MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jailton Almeida Dominates | UFC Charlotte | Rolly Romero | Bellator 286 | Ep. 441

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

On episode 441 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian react to the weekend of fights. First up the guys recap UFC on ABC 4. How legit is Jailton Almeida? What should be next for Anthony Smith? The guys also break down Rolando Romero's TKO of Ismael Barroso and Bellator 296. As always we close out Monday's with Dm's from Donks and HYSTS. (14:00) - Jailton Almeida (28:30) - Rest of UFC Charlotte (54:00) - Romero vs. Barroso (82:00) - Edwards vs. Mousasi (88:30) - Primus vs. Barnaoui (94:00) - DM's from Donks Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Reveley, Reveille, dogs Look at us now, tip to tip This is our life, this is our passion That's the spirit we bring to this show I'm Luke Thomas I'm Brian Campbell This is Morning Combat Wow, wow ladies and gentlemen

It's the 15th of May Can you believe how fast the year is going? 2023. Welcome to episode whatever the fuck it is for morning combat. Hello, my friends. My name is Luke Thomas. I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you as I always do from the capital of the status and it is right here in Washington, D.C. Joined by the most washed POS this side of the Mississippi and the Mason-Dixon line. Just any which way you cut it. It's my friend and yours. It's Brian Campbell. Hello, Brian Campbell.

Hello, Luke. It was great. Habitzing with you this weekend. Putting in that work. You know what I'm saying? Hot wings on that ass, right? I mean, would you say in conclusion, Luke, that our time together, it was good? Ow, ow, ow, ow, right?

It was definitely better than Ezra, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Wow, wow. All right, all right. Yeah. Very quickly, how was your Mother's Day, which of course was yesterday? It was very relaxing and nice.

I even mowed the lawn, Luke. You know what I'm saying? It was great. It was great. We celebrated my lovely and beautiful wife, and that was about it, Luke. Very relaxing. Did you have to jump through any hoops or put on a little? I did the big one. I did reservations reservations and then

we had reservations for an activity later in the afternoon which actually i ended up working pretty well but it was a lot of work flowers you know the whole bit so oh my gosh we just did take out in in in family movie time you know it was wonderful see there have been years like that where my wife was like no let's do it low-key blah blah blah, blah. And then I did the low key thing. And she's like, what? This is all we're doing this year. And I'm like, I'm not playing that game this year. You know, I mean, seriously, though, you're in like what year three or four of Mother's Day for your relationship that you got it.

You got to go all in now. It's once you get up to, you know, where I am year 15. It's like, you know, you can you can get you can mail that in. But, you know, there's a lot of love involved, though, in mailing in mailing did you call your own mother did you did you wish her a happy birthday of course i did okay i even facetimed that that wonderful woman as well so uh with a different description there didn't you i almost facetimed that wonderful woman all right there we go here we are hey we got a lot to get to because it was actually it ended up being a bit of a kind of crazy combat sports weekend so bellator was on

friday definitely some upsets happened there we'll get to those and some crow we have to eat some crow we'll do that for bellator 296 of course ufc charlotte Saturday. Tons of stuff that went as expected, but creates some interesting questions. Also, plenty of controversy there as well. And how about that Showtime Championship boxing card where Rolando Romero and Ismael Barroso just ending up in the most insane controversy I've seen in some time. So we, ladies and gentlemen, have a lot to get to here. Of course, two thumbs up on YouTube.

Hit subscribe if you haven't. Give us a nice review, whatever podcast platform you're listening on. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see us right there on the screen for our socials. Give us a follow. Hey, come say hi on TikTok. That's where all the kids are doing things. It looks like just not in person, though. In fact, if you see me in person, avoid me.

Dude, you know, it's funny. So I walked around Jersey City in that morning. I don't know if I – I guess I did tell you about this. So I went to go get a cup of coffee on Saturday morning because we were waiting to do the prelims that night. We had stayed over. And I'm sitting there by the waterfront just enjoying one of my cups of coffee. And there's a race that's happening around me. People are carrying like sandbags.

I don't know what's happening. First of all, one dude stops to take a picture with me. He recognized me. He was an MK don donk so that was cool shots of that guy uh and then some spanish-speaking lady rolls up on me with a camera crew i'm not doing a bit she had a camera crew with her they all had like gimbals on all their cameras and she started talking about me in spanish not realizing i got most of it. And so I responded back to her. What words did she use to describe you on Espanol? She was just saying, here's a regular person from Jersey City sitting here.

And I'm like, nope. If I was, I would have already knifed you in between the sixth and seventh rib, and I didn't do that. So there you go. Anyway, I had a bit of a conversation with her, and then she left by going, hey, in Spanish, hey, here's a gringa who speaks Spanish. Isn't that swell? And I was like, all right, well, you know, we don't have to be mean about this whole thing.

So that was weird. And then I got recognized walking around downtown in Jersey City later by another MK donk. So it was a bit of a weird Saturday. You know, that's great for the ego though luke especially when it's you know latin cougars stopping you right uh i don't know i don't know how old she was because you know everyone's all messed up right i mean dude that race was brutal like whatever they were doing carrying those heavy ass sandbags i don't know what that was but they look like some crossfit jerk-off festival yeah i'm not'm not really into that. A bit, a bit.

Anyway, so we have a lot to get to there. Fun weekend. Thanks to everyone who said hello, and we're saying hello back. BC, I want to set things up. So, of course, Showtime.com is the label that pays. Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it.

If not, you can do something else with your life. MorningCombat.store, the merch is alive and well. Look, I have a critical question for you though about our great content okay because you know we we put out maybe maybe a top five episode of mk in history on friday and then we teased and threatened that a real rsd 1.0 no not the rsd 2.0 that we recorded with ray longo baby that i can't wait to see that hit the street soon you and i actually sat down for a old school room service diaries friday night i did it i entered your hotel room i dealt with the fumes of your ass cheeks luke where is this product where is this piece of content i guess i'll put i was gonna put it

out yesterday but then when i got on my late saturday night train i took a train 11 30 at night from newark boy let me tell you the people watching in newark at 11 30 at night in the train boy i'm just i mean it was like a thriller video up in there but you have a bingo card crossing out communicable diseases luke as you know it's amazing you could all i had my headphones on, which is like international sign for don't bother me. But, of course, they just come up to you and start asking you for stuff. And I'm a sucker. I always give them money if I have it. I didn't have any cash on me this one time.

You can always tell when someone's about to ask you for money because have you even noticed that they walk weird? Like people who are like destitute and train stations you know god bless them they got tough lives but they always have like their balance is always off so the corner of my eye i always i saw this dude blah blah and then he starts gibbering jabbering i mean he needed some money i actually did not have any so i don't care what that's like that anymore what the hell does that wonderful vagabond have to do with room service diaries all right luke so i get on the train i get on the train and, and I did not have the dongle that I needed to plug in my SD card

into my laptop, so I couldn't do it. And then by the time Sunday got rolling around, I was just busy with mom stuff. But I think it'll be out next Sunday. We'll have a nice Sunday treat for everyone upcoming up this next week. Man, we love putting outdated content in this show, Luke.

We just love it. It's not, it's fairly evergreen. It's not really going to matter. All right, all right. BC, there's that. Of course, the merch. And yeah, we also have another sponsor to get to here. You know, it's AG1 by Athletic Greens.

You guys know the deal. It's only one delicious scoop. It's 75 high-quality vitamins and minerals, whole food source superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens, BC. And that's how every day should start, is it not? People are like, BC, I'm like you. I don't always make the best food in lifestyle choices. But I want to do something each morning that starts my day correct.

What do I do? How about this? One scoop of the magic green powder. Put it in a glass of water. Stir it up, little darling. Right? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah.

Luke, it doesn't taste medicinal or gross. It's got this beautiful, you know, light tropical taste, but it's all about what does it do for me? I don't care if you're gluten-free, paleo, Kegel, Kegels, keto, Luke, whatever, wherever direction you're going in life. I don't care if you're looking to support gut health, nervous system, um, across the board, Luke, this is the stuff in my life that's missing. And I get to put it in a glass of water every morning to start my day the right way. I call that a cheat code, brother. That's like the cliffs notes to health.

You learned it right here on MK. It's called, it's called aging. I'm not about it. Yeah, it also supports immune system, energy, recovery, focus, aging, the whole nine yards. BC already indicated it. Doesn't matter if you like keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, whatever.

Contains less than one gram of sugar, no GMOs, no nasty chemicals, artificial anything, while still tasting good. And BC, as you always indicate, less than $3 a day you're investing in your health and it's cheaper than your cold brew habit. And you can listen to us. Or how about those 7,000 people that gave five-star reviews online? How about Tim Ferriss? Right?

How about Michael Gervais? How about Joe Rogan? Okay. I don't think he's sponsored by anyone. He has. How about Brian Campbell? All right. I mean, honestly.

No, the thing is this. The model of health. We want you to get on board with this. We do have donks that have? All right. I mean, honestly, no, the thing is this model of health. We want you to get on board with this. We do have donks that have tried this and they're like, thank you. This is, you know, Phil, Phil McKagan, big time, AG one guy, right? Seriously. I want you to be too. You can be an AG two guy as well.

She was in Paris over the weekend. She was fantastic with Bellator, but Amanda Garrow, we're not talking about you right now. We're talking about athletic greens.com slash morning combat. That's where you can go right now. And for your first order, let's get a one-year supply of immune-supporting vitamin D drops. Let's get the five free travel packs. Five time.

Five time. Five time. All right? Booker T, that's all I got for you today, Luke. If there's any other verbatim details, now would be the time. Yeah, of course. You can reclaim your health and arm your immune system with convenient daily nutrition of course heading into the flu and cold season no need for a million different pills and supplements to look out for your health and as bc indicated athletic greens.com slash morning combat

to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance all right bc with that in mind let's get this party started if we can here. We will start as we customarily do with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Topic number one. Here we go. How about Gylton Almeida? I mean, making absolutely short work of Jairzinho Rosenstruik in the main event for UFC Charlotte, aka UFC on ABC4.

BC, it was very easy for him. He got the takedown, running it down on his knees, which you're never supposed to be able to do, but he did it. So he does that, moves into mount eventually, secures the back, chokes him out, made it work, excuse me, made it look like it was nothing. So the question is as follows, 14 in a row total for him in terms of his win streak. Is it time to start talking about Almeida as a legitimate heavyweight title threat? Yes, and yes with a bullet, because not only is it, what, 13 or 14 straight wins, as you mentioned, they're all stoppages. Most of those are early stoppages. First round, I think twice in the second round.

What we're talking about here is a finisher, an absolute destroyer in, like he mentioned afterwards with a self-reflective Habib comparison. Here's an ultimate specialist. He may or may not have hands, Luke. I mentioned in the past that both his uncle and father were boxers in Brazil. So I'd like to see what that looks like the first time somebody stuffs his plan A and really makes him fight. Here's the problem. We may not find that out until he gets to the very top. That's where he's headed. That's where he belongs. Because I did hear, Luke, some people a little bit afterwards salty saying, well, we didn't really learn anything. Rosenstruck is not that guy. We already knew that. But this was the right escalation. I didn't love this necessarily as this main event. we didn't really learn anything. Rosenstruck is not that guy. We already knew that. But this was the right escalation.

I didn't love this necessarily as this main event. We didn't even need the five rounds. We already went through that. But you know what I love? Gialton Almeida's threat to this division because he's athletic. He's in tremendous shape. He knows how to lean into his strengths. He's got an incredibly quick shot, Luke, to take people down.

But then he's patient and he finishes you. Yes, it is time to figure out how many more we need before this guy is fighting for the UFC Heavyweight Championship. Because like Liam Neeson, he has a unique set of skills. And he's not going to be taken until the very top, if he is, Luke, until we find that resistance where somebody's going to be able to keep this guy off of him or get up once taken down. If he is Luke until we find that resistance where somebody is going to be able to keep this guy off of him or, or get up once taken down until we see that,

then we'll readjust exactly where he is. I don't know if he's a dual threat, but I've always said this, Luke, sometimes not knowing that while you watch a guy climb up is a big part of the intrigue. What will it look like when finally let's find out first if when finally actually happens, because this guy's plan A is as strong as anyone else's in this entire game. And I'm really enjoying this ride of watching him take people down,

force the tap or get the violent stoppage on the ground. He's doing it his way. He's a technical marvel. He's an athletic freak. He is a problem for every single heavyweight in this division right am i right luke he's potentially a problem oh i think he's a huge problem now there's when people say we didn't learn much they're not exactly wrong and what i mean by that is based on what we saw on saturday from alameda can you confidently conclude this is a guy who can beat Sergey Pavlovich?

You cannot confidently conclude that. You don't know if he's going to be able to get the same kind of takedowns easily accessible. Again, running it down on his knees. I mean, listen, Almeida's a beast. He'd beat the brakes off of me. He'd kill me if he wanted to. He knows this too. I'm not saying that he doesn't know.

You're definitely taught to not wrestle on your knees. You can touch your knees at times but you got to get to your feet you got to move on your feet so if you're finishing a takedown on your knees like there's a huge skill consideration about who you're taking down but that is sort of my point BC I don't really know a whole lot about Almeida's stand-up I know a little bit but not really a lot I don't know how that's going to go if and when he is forced to stand, but just seeing what happened between Jon Jones and Cyril Ghosn, I don't know why anyone would think that Almeida wouldn't have a chance at the title or getting very, very, very close to it. Not every fighter is Cyril Ghosn, and certainly not every fighter is Jon Jones, but if that fight

highlighted anything, it's that there are huge, monstrous skill gaps, even among very top contenders, perhaps more so than any other division at the top of heavyweight. You've got a guy like Almeida, 230 pounds, built like a tight end, who is athletic, who is strong, who has a very technical ground game. And he is dicing through some of these older guys, in this particular case, one with a kickboxing background, like it's nothing. He is going to beat a lot of, I mean, this was not challenging for him at all. Once he got going, he never stopped, right? I mean, this was big bank take little bank in the biggest of ways. Now, will that work against Curtis Blades if he ends up getting there?

I don't know the answer to that. Again, will it work against Sergei Pavlovich if and when he gets up to that point? I don't know the answer to that. There are some unanswered questions and some of them fairly big. But dude, you don't, number one, you can't count Almeida out of those contests. He might win one or both of those, number one. And number two, he's going to beat everybody else, right? He's going to beat everybody else. No problem in that division by virtue of the kind of skill set he has, both athletically and technically. So in answer to the question, BC, is this guy a threat to heavyweight?

He was a threat to heavyweight before Saturday. After Saturday, there can absolutely be no mistake about it. Yeah, this was him getting out the trumpet and blowing it and showing us exactly how dominant he can be in no mistake about it. Yeah, this was him, you know, getting out the trumpet and blowing it and showing us exactly how dominant he can be in the right matchup. I think if we're being fair, though, Luke, across the board, obviously against somebody like Pavlovich who's chose huge power, anything can happen. It could be anyone's kryptonite.

But how many elite heavyweights, whether we're talking about the wrestling of Jon Jones, the varied ground game, to be fair, of Tom Aspinall, how many of these guys on paper do you think could potentially cancel that out, could make Almeida fight on the feet and forced to show us more of his game? That's the real question. Heavyweight has never been a home to great jujitsu or great wrestling on a consistent basis across the top 10 it's a striking division luke we we've got a cut you know we're not deep at the moment at ufc heavyweight but

but you certainly like uh you know some of the guys coming up and tom asperger's gonna have a chance against ty burra in late july to rebound from injury but if he keeps fighting guys on rosenstreich's level that's what you're going to see. How many do you think could legitimately give him a fight right now from what we know? Listen, Tom Aspinall's a top prospect. Well, I guess I'm not sure where he's ranked, but certainly he's a guy who's got a very bright future as well. We just didn't get to see what was supposed to happen

in the Curtis Blades fight. He had a terrible injury, and he's going to come back. Now, again, I think he's got a bright future. He will probably cross paths with Almeida at some point one thinks but because he's been off and I don't know what he's going to look like upon his return I'm going to slow roll that a little bit Almeida by contrast is heating up very quickly I mean one of the things that's happening with these contests where I guess the Abdur-Rahman went to the second round or whatever but I mean just listen to these wins BC so on Saturday round one Abdur-Rahman round to the second round or whatever. But, I mean, just listen to these wins, BC. So on Saturday, round one, Abdurakhimov, round two, Turkoli, round one, Parker Porter, round one.

He had one, I don't know, Danilo Marquez, round one, Contender Series, round two. They can't even take this guy to the third round. You want to talk about staying fresh through the calendar. They're barely laying a glove on the guy. So he's just ready to kind of take off now Aspinall does seem like he's the kind of guy who's going to give someone like Almeida some problems you would imagine he's a little bit naturally bigger he's very athletic and if he isn't necessarily as technical but technical enough to play prevent defense and stand right

that could be kind of interesting i mean maybe almeida is the one trick pony who can feast on older kickboxers maybe that's the truth i tend to think he's got a higher ceiling than that but we simply we simply don't know i think they'll meet later on down the road when i say or when i ask rather is almeida a title threat i mean this year or early next year aspinall i think probably just a little bit behind that unfortunately due to the delay in injury. Yeah, and obviously, when we talk about the questions we don't know, Almeida's only gone three full rounds one time,

and he lost that fight. But there have been little slight tests along the way, Luke, that have shown some things. I mean, the Abdurra-Kemov fight, of which he finished him in the second round with punches, Almeida got hit pretty hard right in the opening 10 seconds with a big shot adjusted well shook it off no issues took over and let's not overlook that Dana White contender series win over Nasruddin Nasruddinov

who was not only bigger than Almeida he had a legitimate Sambo background so what we had to see was Almeida go to the well a couple times with the takedowns, which led up to a second round submission win. So he is just persistent, even when he meets some resistance in those areas. The true test obviously would be a legit striker with takedown defense. Jon Jones, anyone for sure. But look, I do wonder, even when Almeida finally gets up to that level where we expect him to get tested like if he's persistent enough if he's as explosive enough in his shots which we often see his double leg is just so quick and out of nowhere and he's there dude I mean I want to see it but do you think Jon Jones could

keep this guy off the ground I don't know Luke I don't know that do I think he can keep I don't know Jon Jones' takedown defense is pretty good. The question is like, okay, do I think Almeida can get Jones down? Maybe, but probably not that well, but that's not... Again, it goes back to the Aljamain Sterling thing. It's... Or Charles Oliveira

or pick your guy. It's not really about getting the takedowns. Like, could he force Jon to his hands and then from there begin to work from the back? Like, yeah, that does actually seem possible. Of course, closing the distance on John is going to be a lot more difficult. You're not going to run down doubles on your knees against John Jones. That's simply not going to work.

But BC, here's who is in front of him, or at least other people he could fight. This is the top contenders. Like, gun to your head, tell me who you think would win. Ready? Yep. Ready? Almeida versus Gon. I you think would win ready yep ready Almeida versus gone I mean how do you not pick Almeida right yeah yeah I mean if we're it will God have the same wrestling ability that he had in the Nganou and Jones fights Luke yeah okay you're

right you're right okay gun to your head Almeida versus Pavlovich. So that's the perfect style contrast because it may be fairly easy. It also could be the reckoning for no matter how great his ground game is because somebody with that long of arms, that size, that power, that's a wait-and-see fight. I don't know. That's a wait-and-see ultimate. Almeida versus Miocic. I like Almeida.

Almeida versus Miocic. I like Almeida. Almeida versus Blades. I like Almeida again, although obviously you'd love to see that specific iteration for the wrestling defensive Blades and how that would work. But I don't know, Luke. I see a confidence in him. I see a comfortability in certain key areas where I'm not necessarily worried about his striking. Like, we just haven't seen it to know, of course. But you do look at the comparison he made of himself to habib habib striking never became like technically perfect

but he adapted it to make it work to to even enhance his the threat of his own ground game even more um it's just interesting because when we talk about john jones's future and how this ties in here he's got steepay this fall we assume maybe november new york city you think he goes away for good i think as long as they pay him he stays around i don't think jones ducks a matchup like pavlovich out of the idea of it being too dangerous for not enough money as long as they give him enough money but do you believe when john jones looks at what we don't know about the two bright contenders of the moment, no disrespect to Aspinall, he's got to come back and prove he's back from injury,

then he's in there too. But as of right now, Pavlovich and Almeida, which matchup does Jon look at in those two and think is more difficult, is more of the unknown? I think it's Almeida. Probably Almeida only becauseones is not dumb enough to think standing with pavlovich could work out for him long term i mean he could do it a little bit here or there but you know the margin of error is thin right the guy hits hard but seeing what over him did again what over him did to pavlovich ufc debut he's a different guy

now understand but i think he might follow a similar kind of blueprint where if I could put this guy on his back and then just really kind of work him make him work from underneath while ground and pounding you know knee on belly that kind of a thing he can just get his way he probably would follow a similar like dude why would you fucking stand with Pavlovich at least early why would you do that I mean it's just a recipe for disaster John probably has the capability of making a takedown there against Al made up I guess you guess you could, you know, defend the takedown and kind of jab his face, but that's a little bit more of a risky proposition in that particular, well, I mean, they're both risky in different ways, but you get the idea. So it's a great question.

I don't know if either of them have the name value to hold John or to get the UFC to pay to hold John. Time will tell. Time will tell, certainly. But for now, that's kind of that. BC, anything else about... I'll say this. Like, this main event,

I appreciate how fast, like, he's working. And I'm glad they put him on ABC. I think that's the right thing. They wanted to put their up-and-coming stars, which kind of tells you that they've got Almeida spotlit. Sure. It does seem like this win did a little bit for Almeida's visibility. It did a little bit for, he had credibility with the hardcores,

and of course that doesn't change. But I guess what I'm asking is, do you feel like he got a little bit of a bump on saturday promotionally and that it worked i do i do uh you know we'll see how that plays out in terms of the buzz and attention of his next fight which you assume would be even bigger in that escalation but let's not forget this was on abc it was in a you know a packed arena there in charlotte and we got to see him dominate on his terms yeah you'd have to believe that because he looks like a hulk he's dancing

afterwards you know what i mean to but yeah dude this guy's coming on this is a smart move by the ufc i i never hesitate to identify when they lean in that right direction real quick to to butt in i'm sorry bc but just to throw one more thing here remember pavlovich's last fight was in the apex they put this guy in a live arena on abc i just feel like it's a much better way to promote an up-and-coming guy you know indeed indeed on that one luke i agree with you all right let's talk about point number two here if we can we'll stay with ufc charlotte but let's discuss some of the other fights on that card first things first so johnny walker actually got his first ufc win that went beyond the first round in claiming a clear decision victory over Anthony Smith.

That's three in a row now, BC, for Walker. Tell me what his actual upside is as it stands today. I still believe he's a striker's threat, a puncher's threat, but let's throw in the striker's threat because his kicks are so great, to the heavyweight title, meaning is he a complete fighter? I'm sorry, to the light heavyweight title. Is he a complete fighter that could fight for the belt tomorrow and be a betting favorite? It's unlikely, Luke, even though I liked him jumping the fence,

going right over the champion, Jamal Hill, and sort of having a cordial moment, not a violent moment, and just saying, you know, we will meet again, all that. But look, this was a better, I believe, iteration of him in this ongoing process to mature his game under coach John Kavanaugh and kind of figure out what's the best use. I still say they need to lean in allowing him to be dangerous, which he was. But he was also, let's give him credit, very cautious against a Smith who was not only injured and hurt a lot of this fight. We'll talk about it shortly after about his future. But even with, at times, the lifelessness down the stretch of Smith, you still saw a Walker who wasn't looking to run in there and finish him.

Johnny said afterwards that he really wanted to do something that would show the critics that he's more than just that, just that, a first-round finisher. In that regard, I think he passed that test. Is he a full, complete fighter? No. But I think as long as he stays with these aerial moves, as long as the threat of the big strike is there, if he's mixing more nuanced parts of his game around that,

the stiff jab, he's getting better on the ground, he's close to figuring out, I think, what is the best, full-on, well-rounded version of himself. And I say well-rounded with an asterisk because I don't think he's ever going to be a well-rounded fighter. He's a striker. He will have a striking chance if he can get to the title fight. Three in a row, this was a big name to get past. Things are looking up for him. But is he a complete package? Is he a monster threat for the championship? At this point, I still say no, Luke.

Yeah, I'm somewhere, I think, in the same kind of place. I mean, let's be real about this. As I mentioned, all of his other UFC wins came in the first round, which doesn't make him illegitimate, but it just kind of makes you wonder, can he do this beyond just being a quick, dynamic, athletic first-round threat? Turns out, yes, he can. Now, he was threatening throughout, including in the first round in this contest.

But, you know, I'll give him credit. There was times in his development, particularly around, like, he can. Now, he was threatening throughout, including in the first round in this contest. But, you know, I'll give him credit. There was times in his development, particularly around, like, I don't know, maybe the Krylov fight, the Santos fight was like a real bad case. Maybe I'll say that one where I was like, man, I don't know what's happening with his evolution. Like, I'm not saying that he should go back to being wild and reckless and getting into the same kinds of problems he did before. But this pivot doesn't seem to be working. Well, now it seems to be coming together. Now, how far he can take this new version of himself, to your point, BC, I don't know.

I mean, I definitely feel like he can do really well. I think he'll beat tough guys. I don't know that I see, and do I think he could beat Jamal Hill? I suppose, but I just don't know if, even if he did, how long he would hold on to that title with guys like Ankalayev still kind of hanging out there, although he's had his own struggles as well. But what I'm trying to make here is he definitely is beginning to gel

with this style he's been working on now for some time. It's coming together where you can see these flashes of athleticism, the jumping knee at times, throwing certain kinds of kicks. But what does he throw really more than that? A lot of leg kicks, right? The calf kicks were key. Look, you pointed it out when we were watching the broadcast. They're not too far apart in height, but his waist,

meaning the size of his legs, were so much larger than Smith. His legs are very thick to begin with. That steady calf kick. Now, look, we were also questioning, like, why is Smith not checking these or trying to block or trying to do anything but just stand there and eat them i had those same questions but that i think is the perfect adaptation you got to keep that threat of the big strike with the constant chipping away with those leg strikes dude i don't even know if you can leg strike him in return the see how big they were how muscular i don't know if you can

damage him in that regard. Yeah, I mean, I think you could, but to your point, yeah, his dimensions are crazy, even for other light heavyweights. He uses them well, and he was hammering him. But also with the calf kick, it keeps you far apart, right? I mean, you don't have to be as close as you would for a leg kick that would hit to the mid-upper thigh. And so, you know, I'm just pointing out, he's just making a lot better decisions while still being damaging and deadly and on it and the fact that

he went the full distance to me is a great sign actually so to me it's like i don't quite know where this is all headed before i thought it was headed maybe off the tracks that is not my concern anymore clearly he's got something working here. He can do very, very commendable things. Are those championship things? I don't know, but I think he's going to get pretty far with this much more fluid and I think when I say rehearsed, I don't mean robotically, I mean muscle memory-wise skill set, a much more rehearsed skill set.

Yeah, and we've got to see what happens in a big fight when things aren't going his way. I do have some questions about his punch resistance not necessarily in like one strike is gonna put him on you know queer street and he's ready to be finished i just mean his offense tends to go silent at times when he gets hit big which is something i you know that it'll have to work on in the growth but do you agree with what he said afterwards do you think he did purposely allow smith to finish so that he could knock off that first round finishing tag on him and put in the three rounds or do you think that was him being a little bit nervous of the wounded out animal aspect of smith i believe him i believe him i think that they knew they this was a time

to i mean i guess if it really opened up and he could just finish him off relatively easily, maybe he would have. But to the extent that there was any kind of resistance that was tricky, and that's the thing about Smith, too. We'll talk about him in a minute. Sometimes his defense can be tricky. You know, you've got to be pretty careful with him. And we mentioned this about Smith, too. You know, one of the reasons why Smith is able to hang on and do really well at times, and I think surprise people, has been that he fights hurt without, I mean, he is struggling with the injury or the pain, but he just kind of keeps on going.

He has a real durability in those trenches. But I think that they definitely wanted to, man. This is what I mean. Like, it's not just wanting to take the fight three rounds. It's having the ability to actually do it when you want to, to be able to win comfortably on the scorecards, keep out of trouble. He was getting out of the way of those sort of lunging overhands that Smith was trying to set up.

Dude, he just made a lot better decisions. And I think being able to make consistently good ones over the course of time, that's the sign of a high-level fighter, right? When you can do that consistently throughout the expanse of a fight, keeping yourself out of trouble, hit, not get hit, all those kinds of things, dude, that's growth. That's development. That's maturity. That's a great sign for Johnny Walker.

And, you know, take my hat off to John Cavanaugh. They're doing, I think, a pretty commendable job with the guy. And they had a difficult assignment, clearly, to begin with. All right, BC. I don't know if you're still there, if're just reading your are you watching pornography what are you doing well i was listening to your analysis luke and looking to offer a rebut but i didn't have i didn't have anything in that moment you know i'm trying to learn that sometimes in life sometimes right yeah less is more less is more bc let's talk about anthony smith so the fight is over and he gets hurt in this fight really bad his legs got chewed up he kind of got dropped he went for a leg lock

it didn't work there's just a lot that just did not go right for him he got beat up a little bit he nearly retired when the fight was over he took his gloves off but then apparently thought better of it um left the octagon and did not retire. And then afterwards on social media, congratulated Johnny Walker and his team. But there was something he said in the middle of the fight, which got everyone's attention. He is facing off basically, you know, in the middle of the contest with Walker. And he says, you know, you're trying to hurt my family. And Walker's like, what the fuck are you talking about? I don't even know what you're talking about.

And he eventually lets it go. BC, what did you make of that, number one? And secondly, what should be next for 34-year-old Anthony Smith? Look, we are tasked with being a dime store psychologist often on this show. And it's part of the job of trying to gauge or figure out and interpret someone's words and what it meant based on the emotions of the moment my first instinct was this was anthony smith trying to resuscitate the warrior within him in that round and trying to focus on the reasons the the like like look everybody's got a reason why they fight, why they're able to, I mean, almost pause reality and not only talk themselves up to being this warrior and going into the

face of danger, but to digging deep when times get hard. I almost felt like he was dealing mid fight with his own set of questions of, do I still want to be here? Should I still be here? Um, look, he came out game, Luke. I thought in the first two rounds especially, there were times where he landed big counter shots where you're like, oh, maybe, okay, maybe he's still in.

Maybe he can still hurt Walker. Maybe he can turn this around. But starting with the end of the second round and then through most of the third, it not only looked like he was hanging on for survival, but I do take that little weird sequence as him almost in the moment trying to activate that call and response that every fighter must do within themselves to stir up the emotions and come back out fighting and may have may have even had trouble activating

that which is why it actually came out verbally like you know mfr you're trying to take from my family you know and this is why i do this i'm not saying because he's so young, Luke, even though, let's be fair, Anthony Smith has had a lot of fights. He fought a lot on the regional scene. When he got to the UFC title level, a lot of us wrongfully added a stigma of, oh, here's a 13 or 15 loss guy getting to this point. No, that's somebody who worked hard and evolved just through the blood, sweat, and tears of this game.

But I do think he's at an interesting crossroads where even though he's taken a lot of damage, he's fought a lot of fights and he's pretty much only fought the best in this modern iteration of him. I think he's hitting a wall now. And does that wall mean he needs to walk away and retire? No, not necessarily. There were moments he was in this fight. He's only 34, but I think he does need some time off to heal mentally, physically, to think about where he's at in this game. Obviously, he's got the side burgeoning career going with the announcing, and I think he does a very good job in that regard. And I've really enjoyed getting to know him, and we had him on

Room Service Diaries, and we've had a lot of fun with him. But I think he hit a little bit of a wall last night, and sometimes that's just going so hard for so long. And the grind of this sport physically and mentally adds up. But let's not forget that before this fight, he was very honest about why he fell apart against Ankalayev and the loss of his mom and the emotions that he didn't deal with. Sometimes in this game, the best thing you can do is take nine months, a year off and just refresh, restart. Allow that hunger to come back. Maybe from my situation in this dime store psychological chair, that would best describe that weird interaction between them and what Smith's future could or should be. But that's just my two cents, Luke.

I look at a guy who's such a hard worker. He has taken a lot of damage. Take some time off and go figure out for yourself more than anyone else whether you still got this and whether you still want this i feel bad remember he was supposed to fight jamal hill back in march and then the whole thing changed and here he finds himself now with a loss uh two months later against johnny walker um i've known anthony you know we're not buddies or anything but i've known him for some time. I've not spoken to him yet. But I, okay, so there's a couple things to look at this.

Chris Curtis was on Twitter yesterday saying, you know, maybe he never, talking about Anthony Smith, and this is Curtis's view, like he wasn't asserting it boldly. He was kind of wondering maybe he never got over the trauma of that home invasion and that it kind of just bubbled up in this cauldron of adrenaline and stress and everything else. That's an interesting theory. Cause if that's true, that's actually, you know,

it would be something that Smith as a person would want to look into just for his own mental health. If it's, if that, if that kind of trauma is still surfacing, the other one of course is the interpretation you had, which was that he was trying to conjure the feelings he had during that moment in order to conquer the difficulty of this one, and it just didn't

translate. He'll be 35 in July, and to your point, he's got a lot of fights. He's past 50. He's working closer to 60 fights at this point in his pro career. I mean, it's a lot of wear and tear. It's a lot of mild. But BC, I don't know if the time off is the right idea. Here's what I mean by that right so in 2020 he fought let's see three times right winning last against devin clark he fought twice

in 2021 he went winning both of those he fought once in 2022 against uncle i've then he had the injury so this is his only fight in 2023 like that he's actually getting less experience as the years go on he's taking more and more time off. He's getting more and more injuries. Is more of that really the antidote? I mean, it seems to me he's at a bit more of a crossroads than comfortable analysis might necessarily allow. I don't know what he wants. Again, I have profound respect for Anthony, and I do believe in his ability to. He's one of the very few fighters I've ever come into contact with.

It's one of the reasons why I think he is special. Who is totally... He actually should get much more credit for dealing with his own beliefs about his own limits or injuries. Or he's just aware, I think, of some of the things that hold him back. And yet still finds ways to negotiate a path through.

I know sometimes he says things confidently about how well he would do against Jones, and everyone dismisses him and saying, oh, he's got delusions. Well, every fighter's got delusions. But the point I want to make is that, in general, I have found him much more thoughtful and reflective about the obstacles the world presents than a lot of other athletes, and he yet still perseveres. So I think he'll come to whatever conclusion is appropriate for him in the end.

But this is an interesting moment, man. 35 years of age, two-fight losing streak, which is not the end of the world. It's against good fighters. But if he's going to make one more push, I don't know. He seemed to be like, BC, was it just the calf kicks or how did he seem physically to you or maybe there's that's what i was gonna ask you got going the final round in particular luke there were body language moments that i just didn't understand there were long moments you and i were watching this fight together where he just wasn't throwing and it

wasn't as if he just wasn't throwing in the midst of overwhelming offense coming his way there seemed to be some level of a disconnect between what you know what his brain was was wanting to do and what his body was actually doing those are warning signs and that's why i all you know brought up the idea of time off to figure this off that was not the best version of him you know what i'm saying and something seemed to change in that fight that seemed to go beyond just a potential injury or, oh, he's losing. So the body language is going in the wrong direction. It just looked like he wasn't taking advantage of potential openings where, yeah, he's got

to figure this out, Luke, because, I mean, look, he's not too far removed from defeating, you know, three fight win streak against very talented contenders. But he does have a beautiful family and a burgeoning second career there are a lot of tough decisions to make on here but man he is only 34 luke let's not age him yet okay you know his birthday's one day after mine i mean maybe maybe he should take some time off and help me open factory town mma maybe that's the future maybe that's the path for him again i think he'll eventually figure this out before it gets to any kind of horrible, horrible place. I just didn't.

It wasn't. There's a couple times he got close with some of those overhands where he was chasing it through stance. Where it was just a little bit short. It wasn't like he didn't have a couple times where he was closely threatening. But it just seemed also like it's the first time i've seen him where i thought not with injuries but the first time i've seen him where i thought he definitely looked older than the last time i remember him um that was it but again was it the calf kicks i don't know i don't know johnny walker's also a big mf for him when

he's when he's kicking you in the leg 57 times in a row debilitating exactly so that's why it's hard to tell. All right, BC, how about this one? And I got to eat some crow on this one too. But if you want, you can go first. Ian Gary got easily the best win of his career, stopping Daniel Rodriguez in the first round. And BC, he didn't just stop him.

But I went back and I watched it this morning. I'm not sure if he took a whole lot of punches clean at all. I'm not sure what D-Rod got through even a little bit. D-Rod is a good fighter, and Gary mowed through him. Tell me what your sense of how big this victory is for this 25-year-old rising welterweight. It's big, and I think he dialed back. Look, let's be fair.

Ian Gary sometimes can do the Conor, Billy Strutt, and do that whole shtick that can wear people down. I actually liked his post-fight speech, which was, you know, very confident that I'm coming on, I'm next. Hey, UFC, I'm your next star, but wasn't overly douchey, to be fair. But that stuff is all just window dressing. It's what happens in the cage. This was the fight that was supposed to either slow him down or force him to make some big adjustments, and we're going to find out beyond the flashy striking, who is he as a fighter? Well, the flashy striking was calculated and deadly along with being flashy, and that was enough to get rid of a durable, tough contender that, yeah, damn right, you and I need to eat crow.

We all need to readjust where his ceiling is. Whenever you're sort of, it's weird. He's not the second covenant of McGregor. He'll say it himself. It's just, he's the next Irish bright prospect on the rise. So that, that can really get you branded as things you maybe aren't. Ian Gary is Ian Gary, Luke, but he's dangerous. And, um, this is And this is interesting. This was a pleasant development, in my opinion, in terms of, okay, you get a win like this. All right, let's match you now with the guys that'll really show us exactly who you are. But Luke, speaking of exactly who he is, did I not get the memo on Machado, his nickname, and why we now have to say, we can't say Ian or or gary without putting machado between

them it's almost like the pfl smart cage it's like you know if you're going to say the three letters you better talk about that cage's intelligence where did i miss this where suddenly his middle name is a part of his you know is a part of the whole thing what does that mean i'm not i'm not sure i've not i've not gotten that memo so for now there was a lot of machado shoved at us through the screen i was like okay is okay, is this his nickname now too? I'm not sure. I mean, I don't know. All I know is his name is Ian Gary.

So for now, unless I'm corrected otherwise, I'll stick with that. But BC, I got to say, it wasn't like I did not go into Saturday declaring that I knew Ian Gary wasn't going to be good or couldn't rise to the occasion or something like that. At least not on camera. Right, Luke? Well, here's the point I want to make. Listen to these wins. Jordan Williams, Darian Weeks, Gabe Green, and Keenan Song.

The Williams and the Song ones were stoppages. The other two were decisions. And the Gabe Green fight I actually watched very closely because some of the hype around it at the time, that was for UFC 276. It was International Fight Week. He looked fine in all of those fights. Like, there's really nothing wrong

in any of them. But I just wasn't sure what other people were seeing, like, where it could give you a clear set, like, oh, wow, he's destined for, like, for example, first time I saw Saryukian he lost he lost against Islam Makachev but what he showed on camera was clearly like holy shit like this guy's really good gay or excuse me Gary looked like totally looked fine but like I didn't see anything that gave me that sense of like okay the next level is coming up quick and he's gonna hit

it I had more of like a wait and see approach. Okay. I've seen it. That was amazing. There's just, you can't say anything else. Like that was, he did that expertly from the beginning of that fight, right up until the end, maybe a couple of shots to the back of the head when, um, D rod was crouched up rolling. But by that point, the fight was basically over. Anyway, he'd been dropped with that vicious head kick as i mentioned barely took a punch at all then gets on the microphone afterwards bc and says i want neil magny a guy who is difficult for a lot of welterweights to beat who is highly experienced who folks know as a name for kind of um if you're going to go places that you have to go through neil magny first and if you don't you're not ready for that he's going to show places that you have to go through Neil Magny first. And if you don't, you're not ready for that. He's going to show you pretty quickly,

like just absolutely rising to the occasion, doing it beautifully, understanding the moment and then seeking the kind of challenge next. That is exactly the one he needs for fuller, broader forward moving credibility. Dude, I was extremely impressed. I have seen now something legitimately that gives me hope

that he can really do something special in this welterweight division that was a test passed with flying colors for you gary count me bc as a believer and again a decent level of maturity for a guy who is flashy and is this bright prospect. And I don't just mean maturity in the cage to set up the deadly strike that finished him, but also how he handled himself. I mean, that's a smart call out of Magni, as you said,

and it's not an easy guy. It's not a, a guy who's got this big hole in his game that you can go exploit. It's a guy that you have to be to look this. If this one puts them in the top 15, then as you said on the microphone, a win over Magni is going to get him really close to that overall title picture. But speaking of maturity and the character he plays as the 25-year-old young Irish guy who has next, what did you make of, Luke, the knocking on the door, apparently, of D-Rod's hotel room with a pizza and a box of weed.

And did you see this, Luke? They had a hidden camera down the hall. One of D-Rod's trainers opened up his own hotel room, or I'm sorry, training partners, picked up the pizza and marijuana, went back inside with it, and then Daniel Rodriguez misses weight the next day. Now, is that just a TikTok skit or is that real?

Did that really happen? Do you like that movie? I have a feeling it's just a TikTok skit. I mean, just by putting that there and that he misses weight, you're not in any way establishing a causal relationship. You're just saying two events happened. Oh, they must be related. Maybe, maybe. I can't say that they're not related. I events happened. Oh, they must be related. Maybe, maybe.

I can't say that they're not related. I have a feeling that they're probably not related. Okay, but do you like that level of outward gamesmanship? You're showing people that there's layers to this, and I'll get in your head if I need to. Do you like that mental warfare? I'm not really the audience for that, but it doesn't really matter if I am, right?

It doesn't matter if I like that sort of thing the question is what does it do for ian gary's mindset right like if doing those kinds of things on fight week whether you like them or i like them whether you hate them or i hate that doesn't matter the question is does that get him in a better competitive space by saturday night for fight time Because if it does, then A, he should keep doing it, and B, he will. So it doesn't really matter what I think. I'm not the audience for that kind of TikTok content. Yeah, I know. You're an old man masquerading as a guy who's one year younger than me.

What I was really wondering is, were you smitten at all that Ian had the same Uber Eats order that you often have as well, Luke? No, wait, wait. What did he get? he got pizza and weed luke come on oh dude let me tell you something if uber eats delivered weed it'd be over for my bank account it'd be all right i mean fuck off you know what i mean i just don't even know what i would do with my all right i think you combine that with a bbl escort service luke is that a dream idea or or do we need to uh yeah we could probably pull back a little bit that's um you know day after mother's day i feel like that's blasphemous but the answer to your question is yes well everybody keeps sending me this video of this creepy old guy

with this lady and he's like only in columbia i'm not showing that shit on this show to me too they send it to me too what people should know is those are like prepaid girls they call them yeah i don't support the sex trade folks okay this is not your show if you're sending me clips of creepy old dudes who have money paying for escorts in columbia that's not evidence you can pull ass in columbia that's just evidence you can buy it big difference yeah yeah get away from me please uh okay but to the point congratulations to ian gary phenomenal phenomenal win and bc i'm gonna say it again say it again, with Jailton Almeida, he didn't take hardly any damage in this fight.

I know the training camp can often be the hardest part, but I'm saying it's not like he's getting his ass whipped in these. I don't know how fast a Neil Magny fight can be put together. I don't know if Neil wants it. I haven't seen if he responded on social media or not. But they could do that one relatively quickly, and I don't think folks would be that upset about it. I agree with you, Luke Thomas.

All right. Let's move on to this one. This is, I got to be honest, BC, this one just broke my heart, if I could be completely candid with you. I really got a sick feeling in my stomach going to bed Saturday night. So let's sort of state what happened here. Rolly Romero moves up to 140 pounds in the main event on Showtime Championship Boxing. It was supposed to be against Alberto Puello.

He tests positive for clomiphene, so he's out. So they bring in this gentleman, Ismael Barroso from Venezuela, who had been, as I mentioned before, the mandatory since December of 2019. They kept delaying him and delaying him and delaying him. Finally, he gets this opportunity by virtue of the drug pullout for the original main eventer. And here is what the line was. Tell me if I'm getting any part of this wrong.

The line was, Rowley should win this. He's coming off the Tank Davis fight. He showed some maturity in that one, giving Tank some problems early before being ultimately finished off in the sixth. Now he has what he needs to move into that next spot, but also can crack. He wasn't completely out of it, we thought. But, you know, probably should lose.

And then the fight starts. And Barroso was winning it. Just to be extremely clear. He was winning it on Steve Farhood's unofficial scorecard. All three judges had him up at the time of the stoppage. But in round nine, Roley Rom romero was landing i want to be clear he was losing up to that point getting dropped in the third he was landing in the ninth but at the time of the stoppage in fact he had absorbed two punches and uh but he even pushed

you see right there he pushed but also down he absorbs two punches none of his punches land and i'm going to be very clear about this bc that is the worst stoppage in boxing i have ever seen if that's not convincing enough for you dan rayfield who's been watching it for 40 years said it's the worst he's ever seen bc unpack this for me what on earth happened here and then i want to talk about what should happen next yeah i mean this is as bad as it gets all you who love love to sit in the shadows and do the whole i told you so boxing is gross it's corrupt it's the worst it's the whatever it's the death it's never coming back this is why we can't have nice things yeah yeah yeah unfortunately this is exactly when you're in

a fight in which the more popular fighter uh the slugger is down on the cards and is trying to rally back. And then you have this sort of oops stoppage. You're automatically going to get that response and that feeling. But to me, the problems go deeper here. And it's breaking my heart because we're always when stuff like this happens judgment calls you're always in that spot as a fan and journalist where you're like man you know that smells really bad is that is that corruption or is that ineptitude and you know neither are a good answer right to the health of the sport but either way we're talking about tony weeks we're talking about a hall of fame referee

66 years old the guy who refereed corrales castillo won in 2005 which is arguably the greatest fight of all time and only became that because what's tony week's reputation as a referee he's liberal he's a fighter or a fan friendly referee because he lets you fight okay did you see mayweather versus my donna one and two tony weeks ref the first one my donna was allowed to fight on the inside and kind of brawl and it was this close really fun majority decision win for mayweather they run back the rematch you bring in kenny bayless a a more conservative referee and floyd's running circles around Maidana, okay? So you know the reputation Weeks has, even though he's 66

and he's been around forever. But this isn't just the stoppage. That knockdown, if we can run that knockdown again in that highlight package, to me that knockdown is even worse than the stoppage because 20 Weeks was on top of the action. And even though Rowley landed two punches early in round nine to hurt Barroso, the punch that knocked him down, and there's the early knockdown in round three,

and now we go into the round nine, the first knockdown. Weeks didn't miss this. He was on top of this. But even though those two punches landed, that's an obvious push. Clear push, though. Obvious. Like, beyond obvious. When you package that with a stoppage in which Barossa was not even getting hit,

there was a push punch by Rowley, which was the only clean punch that landed. A push directly to the face. Here's the problem. If it's ineptitude, it's sad. Because Weeks is a legend in this game. Fans love him as a referee for a reason. And it's not just his hip hair part, Luke.

It's that he lets them fight. He doesn't, he doesn't jump in and get in the way. So if it's ineptitude, it sucks. And it's a further, it's a further cry to jurisdictions like the Nevada state athletic commission, which we don't have a ton of respect for at times for their decision making, that they allow the same old characters. It's

not an ageist thing, but they do allow the same recurring cast of characters to keep coming through. It's just that Tony Weeks had always been a great one. And this isn't just one black guy. It's two in the same round in the same fight. And of course, that then leads you to the other direction. How could you be that inept as an elite referee? Could you make two monumental back-to-back mistakes in the same round, which only support the money fighter, right? The fighter who fights on this network, who is a big draw, potentially, especially as a B-side against Ryan Garcia or any other matchups you want to

create. Well, then it starts to look beyond ineptitude and it looks like corroboration and corruption. And that's the worst spot you can be in, in boxing. And I think it's bad for Roley too, because he won a secondary world title in his biggest fight on his initial

rise against Jackson Marinas in a lot of the similar manner where he got booed when he won the decision that nobody thought he deserved in the, you know, in the aftermath, he's talking in the microphone aggressively and people didn't like that. Well, now you've got another sort of breakthrough win to win a real world title at 140 pounds. When again, at worst it was inept, but it screams other things. This is where Nevada needs a backbone because Tony Weeks should have stood up and was interviewed afterwards. But as Jim Gray indicated, the Nevada State Athletic Commission would not allow him to talk.

And Weeks specifically said, I won't talk. Whether that was in direct instruction from Nevada or not, it's gutless. And people always say, BC Luke, how do we fix these obvious issues with judging and in some cases refereeing and boxing? I always say first and foremost, transparency would go a long way. Forcing the head of the Nevada Athletic Commission or whoever's the on-site leader at the moment, both him and the officials to address the media afterwards. If you don't want to get interviewed directly in the ring

afterwards, I don't know. Is there rules against it? I don't know. But you're not even willing to show up at the press conference afterwards and give your take. Either come clean and say, this is why I ruled it this way. You can disagree if you want. Or if you're the Nevada commission, take the half hour and look over the situation and then come clean afterwards and say, you know what? He may have made the wrong call. We'll investigate it. Instead, they say nothing. So what does every boxing fan then do? Another black eye to our sport, Roli's the protected star, all this stuff that may or may not be true. Either way, it's all bullshit and it's not

great it's a horrible look for what we do here for the time we put into the sport we love to see a guy like barossa who did nothing but resurrect his career on a three-fight win streak and hang around and one guy got yanked from the card and he finally gets his moment and you know what he fought his ass off and this is the shit we have to deal with afterwards. Look, what do you say? It's bullshit. But the fact that Nevada, which puts the officials in place, which sanctions the event, is not willing to even talk about it in a upfront capacity afterwards shows me that they don't fucking care.

All right. And then anyone that wants to say obvious corruption, what excuse are you going to argue back at them? Nevada won't even talk about this. You know, did you hear more Ronell on the call, Luke? He almost couldn't hold it inside. He was almost doing one of those Teddy Atlas, like I've had enough moments because we should have enough.

We know what these guys put in to work hard to get to this point. in one of those Teddy Atlas like, I've had enough moments because we should have enough. We know what these guys put in to work hard to get to this point. We know how much one winner loss changes their pace scale and their future. We know for a guy who's 40 years old fighting for a full world title and who knows if he gets stopped by Roley in the final three rounds. Who knows what happens? The point is we need something built in to prevent this from happening because if it was just the stoppage again it would be egregious but Luke back me up on this that knockdown is actually almost a worse call considering where Weeks was standing I mean this is just shit and it couldn't happen to a better guy and Tony Weeks who I love I've interviewed him before he's a he's a legend in this game but everyone that had a hand in this looks awful

coming out of it on the commission side no doubt about it i want i want to take a step back and say like for folks who've never looked into it like where do athletic commissions come from like why do they exist because they haven't always existed i mean a lot of cases that came around the early part of the 20th century, early to mid part of the 20th century for MMA, even part of the 21st century, some of these didn't get extended there. But they started happening because the state wanted to protect boxing a little bit, right? So they would make promoters put down some of the money up front.

They would look at the fight cards to make sure that the matches were relatively even. They would license everyone, cornermen, fighters. You get the idea. They kind of just put some basic protections in place to make sure that promoters had the money that they said they would, and they're putting on fights that are at least reasonably fair in process. So it's a part of the government getting involved, and also it was betting-related as well, but it's part of the government getting involved to protect the interests of the sport and then the sports athletes what nevada did on saturday night is absolutely spit in the face of that tradition

let's be very clear about this nevada's athletic commission is one of the very worst that exists in part because they get so much volume by virtue of the geography that they end up making a series of bad calls in bad procedure because they have no real internal mechanism for self-improvement. They have no real drive for it. It's this sclerotic, bureaucratic institution that is utterly protected by the state. So they don't really do very much to improve it. And I think more to the point, let's just also state the facts just as they are. They stole from Ismael Barroso on Saturday night.

Ismael Barroso is 40 years old. Okay, 20 years ago, when I was in college, Venezuela was the richest country in South America. Today, it is a calamity. And even when it was doing well, does Barroso look to you folks out there like the kind of guy who was living high off the hog. People were noting when the stoppage first happened, he didn't really complain. Guys, this is a humble man, right? This is not a guy who ever had shit handed to him, who ever got lucky once in this life.

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. months in this life. He is used to the world fucking him over. That's why he didn't complain. Because when they finally stuck a microphone in his face and Jim Gray interviewed him, he said it was an injustice. He couldn't believe it. And no, nobody watching could. They didn't just take from a guy. They took from a guy that the world has been taking from basically his entire life. Do you think any of the big matches he's had, he's ever gotten paid sick amounts of cash?

This was the opportunity to make the cash. Or at least turn this opportunity into a future one to make the cash. To get a world title that he had earned four years ago. Four years ago, basically, he had earned it. He finally gets it. And they took that from him. I want to make clear very as best i can about this this is an institution that is supposed to be protecting guys just like this

and they fucking stole from him and then to not even have the goddamn professional courtesy or courage to your point bc to say something about it because by the way i've been to press conferences in las vegas after fights where the commission is all too happy to talk about some new bullshit initiative they've done or some kind of self-congratulation that they want the media to know about they'll they'll do that i've seen them do it i've watched them do it i've been at the press conferences when it happened. So of course they can talk to the media when they want to. Of course they can say things about what they're doing if they want to.

They just chose to circle the wagon and it's fuck you. We're up here. You're down there. We'll go to the fights next week and everyone's going to move on. Dude, they took from a guy that's never had anything. And it breaks my heart to see this man. They treated him like dirt. He is owed at a bare minimum a rematch. He is owed an apology from Tony Weeks. He is owed an apology from that commission. And that commission, which they will not do, has some serious reflecting to do about the gerontocracy that they're forcing

through the referees onto the world bc you know i you think i get ageist about this but we do have data from other sports leagues that show the longest tenured officiating crews are not the best ones actually it's the ones who are about 10 to 15 years into experience this gentleman is far past it and i'm sorry you turn in a performance like he turned in on Saturday night. It is timeout for you at a bare minimum. If not losing your ability to work in this industry, they fucking stole this guy's professional career from him. And all that will happen is bad media.

Dude, fuck them. They didn't steal his whole career. Hopefully he gets it.atch for good money. Dude, this was the spot that was supposed to make it all worth it. I get it. It was all culminating here. I would also like most people on Twitter to apologize to Broso for commenting how he looks 75 throughout the build.

Okay, my man, I know I look old at 43. At 40, he looks 70. Let's just be real all right let's let's look at how how how Nevada has handled big ticket issues in modern history you remember CJ Ross Luke she scored she was one of the judges that scored Bradley Pacquiao won for Bradley which brought her under a certain spotlight and then of course in Canelo versus Mayweather 2013, the following year, she scored that fight six rounds to six in a fight that most people had 12-0 or 11-1 for Floyd. So what did they do?

They forced her to retire, to be fair. But then you had Adelaide Bird, who scored the first Canelo versus Triple G fight in 2017, absurdly wide in the favor of Canelo, which went against the grain. And Luke, that was the last time I've seen Nevada take accountability at the press conference afterwards. Then acting head Bob Bennett did talk with the media. I think the problem, it's not a problem, but the problem for them was the media was almost heckling him in response and the way they asked questions, which was good to see the

boxing media get aggressive and say, what is going to happen? What are you going to do to prevent this? And he said,elaide's a great judge she had an off night you know whatever i don't know if they went through classes or whatever but she was back on the scene luke in mma and boxing like overnight tony weeks we know also is a big time mma judge in las vegas so you know i hate making this about weeks because he was great, but he is 66 and they do roll out the same guys. I just think, look, if you add accountability to the mix, not just accountability with the head of the Nevada commission, when things like this happen, when Jim Gray is saying, look, I need to talk to somebody about this, because I think that's how you weed out who's actually good and who's actually not i always bring up that failed perfect game bid you remember that uh armando galarraga of the tigers was almost thrown a perfect game and there was a play at first base luke do you remember this month yes 12 years ago yep the umpire blew the call yep and in the locker room afterwards the media is interviewing him and he's crying and he's saying i screwed up i saw the tape i got it wrong Like it was this great moment of vulnerability.

I personally believe, and I'm also friends with a couple of judges. We know this on the boxing side and there are many fights that they score that Twitter's killing them. And I talked to them afterwards and they give me a detailed breakdown of what they saw. And you know what I often do? I go, actually, you did have the best seat in the house. Maybe you're right. Maybe we were misinterpreting certain things, watching from home, or maybe this is just a subjective sport. But my point was, I took the time to reach out to friends of mine and get their detailed reaction. This is a high profile, stressful job.

But I personally believe if those involved were forced to face the music and give a response, it would either repair their name in moments that are not robberies. They just may be differences of opinion or slowly force out the ones who either shouldn't be there at all or are past their best. Because with so much money at stake for these fighters futures and which and with the obvious dangerous realities of even competing in this game to fuck around with a clown show. That is the way this athletic commission acts in the face of, of responses like this.

It does no justice to the fighters involved. So how do we fix this? Luke, you know, accountability would go a long way, but how do we fix this? An actual situation? Is it a rematch? Does a, does a rematch where Brosa gets paid again? Does that how you make sense? Or do you make the title vacant? I don't think you can make the title. I don't think you can change the outcome because the referee's job is to make the call and he made the call. The question is, how do you fix this for everybody in the future? By the letter of the law, we should also point out that the commission has rules that basically make it impossible to, you can't challenge a call by arguing they did a bad job.

There are other mechanisms in place, but they're fairly... How would I explain? They're fairly limited in scope, and it's just about whether it was on the up and up. But if you're just saying, well, I think it's a bad call, the state has... And Nevada's not alone in this, but Nevada's one of the worst offenders,

just given the volume of incidents that happen in their state, where they just, you can't go in there and be like, he did a bad thing. I mean, here's the reality. We'll talk about what should happen first, but I just want to say one thing. The Association of Boxing Commissions is doing a better job of incorporating these athletes in their legislative process

in an advisory capacity. But for all the fighters out there in the world, you should know what you're up against here you're not just up against shady promoters at times in boxing or you know uh some sponsor who screwed you over or fans who light you up in your dms or whatever you're up against a regulatory regime that is much more interested in their self-preservation than yours i hope every fighter who ever gets licensed understands that. The fighters need to have some kind of way to challenge,

not just the institutional authority of these commissions, but in particular, bad decisions, bad calls by referees. I've seen some commissioners talking online, the one from Colorado, made a point where there should be some kind of mechanism where if something bad happens to you in Arizona, California's commission has the capacity to review it, right? So it's this peer review between the states. The reality is Nevada has the rules designed to make it impossible for anyone to do anything other than bad publicity. That is really the only way they ever respond to anything is bad publicity.

Fighters need a seat at the table for the Association of Boxing Commissions, and they need a seat at the table at the various other state commissions to have some ability to check bad decisions, bad rules, bad enforcement, all of the above. You know what would be nice, too? Look, I referenced a fight in 2012 that happened in Atlantic City when Arislandi Lara lost the decision to Paul Williams that, to everybody watching, just didn't make any sense. The state of New Jersey suspended all three judges and then did a detailed investigation.

They sure did. Yep. Why? If you're Nevada, why would you not try to fan the flames and come out and be like, look, we understand the controversy. We're going to look deeper into this. We're going to put Tony on a temporary ban for now until we educate and go through this but instead radio silence so look let's talk about the actual fight they're not they're not watchdogs that's that's not how they see themselves they see themselves as this is a way to make a name in las vegas this is a way to make connections in Las Vegas. This is a way to hold status within the government in the state. This is a way to be seen in some kind of way where they can add

something to their LinkedIn resume. None of those people can credibly claim what they're interested in doing is being a protective watchdog for the interests of sport within the state of Nevada. Get the fuck out of here. No one believes that. No one trusts them. None of that is true. And so as long as that's the way in which they're able to construct their own business, this is, they're just going to keep absolutely treating guys like Ismael Barroso, like absolute fucking dirt. And it is, it is, it kills me that this happened.

The most vulnerable kind of guy the one who has never never gotten lucky finally had his moment and they fucking took it from him with no apology all right what does that tell you about their priorities yeah their priorities are bullshit and people say well what let's not go to las vegas anymore well look las vegas yeah good luck they pay the highest site fees to bring fights there. They allow you to jack up the ticket prices because it's high rollers mostly. I mean, it's the system. So, Luke, Rowley seemed to regress a bit, certainly, in this fight. He had a lot of issues.

Yeah, we should talk about him, too. With the awkwardness of Barroso, even though he was able to kind of, you know, he was rallying a bit for sure at the time of the stoppage in terms of the big punches he was landing. Barroso was a problem. And maybe it's just because he's a southpaw with an awkward style and he had enough power to discipline Roley. But this was not a step forward and an advancement on the idea of like, is Roley ready to build toward Ryan Garcia or anything like that? Really, I think the best way to answer this is to run back an immediate rematch.

But this does not help his stock at all but i i want to tie the rolly part into the hard question is this ineptitude luke or is this corruption is this the let's give it to the the money fighter because that's what we do in the sport or are you leaning just on what a shitty night for the athletic commission here's what i would say to all these questions to your point i thought you stated it well like this is what i mean 99 of the times when fight fans complain about boxing and for you know for whatever reason i'm always like this is not really a good example of that yeah this is a good example of that this is exactly what you're i think your point was well taken here's the reality i don't know why he made that call.

What I can say is it is so uniquely bad that what should happen with a commission that gives a fuck about fairness and justice to boxers that deserve protection would be an investigation. Because do I have any evidence that there is any crime being committed here, quite literally? No, of course I don't. I don't have shit. I have a really, really, really dubiously weird, awful stoppage, but that by itself doesn't give me information. But a good commission would look into it, and maybe they exonerate him.

Maybe he's like, yeah, he had an off night. Dude, maybe he did. Maybe he just had an off night. Well, is there a justification? I was just going to say, you see, the only way to really answer that question is to have a due diligence process in place by the state regulatory authority or at least uh even if it's even if it's

a pomp and circumstance fake public offering give us the fucking fake public offering right you know i mean we always say that it's like just come out and say something but look i like tony weeks and that's not clouding my judgment here but if it was just ineptitude is there a chance on the knockdown that the outside shoulder of roly was was blocking his view and that he saw the push as a punch because he was in wasn't in the best position is that possible i'd say yes to a dude this whole idea of like oh well he saw it this way because he was in a dog shit position. Right.

That doesn't in any way justify the stoppage. Get into a better position, fucko. The stoppage, I'm wondering is because, look, when we watch it in slow motion, the only punch that landed was that push right hand to the face. Right. I'm wondering if in real time Weeks was blocked and he thought that was a punch that staggered Barroso. If you believe that punch staggered Barroso, is this enough for a stoppage here? No. And even Weeks is still at a good enough angle where he could see that that wasn't the case.

Alright, then my attempt to give him every benefit of the doubt has just been solved in this case then, alright? No, you're right. You might be right. You might be right. Listen, maybe he has and I'm just going to be theoretical here. Again, I have no evidence of this whatsoever, which is why when people are always like, oh, corruption, I'm like, you need evidence to make claims like that, and I don't have

any claim. I don't have any evidence like that. Maybe he's having a hard time at home. Maybe he's got health problems. Maybe he's got financial problems. Maybe he's got kid problems. Maybe he's got life problems, and he's just not all there, and he's making bad decisions. Again, dude, is it possible he

just had a really bad night yes of course it is but we won't really know what the full answer is until somebody does the job with the teeth to do it of looking into it and so because they're not going to do that they're just going to leave it alone and he'll be back on the job doing whatever we're just forced to kind of lament i guess i guess we can treat certain people like absolute shit by this commission and that's just the way that it goes yeah i'm just i don't know i'm trying to talk myself into some belief that makes this all feel right that that those pushes look like punches to him but it's still all bullshit and if you're looking for somebody with the teeth to do it i welcome yanni the greek but that's just me but um uh you know roly roly had a step back performance it seems overall luke

but what's boxing going to do? Here's what I was going to say, and then we'll move along because we still have to talk about Bellator. What I was going to say was, BC, this shit didn't do Roley any favors either. No. Like, I know people say, oh, well, they called the knockdown, the pushdown a knockdown, and then they got the early stoppage in that sense of doing him a favor. Yeah, but, like, let's step back a little bit. Roley was losing that fight.

Everyone knows that because of the judges, right? So now we know he was losing. It wasn't just people saying he was losing. We could Rowley was losing that fight. Everyone knows that because of the judges, right? So now we know he was losing. It wasn't just people saying he was losing. We could prove he was losing. He did not look great to begin with. He got dropped in the third. Then he gets basically gifted this title. Dude, if anything, like, Rowley's stock declined after this, despite getting a world championship

ultimately in the end. Like, if anything, this hurt his hurt his i think i don't know if i heard his promotional interest which may be in the end is the most important but like roly had a chance here building off the tank performance to be like aha you see i can turn into something special dude kenneth sims who had to fight uh bakhtir akhmadov on the opener of that card both of those guys would beat roly and no no doubt that card, both of those guys would beat Roley. And no doubt in my mind, both of those guys would beat Roley.

He took a bit of an L here in the end, ultimately, too. Corey's reminding me that in the post-fight interview, Roley did say it was an early stoppage. So it's certainly not... He's not pretending to play along with it. He was being very honest afterwards. Yes, in the end, Roley invited the... Or he said he wanted to keep going.

I wanted to keep going. It should have been what he should have said was he was totally fine, but okay. Um, BC, the last thing I'll say is I don't know if a rematch solves the problem. I don't know if there is a way to solve the problem because it was

that night. It's going to be hard to get back to that place for, but also, and I don't even know if they'll give him one. So maybe, maybe we could get Broso some Caldera lab samples, Luke, to try to just,

you know, try to fight the aging battle. Can we give this guy a W somewhere? Yeah. Just kill them everywhere. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to Bellator if we can, BC.

Also on Showtime, this was on Friday from the Accor Arena in Paris. Well, I got to say, BC, these Bellator shows in Europe, man, they are, they look fantastic. Not that the ones in the U.S., they're fine, certainly, but the ones in Europe look like these just enormously great. I mean, all their tentpole events must be over there now. Okay, BC, but it was a bit of a passing of the torch moment, it seemed like to me. Fabian Edwards gets the unanimous decision win over Gegard Mousasi at the Bellator 296 main event. BC, how much of the story should be edwards looked good and had a phenomenal

performance versus how much of it should be that wasasi finally really did look old yeah i mean it's a little bit of both and it often is in this case but i do want to eat the crow and say like i overlooked edwards coming out with this performance was it an older wasn't an older, was it an older Gayguard? Yes. Was the broadcast correct? I think in rightfully criticizing the fact that Gayguard had wrestling success in round two and then completely goes away from it for the rest of the fight. He in this run where he relied on the wrestling and showed you that he may be able to sustain his career longer by using that in the right matchup. This potentially could have been that matchup. It didn't happen. But a lot of that was Edwards' movement, his striking, his poise. Like, this was a very mature performance for a fighter who's starting to build a nice win streak here to get into contention. I mean, they put him in the cage afterwards with the with the current champion johnny eblin they already announced

this for september in dublin so here we are it's a good ass win for edwards you see the physicality there to take musasi down he leveled up in a large way and i was happy to see that luke because i apparently have a history of of underrating both brothers in big fights so maybe maybe it's about time i come around. Yeah, I have the same problem. So I also have to eat crow. In fact, on my OK bet, I think my favorite pick, so odds-wise, before the contest, I think Musashi was the favorite to win, and I had picked him to do it totally wrong.

You know, he looked this way, or I should say he looked a version of this way against Johnny Ebelin. But Johnny Ebelin is very good. Whether you guys appreciate that fact or not, I can't make you, but I'm telling you, Johnny Ebelin is going to be a hard guy to look good against. Okay, so I thought he might wrestle against Edwards. And to your point, when he did, in a very limited capacity, he looked just fine, or at least good enough to win. But he just didn't do it. And maybe he didn't have the gas tank maybe he's got the miles on his body he just can't he can't commit to that kind of a fight anymore he can only commit to a more open kind of at at range kind of a fight and open at range edwards was dude way better like he was just way better he made like his brother

he made a lot of good calculated smart decisions He didn't make a lot of dumb errors. He was conservative in certainly his offense at times, but never really in any kind of trouble hardly at all. As long as that fight was at range, he won it without much issue. And to your point, he was able to get even some top spots on the ground as well. So I had been wrong about Fabian Edwards. I want to be very clear about that. But I do think it is important to say, guys, this is definitely, definitely a post-prime Musashi. It doesn't mean that's an easy guy to beat or that I can say Edwards only beat a guy because he's old.

No, Edwards clearly leveled up here. Like, he looks pretty good. I think he's got a bright future. I think he's, what, 31. So he's still pretty young. But I saw musashi's prime like in its prime this is just not that guy it's just not that guy he used to have i think pretty good cardio and now it seems like it's good enough to make it five rounds but not in any way

to weaponize it you just have a lot more zip and pop and snap he could move more he was much more of a dynamic ground he'd been a ground and pound-pound threat since the aughts, for fuck's sake. He just had none of that this time. I think whether he calls it a day or not, I don't know. But BC, it would be just disingenuous to say this is a guy who's just as good as he's always been. No, he did look old, and I think that did play a role. Yeah, it did.

And this was the right fight in terms of Bats making to show us that, a potential crossroads fight that lived up to that. One guy coming on, the other guy going away. No disrespect, he's a legend in this game, but performances like this speak to what's left of the fight inside the great warrior, and that's where we are. And Luke, I've also been corrected on twitter rightfully by fans who who remind me that ian gary's name is ian machado gary as a nod to his wife's maiden name so that's that's a very very nice move right there okay yeah fair enough all right whatever he wants to do uh

but bc for musashi oh actually let me ask for edwards edwards you saw we had if you can show it one more time guys the face-off he had with Johnny Ebelin. I didn't love the face-off. UFC does it. Bellator does it. They all do it. One does it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time, it feels like it doesn't work for me because it kind of takes away from Fabian's grand moment. This was the biggest win of his career.

But they are going to set it up next. Fabian Edwards is going to take on Johnny Ebelin. By the way, this is going to be Ebelin versus Edwards is set for Saturday, September 23rd at Dublin's Three Arena. I do. I think it's smart to put that fight in Ireland. It's going to be a raucous fucking crowd. But I got to tell you, maybe I'm wrong again for sleeping on Fabian Edwards.

But Johnny Ebelin's a tough fucking fight for him. I just got to be honest about that. Yeah, it's a tough fight. That's a tough fight. We're going to find out, Luke. Okay. It was a tough fight. I love Johnny edwards liberal use of the f word though during that post exchange you know yeah yeah he didn't mind getting getting a little greasy there but

what are you gonna do all right last but not least we see point number five so this is by the way quickly if you were a better husband luke you would consider changing your last name to your wife's maiden name like so she asked me to do that actually oh and i was like yeah no no you're like this is america baby yeah i guess so here's the thing i haven't explored colombian citizenship but if i did i i think the way that it would work was that my name wouldn't change other than it would add her maiden name at the end of mine okay so uh for like for my national id there so i guess i would change my name in that case maybe maybe um that's something about like happening to ian gary but i don't know uh okay true love true love will make you do anything luke and it's a beautiful thing all right that's true bc last but not least how about

mansour barn barno we who i had thought was the dark horse of this tournament boy i did not love this fight from him so he had i mean let's give him some credit both these guys actually barno we and premise had an absolute dog fight i mean in the trenches And Brent Primus came out on top in the last two rounds, really using his top control and his better overall grappling and wrestling to make up that difference. BC, I want to talk about how Barnaby fought in just a minute, but we got to give some credit to Primus. Dude, he had to dig deep in this contest, and he did it.

What can you say about how he persevered? And then let's talk about how you think he'll do against usman nummer made off it's it's hard it's like he's 38 years old this was a gutsy ass win over five rounds to put himself back into the title picture in fact he'll be facing the champion usman nummer made off in the next round of this million dollar tournament but luke and i think this butt needs to be mentioned i know big john in the moment was was really talking up this is the best brent premise we've ever seen i don't actually think it was i thought premise really telegraphed is striking and there were elements i didn't like but the toughness the perseverance the focus was was there luke bar now we fought all gas no brakes for about rounds. Didn't set up any of his offense.

Just full speed ahead, like mashing the buttons on the video game that I think he gassed himself out. And I think what this became was a war of attrition. And it was brutal at times. And it certainly was just one of those where you bite down and you show the dog that's in you. Brent Primus is going to fight for a world title again because that dog is still there. He's in great shape. He's making this last run. He's taking it serious.

But I don't think this was necessarily the best of him. I just think he bit down and outlasted a guy whose strategy and hindsight deserves a second look. I don't think that's unfair. I don't think that's unfair. Again, best Brent Primus premise I don't know about that but what I will say is the way in which Barnaby fought

both opened up some opportunities but also because it was in your face I mean for folks who don't know Barnaby just in the opening round just walks across the cage clinches with him and just has not quite like fry takiyama but this kind of just open clinch style

where one's hitting the other one and then getting hit and then back i mean just wild as shit and does that again in the second round and like was fighting him from side control underneath like just weird in your face bizarre total stuff that required you to it pulled something out of premise i don't know if he could pull it out again you know if as long as his career goes on, BC. Like, it was a real special moment where he rose to the occasion. I tip my hat to him because that was amazing, but I don't know if he could replicate that consistently. That seems like a one-and-done type scenario. And again, Barnaby just kind of served it up to him. BC, I hated the way he fought. I hated the the way he fought it seemed to me when he was at range

moving popping the whole nine yards he was doing really well and then just abandon it to stay in range take unnecessary damage premise is like if you're gonna serve it up i'm happy to take advantage of it does and gets the w again well I want to point out with much more expert control in the grappling department in the last two rounds, but BC to what extent did Barnaby just give the fight away? Yeah, I just too snapped up. Hey, today, as Luke just said, he gave the fight away. He thought he was going to come out there, attack, get a big finish. He's in Paris.

I mean, the crowd was rocking. You got to give them credit for there. I don't know if you saw the live shots of Josh Thompson and AG2 in the arena standing up. I mean, it was awesome, but strategy was horrible in that regard. And he's a warrior. He hung on. His face was hamburger at the end. But, yeah, Luke, I hated it just the same.

I almost hated it as bad as my fluid consumption. I miscalculated it luke throughout the show so if you can just you know entertain for like 30 seconds and then we'll worry about the forgiveness part afterwards all right it was great talking to you thanks we have to do we have to do dms from donks next but i guess you can go do your thing i will say this i thought it was really funny how uh big john was pronouncing tebow guti he He was like, congratulations to your winner, Tebow Gooty. I'm like, I don't think Gooty is supposed to rhyme with booty quite in that way, but it worked out just the same.

So shouts out to everyone there in Paris that did a great job. Josh Thompson, Amanda Garrett, Big John, and I don't know the name of the other British commentator guy, but he did a pretty good job there as well. And by the way, last but not least, Primus takes on now Usman Nurmagomedov, who they had in the ring there after the contest was over. My sense of things about how that contest goes,

you know, it's just hard for me to believe that Brent Primus is going to beat Nurmagomedov. Everything that Primus is good at, I feel like Nurmagomedov is also good at and probably better. Certainly he's much younger. I think he's got much better stand-up. So, again, if you've not seen that contest,

you really should premise turned in an absolutely gut check performance. If ever there was one in MMA, he 1000% earned this opportunity against Usman. But in the end, I think it's going to be a difficult one for him to get a W in so we'll see how that goes all right with that in mind that's our top five BC is back look if you want to drop a deuce I could take us home here this is it's okay it's time for the DMs from the diggity dongs let's go to it right now yeehaw yeah all right all BC. Let's do this. First things first from It's Not Cage Fighting. They ask, with Gilton having fought as low as welterweight before,

which current 170 and 185ers could have a successful run at heavyweight? That's an interesting question, Luke, because we did see Rumble Johnson do remarkable shifts in weight similar to this. I was there. He fought in D.Cc when he fought charlie brenneman um at 170 so i've seen him i saw him at one i saw him cutting weight for that fight he looked like shit trying to do it um but he got it done uh i think he did so you have to ask a question about like who is a bit of a bigger guy but also really young in the weight class?

Right? Because they kind of have to grow. You need a tall frame that can carry a lot of back muscle. 170? I don't know if Hamzat's that guy. And Sean Brady is muscular, but he's a little too short, I think, for heavyweight. Right? Yeah, you need height, dude.

You really need height or then you're going to be Duran Wynn in your own division. I think Kamaru could probably get away with it, right? Maybe? Well, yeah, because when he originally talked about the idea of maybe going up to light heavyweight, we were all like, what? But he does have decent height. Can you put more on that frame, though, Luke? He may

have maxed out the jackness of that frame at 170. Yeah, I don't know. See, that's the thing. Like, Almeida at 230 is lean. You know what I'm saying? True. Someone's saying, if you think, or Mikey says,

if you think Kamaru can, you have to agree that Hamzat can, right? I mean, I think Hamzat could, but I don't think that, like, he'd be getting wins quite as, maybe he would be. I don't know. Could Hamzat do it? I don't I don't I mean it's asking a lot you've got to be wired a certain way too I think like just ask the question who at 230 is going to look like Almeida does I don't think Hamzat at 230 would look like Almeida you know what I'm saying but he has the height he's got the wrestling game which helps. Yeah, probably

Chimaev's the answer there. I mean, according to you, Robert Whitaker can go up to heavyweight and fight Jon Jones. Why don't you just book all rematches again? How about that? Why don't you just borrow every other matchmaker's idea? Alright. From Z to the N7

or Z to then 7 is there any way the Nganou news lives up to the hype? BC, can I go first on this, please? Oh, yeah. I'd love you to. I'll go to the bathroom and go ahead. So I don't know if we have. What is wrong with your.

What's happening there today there, guy? You all right? Yeah. Yeah. I just had a lot of fluids. Luke, sorry. BC, here's what's going to happen. So over the weekend, Francis Nganou shat on all the morons on twitter who took a dump on him and then

put out this notification that at 1 p.m tomorrow he's going to be releasing a video on his youtube channel where i think he announces what we assume will be assigning with the pfl bc i want you to mark this in stone okay tomorrow here's what's going to happen. I don't know what the terms are. I'm being on my mother. I do not know what the terms are of this deal. I have no clue. I'm guessing it's going to be pretty lucrative, but we shall see.

If it is lucrative, and I should say especially if it is lucrative, there are going to be people shitting all over it. Tomorrow, there are going to be people being like, yeah it tomorrow there are going to be people being like uh yeah good for him he's got a bag these are fights i don't care about i don't want to see when of course what pfl is trying to do is then use ngannou as a way to sign other heavyweights that's that's the whole point like people like who's going to fight well they got to recruit some people i think that's the idea but i just want to point out expect tomorrow that especially if the deal is good there's going to be an absolute uh barrage of bullets headed francis's way with claims of this sucks i hate this he's going to

ruin pfl you name it that's going to be in full force tomorrow i mean if he has a chance tomorrow to have the bag to go along with the virtue, as you always say, is already his his reward. Then this is how you do it. Because, Luke, look, I don't know if all the details that have been researched by my guy over there at MMA are true, but his lengthy video about this exact thing. Oh, wow. Is it eye opening about the way these contracts are, are state signed and stage and after Francis fell apart, how they changed the contracts at the UFC and like, dude, like virtual already is Francis's reward. I think he's a special individual in that regard, but he also has the potential here to sign a very lucrative deal in a meaningful organization that happens to fight on the same channel and may or may not have the most intelligent cage.

And if he can have that clause in his deal, we'll find out maybe tomorrow that allows him also for the lucrative bucket list, heavyweight boxing move. I mean, unless, unless your entire focus is I wanted John Jones versus Ngannou, I deserve to have it, and you're not willing to point back at the organization for why maybe parts of that didn't happen, and you're just such a brand homer that this is what it is, how do you not applaud what Francis is about to announce for himself tomorrow? I mean, I will go to my grave with the respect as a man for how he handled this entire process. I mean, look, remember when Andy on Shawshank, spoiler alert, had to like crawl through the tunnel of shit to get to paradise?

Francis had to do that in terms of MMA business, in terms of the constant public slashing of his character in ways that are proven to not be true and don't match up let's let him have it they're gonna do it at every stage they're gonna do it let's have him have his day look unless the criticism is coming directly from dana i don't want to hear it and even then i can probably still heckle it but like if joe ufc fan in omaha is just mad that francis is not fighting john and he wants to piss on this that's fine normally I would say Francis will be the one laughing going back to the bank but it's not even about the bank for Francis Luke right I mean it is it is on some level sure some level but that's not like it that's not the main re I mean it's just I just think that people there there's

two kinds of people in this world Luke people that are solely and exclusively motivated by money and everyone else and sometimes there's a gray area and we can float in between those two based on certain times in our life or situations but I think at the end of the day you'll either do anything for the dollar and sell your soul and that's all that matters or at some point you have a line of non-negotiables which which francis hit with the ufc brass and now

he's doing it his own way if you don't applaud that then then you know you don't believe in the american way luke then you don't believe in the good in this world no dude they're i would say also they're just people in this world who take principled, calculated risks. And there are people who are just too chicken shit to do stuff like that. And when I say that, you know, not every risk is worth taking, of course. I'm talking about the principled ones. To the point, like virtue is its own reward. You know, if you believe in your principles, it doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be rewarded with riches or fanfare

or whatever you may not be. It's really not the point. That's not what you're necessarily trying to get. I do think he's trying to make money out of this deal, but I hope everyone understands. Remember me telling you this right now, tomorrow after that news comes out, there's going to be an absolute,

you know, chorus of folks taking a dump on it. When the first fight gets announced, it's going to be an absolute, you know, chorus of folks taking a dump on it. When the first fight gets announced, it's going to happen. After the next fight happens, it's going to happen. There's going to be people at every stage of this trying to tear down what Francis is doing because Francis is disrupting, you know, a very difficult, tightly controlled industry. And, you know, you're not going to get applause for that you're going to get uh you're going to get everything but that so just just so everyone knows that's going to happen tomorrow okay BC question number three here from Jimmy underscore Reed is Carlos olberg ready for a top 15 opponent good question that was a very nice stoppage win luke he had over ehor poteria

uh the answer is yes he absolutely is yes i completely again another guy i was like i mean he'd have i think the one loss or whatever but in general i've been like he's looking better and better and better in terms of his performances and uh i was like okay let's see what he can do here and he just mowed through this guy. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Let's give this guy a real test for sure. His lone UFC defeat was a second round knockout in his official debut against Kennedy and Zek True, who is also on a nice rise of his own.

Would you like to see those two in a rematch against one another? Or am I booking too many rematches, Luke, out of, you know. No one loves rematches and retreads quite like you. Again, I understand now. See, I drafted too much wealth, and I screwed up the mechanisms. Maybe I'm not ready for the war room at UFC. Maybe I'm not. I will say this.

I'd be interested in seeing that fight, but I still think both guys are kind of developing into the best version of themselves. Let's see when that's a little bit more advanced. So I do actually like the idea. Let's put pause on that for like maybe another year or something like that. But I like that idea. Do you think Olberg tore up the local swipe scene in Charlotte after the fight?

Again, I'm going to imagine that his DMs look approximately the opposite of yours and mine. You know, Chef Kaz may or may not be in his dimensions. But other than that, there's no no similarities you know what i'm saying i can't wait till chef kaz well ties you up and then you know those those weird blinking balls he puts all over his skin luke i'd like him to put that over your uh non-mentionables yeah did you ever did you ever uh watch the old charlie murphy stories with the green screen that he told about Eddie? It's what that's famously. It's where the one for the Rick James thing comes from.

Yes. He told a story about Eddie Murphy that if you didn't live through the 80s and the 90s, it's hard to explain how popular Eddie Murphy is. Like, you know, maybe Joe Rogan is the equivalent in terms of like which comedian is the most popular. But it was strictly for his comedy and like his movies and Saturday Night Live. It had nothing to do with anything else, right? It was just for that. He was enormously popular. And Charlie Murphy, rest in peace, made a story, said a story about him that like,

you know, he would go to clubs in the 80s and like dudes in the club would get real fucking mad at him because he would walk in, do a lap, and leave. And in Charlie Murphy's words, he would drain the club. He would drain it. All the women would leave and want charlie murphy's words he would drain the club he would drain it all the women would leave and want to go with eddie to wherever he's going all the rest of the dudes would get real pissed about it and he one time said that charlie was security and then you know fight broke out about it and blah blah blah and uh i bet that's what carlos olberg does i bet he walks in does a lap and then just fucking drains it on his way out you know what i mean oh he'll drill he's draining it luke he's definitely draining it i believe that all right

all right uh question number four bc from uh saint john underscore ca how excited for the ultimate fighter connor versus chandler i guess he's saying uh are we you know you will have to cover it so you may as well just watch quite incorrect i actually you will have to cover it, so you may as well just watch. Quite incorrect. I actually don't have to cover it, and I'm not going to watch. So I will watch. I've only previously watched, Luke, the heavyweight season when Rampage broke the door and the strawweight season.

Jesus, you've missed a lot. Oh, in the first season. Of course, the first season. So I'm going to come back for this. I like the little teaser video of the two shoving each other, the trash talk. I'm not expecting a ton, but I want to get pumped for the fight. My only question here, and not just related to McGregor's potential USADA six-month window, which I'm sure they'll just after the fact say that he already did it last year and we're all good um they said ufc over the

weekend that they hope to negotiate this and sign a date for them to fight by the end of this tough season in terms of the air dates how do you sign these two up film the entire reality show and not already have a deal for when they're going to fight does that make any sense it does if you are constantly you know running from one deadline to the next and you just got to meet demand without being able to do everything else i mean that's again like it's not quite like boxing which yeah they have schedules and and promoters have stuff they want to do on a timeline of course but it's not so aggressive and they don't have so many different masters to serve dude ufc has so much content

that they owe to so many partners they just got to get it going they got to put it together so actually it makes complete i mean to your point like why would the why the fuck would you do that if you didn't have a fight signed that's how it should be done but i think the ufc is just running as fast as they can to fill these obligations because it's so tough to do it and they ended up you think they had an internal meeting where they're like let's just get through the second slap pay-per-view at the end of May, and then we'll figure out after that. Again, I need evidence to conclude that, but you're asking me my hunch. I have a hunch that slap has taken up a little more bandwidth

than it probably should have. Keep that in mind. All right, BC, from lastly, AAA1017, just the fucking worst name, does anyone else find it a bit, oh, good question, a bit unprofessional that Dom Cruz just continues to talk shit about Keith Peterson, the referee in question, even from the broadcast position. BC, let me set the table here. He did it two times, once in the Allbergberg fight because allberg is beaten up on poteria and then gets up before the referee intervenes the referee doesn't intervene allberg goes to get back on him and then keith peterson jumped in so again not keith peterson's best uh officiating

although allberg kind of did it for him so that's weird and then also um i believe in the uh what other fight was it? Was it the Douglas De Silva de Andrade? It was an earlier fight where Anik said that Peterson and another referee will be handling six of the final eight fights, and then that's where Dom was like, oh, joy. That was during the Silva de Andrade fight. So in other words, in multiple fights, he was airing these grievances.

What do you think? Because I like dom's personality and maybe because i don't want this joke of what keep peterson smells like to die could we give him one comedic reference per broadcast where he's like oh great maybe but no i did feel like this was on top of they're piling on top of each other and then the constant complaining after that stoppage of about it happened to me it happened to me feels a little bit too one-on-one grudgy i mean they don't let dan hardy show up anymore at the apex and talk about um herb dean right so uh i would think that

that is something that they talked about i think it it felt like it went a little too far luke and the and look i say that because i love dom cruz's announcer. I think Dom Cruz should be the pay-per-view announcer default along with DC and Anik. I think that's their best team. That's just my personal take. Um, but yeah, Luke, I w I would like to kind of nip that in the bud in terms of, uh, it costs, you know, I have a slightly different view of it, which is to say the following. I, I don't agree with Dom Cruz at all. I thought the stoppage in the fight with Henry Cejudo was justified. Or at least, no, fine, basically.

Not great, but fine. And in general, I think Peterson is an excellent referee. And also, I don't want to keep hearing Dom Cruz complain about it. Let me put that up front. I understand Dom Cruz disagrees. And I understand that he is really upset about it. And I don't want to keep hearing about it. Let me put that up front. I understand Dom Cruz disagrees, and I understand that he is really upset about it, and I don't want to keep hearing about it. But, but, I'll say this, BC, these fighters do not have any capacity to challenge anything that is basically unfair

that the commission does, or at least perceived to be unfair. In a better, more just, and frankly, let's be honest, sane world, Dominic Cruz would have had the opportunity to have that challenged in whatever mechanism that would be in place, and probably would not have won on the merits of it. He probably would have lost. But at least he would have had some kind of dutiful procedure. He has, and all these fighters have, nothing. Going back to the Ismael Barroso fight. Again, that's a much more egregious, very different kind of scenario in a lot of ways. But it's the same principle involved.

These guys get, sometimes, treated very poorly, very unfairly. And they have not one means to do anything about it other than what he is doing, which is complaining. So I don't love it, but I got to be honest with you. As long as we're going to tell fighters when a referee or a judge or whoever fucks up or does something that is at least at a bare minimum questionable, you can't do anything about that because again, we're up here and you're down there. They're going to resort to stuff like this. Let's have a better system in

place to adjudicate some of these needs but true or false did dana white and steve mazzagatti's reffing career by publicly complaining a ton yeah but look how much he had to do it like he had to do it a shitload before they ever moved on it keith kaiser didn't care at all for long periods of time so like you know again i i don't i don't think he threatened he threatened to move out of vegas maybe i that's i mean i i don't know i doubt it i doubt it i doubt it i'm just trying to see tai chi palace get paid back one time luke that's all i'm trying to see all right don't you understand my position like dude the fighters like when they speak out against raising

fighter pay it blows my fucking mind that they do stuff like that but okay you know whatever fight that battle a little bit separately but it just does it not dawn on anyone how fucking abused by the industry they are whether it's yeah you know in in boxing or mma fucked up sponsors and bad promoter contracts and you name it. And then the commission has no mechanism by which they humbly state, like their essential worldview is we are either right or we're not, but we are basically, because we're in control, that's just the default position. You can like it or you can not like it. Move the fuck on.

Like no wonder fighters speak out like this. No wonder media members speak out like this. They don't ever open themselves up to any sense of fairness. So then they just get this. So do I honestly, do I feel like bad for Keith Peterson? I guess on some level I do. Cause I don't,

I think on the merits he's right, but I understand Dom's frustration as best I can from this distance. And I gotta tell you i get that too true or false when i asked him on friday ray longo said that keith peterson actually smells like cigarettes not booze not cheap women he did he did say that yes he did he smokes apparently i'd like to believe it's more of a mixture of like deli meat, hookers. Like that's how I imagine Keith Peterson's mouth. Just one time I want him to say, now is the time for me to rise to my feet

before he tells fighters to go back to their corners because he does sound like Jamie Josta a little bit from Hatebreed when he talks. That's not a reference that's coming through my windows anytime soon, Luke. Hey, can we talk about shit now? Hey, it's time for BC's Feces. Hit it, my friend. friend all right i scoured the globe yesterday for the good the bad the ugly the high lows in between from the worlds of combat sports and beyond we call this have you seen bc's feces yes oh god all right you know what you've been hyping up this segment a little bit and

they've not been bad yeah this week's not's not great, but last week was great. Last week was okay. Luke, one day you'll realize that it's not actually the breadth of my material that makes this segment great. It's the willingness of your participation. That's the key, right? I do agree that the willingness of my participation can make or break how it feels. The whole show. Okay, okay, okay.

Fair enough, fair enough. But it's not true that if you don't include, like, you also sometimes turn in not enough elder abuse and not enough guys getting put in marijuana coffins or the kinds of things that get me to pop. You know what I'm saying? All right. All right, let's see if you like this. UFC Charlotte is where we start. Hey, Luke, Brian Battle and Gabriel Green gave us an amazing 14 seconds

of caveman fighting to start this fight off. Wow. Yeah, he just gets in his face and doesn't move, and that's it. That looked a lot like Brunson versus Whitaker. Yeah, that's just like, damn. He just stands right in there and just pays for it. I mean, I don't know what else to say. Did you like Brian Battle's emotional post-fight speech

where he said, I'm made of Charlotte. Charlotte is in me, basically. He loved it. He loved being home. I actually did not hear the post-fight speech. All right. Well, hey, look, real surprise this week. I went four and one in OK bed.

Who would have saw that coming? And the big winner was 42 year old matt brown who delivered the thunder on court mckee damn i i gotta tell you man again this is an obvious thing i say it all the time but there is a growing gap between the guys who can slip punches and counter at the same time and watch him he sees him coming moves his head off the center line because mcgee's punch goes past his right ear and he just moves right into the right hand dude fucking matt brown is an absolute legend 42 years old he's got gray on his scalp and yet he's still taking scalps god bless

this fine american what do you think of his speech afterwards where he said, the worst 30 seconds in this sport is the fact that I know in 30 seconds I'll be walking out of this cage or something to that regard. He's basically trying to say that he loves being in there so much, Luke, that leaving the cage is heartbreak. I believe every word of that and every piece of emotion that goes into that, I think he is 100 telling the truth and we are lucky for it well luke johnny walker was here over the weekend which means we get creepy dancing at the prep point let's listen to the announcers break dude he can't stop john i

mean please stop doing that in front of it like the the guy who's just trying to put look at i think the guy putting the vast lead on it was, please just don't do that in front of me. I guess we don't have audio, but the announcers were like, oh, my God. Like, yeah, I mean, this guy gets – we did hear from Paul. And he's a good dancer. Oh, my word. Look at this guy. I mean, okay, I'm not too sure about this.

Oh, my word, yeah. At his disposal. As you said, he's wild. And he's a good dancer. Yeah, Laura Segal's like, that's a little bit too much. But, Luke, Paul Craig did tell us that this guy has infiltrated Ireland, right? I mean, I think what he said was he basically fucked his way through Scotland. So, God bless him. Once again, another man whose DM's probably very unlike mine.

Well, that was an interesting dance. How about Jalton Almeida's victory dance? Luke, you like this? It's a little tick-tocky there at the end, but, you know, that's fine. That's fine. I don't know what this dance is called, but I hate it. I just want to be very clear about that. Well, speaking of absolute shit luke misfits boxing happened over

the weekend oh my god we haven't even talked about that have we hey you know anthony taylor luke he took on salt poppy but he also took over the mic let's listen in you know i see you it's the disguise the way you treat me. Keep on on to your thoughts of rejection. Yo, DJ! Where is the Apollo hook when you need it? Yeah, we can end this now. Not only can that man MMA fightma fight and box he can also entertain luke he would knock out salt poppy as we continue to hear the reverb there we go there we go all right hey uh tommy

fury was ringside luke and um there was a fellow named idris virgo who also appeared on love island who who wanted to fight old Tommy Fury's you know what they did they fought Luke let's zoom in on this look at big John Fury getting balled with that goatee I just want to move to an island where electricity and no one else exists and then just live there look at all it uh it only got weirder when KSI in the main event took on Joe Fournier, that influencer guy. Remember when he boxed David Haye to a cringe ending? Yes, which, by the way, was like the worst boxing match of all time.

Because they were friends. They didn't want to throw. Well, Luke, let's zoom in here at how this fight actually ended for KSI. So he lands a big right. That actually looked pretty nice. And then he, by the way, just galloping into position. Another boxer would make him just absolutely pay for that. And then he just says, you know what, Muay Thai, bitch.

Luke, I don't think forearms are legal even in influencer boxing, but the referee scored this as a KO. Your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, this sport is a, I mean, this was not a great, a great weekend for the sport.

It was amazing. Like Davis Garcia was a, was a phenomenal weekend for the sport. This was a, this is not part of my sport. All right. Influencer. It technically is though.

It's the shittier end, but it does count as part of the sport. And the fact that they saw this on the replay and then didn't change it, uh, is just a fuck. I mean, the whole thing is a joke I get, but like they saw this on the replay and then didn't change it uh is just a fuck i mean the whole thing is a joke i get but like they did this guy dirty too i don't have nearly as much sympathy for him as i do for about also but yeah still well luke tommy fury and ksi then got in the ring afterwards and it looks like we've got a fight to build to are you moved by this dude ksi like where was this fight this fight was in london right yeah i think i mean i

it looked to me like he he pulls a huge crowd he's popular i get it but you know even then i'm still kind of amazed at the audiences he can pull dude i think in london that fight i hate to admit it i think it'd be huge yeah no look inevitably he's gonna box jake paul onto his own pay-per-view in england it'll be a big event like it really will be i don't care about it but they had some weird trash talk back and forth nobody cares look let's get cooking all right hey luke i found you a new cookbook this summer wanted to get your thoughts the anarchist cookbook close and luke uh yeah you don't have to dig too deep into that to find the first side dish they call it what do they call that a cock cootery board let's see this charcuterie you mean oh i think

it's supposed to be charcuterie but this is now a cock cootery board your thoughts luke i'd eat it well with jose jose jose where did they put at the bell end they put the nuts at the bell end they gotta put the nuts at the back end and then put the queso at the front end yeah you're right they screwed that up the balls need to hold the nuts yeah there you go there you go uh luke what we need you to do to get into good summer season shape is put the vape down and if you won't to me, maybe you'll listen to one of our heroes. I told you this on Saturday. It's true. I just did.

I haven't even had my first workout yet. I have hired a personal trainer. Yes. I hired a personal trainer Saturday. It's true. I just did. I haven't even had my first workout yet. I have hired a personal trainer. Yes. I hired a personal trainer. Dude, get serious. Listen to Jacko. Get serious, dude. 2016, I was fairly muscular.

I was doing pretty well, and everything has gone to shit since then. Yeah. And I realized that, and I don't think without outside help I can fix it. So I have hired some outside help. We'll see how it goes. Well, look, you know who got into great shape and keeps winning big fights and is now the happiest man on the planet i don't know mike perry let's look in on this yeah i would love to see your and you and your family put something like this out on your instagram look at this guy just enjoying life

dude i gotta tell you i kind of love this for mike perry if i can be too yeah well this part not so much i mean just putting his ass right in the camera. But the kid looks like he's happy. Dude, I said it before. Life is hard as shit. No matter what age you are, it's hard as fuck. And if you could, he's only doing this because he's happy. You know what I'm saying?

Like, he's only willing to put himself in these positions because he is so happy with his family. He doesn't care anymore. God bless Mike Perry for that. That's Ocean's daddy right there. And did you see Coach Latorre in the background? She's very happy. They have a second child that came, a daughter. So shout out to the Perrys there.

All right, Luke, also in boxing this week. You know our guy Janabek? We don't talk about him much. He's one of the middleweight title holders. Watch this uppercut sequence he did on the top rank espn card to uh knock out stephen butler in round two we go full screen on this this was and then there's the double leg to the body oh at angles to no less oh that was sweet he he is uh his last name is um i'm not going to pronounce it, Luke, but he calls himself Kazakh style, and we never talk about him,

but much respect. He thinks he's the most avoided middleweight. We know that division is largely devoid at the moment, but he's making waves just the same. I saw people, I was going to say, I was on a train when this fight happened, so I could only watch on my phone on YouTube TV what was happening on Showtime.

So I saw people tweeting about it, but I hadn't had a chance to pay attention. It's good. happened so I could only watch on my phone on YouTube TV what was happening on Showtime so I saw people tweeting about it but I hadn't had a chance to pay attention it's good also on that undercard Gabriel Flores uh eats a hook here to deliver a bigger one check out this sequence damn you know he doesn't move his head he throws and then doesn't enter like he goes to the body he gets it gets parried then he comes up to the top doesn't set it up and then doesn't move look he doesn't move he doesn't throw the hook and then roll or throw the hook and then step back he just kind of stays there and by the way they also tell you just never lead with a left hook for a right-handed fighter for a lot of reasons this being one of them yeah that was a pull-to-counter you just don't normally don't see the guy eat the punch flush luke right unless it's

yeah well there's less there's less pulling going on there. He's more just a counter too. Yeah, I'm with you on that, Luke. Let's go over to England here. Here's a guy named Aloys Jr. He delivered arguably the KO of the week against some other dude named Groik. Oh, good God. From hell.

He just walked into the... Oh, my man is Left hook from hell. From hell. He just walked into the... Oh, my man has taken a nap already. Jesus. Indeed. Luke, let's go over to this boxing match. In between fights, they had a singer jump in the ring to entertain, and then this heckler jumped on the apron. Turns out the singer can bang, dude.

Dude, you know what? Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, bitch. Enjoy that fucking tables, ladders, and chairs match, you fat asshole. Luke, we love hockey fights, especially when the goalies get involved. Look at this finish. Is this somewhere in Finland, or is this? Oh, shit! Manic, we got to go full screen on these.

The people need to see this. Dude, he jabbed him up. He jabbed him up and then finished him off with the right hand. Nice. And as he faded over. Boy, that is sick. All right, let's go to the karaoke table you do have to be careful luke after you put in your request and start saying in and then you jump up it looks like there's nothing let me as a guy who has worked in bars let me tell you there's

nothing white women love more than standing on tables. I don't know what that is. I don't know why that is, but they love it and they do it any chance they get. Does that look like a poor man's at Zuck right there in the front in the white t-shirt? Um, I don't know. I don't know. Zuck is like the poor man's version of this guy, actually, if anything. All right.

Here we go. Luke, this is you when the edibles finally kick in. Dude, I had one the other day. I told you guys about this. I misjudged the dosage, and I had a nuclear blast of THC. Yeah. To the point where I was sweating profusely and holding onto my chair for dear life. Because, dude, I'm not kidding.

It must have been 600 or 700 milligrams. Like, I got absolutely. Yo, dude. You can talk to aliens at about 300 milligrams. Like, straight up. Full conversation. I mean, maybe it was closer to five. But still, it was enough to actually send me to another dimension i hated it it wasn't that

fun yikes all right let's go to the rugby pitch we got some fun highlights here here's your female hit of the week luke this is insane oh that's like that lady who was stopping the shoplifters at best buy yes indeed you look like steve atwater against christian akoya look at that bro you ever seen these rugby the female rugby players in person these are definitely the types of you're like and i don't want to stereotype i'm just saying what i've seen but uh these are the kind you see and you're like yeah they could definitely beat a few guys like there's definitely some dudes who would be yeah they're like in for a bruise in their college softball catchers luke you know the world needs those yeah dude college dude College softball catchers, Luke. The world needs those ladies. College softball

players, or I should say even high school football, excuse me, high school softball players because you get the kind that are just enormously overweight but they can just kind of lean into the and they can hit that fucking ball into the moon.

They can. Sometimes though, Luke, the fans run on the rugby field and then we need to you know we need to we need to protect these ladies from from these fans you know i mean to lay them the hell out oh nice move right there to avoid it right that's pretty good where is this but oh jesus somebody get burt kreischer off the field would you please i mean come on what was up with his fucking okay are we able to get a burt kreischer experience where he is appropriately clothed for the well you can get that experience in the octagon did you see his movie poster inside that's what i'm saying like even the post or whatever was it was i guess it was in the every um in between the panels or every

kind of stanchion for the for the octagon there was a one of he was shirtless in the fucking ad yeah and it's like dude i don't i don't i'm not getting much out of this experience chest hair and sweat that's about just just just put a shirt on guy yeah luke i always say you know i'm really bad at fixing things i always wish i had a third hand right because you know to help hold it and frame it and hold the nail while I hammer. Oh, that's a good workaround. Dude, does this man have a python, a reticulating python for a hog? I mean, that is ridiculous.

Stop. Hammer time. Yes. Dude, this man, I got to be honest, this man's penis is a prehensile tail i mean it's just unbelievable do you know what a prehensile tail is i know but i'd love to those are the ones like you ever seen those monkeys who have a tail that can wrap and then they can hang themselves like they can hold themselves from the branch with the tail yes yes yes this man's cock is a prehensile tail it's just unbelievable you said the C word. Let's go to the concert scene here.

See what develops here, Luke. Well, I mean, you can tell how this is going to go. Yeah, I don't think that's a cannibal corpse right there. Yeah, I mean, I just look at who's in there and you can, you know, I don't need, I don't need. There's people who are hearing this on the audio platform. I'm not going to say who's dancing, but you know who's dancing when it turns poorly for the gentleman involved. Looks like Ian Machado Gary doing that backflip off the stage, right? Yeah, the guy who did the flip is reasonably, no, I won't say reasonably anything.

You know, I'll just say it's not much of a surprise. Yeah. Let's go to the amateur wrestling, Matt. Luke, tell me, Wow, look at that. Tell me if this move is legal. Seriously, this is like a pro wrestling move. Oh, that's legal. That's a standing Seonagi.

Oh, yeah, that's fully legal. It's just you don't normally see it with two biggins like that. When big country meets, you know, big sky over there, usually it's a little more, you know, pedestrian. But steps across, pulls him over. Yeah, that's called a drop saying, or actually, no, a drop when he go to his knees. This is a standing sayonara.

Yeah, that's sick. Let's go over to the state championship match. And look at this victory celebration. Check out this guy in the white. He's going to throw his coach lateral drop. Yeah, he's just lateral dropping people oh love it love it love it what state is this louisiana based on the shape of the logo back there could be yeah yeah yeah it looks like it where's where's uh where's where's coach cormier

yeah where's dc where's dustin where's dustin poirier yeah uh we got one more for you luke this this got physical oh dude yeah yeah i'm guessing i'm gonna do a bit here i'm gonna ask a question is the girl punching the other girl she lost the match right i think they're both boys but i don't know i don't know i don't know all right all right you know i'm all for it all right whatever dude that happened to me the other day there was a young person they must have been in they must have been like like 17 i don't know what the working age laws are anymore in america i guess you can work if you're five now but a very young person and i definitely called them a sir and thanking them for something. And my wife afterwards, like, I think that was a girl. And I'm like, I can't, I did not know. I cannot, in certain cases,

I cannot tell. Just say hi, Luke, and move on. Okay. Let's go to these gentlemen. Is that a tripod under this guy's robe, Luke? Or is he just happy to see us oh whoa what's this that's a bonus clip look at this yes sorry that was in there i missed it luke this is a different type of amateur wrestling move it's more of a pro wrestling i feel like if you get injured doing backyard wrestling the doctors are required to not treat you yeah yeah there you go face first on the concrete that's not good but let's go over tell me how the asphalt tastes yeah kobe yeah kobe all right uh luke what is happening here let's zoom in does that little guy have a have a uh again we just have we apparently have discovered videos of gentlemen whose genitalia are both comically enormous and yet quite handy.

Yeah, which hand do I shake? Look at that, sir. All right. Luke, sometimes you see guys that are so wild, you just want to know what's their story. Luke, what's this guy's story coming up here? I don't know, but I want to learn it immediately. First of all, I don't know what's in that keg, but he's carrying that thing with the strength of Brian Shaw,

and his balls are hanging out. Look in the middle there. He has air-conditioned jeans right there. That's great. And he's holding a Jack Daniels in the other hand. And by the way, look at him. He's walking like he knows exactly where he's going for what purpose dude this guy fucks that's what i do while he also eats flesh i'd say he's like that look i need a keg of beer to eat this person's body look like you know if i'm gonna did you ever

tried carrying a keg of beer they're fucking heavy as shit yeah they're heavy as f look or s too uh all right we got two more for you hey luke Luke, over in the UFL, right? How about Raja Jackson, son of Rampage, earns an amateur KO, and then afterwards, data was like, you can turn pro, son. Nice. You into the Raja Jackson's future here? I mean, here's the thing. With anyone's kid, it's like, you know, I'll take the wait-and-see approach. Yeah.

Our boy Big T tuna came up empty luke he he dislocated his finger and got submitted yeah i saw that broke my heart a little bit too shouts to big tuna you'll get them next time bro and finally luke you mentioned on the uh afore mentioned not yet published room service diaries that you had an issue trying to help your family move we found footage of that let's let's zoom in on this there's luke in the back trying to yeah let's uh somebody hit the brakes oh god dude dude this is so bad they've got the doors open and they've got the tray out and then everything falls out so not only do you have to repair the doors and then the the ladder so to speak, the ramp anyway.

Then you have to repack everything. Dude, this is an epic L. Not as bad. Well, actually, I should say worse than the one that I took. Yes. I mean, this guy died probably from this. So it's probably worse than the one you did. But that's the shit of the week.

If this happened to me where if I lived, I'd have toack everything i would rather just die you know what i'm saying you just light it all on fire including yourself and go out jonah vark style look that's what a real man would all right dude having helping people move like help here the reality is i moved a bunch as a kid and people always helped me so like when i helped my family member move i actually felt pretty good about it because i knew i owed the universe you know it wasn't that it's just that the people involved in the rental company i hated i hated all i hated all of them well you normally hate most people so it's you know statistically it would catch up with you luke but it happened all right that's all the shit i got what a show right what a show you know bc let's remind everyone

we forgot to do when we were talking about francis which i apologize but uh so francis is going All right, that's all the shit I got. What a show, right? What a show. BC, let's remind everyone, we forgot to do it when we were talking about Francis, which I apologize. So Francis is going to make this announcement tomorrow, we think at 1 p.m. I don't know exactly when I'm going live, but I will have some kind of pretty immediate reaction to it after the fact. Again, I don't know how long his announcement is going to be.

I don't know what he's going to say. But again at some point at its conclusion for me afterwards to be having a live kind of reaction to it um right here youtube.com slash morning combat so there you go all right and also mikey our great producer cbs sports um he asked another question there luke he goes if you want me to edit rSD, we can get it done for Thursday. Yeah, we might have it out for Thursday, the OG one. Sure. Either that one or Sunday. It all depends.

But we'll get that one done. And it was great catching up with a great coach, Luke and Ray Longo. We look forward to getting that RSD 2.0 on the streets pretty soon as well. Yes, that was a phenomenal conversation, and he brings it every time. And I learned a lot, actually. Sometimes I don't learn a whole lot. But talking into not every conversation can be the most fruitful. I found

this one to be very fruitful so I really enjoyed it. Shout out to Ray Longo. Great guy. Okay BC. Reminder of course Showtime.com is the label that pays 30 days free if you want. You can keep it. If not you can pound sand and then of course if that's not for you that's your loss but just the same you can go to morningcombat.store

for some merch, BC's hat, the whole nine yards there. And yes, so be on the lookout tomorrow for a live reaction to Francis, and we'll go from there. BC, any final thoughts as we wind down today's show? I'm a man, luke of many hats you look like the street vendors in cartagena who do this bit yeah and i would also go third world on your ass like they would at any point luke you better understand that about me all right i'm a rabid animal you don't you don't want to mess with me at the end of the day all right it's all fun games up front, but you put BC in a corner,

you find out. Why do they have to be third world, BC? Because that's where people who come from fight the hardest, Luke, and I respect that. That is Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks, by the way, to O'Reil, who did a pretty good job

over the weekend. For a guy with such outwardly low testosterone, it was great working with him, you know? Dude, he's 21 and balding, but other than that, he's a great guy, you know? Yeah, great guy. Thanks to everyone from the Malka side who was there for the weekend and, of course, here today. We appreciate that as well.

Thanks to CBS Sports. Mikey Morms is back as well. We're out of here. So, for Brian Campbell, I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks to all who are watching. I'll see you guys tomorrow after Francis's announcement. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.