MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jake Paul KOs Tyron Woodley | Derrick Lewis Stops Chris Daukaus | EP 243

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

On Episode 243 of Morning Kombat Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell react to Jake Paul's knockout of Tyron Woodley. Who's next for Jake Paul? What does the rest of Tyron Woodley's career look like after the loss? Plus the guys react to UFC Fight Night: Lewis vs. Daukaus. The boys close out the show with DM's from donks, HYSTS and Odds & ends. 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:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion.

That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. It's Christmas week. Happy Jingle Balls to all of you out there. Hi, everyone. On this Monday, the 20th of December 2021. It is

time for Morning Combat. Hi I am one half of your hosting duo. My name is Luke Thomas from CBS Sports and Showtime and I'm joining you from the capital of Los Estados Unidos with my hetero life mate the viceroy of connecticut uh he's the what is he he's the american alpha with the with the not the bde but the bed that big erectile dysfunction it's just so shitty i mean to say that uh either way he's my friend and yours it's uh it's brian campbell brian i don't want to do the show today how about you yeah uh you know it's been a busy life luke that we're living here but uh you know it's what it takes and you you better believe that i'm here for it okay so uh okay i'll pick up the pieces wherever you may fall uh and i'm just you know look we're back at it bro no rest for the wicked so uh what a weekend jake paul tampa uh your boys uh this award-winning duo

that we've got going on here this weird and annoying and crazy and we love them award-winning audience as well let's just uh let's let's keep living okay let's do it luke all right i mean let's do we're gonna make it to the top one piece of weird merch at a time, Luke, okay? I mean, come on. How money was it when your alarm went off and you woke up at 4.30 for your 5 o'clock flight after going to bed at 3? How awesome was that? Yeah, that was great. That was great, but, you know.

Yeah, let's just leave it there, Luke, okay? We're back. We're ready. Yeah. Tampa was interesting. Not one of my more favorite Florida cities. Miami would be number one for me. Florida.

Dude, first of all, Miami sucks. All right, so let's just get that out there. I didn't say it was great, but it's better. Miami, I'm not saying Miami's great, but Miami is better than Tampa. Well, we didn't get the best close-up of the greater St. Pete, Tampa area, as, of course, my cab driver had said. It's, you know, Florida's best cab secret no more, Luke. And I didn't love, but, you know, we were staying right in the middle

where Tom Brady staggered off into the sea there. And, you know, they had boats with Christmas lights. I mean, they tried, Luke. They tried, okay? Food not very good in Tampa. I was very surprised by that um but in any case you know what luke the people like coach phil mckeegan our nfl brother the the people of florida they they they showed out for us okay and they showed up with covid uh so let's let's talk about

this we're back off the heels of or i should say say, the end of the year here. It is Christmas week. We're back from Paul versus Woodley 2. We will discuss that. There was a lot of UFC as well, believe it or not. We will get to that in addition on today's show. Plus, we're going to have extra credit a little bit later, so thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. We don't have a bunch of reads, but BC, we do have drug rugs that are available for purchase.

All they've got to do is go to where? MorningCombat.store, right? Yeah, I think that's the website, and I think there's a couple left, maybe one or two. They've sold incredibly well, so shout out to everybody who took the plunge. I mean, you know, I don't know what they were like, the cool guys where you came from, but where I come from, they were wearing drug rugs. Now you can have your own MK Special one. We've got a great holiday line.

I mean, you want some tip-to-tip madness right here? Just the tip, just for a second. We got underwear. We got sweatshirts, ugly Christmas sweaters. We got some great-ish right now over there at Morning Combat. I think our merch guy sent me this. Can you all see? Oh, that's badass.

Yeah, our merch guy, RJ Dunkelmaker, just sent me our new tie-dye line. I mean, it's pretty awesome, all right? So we got a bunch of cool stuff here. You can go to morningcombat.store. I don't know if we have any, like, deals for them today, but I'm sure we will later. So you can go there. Of course, you can give us a follow on all our various social media channels.

I already showed the graphic. Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do in addition to getting us merch, which we don't see a cut of in terms of the checks. You need to go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, keep it. If not, do whatever you want with your life. But at least for 2022, you'll have access to Showtime Championship Boxing plus Bellator plus the entire library of everything that Showtime sells. So that's a good thing to do. BC, they should email us, morningcombat at gmail.com for Wednesday's fan subs. There won't be a Friday show, so maybe we'll do Dead Wrong a little early.

What do you think? Yeah, I'm always willing to stand trial against the people that claim to love us. You know what I mean? I mean, yeah. Okay. All right. Well, with that out of the way, BC, I don't know what else there is to plug. You know, a lot of high fives and hugs and hand pounds from our reunion of sorts

with one Ariel Helwani this weekend that you can catch. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat to check out. Obviously, it was a preview, pregame preview, if you will, of Paul Woodley 2, but it was also just an interesting experiment, Luke. You know what I'm saying? Get three guys from different sides of the tracks who crossed paths before to the highs and lows of scorned life and friendship and back together once again.

It was unscripted. There was a lot of cutting each other off, but people seemed to like it. That's the whole idea. By the way, people are still watching it. I was checking the views of it this morning. It's still going, actually. Well, Luke, some people have hit the internet to say,

is Luke a bigger sellout because he's covering Jake Paul fights, because he's doing clips with Ariel Hawani or because he's doing clips with Ariel Hawani about Jake Paul fights at Jake Paul fights I think the answer is yes to be fair yeah what would that make you well I was gonna I was gonna hedge that by saying you know while you have sold, you've sold out against the life of anger, sadness, bitterness. I don't know what people want from me at this point. You ain't got time for that shit, Luke. Okay, so can we choose to be kind here and keep moving? All right.

Well, with that in mind, let's be kind about the knockout. But let's talk about the reality of Jake Paul's second meeting with Tyron Woodley. Let's get things started here. So topic number one, I think is easy place to start. So Jake Paul scores, do you want to call it knockout of the year or at least in contention of it? I mean, there's a lot of people who probably won't say that because we're talking about two guys who aren't at the top of the fight game but in terms of like vicious viral KOs they don't they don't come a whole lot better than this but BC the first five and a half rounds were dreadful in that fight so here's my question to you to start today's show what is it that you thought you learned not overall from Jake Paul but just this fight week

just that fight what'd you learn about him look Look, there's things you like in terms of when you're comparing him to an actual fighter, someone who's chasing down the rankings. And it's not that he's not a pro fighter. He's got five fights now, four knockouts, getting better in terms of the competition while also getting better in terms of his improvement. But he's in the celebrity lane, whether he wants to be or not. And in that lane, Luke, he's showing us that some of these fundamental, you know, sort of intangible things that if he didn't have, the wheels could fall apart earlier. They're there. They're there. Look, do we really know, you know, what's going to happen if he goes in there with somebody who can throw at the same level for five, six rounds and get into a war?

Will he have that back? I don't know yet. We're going to have to pass that. But what we have learned, Luke, is he's adaptable. He's poised. He's patient. Now, look, you know, you've identified rightfully like the beauty of what he's doing is sort of stacking the deck in his favor in some ways in terms of age and size in these fights. But there's danger. There was danger in this Tyron Woodley rematch. It didn't turn out to be the action fight we wanted it to be. But Woodley was in there were there was danger in this uh tyron woodley rematch it didn't turn out to be the action fight we wanted it to be but woodley was in there to make things difficult for jake and he did but credit to jake because i don't think we could stress this enough had this gone the distance in the same type of boring fashion the first five and a half rounds started off as we would be having such a different conversation about jake's future the future of this bubble

but because of that punch right there, we're not, Luke. So he's poised and adaptable. And, you know, he's shown a pretty good ability under fire to be able to make some good adjustments and find a way to win. And, you know, what does that mean in the long term? It's going to depend on the matchmaking, on how quickly he improves. But every step of the way up to this point, Luke, it's been a forward step. Jake is building something special right here,

and he's put a viral knockout once again on top of that. It doesn't matter how we got here. We got here, and he's been the talk of the weekend in combat sports without question. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about what we learned. I'll tell you what I learned this past weekend. Obviously, he was telegraphing this before. I mean, this is not like new-new, but I thought some of the pieces of his broad ambition worldview started to become

clearer here this week, right? I sort of understood what he was going for. He's not trying to get the big boxing paydays by actually climbing the ranks of what the, whatever catchweight division he would be in, 192, as he descends through the ladder of boxing to put himself in a position where, oh, now I fought the number three ranked whatever cruiserweight, and so now I can get big paydays. He's not trying to do that at all. That is not a thing.

People keep saying, when's he going to fight someone closer to his weight? When's he going to fight a real boxer? Probably never if he can avoid it. He's not trying to do any of that. What I learned this time was that here is a guy who has not just picked a fight with the MMA industry. He has decided to pick on, I would actually say, the MMA industry by picking on the weaknesses that directly serve his interests. What are those weaknesses? Finding former great MMA fighters who are probably no longer great

but are definitely willing to meet him in the middle of a boxing event for paychecks that they probably couldn't otherwise get, or at least not in terms of size, not get very easily. Again, Nate versus Conor is a little bit different perhaps, but you get the idea. Wasn't that obvious? Wasn't that business model fairly obvious before the first Ridley fight too? Yes, yes, yes.

It was fairly obvious, but there was a real big question of how doable it is, and which should be noted, by the way, if he ends up fighting Nate Diaz, and that's just speculative. I don't know that he will. I'm just sort of saying out loud, that's probably going to be a different kind of challenge in the ring than Tyron Woodley was. But I guess what I mean to say is you indicated he took another step forward.

As he took that step forward, it seemed to get a little bit more believable to me. Or I should say achievable, the financial ends, just completely disregarded. Because, yeah, see, I still thought after the Tommy Fury fight, I didn't know exactly where he might go. And I thought he might have to start fighting some guys a little bit more towards the boxing-oriented things. And, again, I don't know what he's going to do next, and I can barely speculate on it. We'll see. I'm just pointing out, if he does end up fighting Tommy Fury, BC, that might end up being a little bit more of an aberrance, or aberration, I should say, rather than, like, a path of a future.

The path seems to me, the biggest fights imaginable are not, rather than like a path of a future. The path seems to me the biggest fights imaginable are not that. It is picking on the MMA industry. It is getting Dana White to react to fighter pay. It is getting these fighters who are looking for a paycheck. It is using his size. It is using the fact that he is, more than anything else, a boxer, certainly not an MMA fighter, but he's trying to get these MMA fighters to then cross over. You know, listen, either you can respect that game, this endeavor he's on, or not, and you can judge it accordingly. And if you want to look at his ability, it's obviously not significant,

but he did set up the right hand pretty well. He earned that finish cleanly, I would actually argue, even if he's stacking the deck. But to me, what I learned this time about Jake was that we already knew he had grand ambition. We already kind of knew he was picking on the MMA industry now I think he leans fully into it and the the steps of getting to where he wants to go to 250 million BC they got the path got a lot more illuminated you know I do see what you're saying where he is leaning into it but there's still a lot to be said if he can get the type of opponents he really

wants and needs now some of that will come down to time in terms of specifically their UFC contracts expiring. If he can get them in good time when these brands are still valuable, you can make some of these fights like a Diaz-Brother fight, like a McGregor fight, like a Masvidal fight that are just print the money, right? This is the perfect matchup. And by the way, all of those opponents are smaller than him, like Woodley. So it all sort of leans into, you know, that that's a sort of potential built in advantage that he's building for himself to offset the fact that he hasn't had a lifetime in fighting like all of these guys have had. He's going to have to prove that he can get those

opponents. I think Luke, to be fair though, who he chooses next, it might change your opinion it might it might or it might further illuminate exactly what his path is in his plan and what i mean by that is if he can't get any of these guys next we both don't don't believe dana white and ufc would be willing at this stature coming on 2022 not 2017 to co-promote and try to help out that business plan so you look at the available guys and while you mentioned tommy fury that would try to help out that business plan. So you look at the available guys and while you mentioned Tommy Fury, that would seem to make a lot of sense in some of those early odds makers that put out the odds on who his next opponent can be. Tommy Fury, the second most likely under that list. But if he chooses Anderson Silva, Luke,

who would be the biggest name available of this business plan you're talking about, but certainly by far the most difficult on paper, not just because he's pretty much the same size as Jake, but that he seems to be able to really box despite his age. That would show me that it's a little bit more than the goal to get to $250 million. Now, if Jake Paul went in there and beat it in Anderson Silva, he'd get a lot of respect, just like he'd still get some lingering, well, that's another old guy. But the real fans would realize, Luke, that's a fight that, you know, he might, he'd probably be the betting underdog going in. That's a fight where that

potential advantage either levels out or tilts in the other direction. That's more of the fight that I'm starting to talk myself into wanting to see, to see how good he actually really is Luke because that's a real ass fight Jake Paul versus Anderson Silva yeah I don't think he wants any part of that I mean I guess I'll confess to you BC tell me if you think I'm wrong maybe maybe I am I certainly don't know I don't have any inside track it's not that Jake Paul doesn't want athletic validation I do think does. I do think he clearly does, more so than his brother, something we brought up in the video with Ariel. Or I think he even brought it up. But what I would also caution folks against is, I don't think he's really... He wants athletic validation only insofar as it meets his broader ambition. If there is

an athletic pedigree he could achieve by beating Anderson Silva, but that risk of losing is so high, or at least relative to Nate Diaz or something like that, I don't think he goes anywhere near that. I think if he beats Nate Diaz, he will have a level of, whether you think it's real or not, he will at least have a level of sellable, I'll say that, athletic validation that he doesn't really need the Anderson Silva fight at that point, right? I mean, he's not trying, I really am just not of the belief that he's really trying to prove something.

He's not trying to prove a whole lot as a boxer. He's trying to get rich as a boxer, and that's different. I think the shift is noticeable because before the first Woodley fight, you heard Jake doing a much bigger job at a sort of PR campaign to say, I am legit. I am for real. Check my camp, my coaches, the amount of hours we put in. I'm going to try to win a world title one day.

That's my goal. Yeah, I didn't hear that this time around. I don't think that's his angle either. But the thing is, Luke, if he turns out better than most expect, he could still stay in the celebrity lane and eventually use the success in that celebrity lane to try to cross over and pick on a weak champion for a belt or something like that.

So that's still in play going down this road. Whether you feel like he's showing you his hand more or not, it seems obvious that's the direction he's going. You and I tried in the post-show Saturday to try to just think like off the top of our heads, like who are some opponents that we don't see? You know, could it be an old boxer like Adele Ahoy? I mean, there's still even danger in that. Going this route with older, smaller MMA names in bad need of a huge payday and close-up. It seems to be the right business plan, even if he has to potentially take a little bit of time off

and look at the lay of the land and see who's going to make themselves eligible and available. Because, look, this is going to be a big question on Nate Diaz's plate, on Jorge Maswell's plate, even Conor McGregor's plate. Is it worth working out of your deal and trying to take as many fights in a short period? And maybe not waste your UFC paydays, but certainly not commit and invest yourself

into building the angles toward them for this one payday or the promise of two. If you go in there and knock out Jake Paul or maybe more if you can be the new face of this crossover celebrity boxing bubble. It's like you got to debate which one has more life for you based on how much life you have left in the tank. It's going to be an interesting 2022, I think,

more in terms of what are Jake's potential opponents going to do to get themselves eligible than what is Jake can actually do in the ring. You know, it's funny, BC, on fight night, we were discussing what will people remember more of the KO or the fight itself. And both of us had concluded that the KO will probably reign supreme. It's just, you know, too punctuated a moment for anything else to stand out. But now that the days have passed, people aren't talking about the fact that that fight was boring at all. It is only about the KO. So do you feel like the fact that this fight was boring is going to be

utterly forgotten let's say in six months time yeah the only way it comes back is if in his next fight and let's be fair you talked about it in the build to this one I talked about it in the build to the Woodley fight because it was fresh off of Logan versus Floyd which was not exciting in the ring right great build promotion gets interested. It didn't deliver. This topic will only come back up again if Jake Paul's next fight doesn't deliver. Now, it doesn't mean it has to be an all action war. Like I said, it could be if he went the Anderson Silva route, just the interesting, you know, how are these guys going to match up the drama of seeing what happens? But that drama, that entertainment value has to be there to offset what he does not bring to the table in

terms of experience and legitimate and legitimacy. Look, he's building in both of those categories and building pretty well, but that's sort of the offset. You won't hear this topic again, Luke, until it becomes unexciting. And I think, you know, it's good. That is also going to have to be part of how he looks at his next opponent. You're going to want somebody in there with a name that, that, that tells the fans, the fight's going to be fun, but there's got to be part of how he looks at his next opponent. You're going to want somebody in there with a name that tells the fans the fight's going to be fun, but there's got to be a threat of a knockout against you. I think that's going to continue to bring out the best in Jake inside the ring if he can match that way.

I think that's right. I mean, it'll come up for analysts like us whenever we discuss his next fight. We'll be like, well, remember before the KO, it wasn't that great of a fight and blah, blah, blah. And that might go into it. But in terms of serving his interests or what material can he take from the fight to boost his fortunes he has everything he needs and then some even though there's you know 15 plus minutes

of this fight being a little bit nubs quite candidly quite quite bad as a matter of fact um it just i want to ask you in hindsight about the nubs um we debated right after whose fault it was you know we both kind of said it was both fighters i thought jake was doing more holding than tyron you thought the opposite but i mean was this all part of tyron's strategy just with short camp with you know bigger younger stronger opponent in there to try to frustrate him try to slow down the pace of this fight, and try to keep him close enough through holding in hopes of landing that one big counter shot, and it just didn't work out for Tyron?

Yeah, I think that's right. I think he was trying to hold on to not let the fight get away from him, not let Jake get, you know, lucky or however he was imagining it. Just slow it down, control it, make it ugly, and he did. Um, but then, you know, you let your guard, I mean, you make one mistake, you make one mistake, even against the guy. I mean, that just shows you the fight game. Even a guy like Jake Paul, who, you know, has obviously been training really hard and has good power, but it's not really a boxer of any kind of elite status, even one mistake against him. And you're, you know, you're facedown on the canvas and you're a meme everywhere. So with

that in mind, BC, let's talk about Tyron Woodley for just a second. Topic number two. So that was a devastating KO. I mean, really, really bad. You add to that KO the fact that he's had a lackluster few years. He's been 0-6 since that I'll Beat Your Ass song came out. And now he's going to be 40 years of age, I think, in April. Pretty soon.

Is it time for Tyron Woodley to retire? He seems to think he's got four more fights in 2022 do you believe him uh you know i didn't believe that comment when i heard him say it you know don't don't don't cry you know don't cry for me guys i'm gonna be back in fact i'll be back four times uh yikes uh you know maybe this is tyron just really trying to you know cash out what's left of his name to build that retirement there's no you know pension he's falling into here so you can understand that but luke he's gonna get hurt you know there's there's different levels of matchmaking of course could he draw you know a decent paycheck and against another mma fighter in a boxing match yeah absolutely there's there's things that can be done you can go join trillo triad and fill out an undercard for sure. I don't know, Luke.

I don't see, you know, I see a failure to launch. It's been a big narrative in his last, you know, six total fights. And that change is not going to get any better when you take shots like that. So this is the fight game when you can still, you know, look good and make weight. And that cash is sitting there. I'm sure he's going to try his best to get in a big fight but Luke I would not advise him um under any circumstances you know the the wars add up and you're seeing a compromised former great fighter here just trying his best to to stay relevant at this point I think that's right I mean listen part of the way he got two of these fights is that Woodley is a very, very smart guy and a very gifted orator and a clever, hardworking, successful self-promoter.

The guy knows how to promote himself. He's known how to promote himself, believe it or not, for quite a long time. He got at odds with the UFC right after he got the title and I understand that but if you just pay attention to what Woodley's been doing even in the UFC but certainly since then it's pretty obvious the guy knows how to promote a fight really well and was a very worthy adversary in that promotional sense for Jake Paul and so I don't think that ability goes away overnight BC he can talk himself I think and I'm not even saying that pejoratively but I do think he can talk himself into potentially a couple of opportunities but I think you articulated the reality. Dude, he hasn't thrown really aggressively, except for that Luque fight. And even then he got finished.

And this one he got finished too. You know, since what? The Darren Till or Demi and Maya fight or something like that? Something insane? We're talking years where she's shown life basically inside of the the fighting surface and then you add to the fact that he got viciously KO'd in his last fight and you add to the fact that like when he's out there he's not exactly like putting on the kind of fights that promoters dream of I'm not saying he can't get gigs or that I have enough

neurological information to make a judgment about his brain. But at this point, you have consistently sold a product quite well. You've given that, but that never really delivered on the other side from his contributions to it. What promoter? Do I think he can get another contract with a promoter? Yeah, but how's that going to be any different? He is where he is at this point. He can't will himself out of it.

And I feel like he's going to have to go far down the food chain, meaning, you know, BKFC or Triller Triad or something like that. That's what's going to be available to him, you know, and can he win in those fights? Can he suddenly change, you know, skin and be an aggressive fighter again? I had good hopes for this one, Luke, but boy, did we find out quickly that wasn't the case. How much do these two losses,

and obviously the nature of the second one, how much should they, how much will they affect his MMA legacy? See, this is where, you know, we had a little debate with Ariel Hawane when he sat down with us on pregame preview, and I completely disagree with his sentiment that, you know, for Tyron or even Ben Askren, that that's going to be some kind of stain that that's going to be the first or second line of their obituary someday. No, this look, how many of our heroes from, you know, Muhammad Ali to everyone have, you know, at the end of

the run done crossover wrestling or exhibition fights or, you know know in a case of a Roy Jones hung on for over a decade in just ways that didn't make a lot of sense to us at a very low level professionally none of that none of that follows you out in terms of what your true legacy is Tyron Woodley's true legacy is already written in stone he was one of the better modern UFC champions and you know at worst like you and I were arguing the fourth or fifth best UFC welterweight champion in history. He had a very underrated run on top. And it was part of that was because the promotion never saw eye to eye and were able to give him the love he deserved.

I don't see how even being part of a viral memed knockout against a guy 15 years younger in a sport you never competed in, I don't see how that holds and lingers as a stain against you. That kind of stuff goes away quickly, you know, in the same way, Luke, that, you know, was it fun that we sat there and argue or that I sat there and argued with Floyd Mayweather that time that we had, you know, time with him about his resume and brought up the old argument. Even that, Luke, is going to go away. You know, you know, time heals a lot of this sort of sort of stuff the banter whether it's

fueled on the right things or not time has a way of just you know removing that stain and and you remember the good i don't see how this will be remotely close in terms of uh you know who was tyron woodley oh oh yeah he was the guy that jake paul no no he wasn't that guy he wasn't that guy at all we're not going to talk about that you know five years from now um I tend to think you're probably right you know it doesn't undo this darts joke we see here on Tyron Woodley or excuse me um Darren Till it doesn't undo a lot of the great things he was able to accomplish and setting the blueprint on how to beat Demi and Maya or even Wonderboy to an extent um you know he did a lot of impressive things I think you're right I mean the boxing doesn't counteract that.

Here's what I will say, though. It's not really about Tyron per se, but about MMA fighters who keep doing this kind of thing. I will say that I do think that you won't feel it now, but I just wonder, dude, and I don't have a clear answer for this one, but I just can't keep seeing MMA fighters sign up to box, take L's, and think that that won't affect MMA over time. I think it will.

How and in exactly what ways, I don't know. And I realize the caveats. You're getting guys at the end of their run. You're getting guys who weren't necessarily great strikers. You're getting all different kinds of stuff but dude you keep signing up for occasions where people the public thinks that you at least have a fighting chance and then you keep losing and again this is not merely on tyrant this is on the the broad array of fighters who have tried this i just feel like that that bill is gonna come due eventually in what way and how much i don't know

bill like what what's the issue oh the cat casual fans will think mma's fighters are bad at boxing like who cares like that that kind of i don't get where that's gonna have some well i mean that does that does a couple of things if the if the public really begins to accept that idea because but right dude the only reason that you can do these fights is that they don't they don't accept that idea because but right dude the only reason that you can do these fights is that they don't they don't accept that they accept that the MMA fighter has enough skill that he should easily be able to get rid of this Jake Paul or whoever the fuck or that you never know with Conor McGregor against Mayweather and it's totally out to lunch like it's not that it's just making MMA look bad dude that you can only sell these fights predicated on the idea that Nate Diaz can outbox Jake Paul.

But what if he can't? What if he actually goes in there and gets tuned up? What are you doing to the identity of the sport when you guys can't beat Mayweather? Okay, you can't beat Mayweather. You can't also beat Jake Paul? The only connection here— I think it's wrong to look at the sport and be like, oh, yeah, no harm will come of it by consistently taking Ls. I'm going to tell the opposite to you.

Okay, is it great PR? No. And I think Jake's smart to say, look, Dana, I'm killing your business. One by one, no, you're killing his retired washed-up fighters that he let go, to be fair. But, Luke, it only actually helps fuel MMA in the long run. Why? Because it exposes the major flaw with this great sport at the highest level, which is fighter pay.

That's the only thing it does. So seeing that this is more of an option, well, one day Dana White goes, man, I'm sick of seeing my former champions get knocked out by this kid. I don't think he will soon. And so until we have fighter pay actually change, this only helps the fighter pay argument. You know, it's like, let's be fair, Luke. MMA doesn't have a great look in the casual audience anyway, right? It's a fighting sport in a damn cage.

You ask people like my dad, they still think you're doing bare knuckle and you're biting. Most people don't have a clue anyway. So they lost boxing matches to a YouTuber? That's going to kill the image of MMA? No. It's only going to help fighters. When in the last five minutes have I said it's going to kill MMA's image? What's the fear? What's the long

term effects that are going to come do that you're offering? What do they have to pay? Partly these things are difficult to predict and I'm saying as much explicitly but what I am trying to articulate is you are making these fights, they're not possible if people don't believe that Nate Diaz has a chance. They're just, you can't do it otherwise. And what I'm saying is the accumulative weight of MMA fighters consistently being like, yeah,

I'll sign up for that shit. Fuck everyone. I'm going to do great. And then they consistently, Anderson Silva's bucking this trend a little bit. We'll see what happens with him. But there's enough of this happening where you're like, Jesus, they keep fucking losing.

I think the public will start to reshape their minds around exactly how good, A, MMA is actually. And then also more importantly, MMA striking. There is a level of elevated sense of mma strikers ability that's going to come down to earth a little bit dude like mma fighters are it turns out they're actually not very good boxers and people thought that they were much better i'm saying that's going to catch up

over time if this keeps happening and i think somehow how that impacts the sport is a little bit unpredictable i think it's going to be a good impact for the sport. What is it going to do? Force people to go, oh, crap. You know, I should pick up my boxing. You know, maybe we see a revolution in terms of the training trends where guys are, I mean, it's not that they haven't already been training with boxing trainers and doing that, but really kicking it on a deeper level. I just don't see anything negative there when it's like this bubble's

going to burst eventually, whether it's a Jake Paul loss, Luke, loss Luke the bubble's gonna burst eventually even if it's just wearing down the public's appetite if your argument is that public not believing MMA fighters can win one will that help pop the balloon it might but the balloon's gonna pop anyway Luke is my sort of argument on that yeah I certainly agree that the balloon's gonna pop eventually it's hard to know where at this point given that spectacular KO win that he scored but I guess I would just say this as a final thought again I don't know exactly how it will impact I just tend to worry about it a little bit the other thing I would say is I'm not suggesting you're committing this I think you're thinking promotionally but inside of MMA most fans fighters promoters everybody in it

is an MMA acolyte. They see MMA as a thing that they love and they want to attach themselves to and they've made their career rounds. And inside MMA, what I've noticed is there is a very strong inclination to never accept criticism about MMA. There can be nothing about it that you can say to disperse it. Everyone who is an announcer is a who excuse me everyone who is a announcer is a great announcer every fighter

is a great fighter aren't these the best kind of fights aren't these the best kind of evenings aren't these guys actually well paid there's this constant need inside of MMA this like deep thumb sucking need to make sure that every part of MMA is great and if there's any lesson actually since

Mayweather McGregor we kind of knew, but it's only been reaffirmed, is that they're not great boxers, not by a long shot. They're actually quite poor at it. And there is not enough of an external recognition of that fact. Now, again, we know the caveats. You're not getting Anderson Silva in his prime. You're not getting Israel Adesanya in his prime. And of course, those guys actually have direct boxing experience. But it also sort of goes to show here that there's a reflex in the sport that refuses to acknowledge any shortcoming about it. And I'm trying to explain to folks, dude,

Jake Paul only exists because he is playing MMA. That is it. He is playing the industry. He is playing these fighters. I just don't get your stand i just did i did two radio shows this morning let me explain to you people don't get that they don't get that yeah because i don't think it's a form form form thought luke i think it's it's very artistic and abstract but it doesn't really have a soul to it and i what i'm

saying is like it's like you don't look at the best decathletes in the world and say okay it's cool you can do all those events at once but go try to beat the best sprinter. Go try to beat the best javelin thrower. No, it's a well-rounded event. So then why does Dana White care that his guys keep losing? Forget the money pay argument. He doesn't care, dude. He let those guys go.

I think that's a little naive to think that he watched Tyron Woodley crash to the canvas and thought, gee, this has zero impact on me whatsoever. If he cared, I'll tell you what would happen if he cared. I'll tell you right now what would happen if he cared. He doesn't care enough to fuck with his short-term business. But the idea that Dana White watched that and thought to himself, I don't care about this at all, I think is fantasy.

Okay, well, if that's your argument, fine. But your original argument was that he cared enough to not want to see it. Dude, he doesn't care about Woodley. He let him go. He doesn't care about Askren. If he cared, he would be finding in his stable the one person that he thinks would have the best chance at beating Jake and knocking him out. You think, you think. Listen, listen.

No, no. Dude, you're going to pick apart one part of my thing and go on some radio show rant. I'm telling you right now, if he actually cared, he would find somebody to fight and beat Jake and co-promote. But he doesn't care enough, Luke, because Jake's beating old guys. I mean, you've got to see that. Your argument is that if Dana White wanted to put an end to this, he could release Adesanya from contract and then just stop this whole thing?

If he actually cared to the level that you're that you're fearing that he cares take that fucking fight dude Jake Paul wouldn't take that fight in a million the whole idea is to feast off of the things that are feastable we all know not to do the impossible so what what so where's your argument that Dana sits there and he's angry after watching it even Even after Jake calls him out. One, I've talked to some folks that have given me some inside information that I'm, Tyron, not specifically, but like in general, that Jake Paul making MMA fighters look bad,

they don't like at UFC Brass whatsoever. Okay, they come with that. Lead with that. Don't say you fear it and then you can't back it up. If your backup is that you've heard that- I'm allowed to talk about my fears on the show. I'm not making to you a concrete claim about where it goes i don't know where any of this goes i just noticed dude i've been in this

industry for 15 years no one likes talking about its bad parts no one likes admitting when it looks bad no one likes talking about where bad shit is headed ever and we have a situation here where i don't know what's going to happen i'm'm merely telling you, I am skeptical of the idea. That's all I can say. I am very skeptical of the idea that you can keep trotting this out and that MMA's image won't take a hit. How much? In what ways? Dude, you're right. I cannot tell you, but I just fear that everyone's like, yeah, and everyone's going to kind of get it and this is just a thing. No, there are consequences to these kinds of things in life and how they can be meted out is a little bit unpredictable i'll say that now you're bc you're looking for more on this topic check out extra credit today only yeah i don't i won't go i won't go into this um all right with that in mind though we can put a bow on the jake paul

thing a the year is over and, he signed a two-fight deal with Showtime. Now, BC, let me ask you about this. The question is as follows. What can we say about Paul's experiment, right, with Showtime now that the two fights have happened? Of course, caveat, we collect a check from Showtime. It's the thing we should acknowledge. And two, I want to be careful about how I mean this. Before Jake Paul was taken on Ben Askren, who we all knew was like barely even trying, showed up looking terrible, and it was part of this whole Triller crazy thing.

What was interesting to me about what Jake Paul was trying was that he was like, all right, let me get with an established name in boxing that does put on relevant boxing, week in, week out, that kind of a thing, and let me see if i can take this circusy thing in conjunction with a real thing and then produce something more of a real thing did it work yeah through two fights and we don't know the specifics of jake steel i remember logan

speculated once in an interview to me that it was two fights showtimes never publicly announced that so could they have re-upped is there more i'm not sure what the status is but through two fights of this experiment yeah it's worked you know jake paul's knockout worked on triller these two fights in a row with the build with his audience with his flair for promotion it worked but a lot of what worked again was that beautiful knockout on top of it and that's something he can deliver so you take the momentum and you go with it matchmaking is always going to be key. You're going to need fights that people want to talk about from the personalities involved,

but also the fear of potentially losing. And there are matchups out there. I mean, we don't really know how good of a boxer Tommy Fury is. I think Jake looks better so far, but that's certainly a viable fight. I'd love to see him against Anderson Silva. There are some fun ones you can make. But to act at all this deep into it, what, five pro fights now, four knockouts,

that Jake Paul is just a side act and not taking into account the actual disrupting he's doing in the boxing business, that would be naive. This is, you know, again, it may not play exclusively to hardcore boxing fans, but to be fair, pay-per-view fights are aimed at the casuals, aimed at inciting casuals to open their eyes. Jake Paul knows how to do that too, so let's give him his respect. When he says, you know, look at the history I made this year, you really historically can't find people through three, four, five pro fights

who have drawn this big of an audience and got people to care. So what Jake Paul is doing, it's smart and it's working. And they're, like we've debated many times, are some much bigger fish out there. If he could align himself and draw them in, his goal of $250 million, it's in play here, Luke. This is working right now. So we're going to be close watching the matchmaking and the pluses and minuses of each one, but this Jake Paul experiment shows you

that even if you're not presenting the most elite product, you can get boxing to care and you can get the general fan to care about this because there is something pure and simple about boxing that sort of crosses age lines and it crosses experience lines at times of the guys in the ring because it's really the projection of the human struggle, Luke. I mean, that's what it is. And, you know, Jake's had to go through a little bit of that at times in the ring. And boy, did he did he persevere in this moment? However, you thought the fight was

living up to that moment um i don't want to like i don't want to go as far as saying is he included in the fighter of the year ballot now well no he's not on that level no but that's a knockout of the year contender and when you're talking about boxing's most viable brands luke where's where does jake fit into that sentence two three i mean it's right there dude you mean it's like promotional entities that kind of a thing yeah in terms of he's up there i agree he's up there and i would also agree that the ko is you can put it in discussion of ko of the year the overall year itself i would not give to him not even close but that that ko is certainly quite nice i would say this i mean i was curious to see

what would happen when you took this i mean because for a time jake was a little bit associated with like that triller sort of sensibility and then he came to showtime and i was like okay what exactly can they do for each other here and i think the first fight would show you that they can produce a fight that could sell really well and be promoted, frankly, like any other big name fight. I mean, that fight was expertly promoted at the time. People can say what they want. It was. The sales were great. This one, I think the sales are going to come way back down to earth. And again, for a lot of different circumstances, Tommy probably wasn't the same kind of draw Woodley was. Then Woodley fills in on two weeks notice and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What I would say is,

did they show that there was a really viable market for the right kind of audience for this thing no doubt about it my only thing where it goes in the future i i don't know in fact that's the only thing i could possibly say at this point is i think there's enough stuff enough material bc where if they can find the right opponent whoever that may be and they can promote it has as they had against woodley this is a, this is a thing that can and will continue. There's just no denying it. And this is true of every fighter, but it's a little bit predicated on some things working out.

If Nate Diaz doesn't leave UFC, Tommy is a decent opponent, but he's not going to sell what Nate does, or if Jorge never goes, or if Conor never goes. He needs a few escalating opponents to get him to his ultimate goal in a way that's a little bit less achievable in certain ways than other things for boxing. But can those two forces united make this work for at least a little while longer?

Yeah, yeah, it can. And it looks a lot like regular boxing in terms of the promotional side when they do. Luke, we don't use this name often in this conversation. What about GSP? What are the time limit considerations on his expiring UFC deal? I don't know when he's out. I think it's pretty soon.

I think it's 2022, right? Maybe 2023 at the most. I mean, dude, he's out. I think it's pretty soon. I think it's 2022, right? Maybe 2023 at the most. I mean, dude, that's a big fight. You want, like, just like Anderson Silva is, and I think the difference is the size with a smaller GSP who's been relatively inactive. That's still a big fight, Luke. Big, big fight.

That's a huge fight, and it would be hard to handicap there because, you know, we know GSP's got a great jab. We've seen it. But how would it translate at this age to boxing and blah, blah, blah? Yeah, I mean, that's another name. Potentially, if they could recruit him, this is what I mean. If you can find a couple of the right names

and you sell it like you did against Tyron, which is doable, Jake is a dude, Jake's a talented promoter. I will give him credit. True or false, the future of Jake's career in terms of length, yes, it's always going to be predicated on wins. Not that he couldn't lose one and keep going or whatever,

but it's predicated on success, as would anyone in this spot. But how much is it predicated upon his availability of big-name opponents? Because if we are six months from now seeing him, you know, picking around the bottom of the barrel trying to find somebody that they can sell, that's got to be the decider in how much longer he's going to want to keep doing this. Because let's be fair, he can make a lot of money doing whatever he wants, whether it's your cup of tea or not. It's a hot open market in terms of this influencer YouTube, all that stuff.

God, we're on YouTube crushing it, winning big awards. You get my point. If the UFC shop closes up completely it could get it could be you know it could be really bad it could be it could be i don't i don't know what he would do i mean you mentioned like oh no one's had this kind of a claim through five fights which is a hundred percent true but the difference is that the people who are doing this for real against the people who are making a push towards the top of their respective divisions, I mean, yes, they want to make more money by their fifth fight, but they're actually just getting ready so that

when they have their 25th fight, they can beat someone really good and make good money. Jake is doing the opposite of that. He is front-loading his career, and I would imagine getting the fuck out. So you're not comparing apples to apples in that sense. But yeah, I tend to think they made it work. I tend to think that it's a narrow universe. But I'll say this too, dude, you would agree. If a couple of fights break his way, that's all he really needs. If he got two of the three, right? If he got, forget GSB, although I agree it's a totally workable thing but let's just for a sake of example if he got connor jorge and nate and got two of those three dude how i mean he's on

his way at that point right i got one more name for you okay let's hear it just tell me if i'm crazy all right all right you are. Habib Nurmagomedov. It's a little too crazy. I have to agree. No, I don't think he would ever want to, but let's not forget, his name was linked to Floyd for a while, even though we were all groaning. Could he do it legally? I mean, can you just retire from the UFC and say, I'm done with you guys.

Sorry, I'm going this other route. Couture tried that, and Dana's famous words were, you can't retire from a contract. So, no. He couldn't do it. Alright, let's talk about UFC before our audience completely stabs us in the face the next time they see us. Let's talk about this last UFC fight card. UFC's 2021

is in the books and the main event for it was the Black Beast. Yes, getting it done against Chris Dawkus in the books and the main event for it was the black beast yes getting it done against chris dawkus in the first bc you were right about derrick lewis i will give you credit for it i will acknowledge it up front and i will say as i pitch you the first question why did he win in your mind was chris dawkus overmatched or are we still underestimating, me included, Derek Lewis? I think a little bit of both, but more toward the former. Look, this was Chris Daugus' chance.

Is he better than we thought he was at this moment? And he had that chance to jump forward. I just thought, you know, there was too much uphill battle, and I think to your second point, look, I'll give Lewis a lot of credit. I thought he was going to disappear after that D.C. loss. I thought that was him putting it together for one night for the big title, and he came up empty. He stayed very relevant, not just the guy who was as openly going after the biggest purses available, and he was hilarious in the post-fight.

God, taking the cup off and throwing to the – I mean, look, he's great. He's great, right? I didn't think he would stay this fresh. This – you know, I mean, a slugger is always going to be able to go through certain rebirths, but he hasn't really slipped all that far. He's rebuilt himself a couple times in huge ways. This was a bad matchup for Dawkus because he was going to have to show an extreme level

of chin toughness to be able to set up the type of shots, and he's a great boxer. Love his combinations. That could have success lewis is just never out of a fight and uh it was fairly impressive to see him do it this quickly to dawkins i mean that was a violent vicious knockout so i don't want praise because i called this luke i was just upset at you on the preview show that you weren't really understanding my point okay my point was that these two guys you gotta throw out the stats bro so throw that shit out at the end of the day all right well the question is which stats are the most important

ones not that they're not useful um but you're right in this particular case you know what's amazing to me i actually feel like chris dawkus i still think pretty highly of him although you're right he didn't really show up in this fight it was kind of once once dawkus got pushed behind the black line along the fence it was basically over at that point. It was pretty quick. But I put out a little video about it because I was re-watching it this morning and I was like, huh, Derek Lewis is a clever little guy. He does this jumping. Basically what happened was in the fight, Dawkus was far away and Lewis is not the kind of guy to like stalk a guy and then corner him. He's not very effective at that. He lets him roam a little bit, for at least in long stretches of the fight. But eventually he realized this is not going anywhere.

Maybe he could win that way, but it wasn't, you know, it was just a fairly even-ish fight. So he notices that when he throws anything, Dawkus backs up big time. So he does this jumping roundhouse kick, which looks kind of crazy, but if you'll notice, what does Dawkus do? He backs up all the way to the fence line behind the black line, and from there, you see him cut off the corner at that point because now Dawkus can't lean back. He can't move back, and he's kind of stuck side to side. He feints him a little bit, throws a left hook, and then he even hits an inside trip as Dawkus tries to come off

to push him back along the fence. My point being is, dude, that's crafty by Derek Lewis to get a guy backed up like that, and now like in space it's kind of hard to hit up against the fence dude his target practice you got to give him credit his evolution to work around his his inefficiencies work around the things that he's not good at and he's not trying to be good at he's a very smart fighter like I said to be able to linger even these years later from what looked like his mountaintop point to come back. And look, he is a very viable piece in this heavyweight title picture,

which of course includes Cyril Ghosn, the interim champion, and Ngannou, the full champion, having that fight in January that we can't wait for. But Luke, even though I don't think the UFC will go this direction, could you imagine Derek Lewis versus Jon Jones right now? Even if he had to throw an unnecessary interim title on top of it just to make it an even sexier pay-per-view main event, that fight right now would be very interesting

because mostly Lewis is raw enough in certain categories that you could see Jon having good success in being Jon and doing what he does, but also being under the gun and being in the danger zone for a KO for as long as it would last. That would be an incredible piece of theater to see John Jones debut on that level. And also, you know, Derek Lewis doesn't have the best takedown defense, but John Jones's takedown ability has, I won't say collapsed, but it has declined over time. It, you know, it probably gets Lewis down, but I wouldn't say it's automatic.

And if he can't get Lewis down, because obviously he had a lot of trouble with Reyes, with Silva, less so with Anthony Smith, but you get the idea. It's not automatic. And if he couldn't, dude, Derek Lewis is a problem for everybody. And I think you're right. The big lesson of Derek Lewis's career is not that he figured out how to be better than he was. Of course he's made improvements, but that, you know, he's not trying to be every fighter in every scenario. He kind of likes the fighter that he is.

So what he decides to do is just try and guide the fight if he can into scenarios that are winnable for him, that are advantageous for him. It's smart smart he didn't waste a lot of energy he took his time but even with not wasting energy and not taking his time he a scores the finish and b does it in the first round chris dawkins was really never in this they were just kind of even for about two thirds of the round until until derrick lewis took charge it's brilliant it's very smart and he's only 36 bc that's young for heavyweight you know know, and obviously when he's healthy, he's a different fighter. Because what I was going to say is, you know what we haven't had in a while? A complete Derek Lewis collapse within a fight, which has happened a few times.

Even if he saved himself in some of these fights with late knockouts. I mean, what was the fight I'm thinking of recently, Luke, where he just wasn't, you know. We haven't had that in a while. Gone? You know, maybe it is gone. You know, he got stopped. Yeah, I mean, it just, you know, gone's a different argument because gone is just so good that who knows,

that could be what happens in that matchup every time for all we know. But it's been a while. Maybe the JDS fight back in 2019 where, you know, he was controlling that fight until he got stopped. And, you know, look, fatigue is his issue, and it looks great when these fights end in the first round but even he was joking afterwards can I get a three-round title fight but we haven't had that in a real you know self-implosion in a while from him and I wonder if that's due to his health Luke because when his back is feeling good man he's he's a different fighter. Yeah, I mean, in the UFC, okay, early on, he lost to Mitrione and Jordan, but since then,

he's only lost to Mark Hunt, Daniel Cormier, JDS, and then Cyril Ghosn, like basically championship-level fighters or something pretty close to it, and with Dawkus, he now has the most, the record for the most knockout wins in UFC at 13. It's fucking impressive, man, and I would also argue, it's kind of funny, you mentioned the JDS fight. It's so interesting. JDS isn't even in the UFC, and here's Derek Lewis with another fucking win on his resume.

That fight was just in March of 2019, almost a little less than three years ago. It's crazy how fortunes can change or just slowly mutate over time to keep one guy in and one guy out, even if the other guy has the win. He's an incredible career, and he's not done yet, not by a long shot, provided he can stay motivated and healthy.

The fight I was referencing, which I forgot, was in 2020. The Alir Latifi fight for Derek Lewis was one of those where you're like, oh, okay, he's back on that shit again. He looked bad. He struggled to get up off the canvas and fight off a close decision there. But, yeah, man, can you imagine him against Ngannou in a rematch under any circumstance, whether it's for the title or whether they're both coming off losses?

Luke, we're going to see that one day, and it's not going to be like the first one, bro. By the way, I'm looking at this now. Showtime Sports put out this video 47 minutes ago, so we were on the air for about 10 minutes when they put it out. Jake Paul calls out Nate Diaz, Jorge Masvidal, and Dana White after a brutal KO. Is he picking a fight with the MMA industry, or is he picking a fight with the MMA industry? Well, yeah, I mean, he wants Usman too, Luke. Let's not overlook that.

That's right. That's right. Anyone he can really get, I think, that he could effectively box. All right. Last but not least, and we'll get to all of the UFC fights that we missed on extra credit. But for this one, BC, we're not done yet in 2021, but we're basically done. What is one thing that happened in 2021, either a trend or an event or something that we can say in combat sports

now that the year is effectively over? Tell me a highlight for 2021 for you or a low light i guess i mean look at i'll say you know something we've been talking about the last few weeks specifically is just that this is you know ufc operating in 2021 at at full bloom at full blossom of what of what the espn deal could could mean about the this era where suddenly you know the pay-per-view leverage of individual fighters just isn't there uh on the same level and you know this year was dominated by the ufc really across sports in general you can argue i mean this is one of those rare years where they

were just everything worked every scene everything seemed to be you know on point the big fights absolutely delivered there were great surprises any threats in the you know real life covid battle that affects travel and putting on events ufc just has a a way to bounce around that that uh you know 2021 was great because both ufc and boxing delivered we got big fights we got a good level of consistency but you know the mvp of 2021 in combat sports it's got to be you know dana white in the ufc brass luke and i i don't offer that easily as some sort of you know kiss up because of uh you know i'll show up in their hype videos that they want to take people down i'll be the face of those luke yet you gotta you gotta show respect when it's due what what kind of trends have you seen

this year i was actually gonna say forget about the whole jake paul thing just for boxing itself it's funny that you highlighted how good MMA is, and certainly UFC, and I would agree. They had a crazy good year. I mean, it was amazing. I'd actually argue, I think, you know, I hear from a lot of people, oh, what kind of state is boxing in? We talked a little bit about this with Ariel, but, like, for me,

as somebody who has been out of it and back into it, this was a, you know, BC, would you call it a banner year for boxing? Maybe not that, but it was a pretty fucking good one dude the heavyweight battles that yeah dude the canelo uh saga that he put us through and and um and manny pacquiao retiring and i mean dude this was a monumental year in boxing and the zone we were a little bit worried about their future in the sport during the pandemic but they righted the ship. Obviously, Eddie Hearn's doing great things over there with Matchroom. Certainly, Showtime was all firing on all cylinders. There was a couple of COVID fights or COVID incidents that killed fights or whatever,

but in general. And then even top rank, dude, all the promoters are going to look back and boxing, all the major promoters are going to look back and be like, this was a great year for us, and I just don't want that to get lost like but you know mma's in a great space and we're all happy about that dude boxing's in a pretty good space too i feel like don't you i do agree with you right there they've made a consistent stream of pay-per-views that have delivered where the matchup coming in you know mattered and it wasn't so much of all that really rich guy is going to fight that guy that we know he's going to win. No, these fights have mattered. I mean, Fury Wilder 3 was actually

one where, you know, half of us were going, do we really need this right now? And that delivered one of the, you know, most classic all-time insane fights. Luke, if you would make a Mount Rushmore of the four faces that mattered most to define combat sports in in 2021 would it be fair to put Canelo on one Jake Paul on one maybe Dana White on one who would be the fourth spot Luke for like biggest impact the in the year yeah I mean I wouldn't put George Kambosis but he's not far from that list right I mean I had that was a huge upset. I don't know.

I don't know. It's a tough one. But you get the idea. Like, boxing had an integral part of the combat sports, I don't know, boom per se. But it's a... Boxing, like everyone say, you know, remember that misguided look of, if Jake Paul's having all the success in Triller, you know, it's going to kill actual boxing. And then the people that know go, no, actually, that's an indication that boxing's really healthy because not only is traditional boxing putting out very good fights and successful pay-per-views, but now you've got BKFC flourishing.

You've got the open lanes of Triller trying their different variations. You've got Jake Paul doing a consistent stretch of pay-per-views. So, yeah, business is great, Luke. You and I are, you know, we're doing well too, Luke. We're not doing too poorly. Before we get out of here, because I know the audience will be mad about it if I don't bring up something, do you have any thoughts about Bilal Muhammad defeating Wonderboy

and his best performance to date? This was a breakthrough performance, and it's not that he hadn't had a very good win streak along with the one no contest to Leon Edwards, but he did this in a manner which I just don't think any of us thought he was going to be able to dominate that convincingly, relying on his strengths of pressure and grappling. And look, he just, I mean, again,

we haven't seen Wonderboy handle just that easily. So when he comes out afterwards and says, look, I want Usman. And if I can't get it, I want Leon Edwards. And nothing else makes sense. He's earned it. He has damn right earned it, Luke. The hard way, like Charles Oliveira going up the back stairs in the building and just winning whoever they put in front of him,

whether the person's a lead or not, and building momentum in this win streak. This is him coming full bloom. And he's an interesting test, Luke. You know what I mean? It's like, do I still peg this guy as a future champion? You know, I'm not of full belief yet, but this was a major wake-up call to anyone who is cynically on the other side because he is a physical beast in there, Luke,

and he has really raised his game from where it was four, five, six years ago when we sort of regularly knew who he was. Did we remember the name at that point? A little bit. Now you better remember that face, that chest. Luke, this guy's coming. Yeah, I was extremely impressed by this. Bilal Muhammad is 33 and is really, you can see he's entering,

if not already in, his prime. I was amazed also at the ease with which he got takedowns because all it seemed like he had to do was make contact at a level change with Wonderboy against the fence, even from way outside, and he still had success the entire time. Like going after Wonderboy, not avoiding, not backing up, not trying some weird game plan. He just did it sticking to his own strengths.

I have not necessarily been not a believer in Bilal Muhammad, but I needed to see proof to know exactly what we've got here. And again, can he beat Kamaru Usman? You know, that's a tough fight. But to your point, he's earned the right, certainly at a bare minimum, to call him out. He's earned the right to take on a fight with Leon Edwards. I do think he's a bit of a dark horse now

for title aspirations in this division. That was his best win by far, and it wasn't even close. Dude, that fight almost didn't get out of the first round from Bilal Mohamed because he's so strong. He found the back. I would say that, you know, putting some polish on his finishing ability is something that can still be worked on and would improve his chances, but in terms of just the kind of performances overall that he's turning worked on and would improve his chances but in terms of just the kind of performances overall that he's turning in and especially this one on Saturday extremely extremely impressive I like what he did which is like we talked about it coming in with it just a three-round fight as a co-main event and with the smaller cage there was a an

angle to say well these advantages could really fall in Bilal's hands. And then he used those advantages exclusively and dominantly. I mean, look, you know, he just wore Wonderboy down. Everything he tried to do was involving leaning his weight or punching in situations that you don't normally see a ton of offense. Every spot he was in, he was looking to let it be known that he was there and he was the dominant fighter. Sometimes you got to win that way, and no one looks good against Wonderboy except for right now.

Like this, he looked great. No doubt about it. So we'll see what happens next. I don't know what the answer to that is, but whatever it is, if it's a good opportunity, at a bare minimum, he's earned it. And, again, doing exactly the things he always does. Didn't have to get out of his game plan usually whatsoever. So great job by him.

Is there a scenario where he gets offered Hamzat Chamayev at all, Luke? Because that's the other guy in this larger picture. And honestly, that's a tough fight. That's a hell of a fight. Here's the thing, though. They didn't go with Hamzat versus Neil Magny. Neil Magny's been not quiet about wanting that fight, and UFC just hasn't made it,

which tells us that they probably don't want to make it. They probably want something a little bit sexier. Does Bilal Muhammad, after beating Wonderboy, get you there? He might. Look, dude, the Wonderboy's a big stamp on his passport. Like, you can't underestimate that, considering I was just the other day saying, hey, if Wonder if wonder boy wins this man could he make another late run with his name you know i mean that's a big ass win and i think again the manner of it it's eye-opening so

uh you're damn right i'll remember that name i mean the guy the guy must do you know you must sit at the bench and just do chest all day yeah he's got large pectorals um all right with that in mind bc it is not time for you or us to discuss uh questions we ask each other it's time for the fans to talk to us it's time for dms from donks All right, BC, from at brim.stone.6, did you meet the Island Boys? No, but they met the crowd, and the crowd didn't like them. Yeah, so there's footage out there. It didn't show up in Have You Seen This Shit this week,

but the Island Boys got drinks thrown at them. They almost got in a fight. And there's some footage as well, Luke, of them showing up on the Logan Paul podcast poolside there at the Hard Rock, where one of Logan had a guest and he got into an argument with the Island Boys and disrespected them and they walked off the set. So, Luke, they've had a chance to show their backbone after showing up on Morning Combat to deliver us such a beautiful soliloquy and song. They found out the hard way,ke that uh people may watch you they don't always love you i mean you would find that out too if you hadn't blocked half of our

audience well i block idiots so you should take that up with them for being you know how many sob stories i don't like to bring this up but i do get a lot of sob stories of like guys i've bought every shirt you've printed and i made one comment that luke misinterpreted on twitter thought i was making fun of him it's like hey luke go fuck you and your mother and it's like oh luke misinterpreted it no i don't think i did i don't think i did although i don't block nearly as much these days i usually just mute but the walls of your castle they get very tall luke there's a moment it's like dude here, here's how this goes. Make yourself pleasant to interact with or don't. The choice is entirely up to you.

But if you don't, I'm not going to be party to it. So make your choices accordingly. All right. At Ilya745BC, where is Eagle FC in three years? That's a good question. Yeah. Not high expectations expectations you think well would they be happy if they were like cage warriors ksw level luke is that where we're going here

that's pretty big where you have a certain hold on a certain either region or level i mean that that'd probably i mean well what's the real question is the real question here do they have a shot at at breaking into that group that includes the ufc bellator pfl and once in a while one championship do they have chance to be in that group luke i don't think they get there in three years probably not i mean pfl has been around for a while and they're just now breaking out and they offer what we think is probably bigger paydays and they have a better television like in three years it's just not a lot of time five to ten if they're still around we can ask different questions but yeah i think you're probably right hey i mean you know maybe kevin lee becomes the eagle fc 165 champion look what are we going to call that Um, super light junior Welter. All right.

All right. Uh, all right. From flannels and jets. This guy must have a great personality. Did you guys see sun and got arrested in Vegas over the weekend? Five counts of battery for fighting in a hotel, uh, lobby or, uh, I did not see this. Is there footage of it?

There's footage of him walking out in cuffs you can see that apparently he didn't get charged with anything uh or no he got charged with five counts of misdemeanor battery but they didn't actually arrest him because for whatever reason i i always thought when you got in fistfights and you got arrested you were in deep shit but it turns out as i become an adult this is not really all that true but um he it was some kind of dispute in a hallway with another man at least as tmz wrote it over a woman i don't know what the story is i don't know but um he apparently gave the other guy the uh the wood shampoo just beat the fuck out of him and uh the woman was screaming someone called the cops and they came and got him but they only gave

him five counts of misdemeanor battery. I think the bad guy will be okay. Jon Jones loved it. Did you see he took to Twitter about it? I didn't see any of this. Maybe it was payback for some of those zings he had at the World MMA Awards. When you're that funny at that level, you do always have to worry about the payback.

Some punk that you roughed up way back, coming back after all these years you know what I'm saying yeah I don't know exactly what the story is but there was that part that was reported so enjoy that alright it's back yes

by the way I didn't know you were in chemotherapy at age 17 but look at this fucking picture that's not even remotely funny Luke put the counter back up real quick if you can Gaff or Corey let me see this thing. They definitely changed out the picture or something. Yeah, look at that, bro. Were you okay?

Yeah, I was 17, Luke. I couldn't keep an ounce of fat on me. How are you 17 and you look like Tom Hanks from Philadelphia? I don't know. I can't tell. I'm not going to laugh. I'm not going to... The first rule of going to, you know, I'm not going to, you know,

the first rule of improv is never say no, Luke. No. Okay. No. All right. At bedside rumble. That's what happens when I lean over to pass gas. Are the grounded hip thrusts that Dontel Mays showed against Joss Parisian

something you learn on the first day of training at Factory Town MMA, asking for a friend yeah we we at factory town mma we call that uh t-bagging actually because that's what it is good god can't wait to see that on have you seen this shit today luke that was great i haven't seen anything like that do you remember when sergey kovalev i don't know if you remember this on his initial title rise he had this move where he would pump fake a crotch thrust and it would get his opponent to kind of freeze and then he'd throw a one-two on him luke it reminded me of that we haven't seen that kind of you know that kind of pelvic use in combat sports luke since um since uh you know

man you know if i would if i could ever remember the name of john Jones' Albuquerque booty call and have it on hand, Luke, my comedy game could rise up exponentially. Yes, that's a thing that would be true if other things that are not in play were in play. I agree. All right. Sorry, retroactively, Boo Boo Wild Thing was the correct answer. Thank you. That's right. That was on the text on the phone.

Incoming call. Incoming call, yes. correct answer thank you that's right that was on the text on the phone incoming call incoming call yes from h de la cruz underscore 160 who is the real b very brian uh campbell uh what you call here dms from donks today who's the real bc is it brian campbell or is it brian custer because you'll note mara ronalo when he throws it back to Brian Custer on the Showtime broadcast, he calls him BC. Who's the real BC at Viacom? To be fair, I would say the real, I mean, who's the real BC? Well, I'm the real BC, but who's the real BC? Brian Custer's been using that moniker, nickname,

whether he brought it on himself or not, professionally a lot longer than I have. To be fair, Luke Thomas, I really wasn't called BC until two years ago. And it was really by you. Maybe a couple of people on the fringe used it as their preferred choice. But, you know, I was I was soup most of my life in my hometown of Connecticut. And I was, you know, Brian Campbell for a lot of years. But apparently I'm now BC, the BBC with the BDE the the damn American alpha you know so uh so yeah Brian Custer can

take the real BC part right there but uh doesn't doesn't keep me up at night uh okay well there you have it I'm not sure what to add to that I think soup is a terrible name for you I don't like it but you know you are from Connecticut, and your peers are not very creative, so what can you do? That's not your fault. It's not your fault you were born in Connecticut, BC. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, sorry, Dino. Let me run my future nicknames past you appropriately. You're chippy today. Why are you so chippy today?

Are you a little underslept, a little stressed? Yeah, yeah. I spent all morning at the knee doctor. Look, I'm getting old, you know. I see that, bro. I see that. All right, well, it's time for the lighter side of things, BC. It's time for your shit.

Yeah, that's what we do. We scour the globe for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the in-between. In combat sports and beyond, I really can't vouch for this piece of shit right here, Luke. It's an up-and- and down mix but we're gonna get it anyway it's called have you seen this shit feces my supplies are running low luke and i've gotten some criticism of late that were too fight heavy so i tried to do less fights and more drunk chicks so here we go luke uoc fight night in vegas we mentioned don't tell maze using his dick thrusts to control josh parisian in their heavyweight bout

luke it worked as he would go on to get the victory but um that's disrespectful right there well there's a couple things that are happening here. There are, by the way, passes and forms of control where your left or right hip should go on the face of your opponent to get them to turn away. So he's either using the cup itself as a way just to hit him, or he's using the bone of his hip to do it. But either way, it is, you know, he's pumping. That's pump action shotgun right there. I mean, look, you know, we've seen videos on this program and this segment

about people doing that at the gym to warm up to get loose. Maybe it becomes a weapon moving forward. I do squeeze my glutes together as a warm up for deadlifts and stuff. True or false, Luke, is you and I exited the media room at Amelie Arena

in Tampa after doing an HQ clip or whatever, as you opened the door to go out first, you straight up Larry King'd me and whoever else was within 20 feet of me in that room and just shat your pants as like a parting gift

and then slowly opened the door so I could, you know, my teeth were turning even yellower. It was great. These are true accusations and I plead guilty. Alright, let's go to this featherweight fight. Do you see the ending between Charles

Jourdain and Andre Ewell, Luke? Look at this. I screamed at him. Kick that shit. Yes. Get out of here. Wow. I mean, that's not a a finish but that's about as close to a finish as you're going to get without actually scoring a finish that's like pipping

duncan on ewing and then t-bagging him like that's just like in your face right there who's that it turned into a gif too who's the one where shack dunked on some white guy and then like thrust it into him yeah chris dudley that's that's in play for most disrespectful moment in NBA history. Dudley threw the ball at him, rightfully so. You got to do that. Yeah, he had to do something. Luke, Justin Taffa became the first UFC heavyweight to ever miss weight for 265, but it didn't matter.

He kicked the shit out of Harry Hunbuckler here. Harry Hunsucker with the head kick finish. This guy for real, Luke? Harry Unbuckler is who I am when I haven't had enough manscaped products. All right. My wife's like, oh, you turned back into Harry Unbuckler again, didn't you? I see. Okay.

I haven't slept in a few days. I don't know if you can tell. You may have watched Kai Cara France's big-time knockout of Cody Garbrandt at UFC 269 more than a week ago, but have you heard or seen teammate Israel Adesanya's reaction? Let's see. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't hear anything. Jeff, cool down. Cool down, Kai. Cool down. Cool down. Cool down. It's time, Kai. Cut him off.

That's it. All is done. It's done, son. I put three great. That's money on the. That's money on the. That's money on the. That's money on the.

CKB. Luke, I just. It's not too dissimilar from my reactions when CKB fighters fight. I'll just say this. I want teammates that will yell, I'm about to explode when I have my big moments, Luke. You think our staff was yelling that when we walked up to the podium at the World MMA Awards?

I think you've probably yelled that trying to bring yourself to climax. I'm about to explode, Sally! Hey hey we've seen some weird moments before from jessica i'm about to explode from adesanya but um you know that's he's being a good teammate right there he loved i don't know anyone in my life that would react that positively to anything i could do unless someone was sentencing me to life in prison. Well, Luke, you know who can explode. My family would be like, I'm about to explode with joy. Let's go to Tampa, Florida for a different kind of explosion.

Mama Woodley was in the house after Tyron's knockout loss. Let's listen to her give it to a family. What were wrong for Tyron Woodley tonight? What'd you say? What were wrong for him tonight? What the fuck you think, motherfucker? What were wrong for him tonight? Give it to a family. What we're wrong for him tonight. What the fuck you think, motherfucker? What we're wrong for him tonight. What we're wrong with you? No.

No. Excuse me, sir. Could you give me directions to the interstate? Man, fuck your mama. Luke, what went wrong there uh mama woodley despite uh exploding there did come up to you off camera and and give you some encouragement correct she said uh i haven't had a honestly i haven't had someone talk to me like that since my mom was alive she said to me some really, really, really, really, really nice things. And, yeah, it was touching, actually.

I was on the air. I was a little distracted, but it was very, very sweet. So she's a very sweet lady. I love it. You don't see that unless she's in a mood. Yeah, and by the way, she doesn't need to know you to act like she's your mother. She's an incredible person. Exactly.

People just know her right away. Lukeke this is the moment of the weekend even dana white tweeted it nate diaz inside the arena leaving the arena and let's zoom in on this please for this pump fake of all pump fakes okay dude who is that guy i don't know but that guy uh he bit he bit on that pump fake luke i mean did he he bit on every his beard just turns into a shower look at this wow i'll tell you what r.i.p kobe matt barnes you know pump fake tim he didn't move like he didn't move okay well kobe was a little different that's fucking hilarious from nate that dude ruined his beer that's fucking awesome well i wonder if that moment was tied into this moment luke at friday's weigh-in you and i saw during the broadcast

team diaz with chris avila they're getting into a scuffle with team aj mckee and body body shop factory whatever they call it luke check that that out. Why were they beefing? What's AJ McKee got? Who's he beefing with? Well, AJ McKee was training Anthony Taylor for this boxing match against Chris Avila. Ah, okay, okay. And the Diaz Army. So the two armies rubbed up against each other, Luke.

There's AJ, yeah. Yeah, but you know who really won this battle? Who? COVID. COVID. COVID's like, you guys can take your wins and losses however you want. The real winner. What would you think about Nate Diaz versus AJ McKee at Welterweight? What would you think about that?

Nate Diaz versus AJ MMA. Yes, at welterweight. It'd be interesting, right? It'd be interesting. I agree. You're right. I hadn't thought of it. It's a fun little permutation because at 55, I like McKee pretty cleanly.

But even then, he's up a weight class. And then you're talking about another 15 pounds. You've seen Nate in person. You've seen AJ in person. Nate's bigger by a considerable margin. So that's a tough one. I like it. I like where your head's at.

That's interesting. All right, let's go back to real life here. Here's a little musical chairs finish, Luke. You know, you got to be cutthroat to win this event. Check out this lady's move and then the celebration. I want you to look closely at the lady in the pink. So they're playing musical chairs? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh! Oh! Oh, around the back to steal the chair and then the chair stole. Sometimes you got to come down on some thick. Yeah. All right, let's go to Russia. OFC 15.

Luke, we had a boxing exhibition. Remember Ruslan Provodnikov, the face-first brawler? He's been off for six years. Luke, he came back to box Ali Bagutanov in an exhibition. The MMA fighter. Yeah, in the yellow there, Ruslan took home a split decision, and like normal, Luke, his face was a bloody mess afterwards yeah dude Ali Bagoutinov fought uh Demetrius Johnson for the UFC flyweight title now granted he popped for PEDs at the time so take that for what it's worth but

um yeah it's like washed boxer beats you know well I guess he's kind of a washed MMA fighter, semi-washed MMA fighter. I mean, I was happy for Ruslan, but I like that he's kind of realized he hit his ceiling and he walked away because he gave us so many blood and guts nights at the offices, Luke, from the Tim Bradley fight to the Matisse fight. I mean, you know, him knocking out Mike Alvarado to win the title. I love Ruslan's career, but I don't want to see him, you know, I hope this is a one-off.

Yeah, tons of abuse he took. All right, let's go over win the title. I love Ruslan's career, but I don't want to see him. I hope this is a one-off. Yeah, tons of abuse he took. Alright, let's go over to the bathtub. You want drunk chicks? You're going to get it. Let's do it for the gram here. That was a good one. Alright, hey, back to the stuff that matters here. You want women? How about women's boxing? Dazon had a All right. Hey, back to the stuff that matters here. You want women?

How about women's boxing? DAZN had a busy weekend, Luke, in San Antonio. Check out Sanisa Superbad Estrada. I saw this. I saw this. Delivering the boom to Maria Santizo. Estrada defended. Coach Barry Robinson made a point about this.

Watch the girl in blue, the woman in blue, excuse me, bring her feet together and then re-engage. And then when she does, she just gets time. She does what's called a rhythm step right there. Boom, comes back and gets hit, you know. Dude, Estrada's a fun fighter. Unbeaten. She's the WBA minimum weight champion.

She's looking to move up in weight and take on other fighters for belts. I think the Zone's got something here, Luke. She's also really good on the mic. I called the fight with her once for Ring City USA and NBC Sports. So good to see Sunisa get a moment here. Let's keep it rolling. We go to England. DAZN gave us a nice brawl in this rematch.

Joseph Parker versus Derek Chisora. Luke, it would be Parker scoring three knockdowns there in the white to get the victory, but it was fun and games the whole time. And then they ate burgers afterwards. This is fun. I mean, this is just, you know, if heavyweight boxing isn't going to be, you know, Wilder or Fury or something like that, this is a great alternative.

Don't you agree? Like, it's, you know, you're not, you know you're not watching the best, but you know you're watching some tough guys with big power who just will fucking, you know, go crazy to get the win. Joseph Parker, Luke, could be, you know, he kind of worked himself back into title contention. We remember when he lost his belt to Anthony Joshua. You know, I don't want to say lifeless,

but it turned out to be a boxing match. Clinical, clinical. Yeah, in their unification fight. But he's worked himself back up. I wonder if he gets a big shot after this one. Luke, boxing last Tuesday. Pound for pound ranked. Naoya Inoue, the monster from Japan, had to stay busy in his native land.

And check out this triple uppercut he landed, Luke. Yeah, that's amazing. One, two, short little punches, too. Three, and then he goes to the body here. Yeah, that's fucking nice. He's good. One, two, short little punches, too. Three, and then he goes to the body here. Yeah, that's fucking nice. He's good. One, two, three. Bah!

Yeah. If you don't know about this guy, please, Niawa Inoue, get learned. All right, Luke, let's go over to Russia. I don't think this was the intended way to wear a wife beater. Can you break this down for me? That's exactly the intention. This guy is just letting the titties hang.

I mean, look at this fucking animal. This guy, and I bet he fucks too. Like our key grip, Phil? He likes the older ladies, Luke? Or Jack from Las Vegasgas our key right there all right uh let's go look you remember i was a shipping and receiving manager back in the day at the factory luke i i had that shipping not really in the factory in the air-conditioned part of the factory no no no there was no air conditioning at that factory i was i

was on top of that but this never happened to me luke you got to be careful when you're unloading the uh you know the big the big haul oh he just he just whips this motherfucker open huh but eat that shit bitch oh my god look at wow he got he got swallowed by produce you know i don't know if he died but i do feel bad putting this out out in the world if he did wow i don't i don't think he died but he probably doesn't eat that many apples these days look let, let's go over to Mardi Gras here, New Orleans. Luke, is this a great throw or a great catch? You be the judge. All right, let's see.

One, two, three. Whoa. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. That is epic partying. Yeah.

Yeah. No one took the top off. You know what, dude? You know what? I'm going to – hold on. Let me say it one partying. Yeah. Yeah. No one took the top off. You know what, dude? You know what? I'm going to, hold on, let me say it one more time. He throws it. Okay. It's definitely a great catch and it's not the best throw.

It's a pretty fucking good throw. Yeah. That was impressive. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you on that one. All right, let's go back to regional MMA. Luke, you know anything can happen.

Can you describe what this is? Because it's a dominant finish where I come from wow that one dude is strong as shit oh god yeah he just dude he just dude he just fucking and dama can suit him to the to the left look at this just get he's like beyonce to the left keep it moving god damn they look like dan henderson on um on hector lombard with how vicious that finish was dude i always tell people dude i always tell people i'm gonna say it again go to a local mma show in your area even if it's amateur pay 15 bucks for your seat whatever you know minimal cost it is you will see the wildest shit you've ever seen at these regional shows i'm telling you

oh luke you and i did see hendo the great hall of famer in vegas dude he's still he's still pulling tail that guy i mean he's old hendo doesn't remember this but we got dinner him me and the staff after mma's uncensored live and every time i've seen him he's got a dime around his arm and i don't think it's the same one from when I saw him about 10 or 11 years ago. And either way, if it was, she's aged nicely because don't you worry about old Dan Hendo. He's doing quite well for himself. I mean, look, let's be fair. He's old as shit and he looks it, but he's still living.

So shout out to his clothes. If you notice, they're all like kind of halfway untucked. And yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. All right, they're all like kind of halfway untucked. And yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Luke, let's bring on the trampolines. They should really get some weight limits for these.

Wouldn't you agree, Luke? Oh, Jesus, lady. Oh, lady. You're maybe we shouldn't. Maybe we shouldn't come down on some thick. Bad news is she'll never walk again, Luke. But, you know, she's probably... I like how they put all these guardrails so she wouldn't fly outside.

It's like, well, we didn't think she would actually go through the bitch. But it turns out she's overweight. So there you go. Look, they say everybody's got a superpower, a party trick that they can bring out. You know what I mean? Look at this old guy. You know he's been practicing this move for years, Luke. Is this Bernie, and is this his weekend?

I've been practicing a similar move, Luke, with my, you know, yeah. Yeah, this is me going back to jiu-jitsu. Hey, everybody, this was a great idea on my part. All right, let's go over. It's a great idea on my part. All right. Let's go over it. It's time for some wheelie fails. Look, we haven't had some good wheelie fails in a while. You know, the people they love, no helmet on a motorcycle,

and then they love kicking in that wheelie. Oh, this guy does have a helmet. Good. Holy fucking shit. Damn. Dude, that other guy narrowly avoided the problems bah this is one of those to me it's like daredevil pilots like you know you're asking for it you're asking for it's gonna kick look the you know the as you would say the the bill will come due eventually when you live

this this fast and furious lifestyle yeah let's play stupid games you are gonna win stupid prizes so congrats this next one is brought to you, Luke, by CTE. Just. I mean, the thing about doing the wheelie is if you can't see where you're, you know, it's, yeah, that's. This is brought to you by CTE and abject poverty, it looks like. Yeah, that's true. I do like the pink helmet.

All right, we've got one more for you in the wheelie game they say bad wheelie accidents happen in three luke oh no oh no oh no oh no oh he did walk on his own power luke that would be the last time though wow wow dude these guys. I see them all over the city here. They ride in these large groups. And it never seems to go too well for them, you know? No, no. Luke, you know after a long weekend of work travel,

you got to burn everything that's on you and just start fresh. And this is what this guy was doing, Luke. This may actually be Tampa, Florida. He's like, you know, I just got to clean off and just start fresh and this is what this guy was doing luke even this this may actually be tampa florida he's like you know i just gotta i just gotta clean off and just start fresh yeah bro this was me after the uh event on sunday or saturday when i was walking back to my hotel i just needed some relief for my ass because it was on fire yeah all right i got two more in this failing segment luke uh look this is a superpower right here check out this guy's ability to catch darts in any position without getting hurt oh god oh god okay all right oh no oh no oh no oh i think it's real oh no okay oh so that's it he doesn't do much worse than that no that's

not bad luke okay that's that's still pretty good that's a new that's a twist on tip to tip yeah yeah yeah he had that log between his legs but luke you may fool the log once but the log will get you back here's our last entry this week yeah i can't i can't guarantee this guy walked away from this, Luke, but we can enjoy it nonetheless. Oh, Jesus Christ. Bah! You know, in the tree world, Luke,

they compare this to Overeem versus Ngannou. I think rightfully so, Luke. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Dude. Dude. Dude, this motherfucker is wearing a helmet, and the tree hits him in the part that the helmet doesn't exist.

Boop. Oh, my God. Oh, fuck, bro. This tree is like, yo, fuck you, loggers. Suck my D. Yep. Look, I'm looking. Bop.

Just. I mean, watch his arms, too. He just gets hit by the fucking Hadouken in here. Watch this. Look at his arms. Watch his arms. Here we go. Bah!

Oh, wow. Well, Luke, that's my shit for the week. I apologize for the declining value of it. I've been, look, I've really been traveling for like five, six weeks. Dude, these last two weeks were fucking hard. They were. Vacation, family vacation family wedding you know so i i will come back with much better shit in fact luke you know we're about to enter a dead

zone for combat sports i hope you know everyone enjoy the holidays of course but um um you know we're gonna have a lot of time to run a lot of shitty videos so uh good well i'm glad to hear about that all right bc before we close off today's program what are your odds and or ends for today you know we had a lot of boxing over the weekend stuff that didn't even make have you seen the shit and it was an interesting close-up excuse me wow all right for the uh light heavyweight division in boxing arthur better beef came back luke you better believe it, Friday night against a determined Marcus Brown. And Bieterbeev would get a hard-fought win,

including Luke. He had a gash and a half opened up on his forehead. Brown was also bleeding bad. Brown wasn't afraid to cheat either, Luke, to stay in this fight. This turned out to be a little bit gnarly. Look, at 36, I don't feel like B feel like better beef is getting any younger for sure um he gutted it out luke i still think he can win big fights but if you're team canelo and you're watching this this is the second straight better be fight who's now what 17 and 0 with 17 ko's where you're seeing a little bit of age and time off catching up marcus brown was in this better beef got the win and one more also disowned in san an San Antonio had undefeated Gilberto Zerto-Romero as the former super middleweight champion.

He had a fun fight with Uniesky Gonzalez who brought it. Zerto would get a late stoppage and a win. And, Lucas, we look at this light heavyweight division right now. Betterbeave's got two belts. You've got one belt around the waist of Dimitri Bivol, one belt around the waist of Joe Smith Jr., the big slugger, who just recently was like a full-time, you know, hype player. And you've got now Gilberto Ramirez, who's 43-0.

Luke, if Canelo wants to come down, look, I don't know if this Canelo-Cruiserweight thing is going to happen. It was originally, you know, the WBC was all about it, but now Don King is claiming he's got a a right on uh making a fight in between with Makabu I wonder now if um Team Canelo is taking a closer look at at light heavyweight all those four names I mentioned all four would be fun fights against Canelo if he so desires to want to move up there and try to win all the belts Luke were you nervous at all having caught a few rounds of that uh better be fight that the competition's closing in on a little bit i mean when his face was exploding with blood

and his opponent was still kind of giving him a little bit of razzle dazzle i don't know i got a little bit concerned but when would you say the fight turned fifth sixth round something like that you know and then once it did he was marching him down once once you saw him marching when would you say the fight turned? Fifth? Sixth round? Something like that? You know? And then once it did, he was marching him down. Once you saw him marching him down consistently, you're like, oh, okay, okay. The game is now locked in. But you're right.

Took a little time to get going. Definitely got, you know, his skin is not what it used to be, and I'm sure his overall damage. He's not taking a ton of damage, but, you know, you just do enough of this and it wears you down and uh yes to answer your question i thought that the competition was closing in a little bit but he's still a fucking hammer look the people that know in boxing on boxing twitter i've seen a few people make this point should canelo move up this year and fight buterbiev uh who again 17 and 0 17 kos two of the four light heavyweight titles a lot of

people thinking it could be a Canelo versus Triple G type fight where Canelo's going to certainly have the speed and the boxing ability to be in this, but you've got an old bruiser here in Baturbiev like Triple G was in those two fights who also can box and set his shots up. Both are going to have to take punishment. Look, this could be a pretty freaking epic fight if they make it in terms of what could it actually look like in the ring this could be interesting theater totally i love

it and he looked great over the weekend and um you know producing good highlights and he's well he seems to be well liked in the boxing industry as well which seems to be a thing for him um yeah i love it i love all the dude 2022 a lot of fun possibilities about the way things could go. And he's certainly part of that picture at Overlight Heavyweight. So I agree. For my odds and ends, BC, it's a sad one, unfortunately. Jordan Young has passed away. It may not be a name that a lot of you know. He did fight twice for the PFL, winning against a UFC middleweight,

former UFC middleweight, Amari Akhmedov, in his last fight, actually with an uppercut. He was losing that fight, and then he won. He went, I think, like six and one in Bellator, five and one in Bellator. His only loss was to Angliskas, who we know was in the light heavyweight tournament. He was 27 years old, and he passed away. BC, I've never mentioned anything because I didn't think anything about it until yesterday, but Jordan, I don't know why he passed away. He messaged me on Friday, actually. He wanted some gambling picks. Of course, I don't gamble why he passed away. He messaged me on Friday, actually. He wanted some gambling picks. Of course, I don't gamble and give picks, but I just shared my analysis as best I could.

And I was looking back on our conversations. He had hit me up maybe in 2017 and was just kind of a fan of some of my work. And we had kind of stayed in touch. I didn't know him. I won't proclaim to know him. My only interaction with him was through Instagram DMs. but he was a nice guy. He was driven. Again, he got a great win in his last PFL fight. I don't know the circumstances of his death, but it's terrible. And like, you know, there's just a rule about death. You always have to remember it may come sooner than you think.

And it is definitely, definitely obviously going to happen, but it certainly might come way quicker than you imagine. And I'm sure you had asked jordan young a year ago where are you going to be another year he wouldn't have said this um terrible terrible situation i hope to find out more but um just wanted to say something about it i'm really sorry to hear what happened just 27 years old a lot of tributes coming out from both the PFL and American top team. And, you know, look, he was 12-2 with 10 finishes. So he was looking promising, and he'd been on the best stretch of his run there. Wow. It was eye-opening.

Terrible, yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of well wishes for him. And again, I still don't know what the cause of death is. I really hope it's not. I mean, there would be no circumstance that would be great. I guess I'm just kind of hoping for not something that's deeply tragic, but I don't know. Terrible situation, right?

Terrible situation. So there you go. Rest in peace to him and his family. Okay, BC, that is it for us. We do have extra credit coming. We'll dig into this last UFC card of the year. Anything else? No.

You know, please, people, it's your last chance to get drug rugs to get our merch this holiday season, so head on over to morningcombat.store. I mean, look, this is quality. This is quality shit right here, okay? You want tie-dye shirts? We got that, too. You want this fantastic mug that you could be drinking out of every day?

All right, this is the absolute last Mark McGuire rookie card that we have here. All right, let's do it. Let's do it Don West. There's morningcombat.store. There's Showtime. Showtime.com. Get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can go pound sand. Don't forget our

email, morningcombat at gmail.com. morningcombat at gmail.com. Get in those fan subs. Get in those dead wrongs as early as you possibly can. Hopefully, we'll get to them on Wednesday. BC, if you're listening on the podcast, give us a thumbs up there or give us a five-star review or whatever else. We're all over the socials.

Morning Combat's name is consistent everywhere. BC and I are slightly different from Instagram to Twitter. And I think that is it, BC. Boy, we have seen a lot of each other in the lat on the road are you glad to be done with me for a little while we should really consider slowing down a little bit and just you know enjoying the holidays with our families hopefully everybody out there is gonna get to do that to Luke and come back in this new year just fired up Luke I mean could we

be brand wise critical attention and respect in a better spot? MK, this army, this universe? No, we couldn't. We're coming. We're coming big. So everybody rest up. Enjoy the holidays. Wear our merch at your holiday parties.

I'm sure it'll get love and appreciation. And you better believe we're coming back with a bang, even though right now we just don't want to be near each other at all, and not even on the same Zoom stream. I don't see. no no the difference is that i don't mind being near you it is you who minds being near me that's the difference i don't know if it's you that's really my my obstacle luke i've just you know it's been a busy two months you know a lot a lot of travel you know vacations awards so you know i'm just looking to pause for a little bit but hey luke we have a brand new studio in the fine metropolis of jersey city that we will be unveiling to open the new year

so a lot to look forward to if you're a big mk fan you want more franchises you want dissected to make a comeback hey who knows look who knows right possible there are crazy things that could happen but you're right. The studio will be a big focus of 2022. I want to get back there more often. People seem to like it more often. I think we like it when we're there. So we'll make that a big priority for 2022.

But that is it for today. For Malka, for CBS Sports, for Showtime, for the Viceroy slash Prince of Connecticut, that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. I'll see you folks on Extra Credit a little bit later. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.