MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - James Krause Update | Weekend Picks | Lightweight Grand Prix | Dana White | Ep 397

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

On Episode 397 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian kick off the show with their picks for this weekends fights. Next up the guys break down the Bellator lightweight grand prix. How should they match up the other two fights? The guys also react to Dana White's press conference from Wednesday. They close out the main topics by breaking down a bunch of recent fight announcements and quick hitters. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher 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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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 oh yeah once a week it sounds like this it feels like this it is Friday alright let's brush our beards let's get fired the heck up

you stumbled in upon the best damn combat sports show period right award winning you can check the let me get right to that one. You can check the kernels in your own shit for that one. Hey, it's Friday, January 13th, 2023. Welcome in.

A Friday edition of Morning Combat. I am your co-hostess with the mostess. That guy right there, the American one. Yes, you got it. BDC, BBC with the BDE. Making it look EC. My partner in crime is Luke Thomas, Washington, D.C.'s own, one of the best fight analysts in the game today. A social justice warrior when it needs justice in, Luke. Okay, look at that. Look at that right there, Jared Swifford.

That's what we're talking about. B.C. and D.C. right here. Luke, how are you on this Friday? I'm doing quite well. Fun show. I'm going to meet my nephew for the first time tomorrow. My brother and my sister-in-law had a baby, and I'm going to meet him tomorrow.

I'm pretty excited about it. Does he have a name? I don't want to get too personal with the weirdos here. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to. If it was my kid, I would just tell you, but I don't know if my brother wants the baby's name in the street, but suffice to say, it's a big day day i'll take the social security number if you've got it luke i bet you would you thief yeah that type uh right there okay uh wow what a time to

be alive what a wild time to be on the best damn show and what a time if you have the the hopes and dreams or if you're the paquets and you got the ways and means to go with that what a time to see us live mk in the uk that time is getting oh so close wednesday february 8th king's place in london i believe that's the king's court neighborhood i don't know what that means but the sports podcast group is putting on pod live the first of its kind a podcast festival right there in london we're co-headlining it we've got a live show that wednesday night 90 minutes of fun 500 seats to sell and luke thomas we've moved a lot of them but the days are being numbered here and every time we

check there's less and less free ass chairs available uh how fired up are you to to greet your people across the pond in court you know and conch yourself in the uk plus luke you know get that united feeling yeah i gotta tell you i'm pretty excited about this one as we mentioned every time we check the seats they're the the the sand is moving through the hourglass folks the sand is moving so it's time to get on that now we appreciate everyone everyone who's been there, who's sending us messages. We're going, Luke. Yes, we're happy to see you. But if you've not made that move yet, time is now.

I am trying to figure out when we're going to announce the guests. Because I keep hearing that they're confirmed, but then we haven't announced anything. So I'm not sure what the story is there. You know, I believe we're also going to be shooting some other, you know, fun bonus content while we're out there. Hopefully some interviews, too. So there is a list of people that we are in contact with, Luke. We're kind of just setting it up across the board i hope we're pretty soon because any remaining seats i think when they hear who we've got there with us right

you know what i'm saying they find out we you know we after round brought megan markle up on stage i think that's we're gonna sell out pretty fast you know yeah no i i don't know if we're gonna have megan markle or anything like that but uh it's gonna be fun it's gonna be different it's gonna be weird it's gonna be cool it's gonna to be fun. It's going to be different. It's going to be weird. It's going to be cool. It's going to be maybe a once in a lifetime moment. So be there, be there UK donks.

So hit that QR code down there in the bottom corner of the screen. I'm sure there's other ways in our YouTube description for you to find out how to get your tickets, how to join us right there. Appy's going to be in the flesh. Okay. For better or worse, we got,

we got a big, big things to get excited about. Thank you to our folks, our, okay, for better or worse. We got big, big things to get excited about. Thank you to our folks, our finest Showtime, the label that pays us. And you can try out Showtime right now, and why wouldn't you? 30 days free by going to Showtime.com. We're talking about Bellator MMA, Showtime Championship Boxing, Showbox, the new generation, back next week with your boy BC. After that 30 days, right, when it's like like do i pound the sand or do i keep enjoying amazing content including w kamal bell's uh bill cosby doc how about six more months to try it out at 399 look that's like putting a ring on it right you can still back out at the wedding anyway anybody

object please speak now or forever hold your peace you know what i mean you got six months at 399 can you beat that with a bat you can't beat that with a stick. Time to get on that. Plus, as we mentioned, it's not just the boxing. It's not just the Bellator. It's everything else on Showtime and on the app, like all the docs, all the that are docs, but like their docs, the ones that aren't full of dongs and everything else. Go check them out. They're award-winning stuff.

Boys in Blue, the four-part series, Luke. Football, Minneapolis, police changing the relationship, the feel there check that out four episodes streaming right now boys in blue part of the deal overall get over there on show time also we wear great merch in these parts check out this hat

fantastic coffee mug right here oh yeah morningcombat.store I've talked to RJ what's his real name Luke do you even know um Rowan Gartner right it's uh god there's one i have saved but i think it would get us it would lose us our monetization yeah let's just let's just leave him big ray okay talk to big ray and uh he told me luke that uh uh we got some big plans some uk merch maybe on the on the horizon, too. Really?

We'll see, okay? People are like, you know, BC only cares about himself and his factory town. Don't forget I'm 1-8th Irish, alright? Don't forget that I was adopted by the West. Ireland is not in the UK. Yeah, it's part of the British Isles. If there was a way, Luke, we could just bring them... It's not part of the British Isles, either. Yeah, it is. The two islands

make up the British Isles. But if there's a way that we could bring them together and unite, Luke, if anyone just had an idea. You know what I mean? Enough minuses in the relationship. I want pluses, right? A big plus. We'll get to that later. I forgot what we were. But I will tell you that we do have great merch.

So morningcombat.store right there. Anything else I should sell, Luke? Or you want to talk about your life at all you're complicated oh no there is one there is one bit of a note and i i gotta confirm this with our producer mikey but i'm pretty sure this is true i'm pretty sure i'm doing a post-fight show for the first ufc event back this weekend so i believe the main card for tomorrow's UFC event, by the way, of course, there's one tonight, but tomorrow the main card for UFC starts at 7 p.m. Eastern. So it'll go to about 9.30-ish, 10-ish, 10.30-ish, something like that. And we'll do a post-fight show right after that is over. So we're going to kick in. I mean, the new year has been on for

two weeks now, but I'm saying the beginning of the UFC's new year, we'll kick that off the right way. And Luke, we will be setting the stage for this weekend's events, which you just teased a little later on in the show. And we'll also be debuting a pick segment where you and I for this calendar year, every week are going to go head to head. Hopefully some of our famous donks, our favorite famous donks will jump in too, whether celebrity or future felons and uh send in theirs as well but uh we'll get to it later in the show but you and i are each going to pick five

strategic picks little gimmicks thrown in and we're going to keep a running scoreboard at the end of the year uh we're going to make each other do something that they don't want to do more on that to come so uh get ready for that today yeah i'm going to uh finally finally we got luke thomas to agree there's so many insults I want to lob at you, and I can't for any number of reasons. But I want you to know I'm thinking about them. I'm thinking about very damaging insults about you. The best thing about me, Luke, is in the pocket, in the pivot,

I just swivel. I'll just truncate that. You see? My trunk movement in the... Hold on. You got to do me a favor here. Ready? So what you're looking at ready so what you're looking

at here what you're looking at this is a 50 haircut what do you think rate my 50 haircut dude that's that's where i'm where i come from that's a solid 17 haircut i would be pleased with that if i were you i mean dc's inflation rate maybe that's why the service workers are so upset all the time and they want nothing to do with my charm or charisma. Maybe that's why, Luke. Charm. Because they're paying for everything out the ass. Dude, I got two waters and two coffees for $40 when I was there.

I don't believe that. I don't believe that. That happened, okay? I do believe you paid $40 at Starbucks and it wasn't worth the $40. I don't think it was two bottles of water and two coffees. By the way, who were you buying water and coffee for? You know my favorite thing

to do on the road, Luke. Be alone in my room, right? It's for me. Just as long as Luke's not there, you're happy. Just get that motherfucker out of your life. You always wanted to touch me and then you order food and leave it for an hour. It's already an interesting marriage

luke i mean do we have to be that close can't we be like most marriages and sleep in separate rooms i mean come on luke yes we could definitely do that all right there you go uh as long as i can smack you on the ass we're gonna give you a great show soon i promise i thought there was other things i had to sell oh you had a good chat with aj mckee we'll reference that a little bit later but they can check it out youtube.com slash Morning Combat for all of our bonus stuff. We got to start bonusing more. We got to start hitting these people right in their feel hole with great dynamic content. I'm ready.

All right? Yeah, it's been a little slow because of the... Yeah, well, it's been a little slow since the change of the new year, but we're going to pick it back up here. Yeah, all you BC Live Chat fans, okay? This is eventually going to be a daily chat. Luke, eventually my life will be a living documentary no it won't where the inside of my thoughts will be by the way in all seriousness before we kick the show off because we're 12 minutes in we're just

fucking burning time here i love but that's what we do on fridays we burn time on this end while our viewers burn you know okay yeah i mean once once once it turns 1 p.m your boy's out so you might just have to carry the show from there on out but uh am i am i correct in hearing that there could and i'm listening to the words i'm saying could be a dock for our trip to the uk is that true i don't want to like you know bring i don't want to you know i mean like i like to flirt with the fourth wall but i don't want to give people all the facts but you know i did take it to the top in the last 48 hours luke and and did get that signature okay i did get it i received i tracked it down i got it you know i got the i got the digits we're gonna bang okay twoy twoy line one two yes we're banging

yes please all right let's do this. All right. Yeah, sorry. A little spillage there. All right, all that good shit is fun, but it's time to get into this award-winning show and the content. And a little bit of news in the last 48 hours as big-time stories affecting the world of mixed martial arts

and really particularly the UFC, these stories are not going away. And topic number one on this Friday, referencing a piece put out by ESPN's David Perdue, I believe Mark Ray Mundy and maybe others contribute to it as well. But we have an update on James Cross based on ESPN's reporting. James Krause, excuse me. James Krause, of course, the ex-UFC fighter and well-renowned coach,

now in the middle of this overall gambling drama, excommunicated from the UFC in general. We know a lot about the things he told Ariel Helwani on his show in the past year, which seems to shed a lot of light on the inside all the way from there through the Derek Minner fight. But Luke, what we know about the ESPN's reporting is this. James Krause was acting reportedly as an agent for offshore bookmaking operations for years. Multiple sources who placed bets with him told ESPN he's worked as an agent, which is more of a middleman between offshore sportsbooks and bettors for ABCBetting.ag. According to people who wagered with him as far back as 2019,

these sites, of course, come from the Caribbean. So, Luke, the reporting went a lot deeper. They caught up with Derek Minner, who made a lot of denials. This might be even deeper than we thought when you look at that Kraus wasn't just involved heavily in betting and everything he told Ariel, but he was really taking over other people's accounts and really sort of running the show tax-free in between illegally as basically a modern day bookie uh how much does this change or escalate in your eyes this larger scandal in general fair a fair amount because the article doesn't even really get to the idea of where the initial investigation began which was was there suspicious betting around a fight potentially being thrown the article doesn't i mean it talks about that scandal but it doesn't really substantively get to that it's not it's not principally about it what it's principally about is what you had indicated which was that according to this report james krauss acted as an agent for an offshore uh betting company basically and i've had a couple people reach out to me to give me some additional details.

And I've talked to some folks who actually wrote the story yesterday. I just want folks to understand something. You can read the story for yourself. We don't have to rehash all of it. But just let's be very clear about this. This is what is alleged in the article. I don't know exactly what's going to happen with James Krause. But let's posit that what we read in that story is true.

If what we read in that story is true, he's going to prison. That's what's going to happen here. If that story is true, he has likely committed wire fraud. If that story is true, he will be guilty of taking illegal bets. He could be involved in mail fraud he could be involved in any number of uh felonious uh illegal acts that are almost certain to get prison time and more to that point they might make an example out of him again don't say might luke they're gonna make a monster they meaning everyone from the law to ufc like they want this gone they're gonna drop the hammer on him for sure they're gonna

put the hammer let me add one more point bc and you can take it back which no i don't want it back i'm just letting you know that hammer's coming bro all right i'll just say this i i don't know who all the sources were for this story but as someone who spent time as an editor for two of the major sites in mma for more than 10 years, let me put on my editor hat and tell you what I can smell out from this story. I think law enforcement is part of this story in terms of who's a source. And I think they're looking to get people to flip. That's what it looks like to me. That's what it looks like to me. So again, to the point at which we were having this conversation Friday, the 13th of January,

2023, he has not been, folks were asking me like, what does this mean for his jail sentence? I'm like, well, first of all, he's not been charged with anything.

These are alleged in this report. I just want folks to be very clear. If what that report alleges is true, it is virtually impossible for me to see anything other than him going to prison. That doesn't even get to the point about whether or not fights were thrown right if that in fact happened just on the wire fraud just on mail fraud just on taking and running illegal bets by the way giving a line of credit

to the bets that he was helping to be the agent for so he wasn't just taking the money and then delivering it or vice versa again according to what some of the people said in the story he was also involved in the line of credit i mean there is so much alleged conflict of interest that if any of that is true it is very hard to see a way he doesn't go to prison for this but look at this deeper so jeff molina the fighter who was also uh let go by the ufc UFC and sort of caught up in this ban with Minner and Krause. And I believe more is to come because the FBI is investigating this. But Molina was one of those that Krause specifically recruited where, like you said, you give them a line of credit, you give them a password and access to the site, and you're the middle

man who can make bets for them. I mean, so look, this is wild because it brings to light even more illuminated and further the conversation that kraus had with ariel that i keep referencing on the mma hour uh this past summer like look he basically set meaning james krauss set in motion you know the the the the spark for what this investigation became by almost bragging about it. So you say in hindsight, was this just like one of the major dumb criminal moments of all time to basically out yourself on a major, you know, nationally, globally watched program and kind of give details about how you're doing this in almost a bragging way?

Or was that in his mind his way to recruit on an even larger level? Because you have to look back and say, a lot of these key facts which make Kraus guilty for things that go beyond even the idea of fixing fights. I mean, he admitted to Ariel that, yes, I bet on fights that I coach in. Like, there's no speculation there. So how do you view now his interview like this is the smoking gun right this is the again and we go back to like they want to

make an example out of not just for the reason that you cited which was like they want to stamp this out they want to like show like the what the force can look like so no one else even gets an inkling of it on top of that dude he was bragging in that interview he was bragging like he was kind of boasting about how well he was doing for that reason alone aside from everything you mentioned of course that's going to play a role as well they're going to hammer him but bc i will say something part of the reason why i think he did it was because i think he probably i'm assuming he didn't know the totality of the law and so part of this is a little well it was legal you do have to you do have to mention that until ufc changed that specific law most of what he Assuming he didn't know the totality of the law, and so part of this is a little bit crazy for him. Well, it was legal.

You do have to mention that until UFC changed that specific law, most of what he was doing from- No, but acting as an agent for, again, allegedly, acting as an agent for offshore booking, if he did that and was using Venmo or whatever for accepting and then returning payments, this is all fraud. I mean, that's just all fraud by definition. But I want to point out something. They mentioned this in the story. I mean, that's just all fraud by definition. But I want to point out something. They mentioned this in the story.

Quote, Krause also appeared as an analyst on a UFC best bet show for ESPN on YouTube in 2021. I kind of just feel like what my understanding of talking to a few folks about this story was that there's a lot of people who kind of do what Krause does at a very small level. Right? Not a very detectable level. They kind of take a couple of small bets here. You know, they get a little bit on the back end with these agents and it never really gets to the point where it gets flagged or, or the authorities really notice it. It's, it's, it's crime, but it's a fairly low level crime that the government just

doesn't want to necessarily seek out if it doesn't have to. This, like for him, he just was kind of doing everything in the open was still part of like the firmament of the establishment right he was on a UFC programming on betting in sports just like well now it's 2023 but basically a little over a year and some change ago I can understand why he thought well what's the big deal I'm I'm basically doing this out in the open the problem was again according to the article it wasn't just that he was running this discord it wasn't just that there's these issues around the betting of the derrick minner fight it's also that he may have been again alleged to have been acting in this capacity as an agent which in order to do

that job that in the way that is required basically requires you to commit a bunch of crimes yeah um it's crazy it's fucking crazy dude i mean look we said it from the moment this first became news before we even knew the the true ramifications that like exactly they're gonna drop the hammer the bomb on him he's gonna be shoeless joe jackson and pete rose you know tied together the ultimate example is going to be made out of him but to hear all these further details of how much this was it wasn't just you know a hobby that made him good money like this was an organized crime i guess you could say in a lot of ways you know well organized but yeah again luke i can't get past this he outed himself so did this whole investigation

and obviously that minner fight november 5th derrick minner against the guy whose name i'm gonna butcher so i'm not even gonna say it that whole thing luke and by the way minners commented like i said to this espn story and and, Luke, and by the way, Minners commented, like I said, to this ESPN story and really tried to cover up the whole idea about the injury, and it comes across largely as comical in terms of how he actually tried to defend himself. But give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's see how that holds up. But Luke, he outed himself.

So maybe the Minner fight brought it to another level, but do you think there was already law enforcement investigations going around after this aerial interview yes and i gotta tell you i don't think that's the only law enforcement investigation going around now as it relates to betting it's hard to know but for example like we there was the new york times we don't know if we talked about it much on the show maybe a little bit there was a recent new york times report about how the state department had officially acknowledged they were paying attention to what Chechen fighters who are associated with Ramzan Kadyrov are doing, trying to make it this way, and how it affected Maxine Grisham's ability to get a visa to come here, and it could affect others. They didn't comment on anything else related to any activity related to Kadyrov. I have to tell you, I bet I don't know why that's happening.

So, yeah, okay, let me be very clear about this. I have no idea why they omitted the other part of it, but I have a feeling it's because there's an active criminal investigation going on with this shit. White collar crimes typically take a much longer time to prove versus a crime of like, you know, they got a guy on murder holding someone up for carjacking or something like that. It's actually fairly easy to prove, relatively speaking, to something else where you have to get all the paper trails. You have to piece it all together.

You have to perform. By the way, like, this is, again, this could be, dude, this could be like a racketeering case, like a RICO case. Yeah. Which is, I mean, all kinds of bad news for you long term and what it will mean for an eventual prison sentence and how easy they can put a case together not just about James Krause but to your point about all the other satellite players involved certainly the ones in the United States so I just feel like I gotta feel like this industry has been acting kind of recklessly in a lot of different ways acting with people that they should not be acting with engaging with folks they should not be engaging with engaging in behaviors they should not be engaging with and media outrage isn't going to do anything

UFC certainly isn't going to do jack shit about it beyond just what they put in the code of conduct which was you know more cover your ass than anything else but I tell you what turns out law enforcement cares and the the wheels of justice grind slowly but boy do they grind so I feel like there's going to be a few people who might have some uh hammers coming down on them no doubt about it and it's like with kraus being an illegal bookmaker is illegal but it's like i i because benning in general is is legal i think a lot of people look at that and go okay it's illegal you know it's tax-free it's all that but like i don't look at him per se as a you know bad person but when you add in the idea that like again he bragged on a national show that he bet on fights he coached in that

whole other chapter luke about the potential of fight fixing which is why ufc needed these hardcore stern jericho size wall limitations of who and who cannot be associated with gambling. Like that's another level, dude. And I don't, you know, maybe that's the long-term investigation that you're sort of referencing. And maybe that's the big hope in the end is they crack that. And is there, you know, more shadowy activity on people taking falls than we ever could imagine? Or do you just want to eliminate the future threat of that? Either way, it's juicy there, but dude, you're not going to come back from that. latter part the whole idea of you know potentially being involved in fight fixing like you know look look he's never going to step you know he's never going to work

again at all in this industry unless it's you know i mean like like damn dude damn and you know in in ufc is allowed in a lot of ways to go, okay, let's investigate this. Let's, let's, let's hammer out whoever did it so we can distance ourselves. We've got a $350 million, $350 million deal with draft Kings. Like it, you know, we got to keep that, that integrity intact, but like, this is monster dude on a lot of levels. And, and there's no way cross doesn't get just, I mean, look like we're not going to see him again, that level. Okay. Yeah. Like what he was, I mean, look, we're not going to see him again, that level, okay? Yeah, like what he was, I mean, his life turned on a dime, you know?

He was on these, not just betting shows, I remember they're using Coach Saif Saoud, but prior to him, Brendan Fitzgerald and James Kraus were doing those previews. I think, in fact, if I'm not mistaken, I believe James Kraus did the fight breakdown preview for UFC on their YouTube channel. And these videos do well.

They get hundreds of thousands of views for the Nate Diaz, at the time, Nate Diaz-Hamzat-Chemayev fight. Obviously, we know it fell apart, but before it all did, he was brought in to do that. He was part of the established firmament of everyone. He was part of the, you know, great coaches of the sport. He was like really a pioneer in Kansas City MMA and like raised it to a new level and made it, frankly, a global destination for elite fighters. He did a lot of great things. It's not like he didn't. People are very complex in that way, but Lord have mercy, he made an, I just didn't, I mean, an incredible series of bad judgment. And I do wonder too something something BC, it's like there was

something brought up in it and I hate to like distill every issue down to it, but it just makes me wonder a little bit because listen, the NBA had the Tim Donahue betting scandal. It's not like any other sport is necessarily immune from this. You brought up Pete Rose, like, you know, this does tend to happen no matter what, but like he was pointing out the way in which that they were betting was drawing them far more income in the article anyway allegedly than any of the fights they were like the fight purses and like how easy it was to recruit some of these guys because basically like if you're making 10 and 10 or 14 and 14 and if you lose you get hardly any of that the betting was the way that they made their money Is there anything to be said that like if the UFC had to like double pay overnight?

I think it's naive to assume that like illegal betting would go away. But here's my question to you. Do you think it would make a difference in these kind of other activities? Like would a substantial increase in pay actually meaningfully reduce fighters resorting to behavior like this in order to supplement their income uh yes you do believe even if even if you could show me where the statistics don't back that up in a long you know studied period of time i still say yes because that's the direction the athletes deserve anyway and what's the best way like look i don't i don't know how athletes do this athletes that are involved in combat sports or high violent

high you know high level for violent sports nfl maybe nhl in certain cases like i don't know how you just turn that off and then suddenly go around your daily life and try to make good sound decisions right but you add in financial like legitimate financial you know strain to just you know i mean how many horror stories do we hear of people who like have to sell like you know jessica androge as a title contender selling autographed you know artifacts of her old fights and stuff, just to be able to afford training camp. Like it's going to remove just that, that pure desperation that, that I think in a lot of cases would, would, would, you know, set the stage for somebody to want to kind of get into this, which is illegal. But, you know, like I said, gambling's legal. You know, I could see where people could walk into it and go, okay, I, you know, this, this is, this is fine. You know, this is how I'm offsetting my income.

This is how I'm, you know, yeah. Dude, you got to clean that up. That's why Kraus or whoever else, you're never going to hear from them again because UFC needs this to go away and they need it to go away now. And I think in the long run, Luke, UFC will be better for having experienced this and put in the stern, you know, fences up now to try to keep it away i think they were largely naive to all that i mean but look they they do as we're finding out through a few different recent scandals and and you know unresolved issues still kind of operate on a very naive

overall immature business level maybe you can you can carve that under maverick and you know we don't give a fuck and we're pushing, we're kicking doors in, but it's their fault that this thing kind of showed up on their doorstep, but they do have a chance now to, to end this moving forward. We're going to see what happens. This is going to be interesting. I,

you know, I've dealt with, I think I said this on the story. I've dealt with James Krause a couple of times. In fact, he asked me to host his betting podcast, which I said no to. This was about. Parleys and Punanis Luke? Yesis look yes parlays and punanis i think this was roughly i don't even know how long ago this was

a year or more maybe less something like that it's hard i can't keep track of time anymore you and i've had that conversation and i just post covid is one year the post covid our lives have been one year long there's no other it's just like yeah weird right so yeah it's a little weird but um anyway long story short he's a nice guy i don't i don't i don't think he's a bad guy i think he's just a really irresponsible guy you can argue a little bit greedy and dude he got out over in front of his skis and again we'll see what happens but it looks bad it looks i think to the larger point his future we were just making is like there is a defense in their overall about well they're so underpaid you know what else are they going to do that you know i mean ufc really does have to bridge that gap and clean that up

it doesn't seem like the more we read the john s nashes of the world and that other video i keep referencing that was really good on the James Krause situation of like, it behooves Dana and company for endeavors purposes, you know, above and beyond to keep that as low as possible to keep the EBI TA bullshit down all that Luke, but damn dude, the one thing the UFC can do to,

to, to help the sport moving forward, like you said, it's just bridge that gap better. And, and I mean, do you want it? It's like, do you want to be known as that major successful business promotion

that also the reputation is that you take advantage of your fighters? You know what I'm saying? Look, like that's such a shitty reputation. I get that there's a bottom line reason financially that they do it, but like that's such a shitty reputation. And now you've got a couple scandals going on right here for UFC in general that aren't related and may not lead to some big downfall but like maybe you should come out and start doing some like some good pr here and and let's uh let's even this out you you had written basically about this like you know like let's be real about

this during the early to middle stages of the pandemic ufc was on fire right they were on fire they were the the the product was hot and we've all been over the reasons why it was hot but it was hot like there's no doubt about it and and it cooled off a little bit this past year i think again we had a conversation like how good was the ufc product of 2022 not its best version but not a bad version by any stretch i mean there was parts that were good parts that were bad overall it was pretty good but i think what you had sort of spotlighted, BC, and I thought it was a really sharp piece. One of the sharper pieces that you've written was about like, dude, this business is like, it's come a long way. I mean, look at how much growth there has been in terms of its

popularity and also just in buttoning themselves up. But they still got some work to do over there in Las Vegas. They really do. Now, they're trying to get ahead of this as best they could. They were late to it, but not too late. They weren't as late as they could have been they were a little bit earlier but now they got this whole dana white thing going on you're talking about like this issue related to fighter pay there's just a lot of things that are dragging at least the image at a bare minimum of the business down that are a function of part of that strategy they've had we've been like well we've done it this way this whole time why would we change now it's like well it's because like congratulations like they built themselves up to a level where you do have to make some of those changes to really occupy this space without

any controversy or larger issue they're in those growing pains and i think we should all understand that but yeah man like 2023 is a year where i think for as hot as 2020 2021 might have been for them this might be a bit of another cool-down year. We'll have to see how things go, at least related to these other parts, not so much a function of the fights. Right. The same hubris that UFC showed when Zufa was still in charge around the time of the first Ultimate Fighter,

that stretch where it was just like, bite down, we're running out of money, we might throw in the towel, but we don't want to, but let's just fight and keep it alive. Some of that spirit came out again for Dana in 2020. Some for worse, but largely for better. They became the darlings, right? All that stuff we talk about. But you can't be at that same speed all the time as time changes, as you know decency uh changes as a lot of things change uh you you can't you know you can operate like that when you're when you're on spike tv you know

what i mean you can't do that now so um look if i am james krause's defense team and maybe just because i've watched a lot of episodes of bull lately so i'm you know thinking for like i've got a two dollar uh law degree education now but uh wouldn't they go all in on the system so broken they are pushing fighters to do stuff like this because they don't take care of us? Isn't that the strategy to try to get leniency? I suppose. You know, legally speaking?

Yeah, I mean, for maybe some of the smaller players, but I don't know if it's going to work for Krause. I really don't. You know, he has his own investment properties. I think he still owns, I guess he had a split from his spouse at the time, and he took most of the properties. I believe, by the way,

he still owns the Glory property itself from a real estate perspective. Maybe he's trying to sell that. I don't know. So he's got more independent wealth than some of the other guys. I mean, for Jeff Molina, whatever he has done or not done, I don't know.

That might, if he has done something wrong, that might work for someone like that. But for cross, I don't think it's going to work. I really don't. Well, Luke crosses immediate removal in the band of anyone, you know, extendedly touching him, uh, from it, it plays out on a larger level for the biggest names. And that's Brandon Moreno, theno the uh interim flyweight champion trying to get his belt back in the fourth meeting with figueredo coming up around the corner uh he talked with ariel hawani this week about you know the difficulties of now just uprooting

everything and leaving kansas city and and and changing but he did pick up safe saoud around the along the way so luke how how tough is this going to be the for the fighters and in in moreno's particular case because he's the biggest name and he's got his biggest opportunity coming up like how freaking big is this for everyone that came up in that gym that was very well respected um it's going to be extremely difficult like james kraus is a great coach he was a great coach can't say he's not he is um as we mentioned it you know he had bought that gym from someone else rebranded it and made it much more of a global destination for the very premier talent of the sport than anyone else prior to that point had he did that i'm not

gonna say single-handedly it takes a team to do that but he was certainly the driving force behind it i don't think that's much in dispute and he was sought after for his services you can go to other high level coaches but are you going to click with them the same way? Do they understand your needs the same way? Can they game plan the same way? Strong coaches all have different strengths and weaknesses. They're not all just, they can all do the exact same things or they're copycat cats of the other ones. It doesn't work that way. They are all, yes, they are all obviously very talented and have their own method of success, but that method can be widely different from everyone else. Now, Saif Saud is a great coach. You could do a lot worse than dealing with him. So I think Moreno

is in pretty good hands and great hands, but like, you know, all of these things are individual relationships. What is the individual relationship between Moreno and Saud? Do they trust each other? How well do they know each other? How well do they understand each other's needs and click? I mean, these are all very, very difficult things. So I think, you know, listen, if you're an early to mid-tier guy in the UFC and you go to another great coach, not to say that that won't have an effect.

It could have a great effect. But in general, I think you're going to be okay. It's actually the super elite ones, even though they are super elite, they require a very specific, very difficult thing to get to make that all work. I just, it's tough. We're going to see, man. Like, Figueiredo, you know, being in Brazil,

having to take on Moreno again with all of that distraction that Moreno's had to go through, that is not, that is far from what you would want for a world-class camp for the biggest fight of your career to this point. You would want the exact fucking opposite. So it is tough sledding. We got a lot more on this great show, but final question on this,

just because I'm curious in your opinion, Luke, we don't have the facts. The investigations continue, but that Derek Minner fight, like how much, how deep did that actually go in your opinion? Like give me your JFK, you know, who did it, Luke? Like how improprietized? Is there a... Can I use impropriety as a verb? Can I use it as a verb, Luke?

How improper, Luke? How deep did it actually go in your eyes? Was it just a guy was injured, he knew it, he felt like this is the only way to get to pay for the surgery, so I'm just going to come in injured. Dillashaw did the same thing. Is it just that, Luke, or is it a lot deeper? I think it'd be irresponsible to speculate

beyond what has been reported on this show. But I guess I would say this. In general, my posture is, and this isn't true for our side, I would say this doesn't merely apply to this situation, but this is how I approach things in general. Never ascribe to mendacity things that can be more adequately and easily explainable by negligence or stupidity. And it just seems to me there's a shit ton of negligence and stupidity in this situation in a lot of different parties, in a lot of different directions, whether they added mendacity on top of it um by it by basically throwing fights i you know who the hell

knows i i would we just have to wait and see but even with even if that's not part of it everything else is just so so so outrageously irresponsible and frankly greedy. I understand for the Jeff Molinas of the world, whatever he did or didn't do, that's one thing. But for Kraus, the sport doesn't pay what it should, and I understand that. But going to the alleged lengths that he went to to get paid is so manifestly greedy that he's going gonna have to pay the piper that's just i feel like whether you're a minter or anybody else even if you didn't do the really

egregious things i think just being tied to this you're gonna get the hammer dropped on you you know i mean for better or for worse like they're you know you have to wonder how much those guys again assuming that they've all engaged in illegal behavior. We don't know that. Let's assume that they did. Dude, those guys are going to flip. They're going to flip. They're going to flip hard. So we'll see who they get in the whole thing.

But, dude, it's all bad. It's all bad news. I mean, can you imagine this? At the beginning of last year, that dude was riding so high. In one year's time, his life has completely transformed and not for the better careful what you're doing out there folks it is um you fought the law the law wins dude this is basically the potential plot line for ozark season six now i know the show is uh is has retired but uh i mean this is you know you know what like we like there's i mean it's

kind of funny it's a very very, very, very different thing. But I was thinking about this too. Like lightning, lightning Lee Murray. Yeah. Dude, I remember when Lee Murray, I do. I remember him fighting Anderson Silva in cage rage. I remember him fighting. I think it was a Jorge Rivera in UFC.

I remember this. I remember lightning Lee Murray as an active UFC fighter. I remember those days very clearly. And then you don't hear from him for a little while. And then all of a sudden he's part of the biggest bank robbery in fucking human history. And now he's in some Moroccan jail because it didn't go right. Obviously, you know, like every, every like 15 years, again, we don't know what happened with james krauss but allegedly it seems like every 15 years one of these guys loses their fucking mind yeah in some kind of attempt to go and get money that they you know otherwise are not entitled to and why

absolutely bonker shit happens it's absolutely wild so uh one huge story and i do want to tip my cap to ESPN, who have been sort of ahead of the game in covering this, which is not the reputation, though, it has for our second topic, Luke. The Dana White situation was just not going away because of, you know, I want to shout out Jamel Hill, had a great piece out there. You know, more sites started to step in. We even saw on the entertainment side of journalism, people were taking shots at Endeavor for being so silent on it.

Well, Endeavor's still silent on it, and so is ESPN, largely, although they did respond to what happened late Wednesday. Dana White sat down with the media for what is typically the UFC Fight Night Media Day. And, of course, the card goes down this Saturday night in Las Vegas at the Apex. And Dana did about 14 straight minutes of answering questions from the media um there was a lot to criticize from this but i want to start quickly luke with what i liked about it which was finally at least a morsel of what we were asking for everyone in this larger situation just just like honesty transparency you know like being adult about it right like accountability all that stuff look i i think for you know dana was largely at least in in tone and and was humble largely humble in this and it was good to see him own it and obviously it was good to see him come out and

actually have to tell the legion following him like no stop supporting me on this i was wrong like you know that i mean that's just mind-boggling but there's a lot to criticize here and i want to play with probably the biggest sound that came out of this and then i want to get your reaction to this luke so here uh is dana during this scrum i believe you can hear the question from john morgan uh being set up to him are there any repercussions planned from the company or self-imposed repercussions i mean what should the repercussions be you tell me i take 30 days off how does that hurt me i mean i told you guys when we were going through covet kovac the last 10 years i could set it out and you know what i mean

what what would be the problem the only it's's much like COVID actually, you know, me leaving hurts the company, hurts my employees, hurts the fighters. Doesn't hurt me. I could have left in 2016. Do I need to reflect? No, I don't need to reflect. We've had plenty of discussions internally with Ari, ESPN. Nobody's happy. Nobody's happy. Nobody's happy about this, you know. Neither am I. But it happened.

And I have to deal with it. And what is my punishment? Here's my punishment. I've got to walk around for however long I live. Is it 10.4 years or is it another 25 years? And I've got to, this is how I'm labeled now my other punishment is that you know I'm sure a lot of people whether it be media fighters friends acquaintances who had respect for me might not have respect for me now I mean there's a lot of things that I'm gonna have

to deal with for the rest of my life that are way more of a punishment than what I take a 30 day 60 day absence That does that's not a punishment to me. The punishment is that I did Look he's gonna wear that scarlet letter as his punishment Can you can you can you imagine at any point in your life where you've ever gotten in trouble for anything? Trying to float that argument and not being laughed out of the room it's just wow so i started luke with the parts i liked about it which is finally somebody sitting down welcoming questions having a discussion and for as much as dana can do he was humble but that's a very hot piece of audio that was just edited together there of

dana's comments about basically what people seem to be upset about the most that if you want to play the angle here the dana white privilege it's strong right now and whether that privilege does break down more racially or just largely in terms of what you argued the other day about people in power are able to uh get away with. We are now seeing a bunch of pro athletes in different sports, like speak out against this on social media. Like this is not going away at all. And ESPN is finally reporting on Dana's, you know,

quotes. Cause he, cause he finally spoke again, but nobody else is speaking. How do you begin to pick apart that that a you know president of a you know a billion dollar publicly traded company just had to come out and you know be the adult voice of reason was like don't worry don't worry guys you know i'm the one that that's that's hurting here that's enough let's move on it's just i mean the height of uh arrogance really i will give

dana credit for one thing that i do think is very important he came out and early into the press conference said um you know unequivocally what i did was wrong and i have seen people defend me stop doing that you know there is no defense for it just accept that there is criticism and he accepts it like that needed to be said out loud and i it's funny to, just accept that there is criticism and he accepts it. That needed to be said out loud. And it's funny to me, every time that there is some kind of controversy in MMA, people always want to pretend something never happened. I had people in my mentions be like, I haven't even seen anyone defend him. It's like, dude, let me get this straight.

Dana had to take a moment to step back to make sure people stop defending him within the industry really just in general but certainly within the industry and now it never happened before stop fucking lying guys I mean people you can have whatever argument you want to have right whatever thing you would like to argue on behalf of or against you are entitled to do that but what you cannot do is make up shit in order to make that argument work you have to acknowledge what the facts are and either that backs up your position or you need to change your position it really is as simple as that so please just to begin do that and i really appreciated that he did that and i appreciated that he went and spoke to the media

um as you know i think he was telling the truth as best he sees it. I don't think he was. Yeah, that's as humble as he can be, Luke. That's it. That's right. There was some pure and genuine humility within that, but it does miss the larger lack of self-awareness and just like, I mean, the arrogance in me not getting punished is the best way to not punish you. That's basically what he's telling the camera.

Like, you UFC fans, you know, the reason why I don't need a punishment is because, you know, we're suffering as a family and they should be. That's, you know, this, you know, I mean, he gave important details about his family. Like, they're going to stay together, the marriage, the kids are upset. Like, we didn't even need to hear that. That is their business. But he did humbly share that they're actually working through it. They're not just elite cyborg robots. This is a real family, real people going through some hard stuff but i mean the the arrogance and then yes the privilege of of acting like no this actually is is the best way i mean but it raises

it raises two it raises two big important topics right so we give the credit for the good part which i do think is legitimately good and i do legitimately and i mean this i give him credit for the parts that i really admired i thought he did well okay but to the point that you raised about this like well what should the punishment be it's like dude there's two things that come to mind here number one and i've said this on my personal podcast i've said it on this show i'm going to repeat it one more time it is very very very difficult in this country for rich people and or powerful people to actually face consequences. We do not do a good job of punishing rich or powerful people here.

Obviously, you can find exceptions here or there, usually for crimes or I should say misdeeds, whatever you want to say, far greater than anything data has done, which is not to minimize it. I just mean it takes a vast amount of bad faith behavior and or outright law-breaking before anything ever happens to these people. Just look around. He has these media allies and Stephen A. Smith and Molly Karam carrying water for him, TMZ cluing him into the fact that this was coming so that when the news came out, his response to it would be built into the news story, and the headline was soft-pedaled. There was silence from Ari Emanuel, but he has spoken out about, and rightly,

I think, spoken out about anti-Semitism previously. I mean, he just has billionaire friends, media allies. These are things that you and I simply do not have access to, and what does it do? It protects him. Powerful people use their leverage and their resources to protect themselves. You're watching it here. You're literally watching it here. Everyone wants to make Dana the guy who would show up on their couch if he wasn't so busy. He was that guy at one time. He is no longer that guy. He is now someone who leverages extraordinary wealth and connection and power to basically absolve himself from any responsibility beyond what he sees as reasonable that is something that only exists among the very very very very elite and nobody else and i mean dude seriously just for modern political correctness

for the the way that you know society today which there's some certainly some some fall and bad parts about how hyper sensitive and critical we are and cancel culture and all that. But like in this modern culture, how like they could still be rolling, you know, TBS and Dana White can still be rolling out this slap league. Like, like, you know, Dana, Dana said at the press conference on Wednesday, Dana said, like, you know, is there irony here and putting out a slap league you know a couple weeks after he was caught on tape you know exchanging slaps with his wife and he was like you know yeah it's ironic but you know there's never a good time to have a bad moment it's like damn like like the people in play just don't get it or they just don't care and while we could get

caught in the black cloud of debating, like which one it is, because the both of it sucks, I think from what we saw by Dana, some of it, they just don't get it, Luke. They just don't get it because of a certain level of power or whatever. But I think what I am most upset about at the end of the day, not the fighter reaction, not the media reaction, not the fan reaction, Ari Emanuel and Endeavor. Because like you said, to be so rightfully aggressively proactive

under certain things and now to turn a blind eye and you know that that that YouTube channel MMAI Luke that put out that great video about James Cross but it's really about UFC financials in general you know they paint that actual accurate picture of how much Endeavor needs UFC to succeed and how much they've completely turned themselves around and opened up. I mean, it's amazing how important UFC is to Endeavor. So they're not even going to say a thing about it. Yeah.

I mean, that is why this story won't go away. The main reason it shouldn't go away is the domestic side of it and the image that Dana gives gives which with the platform he is responsible to uphold an image because there's so many people willing to you know follow him and bow down to him and say that's who i want to be that guy so they're willing to just march you know in unison to his message that's why that's the main reason why this story shouldn't go away but that doesn't matter money matters luke so that at the end of the day like emmanuel silence is just so

fucking snaky right it's just like damn yeah again we didn't call for his job but we thought ari should come out and say something about it he didn't even do that he didn't even do that this is the guy that from from the what's the show they made hbo where his character was essentially based off of it um entourage yes the guy who was coming in just dominate board meetings they could do whatever he wants this is the guy who is cowered into silence okay here's the other part about it too bc which is he raises an interesting question with all of this right it would hurt the brand if i left it would hurt the brand if I left. It would hurt the company if I left. Sure about that? I'm not so sure about that. Now, let me be clear about something. Historically,

I do think it's true that there was a time when Dana White was around where, yeah, man, he was very essential to the business. And I remember him, dude, he took years off his life being an acolyte and trying to spread the news of MMA to any editorial board who would talk to him, any news outlet that would talk to him, any broadcast partner in any climb in place all over the world. Dude, Dana did that, and he absolutely took years off of his life to make MMA, and of course the UFC, bigger than it was. And that's real, and I don't know that MMA would have gotten as far without him pushing the sled like that. It was an Iditarod, and he was the front husky at the leading of the pack, okay? That's a real thing.

And I also believe today, however polarizing he may be, I think that Dana is probably good for the brand and can do a lot of things. However, this is a billion-dollar-plus business. They could probably sell for double-digit billions. They're pulling in a billion every year. Every year they're pulling is a billion-dollar-plus business. They could probably sell for double-digit billions. They're pulling in a billion every year. Every year, they're pulling in a billion. You mean to tell me you have scaled the product to being in nearly 200 countries, obviously not that many, but 100-plus countries all over the world with contracted revenue the way you have it with all of these broadcast deals.

You couldn't find a bigger broadcast partner in the largest market in all of combat sports if you tried. You're at the apex of it. You now control all your own pay-per-view revenue. You've done all of this, and that comes apart if one person is removed. That wasn't even true for Apple, which is a much, much, much bigger business by orders of magnitude bigger. It wasn't even true for Steve Jobs. It's not true for Bill Gates and Microsoft. It's not true for anyone. You can't have a business that has scaled this far and then try and convince people this would come apart at the seams if he's not there. I can admit there might be a short-term uncertainty about the product because Dana has been such an integral part of it. But dude, that is just matter-of-factly not true.

The UFC would survive without him. It would do well without him. I admit he has been absolutely instrumental to it. But what I think is really going on, BC, to pitch it back to you is, I think he realizes that if he did get removed and the product just kept moving, there would be some questions about his actual necessity here to me that's what he's trying to get in front of not this idea that like well what it would actually hurt though it would hurt the product i don't buy that at all at all

no there they have to be a well-oiled machine up to this you know to be you know obviously his his influence in his decision making on key things you know removing him completely yeah i would have some questions moving forward on how they'll adjust in certain areas especially since he's the fate like you know when we say he's the face of ufc like that's calculated and that's also true fighters come and go win streaks come and go like he's always there and outside of the first interviews he ever did on camera for ufc when he did have hair and you know he was kind of bending over and kind of you know sheepish and afraid of the spotlight that he would come to dominate in the ensuing years he's looked the same throughout

the entire run like it's the same you know bald head and in in you know charismatic delivery and sort of he make i mean he does rally you, Luke. You know what I'm saying? He's a charismatic MF-er and a brilliant one in the things he's great at. Losing him completely, I would have questions about. No. I got to tell you, Hunter Campbell, I would argue this. He's not as important as a public face,

but in terms of what makes the machinery run, you'd be you'd be worse off with hunter campbell going than dana white at this point i think from a pr standpoint they you know the company not doing any the company not forcing him i know it's like who's going to force him he's the boss just time out on this you actually believe the product would be damaged by his absence long no i believe i believe there would be an adjustment period because he has looked at to the especially the casual fan who only comes in and out for the big fights. He's like you said, like the Santa Claus of MMA. In that regard, you just remove him from that, I believe there's big adjustments that would have to happen.

But from a PR standpoint, Luke, they kind of need him to take, even if it's self-imposed and it's small and it's just, just for show, just for virtue signaling or whatever they, people accuse us of Luke, even if it's just for show the fact that like they have, they have to do that just for image, because there are PR reasons why he's no longer the perfect face of this for them. And you do want to see those get adjusted. And I, you know, something that you've echoed before too, I do believe there's probably people on the inside that, that probably believe he gets in the way in some certain key categories as well. So, I mean, I mean, look, I had multiple people that work behind that company, like apologize that to me

off, you know, off, off to the side that I was part of that stupid four minute video that we play a lot and have jokes with. And, you know, I didn't need that I was part of that stupid four-minute video that we play a lot and have jokes with. And, you know, I didn't need that. I appreciated that beyond belief. But, like, it shows that, you know, that's not the message. The Dana message that ultimately is proven point, fact, that's the best way they can sell with Dana as the pitchman. Yes. I got to tell you, I think that a short-term thinking. proven point fact that's the best way they can sell as with dana as the pitchman yes i i gotta

tell you i think but that message dude he doesn't have a ton of time left either now maybe he'll live with this new quack he's got this this complete fraud 10 more years 20 more years 25 more years but his time will come anyway like that no one's immortal he has to go and i just think it's very very much scaremongering to suggest that the product at this stage now again 10 years ago very different argument but today the the way in which it has scaled the way which contractual revenue is involved and the people who are actually making that possible virtually all of it would be in good hands no No, no, the machine, look, the machine is set up to achieve. I'm talking about like,

I'm talking more commercially, Luke, I'm talking more in the, the brand power, all of that stuff. Short term, there would be an adjustment period. Yeah.

But I mean, we're talking a few months, six months at most. I don't, this is not, yeah, that's why to not punish him. It's not because

like wow if we really remove dana i mean it would really it would really impact the product that's that's only true for a very very narrow time horizon after that i just do they have 80 to 85 percent of the world's talent they have very very good people running that organization they have vast deals across the earth already sit in place. Like it's built to win. It's a fucking monopoly. It's built to win. It can't be the case that it's built to win and in threat of being a monopoly based on, you know, we'll see what happens with it, but it very easily could argue one. And also this monopoly has to have this guy to succeed. No, like, here's the thing. This is the true story about the Fertittas, about Dana White. Dude, they won. They won. They won. They won the industry. They beat all the

other competition to the point where they're so successful. It's hard to imagine anyone else ever rivaling them. It would require epic change, true government enforcement. Like it would, it would require massive intervention. The idea that like one person, any one person, Dana, Hunter Campbell, Sean Shelby, you name it, the idea that any one person has to be there for that to be in place is just matter-of-factly nonsensical. It doesn't even make any sense to say something like that. It's built to win. It already did. It's already got its hooks into the market. It would take a massive act of god to change that okay i mean it's certainly not and it's so similar this whole vince mcmahon debacle that's going on

the same time like there are parallels there it's just wild but you know vince got to a point where he was you know bad for the product in a lot of key ways and when he did go away for a short period and i've heard everybody say the you know creatively the product just flour product just flourished again. And it was like, oh man, we finally got him out of there. I just don't think Dana's there yet. I do think there's big impact, uh, even if it's short-term him stepping away, but I also think he should step away for all the reasons we just said, but wow. I, I just didn't think we'd open the year with this, with all everything else going on, the gambling, all that stuff going on. And, and you do have to give this brand credit, Luke.

They're back with a bang this weekend, and for better or worse, right? I mean, like, here we are, slap league right around the corner. Well, the fighters deserve to fight, right? Absolutely. And the brand deserves to flourish and keep going, but it's just, I don't remember a time where it was just this much all at once

right this much fighter pay everything like all at once uh no i i will tell um i think you're right that there are more issues all at once to your point like competing at the same time i will tell you that some of these felt bigger like at a stage of the UFC's development when it wasn't nearly as far along like when Couture was suing to fight Fedor on HDNet for Mark Cuban a lot of you might may not remember that I think it's right circa 2007 or so um and and that felt big like taking the UFC to court having these battles over fighter pay like in the public that felt like real huge at the time this feels big but this is the point dude UFC is so fucking big at this time dude they won they won yeah I agree that all the things you have pointed out again I thought that piece you wrote

for CBS sports was so smart I I echo all of it but if we're asking like how it felt at the time I gotta tell you Couture taking them to court felt bigger a little bit, a little bit, whether or not it's actually bigger is a different matter. Absolutely. Yeah. It's just, it's,

it's exciting time, but maybe this true success story 30 years in is that we all believe, even if Dana, you know, walked away for good tomorrow, they, they would keep being able to, I mean,

they, they're fighters, Luke, they've built a foundation, they're fighters. They've, they've done, they won,

they won. Like you said, just last thing on this, just last thing. And I do think foundation. They're fighters. They've done. They won. They won, like you said. Just last thing on this. Just last thing on this. And I do think they can navigate this storm. I do. That's the strength. That's the success story for everybody behind the scenes there. I know our audience is all bitter about this. So just last thing on this. Serious question for you.

Serious question for the audience for one moment. Let's actually say that against all of your wishes out there, Ari Emanuel came down and was like yeah we're gonna relieve Dana of his duties he's fired he's gone like he's just gone tomorrow now I'm not asking you to like that but just ask yourself I don't like I don't like that I don't like yeah yeah yeah no no I'm not here to say that that's something that should happen or you should applaud but let's just imagine a world where it did happen right where he was just heavy

handed ah came down and then cut him off boom how many of you would not watch UFC anymore how many of you would not watch UFC in the way that you have watched it I'm going to guess virtually none virtually none like it the game has a pull on you as a pull on you has a pull on me as a pull on BC that is I mean irrespective of some of the bigger faces around it you might miss him you might not like the fact that he's gone. Don't doubt about it. I'm not telling you wouldn't have feelings like, hey, this is bullshit. But would you actually change your consumer behavior?

Boy, I am skeptical of that idea. Big time. I do wonder how much of it, though, would be if the message of the broadcast chain. Now, remember, ESPN has the rights, the if the message of the broadcast chain now remember espn has the rights but they don't handle the broadcast they take a finished product from the ufc and era and that was you know that allowed them from a pr standpoint or so they thought to distance themselves from this but um introducing the new mcspicy from mcdonald. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned.

Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker? With Audio Erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions. And that's not all.

New Galaxy AI features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. I don't know, Luke, if, like, there like there are people like we were surprised at how many people reacted to this Dana White situation from the extreme like, well, she hit him first, like that whole side of it and not, you know, just maybe missing the point on the human element of in the long reach of all of this. But those same people, right, want exactly what dana offers them which is we don't bring politics to the broadcast we don't really talk up people's you know troubles outside of

outside of the cage we're really just here to put on these badass fights for you to suspend your regular life and just you know be entertained and enjoy if that changed dramatically, I do think you'd have a, an effect on the business. Um, yeah, I suppose a short-term one. I really, I have a very hard time feeling like the people who also run UFC, like in terms of the actual day-to-day operations, fighter contracts, negotiations, marketing, ad buys, creative control, all of that stuff i i genuinely feel like they've got a clear handle on it now as well and it would be i think the product would be just fine i just don't buy dude they've built a very very very competent smooth well-run machine like this is the part about the ufc it's not just bigger and more successful dude like their back end the people

who they have like they've got harvard mbas running the marketing they've got some of the best video editors that you can find on the market like dude it's so much talent run on expectation run on schedules the train always leaves the station again again if if steve jobs being gone from apple like doesn't in any way really hurt it it's just very difficult for me to believe um you know that Dana is again not that he wasn't in any at a previous point in time extremely essential I just don't think that's the case today not that he should be removed but like we're just talking business necessity how much is he a necessity for that business not as much as you might imagine not as much that's all right all right topic number three

luke are the actual fights this weekend one on amazon prime six goes down this evening from bangkok we've also got a ufc fight night in las vegas with of course a a very interesting middle weight bout in the main event nasardine imamov against sean strickland who of course is replacing kelvin gastelum on less than a week notice and look there's some lesser boxing across the board but it's weekend picks time we don't i mean with with the ultimate like like we may never see james cross again but i did like him as like a coach and personality and fighter so should we name this segment this unnamed pick segment luke should we name it parlays and punanis in his honor uh we should name it whatever we're gonna name it and move on because we got a lot of show left god damn just enjoy the ride luke

just enjoy i'm driving on friday just enjoy it i can't it feels so good right um all right so here's the deal luke and i every week are gonna as long as there's enough action that weekend we are going to make five picks head-to-head against each other under five different categories one a pick on the main event two picking an underdog to win three picking a favorite to win four choosing a fight that will go either over or under uh in terms of going the distance or not and five picking one fight that will end in either ko or submission and you have to pick whether it'll end in either way uh luke we are going to compete week by week and at the end of the year correct me if i'm wrong whoever's record is better to close 2023 gets to force his co-host

to go with him to a music concert of his choice, of which Morning Combat dot cams in Jake von Amsterdam would be present for the proceedings. Wow, that's a juicy offering right there, dude. Let's do it. For an unnamed pick segment, that is juicy. juicy all right we kick things off this is it this is the pilot luke i'm excited here we go pick number one we're gonna go back and forth here but it involves the main event of ufc fight night nasa ordine imavov versus sean strickland luke versus Sean Strickland Luke uh Sean Strickland gave a bizarre uh rant at media day

this week that was sketch balls in a lot of areas purposely right he's really trying to grab that that that cringe and and hammer it on you um did he call John Morgan Watto from Star Wars the Phantom Menace yes he did hear that yeah I did hear that? Yeah, I did hear that. That's unfortunate. That's that. I think he called Anthony Pettis autistic. I mean, there was a lot of, it was bizarre. But in that he did talk about, look, he's taking this on short notice. He said he wasn't in camp.

He wasn't in shape. It was a month removed from his loss to Jared Kananir by split decision, but he got the call. He was planning a vacation and he likes Mick Maynard so much that he said yes for a lot of money. And here we are. So keep that in mind as we look at this main event and your current odds from our friends at Caesar Sportsbook.

Minus 125 is your favorite. Nasser Nienimov and Sean Strickland, a plus 105 underdog heading into this main event. Luke, you want to talk about this matchup at all before you get into your pick, or you want to just bring it? No, do the picks. You've done all the talking. Do the picks. Pick number one in our weekly showdown, main event. Luke, I like Nassar Dina Imavov here,

and I do believe there's a big opportunity for Sean Strickland to come back on short notice, reverse the two recent losses against the league competition. He can kind of double down here, but there is risk involved. And, you know, Nasser Dainimov does seem to be coming on. Yes, there was that loss to Phil Haas, close decision. But Luke, I mean, he almost knocked him out in the final minute a couple of times and

was putting on him. You could even argue that Imhovov could have won that fight. Since then, he's been in wars, but he's been getting it done. This is a big leap for him to go to the five-round main event level and a more difficult fight on paper than Kelvin Gastelum, for sure. But I feel like, Luke, he's going to have to make it gnarly, but he's going to have to be more physical in the clinches. He's going to have to utilize takedowns, but he can win this fight. And he's got a fighting spirit that I think inevitably, eventually will get him into trouble. But I think at this level against this opponent, I think Imovov can get it done. That's my pick

for the main event. My pick is not much different. It's Imovov. So there's actually a few of our picks that might overlap here, unfortunately, but we have a hole here in front of us. So we'll see how it goes. But I agree with Imovov. And I think I had said Sean Strickland's an active leg kicker, but the last three fights he has not been. Now, prior to that, we have seen him throw upwards of 10 a round, like against Christoph Jotko, for example. And again, this is a guy, Imovov, not really an aggressive defender of leg kicks. So I thought, well, that could be a thing, but more recently he hasn't really done that.

But BC, we've talked about how they match up. I think I'm involved, you know, we'll see if the longer it goes, that could really favor Strickland. You know, again, he's a good takedown defense, but I think the guy who's going to bring the fight to the other one is definitely going to be involved. That's the first thing. And the other one is it's like, I appreciate that Sean Strickland has fucking bat shit as insane as he is and says that the worst shit ever. Um, i appreciate that he wanted to get back out there i just don't really like it when they do this i don't mind when someone wins and then they get back out there again like oh i took a fight didn't take any damage

i'll fight again in three weeks i'm fine with that but when they lose and they're like they really didn't like the decision and really just they just, they just want to, they want to get that L out of their mind. So they quickly take another one. Dude, him involved is no one to fuck with, man. He's just not. So I just don't like the circumstances under which Sean is taking this

fight. And so for that reason, for that reason, I'm going to take him involved. Now there is big reward. Like we mentioned, you get right back into the overall title picture and you're going to get a big fight, but dude, yeah yeah everything you just said right there so we're gonna see how it plays

out there but it's like is strickland if everything isn't perfect for sean strickland here then he's got to make then this is going to be more of a war but i do think immovov's kickboxing luke will start to catch up with strickland and he'll be able to land big clean shots uh there's also a submission threat element here for immovov like there's some there's some ways he can Will start to catch up with Strickland and he'll be able to land big clean shots. There's also a submission threat element here for Mimovov. Like there's some ways he can win fights spectacularly. He also can get grinded down. But this is a big step for him.

Big opportunity. I like him here. Our pick number two as we go head to head is a favorite on the card. We do have betting limits based on how many fights and where the odds are. About minus 300 or less or so. Sometimes minus 400 based on the card. We do have betting limits based on how many fights and where the odds are, about minus 300 or less or so, sometimes minus 400 based on the week. But Luke, as I looked up and down here, I'm taking for my betting favorite, and it is a close betting favorite. Caesars has this women's Bantamweight bout, which has big stakes in the overall title picture here, which we don't often talk about because this division doesn't often give us a lot to talk about at Bantamweight, but Ketlyn Vera is a minus 130 favorite against the plus 110 Raquel Pennington. We talked about the win streaks of both and where they are at coming in. I just think Ketlyn Vera has more plus elements to her game. I'm going to

take her as a small betting favorite, and I think it's a strong one here for this fight to go the three-round distance, be physical. Rocky will do do some rocky things and she has a way of rallying late in rounds with the dirty boxing especially when she can take the punishment to get inside but then start to be a physical force but there's a big one for Ketlin and I do like I do think striking wise and in terms of her how she goes after submissions there's going to be opportunities in here for her to shine and take control of this so I'm going Ketlin Vieira as my favorite. I like that pick. Now BC, I'll put my cards on the table here. If you want me to pick someone else, I have a backup pick. So this is easy for me to do. The person I picked is anywhere from

minus 305 in certain places to minus 350 in other ones. That's fine. That is in our strike zone here. Let's do it. So I'm going to take Javid Basharat over a Mateus Mendoza. I told you I was looking forward to this one because I think Mendoza is going to give him trouble in spots. I definitely take Mendoza very seriously. He is aggressive, hard-nosed, fantastic striker, love it. And Basharat, I think, is much more well-rounded, which is why I'm picking him to win.

But I do believe that there are areas where Mendoza can be better than him, and particularly in distance striking, that is an area where I could see him giving Boshrod some problems, but I am big on Boshrod, both these guys undefeated, both guys in their twenties, but Javid Boshrod out of Afghanistan originally. And now obviously with extreme couture training with Jake shields and a lot of

other folks, he is so good. He is so well-rounded. He is so built for distance and other kinds of he can he can he can just do so many things um i'm gonna go with javid bosh right here i like his game a lot big fan of him now are you giving me the hey bc this might not be shavkat rakmanov i'm not trying to sell you that but i got that feeling again i got that itch he's so different than rakmanov it's like he can,

I feel like he hasn't quite figured out internally who he is yet as a fighter. Like he's obviously got some idea because he's so good. And I think he's tried to get good at everything. Rachmaninoff is much more clear out about the things he likes and is good at. He's well-rounded too,

but he has a very clear sense of purpose. Basharat to me is just so well-rounded. I think he feels like, I'm going to beat you everywhere. I would like to see him keep all that well-roundedness and then really home in on some uh you know some ace up the ace in the sleeve kind of territory right like something I really can get over everyone with he hasn't quite crossed that threshold yet but this is another step in that direction good stuff good stuff uh looking forward to seeing if he can hold up to this hammer uh look it's like i i always can see like the the ufc straw weights that are coming right and

from the distance and i like look have you seen this fighter like you have that way with like the intersection between europe and asia right around that area luke you've got that on lockdown for like lightweight to welterweight to middleweight strikers you know and and um it's like a pipeline luke okay it's these are these are my people not yeah i mean i i utilize the pipeline for the for the for the fighters i scout as well luke uh all right pick number three we have to pick an underdog to succeed and luke we've got close odds here in a fight that i may have tipped my hand in terms of my analysis on wednesday when we're talking about the co-main event featherweights Dan Ige, Damon Jackson I expect a track meet here I expect action and when we look at the odds right now minus 135 Ige your slight favorite under the Caesar Sportsbook plus 115 Damon Jackson yes Damon Jackson has to show us a lot here Luke he's got

he's got to get he's he's climbing now. He's got to climb more here. Ige is a tough ass out, Luke, but I can't sell him as more than that in this matchup. And I think if Jackson can continue down that path and not plateau here, it'll be a fun fight. It'll be a close fight, but I like him as my upset pick in terms of an underdog this week. Give me Damon Jackson.

I'm feeling it, Luke. Maybe I need a doctor to look at it but it's a little it's a little red it's like it's flaky in terms of like the rash but i'm feeling it right now uh okay so let me ask you about this we didn't discuss this ahead of time because we're just still trying to figure out this segment we're gonna we have again doesn't even have a name could be parlays and punanis we don't know yet uh but bc i don't know if i'm allowed so if i can't pick this one i have a backup one again i thought this through we're fine well i'm glad you said i'm glad you sent your picks into the producer so they could build like graphics and stuff luke and they'll be fine here trust me looks like looks like i'll just figure it out on the fly

well we never really discussed this and then i thought about it i'm like well i don't know if you can do this so outright in main event who did i pick who did you pick Imavov but we're asking about underdog picks now they're not far apart in the in the in the in the numbers our friends at Caesars have Imavov currently as it stands today as a minus 125 Strickland has a plus 105 as I said over text yesterday you can only pick one fight well you can only pick a fight once in your five picks got it okay so in that, here's my backup pick. I apologize. I missed that part.

I'm sorry. What are we trying to do? Parleys here? I mean, I'll give you the punani. I was trying to do main pick, Imavov, underdog Strickland, so that no matter what I win. Why was I anal over the rules need to be set? So Luke doesn't go, oh, I'll take that favorite. He's what, a minus 1600? That's fine.

So here's my backup. That's fine. I had it prepared. It's fine. I'm going to go Raquel Pennington. Now you pick Ketlin Vieira as your favorite. Head to head. Let's go. So you picked her to go at minus 130. She is just a slight, slight favorite over the plus 110

for Raquel Pennington. I like Pennington's chances in this one. I do agree that Vieira has more chances to win. I certainly not. Again, kind of like, you know, gun to my head, who do I think is going to win this one? Vieira. But I got to tell you, we're looking at the list of the underdogs. Whose chances do I like to tip over the apple cart the most under those considerations? Pennington's got a great chance man a really great chance she's well-rounded she's on a hot streak um they're not too far apart in abilities couple mistakes one way or the other by the way viera keeps her head right in line to be hit all

the time no head movement at all painting my boxer up i'll go raquel pennington on that one baby on the way mad bills to pay luke okay she's gonna come in ready you know fired up right yes drinking that same pics for the next two god damn it yeah you a little research would have been would have been five no no no no no i picked these last night i didn't do i didn't see yours i sent them into the producers yesterday look it was i know i didn't i sent mine in this morning or whatever but I didn't notice you had it this way. It doesn't matter. I want to pick this way anyway.

Pick number four is we have to identify a fight that will either, yes, go the distance or 100% not, Luke. I'm going to take the over here. I'm going to tell you that this fight, and maybe in the future we have to put limitations because how many times percentage-wise do women's, you know,

bantamweight fights go the distance uh a lot luke uh you know a lot of these divisions in and around here but the opening fight of the night was actually a flyweight bout at 125 priscilla cachoeira versus sejara sejara eubanks uh i am looking at this from a super sloppy special angle i think this will be a competitive fight between um two hungry individuals even if there's not a ton of stakes but uh this is going to go the distance luke is that too easy i may have made i may have made a mockery of the segment but uh this one's going i i'm happy to move one of my other picks but i do want to keep this one i really agree with your analysis again eubanks is pretty favored to win this minus 240 to catch

where as plus 200 but it just doesn't necessarily feel like there is a monster gap between them. And Bo, I would say catch where it probably has more of a chance to knuckle you banks into a finish, but I don't think that that's likely. And you banks is talented, but hasn't necessarily shown herself to be like a prodigious finisher. So that one just feels like it's built for distance. I'm going to keep my pick on that one. Just like yours. I really agree with your analysis of all the ones I can look at who fit within the, shall we say the, the betting limits it's built for distance. I'm going to keep my pick on that one just like yours. I really agree with your analysis. Of all the ones I can look at who fit within the, shall we say, the betting limits that we put on it,

I just feel like a great candidate for a decision. All right. Next week, we'll have to figure out a plan where we don't have the same pick. We'll get around that. But finally, Luke, submission or KO, we have to pick the fight. I got a sub here in the Umar Namagomedov-Heine-Barcellas fight. It could go either way, too, in theory, right?

I mean, it always could. But give me, yes, this fight ends in submission. Okay, I'll make a different pick just for fun. And I apologize to Mikey and the production crew. But just to switch it up so we don't have so many of the same picks. This way we only have two of the five as the same. Not a big deal. But I'll go KO. I just don't have so many of the same picks. This way we only have two of the five as the same, not a big deal. But I'll go KO.

I just don't see how it ends in anything but a KO between Abdul Razak Alhassan and then Claudio Ribeiro. Now, Abdul Razak Alhassan at times has been like, he's like gone the distance in fights you just never imagined. And by the way, he could do the knocking out. He could get knocked out. Really, he is a gunslinger but that's exactly what he is he just goes out there and fights balls out for as long as the

fight lasts and either he knuckles someone down because he's a big puncher and he's aggressive or he gases and he gets finished off it really isn't necessarily for the most part with an exception here or there not much of a change in that direction now the odds are very different than the number ofomedov fight. This one is a pick-em, minus 105 to minus 115, so it's just very, very close. But in terms of one that I feel confidently will end in a finish, I would be very surprised if that one went the distance.

Those are our five picks, Luke. We'll review those next week and begin this process. We went ufc but it could have been just the same boxing bellator one championship pfl whatever you got here uh bare knuckle luke maybe maybe i don't know bare knuckle uh luke uh we did want to mention there were some changes to the to the fight cards this weekend particularly tonight's one on amazon uh six from Bangkok card. And it's going to be Anissa Mexon didn't even show up to weigh-ins, Luke, or try to take off the weight there

against Stan Fairtex in their kickboxing bout. So instead, we're going to have a strawweight kickboxing bout with Anna Supergirl Darunzak filling in last minute. So, I mean, fireworks still, Luke? Probably, right? Yeah, I guess it should be fine. I mean mean i don't really care about that fight that much it's the main event that i've really got my eye on so we'll see how that goes do you have any uh any further analysis or predictions on any of the other fights this weekend luke i think super bond will win tonight

i do think super bond is going to beat alazov but we'll see we'll see all right uh also luke this weekend top rank boxing an interesting heavyweight main event just want to mention a quick fa a jog is going to beat al-Azhar, but we'll see. We'll see. All right. Also, Luke, this weekend, top-ranked boxing, an interesting heavyweight main event. Just want to mention it quick. F.A. Ajagba. Remember that slugger, Luke? Yeah, he's a big old boy. He's going to take on a late replacement,

but unbeaten Stephen Shaw, the American, who's actually a minus-160 betting favorite to the plus-130 Ajagba. So this is going to be an interesting test, because I believe Ajagba's only defeat was in that Frank Sanchez loss on that pay-per-view undercard when he got outboxed. Frank is very good. Yeah, very good.

So, you know, I've seen Stephen Shaw before. Luke, I called one of his fights on the NBC series and he can box. He knows what he's doing from distance. See if let's see if he can handle the thunder from a jog. But that's going to be interesting and luke do you have any analysis here about saturday's the zone boxing offering ksi versus late replacement phase temper um i don't give a fuck okay there we go uh topic number four luke uh scott coker bellator president ceo whatever you want to call him here luke he was on the the MMA Hour this week with Ariel Helwani with breaking news. Bellator is going to have this lightweight Grand Prix tournament.

And we now have early dates and the eight names participating. The champion, Usman Nurmagomedov, will kick it off March 10th against Benson Henderson. Tawfiq Musayev will be in the co-main event that night against Alexander Shabili. That fight will take place in San Jose. And, Luke, the other participants, AJ McKee, Patrycki Pitbull, the former champion, Mansour Barnoui, Sydney Outlaw. And March 10th, San Jose, as I mentioned,

it's kicking off. A couple other, I believe, first-round matchups have also been announced in other cities here. Luke, when's kicking off. A couple other, I believe, first-round matchups have also been announced in other cities here. Luke, when you look at the field, though, stronger than you expected? About right? How do you sort of classify this? I think this is about right.

When we looked at the rankings, because CBS does rankings for Bellator, and you look at those and you look at Bellator. I mean, CBS contributes, I mean, to the Bellator rankings, so you you can look at those and see and their names weren't hard to figure out you knew it was going to be AJ you knew it was going to be Usman Nurmagomedov, Tawfiq Musayev and I again I could be wrong I believe it's pronounced Alexander Chablis um you knew they were going to be on there then we talked about it when he won over in uh Europe I believe recently Mansell or Barnawi we were like okay well he's just a force that's going to be reckoned with sydney outlaw has been ranked for some time and then patricky

pitbull was the former champion in this weight class who just lost to us i mean like you kind of knew who was going to be in there but i gotta say really luke no peter queely no peter queely i was yeah that that part there was a couple names you like maybe could get in maybe not but like in general the big names you thought were going to be there are going to be there i gotta tell you uh the usman murica made off bensonenson Henderson fight, I kind of love that one because I think Usman is just incredibly talented, but Benson is a resilient veteran, highly experienced guy who's not going to be easy to beat. That's going to be fun. Tafik Musai versus Alexander Shabli is just two fucking hammers from that part of the world going at it, and we'll see how the rest of the brackets

go. I had AJ McKee on Morning Combat yesterday, and he told me he wants to fight Patrycki in the first round. After that, he doesn't really care. BC, my only thing I would say is I think they've got the right names. This looks like a phenomenal Grand Prix. I just hope it gets done on time. And more to the point, I hope AJ McKee and Usman Nurmagomedov are on opposite sides of the bracket.

It does seem to me like that is a necessity. You just gave away the the the pooch before we could uh present the bag luke but uh we do have sound to throw to of you talking with aj mckee about his hopes and dreams for this uh who he wants to face let's hear from the man um i don't know i think honestly i think what would make sense is patrykia and I just, um, just cause of the family feud, you know what I mean? Um, his brother and I have been combative back and forth with each other, um, or one in one. So, you know, maybe, maybe it's big brother who comes in and settles settles this once and for all.

Um, and once again, there's another million on the line. So, um, I think that should be the first fight. You know, I think that's the fight to make. I think that's a fight that the people can get behind. Like I've always said, a pit bull is a pit bull. So I'm just looking forward to taking him on a walk. I like that, Luke. I like that match making a lot, actually. Yeah, me too.

And I do think that Patrycki has vastly improved. He's always been, you know, something of like a lesser version of Patricio, I think in the eyes of many, which is not unfair. I mean, many fighters are lesser versions or lesser ability than Patricio, but I do think that Patrycki is the best he's ever been. And even though he'd lost to Usman Nurmagomedov, he is trickier than he's ever been to so he's always had big power and now he's got much better decision making around it if they that's the fight to make I love it and then from there I guess we'll see but BC I'm just gonna say it I don't know if I see Sidney Outlaw

as like the dark horse yeah Mansour Barnaoui yeah he definitely is the dark horse and they could have a Corey Anderson like run to the finals Luke here for a million bucks. Yes, and then Tafik Musaev as well is a fucking absolute hammer. And, dude, there's a lot of guys in this that are going to, I think, wake people up. This is going to be an excellent tournament. I mean, Benson Henderson's going to fight for the Bellator title in San Jose to kick things off against, you know, the next big thing here in Usman and Magomedov.

I love that. I love the potential matchmaking of McKee versus Patrycki, by obviously this coincided with mckee signing that new multi-fight multi-year deal uh we didn't we didn't get specific details correct in that but it it feels big right he told me uh he told me six fights six fights is the deal well look which is which is a which is uh fairly i mean that's fairly lengthy although to to his point, BC, he's like, well, three of them are going to be in the tournament anyway. And I was like, in my mind, I was like, well, only if you win, only if you win.

Very true. But seriously, though, in terms of like the Spike Carlisle fight that introduced us to AJ at lightweight here, you know, was crazy because Carlisle made it that way. But overall, we got to see AJ's in a good spot. I like him in this division. But like, Patrycki is also like kind of the perfect next test in that regard to find out exactly who AJ is in this division.

And obviously you add in the family drama connected to that. It's basically another preview for the inevitable trilogy that's going to happen between Patricio and AJ. So that mixed with the obvious lick your lips excitement for McKee versus Nurmagomedov in the finals if it happens. Yeah, they've got

something brewing here. I'm into it. I'm into it big time. Alright? Sign me up. Love it. Yeah, let's feel that together, okay? Wow, what a great Friday show we're putting together, you and I, right now. It's just, you know, it's like throwing a no-hitter on acid, Luke. It's just great. It's great. All right, hey, topic five.

We've got some fight announcements here to find out if these have tickled Luke in the fancy spot. Justin Gaethje versus Rafael Fazeev is in the works, Luke. Fazeev talked to Captain Hardcore and said, I'm not announcing anything, but the UFC promised us that i'll be fighting justin gaethje in march uh if that's the direction gaethje goes here luke after a couple losses on the title level um is this the right this is the right come down fight for him to simultaneously find out exactly where fazev is yeah fazeev has earned it fazeev has earned it and that fight is fucking bananas because it's going to be two absolute fucking just heavy heavy heavy hitters trying to take each other's head off very little wrestling at all will be involved in that one i

suspect um fazeev i you know you and i both both are very high on Justin Gaethje. He's done incredible things in the sport, but you've got to wonder if he's on the come down now a little bit. And Fazeev's on the way up. And we've said it also too, BC. You know, the Kutateladzis, the Saryukians. Ismugula was part of it, but he retired. But the Gamrots, and of course you mentioned Fazeev now, this new class of 155ers who are coming in with Z's and V's in their names,

tearing people to shreds. I wonder if this is going to be part of that continuing tradition. Yeah, Master Shredder, indeed. Bellator announced a four-pack of additions to the Bellator 290 card February 4th. CBS, Fader, Bader 2, or maybe it's Baydor. A couple other offerings, including Johnny Eplen. But Luke, I don't know if all of these are going to air on the CBS card or if they'll be in some form of a prelim,

but they're strong here. Heavyweight Steve Mowry versus Ali Isaev. Lorenz Larkin versus Mukamed Berkomov. Darian Caldwell versus Nikita Mikulov. And Isaiah Hokit versus Peter Ishiguro.

Anything tripping your fancy there, Luke? Yeah, the Ali Isaev one is big. He had a decorated background in, I believe, amateur wrestling. It was a big signing for them, for Bellator. That's a bit of a big get. Steve Mallory, a huge guy, sort of a Bellator homegrown product. Not from day one, but for a while now. His biggest fights have certainly been in Bellator. He's huge. He's a huge dude.

That's going to be a really fun one. And also, Lorenz Larkin was a big signing when he came over to Bellator. I'm not sure he's fulfilled for them the promise that we had kind of had at that Bellator-NYC press conference when he was announced on stage. So, we'd like to see what he can do on this card. Is he operating at middleweight now moving forward? I can't say for certainty. I think he has been.

Welterweight has been historically his best work. Yeah, interesting. All right. Also, Luke, one championship, February 10th, John Lineker versus Fabricio de Andrade. That's the one. And also Martin Wynn versus Shamil Gassinov on that same card. But, dude, that's going to be a Brazilian war, right?

Yeah, so the Lineker fight and the Andrade fight didn't end the right way the first time, so they're going to basically redo it. Fabricio Andrade, I've told you guys about this. This is a young kid who can, I mean, what a dynamic striker he is, and that means what I have to tell you

about John Lineker, right? I mean, John Lineker is who he is, so running that one back to get a to get a uh less controversial finish uh is our result anyway is going to be i mean first order priority watching that one is not to be missed at all yeah that the first fight was was crazy it was it was pretty crazy uh march 5th ufc giving us derrick brunson and Drikus Duplessis in a very interesting Crossroads middleweight matchup. Luke, your thoughts? I like it.

I thought, you know, I mean, Darren Till didn't have a great performance against Drikus, so Drikus moves on. Derek Brunson hasn't been without his issues, but I think in general is in pretty decent form, more or less. And he can wrestle his ass off, obviously. So that's a tough test for Drikus. Yeah, I like it.

I like it, all right. All right. Are you moved at all by UFC 283 adding Tiago Moises versus Milk Costa? Or the February 2nd edition for UFC of nurilio aliev making the debut against hafeel alves i don't think you are alves uh a little bit i like hafeel alves um okay i got two that you're gonna like though march 18th is ufc 286 how about gunnar nelson versus daniel rodriguez d rod and jennifer maya versus king casey o'neill that's a sneaky one too Oh, Gunnar Nelson versus Daniel Rodriguez, the rod, and Jennifer Maya versus King Casey O'Neal.

That's a sneaky one too, Luke. 125? Both of those are pretty good. Gunnar Nelson, kind of a forgotten player at welterweight. We're curious to see what he's got back. Daniel Rodriguez, I think obviously this would be, in many ways, beating Gunnar might be the best win of his career. I mean, you could say the leech or something in terms of the rankings

or whatever, but I think Gunnar would actually be a more impressive one that fight's going to be a war yeah that's going to be and by the way gunner can strike on the feet too remember he's got that kind of in and out wonder boy karate style so oh he'll take damage too he'll welcome damage and just fight through it i mean damn uh speaking of damage march 25th are we going to see it when nate the train landwehr takes on Alex Caceres? Luke, this could be some fireworks, right? Caceres is massively improved. Nate Landwehr is an absolute maniac.

Hard to know how that one goes poorly. I'm not sure who's going to win exactly, but that one is hard. I mean, how is that one anything other than all action for as long as it lasts, right? Somebody's going to end up with a tattoo, Luke, afterwards, probably. Probably. Probably. I mean, it's a good guess. April 8th, UFC 287 going to give us Cynthia Calvillo versus Lupe Godinez.

I know that's not moving you, Luke. Not much. Not much. How about this? Bellator Paris is going to go down may 12th gay guard musashi versus fabian edwards at middleweight and the co-main event is a first round matchup in the bellator lightweight world grand prix when sydney outlaw takes on mansoor barnawi uh yeah i'm in i'm in there in paris let's do it yeah i like that like that one. Fabian Edwards, I mean, beating Lyoto Machida, got to this level,

and Mousasi losing to Johnny Eblen, it kind of puts them on a collision course. And then again, I mean, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with Mansour Barnaoui, but he looks to be very, very tough. I think he's going to beat Sidney Outlaw. I'm telling you, man, that dude, Mansour Barnaoui, he's going to, he's one to watch in this tournament for sure so Fabian Edwards is Leon Edwards's brother correct correct yeah he's

bigger obviously as well maybe maybe he's gonna have his moment here Luke maybe all right head kick bang uh topic six look we got six topics this week wow how about a couple of quick hitters on the way out uh Eric Nixick talked toma fighting to update of course one of our favorite coaches there uh couture mma right luke las vegas eric nixick love that guy uh updating the jones versus inganu heavyweight title talks of course nixick with inganu camp the quote is i think it's 50 50 to be honest with you when you're talking business and timeline i'm confident from what i saw from francis a couple weeks ago that if we had to be honest with you, when you're talking business and timeline, I'm confident from what I saw from Francis a couple of weeks ago, that if we had to be ready for March, I think we can get him ready. But I think this is cutting it a little bit short because he had to go back home and renew his visa. And then obviously they still haven't announced anything yet with his contract and where

they're at. So it's 50-50 for me. Luke, he went on to say other things related to this, but then Cyril Ghosn got involved and tweeted a picture of Jon Jones saying, where you at, Johnny Bones? I'm free this March, Vegas, end quote. Let's do that. So to update here, the champion is Francis Ngannou, but he has yet to complete the new contract. Everything's still up in the air. So if he can't go for john jones's debut

i'm sure stipe is involved somewhere in this conversation but could we see john jones versus cyril gone for the interim title luke this this you know late winter spring who would have okay i mean obviously everyone wants john versus francis right okay so i mean that's that's a given but your question is pos, what if we can't get that? Who on earth would be against Jon Jones versus Cyril Gaunt, right? And for the interim title too, like who

how spoiled as a fan would do, or an observer, media, whoever, to look at that and be like, yeah, I don't want that. Why would you not want that? That's a very difficult test for Jon Jones. And you might say, well, Jon can just out-wrestle him. Again, there's a lot of questions about Jon at this level.

And Cyril makes good decisions. I'm sure he's working on his wrestling. He's very hard to hurt. He's very hard to touch. He's built for five rounds, no problem. Maybe you favor Jon to win that one. Maybe you don't. That's up to you.

But like, is that an intriguing fight that most, I think, educated observers would want to see? Of course it is. Yeah. If Francis isn't ready or he's not going to be at his best, okay. This, to me, is a very good consolation prize if that one goes away. I wonder if Bong Gabin, if I'm saying that correctly, it will be in the corner of Nasruddin Imavov, his teammate on Saturday. He is. I'm told he is. So I hope there's a media scrum.

I hope we get some more information. I mean, look, somebody's got to fight Jon Jones for the debut. It's probably going to be for the interim title no matter who it is. Let's do it. Let's get this done. I mean, come on. Let's get this done. Let's do this.

You want good PR? Announce this stuff right now all right that's what we're going to be talking about john jones coming back believe it uh two quick boxing notes on the way out luke niowa in a way the monster the pound for pound king the undisputed bantamweight champion has officially vacated all four of his titles 122 is next uh what that means like we talk about could he fight murajan akhmadaliev for two of the world titles? Wouldn't hate that. Could he fight Stephen Fulton Jr.? Could he?

I mean, there's some possibilities here. Can't wait to see where the monster goes. And Shakur Stevenson, Luke, this is interesting for the larger, lightweight title picture, okay? Gervonta is going to face Ryan Garcia for the secondary belt. Devin Haney, the undisputed champion, probably fighting Vasily Lomachenko next and can't wait for that. But Shakur Stevenson, who just moved up to lightweight, the two-division champion, is finalizing an April 8th bout against Shuchero Yoshino, who I don't know a ton about, but is in line here in the WBC rankings. The winner is the number one mandatory contender for Devin Haney.

So, Luke, lightweight title picture coming together, dude. Yes, right? Yes. Yeah, but again, I just don't understand. I mean, if you don't know much about Shuichiro Yoshino, how does anybody... Well, this is boxing, Luke. So, Karen Chukagin ends up, you know...

Yeah, that's true. You know what I'm saying? This is boxing, dude. Yeah, you're right, you're right. Boxing does have this weird thing where when the system works the way it's supposed to, where like someone is a mandatory and you never heard of them, but they're actually really good. And they, that mandatory slot gets them the fight they ordinarily would never have get

gotten. And then they win. You're like, oh shit. Like the system worked. I don't know that Yoshino is going to beat Chakur Stevenson. He seems to be extremely good. But the system works the way it does. People are supposed to get opportunities based on how they win in the rankings.

So God bless them. Remember Teofimo on the initial rise had that number one contender fight against a Japanese guy who I can never remember his name. And that was the night. Was it Nakatani? Yes, Nakatani. And that was the night that backstage right before he walked to the ring, his mom and sister.

That was here in DC? Yeah, his mom and sister got into a fight with his fiance, who's now his wife. And like, he had a horrible night. And like, you could run into trouble. And that's why, like you said, when the system works. But the problem is that nobody believes in the system on a 100% up and up level. We see far too many more times where that guy you never heard of who beat no one you've ever heard of and has never fought outside of that country that you've barely heard of is suddenly in a title fight on pay-per-view in the States.

And you're like, how did we get here? He's not of this level. Yeah, there's a few of those too. Anyway, Luke, as we head into this weekend of fights, tonight one, UFC tomorrow night, boxing as well, we want you to be on the lookout, fans, because we got a great sponsor, Money Lion. You may have heard of this

thing we're doing with them called the Hammer of the Month, where you, the fans watching, looking for fighters on the undercard, fighters that kick off the main card, who may or may not be getting the respect they deserve, but yet have had a breakthrough performance and jump through their tv screen into your living room and made you go hashtag holy hammer right or hashtag hammer of the month yeah let your voice be heard on social media by adding money lion on twitter at money lion inc on instagram use those hashtags

make your pick or scan that qr code in the screen in the corner or go to the address moneyline.com slash morning combat you can vote you can read more about this great contest but you know so far what we've done aaron blanchfield in december or in november de December saw Ilya Tuporia finish Bryce Mitchell dominantly or just destroy him and get that hammer. Luke, that Hammer of the Month trophy, the physical shaft, the hammer, it's up for grabs right now in January 2023. So you better be on the lookout. Is it Royman Villa?

Did he get his hand on that thing, Luke? He might. Did he touch the Luke? He might. Did he touch the shaft? He might. This weekend, Luke, who's a potential hammer that you're looking at this weekend? Javid Basharat. Yeah, yo, Basharat, you want to grab this hammer?

You know what to do this weekend. Tell you, that kid's talented, man. I mean, he's got a tough fight on his hands, but that kid can fight. Believe that. Dude, we need to like do you think we are okay we were able to give erin blanchfield the hammer the money line hammer in person when she was there for room service diaries i'm still trying to find out is the hammer in potoporia's possession dude do we need to go cornball this up and do like a full night presentation of handing off the hammer to whoever

it is and that it should always be done in person luke i mean should we really go after this or is that enough that's cheesy i think you can only go after that if we can get showtime to pay all right all right because i'll dress up like a king luke like the king i am right you're a king okay yeah yeah of wishful thinking oh wow well played there on that transition of wishful thinking um everybody luke uh you know has their favorite and sometimes they don't like us for whatever reasons and sometimes they hear us say shit into a microphone that is i'm the king of connecticut thank you long island luke for saying that you're damn right i am uh luke we offer them a chance every friday with this closing segment that could be pedantic and bullshit but this is like this is like having accountability this is like having an

ombudsman right mikey more miles are ombudsman and he fields all these complaints through the email address of morning combat at gmail.com because you heard us say something that you just didn't agree with or you didn't like or maybe you just want to have a chance to have your voice heard to roast our white asses. All right, well, it's time for Dead Wrong. Luke, did you hear that pregnant pause? It was like hitting a gong. Was it? It's like making music with your emotions, Luke.

You know? It's great stuff. All right, Luke. Edgar sliding in. He says, on episode 396, Luke stated regarding Ketlin Vieira, she has her problems. We saw her get stopped against Kunitskaya. all right luke edgar sliding in he says on episode 396 luke stated regarding ketlin viera she has her problems we saw her get stopped against kunitskaya uh no we did not sir vieta lost the decision despite maintaining top position for large portions of the fight shit that's right as kunitskaya impressively overworked her from the bottom and don't you ever fucking forget it yeah fair point damn edgar dropping dropping the uh macho man elbow on you i love that yeah man all right i'll take that l

i'll take all right we got one more this one's from jp you know him jay paquette mountain unike nova scotia good day mk needs some hobbies you know what i mean yeah he's coming to to the uk february 8th luke we are his hobby all right i see that holy shit uh he says good day uh mk nation episode 395 at the nine minute mark bc made reference to jp having some saucy memes not dead wrong pretty accurate actually But what was totally dead wrong when he made reference to my Canadian province as the island of Scotia, BC, my long lost 40 plus year old Canadian, French Canadian POS cousin. Did the French tortilla pie, the meat pie from the holiday season, rot your brain, my man? Nova Scotia is not an island, rather a peninsula and is connected to the province of New Brunswick where Mockton resides.

My Canadian brethren Aaron Bronstetter and I previously dead wronged you and Luke on that one. When you come to visit the lake house this summer, we'll tour the province and take the boat out and correct your geography shortcomings. Love you guys. Keep up the amazing award-winning show. Super fan for life. It's JP. love you guys keep up the amazing award-winning show super fan for life it's jp look he even gave a fan sub and put in meat pie here tortillera about this uh island of scotia mistake so luke

thomas do you care about canadian geography it's very american for me to tell you that i don't so i'm trying not to be that guy i mean it looks like an island to me in that picture i maybe it's the peninsula though it's like the end of the dong right yeah it's the end of the it's the bell end it's the bell end of the dong as the brits would say you ever had a brit call you a bell end that's a fun thing no no i hope i get called a bin man by the by our british what are some great british insults it's a great question right so dosser is one yes yes bin man bin man um uh you bloody wanker wanker oh wankers i mean wanker's got to be number one british insult for but like when i say that i mean like to an american ear

like to an american ear wanker's pretty good, right? That's not bad. Yeah, but dude, they're going to, you know, they're going to hammer us. Would you take up, you know, within that dead wrong from JP, Luke, it seemed to be an invitation for you to come to his house and ride the boat. Let's see how things go in London first. JP is either just the nicest man on earth, or absolutely he's going to skin us alive and, you know, hide our bones in his fucking basement it's one it's like is this a canadian remake of deliverance luke and this is just a

long like trap like we're just you know yeah yeah good look yeah come see my cabin in the woods bitch you'll never see mk again yeah yeah so we can this has been a long play to get you to squeal like a pig i mean i you know i can say luke while it's disgusting, it is a well-made plan up to this point. So thank you, guys. That's the end of the Dead Wrong segment. Morning Combat at gmail.com. Mikey Morms is waiting for you, all right? Say hi to him, okay?

There you go. Luke, that's our show for the week. And we did want to shamelessly plug one final time that if you are going to join the paquettes on this cross atlantic flight it does go down february 8th that's a wednesday night king's place is the venue in the king's court section of london it's a podcast festival called pod live brought to you by the sports podcast group they named us best sports podcast of 2022 holy crap right they put us on billboards in Liverpool and London. Well, we're going to be in London because MK is coming to the UK. 90 minutes of variety and fun.

We're going to have some big name fight related fighters. I mean, this is big. This is pretty damn big. It's big. Okay? We're big in the UK. Who would have thought, right? You know what I mean?

This one eighth Irish kid with the Scottish last name who's been adopted by the Welsh and just wants all of his family to get along. Right. My family in Ireland, my family in the UK. If only someone had an idea, Luke. That's really what this live show is about. People are wondering how off the rails this live show is going to be. What can you tell them? Well, there are standards, right?

For example, this isn't just like, hey, Luke and Brian rented a venue and we're just going to do our show. We're actually headlining a podcast festival. It's actually their festival, but it's our show. So there are some limits about you know bc dropping his dungarees to his ankles and then just showing yeah i mean will bc go hog wild no uh you know you will not be you know you will not be that level luke but uh luke if the local da gets removed at all leading up to this would you consider not going i don't even know what that what does that mean for safety purposes luke that's all

that means but no i'm excited to be there uh this 90 minute show it could be wild maybe it'll be boring i don't know it's up to you you got to find out it will not air live though i i hope luke we can put a no later the plan is the plans we're going to record it like in london in the evening there and then that will air on that following friday okay a couple days later yeah uh that's great and we're gonna shoot a lot of bonus content out there um we're gonna we're gonna film a doc so this is gonna be wild but if you want to take part in person you see that qr code uh check out you'll get more information there scan that shit i do have one question and it's not for me it's for a friend

of mine that i know really well can you get delta eights in the uk how much does your friend pay for a haircut look that'll help me narrow it down i mean what do the haircuts go for in in uh naugatuck connecticut about about what that would cost man i do miss those days of getting like you know ten dollar haircuts in the inner city luke it'd be like a drug deal who the fuck do you think you are jaime escalante you're gonna go down there and take those burros calculas i bought some of those dvds out of that gym bag i bought the the pirated wedding crashers where some guy went to a movie theater with a camera with luke and just recorded it you know i bought that dvd and okay i definitely saw rush hour that way that's a real thing i did no um no it's gonna be a great it's gonna be a great

event all i know a few people are starting to out themselves that they're coming luke and i'm just so excited for anybody that can do it i know it's not easy it's the middle of the week you got work you may you may have to fly there you may not be allowed in the country dave okay all right good luck to you but uh you know there's a there's a it means a lot to us it may be the only time that we cross that i've never been there i've've literally never been Luke outside of North America. All right, dude, it's going to be,

it's funny. Cause I mean, they speak English. It's not like, uh, you know, you, you,

a true change, uh, but you might have a bit of a culture shock out there. Also, I will give you a piece of advice. Yo, this doesn't, this is going to sound kind of crazy.

And I don't know if it's true when the Brits come here, but it's definitely true when Americans go there dude fucking look both ways before you cross the street you are not going to be used to the traffic patterns and how they come the opposite direction basically and I I'm telling you like I remember the first time I went people were like yo just just listen to me look both ways there were several times i stopped myself from just getting plowed by a fucking bus by actually making sure to do this number before i did and i'll tell you we won't go this time but in amsterdam motherfucker you have to dodge bikes when you're walking down the street there like you're playing frogger with your life it's insane how much just busyness but dude i'm the it's it'll be a bit of a culture shock for you but dude i'm gonna i'm gonna dominate some crisps luke yeah that british food i'm not looking forward to

it's shit i mean i'm sorry to tell you this is a bit you know they're coming for you with pitchforks after that you think i'm playing with this you're about to find out the hard way i'm not doing a bit it's not good i did have people dm me and say can we smoke in the venue i was like oh yeah i'm not i mean you know don't bring your bong i would say no but you know probably not but yeah yeah i had i had a uber like uh like late last year when i was still vaping and before i got in like i hit a couple and i put my pocket he's like ah you can just vape in the car and i'm like i don't think that's a good idea for either of us, quite candidly. Is there anything worse than arriving in Vegas completely messed up from the flight

and the old guy taxi is trying to aggressively sell you on the gentleman's club, Luke, that offers things beyond the scenes that you didn't even think they did and is, like, not taking no for an answer and you're like, dude, just drop me off at the MGM Grand so I can walk through those aisles of hell to get to my room. And it's just, you know, stop. My favorite of Vegas is like at 2 or 3 in the morning when you're coming back from the fights and you're done working is seeing all of the shoeless, what do you call it?

Girls weekends, bachelorette parties. Yeah. Where they're shoeless and they just look like they've been ridden hard and put away wet, you know? Oh, okay, okay. All right. No, it's an expression from Seth. Yeah, I got a few expressions I could have said too, Luke, but I'm trying to keep this show up. Well, they look terrible is the point I'm trying to make.

I thought about this, BC. If Showtime and CBS came to me and they were like, okay, we have a deal for you. You never have to go to Las Vegas again. I might cry out of happiness. I might genuinely well up with tears about not having to go back there ever again. Yeah, I'm with that. I'm with that completely. Final question from me, Luke.

This is not about life or travel or even the UK. Who do you think is going to be the announced team for Slapdick Combat? John Morgan on Play-by-Play. Would you be down with that? Is he doing Play-by-Play? I have not heard anything. I'm just trying to fantasy pick the broadcast team for Slap Combat. I'm going to guess it's UFC.

I'm going to guess. I'm not doing a bit. It's going to be UFC fighters who are looking for more opportunities inside UFC. And they're willing to just do this to get ahead and maybe like Brendan Fitzgerald as the voice yeah something like it by the way who's great like I like Brendan Fitzgerald but like boy you guys involved with the slap league y'all are do a lot for a check huh do a lot for a check hey what if you know imagine if Showtime acquired the slap league and then you had to eat your words, biatch.

I don't think I would. I don't think I would. I don't think I'd have to. I mean, okay, Showtime, are you watching this? If you guys acquire the Slap League, I'm not covering those events, okay? By the way, that's probably the network the least likely to acquire,

the Slapdick League, you know. They did have Red Shoe Diaries. That was a great franchise for a while on Showtime. Shout out them all right that's our show great yeah uh i believe it was uh this was a long island luke and maniche production uh shout out to gaff who's always with us mikey moore's behind the scenes on the ones and twos thank you all i think you can follow us somewhere down there uh maybe right now like subscribe look i don't push the subscription thing a lot anymore luke but we are making we are there's gains they've been they've been pretty loyal all right we're slowly getting there so please subscribe if you've been grazing uh and uh for all you audio

only peeps out there who are like grocery shopping or like you know digging a ditch in your backyard to bury a body and you're listening to us, shout out to you guys too, okay? I preferred you watch us, right? It's a visual thing, but, you know, you guys matter to us just the same. Showtime does too. You can get 30 days free right now at Showtime.com. And then if you like it, and of course, I think you will. Do you like boxing?

Do you like BC? Do you like MMA? Do you like Cosby? Who doesn't like Bill Cosby? Great shows, great documentaries six months at 399 i know what things cost these days it's a good deal okay thank you ag1 money lion all of our great friends luke thomas anything else you want to say this is the best two hours of my week right now the friday show uh join me tomorrow post fight for the post fight ufc imeval versus strickland event i will join you as soon as that main event is over

and we'll have some fun love it love you folks out there thank you take care of yourselves for luke thomas my name is brian campbell echoing what my co-host says all the time about your your gains better make sure those bitches are loyal