MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva Results | Paul-Silva Post-Fight Reaction

Episode Date: October 30, 2022

Jake Paul faces former UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva in a Showtime boxing pay-per-view main event. Also on the card is former UFC middleweight Uriah Hall taking on former NFL running back Le'Veon Bell and Nate Diaz protege Chris Avila faces social media sensation Dr. Mike. 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

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Reveille, reveveille, 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. All right, ladies and gentlemen,

Jake Paul versus Anderson Silva is in the books. Welcome to our official morning combat Paul versus Silva post-fight show. I am the host of your evening festivities for right now. Brian Campbell will join me in a few minutes. He's got some other stuff he has to attend to, and then he's going to come and sit down right here. But the fights are over. They are done. Hoo boy, there's a lot to say about it. So first things first, let's do this.

All right. Number one, if you're watching, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thumbs up on the video. And yes, if you're watching on YouTube, please hit subscribe. I know this will eventually go on a podcast platform for the audio, but if you're watching right now on YouTube, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come watch this. But please do give us a thumbs up on the video or a subscription if you haven't yet done so. It would be greatly appreciated. We do this show together, Brian Campbell and I, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, live 11 a.m. in the East. In fact, we'll be doing it this coming Monday. Okay, there is a lot to get to here. Let me open with what I think needs to be a very helpful disclaimer number one i picked anderson

silva to win on record multiple times ahead of this fight right that's the first thing i want to say i would have been all too happy to watch anderson silva coming to this arena tonight the desert diamond arena here in glendale arizona and absolutely level Jake Paul. In fact, all of the crowd wanted to see it. This was almost certainly an entirely MMA crowd watching a boxing event. They didn't even know who David Benavidez was when he was shown on the screen. The guy is not just a high-level boxer. He's native to this area. Phoenix is his hometown. Didn't get a pop at all, but Nate Diaz got a pop.

Even Jake Shields got a bit of a pop. Sugar Sean O'Malley getting a pop. Paul Ocosta getting a pop at all, but Nate Diaz got a pop. Even Jake Shields got a bit of a pop. Sugar Sean O'Malley getting a pop. Paul Ocosta getting a pop. And, of course, Anderson Silva, when he walked out, I did hear a small smattering of boos, but in general, let's be very clear, he was the favored guy by the audience here tonight by a million miles. Jake Paul, clearly the villain here. Again, a smattering of cheers, but in general,

just boos every which way you could go. And I even said, and BC said this, I don't have access to his scorecard. I don't know what he had. And BC and I both said before the fight that everyone we talked to in boxing thought Jake was going to walk over this guy, which we thought was foolish because we thought Silva was going to win. And that in the second half of the fight was when he would really take over. We have to be upfront about our picks, whether they're right or they're wrong,

on what we said and see how it corresponds to reality. I bring all of this up to say the following. Jake Paul defeated Anderson Silva tonight via unanimous decision. He had a scorecard of one of the judges, 77-74, and then he had two, 78-73. Now, that's the preamble. What I have noticed from online reaction, for whatever that is worth, is that MMA fans find this basically one of two things. One, they find it rigged, which happens any time there's a fight

of any kind of magnitude where people don't like the result. But you see massive claiming that it's rigged, which, of course, is silly. The other claim is that there's no way Silva lost that fight. Now, I do think it was actually pretty competitive. And, in fact, my scorecard, which was, in fact, 77-74, I see you, Michael Chiesa, taking shots at my scorecard. Turns out it was right in line with Steve Farhood, who has been doing, I love Michael, but has been doing scorecards for Showbox and Showtime for a couple of decades. I'm going to trust his scorecard

over a lot of other people's. I had it 77-74. Now, I can grant that 78-73 is strong. That doesn't really, to me, represent how it could have gone. I think you could have seen, I think, 76-75. I think that would have been acceptable as a scorecard. I talked to most journos around here. They had it about 4-3 Paul heading into the eighth, but then, of course, he got the knockdown, which kind of sealed the fight.

So it was certainly competitive and close in the, not the first round. Silva didn certainly competitive and close in the not the first round Silva didn't really do much in the first round but it was close from like the second through the sixth around that mark or so and then the seventh round I don't think it was a whole lot for from Silva and then the eighth of course he gets dropped and that kind of closed the show if you are of the belief that what we witnessed here today because by the way if it was rigged understand that that's a crime right so if you are of the belief that what we witnessed here today, because by the way, if it was rigged, understand that that's a crime. So if you are of the belief that what happened here today was a literal crime that took place,

I don't really know what to tell you. You are beyond the point of rational discussion. If you didn't like the 78-73 scorecard, I'm with you. I don't think it's a very good scorecard either. I had it 77-74, but I also recognized and tweeted as much that I felt like there was two rounds. I'd have to go back and look at my notes. There were two rounds where I thought they could have gone to Silva, but it was a little bit tight.

And so I didn't know exactly how it was going to go. But at worst, at worst, you would have had Silva 4-3 or Jake 4-3 heading into the eighth. It was close enough where that was in play and then of course by the 8th round he closed the show. So I guess you could have had a draw if you had Jake losing 4-3 and then heading into the 8th, whatever. Or no, he still

would have won in that case, right? Because it would have been a 10-8. So in either case, Jake I think should be argued here that he's the rightful winner. That is a very bitter pill to swallow for MMA audiences. Again, I'm going to state this as many times as necessary. One, I did not think we would see. What I thought we were going to see was that in the first four rounds,

yeah, more or less like it played out in terms of its competitiveness. And then I thought in the second half of that fight, five to six, you thought, okay, Anderson's 47 years old, but he looked really good against Chavez. That's when in that fight when he woke up. And then more to that point, I thought that Jake would be a little one note with his offense and get figured out by the time the fifth or sixth round came about. And that really, well, it was halfway true, right? I mean, here was the story of the fight to me. There were mind games played by Anderson Silva.

Some of them worked, some of them didn't. You saw a lot more of them, like, for example, the second round, he didn't do much but block and parry in the first round. There was some of that. But where did you see Anderson have the very most success? There was that one counter shot he landed in the first, although he was kind of numerically outstruck up until that point. But to me, what I saw on tape was that Anderson Silva was the much better inside fighter, much better in tight when he was pressing Jake either into

the ropes or into the corner, the turnbuckle. In that space, those upper cuts in tight were brilliant and they were winning and they were scoring. And there was a couple of rounds I thought he stole where he was not doing a whole lot at distance, but then he was able to get Jake against the rope line. And Jake didn't really have offense from there to speak of. I mean, that's one of the interesting part, right? Like Jake and him were trading in various ways, either with Silva at the center of the ring or with Jake at the center of the ring. But as long as they were orbiting one another, you know, certainly as the fight went on, I thought due to partially the inactivity of Anderson Silva, Jake was winning those rounds later, but that was, you know, it was a bit of a back and forth there.

It was when Silva had him on the ropes that I thought he was doing his absolute best work by a million miles, and the lights have come on. They're going to have to adjust the white balance here for a second. They're literally tearing down everything behind us. So it's going to be what it's going to be here. The point I wanted to make was I thought Silva just didn't do enough of that. Once it was clear that by putting him along the ropes, he would have a doable path to victory, that we would see more of that. And we just didn't. We just didn't. I also thought there were at times, Anderson was just a little bit trigger shy. There were times when, for example, I mean, how did Anderson Silva knock out Forrest Griffin? Forrest Griffin was moving

into one direction. He was in the opposite stance, Anderson Silva. Anderson would switch his stance and then catch the intercepting Forrest Griffin. I thought we might see something like that. Not that I'm expecting the UFC 101 version of Andersonva on a night like tonight but i just thought that's what we would see something a little bit closer to that he seemed diminished from that 47 years older you have to be somewhat understanding of it but the reality is this guys if you don't if you're if you're an mk fan you already know this right we're the host of morning combat brian campbell and i if you're not an mk fan maybe you didn't see this. I did an hour-long tape study, and let me pull back the curtain on this a couple times. Actually, I'll just pull it back one time, but

I'll say this. I had to do that three different times because the opponents kept changing, right? I looked at the first and second Woodley fights. I have never done that much tape study on a fighter this junior and relatively inexperienced so i did it three different times the jake that showed up tonight was massively improved from the second fight and i'll tell you in two different ways in which that is true the first way is that he was he the biggest improvement he made from fight two to fight fight one to fight two of woodley was defensive soundness proactive clinching i thought was a big part of it. I thought obviously taking center of the ring was a big part of it. I went all over this in detail.

But he didn't really meaningfully up his offense between the first and second Woodley fights. That part to me was kind of missing. Now he did land that big bomb on Woodley but if you look at the rounds prior to that it was not a lot of entertainment in terms of the offensive flair that was happening. It's just not a reality of that fight. Now in this one, he was still pot-shotting a little bit, and he still did a lot of the same things which he likes to do. He loves to

paw with the jab, paw with the jab, paw with the jab, and then switch it up and not only blitz, but then throw a multi-punch combination, right? Condition the opponent to expect single shot, single shot, single shot, and then mix it up with him and then put in multiple strikes together all at one time. You saw some of that here tonight. That was part of it.

But I thought his ability to find offense when Anderson on the clinch break, which is the one he dropped him with in the eighth, and then more than that, didn't do as much body work but was able to headhunt much more frequently. In fact, I think we have some of the CompuBox numbers. I'm going to be on my phone here. I apologize, but let me read this if I can. Here we go.

CompuBox numbers. Total punches landed. Jake Paul, 83 of 336. Anderson Silva, 79 of 251. So Jake tried to be more active. By the way, one really good thing that you saw Anderson Silva do, not enough to win, obviously, he was really good at blocking, check-hooking,

and then parrying the lead jab because you obviously had an open stance, Orthodox versus Southpaw. In terms of jabs, of course, this told the story. 31 of 215 for Jake Paul. That's 15% on return. Anderson Silva just 13 of 75, not a big portion. Now here is where it gets to be a little bit more interesting. Power shots, 51 of 121 attempted, or I should say 51 landed of 121

attempted by Jake Paul, 66 out of 176. So he attempted more, landed a bit more, but the other pieces of his offense weren't really there. If you look at it round by round, it would go like this. Total punches landed. Round one, Jake Paul to Anderson Silva. So we'll go Paul Silva, right? Seven to two, round one. Round two, six to seven. I thought that was an Anderson Silva round.

Round three, 14 to 12. Close round. Round four, 10 to 10. Could have gone either way, certainly either of those. Round five, easier Silva round. Eight to 18. Massive Silva round. Round six, 10 to 12. Eight to eighteen. Massive silver round. Round six, ten to twelve.

Probably a silver round there as well. Begins to switch back again. Eleven to seven in round seven, and then in round eight, seventeen versus eleven, but also you had the knockdown. So the rounds in which Anderson Silva numerically landed more would be rounds two

and five and six. Round four was even. So you'd have, let's see, two, let's see, four if you wanted to count it, even though it's even, five and six, right? What am I missing here? Yes, two, four, five, and six. Two, four, five, and six.

There'd be four rounds at most you could give Silva in terms of the numeric totals. And even then that's not right because I'm giving him round four, five, and six. There'd be four rounds at most you could give Silva in terms of the numeric totals. And even then that's not right because I'm giving him round four, which was numerically even. So he only had three rounds in which he was numerically superior to what extent that ever tells the story. The story of the fight is that

Jake Paul has gotten a lot better. Now, am I sitting here... There's no way to talk about Jake Paul in the MMA space without someone either dismissing it as a total circus, which, of course, he brought a horse into the, what you call it, to the open workout. So that's not an utterly, you know, meritless claim. But in terms of the fight itself, that there's something not above board about it, that it's all for show or that there's some other way to put it in disrepute. Listen, if you don't like it, don't watch it.

If it's not for you, it's totally OK. I'm not here to convert anyone necessarily, but the reality is like, dude, Jake Paul has picked a fight with MMA and MMA fans and MMA media to an extent. Surely we all thought Silva was going to win on this side and everyone else just refuses to give Jake Paul any credit. I'll give him a little bit of credit. I think he improved. I wouldn't say dramatically, but noticeably between the second Woodley fight and this one. It's been 10 months. His ability to find offense creatively with Anderson Silva at distance surprised me.

Certainly in the second half of that fight, didn't see it coming. I thought he would wilt in the second half, and that really wasn't what he showed. Pretty good durability, I thought for the most part. There were some big shots Anderson caught him with. Didn't have an answer for the inside fighting, which is baffling that Slivel wasn't able to go back to it more. And pretty good cardio. Didn't seem to drain too much as it went into the eighth round. Is he a world-level fighter? No.

Is he going to win a legitimate boxing title? I would be very surprised. Is he big-time improved, or at least, you know, respectably improved anyway from the second Woodley fight to this one? Yeah, of course he is. Of course he is. So I can understand MMA fans being disappointed. I can understand not loving a 78-73 scorecard. I also don't think it's a great scorecard.

But 77-74 on down seems about what we saw. About what we saw. I don't really think that's a crazy scorecard. I wouldn't say 76-75 is a crazy scorecard i wouldn't say 76 75 is a crazy scorecard and anything else than that is a draw that wasn't a draw jake won that fight so what should the scorecard be plus he got the the knockdown in the round in round eight what would an acceptable scorecard be to you not a big departure from 77 74 not a big one this is this is just the reality of it 77 74-74 or 76-75 I think are probably pretty fair.

That seems about right. But anything in the other direction where I think Silva is winning on the scorecards to me seems just not supported by the facts. And on the other side, 78-73 seems a little bit high. Now, I did talk to someone else who came up here to the stage who argued that, well, Silva was kind of walking him down, but walking someone down, even in boxing, is not enough if you're not putting the right kinds of punches behind it.

Now, Jake was getting backed up, that's true, and he was rotating a lot, that's true, but in the rounds where that mostly happened, the striking was either even or Jake was slightly ahead in terms of the quality of the strikes, number one, and in many cases, in most of them, in fact, the numeric totals. Guys, I know it. Listen to me, MMA fans.

Look at me right now. I know it sucks if you're an MMA fan to watch Anderson Silva lose, to watch Anderson Silva lose to a guy you can't stand. I understand. I fully understand. What is the case that Silva actually won this? I don't, I just can't see it. I just can't, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Would be all too happy right now. What time is it here, local? At 1019 locals, we got bugs in our face and all the stuff's coming down. Would be all too happy right now to be discussing how Anderson Silva saved the day. Would be all too happy right now to be talking about how Anderson Silva did it again. Would be all too happy right now to be talking about Anderson Silva's magic.

Would be, would nothing would make me happier than to be able to say those things. And he, and by the way, I thought Silva in most parts looked, for 47, pretty good. Again, I didn't think he got enough of his offense going to win the contest, but he took a good shot. He didn't gas. He just didn't have enough offense where it mattered. It's not complicated. Everyone wants it to be some kind of Tower 7 conspiracy.

Really not that complicated. He just didn't have enough offense through the course of eight rounds. Really just comes down to that. I, you know, I know that there's no way to say any of these things inside the MMA space without character assassination and occupational assassination and every other kind of character imputing things that people can do. I understand.

I understand. I understand your disappointment. I truly do. And the rage that everyone is letting loose on the Internet. I get it. Believe me, I get it. But Jake Paul picked a fight with MMA. He got Anderson Silva. I said it. But Jake Paul picked a fight with MMA. He got Anderson Silva. And in a close,

and I said it was reasonably entertaining on Twitter. You would have thought that this was some kind of thought crime. Silva could have done more. So there were a couple of slow parts. And yeah, we weren't watching Spence Crawford. No one is suggesting as much. But they were pretty evenly matched. I think that's the scores don't reflect that the 73, 70, the 78, 73 doesn't reflect that. But in general, like if you just look at the numbers and you look at how the rounds were apportioned, it was pretty close. It was pretty close. Now we're finally going to get BC here. I would love to get his scorecard. BC, the MMA fans are angry online, my friend. They're very angry. They cannot believe that Anderson Silva lost to Jake Paul.

They think it's rigged, BC. And they think that what we're going to do is do nothing but carry water for, you know, Jake Paul's interest. Like we care at all. BC. I'm here. I'm here. BC's here. I'm ready to carry a little bit of water for Jake.

And, Luke, I've already... Have you seen the replies on Twitter? They can't imagine any scenario other than Silva was paid to do this. No, look, that's all ridiculous. Here's the thing at the end of the day. Jake Paul did make leaps. We talked about that. The 10 months off since the second Woodley fight, he was going to have to make leaps or he was going to be in trouble.

Let's give him credit. If he hadn't made these adjustments, if he hadn't made this growth, he probably would have got knocked out or stopped in this fight, which was a lot of our predictions, particularly those from the MMA side. What did you like about Jake Paul's game? The new levels of craft, the three punch combinations that he largely used in the second half, beginning in the body, finishing upstairs with the right hand, that overwhelmed Silva. I don't think there's anything to do with fixing or BC and LT going to carry Jake Swatter. Here's where I will carry Jake Swatter though, in the face of everyone

tweeting at me right now saying I need to be canceled for praising his effort. Guys, Jake Paul will not be fighting Canelo Alvarez tomorrow, even though he said that in the ring afterwards along with calling out Nate Diaz. Jake Paul will not be entering the top 10 of the rankings. He will not be looking to fight a legitimate

credible boxer. Maybe one day, maybe he never does, but he's an entertainer and he's an entertainer that can fight and six fights in, he's drawing big audiences and electric crowds for fighting other big name stars. I got news for you. He's not necessarily trying to become a legitimate boxer. So if you're going to continue to look at him in that thread and in that way of looking at things, you're never going to be impressed. Jake Paul said, you know, if I walked on water, you'd complain that I didn't swim. I think after tonight, as much as everyone can tweet at me and say, hey, BC, the guy's 47, grandpa's 50. Okay. But that 47 year old would have knocked out anybody trying to change over

from YouTube into professional boxing. If they hadn't put in the hard work and dedication that Jake Paul has at 25. He's coming along, guys, not to win a championship, but to call out big-name ex-UFC fighters? Yeah, I think there's a business here. I think there's a cottage industry Jake Paul has created, and if the fights were as entertaining as tonight's one was with Anderson, this bubble's not going to burst anytime soon. So am I putting Jake Paul in my top ten pound for pound? No, this is not quote unquote real boxing. But Jake Paul is slowly becoming a real fighter in the silo that he's operating in and is the face of.

And that's celebrity crossover boxing. And tonight, unlike the Woodley rematch, short of the one-punch KO, I think it was entertaining. I think it was compelling. I said it was reasonably entertaining, and you would have thought I told everyone their mother is a hoe. I mean, the responses were unbelievable. I'm like, seriously, the crowd was on their feet.

People had a pretty good time. Was it, you know, was it Ward Gotti or Gotti Ward? Excuse me? No, it wasn't any of that. But, like, they were reasonably competitive. Someone got dropped in the eighth. Both guys having various moments of momentum. So let me ask you this, BC.

Scorecard was what? I had Anderson Silva had by one point entering the final round, which ultimately means on my scorecard, Jake needed a knockdown in round eight to win it. He did exactly that eight to win it. He did exactly that. He won it. I realized that the official scores were a little bit wider, and I had a lot of people tweeting at me who were experts in this game

saying, 78-73, what are we doing here? Yeah, I don't agree with that card either. Well, here's the deal. Do I agree with that fully? No. But on my scorecard, which had Anderson ahead four rounds to three entering the final round, two of those rounds I gave Anderson, two of the four, I switched my vote in the final 30 seconds.

When Jake had got out to a big league with his jab, had seemingly controlled rounds in which it seemed like the age of Anderson was catching up, meaning he's fighting well in pockets, he's not sustaining over three minutes. What did he do in those two rounds? He rallied big in the final 30 seconds, landed big power shots, landed big right hand on Jake. I gave maybe Anderson too much of the benefit of the doubt

because, to quote GSB, I was impressed by his performance in that regard. If you didn't, though, in those same two rounds you could have given to Jake, you could have had it a little bit wider. I get the romanticism. I was surprised that Anderson Silva would come out only as the conquering hero

and Jake would field so many boos that he did in this arena. But I don't know how you're not exiting this praising both guys. Again, praising both guys under the guise that one is a 47-year-old legend who has taken on this new sport and actually done some interesting things like upset Chavez in Mexico. And the other one keeps calling everybody out, keeps making big shows, and he's getting better each step of the way. Unless you're expecting Spence versus Crawford out here,

which means this is probably not the event for you anyway, this, for the movement that Jake's doing, was a major step forward. Also, there's a lot of people who don't watch boxing who have a lot of very strong boxing opinions here. Just kind of want to point that out. Real quickly, BC, we have to do this. Let's take a quick second to shout out our beloved sponsor. They're real beloved in here. Just kind of want to point that out. Real quickly, BC, we have to do this. Let's take a quick second to shout out our beloved sponsor. They're real beloved in here.

Money Lion, who rewarded two lucky fight fans. We met them tonight. Fantastic. With floor seats to the fights. These two have to be pretty happy with what they got to see tonight, thanks to our good friends at Money Lion. And as a reminder, we will be selecting the Money Lion Hammer of the Month. That's what I'm talking about. In fact, if you could put a hashtag on that,

what would you do? Holy Hammer. Holy Hammer. On Morning Combat this Monday, so if you haven't already, make sure to get your vote in as soon as possible. This is where we recognize and honor undercard fighters who really kicked some ass this month and didn't get the props we think they so rightfully deserve to vote. Can I give Lovion Bell a Holy Hammer in defeat? You might be able to.

To vote, all you have to do is go to Twitter and tell us who you think should win Hammer of the Month while tagging at Moneyline using the hashtag Hammer of the Month. We'll accept Holy Hammer as well. For more information on Hammer of the Month, go to MoneyLion.com slash Morning Combat. I want to ask you questions. First of all, to close on the MoneyLion deal, we met the contest winners. They were fantastic.

They were, yes. One kid, he was like a 16-year-old boxer. He's an aspiring boxer, and it was great to meet them. So congratulations for winning and getting the close-up here and the autographed gloves and all that. Look, would you agree with a couple points that I kind of made, but I feel like I want to hammer home once more, that Silva was good enough at 47 that if Jake hadn't improved

and closed up some of the holes in his defense and wasn't suspect to be gassed out, right? He looked like he hit a wall, then he found a second when he came back. If Jake hadn't grown and closed up those things, Anderson would have had a triumphant victory here. Yes. Yes. If Anderson was fighting the guy Woodley fought in Tampa, Anderson wins that one walking away.

So on the flip side, how much praise do you give Anderson at 47 for being in this fight, showing very good skills, rallying back late in rounds? Even in round eight when he got knocked down, he kind of put on a little rally down the street. He did. I mean, listen, there's a lot to like about Anderson Silva's performance. As I mentioned, BC, we haven't even talked about this, I thought he figured him out

on the inside. He was the much better inside fighter. I couldn't believe he wasn't trying to find more moments to put the fight back there, but he didn't. It looked like he was on his way to exposing Jake by working that right uppercut on the inside. Yes. I couldn't believe, dude, the uppercuts were money when he had him pressed up

against the ropes. And it didn't seem like, to me, he was having all that much trouble getting him there. Either times backing up and then getting out of the way of a punch, or just corralling him that direction. But in the end, he couldn't get enough of it going. Still, I thought that he showed some real weaknesses by the way, to Jake Paul. Jake Paul's inside fighting

doesn't, it was just defense. There was no offense there. But he didn't throw enough. And part of the reason he didn't throw enough is because partly Jake was on the move a little bit. That was part of it. And the other part was he's 47. There's just going to be some hesitancy there and some lack of reflexes and initiative. He managed his gas tank well, but there were obvious times that he had to take the first two minutes of rounds off.

He took minutes of rounds off, and Jake didn't necessarily have to. Also, to your point, Jake's outside fighting, he used to have to take long steps. Again, I'm going to go back to it. I did more tape study on Jake Paul than you motherfuckers ever will, okay? You won't hear that language on the Showtime pay-per-view broadcast. Let's be very clear about that. I didn't even ask to do it. They made me do it. CBS did, not Showtime. CBS was like,

we want you to do it, Jake Paul. You can just say I did it and it was good. You don't have to do this whole song dance. I'm just trying to point out the purity of my intentions here. I'm just trying to point out the guy has gotten better. He's gotten better. And you have got to give him at least a little bit

of credit. As BC said, as BC said, is he a world-level boxer? No. No. The call-out of Canelo, I get why he does it. He just wants to be in the biggest possible event he could be in. And I think he would take it tomorrow if he could get the fight. It's just a dream. But that's not

what he's chasing. And you know, Luke, let's be honest about something here. As much as I want to praise Jake for the improvement, and the improvement is what won him this fight, not Anderson's age, right? The improvement ultimately was, if I'm Jake, I may never try to go legit. Unless I can keep winning. Why would you? And I get to a certain point where maybe some of the people in this boxing game that we don't always love, like those sanctioning buddies who throw out belts

and make people number one contenders when you've never heard of them, if he's still undefeated and he's got a chance to do that, he probably will take that chance. Because to him, he's still that Disney actor kid in a blue-collar town in Ohio who, love him or hate him, is disrupting your boxing programming at the moment. But if I'm Jake, I'm not even messing with that. There is money to be made. There is money to be made. There is improvements to be made. This is a separate

silo in the larger world of combat sports pay-per-view of which Jake is undisputably the face of it. The only face that would be bigger is Conor McGregor if he ever gets out of his UFC deal or Mike Tyson if he decided to come back. Short of that, Jake is the boss in this game and he's figured out an industry meaning

let's attack MMA, let's bring in their fans, let's get them upset. If you don't think a Nate Diaz fight is going to be twice as big as this fight was because there's actual animosity between them. The backstage stuff that went on, people saw those videos online. They got a potential bonanza on their hand if promoted right. And let's give Showtime and Jake Paul credit. They promoted the crap out of the first Woodley fight very well. They tried to promote this one well.

There wasn't enough, you know, animosity. It was collegial. It was collegial. It was, you know, it was weird, too. There was horses involved. There was a lot of weird stuff going on. Tell me about it. But that's what this is, guys, okay?

So we got to get past that way of thinking, no, we're not full-on shills who take the money. Well, we did take the money, but we willingly took the money. Dude, I just can't go over this enough. This was fun tonight, guys! We told everybody who asked us we thought Silva was going to win. We were fairly confident in those picks.

Again, I would love to be up here to tell you how Silva did it and just made MMA proud. And he did make MMA proud in a certain kind of way, but he didn't win this contest legitimately. He just didn't. Jake was better overall, not by a huge amount, but where it

counted. And that was enough in the end. You know, and Jake made the second half adjustments that he needed to. He didn't guess out. He took clean shots and didn't get put away. I mean, there was a lot in terms of closing down the potential things that'll blow up the Death Star. You know I love that reference, right?

The potential, you know, one area. If Anderson can capitalize on that one area, Jake shut all those doors. He closed them. I mean, maybe in hindsight you say, well, Anderson clearly gave away the opening round to really try to read Jake. And an eight-round bout, can you do that? No, you can't. Okay, that would have brought the fight potentially closer. Although he did have that one big punch that kind of checked him a little bit.

You know, I have a lot of respect for what Anderson did and came out here and did this. He doesn't need to do this, okay? Yes, get a nice payday, of course. He doesn't need to do this. He does this because he still wants to entertain. He still wants to make big moments. He tried here. He doesn't lose anything legacy-wise.

He doesn't lose anything image-wise. He showed out and tried his best against a guy 22 years younger. But these fights have to be exciting for Jake Paul to really matter, Luke. And I don't see how you could have watched that and not enjoyed it. By the way, this crowd wanted to boo anything, okay? Yeah, they were booing a perfectly good boxing fight. They were booing a lot of perfectly good fights, okay? I went up to the restroom earlier between fights,

and it's like everybody here is an influencer, or they want to be an influencer, or they love influencers, or they just want to be influenced. Or maybe they have influenza. There was a cross-section of influence going on here. They're not traditional boxing fans. They booed during what was a pretty damn fun fight.

And if Jake's fights can continue to be this competitive, this compelling, and have enough action and skill. And this one had both. People are going to keep buying. It's the stinkers he's got to avoid. And he's got to be in fights where people can think that he has a chance to lose. That was present in this one. And I do think it would be present in a potential Nate Diaz fight.

Even though Nate is smaller. I do think. I saw Nate tonight. I briefly spoke to him. He grabbed you by the shoulder. He did. He came over and said hello, which I appreciated. Listen, I think if it's properly promoted

and, dude, Diaz is not going to be buddy-buddy with him on fight week, you can just go ahead and mark that one down. Dude, they're going to be throwing water bottles, jigs and shields. They'll be stealing laptops. There was commotion between the camps already in the back tonight. The bald-headed guy with tattoos all over his head? The meditation guy.

He's like Jake's shaman meditation guy. That guy got slapped by Nate. I watched the Zapruder film closely, and I saw that. So here's my point. This one, if and when they make that, which, by the way, I just don't see how they don't, but if and when they make that, it's going to do gangbusters. Now, BC, we should mention something, and I kind of wanted to save it for Monday, but it's just on my mind.

The UFC has, on every contract, the right to exclusive negotiating period once their final fight is done for 90 days, and then if they want, they can exercise a matching period for up to a year. Ooh, I was not aware of that. Up to a year. Yes, up to a year. They have never exercised

the matching part ever. Nate Diaz is the first guy they exercised the 90-day clause. Okay? Meaning that UFC and Nate Diaz are the only two people that can interact. Right? They can't be PFL or Jake Paul or whoever. But, BC, I have to tell you, after seeing something like this tonight, and by the way, Nate Diaz getting monster pops.

He was right out here beside our cage, or excuse me, our ring position, getting mobbed by fans. I took a picture of it and posted it on social media. Do you think UFC tries to enact the one-year clause to prevent Nate from taking this fight? If they hadn't done the three-month clause and now they're doing it for the first time, obviously UFC would have preferred that Hamza Chemaev put a beating on Nate and tried to hurt his brand on the way out. MMA Karma got in the way and switched that up.

Yeah, I could see that because, look, this is now becoming a legitimate threat to the UFC because Jake Paul is not only a— Not to the overall UFC. He's a combat sports pay-per-view competitor, which really just means on given nights, right, a couple times a year. But if he's purposely drafting UFC guys who are close to getting out of their contracts and bringing them in, and this crowd was filled with MMA fans, it was also filled with active UFC fighters. Paulo Costa, Sean O'Malley.

Tito Ortiz was here. The heat is rising, is really what I'm trying to say, where I would not be surprised if the UFC did that. Now, UFC was very cordial with Nate on the way out. Maybe they're just trying to protect and not have him flip everybody off, but they were very nice. It would be the gentleman thing to do, right? To just let him

go. He'd served his time. He took the fight. He got out of there. You never know. So could that delay this fight by a year and force Jake in a different direction and maybe keep building the ground swell for him? Because here's the thing. It's like, what about the Jake Paul versus Tommy Fury thing? You could go to that.

I'll tell you why you could go to that. You could go to that, especially if you do it in England. That's the answer. Right? But just if you do it, and again, I don't even know if you can get to the States. Let's assume for a second that, okay, well, let's just say for a second, even if Fury could, you would never put that fight here. It wouldn't be that big.

It's only a big fight there, correct? I think the only place it would be big is where it was intended to be at one point, Madison Square Garden in New York, because everything's big there, but to the point of what you're saying, it's an event in England. It's like a soccer stadium fight, and it really is, you know, and you'd have Tyson Fury, who also can't travel because of the Fury's connections

to Daniel Kinahan to the States right now, and, you know, he would be their ringside. It's a fight Jake would probably win, and if there are, and still, if social media is an indicator, there's still going to be a lot of people saying, okay, good lord, Silva's old. Fight a real boxer. Well, Tommy Fury's kind of a real boxer.

Would that be enough to satisfy, to delay? I mean, there are options. Uriah Hall looked decent on this undercard and called Jake out. There are options. He looked okay. But there's nobody that can touch with the Jake fight. Well, there's George St. Pierre out there as well. Who the hell knows what he's going to do?

I don't know if there's going to be a rematch. You think there's appetite for Paul Silva too? Because I don't think it was controversial at all. I think Anderson gave the best that he could and it wasn't enough. I don't think because there's a lack of animosity between the two. And can you believe Anderson can do better in a rematch? I don't think you can. Well, you could go back to the inside fighting.

You're not going to sell that. You're not going to sell that. Yeah, it's hard to sell. In any case, the Nate Diaz fight is where all roads lead here. They all go to that one. And that fight is going to be absolutely, if and when they make it, massive. The if and when part is key. But if Showtime, our employer, if Jake Paul, if MVP Promotions,

if Nikisa, if everyone involved is not turning the entire ship in the direction of that iceberg, Nate Diaz, then it's promotional malpractice. It is. Because that is the fight to make. I said it earlier this week, and I think it bears repeating. The first time Nate is officially out of that UFC window, the demand to see what he looks like

doing something different will never be bigger than that first fight, right? I mean, it's gonna be it. What is it gonna look like? Who's will never be bigger than that first fight. It's going to be it. What is it going to look like? Who's it going to fight? If that first fight is Jake, you've got an event on your hands. But Luke, not everybody is going to like Jake and you don't have to. He's a troll. He's like this young... He's got a tattoo over his ear. Jake as

a person is not for me. I don't pay attention to anything he does except when we have to cover his fights. I'm not the audience for that shit. Let someone else watch. It's not for me. But I respect him. But, dude, he turned in a pretty commendable, again, not world effing level,

but a pretty commendable performance here tonight. And, again, I have looked at the tape extensively. That is a much improved guy. Did you do a dissected injury? Dude, I just, there are so many accusations. But that was you wanted to do it, right? You wanted to do the dissected, though. I do like doing dissecteds, yes.

But the point I wanted to make is there are so many accusations about people in our position about bad faith responses. And I'm like, just for once, guys, I've always been an MMA guy. I've always been an MMA guy. I would have loved for Silva to have won. Tonight wasn't that night. It just wasn't that night. Tonight is the night that Jake Paul won and he won at Ferran Square. And you can

like that fact or you can hate that fact but that's what it is. People don't want to hear the well, you know, Jake Paul does work really hard narrative because to them that's an attempt at validating him. But the truth is he does work really really hard and that's why he's allowed to have gone from fighting the Ann Easton

Gibbs in this sort of YouTube bubble to now really looking at fighting more legitimate fighters it's because he goes for it he's got the guts to take on these type of matchups that he could lose and he's also trying to be the very best that he can be um like if you're going to ask world-class boxing from him you're not going to get it but unlike that second woodley fight which we rightfully ripped afterwards except for the knockout punch, if they are this exciting, if they are this competitive, and if you can add in the element of disruption and

dislike, there you go. You got something. We have said this all week. I'm not going to make a new point, but I want to say it one last time, BC, just to drive it home. Just to drive it home. What you have to understand is Jake Paul, here's the needle he's trying to thread. He has picked a fight with an industry that is very popular,

and he picked a fight with this industry for very particular reasons. What he surmised was that he could train enough to beat their aging legends, and he could get them at the time when they were more vulnerable, yes, but still credible challenges each time. This was certainly a more difficult challenge than Tyron Woodley, right? He could make big money doing it, and he could needle all of the insecurities

and frankly the outright weaknesses of the industry when it comes to fighter pay and other forms of fighter welfare. He could needle them and show them and use that for self-aggrandizement. The only way it works, though, the only way it works is if he can actually win in the fights. So he actually has to do the work to get better at it, and that's what he pulled off here tonight. You don't have to like Jake Paul to zoom out for a second and look at the gamble that he has made.

I'm going to pick on an industry, and I'm going to use it to get rich. That is a ballsy, difficult... It is. That's a super ballsy thing to do. But here's how brilliant it is on top of the ballsiness. He's backing that with this whole Robin Hood side where he's saying, okay, I'm going to exploit these aging legends by making spectacle fights and beating

them and offsetting the fact that I don't have their experience or talent, but I'm younger and I work really hard. And oh, by the way, I'm also giving them the royalty send-off and the retirement and the huge payday that they never got from their original employer, the UFC, right? So

it's this weird dynamic in which he's the good guy and the bad guy when he needs to be at the same time. And we all benefit from it as an entertainment standpoint. And look, if it's not your thing, then turn off this stream right now. It's never going to be your thing. But it's getting better.

It's not where it was a year ago. It's getting better. This is the best Jake Paul fight I've ever seen. By far. And the card, too, I think had some good energy to it up and down. Let's talk about it very quickly. How did you think Uriah Hall looked? Good but not great.

I think that I like the call out of Jake afterwards. That's the right thing to do after you get a victory. I think we were all surprised, as was Uriah, that Le'Veon Bell had that much skill. He was pretty good. He didn't show that skill against Adrian Peterson. He had a dedicated game plan. He had the toughness and stamina to largely pull it off,

although it looked like at the end of four rounds he was about to fall apart stamina-wise. But, I mean, he should have gotten handled in theory, and he was landing the hard enough. I read the quotes from Uriah Hall afterwards. He said, look, he surprised me. He was landing hard enough shots where I kind of had to shake it off and make adjustments to that.

So that was entertaining. I don't think Uriah Hall would get a fight, but I think for him it's more about can he be in the bullpen if Jake needs an opponent, right? You know, he tried to make Fury. He tried to make Rockman. I don't think he's a leading candidate, but he put himself on the map. Absolutely.

And I think Le'Veon Bell got himself another fight in the space if he wants. And, you know, then there was Dr. Mike. All right. Dr. Mike got his ass kicked, right? He got whooped. He had a bite down to get to the end of that fourth round. You hear the quote afterwards? He says, I'm Russian, and I'm from New York, so I knew I wasn't going down there.

Yeah, he's tough. He's a tough guy, but he got whooped. And then, of course, Ashton Silva, by the way, first round. I mean, not the toughest opponent, but he looked good. No one wants to talk about how Braulio Rodriguez looked like the 1980s version of Miles Davis. He kind of did. He kind of had that look going. But yeah,

that was... If that moment was designed to allow Ashton Silf to have a moment and get his name known, it was pretty good. It was pretty good in that regard. There's a lot more we have to get to, but we have to end this here. I think the crew needs to get this stuff. We're going to have a big show for you Monday. We're going to get some special guests in

and we're going to break down all things UFC. Bellator was this weekend. Yeah, we're going to have a big show for you Monday. Monday. Trying to get some special guests in and we're going to break down all things UFC. Bellator was this weekend. Lomachenko won a very close fight. Lomachenko had the fight of his life. Another thing I was wrong about. I thought he was just going to cruise. No, he did win. He did win. But it was tough. Katie Taylor had a big title defense. And also, how about Cater injuring his knee

against Aron in UFC? We have a lot to get to. Jojo Diaz got upset by William Cepeda in boxing. So there's a lot going on all across the world here. But Luke, it's been a long week. It's been a long week. I just want to thank the fans, you know, because some of them let's be real here. They're tweeting us a lot

of hate right now. Some of them had said, look, MK, you guys were off the rails this week. It's too much BC. I like a little ketchup. I don't want a half plate. I don't want half a bottle. And I think you married that with some people who are just never going to give Jake a legitimate eye. So we let them down this week. But we worked hard. We showed out.

And we thank you, fans. I did see a lot of people had nice things to say about the preliminary call that we had. That was fun, right? Preliminary card call. That was fun. I had a really good time doing that with you. So thank you to everyone who watched that. We really need to get going.

The crew here is dying to go. They're giving us dirty looks. I think it's because of the way I'm sitting. They are. Okay, alright. So here, you know what? This crew is amazing. They've been amazing all week. I really appreciate them. Don't you want to say nice things about Brandon? He's a real nice guy. Brandon's a... You know what? Richmond, Virginia? Stand up. How about that? RVA right here. And Tristan, he's going to

kill us all later, but that's alright. And then, of course, to Gaff, and I can't even see who else is here. Dakota, all right? Shout out to Dakota. The whole crew is here. Ashley, Ashley. Oh, Jesus Christ. All right, thank you to everyone from Malka,

from Showtime, from CBS Sports. We love being out here. We're ready to go home. Send your hate mail to morningcombat at gmail.com, and until next time, stay frosty, or do whatever you do.