MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley 2 Instant Reaction

Episode Date: December 19, 2021

Luke Thomas and Brian Campbell have you covered with an instant reaction to Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley 2. 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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That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell. This is Morning Combat. Well, that was almost a disaster until it wasn't. Hello, everyone. It is about 1238 in the morning, East Coast time. I am live in the belly of the beast here in Tampa, Florida.

Jake Paul vs. Tyron Woodley 2 has just ended. In fact, I'm looking at some of the house feed right here. He's still in the ring. He's still taking pictures with his brother, Logan Paul. It is all over except for us to break it down. Hi everyone, my name is Luke Thomas. This is the Paul vs versus Woodley 2. Let's see. What do we call this?

Instant reaction post-fight show. I am one half of your hosting duo from Morning Combat, of course, Luke Thomas. But Brian Campbell, he will join me momentarily. You can catch him on CBS Sports HQ in a few minutes, after which he will join me to my left here alongside to discuss everything we just saw. So if you are watching now, thank you so much. Let me ask a favor. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe if you can. If you are new to the Morning Combat experience, we'll go until behind me when the press conference kicks off.

So we have no time like the present. Let's get going. Let's see what the judges score. By the time the fight was stopped, 49-46, 48-46, and 49-46. So he was pretty well in command by the time the fight was called off. The unofficial ringside scorer, Steve Farhood, had it 48-47 for Paul, but Woodley was down on all three judges' scorecards. Again, I'm looking to my left here in real time trying to balance all of this out.

Okay, what do we want to say about that contest? Three judges scorecards. Again, I'm looking to my left here in real time trying to balance all of this out. Okay. What do we want to say about that contest? Well, there's a lot to unpack. First of all, the knockout itself was vicious and authoritative. And will probably change the future in 2022 for Tyron Woodley. I cannot imagine that it would not. but let's back up a step before we get to the KO. Let's actually talk about the fight itself because here to me is what stands out from all of this. Jake Paul, at the end of the day, pulled a rabbit out of a hat. This fight was not good. We had talked in the beginning of this week, and really as soon as the fight was announced,

even with Fury and then especially two weeks ago with Tyron, and then of course on fight week, we knew that this fight had to be better than the last one. It had to be different than the last one. They were using the promotional angle, leave no doubt, which of course is fine to do, but when it comes time to fight, this had to be more than an over-promoted thing

between two guys who aren't really all that good at what they're trying to do and they're asking huge sums of money for. We got down a road where that was a legitimate concern because through about four or five rounds, even in that sixth round, it wasn't that big shots were getting through, but there was a ton, a metric ton from both sides of clinching, just endless amounts of clinching, a constant from both guys. One shot would land.

One shot would kind of land. One shot would be thrown and then missed, and then they would clinch. The referee had to separate them over and over and over again. I think I even stopped formally scoring around the fourth round because it looked like Jake was overall doing a bit of the better work. Again, you heard what the judges' scores were before the eventual KO happened in the six. You heard what Steve Farhood had.

Even he had the most pro-Woodley kind of card and still had it for Jake. So Jake is your rightful winner. Jake was rightfully winning. He was doing the better work. But they were actually heading down a scenario where the second fight was somehow going to be worse than the first. The first fight wasn't terrible, but it wasn't, you know, it's not going to be in anyone's fight of the year lists. It was fine for what it was, but this one had to be more than that.

This one had to be different than that. This one had to deliver in a way that the other one didn't. And again, through about six rounds, that was really true. Through about six, I should say five rounds and change rather. It just wasn't very good until, until Jake Paul landed a vicious, and I do mean vicious, punch over the top. He faked like he was going to the body, backed up, started it again. You can see the elbow and the hand drop of Tyron Woodley to that side. Actually, it would be the left side. And then the right hand comes over the top and absolutely sends Tyron Woodley flat to the canvas.

He has not been KO'd like that since maybe ever, but certainly maybe the Nate Marquardt fight for the Strikeforce welterweight title, which was Tyron Woodley's last fight in Strikeforce before even going to the UFC. So we're talking about either the worst one he's ever had or on par with the worst one he's ever had. That's how bad that knockout was. He goes face first to the canvas.

Typically when they go face first instead of back down, the referee in charge knows to call it there. There was no reason to count him, by the way, the eight count. They didn't. They waved it immediately and brought in the doctors. He walked back to the dressing room, it appears, under his own power. So that's good to see. But Jake Paul, I mean, completely salvaged what was on pace to be something of a disaster for him. If you're going to promote these kinds of contests,

they've got to on some level deliver. Now you would just have to wonder, what are the fans going to say? It's one thing for what I'm going to say. It's one thing for what Brian Campbell is going to say or the Showtime executives. I wonder what the fans going to say? It's one thing for what I'm going to say. It's one thing for what Brian Campbell is going to say or the Showtime executives. I wonder what the fans will say because you can't deny the validity of the knockout. You certainly can't deny the authority with which it comes. That is basically unimpeachable. On the other hand, it took, what, basically 14 rounds, basically, of boxing between Paul and Woodley to get it,

and you got, again, you were building, they, I should say, were building something of a dud prior to that. What are fans going to remember? Are they going to remember the dud that came before the thrilling KO, or are they going to just say, well, we can just forget about it because we got the thrilling KO? That'll be interesting to see. That'll be a storyline to pay attention to. I will say if you're Jake Paul, you know exactly what he is going to say.

He's going to say that Tyron did most of the clinching, which is not altogether unfair, but of course he did a fair amount himself, that he took his time, and that more importantly, he delivered on his promise. Remember, he made a promise to Ariel Helwani at the pre-fight, the final weigh-in. He had told us something similar. He had said this to a lot of folks, I believe, during the course of fight week, which was, I'm not just going to hurt him, I'm going to knock him out.

This one is going to be different. He is going to remind everyone of that going forward. That highlight reel is going to be different. He is going to remind everyone of that going forward. That highlight reel is going to be played going forward. That's easily his best combat sports win by a million miles. Certainly better than the last one, even if the last fight was overall a little bit better, and then better than anything that preceded it. So you have, if you're Jake Paul, you're going to look at the positives tonight. You're not going to look at the fact that this one was headed towards disaster. You're going to look at the fact that you got a win over a heated rival. You got it in about

the most authoritative way you could get it. One punch, walk off, a la Mark Hunt style KO. And now you can build on that for 2022. He's going to take a break, I'm certain. But if you're him, how do you not look at this and say, I'm going to

get that Tommy Fury fight and I'm going to get paid for it. And if Nate Diaz becomes available, I'm going to get paid for it. And if, you know, you saw Jorge Masvidal in attendance, obviously Nate Diaz in attendance. We'll see what happens with Conor McGregor. See, this is the mistake that everyone keeps making about Jake Paul. If you want to say that the fights haven't been good, they haven't been, right, in general. I mean, the Nate Robinson one was good.

But, you know, up until this KO, they've not been all that good. They haven't been, right, in general. I mean, the Nate Robinson one was good. But, you know, up until this KO, they've not been all that good. But he's not trying to work on a path where he becomes boxing's most exciting fighter, or even if he's facing the very best guys. I've told this story before. I think I told it on various podcasts. I'll tell it one more time for the folks who might be new. There was a guy around 2011 or so who was an All-American linebacker out of Michigan State. His name was Seth Mitchell. He was a heavyweight. And he got to about 20 wins or so and then had to fight real dudes.

And then the whole thing came apart, the entire effort. And there was all these questions about can you learn late on the job? Can you get good at boxing in your 20s? And affirmatively, you cannot. Jake Paul's gamble is that that doesn't matter. Not that he will beat those good guys when he is ultimately tasked with fighting them, but that he's never even going to try. Instead, what he's going to do is use a middle ground, this being boxing,

to take over the situation with former MMA fighters like Diaz or like Masvidal if it comes to that, or like McGregor if it comes to that, or moonlighting boxers slash MMA fighters, whatever designation you want to give it. And his goal is to get to a certain amount of money without ever having to fight the very best, that 190 or whatever weight class he would have to offer. He's trying to do the exact opposite. He's trying to get those paydays while delivering memorable performances against the right kind of opponent that delivers on those paydays. He's not trying to ascend the ranks of boxing to get those paydays. It's a completely

different model all the way to it. So a win like this over one of the four best UFC welterweights of all time, granted, I understand he took this fight on two weeks' notice. I understand he's almost 40 years old, and he hasn't been throwing a lot. He threw a little bit more in this fight, we should say. Tyron Woodley certainly came out in the first round, and I think threw more punches in that round than he did in any other round that they had fought up to that point, so nine total rounds. He was clearly trying a little bit more.

He was clearly trying to do something a little bit different, but he got fooled by a big punch and he got put face first on the canvas. So he was a worthy adversary promotionally. He was a total validator for Jake Paul. This doesn't mean you have to agree that that win is the most significant thing since sliced bread.

I'm not asking you to say that. What I'm asking you to recognize, potentially anyway, is that Jake Paul can take a win over a former UFC champion, however faded and long past those days they may be, and then use that as a leveraging and growth opportunity for subsequent fights, big paydays, Tommy Fury, potential former UFC champion slash fighters, whoever it ends up being, it's extremely validating for him. He's undefeated. He got a win over his opponent via KO. I tend to think he's going to focus on everything that happened from the KO

and then that's it and nothing that necessarily came before it. And, of course, that's exactly what you would expect him to do, what he arguably should do if you're looking out for the interests of one Jake Paul. But if you thought that that was coming to an end tonight, and by the way, I got to be honest, there was a moment I was like, dude, how many times can they promote a fight that just as a main event just doesn't fully deliver? This one had its issues, but that KO, it just buys him enough wiggle room to not just keep this going, but to raise the stakes.

And you can like that fact or you can hate that fact. These are not, you know, you can hear the tenor of my conversation and the way I'm talking to you. These are not my favorite fights in the world. But the reality is what the reality is. You secure a win like that and the world is your oyster, especially with this entire thing essentially being the Jake Paul, you know, post-30 plan.

Now, I got some stats here from CompuBox. I wanted to read these if I could. Let me see if I can find them here for this fight. All right, here we go. Tyron Woodley versus Jake Paul, two. So total punches landed were identical, 43 to 43. Body punches, 15 to 7 for Tyron Woodley. That actually sounds like it could be a little bit more important of a stat given that he used the body work to set up ultimately the final punch that sat him down. Jabs, they credited Jake Paul with 18. They credited Woodley with just 4.

He threw 67. Jake Paul threw 109. Power punches. They gave Jake Paul 25. They gave Tyron Woodley 39. 39 power punches. Threw six. Paul outlanded Woodley 10-8 in round one.

That's not the score. That's the overall amount of punches landed. So, arithmetically, and again, these are not qualitative assessments of the punches, just numerical. Second round, Paul outlanded punches, just numerical. Second round, Paul outlanded him 10-9. Third round, Woodley 10-6. Fourth round, Woodley 6-5.

Fifth round, 7-7. Sixth round, Paul landed 5-3, and you could see the clinching was really having a bad effect on this. But of course, the fight never made it to the 7th and 8th because it got closed out after that. Let me retweet this if I may. There you go.

Now if you're just joining us, Brian Campbell, you can hear him speaking over in the corner potentially. He will be joining me in just a matter of moments. He is on CBS Sports HQ speaking to them, and then he will come over here and we'll do the morning combat show together. Thumbs up on the video. Hit subscribe. While I'm waiting for Brian,

let's go through some of the rest of the card if I I can, very briefly, and then we'll circle back to the main event. Here you have a case of Amanda Serrano defeating Miriam Gutierrez. Gutierrez giving it a bit of a push, certainly testing her own limits in the most absurd of ways. There's a picture. I retweeted it. You can see it floating out there. Her face after this fight was over was a disaster. She was swollen, and maybe her face was broken, and she got roughed up. What was kind of interesting, though, was Serrano's defense was not super on point. She got hit a lot. Now, the things that make Serrano great were in full display.

She had good body punching. She had overall great volume. Obviously, she was going to just lap her opponents in that case. I think the judges had it 99-90, 99-91, and then 100-90. So one of the judges had it a complete shutout. I don't think all of them necessarily thought that way, including the ringside unofficial

judge, the one for the Showtime broadcast, Dee Farhood. Nevertheless, you saw what kind of effort she put in. So she ran her over. We're hoping that this leads to a Katie Taylor fight. You know, whether that will, your guess is as good as mine, boxing being what it is. But certainly that's what folks want.

That's what's on the table. And Eddie Hurn over at DAZN has talked about doing it, and certainly I guess we'll see. So that could be potentially a fun thing to pay attention to going forward. And then the other fight of the main card that I think most folks were discussing was going to be the one with football versus basketball. Frank Gore taking on Darren Williams in a four-round exhibition. Darren Williams getting the nod via split, which I don't understand

because I don't know how you could give a round to Frank Gore. Frank Gore had a 1,000-yard stare all week, man. He looked like he was in great shape. He looked like he was ready to go, but it turned out that Darren Williams was the guy who just did better work. He found the right hand a lot behind the jab. You know, listen, he wasn't pretending to be anything. He wasn't. He was a guy who this was his first boxing match, but he'd obviously had a little bit of training. I thought he used his distance game pretty well. There wasn't a lot of clinching in that one, but you would expect it from some novices. And he was able to land the right hands.

There was a couple times where he landed a right hand and nearly threw and pushed Frank Gore through the rope sometime in the third round, something like that. Fourth round was not that great. There wasn't a whole lot between them. But Darren Williams gets his hand raised. I thought it was a unanimous one. He says he's one and done.

There are no more of these, Frank Gore. I got the feeling, could be wrong, I got the feeling Frank Gore wants more out of this, this kind of celebrity lane of boxing, whatever you want to call it. I tend to think that this is what he's looking for. So not exactly the very beginning of that road, starting off all that great. Uh, I think you probably would agree, but he didn't look too, too bad. And Darren Williams looked

pretty good. All things considered for himself. And I thought that fight was fine. There was that it's good to see that the Jake Paul win. That was the only fight on the card where there was at all a stoppage. Um, the rest of them all went to the judges. This was the only one that didn't. And again, I was a little bit concerned for them because it was heading in that direction. And it didn't go that well. Now, I'm not sure what we're supposed to do here because I can hear them talking behind me. And I don't know if we're still supposed to be on the air because I was told when they went on, we had to get off.

So do we have any clarification, Gaff, on what we're supposed to do? Do we know? No worries, no worries. Just making sure that we're all there on the same wavelength. So this is it. This is where we are. Luke Thomas, Whitney O'Brien, Campbell, he's doing CBS Sports HQ. He'll be over here in a moment. I don't know how much longer we're going to be on the air by virtue of what's happening behind me, but I guess we'll figure that out here in just a minute. A lot of folks in the press coming in. There's the schmo. What's up, buddy? How you doing? But Jake Paul, wrestling victory from the jaws of defeat. Not that he would have lost the fight, but that what he was up against here tonight

was that he needed to put himself in a position to inspire confidence about future purchasing decisions is this really a thing you wanted to continue watching him to do watching him do excuse me if you had do you want to pay money for to see him box right that's what that's really what it came down to not that like this was the end all be all this didn't get right then it was no way to get it right. I'm not suggesting as much that. But this was a big advertisement for the escalation of tension that he is trying. He's trying to get Tyron Woodley so he can get even bigger fish to fry. A Nate Diaz, a Jorge Masvidal, a Conor McGregor, as he told us. A Canelo Alvarez, you don't get there unless you turn in something spectacular.

And he was headed in every direction but that right until that right hand in the sixth round. You never know in combat sports. Things change on a dime. They twist in the wind in any direction. And that's what you got here. That's what you got. You got a right hand. It's hard for me to talk about much of the

rest of the fight because I don't really know what to say. It was Jake Paul. By the way, I'll say this, doing a little bit more pushing Tyron on his heels. I did see that. That was good to see. The last time he kind of jabbed and circled around Woodley. There was some of that here to be sure. It wasn't utterly gone, but there wasn't as much. That was nice to see. Woodley, as I mentioned, higher activity than the last time, but a lot of it not getting through. But we also said at the outset, obviously Woodley coming into this circumstance less than ideal, long in the tooth, not really a boxer to begin with, Jake having a series

of advantages. One of them was in the first fight, he just showed overall more boxing skill. In fact, he was showing a lot of them was in the first fight he just showed overall more boxing skill in fact he was showing a lot of combinations early in the first fight and then transitioned over to kind of more jabbing and sticking and moving at the sort of the back half of that fight so you knew he had a couple different gears he could go to to get to where he wanted to go this fight was just it was so it was like being stuck in traffic it was stop and go and stop and go, and a punch would land, then the action would stop, and then a big punch would land,

and the action would stop, and the audience, by the way, was booing at certain times. They were noticeably upset, but then the right hand landed, and it just sent everything on fire, everything into the next level. It got people. Like, what did you pay money to see?

You paid money to see one of them get knocked out. You didn't get the fight that led to the kind of beautiful knockout that was scored. But you did get the knockout. That's why I'm really curious to see where the fans are going to be when we sort of tally up how everything has been assessed here. Do they remember that part or do they just remember the finish? Now, I see one Brian Campbell. Oh, I see. So I'm told we're going to keep going for now.

We have to stop when Jake comes in. Brian Campbell's coming over. Let me close this. Hop on down here, good sir. How was CBS Sports HQ? Did they tell you you were fired? Why don't you put your bags on more things that we need? How about that?

I could do it, Luke. Put your bag into it, all right? So here we go. Brian Campbell, Luke Thomas, we're the hosts of Morning Combat, youtube.com slash morningcombat to find out more. Of course, you're watching that now. BC, let's do it. What are the fans going to remember?

Five and a half rounds of dreck or one of the most vicious KOs you've ever seen? We are in a highlight era, without question. We are in a viral era. They're going to remember that knockout. And boy, Luke, I'm sure you expressed this. I did myself on CBS Sports HQ. What a game saver that right hand was by Jake Paul. And it wasn't luck.

The way he set it up was beautiful and it showed that is there an excuse for the first five and a half rounds of this fight? No. On both sides I thought Woodley and Paul really put in almost a worse effort than the first fight. But the thing about Jake is he can box. He's got a foundational set of skills there that prevents him from needing to be a brawler even if you can argue that being a little bit of a brawler could add to his entertainment side and really give a boom. It's clear that he's looking to really max out and be the best he can be as a celebrity crossover boxer. And I think you saw that in the way he was able to deliver the boom when it mattered most.

I think you saw that at key times where the one thing you can say about Jake in all these fights, he's not getting hit a lot. He was hit and knocked into the ropes by Tyron Woodley in the first fight. He's not irresponsible. Maybe sometimes a little bit too responsible. But how resuscitative, can you put into words, Luke, how resuscitative is that right hand? Because had this gone the distance... I think it would be resuscitative, but I could be wrong. Speaking of resuscitation, Luke, let me come back into this and say, he wins a decision here? This is bad news.

This is bad news for the bubble. It's not good. This is bad news for the expectations of entertainment. And I think on a night where he wasn't necessarily helped out by potential future opponents, if it could ever happen, like a Nate Diaz and Jorge Masvidal who were there and the dots weren't fully connected, Nate sort of punted on his interview opportunity during this pay-per-view broadcast obviously there's different scenarios with the contracts of the UFC which Jake talked

about afterwards but that viral highlight it kind of fixes all wrong you gotta be fair I mean think about it the fight up until that KO let's call it what it was the fight sucked it was you know it was beyond that I mean it was terrible people want until that KO, let's call it what it was, the fight sucked. It was beyond that. It was terrible. People want us to be honest. It's terrible. I thought Logan and Floyd kind of set this genre backward, but it was such a unique matchup. There was so much star power that we just said, okay, that didn't turn out to be the best,

but moving forward, we've got to have action. We've got to have finality. We have to have closure. We didn't have that even though that first fight with Woodley and Paul was competitive. It was going down a road, Luke, where people weren't going to want to watch this anymore. Let's be straight up and say that. To save it like that and be able to talk a big game afterwards, no, they're not going to remember that, Luke. You didn't see Woodley trying to get a third fight. The finality of this one kind of closed the show on that. I'll say this too, BC.

If you're Jake Paul, again, the first five and a half rounds of this, of this fight sucked, but here's what I will say. They're asking us to keep it down. So we may have to lower our voices just a bit. I will say this. If you're Jake Paul, that is the best winning your combat sports career by a mile. And you got it without any controversy. You can say that there is another story there that the fight wasn't good, but there's, as you indicated, that right hand, not an accident, utterly authoritative. Maybe you could argue that Tyron Woodley went down that way against Nate Marquardt in Strikeforce, but basically no one has hurt him like that. Not even Vicente Luque, who got him with a choke and rocked

him. Not the same, not face first on the KO. That will be in all highlight reels. That will be in any kind of future where he's setting up a fight. And dude, you can like this fact or you can hate this fact. It's going to set him up well. He was headed for disaster and then pulled it all the way around with a vicious, vicious KO of a celebrated UFC champion. And we want to talk and really let his hands go more. That was a big narrative heading into this fight. And Luke, we didn't get that.

Well, we did it first. We did it first. In the first half of the first round, in which ultimately he attempted more punches in that first round than he had in any round in the first fight. But overall, I mean, they both land 43 total punches, according to CompuBox.

Although Jake did land over 40% of his power shots, which is key. By the way, they only gave four jabs to Woodley, so 39 of those are power punches. That's something. I think you look at the quick turnaround for Woodley. He was in decent shape, but not necessarily in fight shape. He was filming a TV show at the time. I think we looked at those, Luke, as reasons of maybe the $500,000 potential bonus,

the lack of a full training camp. It's time to leave, no doubt. He didn't do that on this evening. And ultimately, he was headed toward a decision loss. You saw that Jake was up on all three scorecards. And even though nothing was really happening, to try to argue these rounds for Woodley really feels like it could have been futile. So this was a very disappointing night for him, all things considered.

Okay, so let's talk about Tyron Woodley. What does this do to his 2022 for which he had big plans? There were some discussions that he could potentially meet Dan Hardy in some kind of boxing or kickboxing affair. Where does that go from here? Unless he's going to MMA for some of these fun matchups and you're really just trying to play out the string, I think it was disastrous, Luke.

I think it was disastrous to cross the board for the idea of the vitality. Is that the word I'm looking for? Maybe. The vitality of him boxing somebody like a Dan Hardy. Where's the hook now? Whose fault was it that the fight was boring? I think it was both equally. It has to be. It was too boring to be one guy's

fault. You and I had a bit of an argument early in terms of who is initiating the clinches. I think in the end both were, but I thought Jake was way too willing. Well, see, here's the thing. If you were typing like you were and you looked up, you would see one guy doing it. And then if you typed and went down, the other guy would do it because they were both doing so much clinching. It eventually, there's no way to say one guy was more responsible for it than the other. I mean, maybe you could go through the tape and count it or whatever,

but it looked like it was pure mutual. I thought somebody like Jake who had those distinct advantages, the age, the reach, the height, and all that, I didn't like the look that I was seeing. I was seeing a second-half career Vladimir Klitschko strategy almost coming out of Jake, which is I've got the length advantage, but I don't want to allow my opponent to get inside because I don't want to take those shots. So what do I do? I'm going to throw out a jab, whether I landed or not, I'm going to clinch right after that. Now to Jake's credit,

if you can give him that, he was busier in the clinch, but these aren't punches that are any level of significance. They're just sort of slapping, dirty boxing. I didn't like that look of, you know, I'm not even going to commit to the jab. I'm just going to throw it. And anytime Tyron's getting closer, if I'm getting close by trying to punch him, I'm not even going to commit to the jab. I'm just going to throw it. And any time Tyron's getting close, or if I'm getting close by trying to punch him, I'm locking up. And I think as Woodley began to fatigue, he was executing the same game plan. And when you get a crowd here, and let's remind,

this isn't by any means a traditional boxing crowd. This is, we saw as we went to get food earlier in the night, it looked like some wings of it looked like a prom. Some wings of it looked like a... Gathering of the Juggalos. This crowd, I think, you know, rightfully turned on what they were receiving. What do you expect them to do? They were expecting one thing based on all the promise,

and they got another up until... I've got to ask you a key question now, because you've been talking for a while here. You're at different levels of volume, too, as the producers keep telling you to... I know, but it's like, yo, you can't keep this base all hidden. I've got to ask you this,

because they asked me on CBS Sports HQ, and it's a key yo, you can't keep this base all hidden. I can ask you this, because, you know, they asked me on CBS Sports HQ, and it's a key question. Like, you know, what could be next for Jake? What should be next for Jake? And I think a lot of that answer is rightfully tied up in whether these big UFC names, especially ones that are toward the end of their contracts, how quickly can they get out of it? And is there a way at all that Dana White and company would be persuaded to co-promote?

No to the latter, okay? Right. That's fair. would be persuaded to co-promote? No to the latter. That's fair. No chance they'd co-promote. No chance. So how careful do they have to be moving forward in the matchmaking, especially if they can't draw these big trash-talking UFC names, to get somebody that guarantees some level of talking, because it's a big part of how you sell a non-traditional fight, but also a guarantee of action do you need

does jake and paul and team need to be in there with somebody who the fans believe can knock him out to really get that buzz back yeah i think a little bit i i again dude i think if the goal if you're jake paul if the goal was we got to keep this thing moving forward in a direction where we can monetize it the way we had hoped. Tonight's fight didn't do any good, but tonight's win did him a ton of good, and I think probably enough to keep it certainly on the tracks. You would have to imagine there was a lot of illusions through what Jake Paul was wearing and saying to Tommy Fury. Yeah, for a guy he told us on Wednesday fumbled the ball and would never get a fight against him.

Here's the thing. It's not the best fight that they could make. It's not the biggest fight they could make. The biggest and probably best fight they could make is either, you could argue Canelo, but let's say realistically, it's probably Nate Diaz. Nate Diaz versus Jake Paul. Nate Diaz has one fight left on his UFC contract. One. Now we don't know when that's going to be. We don't know against who that's going to be and we don't know what it's going to do to him. But he's only got one left. If he can get out of that relatively unscathed, they can make a fight with him and Jake. It'll do huge numbers, but that could be a while. So you have Tommy sitting there in this space where he can still promote to a large audience. He still has this following from this other world outside of boxing.

And the sale. The sale that you're fighting a real boxer. And you're fighting a real boxer. That's the sale. Again, we all know the story, like how real do you want to say he is? But he doesn't do anything else other than reality shows and boxing. I've got something to tell you. Unless Nate Diaz takes a quick UFC return and then is out of his deal,

it's got to be Tommy Fury next. It has to be. I don't know who else it could be. Because that's the question. Who else could it be? Because what you're looking for at that point, you've got to find somebody like Woodley who's free. And when you find fighters at that age,

at that system when they're free, it's usually because they've lost a certain amount and they're on the way out. Is there a type of crossover fight involving a Bellator fighter or something we're not thinking of at the moment? That's going to be what... Dylan Danis would be a big one, but not in boxing. A.J. McKee, but A, but AJ McKee might fuck him up.

I don't know if I will take that fight. It's one thing to get like, here's the thing. Tyrone Woodley was a great opponent for a lot of reasons. One was that he was well past his prime by the time you got him, and yet in prime as a capable self-promoter. He is very good at that and still actively good at that, fighting a little bit less so.

But he's got all these athletic credentials, and he can sell a fight. That's why you get these guys at the end of their UFC runs. They've made some money, but they haven't made the big, big money. A Jake Paul fight offers the big, big money. The UFC guys, they're like,

I've already done all my glory days. I don't know if I really care about winning. Do they really care about beating Jake? I mean, surely they do. They want the money. But they want the money. Jake Paul's happy to give them the money. All of this is about the money. It's the prize fighting game. That's what it all comes down to. Dude, Jake Paul facilitates that for himself and for others in these circumstances. Again, you can like these facts or you can hate

these facts. You can watch these fights or you can skip them. All of this is entirely up to you. But will this continue? Yes. Will it continue to make money at least for the next one? Absolutely. And if Jake Paul plays that one right and Nate Diaz gets out of his contract unscathed, folks, I'm telling you, I'm telling you, it is possible, maybe unlikely, but possible under the right circumstances that if I could do almost 2 million buys, I really believe that it It could do something extraordinary even if you think it shouldn't and doesn't deserve to. I think when you look at that, that still falls

in terms of Diaz's size, even though he's a much more accomplished boxer in theory than a Tyrone Woodley would be at crossing over. You're still essentially fighting someone of MMA welterweight class, which is about competition at 170 and you're making them rise up about 20 pounds to the

cruiser weight. Yeah, just basically welterweights who don't cut, basically. Those are still natural advantages for Jake, along with the age, but yet, we've so recently seen Nate get into fights and have success and have people up that that's the sell right there, but that's going to take some...

How about this? I throw one out, and you just tell me if I'm crazy. 47-year-old Oscar De La Hoya. He'd still F up a Jake Baller. So you're doing it like an exhibition style, right? Whatever you want to call it. I'm trying to think outside the box for our listeners. So there's Anderson Silva.

He's still floating out there. So that would do... I think that would sell more than we realize. I think that would sell a lot. But that's risky as shit. That's a very risky fight, yes. Andy might be pushing 50, but he'll put hands on you. I mean, you don't play with a

spider, so maybe that's too risky. But a Nate that's been getting cut every single fight, who's closer to 40 than 30, who's looking for a big pet. I mean, dude, Jake Paul found the tiniest little window. I'm going to get MMA fighters who can promote their ass off and who people

love. I'm going to get them at the end of their run when they haven't made all the money they want to. I'm going to get MMA fighters who can promote their ass off and who people love. I'm going to get them at the end of their run when they haven't made all the money they want to. I'm going to offer them that chance to do it under the devil's condition that they have to do it in a sport where I'm better. It's just a genius way to make money. It's a genius way to make money. He came close

to fucking it up today, if we can be honest, but he didn't. He scored a vicious, vicious face-planting KO over Tyron Woodley. Unbelievable if we can be honest, but he didn't. He scored a vicious, vicious face-planting KO over Tyron Woodley. Unbelievable. I mean, let's be honest. Beginning of round six of Woodley-Paul 2. I was checked out. You weren't just checked out. You were like, how do I get back

my money and time from Jake Paul? I was pretty pissed. I was pretty pissed. But then, you know, the fight game can be unpredictable, BC. It can be unpredictable. It was a beautiful, shocking knockout punch. Let's give him that credit. Dude, he set it up good, too. You know, fake into the body, backed up, went right back to it.

And then he was going low and then went over the top. A little bit like Sean O'Malley scoring the knockout win that he had against Howley and Paiva last weekend's UFC. You know, they asked me on HQ, I think it was a good question, shout out to Joe Musso and that hair, right? I mean, the hair is better than Joe. You know what I'm saying? You can remove Joe from the hair. You know, it was sort of what did we see for improvements

from Jake Paul? Was this a step back or a lateral step for the most of it and he got lucky with one punch? I'm not sure that I saw a ton of improvement. Well, I'll say this. Look, he's very poised. He doesn't tend to get... First of all, he doesn't make big technical mistakes that put him into trouble. Yeah. And he doesn't, I mean,

look, the clinching is unforgivable almost at this point. And, you know, he looked like he was in the best shape of his career. I was questioning my sanity. I want to see him go hard for three minutes every round, but there's never a panic in him. And that's what can mess a fighter up, Luke, okay?

You got a lot you're looking at over here. There's just a lot going on to my right. Is it the Schmoe's hairline that's got you? He's got that little, like, cut in it, that, you know, that aggressive part that he's got. It's not that. They're coming for you. Yeah, they're coming over here. Everyone is just kind of looking over here

and doing their thing. Yeah, all right. It's fine. Yeah, no, they're moving on. Boxing press conferences are a disaster. You've lost your mojo since they started lingering. You know what it is, man? Like, when I'm in line to, like, go someplace,

I don't like people who try to cut into the side. Not that they were doing that, but it gave me the feeling like they were, and then I have to go fist fight everybody, and I don't want to fist fight everybody. But they're going to make me if they start cutting off to the side, which I didn't care for. Amanda Serrano gave us a little bit of a fun fight there

with an iron chin Miriam Gutierrez. Her defense was not on point today, right? No, because here's the deal. I think Serrano was looking at this as, look, I've got to make a statement. I've got a lot of fans looking at me. My first fight with MVP promotions, first fight under Jake Paul.

We know where everyone's... I mean, first and second. But you know we're building toward the Katie Taylor fight. And I think that she does which I thought if there's any time she gets herself into, not trouble but could be, is if she feels there's an opening there for a finish, she'll stand

and eat the punches to let it go. I mean she's a finisher more than she's a pure boxer at the end of the day. It was just the I mean did you see the picture of her nose and her face afterwards? Yeah, it was a disaster. Wow, did she take some time. I mean, I think to the point where Serrano had to take a step back and be like, okay, let's just fight from distance the rest of the way.

So she absolutely laid it on her. What did you make about the Frank Gore and Darren Williams fight? A little bit sloppy, a little bit messy, which we'd expected. They're novices, but it was pretty fun. I thought it was the most consistent, fun theater of the night. And it wasn't due to, like you mentioned, the full-on, you know, crossover implementation, but it was, look, Luke, a height advantage and a reach advantage can be a very valuable advantage if you're willing to use it. I just didn't guess that Darren Williams had that yet. You know, if he's been training for over 10 years at a high level of a May gym and

doing different things, it seemed like that was a natural, he was very comfortable in that moment. He didn't succumb to any big right hands over the top. He kept his defense high. He used that distance, and I thought I was very impressed in this subculture of an already subcultured genre of crossover athletes trying to be boxers. He looked like he could handle himself, and then, Luke, were you surprised when he's like,

hey, by the way, I'm never doing this again? No, I was not surprised. This shit's hard, and I understand why he would want to be like, I'm one and done with this. This is nonsense. I have no interest in this. And God bless him, dude, for one and done. Right? I thought he looked pretty good, all things considered,

for a complete novice out there in front of tens of thousands of people doing what he was doing. You're yelling again, though. It's really becoming a problem. I'm not yelling. This is just what it sounds like when a man talks. You might not be used to it. All right. Well, hey, you know not be used to it. All right.

Well, hey, you know, Frank went after it. I'll give Frank that credit. The production staff is like, when is this ape going to stop talking? This show has devolved into just full-on nonsense. All right. I don't want to do it anymore. Yeah, I'm pretty done here. Can we call that a...

Yeah, we're doing... Yeah, okay. All right, so... I don't mean the show in general with you. I've been to those crossroads a few times. No, I meant like you and me as partners. Oh, you'm pretty done here. Can we call that a... Yeah, okay. Alright, so... I don't mean the show in general with you. I've been to those crossroads a few times. Oh, you were there. Okay. We should say this. We will have a show on Monday. We're out tomorrow morning. We're

going to go home. Yeah, don't bother us tomorrow. Let us be with our family. Let's be with our family, and we'll be back Monday. We'll watch this fight again. We'll have some new takes for you. Thanks to everyone who supported our coverage while we were here. You can go to Showtime, get a 30-day free trial because, of course, the most important thing is to promote Showtime's business interest on this

post-fight show. We'll be back on Monday with a great show on everything, plus all the UFC stuff we didn't even get to. Derek Lewis is looking pretty good. Remember I told you about Derek Lewis? You got all bitchy. Listen, I'm not one to shy away from being wrong. Derek Lewis looked

great. I didn't mean Derek Lewis was going to be a big puncher, but I thought it would be a little bit harder. If you think I'm going to hang around as you

babble, I mean, come on. All right. Don't be unprofessional. We've got to get out here calmly. I don't know any other way.

It's interesting. Also, before we go, thanks to the production crew who were absolute gems this whole week and had to deal with a bunch of challenges and still figured it out.

Thanks to Matt Snyder. What a great guy. Thanks to Matt Snyder. What a great guy. Thanks to Matt Snyder, who is definitely not angry all the time. And, of course, to Corey and Gaff and everyone else at Mocha, all the people who have done great work. We appreciate you. Okay? That's Brian Campbell.

I'm Luke Thomas. Thanks for everyone who helped us out in Tampa. We'll see you guys back. We miss you, Mikey. We miss you. We'll see you guys back on Monday. Until then, peace.