MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - IS WILDER THE HARDEST PUNCHER OF ALL TIME?

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Deontay Wilder lost the first 6 rounds of his fight with Luis Ortiz but was he worried? Nah, he just bided his time, one right hand, fight over! We talk about what now has to be considered one of the best weapons in the history of the sport. We also talk Floyd and try to figure out what he's up to as well as MVP and Bellator London this past weekend! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. It is Monday, the 25th of November, 2019, and it is time for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program next to my trusty Steve and co-host from CBS Sports as well as many other places, I think, the one and only Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. How are you?

Fired up, man. I'm packed and I'm holding. I'm smiling. I'm living. I'm golden. Let's rock this house, right? Which 90s reference is this? Oh, come on.

Come on. I don't know. All right. Well, you know, I wonder what life you lived in the 90s often, to be honest with you. I was in high school. All right. That's fine. Apparently, I'm being told this third-type line, which makes you lame.

I mean, going by your music choices, I just got to ask you, where were you while we were getting high? You know what I mean? Because you're probably... I do like Oasis. I do like Oasis. Yeah, I went to the Cannibal Corpse concert yesterday. We'll get into that.

You want to set the... In Philadelphia. You know what's amazing to me, Philadelphia? By the way, nice town. Have you ever spent time in Philly? Yeah, I've done some time there. Okay. You could die there.

You've got to be careful. I went to Eastern State Penitentiary, by the way. I toured it. It was kind of cool. But nice town, actually. They don't mosh. They're kind of cowardly in terms of the pit. I was very disappointed.

If we're going to get right into it, you were attacking me, harassing me on social media. I don't think I was harassing you. I was telling you how much I missed you, Brian Campbell. With live shots of Campbell. Can we get the picture up there that you put out and you added me on there? Here's cool dad Luke at the concert. By the way, notice quite explicitly above my left ear is an earplug. I'm that guy now. All right, well, this is the thing, because you put it out there. A lot of people all wonder what Campbell thinks about this. But then I started to look at that picture, Luke.

How cool are you if you're going to a flesh-eating concert, and you're sitting up in the upper deck with an airpiece? Yeah. I have to be honest with you. You know what I think of when I watch that? Jay, can we hit it up there? Yeah, but there's not kids at the show.

There's some 20-year-olds. You can't get down there and throw your weight around? Here's the deal. I was with my wife, number one, and she didn't want to be on the floor for two reasons. One, she doesn't want to mosh, which is fine, but two, she's short. She's chiquitica. She's 5'2". So she can't literally see anything.

So I paid extra to go to what they call the crow's nest, and it was fine up there. Look, I'm too old to be beating up kids, bro. I'm just too fucking old to be doing that. I've had my day in the pit. Do you guys eat fried embryo when you're up there? I mean, what's the delicacy of a show like this?

This is true. Hot dogs. Hot dogs. But they rock. This is the corpse grinder, official shirt of the lead singer. They were amazing. You're a psychological experiment. I feel like you're a good education away from being a ditch digger.

I really feel like that. Probably. Here's the last thing I'll say about this. Maybe an organ broker? The last thing I'll say about defensive death metal, it's not for everybody. But the reality is this. I like boundary-pushing music. I like that in hip-hop, and I like that in my metal.

I don't like the conventional stuff. It bores me. It does nothing. Well, not does nothing. It rarely does something for me. I like it when people make like, not merely aggressive, but unusual music. You like lyrics about rape is really going with this Well, there is a song called strip raped and strangled. So hey great way to start the show

It is Monday of something right is so over the weekend. Let's get this started on that lovely note There was a big boxing fight on Saturday. It was at the MGM Grand it was between Deontay Wilder you're reigning and defending WBC champion, and Luis Ortiz. This was a rematch in the making. We had talked about it extensively, Brian Campbell, and in the end, Deontay Wilder wins in the seventh round. Here's the interesting part about it, however, Brian, as you well know, he was losing every minute of that fight, essentially. There was maybe, and when I say maybe, I do mean maybe. One round you could give. I had it six to nothing, straight up. That's exactly how I had it, too. I saw one place,

bad left hook. I think Scott Christ, the bad left hook, had it 59, whatever the 59, I forget what the math is on this one. Yeah, you want to float around to Wilder, okay, but this was one-sided. This was a one-sided event. I did it on, dissected. You can just see how much better of a boxer Luis Ortiz was, but in the end, it just didn't matter, Brian. One shot, a right hand from Wilder puts him down. Two questions for you to start today's show. Number one, what does this fight tell you new, if anything? And secondly, where do we rank Deontay Wilder all time in terms of power punching?

The questions are almost connected in a way because this guy, you can say it without any form of hyperbole or asterisk next to it, he has legendary power. We're watching the making of a special and unique career. The difference in the first fight I told you in the preview coming in was conditioning. What did we see from Luis Ortiz the second time? Came in ripped, came in ready. He has no excuses to make after this loss. He was winning six to nothing on my card.

He looked like he was in route to potentially, should this have gone the distance, having a legitimate claim. No scorecard issues this time around. All three judges had him comfortably ahead of the time of stoppage. And yet, just like Wilder said after the fight, he said this quote many times,

they have to be perfect for 12 rounds. I have to be perfect for two seconds. And it's insane how unique and special of a fighter he is. He has legendary power. Is it better than Sonny Liston's, Mike Tyson's, Ernie Shaver's? It's really hard to really sort of pick that out. But the difference, I think, between him and some of these legendary heavyweights, right? We've seen guys like Rocky Marciano rally against Jersey Joe Walcott

for a dramatic knockout, George Foreman against Michael Moore, but those are sort of aberrations in their career. Yet Wilder is consistently doing that every single fight, almost to the point of strategy. He's a lot smarter than we realize. He's not going out there and getting a lucky punch. He's downloading information the same way a Floyd Mayweather would and using that later. Not the same IQ downloading information the same way a Floyd Mayweather would and using that later.

Not the same IQ, not the same style, but my point is, he's doing the things he needs to do to win the fight, which is, he's not worried about the scorecards, he knows he's in better shape than you, and he's going to sort of wait until that second half if he doesn't catch you early and wait until you wear down. And a little spoiler alert,

Professor Salt-N-Pepa really did a good job this week on Dissected sort of breaking that down. And the reason why i say he's so unique and special is this he's not ali or frazier or tyson or bow or holyfield and he's never going to be and we as fans and critics have to get to that point where we go i'm going to stop comparing him against them and saying when is he going to square up his boxing when he's going to he's not going to do any of that right he's going down one lane of the road and relying on his one superhuman strength and building his whole game around that in such an efficient and smart way that historically, at 6'7", with that athleticism, he can fight against anybody.

He's going to be in any fight. This is now a special, unique career. Now, 10 title defenses in an era that seems to be a little bit more deep than the last one, the Klitschko era. These are not all legends and killers that he's fighting. But he wants to fight everybody and within those grounds, except for the first fight with Stiver when he broke his right hand in round three, and except for that legendary fight against Tyson Fury that we're going to see a second time in which he dropped Fury twice and nearly decapitated him. If you go 12 rounds with him, you're not making the final round. And once we stop trying to force him to be who he's never going to be as a guy who came into this sport late at 19 years old and just celebrate what he is, he builds the entire fight around that one moment.

And it wasn't one of those crazy helicopter shots. People can watch, dissect it, and see it. It's a one-two? It was a perfect timed thing that was set up along the way where we have to stop and go, not only is this guy special and unique, but who the hell outside of Tyson Fury has a chance to beat him right now? Every time he goes in there, it's must-see TV, and he delivers the damn boom. I hope, Luke, and we can talk about Wilder Fury 2, which will happen February 22nd, and talk about what it can do and be big. I hope that this fight with the

ESPN and Fox connection coming together for a joint network pay-per-view can push Wilder's brand to a level where it deserves to be. Because what else would you want in a Renaissance heavyweight division than to have the main guy, the guy who's probably the best of them all, although let's give Fury a chance to prove that in the second fight, be charismatic, be coming

out during fight week and being like, yeah, I'm going to kill a man one day in the ring and make crazy comments and make headlines, come out there with an eyes wide shut mask and all this wild stuff, and then knock suckers out. This is exactly who we want. This is exactly who we need. And I've never been a big wilder cheerleader from day one. But at this point, if you are a critic, what leg are you standing on? I don't know. I don't know what they're going to say anymore about this guy. You know,

it's so funny to me. It's like people keep waiting for the party trick to not work. And we're nearly 50 fights into his career, and it just keeps working. Now, you can argue that Tyson Fury maybe should have won the first fight. In fact, I think he kind of did. He won the fight. Let's be honest. He got screwed. Yeah, I thought he did so too. But at the same time, the dynamism of that punch and how it changed the fight and what the intrigue it sends for the rematch is simply undeniable.

I mean, here's the reality. You kind of know what's going to happen against Tyson Fury. He's going to outbox Deontay Wilder. There's just no question about it. But to your point, in the tiniest of windows, when your defense is just a little bit, not even bad, just a little bit lazy, a little bit complacent, which fighters do time to time, including elite ones, he'll just send you into the land of wind and ghost.

It's wild. And I think you're right about the expectations. He's never, like, you looked at this fight, this fight Ortiz was the better boxer not by a little bit by a lot well not just that Luke just to pause you real quick tell me after that performance

that Ortiz isn't at worst the third best heavyweight in the game right now I would favor him against Joshua Ruiz almost anyone else look at that performance

up to that point I don't know where I would put Ortiz but to your point I'd be curious to see those matchups and there might be some surprises there

along the way he's certainly a very talented guy. And yet, well, there's two KOs over this guy now. It's unbelievable, and this one cleaner than the last. There was some dispute about the ending, but the point about it is, look, he's not going to be the guy that wows you with the footwork. He's not going to be the guy that wows you with his angles or

his incredible use of the jab or whatever, except in little tiny spots, and then those spots combined with the nuclear power of his right hand, it is simply at always, you're just on the edge of your seat waiting, is this going to be the punch? Is the next one going to be the punch? And the reality is, he keeps delivering from the moment he does the media

to his walkout with his crazy get-ups to his fight. And that fight kind of sucked up until it didn't. But in the end, did you get what you want if you were a fight fan? You did. Yeah, but was it boring the whole time? No, it's dramatic edge of your seat waiting for that moment. If you pay money for Deontay Wilder, does he deliver for you? Every time. Every time he does. Now, the question about where his power ranks, I'm with you. It's like, on the one hand, he doesn't do, he's not as good of a boxer as Tyson or Liston or Shavers. Those guys did great work with angles and with their feet and body work.

But that's kind of what makes him remarkable. He doesn't have those boxing tools, and maybe he's not fighting the same level of competition. But at the same time, the guys who they're giving him, he's just sitting them down over and over and over again. So my rule on him is I don't know where to place him, but there's no argument that he deserves placement. You can quibble with the ranking, but as an all-time historic puncher, that's where he belongs on that list, absolutely, especially at range. Again, the body work kind of changes things a little bit. I mean, he's a headhunter. He doesn't go to the body.

In some fights, he doesn't even use his jab as a weapon if you're smart enough as a boxer to sort of do things to counteract that. And yet, again, he's not getting lucky. He's setting it up and nailing it. So you have to be done saying, I'm waiting for him to be exposed because we're past that point where you would say, what would happen if he had to go 12 rounds? He did that against Davern, right?

Like, what would happen if he— Brian, Brian, hold on a second. To interject here, if I may, he's been exposed. The problem is, like, it's not a secret. He's not that great of a boxer. It doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter that much. That's the problem.

And I think people miss that they use his corner, Jay Diaz, and Mark Breland, the Hall of Famer. They very intelligently use his vulnerabilities and negativities to help build his strength. They use it as a factor. He gets raw at times, but raw in a way that freezes his opponents and makes them scared. I mean, the success that Luis Ortiz had for six rounds or five and a half rounds in the first fight, there's really nobody else outside of Fury who's 6'9", with an incredibly historic long

reach, and has quickness that can be able to have that kind of success. Why? Why does he blow away a guy like Brazil, the first punch he lands that's clean in the first round? Because that power is not only so lethal, the threat of that power is so sick that you can't come out with your best performance and have success because the first or second time he touches you, you could go away. Ortiz was a guy who just happened to be six foot five with a great amateur background, power in both hands and a great chin and a willingness from his quote coming in that

I'm willing to die in the ring to win if I have to. And even he got caught and blown away. So this now builds up to Wilder is maxing himself out. He's being the best that he could possibly be within his own body and skills and experience. And I think it makes this Tyson Fury rematch even bigger given this calendar year now of two devastating knockouts from Wilder than it would have been had it happened right after the first one.

Because when you have a promoter like Bob Arum who's on the ESPN side with Fury saying, oh, I think this fight can do two million pay-per-views, I think that's a little aggressive. But at the same time, we've never seen a pay-per-view be done with two networks that are primetime regular TV networks like Fox and ESPN

using the build to the Super Bowl that they'll be able to use on Fox and also on ESPN and to see what that engine can do this rematch in February. And thank you, by the way, Deontay Wilder, for not hurting your hand or getting a cut. Thank you for coming out of that. It should be noted, quickly, his last two fights didn't take a whole lot of damage. This rematch could end up being, with the right promotion machine,

one of those fights that we haven't had in a long time. A million bucks? I think a million is now the basement in my potential. I think it can go one and a half, and that is a monster success in 2019. But I think even one and a half is saying, or 2020, even one and a half can't be a ceiling because we don't know the potential, Luke. We've never seen in the modern days using the Super Bowl build on Fox to build up a fight like this. It's interesting, the potential of this fight, and I love what it's doing for the damn heavyweight division. You remember

what it's like growing up as a kid in the 90s? Yeah, of course. I say this story all the time, but after, like, Bo Holyfield won, what would you do? You'd turn on SportsCenter and you'd get, like, a half hour on site to lead off the show of Bernstein and of Charlie Steiner giving you all the, I mean, it was the biggest story in

sports, and sometimes even more than sports, when you would have these heavyweight title fights. And once again, I'm not telling you that Fury Wilder, Joshua Ruiz, and Ortiz are as good as the 70s or 90s crop that we had, the two best eras in heavyweight history. But they're pretty damn fun. They make must-see fights. They come to win. This era, this renaissance section in history that we're going through, we're getting there.

This Wilder Fury 2 could be that monster fight that pulls everybody back in. And it's such an easy sell for all the reasons you mentioned. These two guys are at the peak of their game. There's the lineal title belt thing going on versus WBC. But on top of that, American versus Englishman. I'm sorry, this is a relevant factor in boxing. White versus black. It's not about that, but I'm saying there's this contrast of backgrounds and identities.

And it's also an easy sell to the public. It's like you've got a better boxer and a better puncher. And I don't know what's going to happen. Well, they both have the kryptonite for each other that no one else can produce. That's exactly right. And you've seen them enacted before to that very controversial draw. So it's a rematch. You can draw upon that controversy. It's the easiest sell in boxing for a heavyweight fight in some time. The last thing I'd say about it is, and I mentioned this on Dissected, I'm not comparing their two games in any real capacity other than to say the following. If there is one person that Deontay Wilder reminds me of in terms of his, I'll just put it this way, offensive priorities, it's Yoel Romero.

Yoel Romero will take, and MMA is very different. You're going to go Hendo with the H-bomb there. No, but it's because Yoel Romero will take, and MMA is very different. You're going to go Hendo with the H-bomb there. No, but it's because Yoel Romero will take a round or two, and then the third round, kaboom, out of nowhere. Chris Weidman was beating

Yoel Romero in New York City thoroughly until he wasn't. And you see that, again, Luke Rockhold was kind of winning that one pretty cleanly until he wasn't. He has this ability to have these third round,

out of nowhere, explosive moments. And again, of course, he had that pedigree in wrestling. I don't want to have these third round, out of nowhere, explosive moments. And again, of course, he had that pedigree in wrestling. I don't want to overstretch the comparison, except to say there are guys in the game who just don't mind giving away some real estate on the cards because they know, I just need a little bit of space later, and I'm going to tear you to pieces. And he does it so effectively. We're just not wired as boxing fans to understand seeing somebody at that level employ that strategy because you've got a guy like Tyson

who you can't really compare to Wilder outside of just having big power, but Tyson would go out there to get you out of there as quick as he possibly could. Sometimes people will run into Wilder's right hand in round one and that happens, but for the most part, specifically against elite opponents, like you said, very comfortable to say, have your success now. Meet me five, six rounds later when it's not going to be as easy for you to move on your toes, and I'm getting closer, and I'm bringing the boom.

And the other part is it keeps him fresh, too. He doesn't spend a ton of energy, either. He has to mind his P's and his Q's, but it's not like he's out there really exerting a ton of energy. So he gets to stay fresh and keep his power late into the fight as well. I cannot wait to see that rematch. I mean, then you've got Joshua Ruiz, too, weeks. This is, it's a great time to be alive. It's a great time to be alive. So that takes us to now, I hate to even bring it up, but I have to bring it up. All right, here's the deal. So Floyd Mayweather, how long ago, Brian? Two weeks ago says, yeah, I'm not going to make a comeback. It's too hard on the body. Six days ago. Six days ago. Let's say a week, just to be generous. Says, nope, I'm 42.

I'm just too old. This is a young man's game. And then maybe a few days later, takes to Instagram and says, I'm coming back out of retirement in 2020. That followed, by the way, or I should say was preceded by him sitting down courtside at some, I think it was Clippers and Celtics with UFC president Dana White. It should be noted that Zufa Boxing was supposed to have an announcement in October. I know that they have made hires. Mike Coppinger of The Athletic has reported that. But there was no announcement in October.

November is almost over. Floyd teasing 2020. And then, lastly, Brian, I'll pitch this to you first as well. TMZ reporting, for whatever that is worth. Again, for whatever that is worth. Say what you want about TMZ. They get it right a lot. They do get scoops. That's the thing about TMZ reporting, for whatever that is worth, again, for whatever that is worth. Hey, say what you want about TMZ. They get it right a lot. They do get scoops.

That's the thing about TMZ. They report on, like, whoa, Vicky and bad baby, but they get the scoops. Okay. Saying that what Floyd is looking at is either Pacquiao rematch, okay, or just to box the ears off some UFC fighter terribly out of his depth. Yes. What do you make of all of this Floyd Mayweather news? Because of how you laid out in the beginning,

that it was literally like 48 hours after he was in LA opening up one of his new lines of fitness boxing gyms, tells Reuters what you said. I'm never coming back, but focused on the danger of the sport. Reference the lives lost in the ring in 2019. And then a day or two later

is going full throttle with this. And then because you see UFC and Dana White and others associated with UFC re-gramming it on IG, I think you have to believe that it's more likely at 42, would be 43 by the time he comes back, holding that 50-0 record, that it's more related to fighting an MMA fighter. And it's one of those things, Luke, that, look, Floyd DeTroll, he kind of did cannibalizing

Cannibal Corpse Concert Week on his own promotion, considering he was a co-promoter of record with Mayweather Promotions on Wilder Ortiz 2, a PBC venture, yet he's floating his name out there in a big way during fight week. The same tricks he used to do, right, during like Golovkin-Canelo fight week to bring the attention back on him. That was a little bit odd. There's certain elements to this that are just odd. But I think if you do the math, what would be the best case scenario for us? I think really Mayweather-Pacquiao too.

Even if they were 43 and 41 like they will be next year, Pacquiao is going through a renaissance at 40. That win against Keith Thurman is as good as any recent win in the sport. I just don't know at 43 if Floyd would do that now. I think that experience against Conor and the ease of it and the experience even against Nasakawa in Japan. And the easy money. The one thing I don't want this to do, because look, here's the thing.

We're all going to go, oh, we don't want this, we don't want this. And then if it was Floyd Habib and it happened, of course, we'd get drawn back in because it's a spectacle. You have to see it, even though we don't want this, we don't want this. And then if it was Floyd Habib and it happened, of course, we'd get drawn back in because it's a spectacle. You have to see it, even though we don't want it. If it plays any part in keeping the UFC from making Habib, Tony Ferguson, five, then... Wait, wait, let me back up a step just so I understand you clearly. Are you suggesting that the UFC is considering making a boxing match

between Habib Nurmagomedov and Floyd Mayweather? I'm going to say that when you see all the retweeting going on from everybody involved with the UFC, and you know Dana wants to get involved in the sport in any way, and right now there's just no free agent fighters that aren't aligned with ESPN or Showtime or Fox or DAZN or whatever, what's the next thing you can do? Take one of his guys and match him up with Floyd and use all his promotional powers and push it. And then did you see Ali Abdelaziz, Habib's manager,

float out some kind of cryptic IG post that I didn't really understand, but kind of in setting that it was supposed to, I just made up a word there, kind of basically saying that that fight was supposed to happen in January in Saudi Arabia. I'm not really sure what you can pull from it, but it's interesting. Managers in MMA often repeat half-truths

or they're just trying to sell you on something. Here's what my sense of things are. Between him sitting with Dana White and the lack of a Zufa boxing announcement, my hunch is that they're trying to get a big splash going. And what better way to get a big splash going if most of the best fighters are already signed or belonging to PBC or to Bob Arum at top rank, or they're at the zone,

who's available and has a huge name that's known, by the way, to UFC audiences? It is Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather is easily the most popular boxer in MMA, right? For better or for worse, that is his role. He is the king of the trolls, yes, but he's also the king of visibility. What I took away from the McGregor fight, and I know you have at least suggested on the show that your sources tell you that he didn't hardly train for that fight. Even with that, I talked to Paulie Malignaggi about that fight when it first ended.

And Paulie is known as a clear and unequivocal Floyd Mayweather supporter. And even he agreed with me that it was time to really hang it up. Now, the Nasakawa exhibition thing notwithstanding, Floyd just didn't look great in that fight beyond the lack of the work in the first three rounds. He just didn't have his legs under him. He didn't look physically at 42 or 41 at that time, whatever he was. He just didn't look to be, while in good physical condition for the age, he didn't look to be elite boxing physicality needed to compete against the top junior and then regular welterweights

at that moment. Pacquiao kind of does, which is miraculous, but he does. So here's what I'm going to say. I don't know who he's going to fight. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of him fighting Pacquiao, assuming that Floyd is, that fight was aberrant and not an indication of where he has arrived as an aging talent. But if that McGregor fight is actually where Floyd is now, yeah, he can fight UFC fighters until he's blue in the face. He's going to knock them all out. Like, they don't have a shot against him, even as a...

I mean, especially Habib. Good God. Yeah, even as a declined property in terms of his physical abilities, which, again, wasn't just my interpretation. Paulie agreed. So I would say that seems most likely. Plus, what a launch for Zufa Boxing. What a great way to get off the ground with somebody you can sign, recognizable to your audience.

We know that that UFC fighter versus Floyd Mayweather thing works, certainly for Floyd, and UFC made a ton of money. And we mentioned it last time, what was the big takeaway from Mayweather-McGregor in terms of losses? Conor could write it off saying, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's not even my regular sport. And they all made a bunch of money. You could probably, probably, although it'd be a little bit harder, you might be able

to do that again. Now, I wonder if Habib goes in there and just gets absolutely annihilated, if they would be as forgiving as they were for Conor. One doesn't really know, but there is at least precedent to assume that he could. But it goes back to my point. When someone's doing drugs in our life, we always have that comment of,

hey, you know, do you, just as long as you're not hurting anybody else. If this idea goes forward and Floyd Habib has some life to it, you are hurting things. You're hurting UFC fans from the idea of, you're hurting Tony Ferguson. That's a fight. I mean, this is the historically deep division.

Didn't Habib say in Uzbekistan for this event that he was out there for, I think it's called guerrilla fighting, if I'm not mistaken, that they were going to do an April show in Brooklyn? If that's the case, then I would amend my take right there. If we can get Tony Habib five in April in Brooklyn, and then they can schedule some type of showcase afterwards, that's fine. I just don't think we're getting Maypack two, even though I think if Floyd was going to come back against an active fighter, it would be the best fight.

But Floyd is almost too smart to take that fight right now. Floyd doesn't take big risks, ever. Good God, I can't believe Manny Pacquiao went out there and did that to Keith Thurman. And if you're Floyd and you've been inactive, it just doesn't seem like a smart idea. At the same time, Luke, even if you're like the biggest Floyd hater and critic, could you get excited about him continuing this lopsided boxer versus MMA thing? I mean, I feel like it's tiresome already. I feel like the Nasikawa fight against a 20-year-old guy, four weight divisions smaller than you, was kind of shameless. And I'm not saying ex-boxers haven't done this in the past. Ali's went on world tours and done pseudo

wrestling and MMA matches, but shouldn't he be better than that? Right. Well, here's the deal. What would sell more? Being dead serious. And I'm going to make it up, because it may not be Habib. It could be somebody else. But let's say it's Habib. Habib versus Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match promoted by all the relevant entities or Maypack 2. Right? Here's one thing you can say.

Mayweather-McGregor was exciting. Mayweather versus Pacquiao, while a legitimate boxing contest, not overly exciting. Right? You can look back on that. Do we want to see Maypack 2? Or do we want to see something crazy again? I would humbly submit to you, either would likely be big. Maybe MayPAC 2 is even bigger.

But the fact that they're even relevant and close to one another, and one is a significantly less difficult of a challenge, it makes Mayweather's calculations a little bit easier to follow. I think the wild card in this, though, may be Saudi Arabia, which is throwing, as a country, so much money at WWE. Joshua Ruiz, too, reports that AJ might be making $75 million as a guaranteed flat rate. If you're Floyd and you have those conversations with them and you can get a couple hundred million, yeah, you'll probably fight anybody. Oh, and lastly, I think there was an Entertainment Tonight headline.

I'm not making this up. Logan Paul, who just is, you know, I mean, what a skin tag this creature is. He said he wanted to box Floyd Mayweather, and they put up a poll on their site about it. Should Logan Paul box Floyd Mayweather? I hope he does. All right, if I could get off of regular buttfight journalist boxing guy at my core and then get into gas station food eating Brian Campbell and go within this carnival circus realm of Floyd fighting 20-year-old featherweight kickboxers.

There's one thing to fight a guy smaller than you who has no chance. And Logan Paul has no chance under any circumstances. But the fact that he's a cruiserweight and Floyd at welterweight, if they ever made that kind of carnival match, there's an entertaining side to that. Please go die in a fire. Okay. And I don't want it. I don't want that for Floyd's legacy.

I'm just saying that there's a little bit of interest in there. A little guy against a big guy? Please die in a fire. Okay, let's move on. It is official. Jon Jones is going to have a title fight. It'll be at Light Heavyweight. It'll be in February in Houston, Texas.

It'll be at the Toyota Center. I believe February in February in Houston, Texas. It'll be at the Toyota Center. I believe February 8th is the day, if memory serves, 2020. It will take on Dominic Reyes. Now, Brian, we got to this last week or the week before, certainly talking about it. Now that it's official, it's exciting. I'm glad he's doing it. All the reasons we talked about, he's the right candidate. It could be exciting. By the way, I get... I don't want to jinx it because I don't think this is quite right. I don't get the vibe that I'm like, oh, I'm feeling an upset because that's not quite true. But I am getting the vibe for sure that Dominic Reyes is going to... Is being wildly underrated in this one.

And I... It's one of those situations where like, what could you really point to before the Anderson Silva-Chris Weidman fight that gave you a clear indication that Chris Weidman was going to win? Nothing, or at least very little. Similar kind of situation. Different circumstance. John's only 31, although he's been in the game a lot longer. But the point being is, I get a sense that, not that I'm like, oh, here comes the upset, but rather that when it's over one way or the other, Dominic Reyes will have shown us his true actual ability. I think he will get taken down, but he has shown after getting taken down, he gets back up rather easily.

The same Vulcan, brother. I understand. But he has what I would call adaptive takedown defense, where he gives it up at first, but then gets up and then realizes the tricks you're pulling, and then he stops it. He has a bunch of fights where he gave up one takedown, and then his opponents go one for seven, one for nine, one for five. He's really quite good with that. It's like a drug dealer.

It gives you the first one for free. Well, I don't know what drug dealers you've been working with. They didn't give me shit for free. But how about this part? Over the weekend, it just didn't stop, did it, Brian Campbell? Jon Jones, Israel Adesanya, still going after it. And why do I bring that up? Because, one, John Jones said outright, Israel Adesanya, you were offered this fight and you did not take it. Two, as I just alluded to, I believe that Dom Reyes is

much better than folks seem to realize. And what happens if Dominic Reyes wins in February? However unlikely we might assume that to be, that Israel-Adesanya fight, it goes up in smoke. And you have the famous Lorenzo Fertitta tweet talking about, I think, Pac-12 got knocked out by Marquez. Oh, boxing, you should have struck while the iron was hot. You should have made Maypack 2. Hashtag GSP versus Anderson. And they didn't make it either. And they made Maypack and made a bunch of money.

It wasn't that good. My point being is here, Jed Mishu over at MMA Fighting has vociferously argued the time to make Adesanya versus Jones is now. And Adesanya, we know his reasons. But he didn't want to make it. And here we are. Here's what I'm going to say about this. Yeah, take the floor, Luke.

Thank you. I will. I do think that you have to wait on that fight. However, I don't think you can wait till 2021. Dude, 2021 at the earliest is 13 months away. Adesanya got to a title in 14 months. That is an absolute eternity. Unless, I mean, just do the math. Let's say that Jon Jones wins and he beats Dominic Reyes without significant injury. Who's he going to fight next? Corey Anderson? Corey Anderson is going to fight Anthony Smith, it looks like. He's already beaten Anthony Smith. Johnny Blakowicz will probably get up. Yeah, great. That's a fight we really care about seeing. And by the way, you could get injured in camp. You

can get injured in the fight, even if nothing happens, blah, blah, blah. My point being is, I don't think he cares about those fights. I don't think you care about those fights. Worse, something catastrophic could happen, or age might actually be creeping up on John because in his last two fights, he has looked talented, but a little bit reserved, and maybe not quite the physical dynamo that he once was. Now, that could just be the two aberrant performances, or it could be a reflection of the fact that he got into the game at 20 or 21 years old, even before that. So my sense is 2021 is too long.

But if he beats Dominic Reyes, the time to make this fight between Adesanya and Jones is going to be summer 2020. True or false? I still say false. All right, here's the deal. Anyone who has fear of, well, what if Dom Reyes wins? Look, here's the deal on that. There's a thing called GSP Sarah. There's blips on the radar that happens to great all-time champions,

and sometimes you lose a fight. Jon Jones could have easily lost to Tiago Santos in that last one, the split decision in which Jon sort of left that back door open for whatever reason you may say against a guy with two non-working legs who he probably could have taken down and just finished that fight off. Whatever. Had he done that, he runs it back, he probably wins the rematch. Should he lose to Dom Reiss, he runs it back, he probably wins the rematch. I think that you're really risking sacrificing what Israel Adesanya is as a star and a brand by rushing him into this so quickly in a somewhat no-win situation.

Now, that's not true because the chance to beat Jon Jones is the big victory and become really the biggest star of the sport right now. But is he going to do that? Is he going to do that before his body matures into that weight class? No. If he goes in there and blows the doors off Dom Reyes, it gives us all pause. But what if he goes in there and for a third time looks not pedestrian, because I don't think that's the way he's looked, but beatable. Looks too efficient.

Looks a little too safe. Looks a little too reserved. Dude, that is a fight. If that is what we end up seeing, that is a fight that Adesanya can win. You brought up the fact that, yes, there was a GSP Sarah, but GSP had already lost before that. He had lost to Matt Hughes in his first title fight. He got submitted.

We had sort of seen that bubble burst. Okay, John has the loss to Matt Hughes, or sorry, Matt's, the death fighter. Matt Hamill. Matt Hamill. Please. He's got the loss to Matt Hamill, but not really. No one has really truly beaten the guy. If Dom Reyes does that, dude, that is a historic moment in the sport. I'm not saying you couldn't do it out of Sonia Jones' super fight if they have a rematch and he recaptures

it. What I'm saying is you have significantly reduced what it could have been. I think to your point is they're heating up earlier than maybe they should right now on social media. And they're forcing this conversation to happen. They can't stop. The Grace Jones meme there from Jon Jones was funny. It was good. Israel's back saying, you know, I'm not only rent-free in your head, I'm willing to pay the rent because I'm there. It's getting good.

But I don't know, man. Israel Adesanya just had this insane year to climb the mountain. This division has some names that we want to see him against. What's the potential loss here? What if he gets dominated? The best choice right now for Israel Adesanya, and I'm in favor of it, is Yoel Romero given all the other circumstances in the division where he just beat Whitaker. Till could maybe get it, but just has that one win after the two losses.

And then you have Yoel Romero, who's coming off of losses. His best option for a fight is a guy coming off consecutive losses. My only point about this is, yes, he should defend his title. He wants to defend his title. That's fine. But if you have a Dom Reyes who is very competitive with Jon Jones, why can't Israel Adesanya be? All right, if you did it late next year, if you did it the second half of next year, it's almost sort of meeting in the middle on the reasons why you should or shouldn't do it. I think unless Jon Jones is telling UFC in the back, like, I'm more likely to go to heavyweight in the next two years than anything else,

so we have a short window to do it, or unless you are the smart UFC matchmakers who sit in that room next to Dana's office with the chalkboards and all the names on it, and you're saying to yourselves, I think Israel actually could beat him. I don't think in my heart that this middleweight version of Adesanya could put on some weight, go up and beat John. But if you believe that he can, and these guys are a lot smarter than I am, then it's not as crazy as you would think.

Maybe you open Raiders Stadium with an outdoor Super Bowl fight there. You're rolling the dice that you believe Adesanya could and that it would be worth the gamble of what a loss might mean because you believe he could be the number one star in your sport. If you believe that and you believe he can win it in UFC, you do take that chance late next year. I think to your point, and this is what I've been sort of keying in on, there is this widespread belief that certainly a 205 John cannot be beaten. And to this point, that has been a very,

very accurate way of looking at things. I don't know if Dom Reyes is going to beat him. But my thought is, if Anthony Smith could at times be competitive, or at least defensively not overwhelmed, and then Tiago Santos could be quite competitive with him in spots. Again, injured. What if Dom Reyes is actually really competitive with him? You have to ask yourself, what can Dom Reyes do that Israel Adesanya can't? Probably a few things, but is it really so much that you couldn't make up that ground? We just can't accept the idea right now that Jon Jones might be beatable at 205.

And I don't know that he is. But this fight against Dom Reyes is going to tell us a lot about a potential that Israel Adesanya might have should he go up to 205. Can I say something awful? Please. Remember when Manny Pacquiao was just knocking fools out, rising up in weight, just destroying people? And then he cleaned up his life, found the Christian faith, stopped rolling dice and gambling and banging chicks in nightclubs. Allegedly.

Okay. And then suddenly it was more... And then voted for draconian laws in the Philippines. It was more pedestrian performances out of the great boxer Manny. He almost was showing, like, grace for his opponents and not finishing them when he had the chance. Like the Bradley fight? Could the best thing for Jon Jones

be a lost weekend? A bender here to get him back in line on being a destroyer? Maybe meet me in a Albuquerque intersection here? He's going to start not answering your question, too. I'm just saying, like, he's getting a little bit too efficient and smart for his own good. I need that old John Jones who walks you down and gets you out of there. Fair enough.

He needs a wake-up call is what I'm saying, all right? And to the point I raised earlier, people keep thinking Dominic Reyes is somebody who's like, well, he's talented, but whatever. Okay, maybe in the end that's true, but I don't know. I get the feeling there's another gear to the guy that we haven't seen that we probably will in this contest. Win or lose. All right, which takes us now to Bellator London over the weekend. It's funny, Brian Campbell, that we have spent a lot of time today talking about boxing, as we should have.

It was the most important combat sports event over the weekend. But Bellator is doing something kind of interesting with MVP. He is getting what I would consider to be a lot of what would be the MMA equivalent or so of tune-up fights. And he wins over the weekend in quite spectacular fashion, I think with the right hand. And even Paul Daly, his old competitor, he didn't outright criticize Bellator, but he said, this is kind of ridiculous that he's getting this many fights. I saw a graphic that was like most knockouts in Bellator history, and he's not at the top, but he's pretty close. But it's like, dude, if you were matchmaking Patricio Pitbull the way you're matchmaking MVP, he'd have 75,000 knockouts by now.

So here's the question. I saw fans split on this. On the one hand, Brian Campbell, you have the camp that says this is, including Paul Daly and many others, this is ridiculous. How can Bellator keep giving this guy fights that he is virtually guaranteed to win? And on the other hand, there's the argument that like, look, man, people want to come out to see this guy. And when he fights these guys that he is significantly better than, he delivers, to his credit, highlight reel fights, knockouts, and performances. This is the one right here. So which is it? Are you allowed to have these, I don't know, I wouldn't call it endless tune-ups. He's only had two since the Lima fight. But are you allowed to continuously have guys beneath your level to preserve star attraction in a developing market for a brand. Let me ask you two questions. I don't actually off the top of my head know the answer. Was this his first fight since the knockout loss? This is his second.

Okay, and was this the original opponent or was this a late replacement? This was the replacement, but the original opponent was a career lightweight. Okay. Another problem. I'll put this as a foundation. There's different rules in Bellator, and we know that, right? It's a promotion that it's the fountain of youth. It's the cocoon shell at the bottom of the pool where the old people find extra life.

You can match and build somebody up as an attraction. You can do the carnival circus thing. This has been a normal thing I've said through the years when I tune in to these Bellator cards and watch MVPs send these fools to hell is that it's so damn exciting that when you have a fighter who fights like this, they tend to stop fighting like that when they go up the ladder and face the very elites, like we saw against Lima, because if you take too many chances, you're going to get caught. And you're going to pay for it. Where I've been saying for years, if MVP doesn't want to match himself insanely difficult,

this is entertaining. This is must-see TV. MVP tries things in the cage that other people aren't willing to do. In an attraction like Bellator, especially if the plan was to keep him happy, keep him a star, and keep him well-paid, if they wanted to go down that road, I wouldn't be against it. But when you do that, Luke, you lose the ability to make public comments like, I'm the best welterweight in the world. You're sort of agreeing that you are an attraction. Should he want to do that and come up for air every four or five fights

and fight somebody tough? That's their decision. It could work in Bellator. It wouldn't work anywhere else. I'd be entertained by it. It's not the best way to find out how great he is. Do you think that there's any part of him in the promotion that wonders that themselves?

This is a serious question. I'm not doing a bit because I couldn't pass this test either. How many MVP opponents can you name? So Lima, who else? And then Paul Daly. The Gonzalez guy that pushed him and almost upset him. Fernando Gonzalez. Caveman Rickles.

Caveman Rickles. Santos. Cyborg Santos that got a skull crush. That was a moment. Anything else you can name? No. Okay, so he's fought. I bet they're all from Thackerville, Oklahoma, though.

Some of them, yeah, actually. I bet they helped set up the cage that night. He beat two UFC veterans, one in Ricky Rainey, one in NoSean Burrell. He beat Rudy Bears, and then he's beaten four guys in Bellator without Wikipedia entries. I think he fought Chuck Mendenhall when he had hair. Charlie Antiveros, Jeremy Holloway, and then his last two, Richard Keeley, although he's a little bit more well-known, and then Giovanni Melillo, or Melillo, or however you pronounce his name.

My rule on that is this, okay? Clearly, when he goes up to fight the really, yes, he beat Paul Daly, but my point is he didn't look great. Not that the guy looked great, but he didn't look great doing it. He was really, really stifled, and Douglas Lima just kind of walked the room, basically. It wasn't much of a challenge for him. I don't mind these fights, but they serve a specific purpose.

The UFC has kind of not abandoned Ireland. That's not quite true, but Bellator has made significant inroads in them. And they have this European series that they're going on where they just want to maintain a market presence. They've got a lot of Irish fighters that want to do business in London. This is a guy who can sell tickets for them. So I don't mind if he gets one to two of these fights,

but like, okay, he's had two fights now. By the way, he's fought four times in 2019. In February 2019, Paul Daly, then he fought Lima in May. And then his last two, Richard Keeley and Giovanni Melillo, however you pronounce this guy's name, Giovanni. Okay, you've had two gimme fights since the win, excuse me, since the loss, the bad loss, to Douglas Lima. Time to get back on the horse, right? My rule would be, I don't mind giving these guys tune-ups or star-making fights. It's frankly the Scott Coker strike force method. They're taking it a little too far by my judgment,

given what their ambitions are. But dude, the UFC has been a ruthless competitor for them, and they have to make weird adjustments. So I would say one, two tune-up fights for all the purposes aforementioned, I'm okay with. But if they give him another one like this, back to back to back, that would be, to me, gratuitous. It's time for him to face somebody else. And that's a great division that they have. Him against Rory would be interesting.

Koreshkov would be another good one they have. They have a lot of good guys. And by the way, what we've learned is he could lose that, and I don't think he would lose much market appeal in London because he can get back on the horse and deliver a highlight reel knockout. So my attitude is you can't just abandon completely this obligation, I think, that MMA fans put on promoters to have the best fight the best. But you can play around the margins. Two fights in a row, to me, is playing around the margins. It is fun, though.

Yeah, but it's like, imagine what they would do, again, imagine what Patricio Freire would do if they gave him fights like this. He'd be decapitated. Well, yeah, but he's a seek and destroyer. MVP is sort of a F around and try to set up the walk-off knockout. His whole style is predicated

on, I have to be so much better than you that I can do the robot and then knock you out. If someone's really good, he can't do all those things. He just becomes something a little bit less. But you don't have to fight guys you've never heard of. There's a caveman Rickles level. If he fought maybe a little bit better,

that was basically Anderson Silva-Forrest Griffin that fight. It was fun, right? I like the way he worked it. No diggity. No doubt. I'd like to bag it up. God, you've sickened me. All right, well,

speaking of things I'm sickened by, Brian Campbell. Actually, that's a terrible intro. I don't know what that means at all. Let me just start that one over one more time. It's live, buddy. Is this going to end with you disgracing pies again? I like pies just fine.

The idea that that is a better food than cake is just what peasants think. Hair pie? Peasants. Peasants like you. Okay. All right. That was an 80s reference. There is no big super-duper fight this weekend.

I'm sure there are going to be some. Check out Gravaca Hitman on Twitter. I'm sure he'll have something for you. But there's no real big Bellator. There's no real big UFC. There's no real big boxing fight that I'm aware of, right, Brian Campbell? But it is Thanksgiving on Thursday, which got me to thinking, Brian, now that the Thanksgiving holiday is upon us, the year is drawing to a close. People are incorrectly assuming that the decade is coming to a close, even though it's not until

2020. Well, it kind of is. It's not. I mean, is the year 1980 part of the 70s? No, Luke. So let's wake up to that, all right? I know you tried to do this I'm smarter than you thing on Twitter. It's just math, bro. It's just math. There's no year zero. You start at one. It goes to 10.

It goes zero to nine. That's how it goes. That means you have the first decade was not a decade. So that doesn't make any sense. If a decade is 10 years and there's no year zero, just do the math. Anyway, the point being is this. I would like to ask you, what are you grateful, what are you thankful for here in the year of our Lord 2019? I am thankful that combat sports is back and particularly boxing. And when I say back,

I mean promoted, pushed, and accepted on a mainstream level. Luke, there was a time, you know, six, seven, eight, nine years ago. I remember, I think it was 2011 and 12. And there was like 12 pay-per-views that year. To be a boxing fan, you had to have multi-premium cable subscriptions. And there was all these flights flowed to pay-per-view that didn't belong there. It was, I mean, to be a boxing fan, you had to be a part of this secret club in which it cost a lot of money to get in. And more often than not,

you didn't get what you paid for. And right now, boxing is being pushed to the forefront and it's on Fox and ESPN. It's also on Showtime. The zone's popping in and throwing a ton of money around and it's bringing health to the sport.

Simultaneously, God, UFC has an espn contract we never would have you know guessed that at a certain point a long time ago and it's so mainstream that it's blowing up and it's financially friendly i get to do projects like this and it's great i can pay off absorbent kids travel soccer fees but it also gets to do things like this companies are getting to invest in a fresh, new, fun show like this where we can just come out here and peel the skin off the onion and just cry and let it bleed and just say it like it is.

No cringe, no protection, no nothing, okay? Raw dog style. No, we'll edit that part out after. That was really gross. But you get what I'm saying. I'm thankful. Yeah, you are gross. I mean, look, sometimes as boxing and even MMA fans we get to,

it's like we love our sports. We don't want Jalen Rose going on ESPN and saying Canelo should fight Lomachenko, which is something that happened, by the way. But sometimes that's a necessary evil to have your sports be healthy. And I've gone a long time as a boxing fan when the sport wasn't healthy. And I've gone a long time as an MMA fan and journalist as there's been some peaks and valleys. I'm thankful that you and I get to sit here right now. I'm thankful that that a-hole Jay is in my ear a lot.

I'm thankful for these people sitting back here putting up with my really inappropriate jokes. I'm thankful for this bomb shelter somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. I'm just a thankful person. We got fights every weekend that matter. We got big events. We got crossover things going on. The sports are healthy right now. My wallet is fat. That's been the first time ever, Luke, okay? I'm cashing checks left and right, all right? I'm happy to see that. It's a long time coming. And I'm glad to see that you're

finally getting what I think you've long deserved. I would say what I'm thankful for is, first, you know, it's funny. We used to talk about, I think, I want to say like four or five years ago. So let's say 2014-ish when the UFC was like overwhelmingly doing shows. They did seven shows in Brazil that year. That's when they went to a place in Brazil, a true story, called Uberlangia. Remember that? And you're like, what is going on? There's just glut of content.

You're like, there was a lot of content, but it kind of felt like the golden age was the age of the Matt Hughes's and the Liddell's and the Couture's was a lot of content, but it kind of felt like the golden age was the age of the Matt Huses and the Liddells and the Coutures. And a little bit later, the Lesners. That little spot from, like, let's say, 05 to 09, right, post-Ultimate Fighter to the end of Brock Lesnar, that felt like the golden era. That felt like when MMA was just so hot and everyone was talking about it. And I don't know that we'll recapture that moment where every month MMA just seemed to grow and grow and grow and grow. That was unique. But what I will say now is I don't think that was the golden age. That was the golden age of

becoming. Now is the golden age. Dude, over the weekend, you could have watched in Korea a brilliant jiu-jitsu tournament on flow grappling if you wanted to, or fight to win pro. Davi Hamos from UFC had a match against Gary Tonin. If you want to watch K-1, that was over the weekend. If you want to watch Lifeway Burmese kickboxing, you could have done that. There was Ortiz versus Wilder. There was Bellator overseas. There was USA Wrestling as well. The Zone had two boxing cards on Saturday from separate countries. I mean, it's incredible. If you love combat sports, if you love it when a guy goes mano a mano or ladies with another competitor, this is the time to be alive. And you can get it whether it's in Myanmar, whether it's in Canada, whether it's in your backyard, whether it's pay-per-view or whatever.

Streaming has really enabled- North Cackalacka and Compton, right? Or anywhere. And it could be at any time. Plus now, one of the things that's great about LFA, they went over to Fight Pass, which I think... I always worry about the UFC sort of controlling the regional scene a little bit. On the other hand, they put the entire library of LFA already on there.

So for a guy like me, I can go back and trace somebody's developmental steps. Like, just things like this. Just real quick, you don't care, but the same thing's happening in pro wrestling, and we're going through a boom period right now. I've heard. Because of access, for the same reason. And so it's all, to your credit, and to your point, it all fits together in the same point. Dude, if you like that kind of stuff, now is the time to be a fan.

You can get everything, it seems like, at your fingertips. There is a bit of a cost to it and some sort of technological barriers I get. I just can't think of a time in my life where if you wanted to watch K1, you had to go get the old, weird, not streams, but I forget the terminology now, from forums. And they had to read weird magazines printed by Calvin Ayer. The laptop would get STDs. Now you can get all of that stuff so easily, so effortlessly. It's a great, great time to be a combat sports fan.

That's the first. The second one I would say is, I realize we're kissing up to our bosses here, but the reality is, dude, we are insanely lucky to have this job. Now, granted, they have held us capture in Guantanamo Bay here for the last six or seven months, so that part has sucked. But I will say this. I'm 40 now, and I have finally arranged... You're a man. Come after you. I know. I have finally arranged a moment in my life,

or I should say among my radio show, my personal YouTube channel, and now this. I get to say whatever I want for the most part. I mean, for the most part, which is simply unheard of in combat sports where everything is incestuous and everybody has to keep quiet about everybody else. And I don't know that I always uphold the ideals that I think I should.

I'm certainly an imperfect person in that regard. But you know this too, man. This is a sport where the reason we can thrive by just having that as a feature is because it is so rare. It is so rare to have opportunities like this. I can tell you many times we go to the boss and we're like, we want to talk about this. Is this okay? They're like, yeah, let her rip. Let her rip. Just go. That's what the appeal is. Yeah, it looks like, can I say Vagene on the air? They're like,

yeah. You're the one who's going to get us sitting in the HR, not me. In any event, dude, we are super lucky and super grateful. And I think my hunch is the people out there, I think they recognize what we're trying to do and they seem to appreciate it. So thanks to you guys, man, because Showtime, they read what the things y'all say, and they are loving that you guys seem to get the concept and what we're trying to go and what we're trying to do. Should this lead to a speech about how they should subscribe? Because I think they really should. They should. You should subscribe. Get us to 30K by 2020. I think we'll probably blow past that, given the sort of progress that we've been on. And then what's the plan? You're topless but with a coat over it? Something like that. Something like that. Maybe suspenders. I don't really know yet. In any event, I'm not

just saying it's like, oh, shucks. Thanks, audience. No, really. It makes a huge difference. I have tried to get to this spot for years and now we're here. So it's time to build what we have. But it started, yeah, it started in the bunker. Now we're here so it's time to build what we have but started yeah it started in the bunker now we're here um do you find when you go around i will reveal the fourth wall here yeah when you go to fights when you go around people oh man i love morning combat you know what they never say they're never like oh man i love your your really weird jokes or oh man i love when luke talks down to you or anything like that they're always like man i love when that guy j f's things up and gets in the way. I mean, what have we built here

by accident, you know? People do hit write me about Jay. They're like, yo, fuck Jay. And I'm always like, that's what I've been saying. Exactly. Alright, time now with all those, you know... I'm grateful for meat pie by the way, because Thursday, that's the centerpiece of my Thanksgiving meal. Can't wait. I want to see pictures.

Can you bring me some pictures? Yeah, I'll bring you a slice. Let's do it. Okay. You said that about the beer, and then you just kind of let it roll. I think we need a spinoff episode at a brewery or something. I mean, did you see Stone Cold Steve Austin? Undertaker had that show where they were doing whiskey shots last night. We need something like that right here. All right.

You pitch it to our bosses. All right. With that in mind, it is time now for your questions. It's time now for DMs with Donks. Hey, you got some animation. Look at this. Look at for DMs with donks. Hey, I got some animation. Hey, look at this. Look at this. The budget.

Look at that. I got some animation, huh? To what do I owe the honor, Giggling Jay? All right. First question's up. I'm going to strangle him. All right. Here we go.

This is from TVGC MMA. Is Wilder the least skilled, most one-dimensional boxer ever to be so dominant, Brian Campbell? I think he actually is. At this level, the title level. Not just heavyweight? Yes, I really believe that. And look, again, you can say what you want about Wilder's competition level, although once he flipped that switch and decided that he wanted to be great

and decided that he wanted to fight everybody, he has or has tried. Let's not forget, he tried to fight Povetkin twice until Maldonium got in the way. But yes, he's completely one-dimensional. He builds his entire game around protecting that one dimension and sort of weeding out the vulnerabilities. And he has 10 title defenses. You know, it's the same thing. Joe Lewis has the record for heavyweight title defenses with 25, which is absurd. And I know there's some bum of the month club elements and the fighters back then fought a lot more, but we're talking about a heavyweight boxing. That guy defended the title 25 times. That's absurd. So it's wilder with 10 right now in this era where there's four belts and they can change at any time. Yeah. He's completely one dimensional. And that one dimension

is absolute badass grenade that can go off at any time. I mean, good God, it's completely one-dimensional, and that one dimension is absolute badass grenade that can go off at any time. I mean, good God, it's fun to watch. Yeah, I'm trying to think of somebody else who I have watched in my lifetime who has just like, he's like a knuckleballer. Remember, I think his name was, I could be getting it wrong. I think it was Tim Wakefield. I think he pitched for the Red Sox.

Now, eventually he would get shelled, but there would be games where he would just retire the side, retire the side, all with literally the exact same pitch over and over and over and over again. I'm trying to think

of somebody else who's been like a... But while there's a fastball guy, I mean, it's almost like a guy that... The analogy's imperfect, but I'm simply saying,

who else in your time covering boxing you've sat ringside for that you felt like boxing's equivalent of a knuckleballer? I can't. I mean, you know, Prince Nassim Hamed felt like boxing's equivalent of a knuckleballer. I can't. I mean, you know, Prince Nassim Hamed was a unique guy that he would, like Roy Jones,

he would break all the rules and square up and switch stances. And he would get you out of there. That's unorthodox. That's not one dimension. That's true. And he had speed and ring craft. So that's like a couple of things. But God, I don't know.

I really don't know. He's crazy like that. It's like Damien Maia, but more down that road. It's just weird. It's like, the dude, the scorecards don't mean shit. It's like he just gives away round after round, and then bang. It's just

unbelievable. Alright. Springer St. Louis says, setting aside anti-dumping hysteria and personal biases, who do you think... I love that disclaimer for you. That was for you, Luke. Anti-dumping hysteria and personal biases, who do you think would have benefited most from PEDs? I.e., this person writes, Daniel Cormier is a historically clean anti-PED athlete, but had many injuries that PEDs may have helped as well as performance. I'm not sure how to answer this question. Who could have benefited from PEDs? So he's saying which fighters that are known

that are sort of known and have convinced us that they're not PED users could have most benefited to take their skill level. Like when Barry Bonds was using at an absurd level and he took his already MVP skill level and suddenly he's hitting 73 home runs. You can't really answer this question because that would mean you're living in a world where

you believe that the only people that are using are the ones that are getting caught and that everybody else isn't. And I am, you know, personally, look, we don't lie on the show. We don't pull punches. I don't want to get sued by any fighters, but I'm personally more of the belief that 95% are using than of the belief that it's the 10% that are getting caught. Yeah, the answer is all of them. I mean, I'm not sure how to answer this question. Using PEDs, what does that mean? Are you using EPO? Are you using anabolic steroids? In what

kind of a capacity? Do you have a designer drug, which I think a lot of them probably do. John had dick pills for a while. You can go a couple ways with it. It just depends on how you're using it using I think he's saying for example remember crow cop got shoulder surgery and then had some HGH as a as a way to Expedite the healing process and then just told you Sato to go shove it when he went and fought in Japan Yeah, I think a lot of fighters probably could benefit from situations like that I have frankly believe and I know this was just politically untenable But the NFL PA should make that available,

I think, to NFL athletes. HGH administered for healing. But neither here nor there. Because I don't, to me, that doesn't, I know it's chemical, but I don't see that as a functional difference to weed out relative to stem cell therapy that you have to go to South America to get.

To me, it's like, this is the thing I always get, Everything should be all natural. Dude, surgery is unnatural, right? If you break your arm and it pokes through like a compound fracture through the skin, you're using modern medicine and accumulated wisdom to fix that. People say, well, it's to get you back to normal. Well, at this point, you are just simply playing with terms, right? And then again, it's like with the stem cells. Oh, but that's all natural. Dude, you are expediting the healing process in a significant way, not with chemicals per

se, but with this accumulated modern medical wisdom that was simply unavailable 20 years ago. And I'm not supposed to believe that this is somehow different. So all of them could benefit. It would just be in what capacity and for what reasons. Can we play deathbed confessions? Lorenzo Fertitta, could he pass the USADA test today? Here's the thing.

Let's assume that you're right and that he's been using. He certainly looks like somebody who, at a bare minimum, has a great personal trainer. I don't care, and it's not my business. And I'm being dead serious. Like, to me, people using, we have accepted the idea that this is like a great sin and this is an unnatural thing, when in fact, I don't consider it to be either of those things. And that to me is, I don't know, that's debatable,

but especially in the case of private citizens, you think I give a shit if a private citizen roids up? Dude, roid up until you're fucking blue in the face. You ever watch an action movie? What the hell? I mean, those guys are juicing to the— I remember that time Sylvester Stallone got caught in Australia with, like, you know, the amount of HGH that could feed a third-world country. Have you seen this guy?

You think Stallone got like that in the 70s by fucking eating tilapia and getting a good night's sleep? Like, what are you... You know what I'm saying? Like, it's just a ridiculous way to go through life. You're popping the control room here. You're on fire right now. Well, here's the point. It's like, dude, this is a true...

I swear on my mother, and people understand that when I say that, I say that sincerely. I am absolutely interested in trying TRT and anabolic steroids. I've never done it ever in my life. I am obviously very intrigued by... I'll inject you on the show if you want. I'm very intrigued by the prospect. Dude, world's strongest man is only the shit by virtue of anabolic steroids. One of my favorite

deadlifters, he doesn't do much these days, but like Larry Wheels or Pete Rubish, these guys admit they take. Dude, it ups their deadlift fairly. Well, at some points, not so much. But in certain cases, it can really expand what is humanly possible. Yeah, sorry to ruin your childhood, but the American Gladiators, not clean. Yeah, it's like, again,

I understand this is a debatable thing and that folks have a lot of, like, 1980s Nancy Reagan say no to drugs ideas banged into their head. But the rule, my view is drugs are here, and you can spend all the time in the world trying to get rid of them. You're not going to succeed. Finding some kind of acceptance is really the best way to go about it.

And for private citizens... Great job throwing a PED question in this question, guys. All right. We have such... The last thing on this, last thing on this, I swear. We have such backward attitudes towards drugs. I don't, the last thing on this, last thing on this, I swear. We have such backward attitudes towards drugs. I don't quite, I've never, it's never, no one has ever explained to me why there are, why it's some kind of mortal sin in sports.

Oh, it's against the spirit of the sport. Okay, what's the spirit of the sport? Which, by the way, this is how WADA defines it. They can't define it. You ever be at like Thanksgiving and you have that one relative like crazy uncle? Man, eat shit. You can't bring up like the JFK assassination around him because he's going to act like I'm in the fever swamps

of internet forums just bringing up rando things I'm telling you don't bring up Obama carry around Uncle Joe you know it's like yeah all right next question the good news is my family doesn't know what I do for a living so I don't have to worry about any of this stuff okay this from Stefano underscore GD Brian Campbell do you think

that or did I skip one no do you think that, or did I skip one? No. Do you think that the fact that the many malfeasances by the UFC, contracts, sports watching by dictators, et cetera, are not addressed by mainstream sports media, even with the ESPN exposure, confirm the status of MMA as a barbaric spectacle in the eyes of the general public? What a fantastic question. That's way too educated for me to understand what they're actually asking. So here's the thing. Malfeasance?

Is that a Disney movie? Malevolence. No. What's the one with Angelina Jolie? Maleficent. Maleficent, yes. Malevolence is what I have towards you. In any event, consider this. Kareem Zidane has written about this, how the

UFC doesn't do a lot to combat the presence of Ramzan Kadyrov, right? They don't really lecture Habib about posting pictures with him. They signed some of the fighters from Akhmat MMA. They signed Greg Hardy. And Dana White's attitude was basically like, get over it. And even Kareem Zidane writing recently about the UFC going to China and sort of ignoring the abuses of the Uighur Muslims. They sent Colby to the White House.

A lot of things going on. Well, more than that, they made that documentary called, I think, Combatant in Chief, where they literally lie. Not that Trump didn't play a role early on in allowing the UFC to use his casinos, which was legitimately valuable. But then I saw a follow-up Washington Post op-ed in the wake of Trump getting booed at UFC 244, and someone was arguing that Trump played a pretty integral role in saving the sport.

No, he did not. He played a helpful role, and I can acknowledge as much, but it's simply inaccurate to say, wow. And then he was a rival with affliction. That went down in flames. Right. And the point is, it's not about whether you like Trump or not. It's about eventually someone you don't like

is going to be in a position where that organization is going to wash their record. What will you say then? And so, given that they have done some of this stuff, what does it say that the fact that they're on ESPN never seems to have any, it never seems to cost them, right? You would think, oh, you're on ESPN. What a disinfectant.

You're on the mainstream now. It's going to really go after you. Mickey Mouse and Dana in the same bed, yeah. So how come it doesn't? Dollars, I guess? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why that doesn't go, because people just want to care about the fights. They don't necessarily care about the corporate relationships. Right, okay, but why doesn't Beaumont Jones talk about it? Why doesn't Sarah Spain talk about it? Sarah Spain hectors the free world about all of the problems, some of them quite real, many of them quite real.

I would say some of it is ignorance. There's a mainstream, even to this day, with the popularity of MMA and UFC and the fact that UFC has an ESPN contract who still compartmentalize that as cage fighting, right? Well, that's a cage fighting thing. I know it's on our network tonight, but it's that cage fighting thing. I don't think people dig through enough. I mean, you could just watch

like one boxing press conference today and be like, why are we not writing five stories on what that guy said? You know, if that was the NFL quarterback, he'd be suspended. Combat sports, to some degree, is still considered a different world. You know, it's still considered the, remember those kids at school that couldn't act normal and they got put in their own recess area in a cage? Did you go to schools like that? I like that scene from Dumb and Dumber where Seabass is coming and I'm like, I'm doing that number. Luke, there you go.

I'm just saying that I still think to a degree people don't care, and then on top of it, they've got a big deal with the UFC and they're cashing them checks. Yeah, I think one, it's partly media hypocrisy. I think we should say as much, right? When you're like, oh man, Colin Kaepernick's really done wrong. Hey, what do you think about Ramzan Kadyrov taking pictures with a UFC champ?

And they just, you know... They don't know though, they don't care. Yeah, but sometimes they do and they don't say anything. So one, it is ignorance partly. Two, it's media hypocrisy. I think three, the answer that I would come to is, yeah, they just basically look at... I had a sports fan explain to me once. He's like, when he goes to a game at a bar, or the bar has the game on, you can look around

and sort of feel like you're around sports fans. And he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He goes, but when the fights are there, he goes, it's a different crowd. It's a different crowd. It's a little rowdier, a little bit, you know, you can tell these people who don't necessarily, some of them, there's some overlap, but they don't necessarily, they're just not a sports crowd in that way. And I tend to think that it's like e-sports, you know, they'll include us in the community

of sports to the extent that it is beneficial, but they don't think they really care about our troubles. I don't think they really care about our issues. And I don't think that they really, they're not really think they really care about our troubles. I don't think they really care about our issues, and I don't think that they really they're not really invested in solving any of our problems. This is an odd couple. I'm trying to come up with dick jokes in the moment, and you're going pseudo-political

and social, and it's great. This is the question that they ask. It's great, though. It's great entertainment. I think I would just, for example, my dad found out about the Ramzan Kuderov thing on his own, and he was like, how is this not bigger news? And I'm like, I just don't think people care. And I think it comes down to that. I mean, if it was basketball, I mean, you know,

Daryl Morey can't even tweet support about Hong Kong protesters. By the way, if you look at the Hong Kong elections, the pro-democracy parties whooped ass. So that was good news. All right, let's move on here from Jake Averch. Who's next, Brian Campbell, for Amanda Nunes if she defeats GDR in December? She could continue cleaning out both divisions, but it doesn't look like she has any big fights left like Ronda or Cyborg

unless Valentina decides to move up. Yeah, this is the problem. We've talked about this problem before that she's been so dominant, she's cleaned out both divisions. The Bantamweight division has never really recycled post-Ronda in terms of building up new and young and ready opponents. A couple of young names getting close, looking pretty good. I don't think there's a go-to name at the moment in either division,

and that's sort of a problem. I think you're going to be able to produce, though, whoever's next in line to keep the chains moving. But yes, her next big fight, her next fight that matters, that we should get excited about is probably going to end up being Valentina at 135 in a trilogy unless somebody like an Aspen lad

can get hot and rise at the right time. I don't have much to add to that. Also, Jay's in my ear, so let's go to the last one. Oh, wow. This is from Luke Thomas News to Brian Campbell. Is Cannibal Corpse the best band ever?

Brian Campbell, what do you think? Who let that get through? No, no. But you're trying to tell me that they're like the standard bearers in this genre of like, you know, we can make a joke. It's called death metal. It's called death metal? See, to be honest with you, before meeting you, I'd never heard of them. So I don't, are they really?

They're the standard? You know, when I think of this, I think Manowar, Megadeth, I think it's... That's not a death metal. That's thrash metal. That's different. What's the difference between death and thrash? Largely death metal. First of all, the sound's a little bit different.

I would classify it as heavier. Slayer? Heavier, sorry. Slayer? Slayer is thrash metal. What's Pantera, then? Thrash metal. Okay. Youayer? Slayer is thrash metal. What's Pantera then? Thrash metal. Okay.

You're talking about 90s thrash metal. Dude, all of the themes are about sort of horrific murder gore. Yeah, that's great, yeah. That kind of thing. And you put those headphones around your wife's stomach for nine months? Yeah, and my kid came out beautiful and smart as shit, so what do you know? All right. Yeah, dude, they're an incredible band.

Yeah, I mean, among death metal, I don't know that they're the biggest. There's some other big ones, Six Feet Under, Morbid Angel, that kind of a thing. I heard War Machine was a big fan of them before the downward turn. Oh, really? Is that what you're going to say? That I'm going to commit horrific crimes in the name of music? Who are you, fucking Tipper Gore? What's wrong with you?

Oh, God, wow. What's wrong with you? These kids and their video games. That's the problem with society. Yeah, thanks. Okay, Boomer. All right, you want to get into it? the problem with society. Yeah, thanks. Okay, boomer. All right, you want to get into it? The music just kind of sucks, man.

Look, it's not for everybody. I don't need music that's going to help me have a good cry and eat a bucket of ice cream and then go to meetings for Cucks Anonymous. That's not what I do. Fair. What do I love out of music? If it's more of a guitar-driven jam band type thing, it's certainly the sounds.

You act like I don't like that. I would tell you. I like that, too. I just want to tell you. I can get the sounds and the melodies and the feel and the groove and all that. If it's more acoustic folk and it's more about the song and the lyrics and the story, I can adapt to that.

I also like me some hard rock when you just want to, yeah. But when you're going into the category of death metal and it's just screaming into a mic, and I'm not trying to sound like Boomer or Old Man or Get Off My Lawn, but what is that attraction where you can sip from that cup on a full-time basis and be like, yeah, that's my music, man?

Well, even I have to take breaks from it because it's so heavy. But again, it goes back to the original. It's like, look, if some people want to go tripping billies with Dave Matthews, man, get the fuck out of here. You can go do that. I don't care.

But for me, I'll just explain it this way. When Taylor Swift comes on and I see people being like, oh my god, did you hear about Taylor Swift? I listen to her music and I just don't feel anything. I'm not moved by it. You die inside. No, I don't feel anything. Actually, I don't even hate it.

I get no reaction. But when Corpse Grinder gets on there and says, make them suffer, dude, I don't know how to explain it. I feel something. So to me, partly it's just an innate, I think, gravitation. And I think also, I like boundary pushers, dude. And by the way, I didn't like this kind of stuff overnight. I just sort of trended in that direction over time. You had mentioned before the show you like Pantera, right?

A little bit? Yeah. I appreciate Pantera. I started like Metallica, then Pantera, and just kind of ended up here because I found it like if you really want people out there, you know, just absolutely breaking all the norms, I don't know where you go beyond death metal. All right. I'll try Cannibal Corpse.

Does the box set come with a trench coat or no? The trench coat mafia listen to your kind of music, fool. I don't want to hear it. All sad emo shit. I'm sorry I don't like death cab for cutie, fuckface. That's not my lane, all right? That's not my lane. Keep it going.

I will follow you into the dark. Is it time for slapstick? Oh, we're there yet? We're there yet? Hey, we got an intro. We got some animation here. Luke, have you seen this shit this week? Oh, yeah.

Oh, the old poop emoji. Luke didn't approve that. All right, Luke, you know Have You Seen This Shit is the viral combat videos from around the globe. By the way, shout out to Kaposa

at Grabman. Have you seen that? Grubaka Hitman. Grubaka Hitman. That guy fills all of our lives with this type of stuff. You get a lot of stuff from him. You go to his Twitter account

first to find this. First, we go to Romania, Luke. Dynamite Fighting Show. Check out this brutal KO by Kostin Minku. Forfeit your soul on the ring apron. Luke, you want to ring the bell? How about you knock the guy out on top of the bell? How about

that? The fight's over. Just get the fuck out of here. That's Alex Philippe. Yes. Sending him to hell, Luke. Violence. Look at that back tat on Kostin. Love that. Wow, wow.

You down with Dynamite Fighting Show? Dude, kickboxing is so different than boxing. Yeah, it's pretty brutal. It's brutal as shit, man. Wow, wow. All right, we're going to go to PBC. We know Deontay Wilder had the big knockout. His brother, though, Marcellus Wilder, the cruiserweight, on the undercard, and oh, boy.

Yeah, look at the opposite stances like his brother fought. Look at Long take the angle. Going down like Ozzy Canseco's career here. Pops the jab, takes the angle, and then pops. So here's the deal. Marcellus Wiley, 5-1 as a cruiserweight. He was dominating this fight, and Dustin Long really did the opposite of what Deontay did. Lost the whole fight and then landed one punch and basically turned him into Frank Stallone.

Look at this. He's the forgotten brother in the family. Look at him sidestep on the angle and then, oh, that is just brutal.

Right in the mouth, right? And also, like Deontay, we talked about it on Dissected, not this, but he lands when the arm is kind of

still bent, which is maximum force. Do you like bootleg boxing brothers like Bobby Pacquiao and Matthew Hatton? I find brothers in combat sports typically just not great duos. It's a little Batman and Robin-ish.

Yeah, yeah, it is. It is. It is. All right, we're going to keep it rolling. We're going to go to Bellator London. Luke, tell me about this submission. It kind of surprised me. From Half Guard.

This is Kent Koppinen getting the tap by sticking his elbow into the guy's Adam's apple. Is this a common submission? I've never... The way I explain that is you can't beat anybody good that way. So watch. The guy on bottom never bridges. See how he never bridges? He's actually holding the guy on top in half guard. He's thinking he's holding him there to prevent... Hold on a second. He's thinking he's holding him there to prevent the pass. Actually, he crosses up right there. But you should be bucking because there's no reason they should be able to post their weight on your throat.

If you didn't know anything, and I don't know anything about the internal things of this, you've been rolling for years. This looks weak to me. Remember when BJ told GSP only a bitch taps out on strikes? Does a bitch tap out with an elbow to the throat? Well, I would never call a pro fighter that, but what I would say is no. This is, I hate to say it this way, this is white belt material. You should never, anybody good would never come close to tapping.

Is it because he went in there with the mohawk? Did that hinder him? And by the way, you see how his left knee is, show it back up one more time, please. Pull it back up. See how his left knee is up? He's not shrimping to guard. He's not stepping out and then using that knee to push the hip away. He's literally just laying flat and taking it.

Thank you, Bellator matchmakers. Oh, we're going to stay in Bellator, London. I don't know if I've seen this before, and this shit can't be legal. Dude tries a spinning back kick to a downed opponent? You can hit the body, right? Bop. Is that legal?

Dude, there's some shit going on in Bellator, bro. Man, we should have a sub-segment of this called Spinny Shit, because I think I've got a few coming your way here. They get some fighters out there in Bellator. They do weird things. This is almost like Michelle Pineda, only he would do it off the top of the cage. I mean, I'm not even sure what functional value that serves. Yeah, that ain't good.

Let's stay in line with spinny shit. Big weekend for K-1. You know this guy Yuki Agawa? Kaposa does. Yeah, look at him. Oh. Oh, what am I watching here? Am I on the right one?

That's how my liver felt after the Cannibal Corpse concert. Oh, I had so many drinks last night. Oh. I had, I think, four or five doubles last night. So that's his second body shot knockout of the same night. Fuck him. Did I give the wrong gif? I may have given the wrong gif.

This is the first one. So the second one, which we may not have footage of, is Yuki goes out there. Some dude tries spinny shit on him and misses. Yuki comes back with a spinning back kick from the Seaver playbook and basically takes his soul. But we got more spinny shit in K-1. This is Yasuhiro Kido. Look at him F around.

Oh! K-1 is the shit. K-1 is the shit. That's Katsuya Jinbo who went down there. Yasuhiro Kido going Magic Johnson with the no-look, right? Jesus, how do you order at a Japanese restaurant? I'm right on top of these pronunciations. I'd like the seaweed salad. Can we see this one again? And the edamame. Talk about spinny shit here. Do you guys have mayo for my sushi? I'm Brian Campbell. Okay.

That was a heck of a no-look spinning back. That was a dad joke, yeah. I got to find more street fights where there's wild ass shit. Dude, can we do one show without talking about dicks? I don't think we can. Hey, let's move on out of this. I forgot to put the other video in with the spinny shit. Luke, you can call this the Boston teabag party. Look at this.

I had dates unlike this. That's not in the face. That's in the dong. Look at that. Wow. Dude, and she got head trauma too. Look at this shit. Wow. This guy, Dominic Wilkins. This is me arguing with people about PEDs online. Yeah, man. Oh, wow. Look, I mean, everyone plays one-on-one with their significant other. Dude, why would you do a dare like this with a white guy dunking? That guy, wow. Is that Derrick King, our social media guy?

What a terrible mistake. Oh, my God. Look, now serving bags, right? Wow. Just, just, just. Dude, she got, follow her head. Charge or block on that one, Rex Chapman. What do you think?

I would say charge. Yeah, I might charge him with indecent. Yeah, that's, wow. Yeah, man, that's a mouthful. That is, yeah. You ever, you ever, you ever touch rim? You ever put, I can't see you being able to play basketball. In fact, we should play one-on-one for this show.

On the streets of Jersey City. I've been dunking since I was 14. Get the hell out of here. I bet you you're awful at hoops. Oh, well, I haven't played in 20 years. Played in 20 years, my ass. I'll take you to the hole, Billy Hole. First of all, bitch, I will block you like Mutombo. No, no, no, no.

You'll be like, wow, I didn't know Hakeem Olajuwon turned into a gray and white guy. The only thing, I don't have any more stamina. Maybe a jump shot, too, but I got everything else. No, no, I'm not making this up. It's not a bit. I've been this tall. I've literally been this tall since I was... You're trying to tell us that you've dunked... Hold on, hold on. Time out on this teabag right here. You're trying to tell us that Luke Thomas,

all six, four of you, has dunked before. Yes, many times. Donuts? That, too. But yes, I have dunked. It's not that hard. Now are you just barely putting the ball above the... Oh, yeah. It's not a pretty dunk. I mean, I'm not up there like fucking Jordan, you know, doing one of the Isaiah Ryder shit. Have you dunked in a game?

Have I dunked in a game? No. Did you play high school basketball? Yes. Were you a contributor? It's funny you mention that. Private school? Yes.

Public school? No. Once you had to start playing with the city kids, not that great. Never would have guessed that you dumped the ball. In fact, I may need, can we phone a friend? Can we call East Kellenborg? Where are you from? Old Marietta?

Can we call them Old Marietta? They wouldn't. No, I didn't play in Marietta. I'm going to track down your coach, and I'm going to get him on here. Yeah, you're welcome to. All right. I got one more for you. I got one more bonus.

What, guys? We don't have that KO from Glory? All right. Check out this shot. Oh, God. Talk about bend it like Beckham. That guy's not going to pee straight for a week. Look at this.

Oh, God. There's some football for you, Luke. Some football. You want football? I got it for you. Wow. Again, I like how the premise of this segment is supposed to be combat sports highlights. It's just dick jokes.

Don't stand in the aisle, jerk. Look at wow that's what you get posting up on his tripod i'll take care of that right off somebody's head too the deflection's beautiful first of all that shot sucks and then second of all look at this guy oh wow these are out of order you're killing me today jay you're killing you're throwing off my mojo we do have one more for you over the weekend from glory the fastest ko in glory history John King needs 10 seconds to send this guy from 7-eleven to hell look at this Wow who who passed that guy for a commission there look at this that's on the main card of the I don't know I'm sure Todd Grisham was on the call guys got good abs for 43 years old

you know who's 43 Todd Grisham notam. Not that guy. Wow, that guy's dead. Look at that. That guy probably drove the Uber home, right? After they woke him up, right? All right. Dude, this segment is about... Yeah, it's the best. It's the best. It's the best. This segment is about insulting fighters who lose and dick jokes.

That's the intersection. Oh, fuck you for getting knocked out. Luke, have you seen this shit? Yes. Another successful week in the books, all right? All right, is that it? Ba-da-ba-ba-da. Yeah.

Ba-dum. Oh, God. All right. With that in mind. Have we been fired yet? All right. Okay, time to do odds and ends. Oh, you're going to have a cutter Thanksgiving this weekend, or we don't talk about that?

A cutter Thanksgiving. Dude, I'm not Arab. I don't know why you keep saying that. You said you grew up there, all right? I spent six months in Doha as a child. That's it. Go ahead. What's your odds and ends?

Oh, odds and ends this week. Boxing is heating up at 130 pounds, junior lightweight or super featherweight, depending on how you get down. And this is normally a stopover division. Featherweight has been a sexy one for years. Lightweight at 135. This is that one in between.

But Leo Santa Cruz moved up over the weekend, won a secondary title for Miguel Flores. He wants all the big names. He wants all the smoke. Now, Gary Russell, who's moved up to 130. He wants Gervonta, who just moved up to 35. But at 30, this weekend on ESPN, you've got Carl Frampton for the featherweight title list moving up.

You've got Oscar Valdez, former featherweight title list, moving up. You've also got Rene Alvarado knocked out Andrew Concio over the weekend. There is big business to be had at 130 and in the surrounding weight classes. Wasn't Leo Santa Cruz boring? Leo Santa Cruz is the most

boring, exciting fighter ever. He's all pressure style in your face the whole time, but because he doesn't have fight-changing power, all the rounds look the same because he's such a good boxer and he puts on the pressure and he was facing a second tier opponent. Unfortunately, he's facing too many of them, but the same because he's such a good boxer and he puts on the pressure and he was facing a second tier opponent. And unfortunately, he's facing too many of them. But the fact that he wants big business in 2020 with Gary Russell, with Gervonta,

you've got Lomachenko lingering around this division at 35, willing to come back down to 30, and you still have big names at 26 who can come up at any time. There's potential for some big matchups to come. Going to be interesting to see how Carl Frampton looks this weekend because if he wins and Oscar Valdez wins, that's a fight you can matchups to come going to be interesting to see how Carl Frampton looks this weekend because if he wins and Oscar Valdez wins that's a fight you can match and that is fireworks I would love to see that fair enough for my odds it ends I'll do the

I mentioned it earlier the spider tournament in Korea South Korea they held it there were two different winners but the one I wanted to focus on was the I think it was the minus 100 kilo winner Kanan Duarte this guy keep an eye on him 21 years old he's already won the world championships at black belt, he won an ADCC medal.

He couldn't beat Gordon Ryan in no gi, but he certainly is, in his own weight class, was incredibly competitive. And he's just, just 21 years old. And by the way, he had to beat Nicolas Miragali to win in the finals, there was some controversy about it. But to be 21, to be in Atos black belt, to have titles in the Gi, to have titles outside of the Gi. Remember, Gordon Ryan's 24.

Where's Kane and Duarte going to be when he's 24? Maybe he will be as good. Maybe he won't. I'm simply saying, at 21, he has already showed absolute flashes of brilliance, high technical ability, great athleticism, speed, aggression, the whole bit. He is the total package at jiu-jitsu. I don't know if he has MMA ambitions, but if he does, he's got a good style for it, too. He finds the back rather easily.

And also, shouts to Gary Tonin, who beat Davi Hamos in a very, very exciting match at Fight to Win Pro over in Hawaii. Did you see the Sonny Liston Showtime doc yet? We ran the promo off the beginning there. I have not. It's called Pariah. You need to watch it. Good piece of business. Good piece of business.

It really gets you thinking about some controversy in there. It's interesting. If you guys want to watch it or anything else on Showtime, look at the bottom here. You can see it. You can use the code COMBAT with a K. You can go to Showtime.com slash try30. You can try Showtime for free. You can try it for 30 days, right? Get a good look at it. You can take it all the way up to, I believe, New Year's Eve day. So why not see what's on Showtime? Lots of good stuff, including some boxing coming up on December 7th, this documentary. Billions is on there, a highly rated award-winning show, and many, many other programs as well. And Gervonta Davis back December 28th against Yuri Ogros-Gamboa in Atlanta.

Should be an interesting fight. Yeah. So there's a lot of stuff to get to on Showtime. So while this show is free, certainly you can get it for free for 30 days with that trial there. So please check that out. By the way, it looks good for us with the bosses when you do. You know what I'm saying? So do that. Yeah, yeah, please, please, please do that.

All right, Brian. Please hit subscribe, all right? It's time. It's the holiday season. Give back, all right? Let's go. Well, I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. Thank you.

Do you guys sit around and just tell dick and fart jokes? No, we have an outdoor touch football game in the backyard every single year. People still talking about the bloody toe game when I rallied to lead my team to victory. You're making fun of my athletic achievements, and you are Al Bundy. Yeah, but this game is like, there's kids in it, there's adults in it, but it's serious. It's frigging serious, right? How many people? It's about a nine on nine.

We do a draft beforehand. That's a lot of people. Then we do a secret vote for the MVP afterwards. It's wild. It's frigging serious, right? How many people? It's probably a nine-on-nine. We do a draft beforehand. That's a lot of people. Then we do a secret vote for the MVP afterwards. It's wild. It's fantastic. Meat pie and then a Madden tournament and then a UFC video game tournament to close. How drunk do you get? There's Bud Light served there.

I'll put him down. I'll put him down. Yeah. Yeah. Then I've got to drive the family home, though, so I've got to be smart, right? All right. Well. What about yourself?

What's going to happen here? You know what's so funny? This is a true story. I can bash my family because they don't watch anything or listen to anything I do. They hate football. Seriously. They can't stand football. So the deal is, because I have the baby now, they're all going to come to my house for Thanksgiving.

I don't have to travel, which is good. And it's my house, man. I feel like I should be able to. Tell me if I'm wrong. Seriously. If I go to someone else's house and they say, hey, I don't want to put on the TV for football, I find that to be crazy, but it's their house. You kind of got to respect the rules.

It's my house. I feel like I should be able to have football on during Thanksgiving. You want to walk around in your boxers? It's your damn house. I pay the fucking mortgage, right? So I'm going to do that. I'm going to put that on. God damn it. So then, yeah.

Domestic bliss going on here. Yeah, but then we do a lot of stuff with the baby. We've got a lot of stuff playing with the baby this year. What's the one piece of food you're most excited about? Ooh, one piece of food I'm most excited about. I would say my brother's potatoes au gratin. All right. Slice them up, cheese, bake them up.

What's your brother's name? Matt. All right. His name is Matt. Brother Matt, yeah. Shout out to that. Yep. Anyway, all right. Well, have a good Thanksgiving. Thank name is Matt. Brother Matt. Yeah. Shout out to that. Yep. Anyway.

All right. Well, have a good Thanksgiving. Thank you, sir. Right back at you. Okay? Hope you have a good time. Hope you guys have a great Thanksgiving as well. Like I said, man, super thankful to you.

One more time, you can go get the Sonny Liston doc on Showtime with the trial with the code with combat. Here you go. You can follow. By the way, they got the thing up for morning combat there. Fantastic. Yes. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to the channel.

And then, of course, give us a follow on social media. Send us your feedback. No stick pics in the DMs, but send us your feedback. We love you. We love you. Keep watching. Don't drink and drive over the holidays. Stay safe.

We'll see you back here in a week. Enjoy Thanksgiving. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. Outro Music