MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 🚨 Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castaño 2 Instant Reaction

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

Brian Campbell has you covered with an instant reaction to Jermell Charlo vs. Brian Castaño 2. Brian also breaks down Jaron Ennis vs. Custio Clayton. Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Lions only. lions only indeed yes you're looking at me brian campbell the bbc with that bde just moments after the conclusion of jermel charlo brian castagno part two and a showtime triple header main event for the undisputed junior middleweight Championship of the World. This is your instant analysis from Morning Combat. Wow. Wow. You can like us there. You can subscribe. Three live shows a week, interviews, all that great stuff. But we hit you hard right after the fight's end.

Luke Thomas, my co-host. But this is Solo BC coming at you. So in case you missed it, here's your last chance to miss the spoiler. It went down in Carson, California. Dignity Health Sports Park is the current name. But like we always say, Wargrounds, StubHub, what are you going to call that venue? You can probably call it the best, you know, in the U.S., at least not named Madison Square Garden, for this great sport. And this fight lived up to the location, the billing, everything.

Following a fight of the year contender the first time around last July when Charlo and Castaño fought to a very disputed split draw. This time around, no judges were needed. Jermel Charlo knocks out Brian Castaño in round 10 of their epic rematch, better than the first. And now Charlo better than the rest at 154, becoming the first undisputed champion in this four-belt era and becoming just the seventh male undisputed champion as well in the same era,

which is really the modern era. And you can certainly argue when the beginning of that four-belt era is because we had four belts dating back to the late 80s. But when was it truly recognized? Some would say that didn't come until the 2000s. Either way, in this modern run, boy, are we spoiled fans to get one undisputed championship match after another and now add Jermell Charlo's name to that list.

So Charlo had a lot of explaining to do in this one. After that first fight, most people thought Castaño had won. He won every category of the punch stats. And I think, you know, he was the moral winner in so many ways. But like I'd said, all build up to this. If there's anyone that has a potential to raise their game even higher, it certainly was Charlo. This was a grown-ass

man performance, and I tweeted that, and I mean that, and I'm happy for Jermell Charlo. This was him really taking everything that he has, one of the most well-rounded, dynamic, physical and mental combined abilities in this game, speed, power, IQ,

but he left nothing, you know, took nothing for granted, left nothing behind. He used the weapons he has been given and that he has crafted. And when he does that, when he has intention to his offense and not just sitting back as a counter puncher, he's among the best pound-for-pound fighters in this game. We already knew he was good in rematches and how he avenged that equally disputed loss, this time in the other direction, against Tony Harrison three, four years ago. And then Charlo came back and knocked Harrison out

in round 11 of their rematch, this time round 10 against Castaño. But it was the adjustments in the end from Jermell Charlo that really made this fight. Now, this fight, you know, the sequel to a fight of the year contender was not only better, this is going to end up, you know, a finalist for fight of the year when it's all said and done, because it was intense, high pace. Each round had sort of this start where it would go in one direction and then end typically in a toe-to-toe battle.

Round four, put that in a time capsule. It's one of the best rounds of this year. But it was Charlo, even though that this fight was so competitive, that made those adjustments that I think opened up the door to do exactly what he did. Land the game-changing shots, the fight altering and eventually fight ending shots there in round 10. So how did he do that? He kept himself off the ropes, first and foremost.

I had said coming into this fight, I needed to see intention with that jab. And while he didn't stick to the offensive jab, right, jab as a weapon, on a consistent basis, I think he at least reestablished it every round. And that was a big key right there. I saw the jab from Charles that I liked. It allowed him to control distance for a lot of this fight, not all of it.

You got to give Castaño credit. He gets inside, but it took Castaño a while to get inside. And really, in that fourth round, which was wild and really featured the first final 30 seconds of just craziness, which became a consistent stretch of about three, four, five rounds following that pattern. But the fourth was the best, and it was a big left hand that Charlo hit on Castaño that wobbled him, that hurt him, and Charlo hurt him a couple rounds later. And it started to feel, in some cases, like it was inevitable that Charlo was going to find him, but not a guarantee.

And the fight was so close. And Castaño, you know, coming on in certain moments, I gave him some middle rounds. He certainly was still fresh entering that 10th and final round and dangerous. But when the fight was over, it was over. And that's because Jermael Charlo has that type of speed and power combined. And when he put it on him, I mean, that was it. The fight was done. And the fact that Charlo was at least able to keep Castaño off of him for a lot of this fight,

that was the great equalizer. Because when Charlo has that room to get off his hard counter shots and his combinations he's deadly and i think he gave himself just enough space in front of him and when you compare these two fighters it's the reason why so many of us said look coming into the first fight in in 2021 it's gonna be a fun fight of course styles make fights but charlo has more ways to win he's got more skills the fact that he went back to the drawing board and figured that out and leaned on those skills, when he's operating on all cylinders, even somebody

as tough as Castaño, who had to show a great chin and just kept coming on, and again, what does Castaño do great? The fact that he can be aggressive without being reckless. His defense was on point. The defense of both of these guys in this rematch was on point. You've got to give them that credit.

And for a fight that was this fun in which big shots did land. But the difference between these two fighters at the end of the day in terms of actual ability is large. And when you see Charlo, they're calling him Charlo on the broadcast, you know, accidentally or speeding up there. Shout out to Mauro and Al and Abner there on Showtime. But, you know, Charlo keeping distance with that jab and just that extra amount of distance was really giving him the room to let go of the combinations, to go to the body more often. And even though Castaño was not only in the fight, but let's go to the punch stat numbers,

I mean, he actually outlanded Charlo for this fight, just like the first one. I think the final total there from CompuBox was 194 to 173 in favor of Castaño. But every time Castaño would land something, you got to give Charlo credit for not only countering bigger, but countering with multiple shots. I mean, the intention he showed and the threat of his power was such a difference this time around. It wasn't as if, cause you know, Charlo didn't throw power shots in the first fight. In fact, you know, he was the guy coming on late and had hurt Castaño, but that intention wasn't there throughout.

It was there throughout in this one. So he forced Castaño to a point where he had to start taking some big chances. And even though Castaño is not reckless defensively, if you keep darting inside against the guy, this dangerous, it's going to catch up with you. And in the end, it ultimately did. Uh, let's look at the scoring at the time of the stoppage. I don't have the judges scorecards in front of me. Hopefully I'll pick that up off of Twitter as we continue here, but how I had it at the time or entering the 10th round or at the time of the stoppage, 87-84 in favor of Jermell Charlo. So that's six rounds to three.

So many of these rounds are close. So many featured Charlo really controlling the terms for the first 90 seconds or so, and then Castaño working his way back in and often, as I mentioned, that round four creating a sort of toe to toe battle, but you know, Charlo never backed down from those battles. He landed the bigger shots in those battles. So six rounds to three entering that 10th and final round of this 12 round championship fight.

You know, I felt good about the direction Charlo was going. I felt good about my score, but I didn't think he was going to be able to turn it on in round 10 and just change this fight the way he did. Now, if you missed it, there were two knockdowns. The first one just on a beautiful short left hook in which they were tied up in the pocket. And so much of this fight, let's give Charlo credit, was in the middle of the ring in terms of when they had those big exchanges. Unlike the first fight when Charlo found himself on the ropes far too often, but in the middle of the ring, when he's able to get those shots off, that left hook was so short, so perfect. You saw the delayed reaction from Castaño, who was hurt, but it's sort of, you know, brain connecting to the body. Suddenly he's down and you're like, whoa,

whoa, what happened there? But look at Charlo, the finisher, as soon as Castaño gets up and beats the count that first time. I mean, he is all over and pushing him back to the ropes. I think it was two jabs and a big right hand, dropped him again, and then that's pretty much it after referee Jerry Cantu gives Castaño a chance, gives him the count. Castaño gets to his feet, but he didn't like what he saw. It ends up going down as a 10th-run knockout. This is – if you've been following Charlo for a long time,

and there's been different iterations, right? Like when the Charlo brothers hit the scene originally, Jermell was the boxer of the two. Jermall was the bigger one, the bigger puncher. Those roles have sort of at times shifted because Jermell went on that knockout stretch at 154 where he's just giving it to people. I mean, that one punch against Lubin, right? The, the, the destruction against Hatley.

So there's been times in his career where Jermell Charlo was too safe and too much of a boxer. There's been times when we started thinking about him as a knockout puncher, but when he is, has this much intention and is this much dialed in, I mean, I think if you saw him on Friday's scale, he came in 152 and three-quarter pounds for this 154-pound title bout. So he put in the time in the gym, and he really put in the time mentally, you can see, not just the strategy with trainer Derek James, but basically no BS.

There was nothing getting in his way this time around. And whether he took Castanño lightly the first fight or not, or just got surprised in the same way he did by Tony Harrison four years earlier in their first fight, even though judges were seeming to be a little bit off on that one. When he puts it together, this is why you throw him pound for pound votes. And he's been near and around that top 10 pound for pound,

but seemingly with the exception of Mike Coppinger's list, hasn't been able to break in, you know, this might be that fight because Castanho unbeaten coming in had pushed Erislandy Lara to the limit and a draw had pushed Jermell Charlo. And then, you know, visibly we thought he had, he had beaten him in their first fight, but had the disputed draw. He's of a, of a world-class elite level. This division is so fun across the board, so deep.

There's so much parity. Everybody in it, really, with the exception of Jermell Charlo, is completely sort of vulnerable and can be up or down at any moment. And even sometimes Charlo, to some degree, can be like that too. Where you're saying, is he not throwing enough punches? And then just as you're criticizing him, he comes through with the bang. This was that thorough, complete performance against an elite foe that at times, you know, you, you think you're going to get from Jamel Charlo, but you don't, you know, and then it came back against Rosario

to unified titles on that pay-per-view a couple of years back and looked like a million bucks. I thought even in that fight, he was a little too selective from the outside but when it was time to go he landed the big body shot and got Rosario out of there I just loved even though he was getting out punched in the end by Castaño I love Charlo's entire night I loved his game plan throughout I mean yeah he you know it was what I said coming in we needed the intention we needed him to take risks we needed him if he had Castaño hurt to to get him out of there and it's funny because right after that incredible round four uh you had another good round in round five where it looked like Charlo may have hurt Castaño twice

in that and maybe didn't realize it so maybe that's the only hiccup in the run there but even in the rounds that Castaño poured back, and to give you an indication of how I scored this, which was six rounds to three entering the final round, I gave Castaño five, I gave him six, and I gave him nine. So even as Castaño was rallying back, I just love that Charlo never broke. He took big shots at times, but he bit down. You never saw the panic in his eyes. You never saw a physical reaction that would give you pause. There was no, you know, he didn't stumble and take a while. Like this was everything at age 30. What is he? Two, 31, 32, the brothers here. This is everything you would want at this

point in his career. It's time for the big fights one after another, which by the way, when you look at the coming attractions at one 54, it's going to get big here. There's some big fights for him to make. And should he want to go up to 160? Like he kind of teased in that post-fight interview. This is his time. This is his time to be this guy and to have no more questions. And this is how you silence your critics. And the Charlos, they tend to fight with such a big chip on their shoulder and they take everything personal. Sometimes they're fighting with each other on social media. And sometimes you wonder if like they're so about it. They're so they bite down in the buildup of these fights.

I mean, you'd see the look in Jermell's face at the weigh in and walking into the ring for this one. You know, you wonder sometimes are they biting down too hard? Is this intensity get them off track? None of that. None of that happened tonight. This is who Jermell Charlo is. And he dug in. He knew he was the better fighter coming in.

I think he knew in his heart that wasn't the best performance of his the first time around. And he also let Castaño get in on him that first fight far too easily. He wasn't suffering fools in this rematch. And that's not a dig at Castaño. That's just sort of how the Charlos field everyone, whether it's talking trash, whether it's whatever. They are a different breed. They are what they say they are.

But when you get this focus, the performance, to match the great physical traits that they have and the highlight reel knockouts and the fact that we, even though they are punchers, we know we saw them on the come up. They can box for sure. Uh, this version right now of this confident Jermell Charlo is dangerous as

shit. Cause he doesn't waste a lot of punches. His power is absolutely for real. He hits you with those coiled Cobra strikes of those counter shots that are so quick and powerful that even if you do see it coming, it can still get you out of there. Uh, this guy's nasty right now. And I think it's good. It was good to see Jermel get this moment because I was a little let down by his performance in the first fight in which Castanho overachieved. I'll say that straight up. He

overachieved that fight was fought on Castaño's terms. This time you saw the balance. As much as I would have liked more jabs, you saw shifts of it. There were times that he was the aggressor with the jab. There were times he was the counter puncher. And it really was a well-balanced, well-rounded, complete performance. And really the best of his career, when you consider the stakes, the opponent, Yes, he's had flashier knockouts in terms of, you know, the one shot against Lubin, uh, all those years back, but dude, this guy's sick with it. And, and look at the names that he adds himself to in this modern history. So, um, I said, he's the seventh undisputed champion in the four belt era.

So that means, you know, Bernard Hopkins, who became the four belt champion when he knocked out Oscar De La Hoya at middleweight 2004, all four belts. He was the first, then Jermaine Taylor beat him. He was the guy. Then it was Terrence Crawford a few years later at 140. Then Usyk at cruiserweight. Then you get Josh Taylor at 140.

But before that Canelo at super middleweight. And now you got Charlo at 154. We're absolutely spoiled as boxing fans right now. I mean, we're getting all of these undisputed fights. We're getting cross-network pay-per-view fights like Porter Crawford. We're getting a renaissance, rebuilt, reborn heavyweight division with, you know, marquee superstars like AJ and Fury on the top. And we're getting last year in 2021. And this year right now, seemingly a fight that lives up to,

or, or in many cases exceeds, uh, expectations just about every weekend. You know, it started off as this grassroots, you know, let's do one good for boxing in the morning combat universe and try to brainwash some of these MMA fans to see that, you know, we are a full combat show, even though you want just MMA and UFC breakdowns, but Hey, you got to really watch this fight this weekend. I'm telling you, you know, we played that, that song a few times, but that hit. And I almost want to pinch myself because you're waiting for

that other shoe to drop as a boxing fan. And, you know, for most of my professional boxing fandom years, when I'm this dialed into the business and the everything, it's been an every other year thing, you know, and I do that bit for you a lot, that joke. But it's true, you know? Like, 2013, best year ever. 2014, suck the horn. 2015, the PBC launch, it's crazy. It's national television. 2016, that was really bad. 17 was great.

I mean, that's the game. That's what it was. But now we're on two in a row. And it's this new generation of hungry fighters who want all this damn smoke. And we're transitioning out of the Manny Floyd era, even though Floyd's still trying to fight exhibitions. And, you know, Manny just lost the Filipino presidential election. And I firmly believe he'll be back at it before you know it in the boxing ring. But the point is, it is the new generation.

It's the Canelo era. It's, you know, the Lomachenko, the Renaissance heavyweight era, and it's the Spence Crawford era. And these guys are bringing it and they're making huge fights. And, you know, I don't even have to hedge anymore of saying, Hey, enjoy this fight this weekend, but you know, get ready when the, when you think you're into it, the sport just gets you back again and takes away everything you love.

It just takes a giant deuce. No one's dropping giant deuces on anyone this year. These are all killer, no filler across the board. I mean, this is once again another fight of the year contender. And I don't know how it lived. I don't know how it was. It's weird. It was better than the first,

even though the first was almost exclusively contested against the ropes as Castaño got inside, and it was a great fight. But this one, the intensity was just a notch higher, and I think that was driven, of course, by Jermel Charlo. And, you know, you do have to wonder now. It was a long-ass delay before this main event. You know, Boots Ennis, who I'll talk about in a second, gets the big win on the co-main event and then you're like man could we get out of here by like 11 15 p.m tonight like is this really happening this triple header like that and

and then suddenly you hear castanho's not you know he got to the arena late and he wants to work up a sweat and no one's got their gloves on and we're running all the video packages on showtime everyone's getting an opinion and an interview. Oh, cool. Jay in the crowd. And you start to wonder, is this, you know, El Boxi, El Boxi, the hell's El Boxi? Castaño's nickname. Is this Castaño playing head games? Is this trying, you know, what?

Maybe it was, it would seem unprofessional to pull something like that in your biggest fight as, you know, Abner Morris aptly said on the broadcast saying, I think they did this on purpose. Well, if they did this on purpose, you wonder if it backfired. And I don't, by the way, I'm not against somebody attempting that. It's gamesmanship. It's part of it. And let's be fair again. The Charlo's, even though they hate when people say this and they fight against it, they're emotional fighters.

They're fighters who, if you're going to try to play these power moves and these mental games, you wonder if it could work. It didn't work tonight. All it did is dial up and coil up this Cobra to strike even more. And that's because Jermell was more balanced. He had better intention. His defense is on point. I mean, this just was a grown-ass man performance.

Yet the fight absolutely delivered. It was competitive. It was fun. I got people blowing up my phone mid-fight going it's the fight of the year this is great thank you for telling me to watch this you know you love those moments and then we get the boom we get the the knockout um enjoy i mean can the sport really be this good yeah i, I guess it can. You know what I mean? I mean, what's stopping it? There's a lot of things that are trying to stop it, you know, historically. But let's just ride this wave and enjoy it. I mean, it is so fucking fun right now.

Pardon my French, but this was a joy to watch this tonight. And like I said, I mean, talk about the expectations to live up to the first fight. And now they're taking this fight out of San Antonio and putting it in Dignity Health Sports Park. This, you know, tennis stadium dug into the ground.

And that place has such a reputation for one war after another. And this belongs, this fight belongs. And man, what could be next for Jermell Charlo? I mean, that's what's going to be fun because you saw the players that were there. Tim Zhu has, you know, there's four belts, right, that Jermell Charlo has. So the mandatories are come and due. Tim Zhu has a mandatory claim under the IBF to be the next one.

Sebastian Fundora, who knocked out Erickson Lubin a month ago in another fight of the year contender from Showtime. Just an absolute war at 154. He's a mandatory as well. Terrence Crawford says he wants to fight Jermell for all the belts after Spence. Okay, so maybe that's a little bit off. But look, this division is weird. It's not as strong as it was a couple years ago, but even in this rebuilding phase, it's still pretty damn deep. So, Arislandi Lara, who was like the long

reigning champion, only losing his belts to Canelo by split decision, and then winning belts back, he just moved up to middleweight. But, you know, Jarrett Swift-Hurt is still here if he can come back, make 154, put together a big win. Julian J rock Williams, both of these guys, former unified champions, you know, I mean, Jason Rosario, who upset Julian Williams is still around, although he had, you know, he got stopped by Charlo to lose the belts and then he got stopped by Lubin in an absolute war. But the point is they're making one absolute war against each other after another. Um, if Charlo goes, you know,

Charlo versus zoo, that's, that's a damn pay-per-view, you know, whether it's in Vegas or Melbourne. But, you know, they said on the broadcast as well that Tony Harrison, the former 154 champion, who's another deep fighter in this deep division, wants to go to Australia to fight zoo if zoo can't get the winner of tonight's fight again so the division's fun as heck it's really to be fair it's like the most balanced division in the game really because everybody is vulnerable yet everybody could sort of upset the apple card and and and and and push through um if jermell stays at 154, I don't think he's going to stay too long because when you do get all four belts, because of how hard it is to do,

you know, you tend to feel complete, right? Like, but yet there's a lot of those names I mentioned. Charles never fought any of them. It's not his fault. You know, he kept trying to climb the ladder and win titles. And he's, you know, now the undisputed champion it just didn't match up you know jared heard got upset uh he was a training partner originally of laura so at first they weren't you know they didn't want to fight each other so but if he stays he's going to make big fights and

i think i have a feeling you know he's close with al Heyman, his advisor who runs the PBC. Would they like to make Charlo defending all four belts against both Zoo and Fundora? I would guess they would. I would guess they absolutely would. So if those are the next two and the last two for Charlo, and then he goes up to middleweight, you know, big fights to make there as well. It's going to be fun to see both him and his brother, Jamal, who I would love. He's a WBC middleweight champion, but I'd love Jamal to move up to 68 and get in that gauntlet,

potentially with fights against Canelo, David Benavidez, Caleb Plant, all those names there. I mean, Munguia is probably eventually going to move up or maybe Munguia stays at 60, but Gennady Golovkin's there. Stop sitting on your aeroplan points and get big savings so you can be somewhere you actually want to be like on a beach. Right now you can save up to 25% in AeroPlan points when you book a trip to one of 180 plus Air Canada destinations worldwide.

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It's worth bringing up because we told you Boots Ennis, Jerron Boots Ennis from Philadelphia, 24 years old, 29-0, 23 KOs. You got to watch him. There's something really, really special in there. And what he did against unbeaten Castillo Clayton tonight, who had proven that he's at least tough enough to be on this level in some of the fights he's had, the draw with Sergey Lipinets, but hadn't broken through yet, but also hadn't been solved.

So you're like, okay, maybe this guy can give boots rounds. You know, Lipinets couldn't, Thomas Delorme couldn't, this guy couldn't either. You know, it's funny. They interviewed Errol Spence during that long break and he was like, you know, Clayton just came, just came for the paycheck. He didn't try. I don't know if I'd agree with that, but I could see why he would say that because Boots comes out, switching southpaw, that jab was so fast.

I mean, here's the thing about Boots. It's like he's got every category, and it's like a 10 out of 10 in flashiness, speed, technique. I mean, the speed reminds me of like Zab Judah and Gary Russell Jr. and, you know, Corey Spinks. Like some of these guys, you just come out and you're like, oh, that's dazzling. His speed was the fact that he's that quick with that length.

Clayton never could let go. You know what I mean? Because that jabs in his face right off the start. And then when they finally one round later in round two, start to try to open up the fights over. Now the replays, I did get some people tweeting at me going to BC. Come on. That's an obvious, you know, dive.

He took, it looks like, you know, Bruce Seldon against Mike Tyson in 1995. It's not, you got to watch it close. It's not overly impressive. Boots leaves with leads with a jab. Excuse me. It doesn't look overly impressive. What happened is, is impressive. Leads with the jab gets blocked, comes right back with a looping right hand that

Clayton kind of turned his head to try to get away from and he catches it right in the upper temple slash side back of his head so you do have to look closely you can kind of make an outside argument that it's a rabbit punch but if you really look at it it's like the back of the temple area and it clipped him and it was equilibrium and Clayton, you know, was legs are twitching as he's trying to roll over and he does get up. Let's give him that credit. But you know, that was it. He wasn't, he wasn't a fit to go. And it was just another one of those boots like the DeLorme fight,

which I mentioned I was ringside for. I was actually calling the fight as a tryout for Showtime to eventually get the, uh, the, get the full-time opportunity with Showbox, which I could not be more excited for and love that. But to sit on that ring apron when he did the same thing to DeLorme and see the speed, the explosiveness, but the creativity and switching his stances and he's huge for the weight class. And now, you know, and so when he delivers that blow, it's not the best highlight punch that we've seen from him, but it's in like this perfect weird spot that kills the equilibrium and the

fights over. And, you know, nobody can really push this guy boots. And he's looking just like this, you know, Miles Davis virtuoso freestyler who's not even playing notes or chords or just playing feels and emotions and you know like i don't want to go crazy on the you know miles davis jimmy hendrix comparisons because you know you got to see this guy go 12 and get pushed you know it's like edgar when he was knocking out everybody in the first round it's like you know you just want to see somebody be there and then when they were he looked pedestrian i don't think boots is going

to end up looking pedestrian. Obviously though, you have to wait till you see him get hit and be in a war and all that stuff. That's going to come eventually. But the, but the thing about him that's so special is it may take a long ass time before eventually happens. He's 24 years old and he is as dynamic a fighter as I have seen in my

entire run covering the sport at this level. I mean this, you know, which the sport at this level. I mean, this, you know, which is, you know, 12, 13 year, I mean, depending on when you want to define when, when I officially started covering boxing on a national level, but more than a decade, I've never, I've never seen anyone like this. There's a Roy Jones feel to it. Cause it's just so unique and different and abstract. And, uh, but the best part is he's 24. He's already 29-0, and he just secured the number one contender spot to become the mandatory for Errol Spence.

Now, that doesn't mean it's going to happen next. Spence is trying to make the Terrence Crawford fight, which is arguably the biggest and best fight you can make in the sport, along with Fury versus whomever, right? Usyk, Joshua, whomever. But to hear Spence give the interview afterwards and give the kid respect, you know, and say it's going to be tough. You know, he can fight.

He's a handful. To know that we're probably getting Spence Crawford next. Keith Thurman's still a playable, unlockable pay-per-view character. Even though Sean Porter retired, and I did believe him and do believe him. And if Sean Porter is going to stand by that, I mean, he's a man of his word. I just feel like Sean still has so much that I'm starting to wonder. And this is as, this is an inside news of me talking to him. I haven't talked to him since we interviewed him that time in Dallas for the

Spence fight, but I just feel like you could get, you could get, you could get Sean Porter back in there for one more big one. I wish Sean Porter was the one who, who tested boots first on like the elite super level. Um, I think he'd be perfect in that role, uh, to, to get us the answers that we need. It may end up having to do an in-between fight. Something I mentioned the other day, you don't forget you have I Monta steniosis, the Lithuanian who captured the WBA secondary welterweight championship. He's unbeaten. He's tough as nails.

That may be the guy Boots has to go to next just to get a fight, you know, the best fight available to him, right? But the fact that he's now in line to essentially be the mandatory for the winner if they make Spence Crawford next. But what more do you want? Like, they're all, you know, if Crawford signs with the PBC, they're all under the same promoter, the same networks, there's nothing stopping us. Okay. It's boxing. They'll figure out ways to stop us. Right. I don't know. Not in this case, like we're,

we're, we're this, they figured some shit out. Okay. The fighters want to fight each other for the most part. We're finally getting spentence Crawford. There's nothing to say that the winner of that, maybe they got a mandatory, but it's time. It's time right now to find out what we have in Boots Ennis because he's too good to wait any longer. He's too freaking good. Spence and Crawford, they're going to have to deal with that. And, you know, I can't wait to see what that looks like because you don't know

what you don't know we don't know what boots is going to look like when somebody can time him and take that speed and length and power and and try to counter that um right now the this level this b minus level the level of the guys you have to beat to get in position and become a mandatory which he's followed the rules he's done it nobody wants to fight him if they don't have to beat to get in position and become a mandatory, which he's followed the rules. He's done it. Nobody wants to fight him if they don't have to. And right now they don't have to until they have to. So he's gotten in line and climbed that ladder to make it where they have to. And all those C plus B minus B guys.

I mean, he's at, I mean, he's like, he's hanging on the rim and teabagging them. I mean, he's destroying them. If he could end up entering an undisputed title fight without us really knowing exactly what we have, the intrigue is going to be insane. It's going to be incredible. I'm getting romantic and emotional here because local boy's done good here. Boxing is all grown all grown up again. It's good. I love it.

What do you want me to do? I love it. When this sport inevitably goes back down to the sewers, I'm there with them. I'm always there with them. I'm never leaving you boxing. Filthy whore. You broke my heart and my wallet. Youthy whore. No, I mean, I mean, you broke my heart

and my wallet and you, you, you break a lot. You break the fighters too. You're a beautiful game. I mean, you are an unbelievably thrilling, simple yet complex theater. I mean, it's just fucking theater out there. You know? Can't wait, Bart. Right? I can't wait. I can't wait for the next one. So Boots is coming, but it's Jermell Charlo's night at 154.

Him against Tim Zhu is the fun commercial one. The weird one is Fundora. Charlo against Fundora is, I don't know. I don't know. I didn't ever thought Fundora would get this far with that gimmick, with that George Mirosan-looking gimmick. But it just keeps throwing, and people end up getting knocked out. But Charlo Zoo is an event, so a lot to look forward to there if that's the direction we are headed uh the direction i'm headed is uh to sleep soon catching up on that

ufc card maybe but uh i advise you if you liked what you heard right here nobody does it like this award-winning morning combat podcast digital show cbs sports show uh Malka the labels that fuel and pay us and provide us but uh every Monday Wednesday and Friday live 11 a.m eastern youtube.com slash morning combat it's me BC it's Luke Thomas it's the best damn combat sports show period okay we got interviews we got we got bonus segments no but nobody they don't it. They don't do it like we do. They don't. They're probably going to start trying to soon. Okay?

But I'm just going to sit here by myself and smell my own farts and tell you nobody else does it like we do. Thank you to my producer, Mikey Mormont, on the ones and twos right here. A lot more to come on Monday's Morning Combat. We'll get Luke Thomas' take. We'll spin it all forward, recap the UFC weekend as well.

Triller did some weird shit out there. We'll have to talk about that as well. I'm out of here. It's Brian Campbell, BC, signing off. Boxing's back. Let's just kiss that pig right on the lips, right on the lipstick, right? Let's just make out. It on the lips right on the lipstick right let's just let's just make it it's back and i love it i hope you do too we out