MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jake Paul-Conor McGregor | UFC 256 Post Fight Comments | Romero vs. Rumble? | Ep. 95

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

MK is back as the boys discuss Jake Paul calling out Conor McGregor and his run-in with Dillon Danis yesterday (7:00). Next up the guys discuss the post-fight comments from both Deiveson Figueiredo and Tony Ferguson including Figueiredo saying that he went to the hospital 2 times before UF 256 (22:22). Yoel Romero had some interesting comments about a potential Anthony Johnson fight (30:30). Luke and Brian also preview Kayla Harrison's battle with Jozette Cotton (41:27) and the 2020 Boxing HOF inductees, including Floyd Mayweather (43:30). The guys close out the main topics with a debate on where Lennox Lewis belongs on the boxing Heavyweight GOAT discussion (48:!5). The boys close the show with Social Justice Wednesday (1:10:20) and Fan Submissions (1:21:15). --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. 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. side of the planet all the way out there on the left coast some say the best coast he's my friend and yours he's probably got bed bugs up the wazoo from the roach motels he's been staying in but you know what we love him just the same we'll fumigate him and hose him off when he gets back it's brian campbell hi brian luke i was asked not to comment negatively about this place but uh this is my breakfast for today okay so uh you do the math here, brother. All right, I'm here. I'm ready. I'm a little groggy and cantankerous,

but it was Luke the Great, Danish poet, Cal Mathisen, who once said, when you wake up, it's life that has won, a fistfight with your dreams. I'm shitting blood while eating bacon, so reality wins or so it seems, Luke, okay? For a second

there I was like, wow, is there a poet that I'm not aware of that BC really responds to? And then it's you just repeating the random utterances of a man who's probably got two dolls of us in his attic that he puts pins in every five days.

Put the lotion in the basket already so we can live, please. How is the card tomorrow for Ring City? Is it still COVID unobstructed? What are we looking at tomorrow night? It has held up well, and I do want to shout out the unbeaten charles conwell in that main event this is going to be a good test against an unbeaten kazakh fighter uh he goes by the name luke madiar ashkiev uh this is going to be a good main event we got a nice uh nice setup here women's title fight on there and luke they changed um covid doctors for this trip and uh your boy not only

had to get one he had to get another one, a rapid one, so that he could make it to the fighter interviews. Luke, you know I don't have a great pain tolerance, right? I mean, you might be able to guess that knowing my personality. I will say on a scale of one to 10 in pain, right? My three needle excursion was like a a four thousand i might go through that surgery again before i will get back to back uh covid tests by that uh menendez brother who gave it to me yesterday because luke they went so deep into my into my brain and were just scooping out chunks with no no regard for human life i i almost walked out, okay? I thought we were past the deep brain COVID test. We just did the swab at this point

inside of the nasal cavity. Now they're going into your brain? Two weeks ago, I had a nice swab. The lady, very gentle, walking me through it. This time, I had a plastic tip and just, you know, just the tip, though, just for about five seconds, just to see how much of your brain we can pull out.

So the good news is, Luke, I might pass this COVID test. The bad news is I'm also scarred for life. So we'll see what happens. All right. Very good. Well, we have a lot to get to here today on this Wednesday edition of the show. It's funny. There's a Canelo fight. We're not going to talk about it today, but it's like not a ton of buzz for it. But I'm not sure Canelo even cares at this point.

We'll talk about that on Friday. But for now, business got to get to it. First of all, if you want to try Showtime, you certainly can go to Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, well, I don't really care what you do with your life. If you want to get some of that MK merch, BC, and I got some today, you can go to store.show.com. coming I think pretty soon here so be on the lookout for that and yeah what am I forgetting BC as always in the

MK land we are giving you so much bonus content I'm not even talking about the extra stuff Luke is doing on his own channel to compete with us I'm talking about our bonus interviews you want to hear from Lennox Lewis you want to hear from Edgar Berlanga to explain not only his 16-fight first-round KO streak,

but this celebrity friend circle he's got, Luke. Tracy Morgan, Snoop Dogg, Fat Joe. It's a wild ride on that interview. Check it out. And a little teaser. We got a red-haired man that's going to be on Morning Combat later today, okay? It's not Ray Park. Would you say red-haired or maybe cinnamon?

Oh, wow. Yeah, we got a big ginge coming on, so you're not going to want to miss that. Big time UFC guest as well. So, Luke, we will keep pumping it as long as they will keep cleaning up the mess, I think. I'm just going to edit you out of it and put myself in it and then just

repost it on my personal channel. How do you feel about that? I can't wait one day I get a text from Luke. Hey, good news, I got a new co-host, and he's Canadian. We won't be needing you anymore. All right, yeah, great. Yeah, let me tell you something. I'd eat a mile of shit before I do that.

That ain't going to happen, buddy. Okay, well, let's get this started. BC, you know how I feel about the fight game For the most part And I try not to be the old dude who says get off my lawn I more or less decide that for the most part If there's things you don't like in the fight game Maybe that's okay

Not everybody has to like every part of it And everyone's going to have their own interests And everyone's going to have their own preferences In terms of the kinds of things that they gravitate to I went over this with you When we talked about Jake Paul, Nate Robinson, which was on the undercard. I think it was maybe in the co-main to the Tyson and Roy Jones Jr.

exhibition. It wasn't for me. There were some funny moments of the knockout and the way people sort of memed it out, but in general, not my favorite thing. And then Logan Paul, we talked about it, having this exhibition with Mayweather, blah, blah, blah. I would like to not talk about the Pauls, but at this point, it's just not possible. Let Brendan handle it, Luke.

Please, let Brendan handle it. So let's set this up. So yesterday, on social media, I have them muted, but I kept seeing people retweeting it in my mentions with the URL kind of empty. And I see that Jake Paul was in the back of a car. He has a camera, either crew or buddy with him. And they drive by a place that is very familiar to you and me, at least by name. They drive by the Malka Studios in Los Angeles, California. Yeah, Malka West, out there in Santa Monica, yeah. Santa Monica, yeah.

I've been there one time. Why is that relevant? Well, Malka makes this show. They make Food Truck Diaries, they make Below the Belt, they do a lot of things. All the smoke. Yeah, all the smoke, big show. All the smoke, yeah, yeah, yeah, they do all the smoke. I mean, they do a lot of different shows.

And you see it here. He drives by and calls Dylan Dennis, Conor McGregor's bitch, several P-words, and then begs his driver to get away before anything bad could happen to him, which is all too priceless. But it must have been that Dylan Dennis was doing a food truck diaries with Brendan, is my only guess, and that this ended up happening. Okay. So then Jake Paul. It was big brown and big yellow stain hanging out look it was fantastic so so then Jake Paul puts out a I want to fight

Conor McGregor thing 50 million blah blah blah it's like dude how did we get here Brian how did we get to a place where these two bozos and I looked up why at least logan is popular he was a vine star like uh lele pons which you know the unfunniest people on earth and it turned into sort of a youtube thing and he hosts a podcast that is i'm guessing the audience there are you know what would you call them people who had classes down by the boiler room in high school that's sort of the demo but whatever the case they have turned it into a large enough audience at this point and here they are wall to wall on boxing sites on mma sites we're starting our effing show talking about them what happened bc uh wow and you're right because when we put out the you know the teasers of the topics we would be talking about this week

when the Morning Combat Show first got the link was posted on YouTube, we already got barraged with, are you guys serious? It's Canelo Fight Week, there's a big USC show, and you're talking about the damn Pauls. Because they've completely, you know, taken over. They've made their move. They may have the sensibility of a man living in a van down by the river, Luke, but they understand today's culture. And they are really trying to be this role of full-on professional troll. Only now they're going after our own war combat heroes. And it's working. It's working, Luke, because whether you want to throw up or not, your follow-up response is typically,

all right, F this. I need to see this kid get knocked out. And that's what they're going for. It's working. But if you want to know how we specifically got here, Luke, this smells like an inside job, okay? Big Brown has Logan Paul on his show this past week, which doing big ratings, fun interview, getting ready for the Floyd fight. And he mentions in there how he's boys with the Pauls and all that, and thick boy society or whatever you want to go with that. And then, Luke, suddenly, Jake just happens to be knowing that Dylan Danis is there. I smell an inside job, all right? Despite the fact that he is one of our Showtime brethren,

you love taking passive-aggressive shots at Brendan. Have you noticed that? Come on. If brothers from the same mother who cashes their paychecks can't sling at each other, who can, Luke? Okay? That's a fair point. It raises a couple of questions.

It doesn't beg the question because that's not what beg the question means, which we had a debate about. But it does raise, I think, two really interesting questions from EBC. First, if they even tried something like this in any other sport, it would fall flat on its face. I mean, it would be not merely a circus it would be it would be almost bizarre right it'd be like these trump lawsuits that keep getting thrown out and the judges look at them like you haven't presented any evidence

what what the fuck are you talking about they just chuck them out of court it'd be sort of like that it'd be this weird moment where it's like what you're gonna challenge i don't know mark ingram to be the second best running back for the Baltimore Ravens? Like, just get the fuck out of here. Like, what are you talking about? And yet in MMA and in boxing, there are ways to make this work, which tells you, right, that the barriers to entry are pretty low. But BC, it doesn't tell you that any old Tom, Dick, and Harry could do it.

The other thing that it raises to me is why is it working in combat sports? Two reasons I think. I wonder what you make of it. One, they don't know how to fight. They're not fighters, but they are popular. And popularity is something that the fight game always craves one direction or the other. They've got that in spades. Check.

Two, what they've got is an understanding that the internet culture, especially the one of their age, it's just troll culture. The two are completely the same. They're synonymous. There's no such thing as internet culture for them without trolling. And they have, to a degree, I don't know if you want to call it mastered, but I'll give them credit, it is certainly quite effective what they're doing and so it's just this combination of the the rise and absolute solidification of troll culture as internet popularity and the use of that popularity for a particular set of ends it's sad that the fight game is this open to it but if it tells you that it's this open to it

it will always be this open to it look there's always tells you that it's this open to it, it will always be this open to it. Look, there's always been a low barrier to entry in this sport, okay? And I'm not going to lie. Have I benefited from that on a journalistic side? Maybe. I mean, it's a niche sport with no organization, and it's largely the wild, wild west. Now, I'm talking about boxing, but I'm talking about combat sports as a whole. So while that offers you an opportunity to be in a televised card with maybe not the same level of experience and paths that it took to get there in team sports, it also allows you to jump fences to make things happen.

I mean, a professional troll like Charlie Z, Charlie Zelenoff, remember that crazy guy who would go and challenge? I mean, he got Deontay Wilder to show up at a gym and fight it. I mean, it's just bizarre. This is the same thing, only the Paul brothers have this giant following, and they are trying to create an endgame in which they cash in. And I know you said they aren't fighters, and they certainly aren't boxers, even though they take it seriously.

They do have the amateur wrestling background, and I'm not saying that as a... Stop. Stop. Hold on. He got fifth in high school. Hold on. I'm not saying that to justify anything I'm saying. In their minds, Luke,

they believe that they could probably handle themselves to a certain degree, so it's okay to call out certain people. I don't know. This was next level. This Conor McGregor call out. I mean, they called D Devlin a four Luke. You could, he could dismiss this and not care, but these guys are super, super popular right now. And the other brother's going to fight Floyd. So if you want to

have a shot in hell at getting Conor to take you seriously and get you noticed, um, calling him out and calling Dana out and calling them pussies. It's, it's the right path. It's where we are in 2020, unfortunately, Luke. Dana's answer was the best one. He's like, I'll send Amanda Nunes to go beat their ass. You want to get me to watch the Paul brothers fight? Have them fight Amanda Nunes. I hope this ends in Logan versus Rogan in a jiu-jitsu grappling match on a UFC pay-per-view card with James Toney as the referee.

I mean, I don't know. It's gross. It's weird. It's where we are. It's leading off the damn show. Not because we're chasing clicks, because it's one of the more relevant stories right now. And it's combat news cycle in 2020.

And it's bizarre. Luke, does this lead do anything, though, with Conor McGregor? Does it? I mean, if he wants to cash in, mean i'll just say this dude if he wants to honestly at this point if you are a celebrity fighter and there's not many of them like you know could gerald meerschaar do it probably not but uh even then there'd be a role for him but you know if you're an a-side in combat sports not just mma boxing too And you want to make dumb money, provided there's an opportunity, by doing exhibitions. Honestly, what is the difference between that and what Tyson Fury did for WWE, right?

Isn't that some kind of a semi-exhibition sort of athletic acting performance? I mean, they're not totally divorced from one another. And so in that sense, if you're an a listener out there i mean i can't speak for connor who the hell knows what he wants at this point but if he does who's to say no especially if you can get fucking rich or richer anyway doing it if he like let's talk if connor fights manny pacquiao at the end of next year which by the way is very much in play for a boxing celebrity match they have the same management it seems seems like Dana White isn't getting in the way, blah, blah, blah. Conor's probably going to get knocked out, whether it's out of exhaustion or just the fact that Pacquiao still has it as he's approaching

42. Why not make similar money and light it up with the youth by going in there and knocking out 190-pound Jake Paul, who has been boxing for like three hours, right? Right, Luke? Yeah, let me just make one claim about the fighting ability here. I'll take them seriously as fighters when they do something worth taking seriously. Now, in terms of their ability to generate revenue, you better take it seriously. And I said this before, BC, and I think you would agree. I'm not saying that they're Kimbo Slice, who was literally bare-knuckling people in boat yards and shit. But in terms

of what the popularity of what YouTube can bring, you can't dismiss it either. Those guys are some of the biggest stars on YouTube. So if they're careful about their selection of opponents, this thing ain't going away anytime soon. And if you can rope in

A-list combat sports stars to be your dance partner and all this, this is going to go on probably for a while. And I don't respect it in the sense that I'm a consumer, but I respect that it's a real hustle and there's a real major upside to it for the particular players involved. Fair enough. I recognize all of that. But you want me to take you seriously as a fighter? Then you've got to do something. These guys are above average for the average person on the street, right?

That's the only real lesson we can take from all of this. They got a little bit more than that. And, you know, listen, I'm sure wrestling in the state of Ohio is quite difficult. But your best placing being fifth doesn't mean shit to me about any kind of real athletic credentials for professional MMA. So I don't dismiss it. But I've seen, you know, I've seen guys a lot better than that get their ass handed to them professional MMA. So I don't dismiss it, but I've seen, you know, I've seen guys a lot better than that, get their ass handed to them in MMA. They are, they are low level, uh, combat sports stunt performers. That is basically what they are. And until they want to be anything

more than that, that's all they'll ever be. I'll be it BC very, very successful ones and doing that kind of thing. All right. right, two points real quick. One, your comment about Kimbo Slice fighting on the docks. Somebody like Vice needs to come out already and just make a documentary on the Kimbo Shung Ganon fight in that Miami warehouse, please, before all those people end up dead or in jail who witnessed it. Can we just get that out there? Number two, it is SJW.

It is a No J Wednesday, and it's Social Justice Wednesday. Do you give Jake any credit for the trash talk sling that he threw at Conor, calling Poirier Dustin Prober, calling Dana a bald bitch? When you say credit, what do you mean? Dee Devlin's a four. I mean, does he have any— If you stop saying that for crying out loud, someone's going to make a deep fake of you, send it to Conor, and you're going to get bus driver uppercutted the next time that there's a COVID vaccine.

Will you knock that off, please? Just please, just send me location, please. Luke, do you give him any credit? Because it was cringeworthy. It was pretty damn cringeworthy to see that video, but he went for it. He was swinging for the fences, Luke. Nothing? No credit?

See, it was funny, and they put this on the graphic for Monday's episode, and they always say this dumb shit, and it always makes me chuckle. People are like, oh, Luke hates fun. No, fun is subjective. I hate not you, BC, but the proverbial you out there. I hate your dumb version of it. Right? So, do I give him credit?

Well, I'll give him credit in the sense that if it ends up working as a way to make himself more money, where he totally embarrasses himself and looks like a jackass, but in the end collects an enormous check, which was his whole objective to begin with, then I will certainly acknowledge that the gimmick worked. Am I a consumer of this shit? No, BC, because when people tell me I hate fun, I'm like, well, really? Do you like reading books? How about read my books? Because those are really fun to me. I have a good time. Come do snatches with me in the front yard.

Let's do some cleaning jerks in the front yard because that to me is fun. You would hate that, but that doesn't make it not fun or fun. It just means it's fun for you. So, you know, am I a consumer of low-level shitheads saying stupid things? No, I am not, but I will acknowledge it if it works.

And D is way sneakier than four. Come on. BC, you're going to get us killed. No, I am not. But I will acknowledge it if it works. And D is way sneakier than four. Come on. BC, you're going to get us killed. You've got to stop. You're going to get us stabbed and they'd be right for doing it. You know what I'm saying? I know you're feeling lonesome in that fucking Howard Johnson

you're in. Are you actually in a van with a green screen behind you, and they're putting in a sad hotel room because it's somewhat less sad than actually being in a minivan? Do these look like child molester van curtains to you, Luke? I mean, come on. Yeah, all right. Why do I hear an ice cream truck sound constantly in the background?

I can't quite figure it out. I'll just sit here with my bag of Wave Ocean. Keep going. All right. Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, with that being said, we'll see how this goes.

I'm warning people. This is why I've sort of made peace with it a little bit. Like, I don't like it, but I just can't lose sleep anymore over it. It ain't going away. The last thing I'll say is I'll give Jake a little bit of credit on this. Dylan Danis, if you ever met him in person he's like real soft spoken and he doesn't have like when Connor comes out

he comes out like you know he's peacocking and the whole bit he's got this grandiose larger than life personality Dylan Dennis doesn't have any of that but online he does so you can tell he's got this sort of like delusions of grandeur. You know, he has a sort of sense about himself that he really wants to entertain by borrowing basically Conor's stick.

But he ain't Conor. So someone chucking water balloons at him who's obviously not even close to being the combative athlete that he is. I mean, Dylan Dennis really is quite good, obviously, from jiu-jitsu. And we'll see what he does in MMA. But he's a real combat athlete. Someone that self-serious and that over-the-top, someone just treating him like absolute dirt, that is, if you're going to have a gimmick, BC,

that ain't the worst one to have. I'll say that. Do you think that Dylan Dennis is basically the Paul brothers, but he can also tap people out? I mean, it was a little bit of a Spider-Man meme here. I don't think he's as charismatic as them. That's true. That is true. Yeah, just he's got quick fingers, though.

All right, Luke, let's get out. Can we get away from this absolute bullshit? All right, Luke, please. PC, what do you make of the news? And I'm going to read this to you here. Point number two. The Devison Figueredo, prior to UFC 256, two times was hospitalized.

Apparently, he had stomach issues on Friday when he rehydrated with liquids and soup, and the manager described it as 30 hours of nightmare. He almost pulled out of the fight after going to the hospital on Friday from 2.30 to 6 p.m., and then Saturday morning at 2.30 in the morning. On the one hand, BC, you got to say, wow, he really gutted it out, man. He made it work. On the other hand, it's like, yeah yeah maybe that weight cut and the concerns we had around it maybe those are real yeah look it we you know we had this time we discussed this briefly on monday the whole idea of like him making this way i mean look at his body when he walked in the cage luke i mean there's not even a uh a sea hair of a fat on I mean, he is at the absolute,

like, you know, peak physical performance. How taxing is it just to do that in general, three weeks apart and, you know, every couple of months, uh, we're not going to know. We're not going to know until, until we see him fall apart. But it was equally like, holy shit, this is a badass to hear these, this, this happened manager, how do you say it, Walid Ismail? Is that his manager? I think that's what I said all these years, but now I'm being told it's Valid Ismail, so I don't know. So Valid was a good interview with Ariel Hawani where they broke this down.

I mean, that's insane. Two hospital visits in the 24-hour period before, throwing up, can't keep anything down, and he not only comes out, Luke, and goes five rounds, but goes five rounds at a freaking hellacious pace in which he was throwing knockout type blows every single strike, which we've seen exhaust so many people in three round fights. Yeah, you have to think both things at the same time. One, that this is awful for him physically and literally how much longer can he do this? And two, he's better than we even thought, Luke. I mean, this is awful for him physically and literally how much longer can he do this?

And two, he's better than we even thought, Luke. I mean, this is his year, 2020. Anyone that thinks this draw somehow mutes him deserving fighter of the year is insane. This is a victory. This draw was a victory, all things considered, not to mention that he probably won it. Let me take a dead wrong on myself right now. I incorrectly read you that whole scorecard fiasco on Monday. The guy who scored the final round for Moreno incorrectly, the third judge, if he hadn't have done that, Figueiredo would have won the fight because Figueiredo was the only one to win that of the three scorecards. I thought it was Moreno. I had it mixed up. So he basically kind of got screwed in a weird way. Plus you add in the point deduction, which I'm not saying is undeserving, but he won that fight more or less. He'll come away with a draw. He's a badass, Luke. Not just

what he did with these four fights in 2020, but he's so much better on a pound for pound level than I ever imagined he could be. I updated my list of top 10 for whatever it's worth on CBS Sports this week, Luke. I haven't met number four. Number five, I think he's the fourth best fighter in the world right now. That's insane. He just showed us in a 24-hour period exactly what he is made of. And to your point, I do not know how much longer he can keep doing this because the body won't last. We've seen many guys through the years have these short seasons of where they're killing themselves to make weight and they're producing, but then there's a fall off. There's a fall off of multiple losses and multiple years

and injuries and illnesses. I hope we can throw it together right now, Luke, because he is riding a hell of a wave. Well, it also tells me that I don't know what he got paid on Saturday, but I have a general idea given what we know about UFC paydays for flyweight main eventers. And while I'm sure the paycheck was nice, you know, I don't, it's bigger than probably any paycheck I've ever received. It probably isn't enough. It probably is not for him and Moreno for that matter. So when you see what these guys go through just in the fight, you think, wow, man,

that's incredible. They really should get paid every dime they're worth. And then you hear stories like this. You're like, yeah, it's so much more than that. I mean, this was my concern about the three weeks. It's like, okay, you're already down. All you have to do is stay down. But staying down when you're that low, that is hard to do. And it's going to come with complications. Now, maybe there's more to the story, BC. Maybe he got food poisoning or maybe there was, you know, who the hell knows? It's not just as simple as the weight cut contributed to it. But, you know, more often than not there was, you know, who the hell knows? It's not just as simple as the weight cut contributed to it. But, you know, more often than not, BC, you know this.

Whenever someone has an incredible weight cut issue and they have trouble doing it again, it's usually not food poisoning or, you know, some kind of other random occurrence that got them there. So I'm going to say that the blame, if not squarely, predominantly falls on that. And it actually kind of worries me a little bit too, not just for his health. You mentioned, you know, this will all come crashing down if he doesn't move up eventually. I would actually agree with that a little bit. And actually, it'll be worse. Like usually there's a seminal event where you get hospitalized and the doctors tell you you have organ failure and then you can never go back to 125. I mean, could he make 125 in California given their weight cutting restrictions? I actually wonder about that.

Like, I don't even know if the flyweight main eventer and champion can headline or even compete in the state of California. We'll have to see about that. But the thing that it brings me to, BC, is, one, it does make you reconsider again the question of who is the best fighter this year. And for all the reasons that you raised, I totally agree. It's now him and it's not there was no real competition from kevin holland he's like an honorable mention given the

just he had a ridiculous run but it's not the same as the championship level that figueredo's been at but now there's just absolutely no question whatsoever but more than that the thing that makes me worried about him is and the division it's like you know the division had mighty mouse and people complained all the time that it wasn't enough but you at least had a figurehead that made you want to talk about flyweight and now you've got this guy in figueredo who everyone listen he's not going to shake up the pay-per-view market uh anytime soon but you at least have this figure at flyweight who is touchable we saw that with moreno but still pretty dominant given everything he did up until

that fight. And now it's like, well, what if he only has a couple fights left in this weight class and then he has to go? Now where are we? We're going to send Cody Garbrandt back down? It's just amazing to me that at 135, you just have this spillover of talent. They don't have enough room for all of their guys who are so good. and then there's this dramatic drop off into 125 which is still a good division don't misunderstand me but it doesn't hold a candle to 135 which may be the best division in all of mma so i just worry about flyaway they had us this big towering figure nearly got gutted they're building another one but he doesn't seem like he's built for the long haul here at 125 pounds bc no he doesn't uh lu Luke where would you have him pound for pound I don't

hear much of your talk about pound for pound where where do you think he fits in right now that's a great question so give me yours and I'll tell you if I so when you have what Jones or well we we have removed to be from our CBS rankings even though he didn't vacate the title because he said he was retiring you can argue you know when someone should come off in this situation so I've got John Jones barely holding on to number one over Israel Adesanya, number two. Kamaru Usman, number three. Four, Figueiredo. Five, Stipe.

Give me six to ten. Who else we got there, Luke? I know in the back end of ten, I've got Holloway, Gaethje, Peter Jan. Okay. And how do you define pound for pound? As in who is doing the best, like a stock report? Like who's doing the best right now? Well, you know, resume, I always look at it like this.

Resume gets you on the list in most cases, but what separates you from somebody else isn't as much of what you've accomplished, but what you look like right now. Do I believe in a mythical, you know, same weight class fight, everyone bringing their same strengths and weaknesses that you would beat the other guy? I probably wouldn't put him ahead of Stipe, but maybe the rest of them. Yeah. It's just slightly different than yours.

Yeah. I mean, he's up there for sure. No doubt about it. The guy is doing incredible things. I just worry about his health, and I worry about the division if he is no longer, not immediately, but, you know, he's got to be another year. I think I had Volkanovski at six, Luke. All the usual players, you'd assume, and that back in there.

All right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'd put him maybe just a little bit behind Stipe, but that's about it. Other than that, I think you're on the mark with that. All right, we'll have to see what happens. Next, Yoel Romero. He also did an interview with ESPN's Ari Holwani through a translator saying a bunch of things. Let's talk about the reasons why he got released first, BC.

So apparently, they wanted him to fight Derek Brunson or Uriah Hall, and he was like, no. So they said, okay, well, how about Johnny Walker at 205? Now, I don't know if it was those two and then him. I don't know what the order was or in which way the bouts were offered, but in general, he was offered those three, Johnny Walker at 205 and then Uriah Hall and Derek Brunson at 185. He eventually said no to all of them, and the reason why is because he wanted to be nearer to a title shot.

He thought those were all a step backwards. Yeah, look, he wanted a top three opponent at either division, which look, to be honest, that's a, that's a, that's a fair request. When you have that name, I know Dana is probably still holding it against him, his performance against Adesanya, but that's a fair request in my mind. And he said he was very surprised by the release. He did not see it coming. And anyway, they released him.

All right. Given what he has said, and again, we haven't heard the UFC side, but let's assume that what UL is saying is reasonably accurate. What do you make of it? Yeah, just this part of it was a little bit wild to me because I think he's shown you,

yeah, four straight losses or whatever, but nobody has had this type of run where it's like, fight he probably won but lost, fight he probably won but lost, missed weight but still won, you know, given the title shot he didn't deserve and then kind of punted and didn't show his best foot forward. With all that said, though, let's not forget, I'm a top three guy, but you can do it over either division. I'll dare to be great and move up to 205. And then to call back a third time if this went as he says, and we're basically like, begin pounding sand. You're out of here.

I don't get it, Luke. If it's as simple as he makes more money and has a shorter window because he's 43, 44 years old. And again, Dana still might be sore at him for coming out and trying to, you know, counterpunch and box out of Sanya from distance. Okay. I understand it, but I never understand this type of matchmaking. Why would you throw him Brunson or Hall? He's at a point in his career where in my eyes, it's either title fight fight that leads to a title fight or a fun old guy fight. This is the same thing they did with Anderson Silva, where it just doesn't make a lot of sense to throw him a fight that has no storyline and doesn't matter.

It's clear, Luke, that they did not see him in the same light I do as this celebrity older fighter who brings magic all the time. Yeah, he might miss weight. Yeah, he might have a fight that wasn't as exciting, but look at the pictures up now with him and Costa. Relive that thrill ride, okay? The fact that they came back to him and said goodbye. I got to believe it's money, but I don't know, Luke. You piss off the boss? We always say the quickest way to Dana's heart is by going out there and being a company man and taking a fight on short notice and fighting your balls off and chasing that bonus.

That's how Dana will love you forever. That's how Dana's putting Bonner in the Hall of Fame and all these other guys. You can also piss him off and never be the same, Luke, okay? You almost got there with your MMA Nation Twitter account that time back in 2011. You survived that shitstorm. But you can never be the same. Maybe it's part of that, Luke, because I don't understand at all how you're going to let this guy walk to your biggest competitor.

Well, I mean, here's probably how they're looking at it. I mean, there's one thing that you've got to give the UFC credit. Sometimes they'll let a guy go just because they don't want him anymore, and they'll have a bad relationship with him. Ryan Bader would be a good example of that, where he wasn't let go because he's a bad fighter. He was let go because they didn't like his style at times. I mean, he did have good knockouts, too, like the one against Lillard Latifi. But, you know, having spoken to some folks in the know about him, he just had a bad relationship with the matchmakers, and they were ready to just part ways with him.

But in general, when they let a guy go, more often than not, they have a good sense that they're not done, but for sure we already got the best of what he has to offer. I think releasing Benson Henderson when they did, that proved to be true. Same with Rory McDonald, I think, in general. I mean, Bellator got a little bit out of him, but he's already gone from that organization too, right? I mean, you can go back through the years. They've always had a pretty good sense of things. Now, are they right about it now? We'll see. My hunch is what they look at is they say he lost

Acosta, all the losses. 44 has had a bunch of problems missing weight. Yeah, will he have a little bit of magic in the Bellator cage? Probably. But the idea that his, you know, sunshiny days ahead of him, no chance. We got the best of you all. You can have what's left. You know, only time will tell whether that calculation is true. Plus...

I don't know, Luke. Him saying 205 to me changes that debate you just had. If he's offering himself up to be a B-side to a light heavyweight champion, that's business to me. I'm not saying he moves, he changes, you know, the bottom line to a great degree. No, casual fans don't know Romero. But how do you... I don't know.

You can use his old ass name and fun fighting style and at 205 as well that would seem to be enough to say yeah yeah yeah we got you we got you you'll be a great opponent for jan or reyes or whatever or my head he's currently at 205 or even if he could make 185 but let's just talk 205 at 205 do i think he could become the champion there i mean i think nemkov including against rumble i think nemkov beats any of those guys, but I don't know that. We'll have to see, and I think he could obviously be very competitive and very exciting, very fun. The question is for how much longer, and none of us know the answer to that. I'm just sort of pointing out Zufa, historically, man, I've seen this for a long time. They tend to have a real keen sense about not done, but the end of when their magic is relevant is not nearly

as far away as you might imagine. So if passes prologue, this will end up being seen in a different light. But for the time being, it also just goes to show BC, if you don't play ball and you have issues making weight and you're not like a true A-side, like they would never do this to like, you know, John Jones or something, right? At least not the current version of him. But if you at all are a little step down from that where you're popular,

but you're not like A-side and UFC popular and you have weight issues and you don't want to take fights across, you know, two different weight divisions, dude, they don't have time for that at all. They want people who say yes. They want people who are ready and they want you to be a part of the machine. And if you don't see yourself as part of that, those plans in the way that they see you as part of those plans, you'd be surprised who they might let go in the end.

You'd be surprised. Yeah. Hell of a comment special. Luke, what about the other comment he had to Ariel, meaning youel Romero, where he said, 90% chance I fight Rumble in my Bellator debut. Is that smart if you're, and look, we don't know if that's true. Again, we'll find out, right? But if you're Bellator and Scott Coker and you have these fun new chess pieces, and we already, just a few days ago, we're like, hey man, it's about time right now for a light heavyweight Grand Prix. Like, throw that shit together and stamp it right now.

Do you waste this matchup? I mean, you're going to get eyes on it. It's a tentpole event, whether Coker would put it on, you know, Showtime, CBS, or go the pay-per-view route or whatever. You waste this early? What do you do here? No chance. Not first. They're going to give Rumble Johnson

somebody who he's going to send into the land of wind and ghosts. Can they give him all the fat white guys that Bobby Lashley used to fight under the Bellator banner? Can we just have a one-night tournament? Can we do Diggstown here? Do you remember that dude who fought

who's your wrestling dude from AEW? Jake Hager. Remember he fought the dude? Yeah. The guy who was literally the butcher at Food Lion. They got him. He literally was the guy at the slaughterhouse who carries out the empty bones and just throws it away. Yeah.

And also he has his hazmat license. So he was able to drive the truck out of there, and he also does Uber on the side. So it was convenient, Luke, that he could show up that night. Yeah, can we get Rumble against those guys for a couple months, please? Please, Luke. Dude, that's who those guys are going to be fighting first. But once they get their wins and everyone's like, wow, don't let—

especially for Rumble, because UL, I mean, he's been not like super active recently, but he's been... What did he fight? February, right? Something like that. So, I mean, I could be... Don't dead wrong me. I'm not declaring to you that way.

I just think that might be the last time he fought, whenever it was the Adesanya fight. Or maybe January. I can't remember at this point. But, you know, not... Yeah, this calendar year. Yeah. Yeah, this calendar year. So, you know, Rumble's been off for a long time.

They're definitely going to soft-pedal him back. I mean, Scott Coker, we sort of laugh about it a little bit, but like, we laugh about it a lot. But I will give him credit. He actually believes in tune-up fights. Now, not every time, not all the time that you would normally see them in boxing, but it's a bit of a middle ground between the UFCs, like there's no such thing as a tune-up fight,

and then in boxing where there's constantly tune-up fights, you're going to get one here for Rumble and probably something pretty similar for UL. Dude, they might even do a Grand Prix. I mean, you've got enough names to do a light heavyweight Grand Prix. Plus, you know, the winner of that, Coker, I mean, he can declare it anyway, but after the Grand Prix, you could easily be like, hey, this is the best light heavyweight on earth.

Maybe that's not true, maybe it is, but you can at least have a credible case or a good argument to make it after that point you know and you could have had that argument after the heavyweight Strikeforce Grand Prix although it didn't go the way they wanted but it did produce a star out of nowhere in DC and I think you can make that argument with this featherweight Grand Prix so they're not doing too bad right now. Would you think about any of these guys for Fedor? I've talked to Coker about this off camera many times. Fedor is willing to fight again. You know I love throwing out, like, Anderson Silva and Fedor.

I mean, would you move for Romero and Fedor? What would you do with Fedor, Luke? You don't like the same type of gas station fights that I do, but what would you do with him? Is the dude at the Piggly Wiggly who is stocking the shelves, is he? I mean, you've got to give him a name. You've got to give him smaller names. I can't stop laughing about that joke. I'm sorry. I can't stop laughing. You're rock hard with emotion right now, yeah.

I have a moaner, a morning comment. Underrated one-liner from the great documentary there. This is such a stupid show that we do. It's the dumbest show. We should only talk about Jake Paul on this show.

That's how dumb we are, BC. We're the worst. I just teed you up on which old, smaller guy do you want Federer to fight. Maybe we should move on. Okay, yeah. Sorry, that was just the joke you had about the dude carrying the bones. I'm sorry. I couldn't stop laughing.

It's just too good. It's just too good. I'm going to skip this one. I'm just going to bring it up very quickly. Kayla Harrison back to action against Josette Cotton. She's going to be fighting for Titan FC I think tomorrow BC if memory serves certainly that or Friday and uh it's her second fight outside of PFL which I forgot to ask her like how come you can do this and a bunch of other PFL donks can't but I forgot so that's on me I'm guessing it's because of her manager. But in either case, any thoughts on Kayla Harrison fighting Josette Cotton?

Not really. I am interested. Luke, is this a featherweight fight? Because I'm interested to the idea of Kayla really trying to make this 145 thing happen, knowing that, you know, PFL can make a fake, you know, sort of create a division that's not there, 155, to suit you because you're a star. But if she keeps making 145, that's showing you, Luke, that the path to UFC is coming, correct? I don't think so. I think what she had told me was, at this point, I don't think she can get down there.

I thought she just fought in Invicta last month at 145 when she turned that chick into Carrie. Yeah, she did. When she bludgeoned that chick. Also, she fought Kayla, I didn't realize this, back at PFL 2018, and she lost via ground and pound in the third round. So I guess she's looking for a second helping, BC. Yeah, second helping of that cotton. Yeah, she's going to be picking it luke she's gonna

be on this uh look i like i like her doing this uh yeah i like kayla look she's an attraction okay i want to see her grow and and expand you know but what do you give her luke one more year in the pfl then we finally do it what do you get well with your terrible joke i'm just going to move along before we get into trouble. Let's get into where it actually gets a little bit interesting, BC. All right. So the Boxing Hall of Fame inductees for 2020 are Floyd Mayweather, Vladimir Klitschko, and Andre Ward. A little bit surprised James Toney didn't get in.

And I saw some writers moralizing about peds which just makes me lol because it's so fucking naive but okay that aside what do we make of these entries what do you make of the 2020 class such as it is you're a little bit dead wrong this is the class of 2021 so what happened was they never they named the class of 2020 uh which was star-studded by the way bernard hopkins juan manuel marquez, Shane Mosley. It's the first year women will be inducted. So it's Christy Martin, Lucia Riker. But they were unable to have that ceremony because of COVID.

So they pushed that off to 2021. There's going to be a double ceremony. But yes, this class, the voting actually mattered and was interesting this time, Luke. Because as you mentioned, not only did James Toney miss out, but Miguel Cotto missed out. And how the voting works is, you know, there are a set number of names in sort of the modern category that get in. So we knew one legend at least would be on the outside looking in. But look, there are some years there's been absolutely star-studded loaded classes. There's been some years just based on how the process works of, you know, you have to be retired for a certain amount of years that it hasn't been a star-studded loaded classes. It's been some years just based on how the process works of, you know, you have to be retired for a certain amount of years that it hasn't been a star-studded. Could

you get any better than Floyd Mayweather, Vladimir Klitschko, Laila Ali, Andre Ward, and Ann Wolfe as your headliners for 2021? I mean, that's insane. And it makes it easier to digest a great champion like Miguel Cotto sitting out or Tony, for you mentioned. I know they really hold that against him, but yeah, it's a little bit ridiculous. Just like anyone making comments, even related to Floyd, to be honest, and some of his, you know, obviously despicable actions outside the ring. Bill Detloff, a great longtime boxing writer, put out a tweet, Luke, that just showed a picture of open grass at a park and nobody there and said,

this would be the picture of the boxing hall of fame. If we left out everybody who has a shady past essentially for arrests and bad shit. So, uh, let's get past that argument as well. Um, this is great. This is absolutely great. I mean, this would be the year to go. Luke, I've never made the trip to Canastota. I've driven by the highway, you know, driving past Syracuse on the way out to, uh, buffalo and niagara falls but i never got off and went to the ceremony this would be the year to do it with both classes coming together and uh it's interesting that floyd and in klitschko who both won medals at the 96 games sort of had their careers end at the same time and they're going in together um i love it luke i love i love theded nature. Do you vote on this at all?

I used to. I used to be a member of the BWAA, but Luke, you know me. I'm not a big fraternity guy, right? Are you a member of the JMMA or whatever the fuck it is? No, no, no, no. What is dumber, the JMMA or the BWAA? They're both pretty dumb, Luke.

I've been in some BWAA meetings that would make you cringe, and that's why I'm not there anymore. But shout out to all these people that got in. Let me ask you about, would you have put James Toney in? I mean, he wildly deserves it. Yeah, he had sort of a shady-esque end to his career. He moved up to heavyweight, lost that fight that he was going to win a title because of steroids, and then obviously went the route of hanging on too long and fighting in the UFC.

But James Toney, you know, you talk about a pound-for-pound guy. Yeah, this is first ballot Hall of Fame stuff. So maybe we keep him off because of the steroids. But again, who's, you know, Spider-Man meme. What are we doing here? All right. What are we, what are we really doing here? Get this guy in that.

Yeah. If Cotto has to wait one year because the class is two stars studied. I get that. I mean, you're talking about Floyd and Klitschko, but I think Tony should have been in already. Luke, I think it's just two years now. He missed. Or who's the Argentines? Sergio Martinez, right?

Yes. He's still competing. So I don't know if he's eligible. Is Calzaghe in? I believe he's already in, yes. Yeah. Yeah, all right. I mean, I don't have much to say about it.

I mean, the names are, there's no one on the, they didn't induct anybody who was borderline, you know. By the way, whatever happened to the Laila Ali, Clarissa Shields thing, that just was a big thing for a while and then just died. Yeah, Clarissa's now trying to get Jake Paul in the ring. By the way, did you get down for those dancing videos with

Michelle Watterson and Holly Holm and Jon Jones and Clarissa Shields? I purposely did not look at them. Alright, well, yeah. It fell apart, but good to see the women get in as well. You know what I mean? These are the pillars. The Laila Ali's, Ann Wolfe's, Lucia Riker's.

Although these are the pillars of Christy Martin of what women's boxing was and is trying to be again. So all good. Good to see also. I lost my train of thought. F it, Luke. Whatever. I mean, look at. All right.

And then last, but well, a semi, not quite last, but pretty close to last. You interviewed Lennox Lewis. And the reason why you interviewed Lennox Lewis is there's a documentary coming out about him, and you had this part of the conversation, and it was interesting, your interview with him, which was, first of all, I did not know his name was Lennox, not Lennox, but Lennox.

Hold on, can we stay right there real quick, Luke? And I love Lennox Lewis, and I've been very open as I hated him throughout his whole career. I hated him in the aftermath. I hated the start of his announcing career. I've grown to know the guy, and God has his legacy aged like a fine wine. But, Luke, is that an us problem or a him problem if he's been in the public life for 30 to 40 years, and he's just now telling us we've been pronouncing his name wrong?

Luke. I mean, I don't know what to say about that. It's one of those things where, like, dude, once that's embedded, it's going to be very hard. I mean, if you're Bernard Hopkins, you can maybe change nicknames or something, you know, late in life like he did, but only the special few can do something like that.

And if it's a pronunciation issue, it just feels like even more of a problem. Yeah, I mean, you yeah i mean it also sounds weird luke you're the biggest ckb fan i've ever met and you don't say a decenia and i say well done on that okay yeah i mean if he i mean yeah i guess i should i i don't know i just don't but it's not like it's not like i yeah i don't know i don't know the proper way to pronounce it to be honest with you i mean a bunch of other donks trying out their hand at it doesn't tell me much. And you know what?

They sound lame. They sound real lame when they do it. Yeah, they do sound like nubbers. Okay. So with that in mind, the documentary comes out and basically sort of sneakily tries to argue, is this guy the best to ever do it? And the resume is pretty good, which is to say the following, BC. Number one, he more or less fought the best of his generation.

I think that's pretty clear. Number two, he does have two losses, but he avenged them both. And when he avenged them both, he did so in absolutely spectacular fashion. And you should listen to some of the names that he has. Of course, Razor Ruddock, Frank Bruno, Tommy Morrison, Ray Mercer. He's got Golota on there, Briggs, Holyfield. Both two, Rockman, the one that was one of his losses, and he won emphatically again,

Mike Tyson, and then even beating Vitaly Klitschko. Now, obviously, there are some names on there that we wish were and are not. However, BC, what do you make? First of all, what's the documentary called? And secondly, how sympathetic are you to this argument that he deserves consideration along the lines of not just the best maybe of his generation, but the best maybe ever? Yeah, this is a fun argument. So let's break this down.

And I believe we have sound. Should we be throwing to the sound now or not? Yeah, let's hear some of that, please. Sorry, I didn't set that up properly. Every person I face professionally. You are a man of many nations. Whoa, whoa. But I feel like for this whole idea of this false American narrative,

your resume since your retirement in 2004 and your legacy, it has aged, I don't know if you're a red wine guy, Lennox, but it has aged like a fine wine. Is that because you just got out of the way of it and I don't see you on TV debating I'm better than Tyson I'm better than Joe Lewis I'm better than Ali I just feel like you said I did it it's right there I beat every person I faced professionally what else do you want from me that's probably the best way to handle it in the end. Hey, I'm like fine wine. I get better in time.

That's the saying. And, you know, I've spoke it earlier. I've set the mark for others to follow or even to pass. So I don't really have to say too much. You know, good historians, people that know the sport, people that have good boxing IQ, look back and say, hey, he disposed of me quite easily. But nowadays, when you see fighters try and get rid of other fighters,

it's like it's taken them a long time. When I did it in a... All right, all right, Luke. Let me tell you what I think is interesting. They can turn that off so I don't have to hear the reverb. Thank you. Here's what's interesting to me and what makes his resume really incredible. As we noted, it's a little bit GSP-like, right?

Just the two losses and Avenged Them Both basically fought everyone that he more or less could. There's the bow fight that never happened, which I know you like to – I wonder what you make of that. But here's what stands out to me. BC, and obviously I do not know this material as well as you, but I was prepping for today, and I was going through his resume, and I was watching some old fights. What stands out is that he has some decisions on there.

The David Tua fight was a decision. The second fight with Holyfield was a decision. He lost the first one via split. But in the case of the Rockman fight... The first one was a draw, and they case of the rock fight luke the first one was a draw and they robbed him draw split draw excuse me i apologize um but the the the mccall fight and then the rockman fight he lost the first of those and then would come back and win them

emphatically in fact these are how he ended his last five fights or something ko dave dave excuse me decision david tua he did lose to Rockman, but then he KO'd Rockman in the fourth. He KO'd Tyson in the eighth, and then he ended his career by KOing Klitschko in the sixth. He also KO'd Michael Grant. He TKO'd Francois Botha. He TKO'd Shannon Briggs. He KO'd in the first round Andrew Golotta. Dude, he put the stamp on these guys. And many, many times, it was not very close. So those are, to me, the competing things. There's a fight or two that's missing. But when he had him, dude, he really stuck it to him. Yeah. So here's, let's break this down. So the documentary is called Lennox Lewis, The Untold Story. It was on Crackle. It's

now expanded streaming to pretty much everywhere so that's where the setup for the interview comes but i watched it and i gotta say look they got all the right footage so if you're just in it for the 90s nostalgic deep dive it is well worth your time to watch and it's got jim lampley it's got all the voices that you would want dr dre narrating it but where i was excited to see luke was look've done him wrong as American boxing fans. Like, I cannot stress enough. It's just the way where we were in the 90s. I hated the shit out of Lennox Lewis, okay?

He's a guy who had no country, right? He's Jamaican. He was born in England, but he grew up in Canada where he won a gold medal. And then he came back to England. He always was sort of the outsider. He had an effeminate voice. He wasn't a sort of the outsider. He had a effeminate voice. He wasn't a big trash talker and he either destroyed my American heroes or didn't end up fighting them.

And Luke, I mean, to tell you how much I hated Lennox Lewis, when I got into like the, when I got into like the boxing DVD trade game in the early two thousands, the first DVDs I went out there and bought was his knockout loss to McCall and his knockout loss to Rockman. Look, I hated the shit out of this guy. We did him so wrong that I not only wanted to have this discussion on the fact that his resume has just really aged so well, but this movie, I wanted to hear his side of the things. We've always heard a very American take on what made Lennox tick. Larry Merchant getting in his face in interviews and criticizing him after wins and all that. And I'm not saying Lennox is above criticism,

but I'm also saying what else would this guy have had to do for us to give him the respect? We missed it. I like that the documentary takes very sharp takes on things. I mean, they lambast Don King and call him a cheater, and they really just come out there and give you Lennox's take on some things. I mean, they lambast Don King and call him a cheater, and they really just come out there and give you Lennox's take on some things. And while the doc tries to make you believe he's got a case for the GOAT being the greatest of heavyweight of all time, I'm telling you when

you come out of there and you look back like you did, watch some tape, look at the resume, here's the deal. He operated in the second greatest era of heavyweight boxing of all time. The greatest was the 1970s with Prime Foreman, Ali, Frazier, Norton, whatever. The 90s were insane. Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Michael Moore, Evander Holyfield, I mean, on and on. I mean, the second tier guys that you had to beat like a Ray Mercer, go revisit Ray Mercer, Lennox Lewis from 1996. Good God, it was a war. Those second tier guys you had to beat would be champions today. Frank Bruno, those type of guys. Let's just say that. Here's what he did. He knocked out Mike Tyson, okay, late in their careers, but they finally made it happen. Riddick Bowe put the title in

the trash can, Luke, to avoid fighting him, right, at every turn turn even though Lennox knocked out Riddick Bowe in the 88 Olympics in the gold medal game so that showed it showed you who was the better fighter there he beat Holyfield twice first he got screwed on a draw second beat him again to to to unify and become the undisputed champion he knocked out all those other dunks you mentioned he even caught Vitaly Klitschko in a war in his last fight and although maybe there's the piece of criticism you want to give him that he never ran that fight back but he was old and he was on the way out and he knew it so he preserved his legacy for what it was two losses avenge them both by knockout and beat every single person the only other big name he

didn't fight was george foreman who very openly said a million times back then i don't want anything to do with this guy why because he's a six foot five power puncher who can also really box. So here's where the argument comes in in goat placement here, Luke. I've been ranking top 10 boxers in history in different forms for like a decade, right? Whether it's at ESPN or CBS, it always comes up. Who's your top 10 heavyweights? Like everybody else, it's like you either have Ali one or Joe Lewis one, or you have the other one at two. But Lennox always floats in that three, four, five, six area with like a, you know, all the names that are right there, like the George Foremans, the whatever. But when you think about this, Luke, is he no worse than three all time? And if you're not going to be the kind of guy who

compares eras and compares what he did even though he operated in such a filthy deep division in time and dominated how about this argument how about the argument on on their best night how about the argument on the mythical matchup in your head this is where i think lennox's legacy really takes the uh takes the cake here. And you match him up against any of those guys historically. Six foot five, knockout puncher and finisher with both hands, and he can really box under Pepe Correa and then Emmanuel Stewart. And yeah, he got starched twice,

although they kind of screwed him in the first one against Oliver McCall by just waving the fight off. He could also fight and take a punch when he had to. Tell me a fighter, tell me a heavyweight in history you're going to favor over him, Luke. I think that's the real juicy part of this argument. I would have loved to have seen a prime foreman, you know, given what he was capable of doing with not merely power punching, but, you know, he had somewhat underrated as a long fight tactician, which, you know, it was hilarious to say given the rope-a-dope strategy, but in general, there have been times, especially late in his career,

where he was able to really manufacture a longer strategy like that. That's one. Obviously, the Ali fight would be kind of interesting to note. I mean, here's the one for me, though, BC. Could I imagine him losing to either of those guys? Sure. Can you imagine them beating him twice? See, that's the part where you're like, no, I don't think I could.

In fact, in MMA, we go through this all the time. Can you imagine them beating him twice? See, that's the part where you're like, no, I don't think I could. In fact, in MMA, we go through this all the time. There's a trilogy. Typically, the one who wins the second one wins the third because it sort of accounts for potentially an error being there and why you have a third fight all the way to begin with. I have a hard time believing for all the reasons you laid out from his athletic skill to his boxing IQ to his athletic sort of size and prowess, I don't think I could imagine those guys beating him twice.

And so for those reasons, you say to yourself, well, shit, now where are we with this? So did he do enough relative to the Foremans and the Ali's in terms of the overall resume? People who know better than me can debate that but i will tell you based on what the tape shows for me from what i little i know i will i will just say i i don't know who you could point to in history and say that guy clearly no doubt about it could beat lennox twice i don't know who that is yeah and am i over correcting because of how badly we sort of shit on him? I mean, he said it in the interview. It's worth a watch, of course, where, you know, for years, even the American press was trying to question his sexuality

and just really trying to take any shots they could at him, Luke. Yet in the ring, God, he always backed it up. So he's probably never going to jump Ali on your list out of sentimentality and sort of everything Ali accomplished culturally and obviously always taking on the toughest challenges and finding ways to win. And maybe you don't jump Joe Lewis because of so much of the impact and the title defenses and all that, but he operated in as tough an era as you can have.

He emphatically finished people. And a lot of those in between title defense, I mean, he fought a prime dangerous David Tua and stayed out of trouble and, and use his jab and out pointed him. I mean, it's a great resume and he never stained it, Luke. The other problem is

they do have similar opponents, but Foreman fought him when he was in his 40s. Foreman lost to Evander. Foreman lost to Tony. Foreman lost to Tommy Morrison, I should say. He lost to Shannon Briggs. Lennox beat

all of them, but by the time he lost to Br Briggs well you know uh Lennox beat all of them but you know by the time he lost to Briggs big foreman was 48 years old so it's just it's not the same comparison so it's just it's just it's hard to compare but I will stick with my maybe you could beat him once but you couldn't beat him twice argument yeah I mean I mean he's maybe the perfect prototype well-rounded heavyweight it's like you know there's some elements of that in Anthony Joshua, but he probably doesn't have the chin or recuperative ability or really the mental bounce back. And that's a big thing, Luke, to get starched twice like Lennox did,

but then rebuild himself and come back as confidently, and in fact, come back better. That's where you don't see it, and that's maybe what separates him. Got all the tools, and he delivered. So shout out to Lennox Lewis. It's a fun chat in there with him. Luke, I did ask him, you know, look, Mike Tyson's back in his 50s. There's a lot of money to be made.

What about Lennox Lewis at 55? And his big quote was, you know, I've got unfinished business, but he wouldn't link to who. Luke, he's one of those guys that has done the thing that's hard to do. Walk away at a certain point when you're on top, retire with the title, and then never come back for money grabs or a loss that could stain whatever. If his unfinished business is Riddick Bowen and old guy fight,

please no, please no. We don't need that. But could you get into him and Tyson again? No. In this old guy thing we're doing? No, I'm not the consumer for that. Let me make two points up here, BC. I wonder what you make of them very quickly.

The first one is not controversial, which is sometimes you'll see an athlete whose life is so big they have to have a separate entry for all their athletic accomplishments and then for the rest of their life. You know, in Wikipedia, for example. So Muhammad Ali has just one entry for his life. Lennox Lewis, even in your interview, kind of alluded to the fact that he didn't want his life being bigger than his boxing. He wanted his boxing and his public life, anyway, to be the only life that you knew of. So it's going to be hard to compare the two there, I think, on those grounds.

But what do you make of my GSP comparison? Now, GSP was very much celebrated and adored in his time. For a lot of reasons, the comparison totally falls apart. But in the sense of now that we're rethinking his resume, we're thinking about where he falls. And you got him maybe three, maybe even a little bit higher than that, depending on how generous you want to be. He only lost twice. He fought the best of his generation. And the times that he did lose, just like GSP, he got his revenge and then some.

There are some parallels there, huh? Yeah, there really is. There really is. That is an apt comparison in many ways. And really, it's a professionalism and protection of what you've accomplished and built. You know, again, it's so easy in boxing to come back in all kinds of forms of shady comebacks that can only really hurt what you've done. It's so rare for a heavyweight champion to walk away with the title and be like,

I'm done and I'm fine with that. And again, I know, and it was part of my argument back then when I hated this guy, that I wanted him to rematch Vitaly Klitschko. I wanted him to fight Vlad at that point when he was, you know, pushing 40, meaning Lennox. But he decided to walk away. But the whole idea, Luke, about, about i mean the gsp comparison is certainly apt but the whole idea about these mythical matchups yeah ali would always be a tough fight for him but he's just so well-rounded that in any other sort of matchup i'm just going to favor that he

can box if he has to go be a power puncher if he needs to or be both i think the only wild card in this discussion because look as the generations go on, boxing's the only sport that people somehow get worse, right? Because we don't have a boxing gym on every corner like we did 40, 50 years ago where people just grew up with it. The ability of the top fighters, especially a heavyweight, seem to get worse as we go on into the modern time. Yet to offset that, Luke, we are in this super heavyweight era where, you know, Rocky Marciano at 5'11", 195 pounds just isn't going to match up with Anthony Joshua in your head, right? It just doesn't make any sense. It's two weight classes apart. That's where the Tyson Fury part of this debate comes in. Tyson Fury is the heavyweight of this era. He's great. I'm not saying he has an A++ chin where I like him in there against all the destroyers in history, but he's 6'9", he's quick, he knows how to box and use distance. That could be the wild card toughest matchup for Lennox Lewis in this mythical thing in our head, Luke.

No doubt about it. I was thinking about that too. Wilder, not so much. Joshua, even not so much because of the punching power of Lennox Lewis. But Tyson Fury, he's a handful. He's a complete handful for a lot of different reasons. 6'9". But even then, prime Lennox Lewis, you might like him to find a way. Again, you might beat him once. Could you do it twice? Yeah, I don't know about that. That's really one of those things that's going to be very, very hard to imagine, but we'll have to see what happens with it. In the end, the media always has its darlings, especially American ones, where Ali was, he was revered eventually, and he was a titan of the 20th century because he fought along the culture war lines, but he had this life that everyone kind of cared about.

And George Foreman was sort of like, what, America's dad, you know, with the Foreman girl? That was post-fighting to a large degree, but, you know, he was sort of um he captured the public's imagination Lennox Lewis was never that guy and that will impede the way in which you view what he did and now that some of those feelings are behind us yeah I think you can more soberly assess it and I think you're probably I think your hunch is probably a lot more correct than maybe um you know your initial reservations might give it i suspect that his level is very much undersold and hopefully that this documentary and some further consideration well you know you made the gsp comparison the modern equivalent sports to me is like kareem

abdul-jabbar like if kareem wasn't so hated luke he would probably be the the greatest player of all time on most people's lists along with you know Jordan and a rising LeBron but like we hated the shit out of unless you're a Lakers fan you hated the shit out of especially old Kareem with the goggles and then the bald bastard and yet that guy I mean what else would that guy have to do six uh NBA titles uh you know five or six MVP awards and it's kind of Lennox is kind of like that where once you get over that as you mentioned you can start to realize how great this guy was. I've always been a Bill Lambert fan. That's sort of my style of basketball.

You are the Bill Lambert of combat sports media. That is true. Maybe so. But I don't tear it out of people's ACLs and start enough elbow, the back of the head fights. Okay, last but not least on these topics we see, Mark Hunt is back and got jobbed. You see this fight?

Six rounds against some donk. I forget his name. And all the scoring online was like, oh, yeah, Hunt has this easily. And I don't think he did. I think Mark Hunt actually ended up losing. Did you watch any of the fight or any of the highlights, BC? I did.

So, Mark Hunt, so, look, this Australian boxing card, and, you know, when I used to have a dedicated weekly, multiple times a week, State of Combat boxing card, we would purposely overblow these, Luke, because these midweek Australian Super Bowl cards are just fun. And this fight card, I had a lot of our listeners here at MK from down under reaching out to me just being like, dude, you got to see this. This is your shit.

And Mark Hunt goes in there boxing a rugby player, Luke, and Mark Hunt's got some weird tattoo on titties at the moment. And he loses the decision. Did you see, Luke, the fake punch push that they had at the weigh-in to try to draw interest to it where Mark Hunt with a smile on his face?

I mean, that was a little bit weird. Maybe you deserve the L in this case if you're gonna get involved in this. But, Luke, I don't know if we have rights to this video, so we're not going to show it, but Timmy Zhu, son of the great Hall of Famer Kostya, who stopped Jeff Horn, was in the main event of this one. And I can't wait for Monday's Have You Seen This Shit because he sent that dude to hell in round one with a right hand.

I mean, he hit him and the body just exploded and went halfway across the ring so uh i don't know the quality of his opponent but i've told you already i am on the tim zoo train uh until i see him lose to an elite 154 i'm going to believe that he can be a player worldwide uh this is going to be a fun ride so uh shout out to him in the main event but uh that mark hunt thing looks sloppy i don't need it luke i don't need it in my life and the scores looked absurd which is putting it mildly they had him by the way i mean he nearly knocked him out but it was 58 56 58 56 then 59 55 meaning he won all but one round which is comical the other part about it is dude i mean how distinct is this from you know what you're you're seeing between Jake Paul and Nate Robinson?

I mean, in the case of these two, they are legitimate athletes, but they're long in the tooth. Gallin is a former rugby league player. And, you know, now they're sitting there boxing in, like, these number boxing events. And then he called out Robert Whitaker and it's like No. Just no. People will

watch. The low end of combat sports, people love it. Oh, they love it. They love it so much. What are you going to do? I'd like to see him fight that croc who took out Steve Irwin, right? Get revenge for the great nation of Australia, right? Alright, with that, we for the great nation of Australia, right?

All right. With that, we have our major topic out of the way. Good, sir. Oh, come on. You can't no-sell that joke. Come on. I'm going to no-sell all of your jokes today just to spite you. No, we got to move along. It's 12-12. Come on. All right. Hey, here's the segment we do every Wednesday sometimes, Luke. No J today, and it's SJW, the Honorable Luke Bader Ginsburg, sitting in with us, the judge, to look at the week that was in Twitter beefs, Luke. And we will come back into all things Paul Bross, as Jake Paul not only trolled Conor McGregor and Dylan Dannis in weird videos that we showed to open.

He's now drawing Nate Diaz into it. So this was the Jake Paul video we talked about earlier where he called. Yeah, he said a lot of weird things and he went after it. In response to this, though, what is Nate Diaz doing caring about this? Can we put up that tweet? No. Out of pocket, Lukeke with a fist and then he went on to tweet jake paul you need your ass beat for free you spoiled f you can't really fight dumb shit you're gonna end up with your ass whooped

for real somewhere talking like that luke i know that you're not on the screen for reasons that i can't possibly comprehend you You got double Luke there. Can you hear me? Oh, I can hear you. I can hear you. You're just nowhere to be seen. Yeah, it's not a big deal. You're like Jeffrey Toobin.

You can start masturbating. Luke, my point is this. Jake Paul responded with, you saw what happened to the other Nate, meaning Nate Robinson. Luke, I know the Diaz brothers live in this alternate universe of, you know, 209 and slapping shit, and I'm not surprised MF-er. So, like, in some ways, they're not above this. But shouldn't they be cooler than this to get involved with these guys?

What is Nate Diaz doing trying to lure Jake Paul into something? That's what I mean, dude. In MMA fighters in general, you know, it's not just about Nate, but it's like so common across the board. They operate on, like, they don't have a dignity culture. They have an honor culture. And, like, what's the difference, right? This is real.

Like, a dignity culture, like, it doesn't matter what you say. I retain my dignity. But in an honor culture, if somebody insults you or says something insulting, they can take it from you, which means you have to go get it back. But dude, that's like, you know, I'll see you on the OK Corral at noon and we'll draw swords and shit or, you know, pistols or whatever. It's kind of a primitive society. And that's how they operate. They operate on this like primitive notions about what it means to have dignity uh and self-worth and value in society and so all you got to be that's why these trolls it's like so fucking easy it's we don't do it

because we have to see these guys and they could choke us half to death if they wanted to but if you're one of these other dogs and you don't ever have to see them you can say wild shit and they will and it works it's dumb but it works so is is this nate though waking up opening up his twitter account seeing that jake's trying to get himself linked with connor nate thinking that's my money fight that's my trilogy and then basically is this him saying jake paul you you're taking everything i worked for this is the post michael johnson speech no this is this is nate just out there i suspect anyway uh this is nate just out there being like hey you know uh on site you've seen those ones and they not nate but some other ones will misspell on meet me in temecula yeah please

um that's what that's what it is. get your mans, then you can get the smoke too. Not sure if he's talking about this. Why are they, are they really what is this? Is this the living room of a mansion? Luke, what world do we live in here? I mean, and just look at how bad this is. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. So who is this boy that he beat up? I really beat your boy up.

What is this in reference to? Who is Nate's boy? I don't know. Who knows? Did he fight his weed dealer? I mean, what... Luke, where has this show gone? It's like I beat up your... Who is it? Was it...

Is that A.J. Aghazarm? I don't know. All I know, Luke, is I know... Did he get beaten up by A.J. Aghazarm? Oh, God. Yeah, it's... I know that this show doesn't have the best reputation of being you know what they're saying walter cronkite shit luke okay we are we do talk about bulging packages

but this moment right here i feel we've done enough to know we've done too much okay luke hold on he beat up aj akers arm aj akers arm is a legitimate at least, world-class black belt and even wrestled collegiately at a pretty high level. Yeah, but his boxing game in the living room of a mansion? If you boxed me in the foyer of my mansion, though, I got home field advantage, you know? Well, he went to Bellator, and it's not gone necessarily to plan, so I don't really know if he's... I don't know what the state of his,

his ability is, but if that's him getting worked over by Jake Paul, then, you know, just the world ceases to make sense. Well, dude, I'm sorry. You don't want to give them any credit.

They're big boys though. These Paul brothers, and they seem to be decently athletic for yes, the average citizen. So even though a guy like, listen, the whole gimmick works on being underestimated i get that right because you're like oh nate robinson well nate robinson

was like a real athlete and uh surely he must so they've got skills relative to their lowest expectations okay and that that sounds like i'm still not giving him credit but i am right because the gimmick works by being underestimated then Then he goes in there and he sleeps Nate Robinson like it was nothing. They are not total dummies, far from it. But you want me to take it seriously, you got to do something serious. And beating up people who aren't boxers, it doesn't mean you don't have any ability, but you don't have any ability worth celebrating. You can go make money off of it, but I'm not going to take it seriously until you do something worth taking seriously, and that's not worth being taken seriously.

All right. Luke, let's move on here. There's been a growing feud between Tony Ferguson and manager of the Stars, Ali Abdelaziz. It goes back to last week before the Oliveira fight where Ali accused Tony and his management team of trying to poach Justin Gaethje. So after Tony lost to Oliveira, Ali tweeted out black belt versus white belt. A few days later, Tony has responded, Luke.

I said the same thing about you and Habib at 209. Ali with a rat color belt to match his persona. Back was glued to the mat. Bish is high level defense. I don't know. Is this English anymore? Luke, hashtag first line of defense. All right.

I said the same thing about you and Team Khabib at UFC 209. Ali with the rat color belt to match his persona. Back was glued to the mat. Bish is high-level self-defense. Snatch. How far have we fallen? Well, Ali quote tweeted it and said, you are irrelevant now.

You can say whatever you want. Nobody cares. I wish you good retirement. Ali, keep, he's still firing here. Wait, wait, stop, stop, stop, stop. Now, Ali speaks English as a second language, so I'm not going to beat him up too bad. But he wrote, you are irrelevant.

Yeah, give him a break here, Luke. All right, I'm giving him a break. All right, he speaks in a second language. Believe me, my mom spoke in a second language. I understand. I'm just saying. Shout out to Uncle Felipe. Okay, Luke, please.

All right, all right, all right. Ali comes back with, you're lucky you lost because Habib crippled you. You know it, and now the whole world knows it. Ali's got one more for him, Luke. You are now gatekeeper young upcoming talent to beat your ass like Islam Makachev, Benil Dariush, and all these other Ali fighters. Luke, sir, can you rule on this? Who wins? I got a rule in favor of Ali. Again, it's not so much who is truthful. We don't really know about Tony. And in fact, I went through the footage on Tony. There were some things in there I did like about his defense later in the fight.

That sounds a little weird, but it actually is kind of true. But I'll say this. In terms of the narrative and how his competitors have... I mean, Tony's weirdness and his schtick, it really works quite well when you can't make sense of it, but he just keeps winning. I said, Tony Ferguson's the only guy in MMA in world history who could use alchemy to actually make gold, right? He could actually do that. And, you know, when you lose and you lose twice quite badly, that magic begins to go away, especially at 36, now 37 soon. You know, the competitors are just going to be out there ripping him to shreds and that's exactly what happened.

So, you know, you can say what you want about Tony. You can say what you want about Ali, but I think Ali wins this exchange, unfortunately. Luke, back to real sports. Do you think Tony should move up to welterweight? No. I mean, he could. He has the power to crack up there.

The weight cut is not the issue. He acknowledged he had a little bit of fire missing. But you see, you know what I noticed in the second and third round? In the first round, I think, and I'll say even I did this a little bit, I don't want to say he wasn't missing a step because he even acknowledged he was missing a step. And did you notice he even said the warm-up didn't feel right? And I noticed how he wasn't doing this and he wasn't doing the level change as Buffer introduced him. You know, there was something a little bit missing from the fire.

But if you watch the second and particularly the third rounds, he does get taken down because some of the same mistakes he was making, Oliveira just knew exactly what to do. But on the ground, the choice to get stacked and go north-south like that, it actually kept him from being ground and pounded the whole time. He tried to lock up a quick Darce. It wasn't very close, but he was at least, like, trying. He almost got to his feet by coming around the back.

It was just that Oliveira caught it. The first two rounds, to me, were dominant, and the third round looked dominant, and certainly he won it. I mean, Oliveira, easy 10-9. But I don't know. I think you need to have concerns about where Tony was relative to his peak. I'm not ready to close the door on him as this is a guy who can't fix Necessarily what went wrong

It was a bad beating he took The warm up didn't work If certain fighters BC say that they perform better without the crowd You're going to hear some fighters say They would have performed better with one I don't think that's a crazy thought to make I'm just pointing out People are like oh he's irrelevant now

Well okay on Twitter that sounds great And you'll win it for Social Justice Wednesdays I would be a little bit careful about closing the book on Tony Ferguson. I still think he's got a little bit of life left in him, assuming he can round the corner to the problems that he's sort of currently facing with. But I don't think they're altogether permanent. It's fair. It's a very fair, sober point, Luke.

I'll give you that credit. All right, let's move on to fan submissions of the week, Luke. Wah! You know that we open up the email account, morningcombat at gmail.com. You can also DM me at any point on my social channels. Send in your submissions. I promise not to tap.

All right, Luke, let's go with the first one. I wanted to tap on this picture because it's awkward as shit, but I got sent it by three different ones of our passionate listeners. Andrew Fisk and Dylan are two of the guys in here, and one of them has a girlfriend, and Emma Claire Doherty, Doherty. They all sent me this try tip-on-tip, Luke. It's awkward as crap.

It makes me cringe, but shout-out to their loyalty. Who's making their Bellator debut next month? Jesus Christ. I mean, you know, three males can take their shirt off, put their hand through their fly and embrace. Now wait, did they do this for us, or is this just a random shot of dudes doing dude things? They did this for us.

Wow. And they invaded my DMs and I respect game, okay? Now when they blew each other after this, did they send you those pics and videos too? All right. So this is how, have you seen that meme? How it started, how it's going? Oh, yeah, Luke. This is why they make crystal meth.

Okay, Luke, let's get out of this picture, okay? It's like, wait. Moving on, Luke. Wait, I thought, it's like, I thought, who was the guy from Tiger King? What was his name? Joe Exotic? Joe Exotic, yeah.

I thought, are these Joe Exotic's new husbands? What happened here? Alright, hey, shout out to Julian Valdez. Could be Julian, not sure. But Luke, he has purchased the fine green sweatshirt that you often wear and my wife has stolen from me. Looking good on Julian.

Shout out to this guy. Looks great on Julian. And the metal sign's a little dated Julian, but the sweatshirt is not, good friend. Yeah, Julian, big-time fan, I'm sure, Luke, of Ramstein. So shout-out, yeah. Rammstein. Yeah, that probably looks good under a trench coat, Luke. Let's go over to Andreas D. Thompson,

who creates this meme comparing Morning Combat to the world of Winnie the Pooh, Luke, because you called me the Winnie the Pooh of conspirators, right? So the bubble above Winnie says, Luke, what do you say we touch tips this episode? I'm no Rocco Soffredi, but I think the fans want to see this. All right, thank you. Luke's response as Eeyore is, I can't. I have another job to get to, you uncultured swine.

All right. Yeah, I've never seen I have another job to get to, you uncultured swine. I've never seen a conspiracy theorist as happy as you. You're a happy guy. It's a great thing to see, and yet you think there's a well, I don't want to throw you under the bus, but you have some weird conspiracy theories. Normally, those people are paranoid, angry. Not you.

You're all happy. I've come to terms, Luke the rothschilds are here to stay all right luke uh we have another friend of greek origin his name is tasos he lives in greece and he created this uh marilyn monroe inspired mk meme luke some like it hot nope some like it lukewarm and it's you in the Marilyn Monroe dress standing over the grate as I check you out. That's awkward, Luke. Yeah, and your hand is also just, you know, rubbing on all sorts of utterly despicable things. All right.

Well, Luke, you mysteriously missed last week's uh episode and rashad filled in for you todd m has some insight about what you are actually doing luke okay instead of morning combat it's morning colonic and luke if you look at the o of morning that is definitely a sphincter that is yep Luke I will say this um and you know our Showtime colleague Brian Custer has always been very up in front and saying like you know get your prostate checked he had a scare with cancer and you know thank god he's been able to come out on the other side he looks great he's 50 years old um me getting the prostate exam check on my 40th checkup, Luke,

was one of the darker days of my life, yet I would do that again right now on camera rather than have that Kevorkian lady try to jam me up my nose again like she did yesterday. Luke, what is it about your nasal passage and your brain and them sticking a plastic projectile that just makes me lose all sort of manliness. And I had to go to the nose doctor yesterday and they didn't put a cotton

swab up my nose, but they put a camera up there so they could see all in it. It sucked. It's not awesome. It does not feel, it's not like it's super painful. It's more just, it's unnerving,

right? Yeah. Um, I have,nerving, right? Yeah. My doctor is an Indian guy. We call him Dr. Ram. And he always has the best one-liners, Luke, when it's my checkup time. And I'm like, no prostate today. I did that once. Once a decade is fine with me.

And he's like, oh, no, I really enjoyed that last time. I was hoping you would say yes. And I get he's trying to you know lighten the mood if you were going to go to medical school bc what kind of medical specialty would you get because how do you go how do you go to medical school and it's like i'm gonna stick fingers in the butts of men for the rest of my life because that's what i want to do. Well, it pays well, Luke. It does pay well. Okay, but think about this. You could be a heart surgeon.

You could be, dude, a buddy of mine's a radiologist. He makes stupid money. You can't believe how much money he makes. All you got to do is look at fucking x-rays. Fuck that. I would do that. Yeah, no, I want to tickle prostates. Yeah, all right.

Morning colonic in the house. Let's move on to the next one, Luke. This comes from the inconsolable cat who quotes and says, I painted these with ink and fingers and rags and colored in Photoshop. Luke, this is brilliant. It's pretty good. I look like Karl Marx. Right? I look like Karl Marx. Right?

I look like I just ate a cake without hands. Just put my face right in it, right? No, you know what you look like? You look like Christian Bale in the scene from American Psycho when he's banging that chick and there's blood splattering everywhere or whatever. Yeah, that's very scary, Luke. Thank you for that image. All right.

Wow, we have some very talented folks here. Shout out to the inconsolable cat for this one. I'm doing a bit, but it's quite good. All right, let's bring back Todd M. He's been on a roll. I mean, we talk about dickholes. We talk about web screen. How about Todd M with this?

He put up a tweet for Mario, but made it a fake tweet. The tweet says, Yoel Romero is headed to Bellator. But Luke, deeper down on the tweet, he took some of the jokes you made in last week's show. Schlubber McGee and Applesauce Fuckface have been cut from Bellator. Schlubber Trash Panda Finger Painting Gorilla McGee is 3 and 7. Applesauce Pale Grinch Mouth Breather Fuckface is 3 and 7 applesauce pale Grinch mouth breather fuckface is 2 and 19 it's a reference Luke

to your beloved fake fighters that you often mention here and it's my face on top of applesauce McGee I think and you on top of schlubber McGee applesauce fuckface whatever you got it

dude that is legitimately that is legitimately hysterical oh my god i mean whose bodies are these the one on the right is what is that augusto sakai it could be yeah yeah it could be i have no idea the guy i feel like that one on the left with the Jesus tattoo. Who's the one on the left? Gaff? All right. Dude, that is so funny. So funny. Look, the depths of meta that these viewers can get into,

Luke, with these jokes are fantastic. We close here with someone. The guy's name is Charlotte Ask at Mosca Miska. He's come out with a poster for season three of Morning Break, Luke.

A story about a bromance, fences, barbed wire, heavy lifting, and a homeless guy. I forget the reference here. What was the sniper reference that i made oh the sniper tower in the front yard gym that's what it was yes the barbed wire yes and what show is this playing off of this is great well done on the poster what show is this playing off of, Luke? I don't know. I don't know.

Prison Break? Oh, yes. Yes. Gaff believes it's Prison Break. Well done there. Mosca Miska. Okay. Isn't that what Mickey Mouse says?

Mosca Miska. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. I used to have young kids. Yeah, Luke. All right. Luke, that'll do it for our show this week.

Of course, check me out Thursday night, NBC Sports Network, 9 p.m. Eastern when Ring City USA returns and Charles Conwell, Matty R, Ashkiev in the main event. And, Luke, I'll be the call-in commentator along with Showtime Sean Porter along with Curran Bhatia at ringside. And this week, our play-by-play man, Luke, former voice of the WEC, Todd Harris. So looking forward to that.

Hey, and also he did PFL for a time, right? I believe so. I believe that is correct. You could be dead wrong, but I'd have to look it up, Luke. Okay. All right. Well, don't forget, we are on social. If you want to give Brian and I a follow, you certainly can.

We're on Morning Combat on Twitter, Morning Combat on Instagram, and, of course, YouTube, as well as morningcombat at gmail.com. But, of course, you can see, if you want to give us a follow there, plenty of places to do that. If you want Showtime, you can get it for free for a 30-day trial. If you like it, you can keep it. You for a 30-day trial. If you like it, you can keep it. You still got me, Luke?

You can go and sit in the corner and pee on yourself. If you want merch, you can go to store.show.com. As Brian indicated, you can catch him tomorrow on NBC Sports on Ring City.

I believe a 9 p.m. I lost, there's no audio of you, B.C. Am I even here? Nine, at least I can't hear it anyway. 9 p.m.

Oh, I'm here, Luke. I'm back no audio of you, BC. Am I even here? Nine, at least I can't hear it anyway. 9 p.m. start time. Oh, I'm here, Luke. I'm back. Ah, okay, okay. 9 p.m. in the east, start time. Also, live chat tomorrow, 3 p.m. right here. And I'll set everything up for Friday's show from there. We'll get to the Canelo fight. We got a big UFC event to preview.

We got a lot to get to. Triple G. Yeah, Triple G's back. Showtime boxing Saturday. There's a lot going on, Luke. Huge, huge weekend in combat sports. So we'll get you ready for all of it. Alright? That is Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks to the folks at Malka.

Don't get hit by any more water balloons. And thanks to the good folks at Showtime and CBS Sports. Until next time, may all of your eggs be bagged. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.