MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jake Paul KOs Ben Askren | Robert Whittaker Impresses | Bellator 257 Recap | Ep 145

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

BC is back, as the boys recap a wild week of combat sports. On Thriller, Jake Paul knocked out Ben Askren in round 1. Was the fight fixed? What else is there to say? Plus, Robert Whittaker impressed in a win over Kelvin Gastelum. Is a rematch with Israel Adesanya next? Also, Bellator's Light Heavyweight World Grand Prix continued at Bellator 257 with Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderson picking up wins. Who is the biggest threat of the two fighters? --------------------------- '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

it is the 19th of April 2021 and it is time on this monday morning for morning combat hello everybody you know who i am my name is luke thomas i'm from cbs sports i am only though just a mere 50 of your hosting tandem here on the other side of the screen it's not rashad evans even though he's great it's not aaron bronstetter even though he's great it is the return of the man himself testicles on his hat baby please it's brian campbell hi brian how are you hello luke two trailer park girls indeed are on the outside because guess who's back? Your friend, the beige one, the big BDE himself. I do, as you mentioned, want to shout out following my vacation in the mountains of Tennessee,

the great performances by the original BBC, Rashad Evans, and also the honky AB himself, Aaron Bronstetter. But as you have said many times, despite their efforts, Luke, when one of us is gone, it ain't MK any longer. But we back, baby. We back with a bang. I'm refreshed. Luke, I'm not just ready to take over this screen, this show. I'm ready to take over the world. So as I've said to you over text this morning, the ark is being built.

The flood is coming. Who's coming with us, bro? All right. I will say I've been talking to you for most days of your vacation, at least a little bit here or there, some days more than others. And I have noticed you have come back with a pep in your step. I mean, it didn't sound like vacation was all that refreshing, but you do sound refreshed. Yeah, well, i don't need to share the personal details of what i did with my family luke uh and what happened but i will tell

you uh there was some longing i felt a little jealousy watching our friends uh somebody's been sitting in my seat and i'm ready to come back luke here's the deal when i know you don't get this but when you are an artiste when you do this not for the glamour or the money or the followers, it's about the art and the craft. And that's what I'm about. But you know what I realized this past week, Luke? We already have the best in show. We already have the best tasting sauce. We are the boss, so to speak.

What we don't have, Luke, is global domination. So I will have to care a little bit more about the things that you care about in order to get my art to the masses, brother. And whether you are just another piece of wood with some bristles on it or whether you are the other half of my heart, Luke, I'm ready to go on this journey with you together. Who's coming with me, Jerry Maguire? Let's do this shit, okay? I will go with you together okay who's coming with me jerry mcguire let's do this shit okay yeah i will i will go with you i will i will either be your renee zellweger or your cuba gooding jr i don't know which one of those i represent in the analogy but nevertheless maybe i'm both either way it is good to have you back and uh yeah man i'm excited i'm excited to do this to the show and um i'm glad to see that you are as invested as ever, BC.

Okay, thumbs up on the video for those watching. Hit subscribe for those watching. We have a lot to get to today. Triller, UFC, Bellator, boxing, your questions. Have you seen this shit? Ton of stuff. So let's say if you want to try Showtime, and you haven't done that yet,

you can do it for 30 days for free. Hold on one second, everybody. I'll give it to you. If you want to try it for 30 days and you don't like it you can bounce but if you want to take the plunge you can see the url right there show.com slash bellator mma you get it for six months for about five bucks a month what were you gonna say bc i was just gonna say buckle up and get ready this might be the greatest episode of morning combat of all time not only am i feeling it luke but because of my absence, I'm rewarding the people with a super-sized edition

of Have You Seen This Shit? So I know how much, Luke, you like completion rates, right? You like people to get to the ending. Like owner craft, you love a good happy ending, Luke. If they stay till the end and we can make you late

for your doctor's appointment, there'll be a reward there. So get ready. Get buckle up. All right, good. Also, want to give a shout-out to the uh showtime i think it was the digital team although i'm not entirely certain who made it but there was a piece on the showtime youtube channel that came out after geron ennis's big win over sergey leponetz but it was what they had filmed prior to

the fight itself i think it was either way inin day or the day of the fight itself. We actually have a little bit of a clip because a certain tandem features in the clip quite prominently. Let's roll it. Jerron Boots Ennis may be the next big thing in the welterweight division. 26-0 with 24 KOs. The 23-year-old from Philly, Luke, one of your favorite fighters, is going to step up in class considerably to take on former 140 pound world champion and hard scrabbled veteran, Sergey Lipinets. He is athletic. He makes great decisions. He is crafty. His punches are accurate and slick. I mean, there's a lot to like about him.

But to your point, Lippin Yates is a huge step up, battle-tested. You can go down there. Feeling great, you know. You ready to rock and roll? You ready to go to the lands right now? Feeling strong. Lippin Yates is somebody I like to call a crafty brawler, Luke. He comes forward. He does put himself in the line of fire.

Within the next year or two, Boots Ennis is probably going to be a champion, perhaps with multiple belts, and I think the road to get there has been starting for a long time, but this is the next chapter in it. Hey, look at that look that's a little uh that's a little vehicle called fight night that the folks at showtime digital have put out you can catch that on youtube um and look i do a quick question before we move on and get to the meat of this show uh was boots and it's watching mk because it is the cure for the common fight talk show or because the producers told him so? Because the producers told him so, and you could clearly tell that he was like,

who are these two jabronis on my screen that I have to tolerate? Yeah, that's what I figured, but I appreciated the effort. Yeah, they 100% staged that, but he didn't throw his bottle of water at the television, so I'll take that as some kind of a smaller but still significant win. Okay, speaking of wins, you can be cooler than your neighbors if you go to store.show.com and you get some mk merch hats mugs tumblers effing i don't know uh everything else in between there's your link store.sho.com i got an update real quick on that because this is part of the this is a beautiful shirt here

can you see the back of my shirt Luke can you see that shit Luke yes it says call me co-host I wonder where you got that BC I talked to the powers that be at Showtime I said look I'm a man of the people in fact people I will be there for you

these five words I swear to you I said we need an update I need to tell the people what's going on luke they said may may is the launch of merch 2.0 the new website international shipping fun shit like this so you know circle your calendars get ready okay may 2023 or like this may well you know knowing our brethren here you never know luke but hopefully this may this may brother all right all right very good uh and of course we're on social as well very quickly if Well, you know, knowing our brethren here, you never know, Luke, but hopefully this may, this may brother. All right.

All right. Very good. And of course we're on social as well. Very quickly. If you want to throw the lower third up for the graphic on how to follow us and all the good stuff there in, you can see it. We'll put that up at the end of the show as well. All right, Brian Campbell, we have a lot to get to. You are back.

We're ready to go. Let's kick things off if we can with topic number one. And I don't even know where to begin other than just to state outright what the fuck was that on saturday triller had their second event and jake paul beat ben askren we'll talk about that part in just a second a lot of folks are like oh why are you leading the show with triller because whether we like it or not it was the most significant in terms of its cultural impact event over the weekend it was bigger than bellator it was bigger than ufc you simply have to

acknowledge it but that doesn't mean we're all going to sit here and keep praise necessarily in fact brian and i were talking about this all during fight night okay bc i'll go to you your overall review of i'm going to call it triller 2 wow luke uh you know i'm gonna use the terms uh not for me and i know that might surprise people because bc isn't this the kind of you know the hot dog bullshit you you know you you regularly feast upon uh in theory yes and to some degree yes and look for everybody that's watching this going come on guys you know you should on this fight coming in why are you then gonna hijack a half hour of this show that we like watching for this stuff? Well, like Luke mentioned, if you saw Dave Meltzer tweeted out the searches, it did 5 million or something searches

when WrestleMania only did 700,000. I mean, internet search wise, pay-per-view number wise, this hit with a bang. The question is, is it it boxing should it be for us is it for us luke here's the deal this was far different than the than the triller uh debut offering with mike tyson co-producing with his legends league or whatever the hell that thing is uh that you know what that thing was luke with more ronaldo is Israel Adesanya, a Snoop Dogg appearance on commentary, I think that that was a progressive turn toward an entertainment direction of what fight coverage can be. But still, Luke, you know, 80-20, 70-30 fights with sprinkled on added entertainment, right? A couple music performances whatever

luke this was the inverted pyramid this was about you know 10 actual fights and 90 a lot of other shit now was all the shit bad no black keys killed it right there luke some of the musical acts if that's your flavor whether it be a reunion of 90s west coast legends or even bieber right bieber not for me for some canucks out there not for me uh some cucks as well uh but i'll say this luke um too much music for me too much ridiculousness for me did i like some pete davidson jokes we can get into that later of course did the urkel thing in the beginning catch my attention of course i tweeted three minutes into the show, long-lived thriller. This is out of control.

I love it. But, Luke, that didn't last long. What they tried and attempted to pull off, you know, it may be for a younger audience. It may be for some of you out there who think it's for me, who says, that's crazy. That's up your alley, BC. It ain't fighting. It ain't boxing. And, Luke, I don't think financially it can be sustainable

when it's basically a four-hour concert with two fights shoved in the middle. And I don't think, Luke, that you're going to be able to continue to try to disrupt the market in the way that they are in terms of actually trying to be boxing, right? They overpaid for Teofimo Lopez, who will be on the next card. They put Regis Progre and Ivan Redcootsch, real boxers, on this card. I don't think real boxing will want anything to do with this moving forward because it's so far out there.

To the point, Luke, of where another thing I tweeted, it's one thing to try to be a fight industry disruptor, and it's another thing to just be a disruption. And I think this card was a disruption i thought the commentary although i love a lot of the names that were involved in it was cringe as all hell i thought it went in areas that it didn't need to go i thought it was a monster what the frick am i watching and not in a way that wants to get me to come back luke so that's sort of my old man take get off off my porch, maybe it's surprising you,

but you know what I love, Luke? Fight coverage done right with a tease toward the direction of going off the rails, with a tease toward the direction of entertainment, right? I mean, I'm a wild and crazy guy, maybe that's why some of you watch this show, but this show is still rooted in, we're going to come on here and tell you about the fights and we're going to break them down what i saw on saturday luke it was for another group of people whether that can sustain i want you to tell me whether you think it can but i'm not i'm not part of those people okay luke yeah no it can't sustain i mean here's either the good or the bad news depending on your perspective and i use the proverbial you for all of you guys out there if you like or hate triller just take this into account it's not going to last very long i mean

the app company which is really what is driving all of this uh they're trying to be a competitor to tick tock first of all i don't think these events drive any downloads in any kind of meaningful way whatsoever did they even promote the app one time during the course of the broadcast i didn't certainly see it other than the itself, but like directly asking you to go to your phones to download and engage. They didn't. In fact, they had stars from other platforms. I don't know who these two sisters are. They got a gazillion followers, but their followers are primarily based on TikTok. So it's just this weird giant waste of money. But the bigger point is, dude, that show, I want to be very clear about it.

I don't know how much it sold. The reports came out were that it was close to 1.5. John Nash saying he has other industry figures saying that's very doubtful. You should know very explicitly Triller, the app company, which of course is the parent company, the app company has been accused for years and even admitted inflating their numbers in terms of downloads and user engagement to the public versus what they told for private entities. They have been caught in it a number of times and accused a series of other times. So I don't believe those pay-per-view numbers at all. I don't think they're out of the bounds of possibility, but do I trust

them? Fuck no, I don't trust them. And more to the point, that show did not make a dime. I don't know how long they can continue to burn money the way that they did, but eventually someone's going to get tired of losing money and then it will stop. That appetite, I don't know. This is the problem with the show because whenever someone tries something different, it's going to be, it's not a question of, is it more bad than good? It's a question of, it's not going to last, but maybe there might be some pieces you can pick up on we talk about all the time the XFL was kind of weird but some of the angles in which they shot the field the NFL literally borrowed they took that from the XFL that defunct terrible league I'm talking about the one from the WWE tie-ins

in like the late 90s early 2000s so like Pete Davidson interviewing Ben Askren and Jake Paul that was lit I mean that was truly hilarious and different and weird I liked how they were doing that I don't know if I liked everything that happened in the booth I thought what happened to Oscar De La Hoya was frankly disgraceful he should not have been in the booth can you stay there for a second Luke can you stay right there for a second on Oscar? Frank Mir, I thought, had the smartest tweet of all because, look, the reason why I said off the top that I don't think fighters are going to want to come back on Triller, even with the potential

of bloated purses like Teofimo Lopez was able to get, because essentially, no one's calling the fight. And on top of that, the announcers are kind of making fun of you as you're fighting. And I found out after, Luke, they were pumping the announcements in the arena. So when Ivan Redkotch is going down to a body shot that may or may not have been one he can hear the announcers essentially clowning on him and making blue balls jokes and calling

him a quitter so I thought Frank Mir coming out actually had a sober take of like you know we can all make fun of Oscar or argue back against him but here's a guy who's been in and out of rehab like countless times and has an obvious problem and they're not only rolling him out on the air to just be a a clown but like they're promoting him as having a future fight luke i i was like you got to get that apollo fish hook out from the apollo theater and save this man from himself that was a that was a really sort of not just cringe but sad turn of events right there yeah and i mean you would say to someone like frank meir or steve cunningham it's like dude you fight on trailer i wouldn't expect to have like dominant cruise level of commentary

on what you're doing at the same time though you're right like you know what you have with oscar and you're putting this guy under for a long time quite obviously either drunk or high or both and it's just a terrible look but here was what really the biggest the biggest thing i could say is it just reminded me of the mgm grand lobby at 2 a.m on a saturday it's just a mess and more to the point triller took some of the praise that they got from the first fight and then they started huffing their own farts about it and then just indulge themselves even further down that road oh we were a little bit loose before let's be completely loose this

time we had music acts last time let's just go all in this time they just indulge their own sense of achievement and differentiation and they went way too far that's where you're gonna lose the fight fans when you do that right when it was when was still a fight broadcast, but elements of Snoop, elements of Mauro and Adesanya, who were professionals who pulled off comedy pretty damn well, now you invert it, like I mentioned, and you take guys who, I'm not here to throw shots, but guys who aren't necessarily known for comedy,

plug them in and be like, go swear a lot and be funny. It was a train wreck of people yelling over the top of each other so i think this is one of the things luke where you and i argued a lot in the build to this of why are we talking about this fight why are we previewing it and i was more of the hold on dude this sucks but it is combat names we know and care about like a ben askren it is almost quasi real if they had stuck with the formula they had the first show, I would keep arguing with you that we're going to have to keep covering this, right? Because not only is it getting numbers, but it's still almost kind of real fights.

What they did on Saturday, I think, is the kind of thing where, you know, you and I are out, not just because we're 40-year-old white dads and we're lame, but because it's not fighting anymore. And, you know, across across the board there were just a lot of elements on there that uh from the xfl comparison you made i love the set i love certain things that hopefully more broadcasters even our friends at showtime can watch and say hey man maybe we can be a little bit hipper and cooler in these lanes maybe we can take the mk guys and plug them in more on the uh on the main broadcast you, you know what I'm saying right there?

But, you know, there are other elements that we saw, Luke, where you're just like, I would rather them have rolled out Snoop Dogg and Pete Davidson and said, this is going to be a shit show and we're just going for it in that regard. And those are your announce team. Then doing that sort of weird juggling act that they tried to do. You know, maybe I'm preaching to a dead a choir here and maybe people love this but again for me it felt like an embarrassment to the sports we love listen this is why promoters don't take risks and with how they present their products because it's so cost prohibitive to try different things so i appreciate that there are other folks in the

market who are trying to push that envelope but honestly like, like, and everyone wants to say this. Like, if I came out, we were talking about this before the show, BC. If I came out and said I thought that Godzilla vs. King Kong or whatever the fuck that movie's called is a bad movie, people are like, well, what would you expect? I'm like, right, I'm not expecting Sir Lawrence Olivier in Lawrence of fucking Arabia. I am expecting a relatively coherent plot or well-done action scenes,

if that's what your big-budget production is offering. I mean, what are you arguing? That big-budget productions, if I have to let my guard down, can't ever be bad movies? Of course they can. So I don't have high expectations for this, but seriously, I'm going to say something. If you wanted to enjoy the main event on a silly level,

anyone of any variety can do that. But if you actually like the Triller product, you have serious taste level issues right you have very serious taste level issues you are the lowest of the low you are the raccoon even even even bc would like i'm not eating that shit that is and that is a level too low that look i get that a lot of it was aimed at a different audience that aren't regular boxing fans so maybe having nine musical acts that that are probably stupidly expensive to pay for was smart but you can't sell a million a million and a half pay-per-view buys without that core fighting fan base that wants to see it and luke i just cannot see that more than maybe 20 of the actual fight audience could come away from saturday being like, I want more of exactly that right there.

I don't see how you could be anything. And I think social media gave us an indication of the reaction, but turned off and turned away by it. Last thing I'll say on this is I'm not even sure who the direct audience is supposed to be. It's like you had these younger artists, none of which appeal to me, but of course I'm old, so that doesn't matter. That's fine. I'm sure they're quite famous.

People like them, Doja Cat, Saweetie cat sweetie whatever but it's also like you had too short and e40 and snoop and i i like these folks ice cube are they really relevant as music artists to the same tiktok generation of the domelio sisters like i don't think they're relevant at all so it's this and then blackies are great what the fuck do they have to do with any of this? So like, it's this really bizarrely confused mixture. And anyone who is tweeting out there, hey, angry people, shut up and enjoy the music. Like, really? You know, the music can be a, it can be a sprinkle on top,

but we are here for fights, right? Like at the end of the day, we are here for fights. Why would, if you're Regis Progray, why would you ever want to fight on this platform again, Luke, unless he's fighting Mario Lopez? Seriously, you know what I mean? Like, unless he's going out there and fighting a pro wrestler or an actual clown, why would

you want the serious art of this ridiculous... And look, I get me taking this stance is absurd because I'm absurd. The sport I love of boxing is absurd. Never any day of the week can I competently stand up and put lipstick on the pig that is boxing and tell you that anything is out of bounds for boxing, right? Except for this.

Yeah, here's the thing. Sorry, except for this. Triller has one thing going for it. Well, two things. One, they've got a bunch of coke-fueled VC money who apparently they just don't mind just spraying everywhere and wasting it and burning it. Okay, that's one.

That's fine. That's their choice. The one thing, though, beyond that that they've got going for them, BC, is combat sports have become, to a pretty large degree, especially boxing, but MMA really kind of, too. UFC is what, like, even Bellator is like this too it's become very corporate it's very very corporate and there's always going to be a circusy element to combat sports you cannot get rid of it's always a question of where you put it

how you manage it and what it looks like but it's it's never going to go away and they're leaning into that there is an appetite for it now and in part because everything is you know not relative to let's say the nba but you know relative to what it used to be mma is super super super and boxing too buttoned up very buttoned up and they're trying to find a go another direction but they leaned into it so heavily so so indulgently it was just pure versailles sleaze the entire time and uh i needed to take a bath when it was over. Let's ask this question here. Go ahead. Last word on that.

I was going to say, even though Pete Davidson in some ways was the comedic MVP, do you really want your product to be like openly trashing the headliners that you're putting out there? And such like, look, did I like when he's screaming, I'm going to come at the start of the main event? No, I went too far. Like, a mom joke here is funny, a weed joke here is funny. But when he's just outwardly trashing your quote-unquote stars, I think you've got to ask yourself, Luke, could this last? Should this last?

Actually, I thought that part was really great. But, yes, there's certainly a debate to be had about that. So let me ask this question. People ask me this. Hakeem from CBS Sports HQ, Hakeemem dervish asked me this on saturday night it's actually a very difficult question to answer is jake paul good um so here's the deal when i was gone you made a i thought a really apt uh breakdown and comparison that jake act jake paul is really like Kimbo Slice 2.0, the evolvement of the quasi-celebrity making a serious dip into actual combat sports.

And with that, you get that there will be protective matchmaking. There will at times be the hints of fixing and corruption. And by the way, I do want to talk in a second about how this actual main event ended and the reaction to it. But I thought that was an apt point. I think right now, from what we know about Jake Paul, is for a celebrity fighter, he's pretty damn good. He's young. He's big, strong, and fast.

And he seems to take this seriously, right? He's got, like, BJ Flores and Jay Leon Love training him like legitimate boxers. By the way, that little spinoff feud between T-Wood and Jay Leon Love, which has now included Daniel Cormier, is a little bit weird. People need to wake up and be like, Jay Leon Love's an actual boxer. He can't handle himself here, so let's take a step back. But Luke, the whole point here is that,

yeah, he's pretty good for the celebrity boxing scene, but to act like we know anything about him through three fights to the idea that the difference right now between him and Kimbo Luke is at the very least Kimbo was fighting actual fighters I mean it was 46 year old Tank Abbott credible at that point well well no or or Ray Mercer well no but they're actual fighters I mean he fought a five foot nine Nate Robinson who had a month of training camp. He fought some YouTuber, Luke. And now he fought a hip-replaced ex-MMA star who I got a lot of issues with

how he may have prepared and how he actually performed, but also his one glaring skill in the field in which he became a star was striking. So it was perfect matchmaking to the degree of, we know nothing, Luke, whether Jake Paul is actually a good fighter. All we know is that on the MTV rock and jock level, he's like Dan Cortez or Flea. You know? They're musicians and actors and hosts who actually can ball a little bit.

So they look really good when they're crossing over Latifah, right? You know what I'm saying? But, dude, and I'm not here to shit on Jake Paul. I think his commitment to this is actually kind of fun. Did I think that he should have been crying in celebration after beating Ben? No, but that's a topic that you can debate on another day. But, Luke, to try to act like, oh, you know, I saw somebody tweeted out that he's now ranked in the top 200 in cruiserweights in the world. I mean, get the frick out of here, Luke, okay?

He is a marketable guy who takes celebrity boxing seriously. But I can't sit here and tell you he's going to get sent to hell against an actual fighter with equal experience until I see it. And until they actually do that, we're not going to know. I mean, do I want him now to face somebody with hands like you know if he wants to fight a tyron woodley or anybody in that in that ilk of a maybe they're an mma guy but they got some hands and they're tough maybe that will teach us more luke but for right now these were one-sided matchups and to his credit he went in there and did exactly what he had to do in each one we should do a resume review on review on Jake Paul and just put this whole thing to bed.

You know what I mean? Yeah, let the cosmic twisted karma of the MK resume review just be the natural selector of life here and take over. But here's the thing. It's like, dude, I will leave the door open for Jake. I think you're the same. I will leave the door open for Jake Paul.

I am not saying he's bad, but I definitely can't say that he's good. Now, listen, he's 3-0 in boxing, right? If he was an up-and-coming boxer fighting in the middle of nowhere, the cards that start at like 5 p.m., you know, he's not going to be fighting very good guys either. He's going to be fighting a bunch of dudes who he'd probably beat just the same. Okay, so in that sense, it may be a bit of a wash.

But listen, this is the deal. He has never fought another boxer in a boxing match i mean understand that ben askren may have a license to box in georgia he ain't a fucking boxer and neither is nate robinson or the other pre-diabetic gas station attendant he fought in his debut none of these guys are boxers so what i'll say about jake paul is is that an easton gibb or or ksi i forget which one were you talking about? I don't know. I don't know.

I literally don't even know who the fuck it is. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. He clearly hits hard. He clearly trains well. But how does he look in the third round after he takes a shot to the body that he didn't expect in round two? I don't know.

What's his cardio like by round five? I don't know. What does it look like when someone pushes him against the ropes? i don't know you know what does it look like when uh someone puts them against the ropes i don't know we don't know any of these questions because he's not fought anybody else who's trying to do this in a serious kind of way so i leave the door open for him and until he walks through it he is the harlem globetrotters and maybe not even that you asked let me put you back to you there bc you had made a point that you were, there were some concerns from people who don't watch a lot of fights, if you ask me, saying that they thought the fight was fixed. I think that that is absurd, but you seem to think there might be more to the story.

No, I'm here to tell you that I'm normally the guy telling you, oh, come on. Because people thought, Luke, let's remember, okay, there's levels to fixing, right? Okay, have we seen both MMA and boxing fights that were maybe partially fixed? We probably have and didn't know it, but there's a difference, Luke, between like a guy went in there and faked getting hit and fell, right? This wasn't fixed in that regard. But Luke, I don't know if this was on the up and up the same way, and I saw some journalists and some of them had some connection to Triller,

so they were defending it going, how could you call it fixed? I was there. Ben Askren's face hit the canvas. He took a flush punch. Yeah, all that's true. Yeah, Ben Askren did take a flush punch and did get hit hard. I'm going to tell you a couple things, though, Luke. I saw Ben Askren in the UFC get hit really freaking hard with smaller gloves and knees and kicks.

And did anyone watch the Robbie Lawler fight where he got dropped on his head and nearly got sent to hell multiple times and fought his way through it? I've seen a guy, Luke, who is at the very least tough for not having hands, right? A world-class tough combat athlete. You know who I saw on Saturday night? A guy who did not train at all for this who may be the only time he put on gloves luke was those customary videos he put up with him and freddie roach training i saw a guy who in the interviews basically said um you know i don't even

care about this fight they're just paying me so much money that i had to go through with it you know i also saw luke a promotion that's spending an absurd amount of money to put on this show. So am I here to sit and tell you this was definitely rigged? Send your lawsuits to BC at Morning Combat. No. Was it a flush punch? Did he actually get hit and go down? Yes. But did Ben Ashgren go in there and try to win this fight? No. Luke, he didn't fucking try to win the fight, okay? I don't see how you can watch this and have any... Like, even on Ben Askren's best day, if he didn't come in as Fat Dad 191 pounds, let's say he came in in the best shape of his life.

Could he outbox Jake Paul? I'm not really sure, Luke. That, by the way, was the hook of why sports fans kind of cared about this fight. Because you're not actually really sure. I kind of want to see what would happen. We didn't get that. We got Ben Askren fat, didn't care, already been really, really embarrassed by Horry Masvidal,

seemed to be okay that that potential could happen again, and maybe, up to you for discretion, was willing to not move his head and take a flush one and cash a big one. Did that happen? Is BC telling you it happened? No. Could you put the pieces together and think that maybe what you saw wasn't fully on the up and up?

Luke, there are times when people scream fix. They scream fix after Mayweather freaking Aldo. You remember that? They screamed fix after that. That wasn't a fix. This one has a little bit more weight to it in my mind when you add everything together, Luke.

You mean Conor versus Aldo? You said Mayweather versus Aldo. Sorry, McGregor versus Aldo. You get what I'm saying. Luke, obviously it's in the best discretion for Triller's financial future if Jake Paul can keep winning here. I didn't see a Ben Askren who was committed to winning this fight or moving his head or doing anything that would lead you to believe that this was a hundred percent pure what we saw i mean listen i i you want to make a claim about the world you

have to have evidence for it and people doing things like oh he was smiling backstage right after you have no idea why he was smiling that is not evidence of anything or at least i should say it's poor evidence of something. That's not not evidence, but it's hard to know exactly what that means. And unless you have real reason beyond just sort of I'm observing something that seems unusual,

even though I have desperately incomplete information, you don't really have a real, you don't have an evidentiary basis to make that conclusion. More to the point, yes, yes fight fixing does happen um but freakonomics has written about this yes the sumo matches but it turns out are routinely fixed but they have to hide it because there's penalties for it you have seen fixed fights i've seen fixed fights you just didn't know it there's some other ones where you know on the regional scene where guys will throw stuff but um here's the point i'm trying to make it is to your point it is it is very clear that ben askren did not take this

seriously there he was handpicked to me they got a guy out of retirement who had a hip replacement who was maybe in terms of the modern ufc you know the least capable striker uh of his era and then beyond it and they got him at the worst possible time in his athletic life since he hit puberty i mean literally since that dude had hormones coursing through his veins this is maybe the worst he's ever been and so they knew if jake paul could get a win over this guy which would be very doable that they could sell jake paul beats you know in this case former ufc fighter so is it rigged in that sense that they set it up to be so overwhelming that ben didn't have a chance yes they said they set it up that way post vacation bc is here to cut you off

and tell you don't soften it too much though he wasn't he didn't come in there prepared to go six or eight or however i don't know what was it an eight round fight he wasn't prepared to go eight hard rounds and go out on his shield and war look he wasn't prepared to move his head okay he didn't train but i don't think he purposely said, I'm going to get knocked out. I think he said, if it happens, here's what I'm prepared to do for this. Basically not much, close to nothing.

And if that's suitable for winning, great. If it's not, I don't care. That's not the same thing as coordinating a loss. I get what you're saying, and this is where you and I differ a lot when we talk conspiracy theories. You need to see the proof. Look, if there was proof,

there wouldn't be a conspiracy. It doesn't mean that there's not proof somewhere. But you get my point. Good proof. I can't come out here and tell you that Pacquiao was definitely on steroids against Thurman. Guy looked pretty ridiculous for 41, though, right? So I get what you're saying here.

But the comparison to Kimbo Slice, I thought was apt from this standpoint if you want to talk about fixing fights luke go back and watch kimbo slice versus bo cantrell tell me that was on the up and up uh luke go back and watch kimbo slice versus houston alexander you're pointing out how well the houston alexander one i take uh is fine okay hold on but to your point to your point the bocantro one it's not great listen i don't mind people asking questions i got more to tell you about though hold on hold your reaction until i also bring up when he got knocked out by seth petrozzelli the late replacement for ken shamrock did seth yay or nay tell the media afterwards that elite xc offered him money to keep the fight on the feet, Luke.

Okay, is that fixing to a certain degree? And Seth pulled that story back about an hour later and acted like it never happened. That did happen, okay? Rock and roll never forgets. So there's some element. And final point of fact, Luke, do you remember when Kimbo became a pro boxer after his MMA career stunted? Why did it end, Luke? Tell me why Kimbo's career ended.

Under allegations of fixed fights. So, Luke, again, me telling you that the Askren fight smelt a little bad, there's enough documented proof in history, Luke, for me to tell you. I think I know what I'm smelling right there. All right, bro? Yeah, listen, can I affirmatively deny that it is true? No, because I don't have evidence for that either, although that's sort of trying to prove a negative.

But to your point, listen, I think if people, Triller does outrageous, silly, stupid, frankly irresponsible things, if you want to count the Delahoya thing. You know, the idea that they would jeopardize their license to perhaps coordinate in some kind of way an outcome doesn't seem beyond the pale in the sense of you know if there's anyone who could do it the people with this kind of makeup could however

however you just have to understand how the world works if you believe in something you are allowed to believe whatever you want but if you want to make an argument for something happening you have to have evidence for it so to your point bc know, is this anything even approximating normal circumstances? No. And I think that leads to a lot of questioning. I just don't think that people are willing to risk committing serious crimes for this, but there's a debate. Fair enough.

Luke, when our good friend Al Bernstein looked in the mirror the next morning after this fight card, what do you think he saw? Hopefully he was just looking at that big ass check he got he's got listen let me say one thing about al al was the one on that and crime faces two to a lesser extent but all of those guys on that thing you know they i'm not saying their job was easy like you got to be irreverent that's actually harder than it looks unless you're naturally kind of kind of crazy and Al is not Al is very much a I mean Al is a pros pro I actually thought Al played it the best of anybody he had a drink on the air but he didn't go crazy he kept his mouth shut when he needed to he he gave good insight when called upon and he served a very valuable if limited function to me if anyone comes out of Triller looking good, for the most part, it's Al Bernstein.

Well played. I agree with you. I just think for the future, and this is something I said, by the way, back when Logan Paul fought KSI and DAZN made it the main event. If we want to do fun, ridiculous celebrity boxing, keep it in its own silo. You can have as many concerts on there as you want.

You can talk about coming on the air, whatever you want to do, Luke, but take the real fighters and put them in their own real fight cards. Can these be two separate universes? I don't need Evander Holyfield at 50-something years old fighting an exhibition

as the co-main event of Teofimo Lopez defending an actual boxing title. That's me speaking right here, Luke, okay? Why don't you go shave your beard, you motherfucker? Okay, can I say one last thing, and I know we're going to move on.

The audience is like, oh my God, we're 40 minutes into show you're still talking triller let me just say this bc and i think you might agree with this can i tell you how fucking tired i am of mma fighters signing up to take l's for paychecks to me it is it is such an indictment on MMA fighter pay where Tenshin Naskawa, who's primarily a kickboxer but has fought MMA, he signs up to box Mayweather and gets run over. Conor gets a big paycheck, gets run over. Frank Mirrett, to me, took it seriously. Certainly did not embarrass himself in any capacity whatsoever, but lost and it wasn't especially close. And then, of course, you have Ben Askrenren who didn't take it seriously that's fine and was a tremendous athlete in his day but he got stretched by a youtuber on saturday night dude it is it is a scandal that these guys will can how long is this

going to go on i've been one of these guys bc who was like oh each one of these doesn't mean anything the public won't glean from this that that MMA is this or that relative to boxing. But dude, how many of these are there going to be? 10? 20? Is Eddie Alvarez going to go there and get knocked out by De La Hoya? I don't know, but if it does happen, and then you got Anderson Silva,

and can you imagine if Anderson Silva gets stretched by Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.? Like, dude, what are we doing? It is a fucking joke. It's something I teased. I think it was a couple episodes ago before I went on vacation where it's like Francis Ngannou climbs the fricking mountain. He's the UFC heavyweight champion. And we spend a week publishing stories on MMA websites with quotes from Ngannou saying how badly he wants to box Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua. And, you know, same thing with Stipe heading into that fight.

It's like these are obvious setups in which you're going to take an L and get sent to hell. But as much as we want to make the memes and make jokes about boxing sucks and, well, it's unorganized, well, it is, right? It does to a degree. But when MMA is still going to act like the boxing payday is the boss at the end of the video game and we are going to just drop all elements of shame and bushido and just go you know what this is how i'm going to pay for that vacation house this is how i'm finally going to get paid yeah you got to turn around and look in your own uh house here uh we saw a lot of those memes float around ahead of

saturday of the purses that jake paul and ben askam were making in comparison to the purses that robert whittaker and uh and Kelvin Gastelum were making, yeah, we've got a problem here, okay? We've got a problem here. And I wish people were less inclined, as you mentioned. Conor McGregor, at the mountaintop of his celebrity fame, had to go to boxing to make quote-unquote real money and sell his own name. You've got an issue here.

Until that gets rectified, I don't want to hear how bad boxing sucks because MMA still needs it. Yeah, I'll just say if a Dan Hodge trophy winner, two-time NCAA American Olympian, one champion, Bellator champion, is willing to do that to himself for money he couldn't make and the things he was exceptionally talented in,

it is a fucking scandal that it's that way. It is a scandal. Look, you used to have to go to porn for that right you used to have to go john bobbitt territory and go you know the only way i'm going to cash in after getting my thing cut off is if i go put it out there on a camera and call up rocco and bend up no look this is this this is fight porn right here it is all right let's put that don't dodge that it is luke say it it's fine let's can we move on i have you know let's put that to bed. Don't dodge that. It is, Luke. Say it. It's fine. Can we move on?

Let's do this. All right, before the audience totally stabs us in the face, let's be done with Triller. Let's move on for just a second, if we can now, to UFC. In the main event over the weekend in topic number three, Kelvin Gastelum loses to Robert Whitaker 50-45 on all three judges' scorecards. Robert Whitaker looked what can only be described as sensational. He saw everything coming, brilliant timing, incredible diversity in the strikes.

Hold on. Phenomenal wrestling. I'm going to ask you a question. I get to go first in this chair here, BC, but I'm going to pitch it to you. No, I want to pitch it back to you Luke you can't you can pitch it back but only after I pitch it first so the question I'm going to ask is to frame this we all know he looked amazing did he look different enough to you to make you think he's going to get the rematch of course but that the rematch with Adesanya will go differently he did he did Luke I think this three-fight win streak even though I thought for a fighter of his caliber he should not have had to

go this long of a route I mean to be till cannonier and now Gastelum to finally get back to the title shot but I think what we were able to learn about him by doing that and I think also Luke let's not discount what he was able to learn about himself in doing that right not only did he lose by surprising knockout to Adesanya but he had those outside the cage issues of being you know burnt out in in the mental challenges of that I think he also was able to learn through this three fight journey that here's the question I'm going to spin back to you, Luke. He's not only back to where he needs to be to be a serious threat to Adesanya, even if we had not seen Israel, by the way, see his brand and his buzz dim down a tiny degree because of the loss to Blahowitz, where he is in play right now.

Do you think, though, is it a stretch to say that what we've learned about him from these three fights, a smarter, more patient, maybe even more technical Whitaker? He's always been, Luke, one of the most well-rounded elite fighters that we have in this modern era. I don't think he gets the full level of respect he deserves, right? He's an absolute warrior, yet he can go out there like he did against till and for five rounds play chess and out out chessia is he even better now than he was on that initial championship rise yeah i mean if you were around watching mma when saint pierre or let's say john jones i'll pick those two because silva came to the UFC,

Anderson Silva, in his early 30s. You could pick Demetrius Johnson here too. What I mean to say is, actually not even him, but if you had like a John Jones who was 21 or whatever St. Pierre was in his early to mid 20s

when he got the belt, you got to realize that there are some guys who are so good that they can be underdeveloped and still become weight class champions. And so as they become weight class champions, they will still experience phenomenal growth afterwards. Of course, fighters always grow a little bit here or there, but if you reach it a championship level, like, like I'd say a Tyron Woodley, when you were what,

36 or so, 35, whatever it was, sort ofron Woodley when you were what, 36 or so, 35, whatever it was, it's sort of a little bit older, you know, you could, you're going to get a little bit better during that time. But in general,

your, your, your, your overall athletic potential has been basically realized. Your technical progression has been basically realized. But if you watch John Jones at like what, 21, 22,

when he got the belt, he had a whole, he had all of his twenties in front of him to get a little bit better. Well, Robert Whitaker, I'm not going to put him on the level of Jon Jones or GSB, but what I will say is he's a little bit similar to that. He got the belt early enough where he was good enough to get the belt, but he still had a lot of life to live. He just needed the catalyst for change,

whether that was getting right in the home and then working on some of his craft I actually feel like if you're a fan of Robert Whitaker you have to be happy about these last three fights for a lot of reasons one he won them all so he has the rematch two I think he has grown tremendously he needed to work on the careful game of chess with Till or maybe the blunt I won't call it blind but the pretty serious aggression of a guy like cannon air the resiliency as well and then the southpaw 25 minutes with kelvin gastelum you know that kind of a thing it's just phenomenal uh chances to showcase what you've been working on to make sure that the camps have that kind of uh clear purpose to work on any of those issues to me he's much more patient. He sees everything coming.

And I'll tell you what the big difference was for me in answering this question, do I think the rematch could be different? I did a whole video on my personal channel. If you look at the takedown defense of Israel Adesanya when it's actually along the fence line, it's lights out. Most people can't even get close to taking him down.

They certainly cannot keep him down when he's along the fence line he is very very very good including Jan Blachowicz he couldn't do it either but it's out in the open if you can get Adesanya coming forward or at the end of a punch well dude a guy like Robert Whitaker you saw his wrestling in this one and you saw how good his timing is that is a real possibility for him obviously not just wrestling for 25 minutes bc but mixing it up yes do i think the rematch will be different i still think adesanya is the best middleweight but i absolutely believe the rematch will be different look i think this new era of morning combat uh you know maybe maybe fueled by i mean look when you get out in nature when you get

on the great smoky mountains natural national park and you shut up, Luke, nature will speak to you. So I want the new era of morning combat to be about truth, Luke, to be even deeper about truth. I think that Jan Blachowicz, the Polish powerhouse, indirectly did MMA fans a huge favor by defeating Adesanya at the time that he did to prevent what might have been, Luke, a rise even past light heavyweight had Adesanya won that fight all the way to heavyweight. We could be talking right now, if things had gone differently, about Adesanya fighting Stipe for the heavyweight belt, for all we know, if he had beaten Francis, or fighting Jon Jones next at heavyweight.

But because of the way that fight went, now Adesanya's turning back to middleweight, and now we are getting the continuation of what could be a very special rivalry between Adesanya and Whitaker. Not just one commercially and regionally, because they're two oceanic stars coming forward at the time that that area of the world is just putting out champion after champion and great fighters. But here's the deal, Luke, about being really honest.

I don't know this for a fact. We won't know this maybe until the rematch. But I tend to believe the evidence that I've seen from both fighters since they fought the first time, meaning Whitaker and Adesanya, was that maybe Luke Whitaker was not fully Whitaker in that fight. Yes, it turned out to be the coronation, which seemed like it needed to happen because Adesanya was a rising rocket ship taking off. And maybe under any circumstance on that date, he would have beaten Whitaker. But would he have beat him the way he did? As dominant, surprising, and just, you know, damn, I'm the new champion.

I just knocked Robert Whitaker out. Maybe in hindsight, Whitaker was compromised by all of those things we mentioned, and he just fought Adesanya at the wrong time. And maybe Luke, because Adesanya is coming a little bit back down to earth, just as Whitaker is climbing and now reborn, we will see in the rematch the fight that we maybe were supposed to have seen the first time. And maybe, Luke, for our money, it could lead to a trilogy or even more. I don't think it's out of bounds that Whitaker, who I thought rightfully so was favored against Adesanya in the first fight, could not only win this rematch but have a better chance

at doing it than he had the first time around. I think we're going to see three fights between these two fighters. I think the second one's going to be an absolute classic, Luke. They are back where they need to be on an even playing field. They are two of the best middleweights in the history of this sport in terms of at their very peak, what they've been able to put out. I am so excited that in some weird way, Blahowicz kind of gifted us with this fight that we may be, look, I mean, you could argue, had Adesanya, let's say, not only beaten Jan, but let's say he'd stopped Jan.

I don't know if he ever fights at middleweight again. I don't know if we ever see this. There's still going to be time, by the way, for Izzy to fight Jan and move up and do big things. But right now, we're going to get gifted with an insanely great fight between two pound for pound top ten guys and two of the best in this division's history. You can do nothing Luke, but savor the flavor

on that shit, alright? I am so excited about what this fight's going to look like, feel like, taste like, that I'm even willing, Luke, to put on multiple COVID masks and get on a plane with you and head on down to CKB and watch it. Call up Eugene Barrowman, okay? Let's go down and visit our people down under, Luke.

Let's take this shit in. This is a stadium fight. It's going to be great. 100%. 100% a stadium fight. I hope they find a way. And by the way, I would love for this fight to be in North America. It would be great, obviously, to have the treat of that taking place on home soil.

But that fight deserves to be either in New Zealand or Australia. Fact. I mean, you've got to put that there. I don't know what the COVID restrictions are to make that happen. I don't know if there are any. I don't know what that would take. But if the UFC can find a way to put that back there, that is, it was a stadium show the first time. It's a stadium show the second time.

And, you know, I tend to think that Adesanya um I don't know if he's a bad matchup for Whitaker but I tend to think there are some problems that he's going to pose no matter what but um I I think he needed I BC I'll say this I don't want any fighter to have difficulty in their lives but he needed that breakdown to happen he was getting injured he didn't have it right in the home and it was everything was just kind of a mess he took the loss and then re he didn't just oh i'm gonna go back to the gym and i'll come back stronger he said no no no no let me fix things first fix the problems foundationally it appears anyway and then begin to build off of that and had just the right amount of opponents and the right kinds to prove he belonged uh again and to work on different pieces of his game all of which will

become valuable uh against a guy like Adesanya this is incredibly intriguing he looked phenomenal the only thing I'll say BC is did you see my interview with him I think he would have rather had dengue fever while getting his prostate checked than talk to me luke i'm not saying i bet 1000 i've got some swing and a misses in interviews but uh yeah luke uh you you did you were not able to get inside on him you were not able to make him feel comfortable uh no wow um luke i will say this that his need to take that time off and recharge no different than mine in this past week luke ready to come back make this m MK brand as strong as it can possibly be. I think in closing here, Luke, Whitaker showed us every single thing against Gastelum that is in the arsenal.

I think if you're going to beat Izzy at 185, which we haven't seen done, right? Jan relied on size at 205, and he was really smart, by the way. But he relied on size maybe more than anything to win that along with being smart i think the best kryptonite for what is he does great is a perfect well-rounded machine who can do it all whittaker showed us against gastelum he can do everything so this is going to be great and luke i would be remiss if we went into the bellator discussion without giving gastelumelum an update on where he stands. What do you think is next for Kelvin?

He's wildly overrated and underrated. And I will admit that I have, by accident, become a protector of him. Was it because I wore that orange pullover in Atlanta front row when I saw the best UFC fight of all time when he fought Israel Adesanya and acted like a champion that night? Maybe, Luke. But he took a hellacious beating for five rounds and did not stop coming and did not stop trying to land shots. Luke, he's really damn good. I think certainly he's going to get a big fight off of this because

his performance was so great. How rare is it for you to come on and try to make a case for somebody fighting great in a completely one-sided fight in which they were dominated in every category? Yet, I don't think Kelvin is nearly as bad as people say. Is he inconsistent? Yes. Has he only been able to show us the very best of him in brief windows, including that Adesanya fight? Yes. But Luke, that version of him was world-class. I think he can get back there. But will it be at middleweight do you think he just hasn't fully committed to who he could be at welterweight if he gets in the best shape of

his life and cuts down I mean have we seen the very best of 170 Gastelum he's not even 30 yet is there still time Luke yeah I think in that sense have you seen the best of him at welterweight absolutely not I mean here's the problem with him And this is true for every fighter at some point, which is you see these moments of greatness and yet you're a little bit overwhelmed by the moments of loss or not doing well. But for me, it's like the scales still tip a little bit too heavily in the favor of limits and errors

more than yes, there is absolutely in that in that in the lady justice scale in one side there are absolutely world-class ability but it's still too heavy to me on one side he hasn't quite ironed out some of those other things so you can see all of this what feels like promise and maybe it is just unactualized promise but i also just can't not see uh he was getting timed and there was one thing i'm gonna make a video about it i think i'm gonna try he brings he restarts all the time have you noticed this he brings his feet together he bounces up and down and then he re-engages every time he did that he got timed and he did it for almost 25 minutes the times he

stopped he had better luck because all wh Whitaker had to do was just count the bounces and then go. I was like, dude, how are you doing that against a guy like this? Yeah, you can't, you cannot do that against Robert Whitaker.

He's going to eat your lunch or take your lunch money. I should say every time. So I'm with you. I think people count out Kelvin Gastelum, but dude, I think you would agree. He still has work to do. He still does.

Luke, I'm going to go to my grave telling you that version that showed up against Israel Adesanya was ready to win the championship. I mean, that was the best of him. Can he be that again? He does take heavy damage in these fights, but he only gets handled by super elites, Luke. I don't know if he'll ever win a title, but I would like to see him get back to that level one more time regardless of what weight class it comes in all right we go to topic number four here bc uh on friday bellator 257 took place and the three of the four fights

for the bellator 205 pound world grand prix are now the books. Let's start with the biggest of them, Vadim Nemkov, beating Phil Davis. Technically, BC, it's Phil Davis' worst loss in Bellator, if you think about it, right? Because the other ones were just split decisions. This one was unanimous. Vadim Nemkov showing a tremendous jab, I thought. Great cardio for the most part, and well-rounded ability in general. Your takeaway from his win? Luke, I like this fight.

You know, never watch a piece of art after hearing somebody give a recommendation. Luke, true or false, did you tell me on the phone that this fight kind of snuck? Did you tell me that? It was a little boring, yeah. Yeah, it was a little boring. You gave me an up-close, underwhelming expectation. I went in there. I wasn't in entertain

was i enthralled no but i was entertained for 25 minutes it was a a chess match sped up almost almost full-on high-speed chess i love the technical aspect luke my takeaway vadim nemkov's as advertised he's really freaking good he's very well-rounded he's got the intangibles you can tell meaning he's tough as nails he's got the speed speed power combo. He's not going to gas out. But I think even more what I learned about him in this fight specifically, Luke, is his IQ is there. I mean, this is a championship level fighter. Crazy to say, right? He's already got the championship. But I'm telling you, there is not a hole in his game. Now, is he in discussion to be the best light heavyweight in the world? I think he's going to have to win this tournament to make that claim. But, is he in discussion to be the best light heavyweight in the world? I think he's going

to have to win this tournament to make that claim, but I think he's the betting favorite for a reason. And I think Phil Davis, who again, Luke, he acted like Phil Davis. What I mean by that is he's only got six pro defeats, right? Three of them by split decision. The other one's close competitive decision losses. He tends to do just barely not enough to get over that hump. And the problem with Phil Davis here was counterwise. He was on point. In fact, he was countering so well, Luke, that he was really pushing Nemkov's toughness and gas tank to the point that Davis was the guy coming on in the final two rounds. And I think that's why he was able to make the scorecard so close. Yet at the end of the day, I still exited that feeling like

maybe Phil Davis could have won that fight, and maybe Phil Davis could have won the other close losses he's had in his career if he was willing to get off first, if he was willing to step on the gas tank, be the aggressor, aggressively go after takedowns, look to land shots. When he countered, he was beautiful with right hands and a counter jab, and Phil Davis is a very smart fighter. But all he provided here, Luke, was really strong fodder and resistance

for Nemkov to be able to show us how good he really is, because I think Davis at the very least made him show us that, but wasn't able to get over that hill. Luke, in your eyes, was that more of Nemkov shutting those doors down, or did Phil Davis exit this tournament again leaving that little bit left of eliteness in the cage that could maybe define his career?

I tend to think he should have. Okay, 99 times out of 100, if you had asked me this question, I would say no. I thought that even though he lost he did what he was capable of and he did what you know he followed more or less the right game plan just you know a couple of loose ends here there made the difference but with Phil Davis dude he's 36 years old so he's on the wrong side of 30 at this point 35 even he's closer to 40 than

he is 30 now he's still a tremendous athlete and he does not have a ton of miles on him. As we just indicated, his worst loss in Bellator was this one. It wasn't like he took a huge beating here. He basically got outpointed. So in that sense, he's still pretty fresh. That's not the same kind of 36 as it would be for other guys. But it's like, dude, here's the problem with what Phil Davis does when he fights. If their guys are overmatched, he'll run right through them.

He can knock them out, or he can submit them. We know he has tremendous wrestling and good submission and passing skills. He actually does have those things. But if the fight is close or if someone's a little bit better, he is risk averse. And I don't blame him for doing that. But if you're 36 and you may not get a title shot again in your career, maybe he will. I don't know. Dude, this was the time. This was the time. This was the time to be a little bit less risk averse, to put it on him, to do more with his wrestling. It's not like Nemkov. I mean, he's careful, but he does get out in front of his skis a little bit. He's a little bit almost risk hungry. And I thought there would have been a little bit

more use of his wrestling. Rashad and I talked about that as well. And just more volume. And again, if the reason why you're losing is because you're both relatively equal, but one has a little bit more offense, dude, that, I mean, it's frustrating. It's frustrating for me to watch a guy as talented as Phil Davis and as experienced at this point as he is. And then to lose by virtue of reasons where, yes, maybe Nemkov is just a better guy. You see, that's okay. But I would have liked maybe Nemkov is just a better guy, BC. That's okay.

But I would have liked to have seen him be a better guy without a Phil Davis who was reserved with his offense again. That's the part that just drives me crazy. Also, I'll say this, BC. How many guys have wins in defense of Phil? How many guys have wins over Bader and Phil? Rumble has that. But Phil didn't get finished by Rumble either he's hard to look good against so even if you beat him you don't come out shining

to echo what I said positively about Vadim Nemkov we've seen a pretty fairly substantial sample size right he's beaten four former Bellator champions right bader mcgary davis twice uh the other guy as well luke uh but is he screaming to you the the full potential of what he could be at are you seeing are you hearing jimmy like i am when you watch him luke i mean could he be could he be the top three ufc light heavyweight in your eyes oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah i do think he has limits or at least problems, and they're getting slightly less pronounced over time. But, for example, they were like, oh, his cardio is not great.

Cardio looked pretty good to me here. I didn't see any issues with that for the most part. Although, again, Phil wasn't exactly pushing him, so there's that. But the point I would make. Well, he pushed him late, Luke. Give the man credit. He pushed him in the final two rounds okay put some respect on phil's name a little bit i mean i didn't i didn't see two rounds

for phil there i saw one maybe the fourth um but the point being is you know nemkov's issues are he's a little bit too aggressive both in terms of how he manages his resource and then you know positionally kind of over committing sometimes but he's slowly dialing that back which means by the time you know he is really peaking that kind of thing is going to be even more limited um also i will say this about the quarter finals you know with bader kind of hammering machida it was like a dominant win but i was surprised he didn't get the finish again phil's kind of hard to beat so you get that cory anderson had a nice win over yaksha muradal but he was the small and kind of overmatched.

So I'll say Corey did, like, Corey deserves some praise here because first round took his time, which is fine, right? Second round, let me mix in a little bit more of that wrestling, found what worked. He couldn't get the doubles and the singles. So we'd lock up the single head outside or whatever, and then go for the trip, pull him off the cage. It was brilliant. And then the third round said, okay, I've mapped this out. I've figured out where I need to go. Let me just hammer it directly and then polished them off. To me, Corey Anderson is showing maturity. He's showing growth. He's showing strength. He's showing skill, patience, development, all that stuff. But aside from him with the Bader and then like the Nemcov it's like dude does anyone want to stand out in this tournament because I haven't seen anyone go I want to plant my flag fuck everyone I'm the guy

eat shit I've seen a lot of guys who like I'm going to carefully manage my way through which I understand that's the that's the that's the incentive structure which you know explains human behavior but it does seem to me that there's a little bit missing from these quarterfinal results a little bit here I agree with you now you know comparison wise let's compare it to the heavyweight grand prix we saw you know ryan bader went for it but was he also fighting guys who he who had some holes that he filled and he went for it and he got them out of there yes i think this is speaking certainly to the competitiveness of this tournament, Luke, there are guys in there, Machida and Phil Davis, top of that list, who are hard to look overly great against, are not easy to finish. I mean, nobody's finished Phil Davis, right?

So to that point, but yes, I also see a little bit of a safety from the start. And, you know, it's going to put pressure, I think rightfully so, on the Rumble-Romero matchup to kind of own this tournament or maybe be the announcement of what this tournament could be. You're going to get so many eyes from the sexy standpoint, the two household names, but obviously, you know, of any matchup in this bracket, we have no idea what that fight's going to look like. It could be fireworks throughout. I hope it is fireworks throughout. That might be the first fight that truly gets the attention I think that this tournament deserves, even

though, again, that Nemkov-Davis rematch was a really high-level, technical, decently fun fight to watch. No one has put the flag in there. The only one that's come close to your point is Corey Anderson, and Luke, when we sat down at that really nice table at that Jersey City restaurant to do the Road to Bellator preview,

which you can still watch if you'd want to on YouTube and give us some clicks, and very well produced by the folks at Showtime. We said, look, we're looking for a dark horse, right? It's easy to pick Nemcoff as the favorite. It's easy to say that Rumble or Romero could come out and just be that lightning rod that just cuts through everybody. It's also easy to say, because we've seen it before, that Ryan Bader could run the table and win this.

Who is going to be the dark horse? You and I looked at both Corey Anderson and Phil Davis as potentials. I think Corey Anderson showed you that against Davlet Don, Yagshamuradav, that Luke, when I did the mock bracket for CBS Sports, I ended up with him in the final. He's going to beat Ryan Bader. I can see the future. I'm telling you that right now. I think he's going to be a live dog against Vadim Nemkov as well. Corey Anderson is retooled, hungry, ready. Now look, he got full mount twice against Yagshimuradov. Is that an indictment on good old Dovlet Don Luke? You can argue that. Dovlet's John Yagshimuradov. But I did see a guy hungry going for the finish. I think Corey Anderson has at the very least announced that he is sort of the live dog of this tournament it's he he could win it is not out of

play I think it's going to be him and Nemkov in the final Luke and I think that would be a hell of a matchup obviously if Rumble or Romero or Bader crashed that party we're going to be happy just the same but uh very uh interesting start of the tournament. Not overly sexy, not overly headline providing, but it is setting the stage for, there are enough elite names still standing where I think you're going to see some really good fights. And also we haven't had Rumble Romero yet, so we'll see how that goes on May 7th.

That'll be the last event winner of that fight's Vadim Nemkov. So either way, Nemkov has to fight Romero or Rumble. It's going to be pretty interesting. The last thing I'll say is I thought Paul Daly versus Sabah Hamasi was fucking awesome to start that card. That was such a fun fight. You knew it would be because Hamasi brings it, and you know Paul Daly being Michael Venom Page fight notwithstanding.

He usually comes to bang. I got to say, he took a hard shot, a really hard shot, for him to come back from that and then win via stoppage. Dude, this guy's got 60-plus fights, just in MMA, kickboxing fights, God only knows how many rounds of sparring. For him to take a shot and come back, that is grown man shit. What a phenomenal performance from an aging guy, BC, but Paul Daly can still get it done.

Wasn't it on the anniversary or close to the anniversary of what a lot of people believe is the greatest round in MMA history when he fought Nick Diaz under the Strikeforce banner? So you got sort of a poor man's version of that. But I think the coolest part was, you know, Paul Daly might have retired had he been stopped in this fight right here. And he showed you so much heart and the left took from hell and the power to come back.

I'm wondering, Luke, if Paul Daly MVP 2 isn't the fight to make. The first one, to be really honest here and be politically correct, suck the horn, Luke. Maybe the rematch is still

the fight to make to produce the next welterweight title challenger after Yaroslav Amoslav, who's going to be in there against Yaroslavlav Amoslav who's going to be in there against Yaroslav who's going to be in there against uh Doug Lima coming up just recently announced for June but uh I'll see that again Luke it can't be that bad twice can't it? Amoslav might win that I mean if anyone thinks Douglas Lima is going to walk in there and just to get

a title uh fight and just you know breeze on through it you are very mistaken emisov easily could win that contest so the card itself uh you had the corey anderson fight co-main you had the main event there um with with phil and vadim it was what it was the the the fight on not quite yeah not quite yet on the showtime boxing and then you had the opening fight between phil davis and sabah homasi the I'll say though, is that Vito Ortega and Desiree Yanez fight. This is my personal opinion, you know, and I know Bellator airs on Showtime, but I don't work for Bellator. I don't know why that fight was on the main card, BC. I really don't. Here's my argument. Listen, if you're Bellator or one or PFL or anybody, you have to give a reason to MMA fans to give you a try. We've talked about this before

because the UFC right now is firing on all cylinders. If you just want to be an MMA fan and your whole universe is UFC, I don't recommend that. I think that there's lots of great MMA in lots of places, but let's say you wanted to just do that. You could, you could get a ton out of the experience doing it that way. So you got to force people to turn their head and look at you which means to me entertainment and like just really fun action fights needs to be what you do like the Paul Daly Sabaho Masi fight so listen they had the Vito Ortega and Yanez fight on the main card BC and I don't really agree with that I think what the I think why they did that and I don't know for sure was because Vito Orte, if she won that, might get a title shot in her relevant weight class. But it's like, dude, do people need to know her journey once she gets a title shot? I don't think

it really matters. Instead, they should have put the J.J. Wilson versus Pedro Carvalho fight, because J.J. Wilson, one of these guys undefeated out of New Zealand, a good, smart kid. He can fight his ass off. He is action-oriented. Pedro Carvalho, yeah, he got dusted by Pitbull, but he's a good fighter as well. That fight was very good. Put something like that on the main card. Make folks, when they turn off Bellator when it's done, go, dude, those fights were amazing.

I don't need to see the buildup to a flyweight women's title shot in Bellator. What I need to see is fights I remember. That's the ticket. Yeah, unfortunately that Artega fight did not scream elite mixed martial arts despite the ranking involved there. Did you like her tattoo assembly, Luke? I know we'll get to that

and have you seen this shit with others, Tats, because that's what you do, right? Critically assess ink. There's a lot of ink on that lady. I didn't see any up close, so I'd have to take a look, but I'm happy to do that. That's a very Switzerland-like take, but that's fine. Hey, shout-out to Rich Chow, the longtime Bellator matchmaker

who just announced a new role elsewhere. Luke, I was wondering if you were auditioning for his role with that take there. I did agree with your take completely. No, not auditioning for the role. I'm just to say man it's like dude we don't you don't need to borrow the ufc's architecture of like we got to make sure we air certain contenders in certain spots so everyone's dude you have belts or you have flexibility put on memorable fun fights and the rest will fall into place i assure you okay that's it uh last topic we see for our

top five here before we get to dms from donks we kind of covered this last week so really this is just a almost like a bc exclusive but the showtime boxing calendar came out last week and there was a ton of stuff on it you can see the picture there tank davis uh is gonna have a fight let's see who else is gonna have a fight a million the tarlo who else is going to have a fight? A million, the Tarlow brothers. There's going to be a Rig and Dow fight, which, by the way, that might be the gold star among them all. Your reaction to the Showtime announcement, what do you like? What stands out to you? Yeah, I really

like it, Luke. I mean, it's the word I'll just use to describe it is strong. It's strong. We've been waiting for, you know, PBC on Showtime to sort of have one of these announcements and find out what's next. It seems like we've been sort of sitting around

what's going to be coming on the calendar. Here's what you should focus on the most out of these matchups. We've harped a lot, Luke, about how Showtime has done a good job in the PBC family

of sort of identifying certain weight classes that they are almost, you know, the owners of that they're going to showcase 122 pounds whether you call it super bantamweight or junior featherweight has been one of those and you're going to see that with that may 15th main event when luis nary the hard-hitting mexican slugger

that we love to see going in there against brandon figueroa luke who like his older brother omar they just come to brawl luke i, they just bring an all-action, high-volume style. Not only is that title fight going to be a great one in terms of can't-miss action, but it's going to tell us a lot about the larger title picture in the division and has the connective tissue with the final fight on that announcement, which does come September 11th when Stephen Fulton Jr., Luke, who we just saw win a 122-pound title on Showtime, is scheduled to fight the winner of that. So you've got a division that's strong.

There's a lot of U.S.-based guys there and a lot of fun names, and now we're going to match them together. That's fun to see. Obviously, Luke, you don't go any further than June 26th, the pay-per-view. I've got to say this. Look, I'm not telling you you need to love gervonta tank davis uh in every category right we've rightfully sort of called out some of his uh outside the ring discretions that have added up and not been great he does deliver inside the ring and whether or not mario barrios the 140 pound title holder is a household name in your household i gotta give

tank respect for this luke He owns titles at 130 and a secondary one at 135. This is him moving up to 140 against a guy who's over six feet tall in Mario Barrios with long arms, with an all-action style, a big puncher. This is not an easy fight for Tank Davis, who is small. We've called him the Mike Tyson of the lower weight classes because of his intention to go in there and knock you out. I think Tank is a much better boxer than he's had to show up to this point, but it will be very interesting when he gets in there with Barrios if he's got a box more than punch, if his power doesn't carry to that same level. This is a very interesting fight. I love the co-main of Erickson Lubin versus Banana Jason Rosario, which is a very interesting fight i love the co-main of erickson lubin versus banana jason

rosario which is a very key sort of 154 pound uh title eliminator bout to produce and you know who's next in line for one of those belts so that's looking strong and then look the other one i'll circle along with the rigando jean-riel casamero fight which uh style contrast wise for that bantamweight title is great august 14th how How pumped are you Luke to close on this July 17th when Jermell Charlo, who knocked out Banana Rosario to unify, he's got three or four junior middleweight belts, 154 super welterweight. He's going to take on Brian Castagno, the fun all action fighter who has the fourth title. Luke, we love in boxing when they get things right. When we get one name, one champion, one division, right? No 18 belts

across the board. The winner of this is going to be the undisputed champion at 154. This could be a very fun matchup. I think you and I need to be there. I think we need to be front row for this one. This is going to be fantastic. Yeah, I would love to be there for that one. I'll tell you one more that you didn't go over too much, but it kind of has

my interest, is that Benavidez Uzcategui fight, and I'll tell you one more that you didn't go over too much but it kind of has my uh my interest is that benavidez uz kategi fight and i'll tell you why we were there when benavidez we interviewed him we actually had the first interview we were covering the weigh-ins it was one of the very first shows i think it was like the first showtime fight when the after the pandemic had started and they figured everything out at mohegan in the fight sphere and he missed weight and he lost his belt on the scales and that that really derailed him in the fight sphere and he missed weight and he lost his belt on the scales and that that really derailed him in the weight class from all the talk about the plants and the billy joe saunders and the canellos big names who he could fight and whatnot bc here's my feeling he had to get right he had another win after that this will be the third one basically well two after that one that we saw but

three if you want to count all of them this This is my point. If he goes in there and shines against Uzcategui, I think that's going to be one of the final big hurdles to not necessarily get him the Canelo fight after that, but I think that's going to be the fight that re-puts him back into that conversation where you're thinking to yourself, okay, what are some realistic possibilities for Canelo, for Plant, or whatever? I think Benavidez is going to be a much bigger

part of that conversation if and when he beats Uzcategui. I agree. And Uzcategui, by the way, is no soft touch. A former title holder, a very tough out. A guy who, despite losing his title to Caleb Plant, hurt Plant late and really was in that fight. So, look, we know that Canelo

has got that division 168 on lockdown. He's going to fight Billy Joe Saunders to try to get his third title in May. I hope he fights Caleb Plant for the fourth belt later this fall, Luke. But if that doesn't happen, Benavidez is not out of play for Canelo or Caleb Plant, in which they have a sort of heated long-term rivalry there from a beef back in the day at a gym. So good things to come in the future at 168. Very happy showtime. Putting a very strong foot forward here, Luke. All right. That is enough for our top five, BC.

It's now time when the audience gets to ask us questions. It is time for DMs from donks. Hee-haw. Hee-haw. Hee-haw. All right. Let's go first here from RGO.mitra94, I guess. Whose run of wins following a title loss do you find more impressive? Nganou post Miocic won or Whitaker post Adesanya? Well, I'll say this, BC.

Wow. It's a great question, I'll say this, BC. Wow. It's a great question. I'll say this. In Ghanu's resume, if you're just looking at the names and then the method of victory, like he knocked out Cain Velasquez, he knocked out Rosenstreich, that's better. But honestly, I'm more impressed in the totality of fighting

by what Whitaker has done. Yeah, I think that's a fair take. It's hard to know. I mean, Velasquez lost so quickly, injured his knee, got hit hard with a punch that dropped him. We didn't really know if he was going to be back. I mean, he disappeared again and retired after that and went to pro wrestling. And look, I got nothing bad to say about Kane. We don't know if he was washed in that spot. JDS was on the other side for sure in that spot. What Robert Whitaker has had to do in three very competitive and tough fights, all three had the feel of title eliminators, right? Those were like, you know, you need to pass this test and it's going to test you no matter how good you

are. I'm going to give the nod to the ghost, but no disrespect to what Ngannou has done. You put him in front of him, Luke, he's going to crush you. Are you watching the Ngannou Body Shot Challenge that's going on social media lately, Luke? Yeah, dude. He's a formidable man. He's a formidable man. It's a wonderland, Luke. It's its own nation. It's wow.

You know what's weird is seeing the... You know he bought Brett Okamoto's house in Las Vegas, right? Which is just weird. Did he? Yeah, he did. And Brett sometimes will be like, yeah, dude, Francis called me and said there's more old mail I have to come pick up. And it's just weird seeing the UFC cameras in there for the pre-fight stuff. I'm like, I've been there, bro.

I had beers and pizza on this couch. Not that couch. Did he sell them the furniture? I don't think that happened. But there could be remnants of the old BO lingering around. You never know. By the way, I did ask, when I interviewed Francis for Morning Combat, I tested his ability, Luke, to be funny when I said,

hey, you're living in BO's old house. You ever find any old school nudie mags left in the closet? Francis did not like that question, Luke. I had Mikey edit it out afterwards. It was awkward. He didn't get it. Yeah, it was like me talking to Robert Whitaker. I was like, hey, Luke. I had Mikey edit it out afterwards. It was awkward. He didn't get it. Yeah, it was like me talking to Robert Whitaker. I was like, hey, Robert, how are you doing?

And he was like, I'd rather be stabbed in the eyes than talk to you. I was like, oh, okay, that's good. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. All right, from at Naluka, I think. Where does the Jeremy Stevens shove, talking about with Dracar Close at the weigh-ins, rank among the dumbest and weirdest reasons a fight has been called off it's up there BC it's up there with Kevin Randleman

hitting his head on a pipe that and that's always the reference by the way Randleman and rightfully so it's not that bizarre how bizarre uh how bizarre but uh you know you want to know the rest? Hey, by the rights. All right. From Liam O'Brien. How is it that Semtex Daily is this deep into his career and able to put on a fight of the year contender? The man is a marvel. Dude, some of these guys, you know what's amazing? Like a guy like Overeem and Semtex,

you know, neither of them became UFC champions, although certainly, you know, a guy like ovareem and semtex you know neither of them became ufc champions although certainly um you know uh a guy like ovareem having belts and strike force and k1 and being the first to do that is pretty goddamn special but okay neither neither were uh ufc champs and yet dude they're just built for war they're just fucking built some guys are they just they can do this in ways that other guys who maybe even had higher peaks can't. Yeah, the short answer is because he's got balls, Luke. You know, I mean, he's a special kind of warrior. But, Luke, do you think there's a genetic element?

I say that, you know, respectfully because like Sherpas, right, who grew up in the mountains of Nepal and now their full-time job is hiking guides on Everest. They have a different lung capacity to be able to handle that. There are people who have always said where Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. is from in the mountains of Mexico was able to produce biologically a body that could, you know,

had double the lung capacity or, you know, whatever, right? To be able to go longer distances and fight. I mean, Secretary at Luke, when they did the autopsy afterwards, they said he had a heart, what, three times the size of an average horse are people pre-disclosed to be able to take more punishment than others or is their body just delaying the effects of the you know cte and the like look

like chuck liddell was still willing to brawl when his body made him stop right not some guys they don't show it in overem shogun hua they're still for right or wrong gonna go out there and get into wars in their 40s um is it gonna show up later or are they just is this why some dudes like you luke can claim well i gotta drink 54 beers before i feel a buzz which is one of the more bullshit things you have ever said luke you're my friend i was there when you when you almost died at backus hospital norwich connecticut and i would have mourned all over your grave luke not pissed on it by any means um but luke when you claimed that you could dunk in high school

which i still don't believe at all that's just that's just incontestably true but okay that mixed with the i need whatever sword you pulled i need 48 beers to feel about like luke fuck you bro right i mean you can like these facts or you can hate these facts i don't think it's 48 but honestly could i drink 24 beers and probably drive home yeah i think i could probably do that get out of here okay maybe what you're trying to say is that in your prime you were a diesel man you were a tough guy maybe you had a drinking problem and you could put it down that's fine luke you are so far removed from that that's true so don't try to act like you come out here's the thing i asked my my my wife's uncle is a gastroenterologist and a surgeon in Columbia. And I asked him, if I drink alcohol, will that inflame my gallbladder?

And he said, no, he said, no, it actually would not. Now, if you have fat in the drink in some kind of way, depending on what you're drinking, that could do it. So like if you're having, I don't know, daiquiris or some shit like that or whatever, pina coladas, that might be able to do it. But just the raw alcohol, no, it would not. I mean, there's other bad effects.

So my point being is there is a chance we can test this theory, see how many it takes. Here's the question, right? How many beers would it take for me to fail a field sobriety test? That's basically what you're asking, right? I mean, don't ask me. I get white girl drunk off of two of them, Luke.

Okay, so, I mean. White Claw BC. Yeah, I think it would be probably around a case of beer, and I do mean that sincerely. I can drink six or eight Miller Lights and literally feel nothing. Not a thing. Nothing.

I'd like to put that to the test sometime on room service diaries but let's move on look you have a doctor's appointment and i got a lot of shit to show the people okay all right here we go the real k carter the triller pay-per-view was a disaster but was the biggest mistake they made not running a single promo on what triller actually is slash the benefit it offers to the end user i said this at the beginning of the show dude they didn't advertise their fucking app which is the basis of the company one time yeah i don't get it luke i don't get it i mean can they coexist without tyson didn't they need don't they need tyson to really work why was the broadcast so different the first time compared to the second luke uh again dude they're like oh we got all this praise from the first one let's do that but way too much of it and they're then you got

what you got um dude this is a company the triller app itself i've taken a look at it it's mildly interesting it's not a bad app by any stretch but you just wonder how it can actually compete with its rivals in that marketplace and then when you see see them, like, dude, I'm telling you, they lost a shit ton of money on that show. Someone from Triller had told Kevin Aioli, someone behind the scenes, that the production of the show was in the tens of millions. I mean, even if you grant that they made $20 million on pay-per-views, which, by the way, they have to split that into different forms of payouts, there's no chance they even broke even on that show. That is impossible. So as long as they're willing to lose money, they can keep these shows up,

but I think eventually they're going to get tired of it. At Scotty14Y, Luke, you promised us a really embarrassing story when your personal YouTube channel hit 100k subs will you tell that story well this person characteristically bc doesn't get the details right the details are when i hit 200k subs not 100k it was 200k subs and yes i will tell the story i have put one story aside that i'm just gonna wait and put in that box until it's sealed i'm not really posting to my channel very often these days which i need to fix but bc i have one story and whether i tell it on this place or

the other you're gonna want to hear it it's your boy does not come out looking too great yeah i'm gonna be front row for that luke how quickly can this brand get to 100k not your personal channel no one no one follows that anymore the morning combat just for that i'm gonna start putting up a sunday podcast to piss you off um i pretty quickly i mean listen we're kind of you know we need to be on the road a little bit more i think if we do that this the you know either we're jersey city or where the fights are at i think if we did that the the value goes up but um we'll get there here in a few months i'm pretty confident so it'll happen all right all right time for your shit all right this is what we do we took a week off so i got an extra sweet double dose like we you know we scoured the globe for the highs and lows the

good and the bad the ugly the in between from combat sports and beyond we call it. Have you seen this shit? Have you seen this shit? All right, Luke, we mentioned the shove heard around the world between Jeremy Stephens and Drakkar Close, which called off the fight due to what? Was it a spinal injury to Close? I don't know. Here's a replay of it. Some Canadian tweeted it out.

Here's the, yeah that was uh i liked it though luke i liked it i like a little am i wrong for for feeling like i don't care fully i don't have full investment in a fight until i see this type of barbaric pro wrestling stuff i love it luke yeah i don't care i mean they, they have this event called the Ceremonial Weigh-In, in which no one's actually weighing in. It's a commercial for the show. If you don't come out with that BDE and look to, like, sell your fight, what are you doing?

I'm not here for handshakes, Luke, you know? You're here for that tip-to-tip action. All right, I guess you're out of this segment already. Let's keep it moving. Also on UFC Fight Night Vegas this weekend, Luke, did you see flyweights Tracy Cortez and Justine Kish put on a fun little fight, high-paced, back and forth. Nobody shit their pants in the cage.

It was a fun little fight. Agree? Yes. Hold on. I need the producers to put the camera just on you if they can for just a second because I've got to plug this shit in. Sorry. I'm having malfunctions live on air.

It's all right, Luke. It's only a live segment that we've prepared all weekend for. I can't see the screen, so I have to do it. I have to do it. Alright, Luke. The story here is that these two ladies fought really aggressively and fast and hard, but nobody was watching because Jake Paul was fighting, but I enjoyed

the fight, Luke. Transitioning, Luke. Do you know a lot about Tracy Cortez? Did you see her tats, Luke? Can we zoom in on here, Gaff? Luke, check out this tat on her shoulder. Rate that tat. I don't know if you can see it, but it's her late brother who fought and battled cancer and lost, but it's a picture of him while he went through his battle.

He often wore that UFC shirt right there. You got a sunset in the background and an ocean. I am putting you on the Mr. HeBoss challenge here. Say something bad about this, Tat. You can't. I'm trying to see it. I can't. My screen is blocked.

Good answer. Good answer. I'm literally trying. On the inside of her left forearm, if we can advance the slide, she also has one of her late mother who unfortunately also lost a battle with with cancer luke i'm in for this type of tribute all right uh i'm you know what i can see the one on the forearm um it looks like there might be sufficient detail i wonder if how when she got it it looks a little bit like the colors have faded but you can you can touch those up and the face say that's really nice i'm happy she honored her family

you asked me about the tattoo you didn't ask me about the tattoo sentiment two different questions listen if i buy you a maserati to drive your family in and you had no way to get a car, that'd be one thing. If I bought a, you know, a Pinto and gave it to you, the sentiment is still nice either way. These are not equivalent vehicles. You should follow her on IG.

Yeah, I guess that's fair, Luke. Let's keep it rolling here. Also at UFC Vegas, strawweight Lupita Godinez, Luke. She manhandled Jessica Penne in a pair of slams despite coming up empty in a split decision loss. Here's the first one, Luke. Now let's advance to the second one. She's tossing her around like old pancakes, Luke.

Jesus. She is strong as fuck. Yes. Did you agree with this decision and do you like Penne's comeback? I thought the decision was a little bit sketchy. I mean, the problem is I just don't agree with the current scoring criteria, where if you have the back and you don't do anything with it, oh, it doesn't count.

But to me, that's bullshit. If I get to your back, I have altered the circumstances in such a way where you're not even capable of launching, for the most part, for the most part, meaningful offense. I think that needs to count more than, oh, you got to the back,

you didn't do anything with it. But that's not necessarily how fights are scored. So I don't mind Jessica winning, but I can understand folks who are like strict adherence to the rules. Maybe we should implement Aaron Bronstetter's free healthcare for all half pointpoint scoring system, Luke? I don't like the half-point idea.

To me, you're asking for problems. He loves it. God bless him. Not for me. Luke, I love Aaron Bronstetter. I'm not here to say anything bad about him, but did you believe him when he said he was an athlete in high school?

He said he played sports. Like, recreationally. Prove it. Prove okay all right thank you uh let's move on here luke the zone boxing from hollywood florida check out this beautiful uppercut that demetrius andre landed on liam williams i'll get a little bit more into this fight in the odds and ends later, but your thoughts on this, Luke? Yeah, Andre keeps beating guys he can easily beat. Boy, he gave him the whole fuck. I mean, look at him just leaning into that shit. Good lord. That's a beautiful shot.

Shout out to that fellow. I mean, that came from behind the waist. Good lord. Yes, yes. Luke, also on this DAZN undercard hollywood florida 18 to 1 favorite heavyweight maha mudrol majidav luke a three-time amateur world champion from azerbaijan luke he got sent to hell by andre fedesov who was off for three years he retired from the sport he's back he's back with a bang luke from what country uh madrid i was from uh azerbaijan fedesov's from russia were they pre-disclosed

what what the what are you talking about nothing you just you called it azerbaijan it's azerbaijan and then you use the word pre-disosed like totally wrong. That's okay. I don't think I said predisclosed, Luke. Earlier you did, not just now. I'm of Lithuanian descent, at least half, and that was formerly under the Russian flag. What's the capital of Lithuania? Kaunas, right? Probably?

Yeah. Alright, Luke, let's keep it going. DAZN weigh in on Friday. Your thoughts on Eddie Hearn's fashion statement here. He always wears ridiculous shit, doesn't he? Yeah. and uh DAZN weigh in on Friday your thoughts on Eddie Hearn's fashion statement here he always wears ridiculous shit doesn't he yeah yeah he does the guys out here wearing fractals and you know look have you met him do you know he's like a legit six seven people don't know he's huge he's huge he's a giant giant man uh yeah he just dresses like you know like he's on tiktok and he's you know a 50 year old man but otherwise he's fine I think he's like 38 I think I you know like he's on tiktok and he's you know a 50 year old man but

otherwise he's fine i think he's like 38 i think i you know i've been arguing this for years i think we could hang with him look i think i know you know he's probably got money he's british he's you know yeah i think he we can hang with him i think he's cooler than you think luke i've had him on my show you know he's about like all promoters are friendly for the most part willing to sell a product to the nth degree a little bit shady but otherwise I've had him on my show. You know, he's about like all promoters are, friendly for the most part, willing to sell a product to the nth degree. A little bit shady, but otherwise, fun chat. All right.

Hey, let's go on to LFA 104 over the weekend. Luke, Roland Dunlap landed a hell of a slam, Luke. Let the boys be boys indeed. Wow. That looked like the Frank Shamrock-Igor Zinoviev slam the famous one yes yes that was just like it brutal deluxe yikes that is it looked like that other lfa slam from that dude you know the former ufc guy the big guy you know what i'm talking about gerald harris yes thank you thank you very much all right luke let's go to regional combat sports because, Luke, you know anything can happen. Check out the start of this amateur MMA fight.

Oh, God. This is what Ben Askren should have done. You know, this is what fueled my take that he didn't try to win, Luke. He should have just mucked that fight up, right? Wrestled, kneed in the clinch. He went in there to get laid out like this guy, Luke. I think if he had been disqualified for using weapons that were from other combat sports, I don't know that he would have.

I mean, he would have received his contractual pay, but there would have been some kind of disqualifying issue for payment as well. Yeah, but he should have tried to make it a tough man fight, right? Just went in there and just like helicopter punches, muck it up. Yeah, alright. There was one time he got on the inside, but then he didn't really do much with it. Let's go to the regional

boxing scene, Luke. Anything can happen here. Check out this finish. Oh! You can get a souvenir if you're in the front row there, Luke. By the way, did you see Mike Bone? Mike Boner? They put him in the front row on the apron down there at the Georgia Dome, Luke. I know.

He was the only journalist sufficiently willing to debase himself enough to go to that shit. Probably got COVID. How about Bronstetter telling that story on the air about Boner meeting some chick on the plane and hooking up? Yeah. Is this guy a real man? We didn't know it coming in. Well, dude, there's some other Mike Bond stories of him hooking up with some hot chicks. And you can't believe it because he sounds and looks like Kermit the Frog. But somehow he makes it work.

I like Mike Bone. He's a good dude. I actually like Mike Bone a lot. I've Mike Bone. He's a good dude. I actually like Mike Bone a lot. I've had him on my show a million times. But I also like making fun of him. So there you go. Alright, let's go over to Thai boxing. Speaking of guys leaving the ring, Luke, check this out.

Uh-oh. Oh! God! Get out of here! Jesus Christ! That's like that Amazon overnight delivery, bitch. Get out. Jesus Christ. That's like Amazon overnight delivery. Bitch, get out of here. Next. Yeah, that's some brutal.

All right. Hey, Luke, do you hear about Conor McGregor's proper 12 as a new spinoff fertility business? It's called the name of it is on the pads there behind him. look shout out to james gallagher that's our guy right yeah yeah uh it once was and then you aired this joke yeah yeah yeah he did come off camera and be like bro what are you trying to get my ass kicked by my girl yeah what the fuck you guys doing asking about how many you know how much trim i'm running through. Yeah, all right. Hey, Luke, Ben Askren has taken a few L's now in his combat career, so how about we reimagine his flying knee loss to mini-Masvidal?

That's funny. Luke, I've watched this 4,000 times. I can't get enough of it. I can tell because it's only marginally funny, but if you have brain damage, you might think it's very funny. Luke, isn't it reminiscent of the old ice hockey game on Nintendo 8-bit where you could pick the small, medium, or large players to round out your four-man team?

I've never played. All right. Hey, it was great doing this segment with you. Let's keep going here. Luke, let's play what's this submission called? It's Ibrahim Ashkabov from ACA. Yeah, this is a buggy choke. Luke, this is some killer stuff right here.

Yeah, it's a way. It's basically sort of like a Senkaku, which is to say it's a triangle of some kind, but you get it when the person is in site control. It's very hard to do. It's low percentage, but you can get it. He got it. He got it indeed.

Wow, well done there. All right, Luke, it's a tip-on tip time. Let's start down under with our rugby bros. What are your thoughts on this advertisement? Bring a friend to the footy. Fill the fortress, Luke. Bring a friend and touch tips. I can get behind that, so shout out to the Rebels or whatever team that is, Luke.

How about this friendly fire tip-to-tip? It is outdoor cookout season. Are they white? I can't. Well, they're white now, Luke, because the fire. The fire. Wow. Yeah.

Just the dumbest motherfuckers. This is Triller's targeted demo. I tweeted that their targeted demo were the loudest, stupidest teens at the mall food court. They're basically like this. Yeah, pretty much. But the tip to tip don't end there, Luke. We're going midair tip touching here. Yeah, pretty much. But the tip-to-tip don't end there, Luke. We're going mid-air tip-touching here. Check out this helicopter.

I believe it's refueling, but it kind of looks consummation, Luke. Yeah, they got to get this whole process right. You know that the guys who invented this were male engineers. Yes, definitely. Luke, does that turn you on at all? No, no, it doesn't turn me on at all, no. All right, all right. Luke, I'll give you one guess name this legendary mma announcer who's still training at 56 mma announcer yeah

it's not i mean i can't see it that well that's not that's not rogan is it no no oh is that goldberg it is mike goldberg? It is Mike Goldberg. Let's advance this film. This is him in 2017 with Josh Thompson on the pads. Luke, he's got it, right? Sure. Look at that form and technique. I like that.

Yeah. No? Nothing? No. Virtually identical. Yes. All right. Okay. Let's keep it rolling here luke many of us know you received your miracle medicinal marijuana card in dc to help sleep at night let's fast forward six months here's luke after enjoying this uh a little bit too much here i wish that was me check out that spliff right there right this guy is i mean what is he

trying to send a signal to someone else far away with this what in the fuck dude that's amazing if you if you if you stand next to him you can actually get a contact high and covet at the same time yes yeah this was ray flores trying to hook Al Bernstein up during the trailer broadcast, I think. This is great, right? Boy, look at him just getting that canoe firing, bro. God damn. Some of that purple Urkel.

Yeah, all right here, Luke. Let's keep this going. Here's the majority of MMA fans and fighters doing their best to slow the curve, Luke. That's South Florida in one meme. Actually, Luke, I was in Tennessee the week, last week that they changed the laws. By the end of the week, Luke, nobody had a mask on.

Nobody, bro. Yeah, people have been pretending the pandemic is over for a while. It's funny. I can't wait to get it. I'm getting the second shot tomorrow. I'm sized. I get mine on Saturday, Luke. I'm afraid I'm going to sleep through UFC 261, but we'll see what happens.

You'll be alright. Luke, Bellator 256 a little bit more than a week ago. How about this knockout? The very sneaky Diana Avsaragova sending Terra Graf to hell. Did you like this, Luke? Yeah, dude.

She looked pretty good, actually, as a fighter. Watch, watch, watch, watch. Watch. Slips off. Bang. That is a nice shot. That's well-timed. She took her head off the center line, followed up immediately. Oh, that was brilliant.

She can hit hard. Luke, would you call that bang on? For sure. That was a bang on right hand. I had to follow her on Instagram after that one. Speaking of bang on, Luke, can we play the audio here of Matchroom Sports announcer David Diamante? Oh, the dude with the dreads?

And now to the scale, ladies and gentlemen. Here's the undefeated blonde bomber, Ebony Bridges. 1.17, bang on for the blonde bomber. 117 pounds, bang on for Ebony Bridges. Luke, you've been around combat sports a long time. Is that a proper reaction to that kind of way in Luke? Among the range of things that could have been said, that only that was said is actually relatively miraculous.

All right, bang on. Let's keep it going here, Luke. A viewer sent this in to send you to hell. Here's the legend, Ronnie Coleman, Luke. Dude, hold on. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Just hang on a second. I understand that on occasion,

a guy who put in seven days a week on all the steroids might have worn gloves on occasion. I am trying to explain to you 99 point let me finish just let me finish 99.9 percent of lifters including and especially the most elite do not under any circumstance wear motherfucking gloves please king of the lifts already left a comment in the Morning Combat Instagram channel. This guy was a ranked powerlifter, a judge on the national

level. He's like, dude, people don't do it. I don't know why this is such a hard lesson to learn. Luke, I'm only a messenger. I'm a conduit of the people and honestly, Ronnie, his behind the back fucking trap shrugs suck

they're not even very good so you know what ronnie work on your form guy how about that how dare you all right don't be throwing shade at this guy luke he's done he's spilled more steroids than you've done okay luke all right i've never done any steroids yet uh but yes you're right i just drives me crazy they find this guy like, dude, it's totally common people wear gloves. It's common among overweight, middle-aged women at Planet Fitness. That's it. Luke, in your front yard, when BC

goes to DC, in your front yard, I'm gloving up, brother. I'm not telling you that much right now. That's fine. You and my middle-aged neighbors, you guys can all glove up together. Men, we don't do that. All right. Hey, Luke, two weeks ago, top-ranked boxing in Las Vegas,

did you see this knockout from F.A. Ajagba, the unbeaten heavyweight, Luke? Watch this bullshit. Whoa. He sent him spinning like laundry. Pow. Yikes. We've got an alternate angle of this, Luke. You got to watch this one.

Dude, that is. They don't come a lot better than that, BC. Yeah. Jogba's got that Nganou scary power, Luke. He was formerly of the PBC. I think you can see it. He's top rank now. He switched teams, but he's still got the power.

For folks who don't know, there was famously a few years ago a bout that started, and right as it started, one guy walked out of the ring and just walked back to the back, didn't throw a single punch, just left, and it was kind of famous. That dude who left is not this guy. The dude who left was the guy fighting this winner here. He was like, fuck that. I don't want any part of it.

I'm out. He's like, you're paying me this much to fight this guy? I'm out of here. Yeah, so well done there. All right, Luke, we have Zapruder film footage that just came in of how Shogun Hua really lost to Jon Jones in their light heavyweight title. This is old. Yeah, I've seen this.

Oh, Luke, that is just, what in the name of Tony Hawk? Skate or die, Luke, indeed, right? Finally, we get the truth about how that fight went down, right? You know, that's not good. By the way, he beat the piss off of our guy Shogun there. I mean, he beat the, Luke, that was a wider victory than John over you at the 214 presser. That was like, wow, right? Yeah, I mean, I didn't have bodily injury.

My heart might have been hurting, but that's it. Yeah. Hey, Luke, you ever hear of the term old man strength before? Check out this street fight. Uh-oh. Let's see. First of all, don't mess with old guys, okay? Whose heart is this?

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Standing in the street, you know he's never fought before never never yeah i just walked i mean these dudes they just i don't wow it's like just it's like listen i know listen i know you couldn't get into the rusted root concert bc but you gotta that's true you gotta just not walk into big... I mean, what are we doing here?

Somebody clean that guy up here. We got traffic to move around. Wow. All right, Luke. I got one more for you. Luke, you and I are pretty damn good friends. I never want to be this close, though, Luke. Would you... I mean, is it that much different than the lady in the tramp spaghetti scene with the two dogs look either way i i'm not i don't i'm not i'm not going to say that

i hope you get covid because that would be really mean but i am thinking about it there is a limit to my to our friendship luke i mean i i'm i'm pretty good friends with you but this is no no that's it. Alright, Luke. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. That's a supersized edition of Have You Seen This Shit? There you have it. Alright, BC, time for odds and ends. For odds and ends, what do you have?

DeZone Boxing over the weekend, the aforementioned Demetrius Andre, the WBO middleweight champion. Luke, here's the deal. He's been elite for eight freaking years and still cannot get an elite opponent. He fought Liam Williams on Saturday. He went out there. We showed the footage of the uppercut. He got hurt late in this fight and recovered. He was vulnerable. And yet, Luke, it's like when we talk about what's next for the big southpaw who's been,

you know, he's technically brilliant. He's quick, he's strong, he's a great fighter. He's had marketability issues. He had to sit out two years to get out of his promotional deal back in the day. And we still can't get this guy into a big fight, which means still most people don't know who this guy is, and it's sort of a waste of time to put it in the rundown. But Luke, I want to kind of ask you whose fault at the end of the day is that here's some footage of Eddie Hearn after this fight I want to get your reaction to it Eddie it's your responsibility to make big fights for Demetrius Andrade you told me this week he is the most difficult fighter to make big fights for did

your job get more or less difficult after tonight? Well, I thought, firstly, it was a great fight. Big props to Liam Williams. You know, if you're a champion watching that fight, firstly, as Demetrius says, you know, he's done his job. It's not his responsibility to convince the other champions to fight him. Champions are supposed to fight champions, okay? You've got guys out there like Jamal Charlo.

You know, his brother's doing a great job. He's going through the divisions fighting champions. Okay, you've got guys out there like Jamal Charlo. You know, his brother's doing a great job. He's going through the divisions fighting champions. Jamal Charlo is fighting, I can't remember his name. What's his name? Juan Montiel. Right, Juan Montiel. Well, I mean, Conor McGregor said it best. You know, I don't know what he's doing. He's got an opportunity. If he doesn't want to fight on his own, we've made him a massive offer. Demetrius will go and fight on Fox. It's not a problem. He's not. Now, Luke, he went on to say a guy in his own sphere, Triple G,

why are you looking to fight Murata in December? And, look, I get there was some intensive slander there against Showtime by criticizing Charlo's opponent. But, Luke, again, we're eight years into the Demetrius-Andrade elite experiment. Whose fault is it at this point? Because the zone paid Triple G and Canelo a stupid amount of money along with Andrade. They can't get any of those guys in the ring with each other.

Whose fault is it? Jesus. God, I mean, all of them. You know, I mean, it's a varying a varying the question is not whose fault is it the question is who bears the most fault and that one you know that's debatable i'll just say if you're a demetrius andre the idea that who you're fighting is all that's really available given what everyone else is doing i I don't buy that. I don't buy it.

Here or there, sure. Certain moments, fine. But given it's been this long and it's been this consistent, you have a little bit of mirror gazing, I think, that's due. No? I mean, he was boring for a while. Then there's been fights where Andre just stepped on the gas and went after guys. And then even in this fight, Luke, he was boring for a while. Then there's been fights where Andre just stepped on the gas and went after guys.

And then even in this fight, Luke, he looked vulnerable. It's almost like he has to dumb himself down to maybe get hurt and show people that he's not as good as they think he is to make that risk-reward make sense. I just don't get how you can be this deep into your career and still have not actually really proven yourself on, like, the super elite level. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say but um it's unfortunate i can certainly say that

now i don't know if i can blame andrade i can't blame him for this post-fight interview real quick can you load that one up in the hopper Okay, okay, that's good. Is that you after three white claws trying to freestyle? Maybe it is his fault. Also, quickly, Luke, PBC on Fox put on a... It should not have been a main event. I was not into it,

but I was into Tony Harrison coming back. He took on Bryant Perella. Harrison had been off for more than a year. I interviewed him heading into this fight. We remember him from those two great fights with Jermell Charlo. He didn't look great, Luke. He fought to a split draw against a very inspired Bryant Perella, who was stepping up in class, and I thought it was the best performance of his career.

It's not that Harrison looked bad, Luke, but he didn't look great. He got outlanded, and he was sort of lucky to come away with the split draw. Jermell Charlo jumped to the Twitter afterwards and kind of sent him to hell. Let's check that out real quick. Mother Effer ain't the same after that last one. Number three will never happen. He'll really get hurt. Somebody tell Tonyony to retire and then one more from dermel like what the f bra they love that bald-headed bitch shit pissed me off boy legacy trash fasho

luke i don't know if i can translate that for show for show thank you thank you for translating that i was i white guide that very very hardcore uh luke maybe we'll never see this trilogy maybe we shouldn't that was a tough tough tough break for for harrison but he's not dead okay he didn't die in that ring he was okay he looked okay right do you care you don't care you don't care no i mean uh the ratings were not great either like they were half of what they would it was less than half of what they would do for like demetrius johnson fights which were low compared to what ufc could do on that network so like yeah people did not care these pbc on fox main events have not been strong so we'll see what happens right there but uh i i still want to see this third fight i still

care about this not next not anytime soon but uh interesting breakdown there luke what do you got for odds and ends for odds and ends? For odds and ends, BC, I have that the PFL is back this week. We'll get to it a little bit later in the week when we preview it, but this Friday, PFL Season 3 starts. They're calling it PFL 2020

number one. All the naming conventions in MMA are terrible, but on the card in your main event, Anthony Pettis, BC, takes on boxing sensation Clay Collard. How about that? Clay Collard is a guy who fought in

MMA, including UFC. Didn't do all that great. Fought in boxing during the pandemic. Fought a bunch of, not nubbers, but guys who were underdeveloped or whatever, and won in an upset fashion numerous times. Now he's back in MMA. Also on the card, we see Nathan Schulte taking on Marcin Held,

former Bellator and UFC contender. Let's see, Bubba Jenkins is on this card against Lance Palmer, who has won a lot of money, even though folks would not have been paying attention to him. The guy who was on the contender series who won but shot for a takedown and therefore earned Dana White's irrational anger Brendan Lockton or Lockman's on this car taking on a tough fight Shaman Maraisha's on it and uh all the way up and down Chris Wade is on this card um yeah should be kind of fun Friday yeah I think it's really good matchmaking with Collard and

Pettis uh it like in theory it should be like a almost get well announcement fight for pettis like come look great on our platform and announce yourself to the future but obviously with collard having a story and switching sports you know he's he's a sort of a blue collar everyman hero himself uh i don't think he can make it a fight luke but uh you know i haven't followed his mma career all that closely of late so this should be uh he's not a bad fighter like he you know obviously Pettis has done more than Collard ever has in terms of you know full-on upside but Pettis is kind of far from that um and you know I don't think Collard will beat him but he could make it interesting I don't I'm curious to see how he does I'll put it that way you know did you see uh Abe Kawa tweeted out out that Showtime Pettis was offered

the Oscar De La Hoya trailer fight and he turned it down? Why did he turn it down? I don't know. I mean, he is a part of a tournament on PFL, Luke, and just signed a big contract, so maybe that's part of it. But, yeah, that's it. Luke, you ought to understand that. I've dealt with Oscar for years as a boxing reporter.

He's also my favorite fighter ever. It's also a train wreck to watch him just fall apart as a human. I've had fun times interviewing Oscar. I still get jazzed up for it because he's freaking Oscar. He's my guy. The fishnets did happen, Luke, okay? It freaking happened. And seeing him on Saturday was just, like, I don't want him to take this fight.

I don't even, I mean, that was just, that was bad, Luke. It was bad. You don't never meet your take this fight i don't even i mean that was just that was bad luke it was bad i don't you'll never meet your heroes i always say always meet your heroes because like you know i'm a guy go meet sugar a leonard george foreman they'll blow you away luke those are heroes that like they'll give you your moment you know what i mean but you know sometimes your heroes aren't aren't really heroes luke okay i know people i had people calling me a buzzkill on saturday night because of what oscar was doing i'm like yeah dude it's fun to laugh at him calling steve cunningham who's uss cunningham that's his nickname calling him ussr and whatever but it's like y'all know that this dude has been battling drug and alcohol addiction uh in like

really toxic ways for a long time. It's not my job to say how he should party, but if I was the producer of Triller, out of respect for his struggles and for addicts everywhere, I would not have let that go on or even put him on the air, maybe even at all, unless it was to announce his fight or not announce, but promote. Did you see that Oscar was caught on his audio,

was caught picking up him yelling at the producers to put the effing camera on his face more often? Put more on my fucking face. That's going to be my sign-off from now on. Put more on my fucking face. Bye. R all over my face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, BC. That is it for us today. We appreciate everyone watching. So glad you're back. As always, thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. Give us a follow on social. You can see the lower third there below.

They're going to put it up here. Let's see. There it is. Morning Combat. The name stays the same everywhere, but obviously you can see BC and I have slightly different names for ourselves between Twitter and Instagram.

So consider giving us a follow there. This is critical. We're going to do fan submissions on Wednesday. MorningCombat at gmail.com is the place to send them. Some people email me. Do not email me. They're not going to make it into the show. You've got to email MorningCombat at gmail.com.

You can email me for other reasons, but not for that. So please don't do that. And let's see merch you can go to store.show.com you can get some mk merch you know hats beanies mugs shirts fucking axes you know uh fleshlights all kinds of stuff it's great and uh yeah if you want to try showtime for 30 days for free you can um if you like it you keep it if not you can go you can go uh walk off a bridge um but if you want to take the keep it. If not, you can go walk off a bridge. But if you want to take the plunge,

not into the water, but to Showtime's world, there you have the URL. So you can see it right there. All right. BC, welcome back, sir. One final note, Luke. Thank you for that welcome and greeting. And I'd be remiss if I didn't thank the great people

of the state of Tennessee where I did spend a week's vacation. Luke, pound for pound, they love them some guns. They love them some knives. They love them some comfort food. They don't wear masks, but they are some of the nicest people in the lower 48. I don't typically see really nice people in the New England Northeast area.

It's very no eye contact, get back to work. You go to the South, you remember what good treatment and hospitality and manners are really like so that it it kind of rebirthed the new love for life through yeah i mean except for the history of um you know jim crow segregation and uh except for that part yeah yeah for that part you know and other forms of legislation against uh burdened communities yes southern hospitality is actually a very real thing oh except for old marietta f that except for a little bit yeah it's like dude that's what canada canada is southern hospitality

without um jim crow that's the that's the difference all right um we got to get out of here i'm teasing tennessee don't get mad it's a nice state national school relax all right um we're going to be back on wednesday we're going to have some other stuff that we're going to do for UFC 261. We're going to have a post-fight show on Saturday. We got a ton of stuff cooking. So we appreciate you watching. Thumbs up. Hit subscribe.

We'll talk to you guys on Wednesday. And until then, for Brian Campbell, Malka, CBS Sports, and Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas. May all of your gains be loyal. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.