rusini Vrabel situation. So if you guys want to touch on that right now, I mean, you know, seems like, that's like that's gotta be like consume is he blowing up your phone about that Luke like uh this feels like he had like this is that's hilarious that is right up his alley I've said this before I won't

believe with the point but she got her start here in DC yeah and dude at a time when that's right what he was she was pro Dan Snyder that in a way that was fucking nauseating aren't they kind of like uh circling that stuff now too like I feel like I don't know yeah it's it's all bro let me just say this I'm not going to say anything else I this is what I said on my live chat I'm not going to repeat it. This is a BC conversation. I want to know. My producer, Othello, my personal producer, Othello,

this motherfucker knows where the bodies are buried. Let me just put it that way. Oh, my God. And he's told me some shit that was like, I was like, oh, right. Like when this scandal broke, I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not surprised at all. That's wild, man. Yeah. All right.

I tell you what I am excited about, though, today, Chuck, is that, well, our good friends at Cuermo, I mean, what else can we say about them? And this is, of course, what I'm holding here is the blue agave gold tequila that Cuervo makes. And from face off to final decision, Fight Night, you guys know, delivers the adrenaline and Cuervo, the energy to match it. It's always a good time when you're pairing Fight Night with Cuervo. It's a phenomenal combination. Whether you're hosting your crew at your home or catching the action at a bar, Quervo brings the good vibes that turn every round into a celebration. From Margaritas to Palomas, every main event simply tastes better with the world's most icon.

tequila. And I will say this, Chuck, I'm going to be having some of the world's most iconic tequila tonight, because I'm going to be going to my favorite Mexican restaurant here in the city and having some celebratory margaritas. Yeah. Granted, it's for my daughter's, Brian Campbell. It's for, it's for my daughter's seventh birthday. Oh, man. That's her favorite restaurant, too, actually. We have the same one. Nice. Nice. Is your wife back in town? She's still out. She was, she was, she went to Australia, right? Like, she was back. She's back. Okay. All right. So she'll be with me as well. Okay. And so no matter who walks out with the belt, no matter what place you're going to with Cuervo in freaking hand,

you're already celebrating like an undisputed champion for every round. Keep it fun. Keep it Cuervo. And of course, as a reminder, May 6th, we're going to be back in studio to get you ready for the big one, UFC 2, or sorry, 328, 328, May 6th in studio. Our good friends at Cuervo, are going to be taking care of us and we'll take care of all of you as well. It should be a great time.

All right. That is it for our top five topics. now time for you to ask us questions. It's time. All right. All right. We put up a post on Instagram every Sunday. You guys fill it up and then the producers pick one. Let's go to our first one here. We have Sam version two feet. At 4308 of last Friday show, Luke said he'd rename the show if old man Barcellos won. Well, he won again, donks. will the show or a section of the show be renamed in his honor? I think we have footage of this. Let's hear it.

If they're thinking is, hey, we'll give Montel Jackson an easy win, they will be mistaken because he will fuck it up again. If old man Barcellos wins, I'm going to change the name of this fucking show in honor of him. It's so fucking hilarious where he is able to do. Boy, you guys let the fucks fly on Friday. Well, I mean, it's just like Dana White. It's fucking Friday on the, on the UK. I love it.

I don't know. You're going to do it? We might have to like, you know, like if an old, like the old goat, the Howany-Barcellos old goat award given to like an old man who wins surprisingly against younger competition. Someone was saying we should rename what's my age again to like after Hione-Barsall's the game where you guys guess the ages of fighters. I love that idea.

If you want to do that, I'd be totally down. Or you can spend a new one on combat there like a, yeah, yeah, or morning combat Howany-Barcelo's parenthesis. I remember the time that Dana promised he was going to jump off the Mandalay Bay and UFC 100. 1.5 million pay-per-view views.

You remember this? He said he would jump off. If it got 1.5 million pay-per-view buys, he would jump off Mandalay Bay, and he never did. I bring this up a lot. He just went against his promise.

I can't believe he didn't keep his word. That sounds so unlike him. All right, question number two. From M.T. Booble, with the events at the White House Correspondence Dinner? Oh, good question. We didn't even talk about this. Okay.

Why would anyone feel safe attending the UFC event at the White House during this administration? So, Chuck, that's an interesting point, too. Now, some of the reporting about the White House correspondent centers that Secret Service just didn't do a very good job with the security there. They had a lower level of security than they ordinarily would have. What are your concerns for security? at this White House event for UFC. I mean, you got to have some concerns, right?

I was talking to Ben Folks about this, and he was like, well, you know, you know where everybody's going to be concentrated in the one area. And, you know, it's just, it is weird, right? Like, it's a setup. And I know that even talking to a couple of people around here in my town about this, and they're like, is it going to be safe to be, you know, doing that event? And I'm like, the only thing you could think is that they're going to go the full, you know, they're going to have as much security as they possibly can, right,

for something like this. But I feel like that's a big part of the curiosity in me. I just don't know. I wasn't even sure if they're going to allow media to this event in terms of like sitting where they normally would, you know, they're the cage. I still not 100% sure, but I did look and you can apply for credentials. So, you know, I'm guessing you can. So I don't know how this will all look by the time we get there.

But it is a concern, isn't it? I feel like it's a big concern. I mean, it's a weird one. Also, number one, like, you know, UFC has been like, oh, there's going to be. no taxpayer cost to this. I don't believe that. Now, are they deferring the vast majority of it maybe? Probably, you know, but like the amount of money for security for an event like this. I want to remind folks, of course, the White House is part of it. I mean, hello, the center of it, but they want 85,000 people in theory anyway at the ellipse, which is this kind of big, big giant open space, literally

across the fucking street from the White House, across the fucking street. So like, how could, close is the crowd going to be to that. Now, I want to say something. As someone who's lived here a very long time, you've got to remember, like, every July 4th, tens of thousands of people descend onto the National Mall or just think about any inauguration. Tens of thousands of people. It's true. Descend on there. And Capitol Police and MPD, the Metropolitan Police Department, that's the local one. They do, I mean, for the most part, there's really not any issues. But like, here's the thing about this whole thing to me, which is, this is my opinion, take it for what it's worth.

Trump brings out the crazies. He just does. Like the crazies, like, hello, look what the fucking just happened. Like, they, I'm not, you know, I'm not blaming him so much for the guy trying to shoot at him. I'm simply saying, like, there's a relationship between like crazy ass motherfuckers following this guy around at these public events and like shit happening. Like, it's just, it's now quite obviously a thing. And it's like, how are you going to have, like, understand something. So, like, I'm trying to paint a picture here, right?

So like imagine this is like the camera bump is the White House lawn. And then this is the ellipse. The national mall is not till down here, but you're going to put everyone in this spot. And it's like, are you going to have metal detectors there? Because they don't know July 4th. They don't for the, I mean, obviously if you're on the Capitol steps, there's, you know, the security's crazy.

Do you know what I mean? It's like, how are they going to navigate that? I just don't know. I just don't know the answer to that. But I bet it's going to hit here. taxes. I mean, it's just... Yeah. Yeah. So what they all, what the federal government always does is they ask the local police department to provide significant but supplementary security. And then they just make DC taxpayers pay for it. Right. This happens all the fucking time. And it's like, that's why when Zufa's like, oh, not a dime of taxpayer money. It's like maybe federal taxpayer money.

But by the way, Long Island says that there will be press there. What does it say like, uh, that the, like the big press will be caged side. Yeah. The hay adams. And then they, yeah, and then, uh, and then, uh, and then, uh, the normal press the guys who i'm used to dealing with will be in a hotel nearby so i guess that's what uh hey which is a very nice hotel but you know still like what the fuck you know yep um all right but definitely i would say that this was something that i had dismissed as a security concern earlier yeah and now i'm not so sure man i'm really not so sure i i hope for the best obviously yep all right next from david underscore kersh 55 if islam ends up fighting Oh, that's a good question.

Ian Gary, as it was reported or at least, you know, suggested on social media over the weekend, who would you match up Michael Morales with? That's a tough one, man. Would you do purchase? Like, would you like, would you say? You got the winner of this weekend's main event. Yeah. J.D.M. or practice?

You put JDM back in there if he wins? Yeah, because Ian Gary, Islam isn't going to be until August. That's, you know, four months from now. Yeah. And that fight's taking place this weekend. You could just say, okay. you know, protest, you fight or whoever wins this weekend.

I mean, especially if it's protest, right? Like, that would be, that'd be obvious. I'll just say this. How do you feel about the Ian Gary Islam fight? I feel like it's, I mean, I don't like Gary's chance. I think he's very game. Like, he's had some moments, you know,

even against Shemaya, right? Like, I feel like he's got like a little bit of a, uh, a boldness of spirit. there's such a thing, but I just don't like the matchup for him. What about you? Well, apparently it's the next question. So let's go to it.

Aljab.B. With the Gary Islam, with Gary versus Islam being all but confirmed, does Gary have an actual chance of winning? Neither his grappling nor is striking are good enough for Islam. In my opinion, Chuck, here's my concern. My concern is not that like, oh,

Gary's so overmatched that he's just going to get fucking run over and we're going to be like, oh, what's the point of that? his defense is actually quite good but you got to have high octane offense against the guy like Islam and Gary has very good defense but not high octane offense

so the fight could actually end up being boring but Islam just wins it you know I mean would it be like the JDM thing I mean that's I guess that's the big intrigue for that when he was going for the 170 pound belt was how would he translate like how would it you know 15 pounds is a lot how would it look and I mean he dominated in such a way that I'm like

that's what I have in my mind you know you're and so like for gary to overcome that i'm not sure how he does it but he better have some he better have something up his sleeve um than just trying to like you know i don't know like i feel like he's going to have to come up with something a little extraordinary to win that fight i feel like it like the jdm fight people were like oh it was boring because jdm couldn't do much yeah i actually feel like gary can resist more yeah and so the fight actually could be a little worse in the sense that like Islam is ahead, but he just can't

it's like think about it. It's like hard to look good against Ian Gary if he's defensively on point. You can beat him but it's not thrilling. Right. Yeah. But that being said, I also don't mind the fight happening because Gary has kind of earned it, you know? And I think like honestly man, I think you could wait on Morales. You can wait on him. He's young guy. Pratchez had a loss

at some point. So you're like that you can And he lost to Gary, right? So it's like it kind of makes sense the way they're doing. I think that Gary deserves it. He's also probably in terms of a larger interest, I think his name translates a little better right now than the other guys. Maybe so. Last but not least,

let's go to our fifth and final question. Holmes by Garrett says, your favorite discontinued food. This is the room service diary question where I couldn't stop laughing while I was high as a kite. Included food. Favorite food that's been discontinued, Chuck. do you have one i'm trying to think here um i have a couple crystal Pepsi might be one oh my god remember that i do remember that there used to be a candy called the teenage mutant ninja turtle ooze

and this was at the time at which i was a kid and i was losing teeth i lost two teeth eating that man there were so many cereals like that came in with like crisp cereal and like there's a bunch yeah that's tough i know there's a lot of these though like there's a lot of things you're like man, I remember that and you can't get it anymore. Are you a McRibb guy? I used to, when I was a kid, yeah. Like you'd show up there and like, the McRibs on the menu, you know, you'd go there specifically for it. But I have to say, as you got older, it seemed kind of disgusting to me.

See, this is where Brian Campbell, the king of disgusting food would be perfect for us. Long Island, you got a favorite discontinued food? Someone in the chat just said, surge, the soda. That's a good call. I remember surge. That is a good one. And jolt, jolt, cola? I don't know.

They had that tagline that was like twice the sugar and all the caffeine or something. It was a great one. Also, I saw this question beforehand, so I was Googling some things. How about, I don't know if you guys ate these, but the Scooby-Doo fruit snacks and like, there was the blue ones and they were like, you know, solid blue. They were so fucking good. I don't know if that Scooby-Doo fruit snacks, I don't make those anymore. My mom did not let me eat that shit. All right.

Well, I don't remember that. It might have also just. been a generational thing. Maybe they weren't around. I'm trying to think, you know, that Mr. Pib is still around. Mellow is still around. They're just not what they were. I think squirt. But BC is the guy who

was a soda that used to exist that's gone. It was just like a mellow yellow. It was like a lemony drink. It's still around. It's just small. Yeah, it's just small. Yeah, I haven't seen it in a long time. All right. That is it for our fan subs. Thanks for sending those in. Again, you can follow us on IG to

contribute to those on Sundays. All right. It is now time, and I'm told we have a huge batch of them. It's time now for fan subs. You've got mail. Viewers. Holy shit, we do have a bunch. Okay. We got four Chuck memes

from Josh. Here we go. Hell yeah, bro. I didn't know you did stand up, Chuck. Yeah. That's pretty good. You and dice Clay? That's pretty good. All right, not bad. Apparently you're rounding up immigrants. I didn't know this.

Oh, boy. I didn't realize you were, oh, look at that. That's pretty badass, you know. Although, would your penis be like a giant icicle, you know what? Dix. Dicks. Dicks everywhere, dicks. But still, they got the hat on you.

This is my favorite of the three so far. We got one more from Josh. Look at that. Oh, dude. Okay, so do you guys get this one? Do you get this one, Chuck? No, what is this here? This is, they put your head on another guy.

What you're looking at is a, another guy who got these tattoos, Mr. Cool Ice. This is his fucking real tattoos. They just put your face on it. I call you ICE. Somebody really did this themselves? Yes. Mr.

Cool. You can Google it. Mr. Cool. And it's just some redneck who, you know. I wouldn't have guessed it was a redneck. That or a white supremacy.

Whenever I do, whenever I look at tape on an MMA fighter, I'm like, all right, do this guy have Nazi tattoos or not? Okay, this one. clear are this is great that fight card i was mentioning with rousey and uh tate do you remember the controversy there's a dude on that that that had a nazi tattoo on the prelims and it was a big

deal on that card i think you remember that's that's you because he had gotten out of prison is that right yeah it was such a big deal and i think nowadays i'm like i don't even know if it would i mean people would mention it but it would just we'd be on to the next thing in the news cycle an hour later you know i know you see would be like you know hey this is the free speech organization oh really uh if i win my fight can i ask for money oh no you'll penalize me oh All right. This is from T.S. Koo. He says, hey guys. Longtime

fan, first time submitter. Please see my loan submission of the actual clip screenshot from footage of Chuck one hour before sleeping. More power to all you dogs. Chuck Mindenhall one hour before sleeping. Getting that nightcap in with our friends from Quareville. Hell yeah.

You know I am. You know I am. Chuck, I had a fraternity brother, Chuck. This is true. This happened for a while. actually his nightcap every night was a 40 oh my god I'd have to pee yourself wouldn't you like a 40 I don't think based on what I know about this guy I don't think he can't fuck bro he must have been peeing all over himself all right we got three here from Jonas Luke hurry a second plane just hit no I'm watching two cake ladies and one cupcake

why do I have a is that a my jizzin in that size I like how you and BC were smoking weed before this. Reading about the women's bansom weight. That is funny. Not bad, not bad. You know what's especially funny about that

is like AI is always like slightly off about something and the fact that it's women's bannam weight, not straw weight. I know exactly. It's like AI. It wasn't as straw weight as fixation. Is there another one from Jonas? Yeah,

right. Life at CBS sports. life at morning combat life at 50 years old okay this one's good anything helps I like negative 196 I'm like Walt Disney frozen in that bitch The Panthe Way Division again

Got a weird bulge there too I don't know if I'm the biggest fan of that one It's a little oddly shaped but you know Who's counting? All right We got one from Jesse A meme I sometimes co-host a little show called Morning Kombat Oh

She just leaves Is that supposed to be Angela? Oh, you missed it. So on Friday, Oscar says he one time ran into Angela White, the pornography star, at a bar in Vegas and tried to talk to her and was like, yeah, she was not having it. So this is, I got it. Okay. Play on this. You can see her in the mirror there walking away.

Yes. Probably off to do anal somewhere. I just want to say this is a great meme template. Like, there's some funny memes you can make. Oh, that is a good meme template. You're right. All right. We got three from the hero Danger Mouse.

He goes, hey guys, Danger Mouse here. First, welcome to the show, Chuck. I'd like to take more shots, but you're more professional than the last clown that's out there. So this is the best I can do right now. And it's Luke as the husky, Chuck as the cat pretending to be a husky. And then Long Island, Luke has a husky. And it says references to ancient MK subculture and in-crowd jokes.

Oh, yeah, Chuck. Got some catching up to do, you know. Got some catching up to do, fair point. That's a great one. All right, so that's the first one. Then he says, Luke, I'm in the majority, so I haven't watched this. It's over. It says, look, me, the boxing is finished.

Majority of MK fans. Oh, no. Anyway, do you get that meme? Like, boxing being finished, but they don't really care. Yes. All right, fair enough. And then last but not least, I try to share equally. So a last one for Long Island Luke.

All right. Saturday nights are for five. whites, not girlfriends. Change my mind. I showed this to her and she liked it. Hell yeah. That's the Stephen Crowder joint. That's a funny one. Great. All right. Last but not least

from, I mean, look at this name. Chuck from Gengis Bong. We've got a name. All right. Angela White, no. Angela Blanca. Dude, so he literally made this joke during my watchalong and I was like, you need to make a meme of that.

that is so good. Yeah, so instead of Angela White, it's Angela Blanca. Yeah. See, me incanta. Uh, pretty good. Yeah. That one I liked as well. Pretty good, pretty good. All right. As you guys know, we'll declare the winner on Friday. Great submissions. You can always send those morning combat at gmail.com to reach the show. Chuck, yes, sir. We've got fights coming up this weekend. We're on the heels of them. Where can folks get your coverage? You do anything special this week? no it'll be pretty much the same old routine luke i'll be on the crack again on friday and uh i've got a couple of articles i don't know if you know this monny cox has a book out i talked to him about his book he's added out for a little while now but uh it's if you i'm going to do a piece on that just because

if you're into the early days from the like mid 90s into the aughts i think it's pretty fascinating so i'll have a piece on that coming up and a couple of other things at uncrown all right very good uh long island what you got bud uh you know we got we're in ufc perth this week boys so an a Aussie card you know i'm going to be covering all that no i'm not going but i will be waking up at you know 3 30 a m for that 4 a m start time full card watch along you already know also i'm doing uh jedd's podcast no bets barred this week so check that out otherwise same old prop quiz friday you already uh i actually will have coverage of ufc perth probably a post fight show on saturday on my youtube channel so you can go check that out

there. Let's see. When's your next, when's your next MMA commentary? Like, do you know when that is yet? I don't. I don't. You know, I take these, I mean, I mean, you know, I'm not dependent on it for income. It's just fun to me. So I just let them know. They just tell me when they've got a fight

and I just get ready for it. That's it. Yeah. All right. By the way, I didn't mention this. Jessica Penny was there. I, like, I was walking out of an elevator and she was walking in. And, you know, I never know who hates my guts in M&A, so I try to get in and out as much as, so I just, I was like,

Oh, hi, Jessica. And I dapped her up and I kept it moving. So I don't know if she thought I was rude or not, but I wasn't sitting there trying to find out. Tiago Alves was there. Robbie Lawler was there. Yeah, it was people there. It was interesting. Good old Iowa.

Good old Iowa. Indeed. Morningcombat at gmail.com. We already been over. We got the merch, morningcombat. This is the last week, folks. The root beer slash donkin slash MKTV and then the Luke about it, about it, Baca poster.

Those are all available at morningcombat. dot shop for about the remainder of the week by Friday they will not be will announce the winner of the contest we'll sign a poster and get it signed to you all kinds of good stuff and then of course you can follow us on socials and everywhere else all right all right for the man in the hat ice man chukh mindin hall for long island luke i am l t thank you guys so much for watching we really appreciate it we'll talk to you on friday and until next time may all of your gains be loyal this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human