MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Joe Pyfer Stops Adesanya at UFC Seattle | Should Izzy Retire? | Eblen Dominates PFL Pittsburgh

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Luke Thomas and Chuck Mindenhall are in the house on a Monday edition of Morning Kombat, going over the latest in combat sports. The fellas start off with Joe Pyfer's win over Israel Aesanya at UFC Seattle. What are the ramifications for both fighters coming out of this bout? Plus, we may have witnessed the best finish in women's MMA history when Alexa Grasso took out Maycee Barber. The fellas discuss what happened between Grasso and Barber and highlight the other big moments from the card, including: Yousri Belgaroui stopping Mansur Abdul-Malik, Michael Chiesa’s retirement fight and Lerryan Douglas dominating in his UFC debut. The guys also break down PFL Pittsburgh, where Johnny Eblen bulldozed Bryan Battle. That and so much more on an MK Monday!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Look at this now. It's what 11 a. Combat. Oh, there is. You fit in seamlessly in this weird MK environment. Do you want a barrio?

We're going to do it to be, two, three, two, that's it. On your marks get set and go on. Hey, it's time to get weird. It's time for morning combat. Hello, everyone. And on this 30th day of March here, 2026, and welcome to another episode of Morning Combat. Holy smokes, we got a lot to talk about today.

I am merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the Capitol, the status of Nidos, right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my brethren from Connecticut, and yet he's a traitor to the city of Detroit. It's Chuck Mendenhall. What's up, Charles? Yeah, it's baseball season throwing a baseball cap, you know, the city alternative, whatever they call that. So it says Detroit. I like Detroit.

You're a Tigers guy? No, I don't care. I'm a whore. Remember I was wearing the Zufa boxing hat one time? You fucking whore. That's a good start to the show right there. Yeah, exactly. Dude, this weekend was great.

UFC Seattle, great. BFL Pittsburgh, not for nothing. Also pretty great. RAF had kind of some fun moments as well. Yeah, man. All the boxing basically came with finishes. is. I'm like, man, if they could all be like this, I don't think I'd ever leave my studio. That was a blast, right? Every now and again, we get one of these, right? Like, where you get everything in lines, you get like several cards. Everything pays off. You're kind of like having fun no matter which event you're watching. That was, that was really what it's like, I saw you tweeting about that. And I think you might have even said it before the PFL, but whatever it was, the PFL delivered two at the end of the night. And I was like, hey, man, you can't get better than that. One of my favorite nights, Chuck, this is true. If you'll recall correctly, the, the night. of Michael Chandler versus Eddie Alvarez won was the same.

That's right. Shogun Hendo. And both of those fights are just all time madness. And they happen on the exact same day. So that was fun. I was thinking about that, man. That was like, I was like, you know what's funny is that that actually occurred to me too.

I was like, do you remember that I was thinking about that? Because we had those fights and they were both ridiculous. Like you get maybe one of those every couple of years and you got two and one night. I mean, that was wild, man. Let's bring in the third member here of the show. He is the intrepid producer and professional girlfriend, Ignorer. He's my friend and yours. It's Long Island, Luke.

Hello, fellow, Luke. What's up, boys? It was a great weekend of combat sports, huh? UFC, Seattle, definitely delivered. I let my watch along go a little long. We had RIF. We had PBC. We had PFL.

It was a, you know, a great ignorance weekend, as you might call it, LT. We have a lot of things to get to here on the show. Right before we do that, though, Long Island, put up the picture of our dear friend. Let's go. Look at this. Look at this fucking photo. Hey, which one of these dorks is not like the other?

From left to right, it's Brian Custer, who of course does PBC broadcast as well as ESPN. And then, of course, you've got my hero in the middle. Cameron, Giles. And then on the right, some fucking goofball that they just threw at the end of a broadcast. because they needed someone to do it. It's Brian fucking Campbell. Can you believe this picture? So I actually told BC, BC hit me up.

He's like, yo, I'm doing this show. It was like a pre-fight show for the BBC broadcast. They're going to have Cameron on there. And I was like, oh, dude, you got to tell him that Purple Hays is one of my favorite albums. In fact, on M.K. History, Chuck, they asked us many years ago, you know, make your top five favorite albums. Cameron's Purple Haze is on that list for me. Really? Yeah, yeah. I do remember when they asked us.

I do remember when you guys are going over this. I don't remember. It's one of the, I don't, that album is so fucking good. It's hard. It just, it holds up in all the best ways. Anyway, so I told him to tell him that. And he claims he did and he claims that he was appreciative. He's not afraid.

Remember him? Oh, you weren't with us, but like he walked up to Peter Yon and the, in the casino that one time and just kind of, hey, man, it's Peter Yon and made this big deal of it. And you can see that Peter Yon was like, dude, come on. He's not afraid. He is not afraid to go make an ass of himself, you know. He certainly. He certainly isn't. Although he did a pretty good job on the broadcast.

We'll talk about that Keith Thurman fight a little bit later. You know what, though, man, just looking at that real quick at the MGM Grand. Don't you kind of miss that arena? God, I used to love when the MGM. Yeah, the MGM Grand, whatever they call it, the Garden Arena there. Like, I love that place, man. The UFC doesn't go there anymore, but that was the place to go. A 10,000 to no more, I mean, 15,000 is a little big, but like, a 10 to 12,000 person arena is fucking perfect.

Yeah, I agree. Because there's basically no bad seat. And especially for boxing. And it was so, like, intimate, some of the best fights. down there, man, and just it would get so wild. Anyway, all right, let's set this up for the show today. As we mentioned, we're going to react to all the things we've been talking about here. Follow us on the socials.

Of course, you can do that everywhere. Morning Combat is everywhere. TikTok, YouTube, IG, Twitter, you name it. So is Chuck and so am I. Of course, you can always reach the show Morningcombat at Gmail. We're doing fan subs later today. I'm really looking forward to that. Let's talk about the merch here for a second.

You've got a day and some change, basically, the rest of today. until the end of tomorrow, 40% off morning combat.combat. Dot shop, the spring cleaning sale for the thrasher, well, excuse me, I should say tracher design, sorry, the Delta 8 design, and then the McDonald's Wi-Fi design. All of them there. You can get those 40% off, but just for today and at the end of tomorrow. And of course, we are still, well, I should say this, we're doing fan subs later. we're going to announce the winner from the month on Friday.

But of course, the way it works is, and keep doing it because we'll roll this into the next month, the very best fan sub that month, we're going to give a signed poster to, all right? So there you have it. All right. Chuck, am I missing anything else? No, I think you've hit it all.

All right. With that in mind, let's start with topic number one if we can. All right. Where else to go, but the main event from UFC, Seattle on a very packed and very fun weekend. Let's talk about that main event. Joe Pfeiffer stops Israel-Ata-Sanya in the second round with strikes, basically from the back from the mounted or back-mounted position.

So there's a million things, as you can see here on your screen for those watching. You can see here the position from which it ended hip-in, and he's just unloading. And basically, is he could not get his base under himself, Chuck. So the question here is, I think, the ultimate one, because it dictates a lot of the subsequent conversation. What is the truth here, Chuck? Is it, A, Israel-A, Israel-A-Dasanya looked like a diminished version of himself, or is it B, Pfeiffer really leveled up? Oh, man, you know, it's such a chicken shit way to go about it, but isn't it some of both?

I mean, if I look at it strictly from the Piper lens, I'm thinking, yes, that was a very good fight. I thought he did what he was supposed to do. It's almost like his eyes lit up, though, when Izzy stood in front of him in that second round, because obviously he wanted to play that game, and he played it very well, and that's why he won the fight in the end. So I thought he performed really well, and sometimes these guys, remember with his Jack Hermanson fight,

I think that was a main event, right? And it did not go his way. And there was a little bit of that. There's always this guy that you worry about who shows up every other time, but when he gets a big spot, he doesn't show up. And I was a little bit worried about that for Joe Piper, especially given the sort of circumstance against Israel at Astana.

but I thought he held up really well, man. So if I'm forced to make the decision on that, I would say that I was more impressed with Joe Piper, because I thought, I thought Izzy, and I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on this too. I thought he was game in this way that, you know, he's kind of bold and, like, you know, giving into his impulses and things like that at the right times.

He's made a name, basically, in a fight game, by being that kind of guy. And it's almost like he was like, you know what, in the second round, I'm going to go for it. And I didn't think he was fighting poorly up until that point. I just felt like he threw caution to the wind at that point. And, you know, it kind of ended up the way it ended up.

But I didn't really feel like it was the worst performance. I thought, I guess I was bracing for something that could have gone a lot worse for him in that fight. I mean, both is the certainly the more realistic answer because it's just the way that, like, for example, on the Joe Piper side, Chuck, right? Yeah. you have a guy who is still, I think, a little limited in what his offensive options are on the feet. But, for example, he played an up and down game here. The fight finished on the ground, not with submissions, but by taking it to the ground. And he also adapted to that, right?

He didn't take Izzy down against the fence. On the fence line, Izzy's very difficult to get down. This one was in the middle of the cage where Izzy's taken on the fence really is not nearly as good as it is. when he's on the fence line. So that was a different adjustment. He did a good job, tight positioning, came back on top, took the back. I mean, there's lots of parts of how he's added the ground dimension as a really potent force in his game. That to me shows definite development for sure.

Also on the feet, he just didn't make as many crazy decisions. You know, he certainly can mix it up and play a little bit of a dangerous game and he did. But, you know, in general, he wasn't quite like the, like it wasn't blitzing in the same way that I saw him before. So I think that's definitely an improvement and all that should count. However, I thought he was sucking wind a little bit there late in the second round. You know, he had no real answer for Izzy's leg kicks, which are good, but still he had basically no answer for them. And to me, it's like, is his game developing? Yes.

To me, as I mentioned, he's mixing in more of the ground and he's eliminating some of the weaknesses in his defense. Yeah. But I just don't feel like I've seen a huge sea change on the feet. I'm like just let me ask you Chuck if the next fight and we'll talk about this a little bit more but I just does a litmus test would you favor him over Fluffy? Oh man I mean and that's kind of one of those fights I thought about a little bit but probably not. I just think you know and again you know you're talking about Fluffy who is pretty good everywhere but I also think that he's got that dog in him that will

you know kind of reach to certain depths to get it done. I just, I don't think so. I heard a lot of people, and maybe this is a recency thing, right? Like you hear people kind of injecting, you know, Piper into, and I guess it's because you're beating Israel out of Sanya that looks very good in a main event, but he shouldn't be anywhere near a title shot yet in my mind. I mean, you've got a division where there's a lot of guys now kind of cued up there.

And like you just mentioned, you just threw out one name of guys above him, or at least that were above him in the rankings. But I think there are a bunch that you could be like, I'm not sure Joe Pfeiffer beats that guy or that guy or that guy. And I feel like, you know, what I'm trying to say is there's probably more to be seen to feel like he could be a true contender before you'd put him in there. I did see a lot of people, man, I'm sure you did too. They were like, hey, put him in like a title of eliminator against so-and-so or whatever it is against, you know,

Nas or Nassardine or one of those type of fights. And I don't know if I'd go that far yet. I think I'd still rather see him, you know, take out one of the guys in the 10 to 6 range before I'd go that far. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I mean, if the rankings in this one had been more close together, that's what would have been next anyway. It's because Izzy had such a high ranking position relative to Joe that now it creates for like a, well, who's next thing? We're going to talk about that in a moment. The point I wanted to make, though, Chuck, was that as you can see, like, there are real ways to look at Joe's game and be like, this is getting better, you know, in ways that matter.

But the problem for me was, as I mentioned, some of the some of the same things I saw in the state. stand-up were a little bit, again, more measured, but not new. Right? That's the difference. And I just don't know how you can watch this fight and think that Izzy looks in not diminished. He looks diminished to me. And how could he not? The guys had, you know, what? How many fights he's this guy ever had in his life? Over, I think over a hundred all told. I was trying, like, you can see a certain amount of them, but I think there are a bunch of others that aren't even listed. To say nothing of the gym wars, to say nothing. Right. You know what I mean? Like the guy, the fact that he's even as fresh as he is, is frankly something of a minor miracle.

And I don't take any great pleasure in saying this. I thought Chuck, I think what you saw, which was, I went back and I watched it today. I actually think he fought a pretty good first round. Leg kicks were working. He wasn't getting baited. You know what I mean? He was kind of staying to himself and fighting a very disciplined,

clearly sticking to the game plan kind of approach. But in the second round, he just started off doing that and then let it go. Right. And, you know, there was situations where he was staring off with him and not pulling the trigger, which I thought was kind of weird. There's moments where he's just wrecked, being reckless and standing right in front of him, which is he's done before, but now he doesn't have the reflexes to either get away or counter. And so it's just the doubt, like what once trouble starts, it builds super quickly against him. I mean, we've seen it. That's a problem. We've seen it before to with these guys who've been a, elusive over their careers. They're able to kind of get out of the way of trouble. Or they're very just good at dictating from a counter position where they can like, you know, they let, they punish the aggression coming at them. This one felt like a minefield the whole way. Because I think, you know, you go back to Izzy's last fight against Naser Dean and you, you, you know, the way he was finished in that one kind of raised red flags. The big difference was that first round,

especially after whatever it was 13 months out of the cage, you think he's never really had. this big of a break in his career. Maybe something, you know, maybe something changes. Even at 36 years old, we've seen other people kind of resurrect that way. But it was almost as if he himself was like, what am I doing here if I'm not going to throw down? It was weird. And I was, you know, what did you think of that?

Because why do guys suddenly, you know, kind of say like, I'm going to stand right in front of you and we're going to trade? It makes for an exciting fight. But I always feel like the guy, like you're mentioning in diminishing returns, the guy who's kind of the one who's trying to be overthrown, come out short on those exchanges in those desperation moments, right? Like, I don't feel like too many guys at that point of their career when they're trying to snap a losing skid and they're like,

you know what, let's throw caution in the win. It rarely works out that you see a guy succeed in that kind of thinking. I wasn't, it's almost like because he's been so different, you know, and you've talked to him tons of times, man. I know he's like a fan of yours too, like in your breakdowns and stuff. and it just seemed to me like he was like, you know what, man, why am I doing? Like he said in his post-fight, like he wanted to feel like he's in a fight. And I just felt like he was like, let's just throw down.

You know what I mean? It's just, but it was unique in the sense, like if you go back and watch his earlier fights, he used caution in the right way over the course of a lot of his early times when he was winning all his fights. So it felt like he just entered a minefield willingly and he got blown up in the end there. I'm Luke Wilson. join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind,

and now I've got my own show. So if you're tired of lazy takes, if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies available on all TSN platforms in the IHeart Radio app. I mean, I think people need to ask themselves a question, and listen, he's not going to listen to me about this,

nor do I expect him to. And who knows if he listens to his coach? Who knows if he listens to his own inner dialogue about this? I don't know. These decisions about when to walk away are tough for anybody, and I fully respect that. But like, you know, if you're going to do this job, I think you have to do the job kind of honestly.

And how, I want folks to think about something. How can you reconcile the same guy that was so mentally focused before the fifth round of a Gastilum fight where he's swollen and beaten up? And he looks across the octagon and he says, I'm prepared to die. Like, think about how focused he was about the cost of the mission. And then versus this one where something went a little bit wrong. and then, or who knows, maybe he got hit in the nose.

I've seen that speculated because, Chuck, if you see, there's a moment where Piper has his back and it's kind of exposing the chest of Izzy to the sky. You can see him visibly wins. Yeah, he did. I did notice that, yes. There was something, I think, wrong with him there in that regard, but I'm just sort of pointing out, contrast that focus to the level of focus.

We're like, fuck it, I'm just going to stand in front of you. Like, the guy from that time who could marshal the internal psychological and cognitive forces together, he could not do that here. He couldn't even get close to it here. I realize the stakes are different. The time of his life is different, but that's my point.

He cannot bring himself to do it. You're asking why he did that, like why did he stand in front of him? I think a lot of times these, you know, I'm guessing, obviously. Yeah. I think he's trying to find something in himself that he doesn't feel as much anymore.

I don't agree with this interpretation, but there is an interpretation. Again, this is. is not, I don't agree with this, but one interpretation is that like, oh, he's looking for a way out. I don't think that's quite right. But I do think he was looking for a way to like manufacture something inside of him. And that's why like after the fight's over, he's like very nonchalant about the loss, you know? Yeah.

And then, you know, we've seen him lose in these situations that Sean Strickland fight was only like a downhill onslaught at some point. It just seemed like he just, once it started going a certain direction, he was not able to correct it and get it back on course. and you wonder sometimes if something like that, which kicked off, I think, the red flag season for him, sticks in your head where you're like, I just don't want to like enter into a five round type thing where it starts to go downhill on me and I have no say in it. And if you remember, I mean, obviously, like his big win in the last five fights was that that crazy victory when he folded Alex Pereira. And it was kind of in a situation like this where he just kind of chomp down on the mouth, you know, the mouthpiece and threw a big punch and landed it. And if that's your success over the last whatever amount of years, it's been, and that was the one way that you can kind of staunch the larger picture,

like from kind of unfolding in front of you and kind of showing that you are truly diminished. It's not the worst way to go out. Now, I have no idea, like you said, about, you know, why he chose to basically go that direction. But, I mean, if you just look at the results over the last bunch of years, he had, and I hate using the word outclass, but he has not been the same, right? Like that Sean Strickland one was the first one that I really saw it. We're like, man, what's going on with Israel out of Sunday? I'm not sure he's ever really gotten it back.

Even in that Pereira fight that we're talking about where he won, he wasn't doing great in that fight. He was on the verge there, too, right, of maybe going out. So, yeah, it's just, it's rough, but I felt, you know, maybe he just felt like that was his best opportunity to get it done. You know what I mean? And one last thing, I'm glad you brought that up. Again, I don't know if this is true. I have no idea. We're speculative show, Luke.

I mean, this is what we do in the show. We baselessly speculate. But the thing for me is, I think it took him more of himself to get that win over Poeton that way. You know, the sort of triumphant final say, not in their overall careers, but in their particular fighting history together. I think it took so much resources for him to get there. and he had to give so much to that process and I think it meant so much to him in terms of like just satisfying his soul

that I don't know that he had the same fire afterwards. I mean, you gotta realize, dude, the older you get, you'll realize events in your life, sometimes they can add things to you and sometimes they can take things from you and your character and who you are. Again, it can go both ways.

I'm not saying it's all negative or all positive, Chuck. Life is a funny way of just changing you. But sometimes Chuck, and I know you can speak to this too. I'm not making this up. Sometimes you can feel it. Like if there's a traumatic event, right? In the media and something, you can feel it happened to yourself.

But a lot of times there'll be an inflection point in your life. And it takes you years before you can even see that. I don't know if you agree with that, but I really feel like that's true. I agree 100%. And remember to like the psychological toll of the Pereira series, essentially, because we were talking about. Everybody talked about like this goes back to glory. This guy was basically invented. you know, to come into the UFC

and be the guy to kind of be the boogeyman for Israel out of sun. And at the time, it seemed like it was even a thing. But as he got closer and closer, it felt like, okay, this guy was put on earth to come and, you know, haunt Israel out of Sonia. And then he does. And I think, you know, we talked about this. I know B.C. used to bring it up because we talked about it on the show where like, maybe this has

never been about Israel out of time. Maybe this has been Alex Pereira story the whole way, you know. And he kind of took that attitude. Like he was sort of like, I felt like a little bit of his identity was where he was like, you know, what is unfolding here? I remember him talking a lot about this and he was able to get that victory. So when you say that the toll it took to get it, I really believe that he probably had to go to some places in his mind, just like you were mentioned with gasoline, like some places in his mind that, you know, would be like ordinary people wouldn't understand like just such that finally sense. Now, did he leave it all there? That's

the question, man. That is the question. But he, that, there was a big psychological, like a big mental toll that he took to have to win that series or at least even it out on that scale. And he hasn't really been the same sense, right? So sometimes you don't know, man. Like you just don't know how much you're giving away and you think you're the same guy. You think you're walking the same. But clearly you've lost something. No, I mean, we all treat it like you can just, you know, not that you can reproduce the same kinds of will, you know, forever. Of course. It all comes. to a close, you know, but I think there's times fighters don't realize that they have to give something to a mission that takes

something from them where they're going to succeed but then they're not going to be able to be the same afterwards as a result of what that contribution took. Yeah. How true that is with this, I guess we'll see. He seems to be and I mean, maybe you can speak to this a little bit, but like he seems to be dissociating almost

with victory. Like, so the wins and losses, he's like, all right, that's great. I might lose, but I'll stay undefeated. And I mean, this is an attitude to take, you know, and especially in a, I wrote about this, like in a cruel game that basically takes away everything that it gives you in the end. You know, he's got the attitude of I'm going to take losses. That's okay. I'm going to just keep going until you guys kicked me out. What do you think of that, man?

Because obviously we're sitting here talking. Yeah. I mean, well, this is because we've seen this a lot, right? He's a very different fighter. Like he's very different. His mindset is very different. So it's not like you see, you know, this recurring, you know, it's not like the same person.

It's always comes from a different place. You might give him a little more leeway, but it's like one of those things that you're like, man, that's scary, right? Like a guy wants it like, he's like, I don't see an end in the site.

I want to keep doing this. Let me say something about that. I'm so glad you brought this up, Chuck. Yeah, I'm really, really am quite glad. One of the arguments, I'm going to make this work. Just follow me for a second.

One of the arguments actually in favor of boxing's pay structure, relative to MMA is what you'll hear is this is common. Chuck, you've heard this a million times, I'm sure. Hey, MMA may not pay the high-end guys the same, but it's got a middle class. You've heard that, right? Yes, yes, of a middle class. And that sounds real nice because we associate middle class

with our own middle class, like, you know, having the opportunity to send your kids to school, get an education, you know, live a decent life, own your own home, you know, what we all associate middle class living to be. It sounds intuitively quite nice. But the older I get and the more fights I watch and the more I see the life cycle of everyone's career, the more I'm beginning to think you actually don't want a middle class in fighting.

That's actually not a thing that you want. What you want are haves and have-nots because, and this is why, not that you want people to be abused, but that the game is so brutal. And it does nothing but take from you. that the only real way that you can justify doing it for a long time is if it confers extraordinary financial reward right that's the way or you get out early enough like Habib got out early so like the trade was pretty good actually in the end and if you have a middle class what ends up happening is you just have guys that you know they have to fight for a very long time they actually you know

they earn a respectable living by middle class standards but they end up taking like an enormous amount of abuse because they go much longer than they ordinarily would. It's something to think about. Why do I bring this up? Obviously, I don't think Izzy is in that financial condition, but he's in this kind of same competitive condition where you're just keeping going well past the point of sanity, well past the point of like, here's why we do this. We do this so we can make a shitload of money and then get the fuck out.

That's the job. If you're not able to be a part of that track and the things that are part of it, yeah. This is nothing but a depletion machine. It will just destroy you. There's no way to beat this. It cannot be done. And I really, really think that people around him need to be in his ear to make him see. This is going to do nothing but deplete you from here on out.

That's what I believe. It's 100% well stated. And I mean, the Anderson Silva thing is very similar, right? Like, in a way, like, is Anderson Silva. In fact, they kind of fed Anderson Silva to Israel out of and to kind of get him over and take the juice, remember? But it's kind of, he knows how this goes, man. He knows the dog eat dog nature.

That's what's so crazy. He's very self-aware of his situation. But you're right, because it's an ever-narrowing path that you're on as well. Like, not only are you losing, but now you're sort of like making the matchmaker say, who do you put him against? Are you trying to get him back on track? Because there's a little bit of a, you know, and I remember talking about this with BJ Penn, it didn't work out for him, obviously, but like, if you, if you put him against the guy that

he should beat and he ends up winning, what does that do? Does it extend his kind of mindset as to how far he wants to take it again? That can be a brutal thing, right? Just giving somebody some false, you know, confidence. Not that he, he's very mentally strong guy. I'm sure he sees it all the way that it's meant to be seen. But I, it's, it's a narrowing path. And I'm not sure, like, you know, I'm not sure what the, what are the, what are the matchmakers even going to do? You know what I mean like what would you do with him i'm sure you can get another one of these type of events where he can be a main event and um and some fight night or something like that but if the stakes like he's a guy who's a high stakes guy right like he's played the high stakes the whole time um i'm not sure what it does for

anybody here other than the make i mean especially if he goes out and wins i mean it's just it's a weird situation because i think how did you did you think that he might hang it up after this fight i was under the suspicion that he might you know what i mean like he's one of those guys who sees the big picture and he might walk away. I guess the revelation was that's not how he's thinking. Yeah, I thought, I didn't think he would call it a day at Seattle, but I thought that if he lost this way, he might like, hey, you know, I don't know what's left.

I don't have to go back and think about it, something like that. And then, no. Yeah. I mean, so it's, would you, who would you match him? If he's going to fight, like, what do you do with this guy at this time? So it's a great question. I mean, Robert Whitaker sitting at 9. You know what I mean?

I guess he's going to 205 or whatever. I don't know. Dennis and I talked about this yesterday on the mission radio. How about Kelvin Gastilum rematch? Wow. It's like, yeah, I know you're scoffing out at it, Luke. And I know Kelvin Gassie.

It's in the Hall of Fame, Luke. Not nearly as relevant as he is today, but you can make that a fun fight. And you don't have to make it a main event either. You could have it. Can I just be honest? Can I just be honest, man? Like, I, when I say this, I mean this with 100% sincerity.

I don't care if he never fights enough. I mean, I do care, but I'm saying I don't want him to fight another round ever again. I agree. And like, to the point where you're asking me, who could you put him against? I don't even want to think about it. You know what I mean? I'm at that place. Like, I don't, it doesn't, like, this has come to a close for me in all its usefulness.

If he walks away. after this is bad. If he walks away right now, you still think, like in my mind, because you even look at the reception you got, 18,000 people, Seattle, it's not his hometown, right?

Obviously, like they drop the lights. He comes out, big pop. I felt like the whole room was a partisan crowd for him. He walks away right now. Don't you think that he's still, like his legacy is intact.

I think that most people would look at, they're going to look at his run ahead of all of this stuff at the end. And there was nothing really because he was fighting monsters and even Joe Piper was a hard, fight, right? There's no shame in kind of the way it went down in the end. The bottom line is, I think everybody at this point, he had such a weird it factor through his process that

that's what I'm going to remember. That's if he gets in now. The only thing you start to do at some point is to take away from that. He's the second best middleweight of all time. Yeah. You know, he just is. There's not really much debate about it. I mean, Poetan went to get a belt in another weight class and he might do it again in another weight class and that's its own separate level of achievement. But like within the middleweight division, this is the second best guy to ever do it, period. It's not a very difficult argument to make. You know, so to me, yes, it is intact.

I heard somebody mention putting him against. I know you don't want to talk about who he should fight, but if you're going to, like, get out, a step backwards would probably be the right way if he's trying to get back on track. But like, what about the Ustree thing? Like, they fought in kickoff. I think, I think that you...

Doug Rui would fucking beat him. They fought. You remember you were at the Broomfield in Colorado, right? Like the glory where they fought, I believe I was. I'm not sure if I was at that one in particular. Okay, I was definitely at that one. I remember that's when I was introduced really to both of them. I didn't really know both the guys and, you know, good fight. And I know they had one previously that year that was like a split decision or, you know, it was very close as well.

So, I mean, if they were looking to play backstory type things against the guy and you're trying to get a guy over. And that's where that's unfortunate the way that matchmakers might see things. It's like, how do you get guys over on Izzy if he wants to keep going around, you know, that might be an option. they might do it that way. I'll say this for the UFC and Joe Piper. The UFC wanted, they always get guys, this was not a title fight, but they always get guys like leaving a division before someone else can even threaten to the, to beat them.

And there's no transfer of star power, you know, generationally. Pfeiffer makes it very difficult to like him. Oh, my God. Do you hear these revelations? He was like, I nearly killed myself. And then you fight, which is terrible. And I, you know, I'm not, this is, you know, you have to take those things seriously. Well, I was really mad at D.C. at first for not even, we're just skipping over it.

But go ahead, go ahead. Well, maybe he knew what I know was, which was, later he admits to cheating on his girlfriend, which then made him want to kill himself and then found Jesus through that. This is all like in like, what, a month or something? Like you just can't believe how insane these, like some of these people are. But all right, put in that aside, the UFC did their job. right to an extent because now you got a young guy beating an older guy with a lot more star power the younger guy's american like as a promoter you're going to be happy to have to be happy with that but to the point you raise about what should be next for pifer then we'll move on from this

is that you've got Sean Strickland sitting or Izzy's currently again they're going to update this but before they've updated it is he is sitting at four so he might go Joe might's co somewhere around maybe four or five above that is Strickland Imov and then Duplice those are not fights that, I mean, Strickland's going to be fighting for the title. I don't care about him fighting Drickus. I mean, but to me, the more interesting fights are the ones below that. That's what I, yes, yeah, yeah. Let me read them off if I may. Kyle Bahalio, I'm sorry, Kyle Bajalio at five, Brendan Allen at six, Fluffy at seven, and Reneer de Ritter at eight. I got to tell you, and Whitaker at nine, Kenanier 10, Robocop would be a good one. Like that's were great fights.

Seriously, that's the type of fight he should take. That's the kind of fight he should put in, but be put in next because I was saying it, man, I just don't think a little too raw still to be like, let's just catapult him. I don't know if he ends up. I mean, obviously the rankings themselves, the UFC rankings are a mystery in terms of how they end up where they are. But if he ends up in that like number five or something like that,

I think he should fight below him. Like it should be the guys still coming up. I don't think that he, I don't think he belongs yet in that top five conversation. I think that we need to see one more thing. The Robocop one, I don't know, where'd you say he was sitting like 10th or 11th? 11th as it stands. And I mean, he was 14th coming in here.

And if we're saying that Israel, Adisania, obviously, it was kind of honorarily at number four. You're like, okay, let's take that with a little grain of salt. I think that somebody like Robocop makes the most sense. That's still above him where he was going into this fight. Fair enough. I agree with it. We'll see what happens. But certainly a dramatic finish for topic number one.

All right, let's go to topic number two. Let's talk the rest of that Seattle main card, if we can, which the best UFC main card of the year, Chuck. Before we even talk about anything else, I know we've got a bunch of questions here to answer. Dude, that main card, that was the, first of all, the UFC Seattle event was the best event of the year for UFC by a million miles. We've talked about it on MK,

not the low tier, not the meta apex overflow. No one cares about. The top of the number of events, you would like those to be better. And certainly they have bigger names for sure. But to me, Chuck, the part of the product that's working is this one, on the road fight night with a semi-celebrity main event. That shit works.

Yeah, man. And I mean, sometimes I think that things feed off of, like every now and again, it's like a baton pass. The kind of electricity just keeps going through the event. We've seen events like this before. I don't know if you get that at the apex because there's no crowd to kind of push it forward. And I'm not saying, I mean, obviously this is just me speculate. But I do think that the ambiance of a room, the atmosphere of a room really plays into this.

And isn't it a lot? better when you watch something like there's Seattle there's 18,000 people. It felt very alive the whole way through. And we had nothing but finish it. I think the whole main card was finishes, right? So, um, six, that's, I mean, it's, it's probably more than coincidence, you know? Right.

All right. So let's talk about that co-main event. I'm not even sure where to start this. Alexa Grasso just, I mean, sends Macy Barberchuk. And I think the official description in the records is sent her to the land of Wind

and ghosts. Look at this scene here. I was scared for her, man. Yeah, me too. This was the most scared I'd been since Bryce Mitchell got was twitching. When Josh Emmett hit him with that nuclear bomb. All right, so let me just ask this.

And if the answers, no, that's fine. But I don't think it's an unfair question to ask. Is Grasso's win over Barber the best finish in the history of women's MMA? Oh, man. I mean, okay. So you've had more iconic moments, right? obviously like Holly home beating Ronda Rousey at UFC

197 would be hard to top if you're talking about it from a certain way and I mean like Rosam Yunus has been involved in some of the craziest finishes including the slam that she got knocked out and with with Androj. Remember that was like one of those ones you're like oh my god that's quitting rampage Jackson come back to life and then of course her stunning Zhang Wali with a with a head kick and Yawanna I would put all those in there but if you're just talking about pure savage like animals like I don't it was it was it was predatory the way that she put her away that that punch

straight into snatching that neck and I mean so deep into the neck and just laying like laying her down like a carcass at the end it's just like I don't think I've ever seen anything like that if it's not the best it's going to be the most memorable I think that that was one of those that you will not soon forget man yeah again I think that's exactly the right analysis you know that win that Holly Holm had where she pushes Rhonda into range and then fires the headkick as she wanders into just the right spot. I mean, I don't know if anything's going to top that, but I agree with you. In terms of like the kind of, MMA is very good for a level of brutality that you hadn't even

contemplated, you know, where- That wakes it up when you see some shit, right? Like that wakes that thing back up. Spins her like a top with the left and then hits her with another shot. and then jumps on the back to the point where, like, put the picture up one more time. I don't know if you can see it. Nah, you can't see it great from this angle. Top right corner.

Macy was almost biting her own tongue off. Yes, you know, I did see that. Like, I mean, just, like an animal on the side of the road. I'm not trying to be difficult about it. You know what I'm saying? Like, here's Barbara, by the way, responded to all this saying, quote, God is good all the time. No place else I would rather been last than last night, excuse me,

even though I don't remember much. this is just another piece of the story. Thank you to the UFC for the opportunity. And congratulations, Alexa Grasso. Love you all. I will be back, which is good to see. Certainly. We're very happy about that.

But, dude, that was fucking incredible. And I know we kill women's MMA a lot because a lot of times it's the opposite of this. So when they deliver, it's really important to be like, did they deliver? They over delivered to an extraordinary degree. Especially because if you looked at this main card, the six fights on it, you'd be, look at this one. I'm like, well, that one's going to decision. I was talking to Long Island. Luke before we started taping here.

And we were like, you know, if you were to pick a fight, that you're like, okay, this one's going the distance and probably Macy Barber comes out on top, this was the one, right? And that's what made it that much more of like a shock to the system was just Alexa Grasso, we'd seen her,

we were talking about diminishing form of Israel at Ascentia. I kind of felt like she might be on that track a little, even though she's not nearly as old or whatever, she's been around a little bit, but to land that punch, to land that, as clean as she did, and then to like just snatch the neck, all in one motion, like, like an animal.

Like, that's what it looked like to me. And to kind of have that finish and the visual too, because for just a second, Barber is trying to go for a single leg on the, or grabbing the leg of the referee as a last, you know, the last moment before she kind of falls away, like it fades out for the next, like five. It was just cinematic almost.

I mean, it's almost like you're like, dude, that couldn't have happened. But it was way more shocking just given that it was Grasso who did it. We've known that she did. Like, who are getting that Chefchenko, you know, that Shevchenko submission a few years ago always sticks in my mind of what she's capable of. But, dude, that was savage on another level. Like, we get immune to watching certain things.

Like, I can see cuts like that Bahamandas fight earlier. Like, you can see blood and all that broken bones sometimes, and it doesn't faze me at all. But there's something crazy animal about, like, when you see it something like that. my God, it awakens this thing back in you of what you're watching. Yeah, the way her like Barber's body gets just like grabbed and whipped. You know, to your point, it's like a, it's like a hawk or a eagle coming down and then grabbing a fish off the top of the water. You can see it kind of flailing in its, you know, in its talents. All right, but let's talk about the fight itself. So what does this mean? On the one hand, Chuck, I mean, a massively redemptive,

moment for Grasso. You could start there if you want. But the other and the other question here is, okay, this is a bad loss for Barber. But there is an open question of at 27 years old. How bad of a loss is it exactly? Way in here, please. Well, I mean, do you remember the Roxanne out of fairy fight where she was like a heavy favorite? I'm talking like minus 1,000 type favorite. And she ends up losing it. She was very young. And I remember thinking then, you know, it's either she's too young or she has a mindset that something, something went haywire and how she perceived herself. And I didn't quite, I thought that she was building herself with the victory she's had

this last time correctly. So something like this, you wonder like, does it take away sort of this, this sheen of your own feeling of your invincibility? Because she had like something that she was, like, I felt like she was in the right place mentally, but something like this really does change that. We've seen it happen so many times or somebody gets knocked out in a big way and they're not able to come back. Now that's the question for her.

It's like, how do you respond to something like this? You mentioned her age. She's very young. So I'm not putting it past her to come back, but I'm just saying that these can be very mentally hard. And just the optics of it too, right? Like everybody's going to, you know we're going to be seeing this on a loop. She's going to be seeing it on a loop.

It's going to be a tough mental hurdle for her, man, to get back on track. Yeah. She has time and she has the opportunity. the lesson to me just from the X's and O's Chuck is you know you go back and you watch the first fight it was in the apex but I think this was like the middle of the pandemic I'm not sure exactly what year was maybe 2021 so something like that and Barbara had a hard time closing the distance she was able to do it a little bit she was able to in the first fight was able to wing overhands and then you know clinch against the fence there was a couple times she failed on that but then there was the longer the fight went she had a little more success in the third in that regard but but but closing the distance that was the big one here and this the problem with this loss for barber is not just the the violence of it all but the i did like chuck that she was stepping into range more right she was she was electing to take the fight to those places much more readily which i do think is a good good thing however she got in trouble here because she like grossly overstepped and then had to go

off balance and then kept her head in the line and couldn't move and so as a consequence, like so overstepping and then using, you know, kind of suspect defense for that position. You know, a Luke Rockhold against Michael Bisping, right? Or you're just leaning, but you've overcommitted that it just causes constant problems. And it's like it still seems to me that the things that were affecting her in the standup, they're not the same as they were, Chuck, but there's still, there's a lot of improvement that needs to happen.

Yeah. Do you think that she this did not view Grasso as a threat to put her away that way? because I just was checking. I'm like, has Grasso had a KO before? And I don't think she had in the UFC. You have to go back to Invicta before she put somebody away on the feet. I mean, she definitely wanted to pressure hard. Yeah.

I mean, in the end, I'm not that it was, it seemed in cautious exactly. But it just, it didn't feel like the respect. I don't, I don't think she really believed that she could get knocked out with a single shot like that. And that shot was so violent and it was like a piston. Boom. It was just on her flush right on the chin. I mean, it's beautiful.

as they get. Like you had two crazy sequences in one there. With the, with the choke, the way like the visual of that choke, with that punch, I mean like that, that's, that's, that's, it's almost like a double finish, right? Yes. I felt for, I initially had tweeted, oh my God, submission of the year.

I couldn't quite, I knew she was she was obviously dazed from the punch, but I didn't know she was out. And then they showed the replay and I was like, no, she was fucking out. Like, I know. Long Island, you said that somebody, what was the, your story? You were saying that like, somebody thought that they. Gaff had Grasso by K.O. And we were all disappointed because we thought it was a sub win.

We found out like five minutes later they called it. I mean, I don't remember that happening before. I don't remember where you're like, oh, that was a submission. They're like, no, no, no. She was well out by the time her neck was being wrong. Can you imagine it's like, hey, so bad news. We don't know how to describe how badly you lost. You don't know what I mean?

Well, she was one of the, I remember talking to Ben Ascran. And I was like, when did you, you know, because when you get knocked out or you get like, It's just a crate. Like, when did you really become alert? And he was like in the hospital. And I was looking around. I'm like, I've taken it. I didn't win.

And you're like, well, that's kind of, I felt, yeah, I felt like she was, I felt like she was in that space. You could see them kind of like telling her. And she was just looking around in a bewilder way when she came to, which I was just happy that she came back for a minute there, man. I was like, it was a little nerve wracking to see her just staring off into the distance with the lifelessness in her eyes, you know? Yeah.

Amazing. All right. So we'll see what happens from here. Let's talk about it. U.S.R.W. Man, this was, for me, his best performance in M.MA. I just, I don't know which one would be better because, you know, did everything go perfectly? No. However, this was a very good opponent in front of him in Mansor, Abdul Malik.

So let me just ask you, Chuck. I have my own thoughts, but I want to hear yours. Yeah. What to you really made this performance from Bill Garwee so special? I mean, he was just able to make, like, he kept the thing. what is he six foot six he kept the thing in his in his you know his realm of expertise which is the kickboxing but he was also his strength has gotten much better like totally yeah you could see him just wardy and you could see um mansler basically not sure what to do with it because

the times he was kind of going in there and doing he he was being not manhandled but he was being easily shucked off and i think he was like i this isn't going to be as easy as i i had hoped to kind to kind of take him to the mat so i think that his strength is one of one of them and i mean dude like when you look at usury like the guys he's training with and i live just like a few miles from uh from where he trains with glover to sherr and alice perrara and all the guys who come through they have a lot of wrestlers

and stuff they go hard man and i i just think that they kind of know how to build a guy the right way so that you can you can handle like basically to cover up in a glover the glover was excellent at this any of your weak spots and make it turn it into a strength to put it back into you your realm of where you want it. And that's what he did, man. He made the fight his own. He kind of dictated the terms. And he used the range and stuff when he had it because that's his advantage, right? He was able to use that brilliantly in that fight. And I agree with you 100%. I think that that that was his best performance. And now he feels like, I don't know how you feel.

I felt like he was the B side a little bit in this matchup, but now it feels like suddenly he's one of those prospects you've got to keep an eye on. Well, it was against another decent prospect. Yeah. Yeah. Like Malik out wrestling out of Maryland, like he had looked really good. prior to this one. And I still think there's plenty of potential for him. This was, he doesn't have a lot of fights. This was, I mean, let me look it up exactly here. I've got it. Malick has only, excuse me, yeah, he only has 11 fights total. This was his 11th fight. So, you know, it's not, I was an education then, you know. Yeah, educational fight. Yeah, this was a step up. You know, he certainly felt it. And I think he's definitely going to learn from it. But dude, this was,

I'm so glad you brought it up. To me, it's like, obviously he's good on the feet. One, you know, between this and we'll talk about the Douglas fight, a good jab and a good leg kick. If you have strong fundamentals, you can win a UFC title with just those two things. I swear to God that that is true. I fully believe that. And you saw just, you know, did he build more offense

around it as the fight went on? Yes, of course. But what set up everything? The jab and the leg kick, absolutely. And then in these wrestling positions, you know, is he objectively stronger than Abdul Malik in some of these? Probably, you know, like a who can

bench more or whatever maybe maybe not but in those positions he has clearly worked on how to leverage his strength more maximally and it's sent like you're right dude abbil malick locked up with him and was like oh this is not i can guarantee you yeah six foot six frame very lanky you think you know if you come in there leverage you get low you're going to be able to dump the guy but it was it was you could see that that was a problem man and that i mean if you get that's what makes it so intriguing a six foot six frame that knows how to um you know kind of keep it in his realm stay on the feet and like uh basically kind of make it ugly and where he needs to to to stay on those feet that's going to be a problem for guys and i think that like obviously

getting tape on this guy maybe other wrestlers handle him differently if they get the chance to fight him but that was like almost a declaration in my mind of hey if you want to put me against the guy who's going to be one-sided, like he wants to dictate his will in the wrestling realm. It's going to be a disappointment for you when you try that with me. That was, I mean, you rarely see it from a kickboxer coming in and having to learn that side of it. It's usually, um, the wrestler will have an advantage in that situation just because they've, you know, a kickboxer doesn't know what to do in that situation, right? Like a kickboxer, the hardest thing for them to do is to adapt to a wrestler.

They don't, they've never trained wrestling and all that. That's what he's done, though, I think, for these last few years. I mean, he lost on the contender series to Marco Tullio, which I don't think is a terrible loss, but it's like, yeah, yeah. I think Abdul Malik is way better than him. And you saw this from him. Like he is clearly leveled up. Dude, those fucking guys out of your state, Connecticut, old Glover. Yeah, man.

Old Glover to share a boy. That's what he's doing, man. Yeah. He sure does. Glover is a fucking man. It's easy to walk away from fighting when you've got like these monsters in your gym here. like, well, I'm just going to like vicariously go through you guys. But I mean, he, he, the way that they train in there.

I mean, I'm sure it's, it's like this in other places. There's not a lot of, you know, coddling going on. You know what I mean? It's kind of baptism by fire in that gym. And I mean, for some guys that works. And I think that Eustry is one of those guys who came in. And it has benefited him tremendously from being a kickboxer into now like a very well rounded, you know, mixed martial artists.

Also, Glover is one of the things that was underappreciated. about him was he he was not the best guy at 205 chuck he was never he didn't he didn't have like that refinement of ability but one of the things you have to say about glover's abilities when you watched him fight was he was very technical and he was a big believer in fundamentals his game represented fundamentals as like that's a great point as like this is this is what counts is doing this so taking some of these guys and then giving them some like like real like you you need to be good in this position no matter what. And then forcing them to do it.

I think it's just, it's working out really fucking well. It's great, man, because I do think that the, you know, how old is, I don't know how a user is not super young.

33. Okay, I mean, but, you know, he's got a run in him. Like, if he can,

if he can put it together in these next couple years, it'd be fun to watch him and how far he's able to get. Let's move through these as quickly as we can here. Anything to say for Michael Kiester's retirement? Not really. It almost seemed to me, that Nico Price was booked into this. Like, the guy kind of convinced, you know,

in the way that he, he didn't put up much of a resistance in this fight. He was almost like they were like, hey, man, don't retire yet. Fight one more. So it felt it was just too easy. But I, you know, there's always a little bit of a, hey, man, like this is great for a guy who's been around the game. I don't know when he broke in, uh, in terms of Michael Kiesa, but it's been, it's been over 12 years.

And to give him a good send off like that, we just don't get it. We're just talking about how you don't get graceful outs in this game. and he got one. So great for him, man. And then I don't have much to add. I mean, people were bitter. He got a highlight package. And I'm like, I mean, he was, the UFC gives it to people that they like. What do you want me to say? Yeah, yeah, that's true. And he's like, you know, he's one of their broadcast guys. You know, they're going to give him the special treatment. Yep. Lejohn Douglas, just absolutely demolishing juicy Jay, Juliana Rosa on the feet.

Takes him off of his feet three times, Chuck. You can see it in the top here with a jab. how legit of a prospect does he appear to be? I mean, he looked pretty legit. This is a dude too who had like some losses in his career. And I think that that sometimes blinds people. They see, oh, he's a journeyman guy. He got in the UFC, okay, but he's got like, four or five losses on his record.

He's probably not that great. But then you see that kind of performance and you see how refined he was in the stand-up game and just how vicious he looked, you know, once he got rolling. And also just how rhythmic it all became. like I to me that was a huge statement man like I would I would definitely be keeping my honor now he lost via uh basically like a head kicking and subsequent punches in LFA back in 2023 and then went on an absolute tear in that organization winning a title in 2024 then defending it in 2025 stopping cam teak who I did not see as a particularly difficult threat uh in

the contender series however here he steps into fight julina rosa who is certainly older Chuck juicy CJ is what, 36, not that old actually. But to your point, to your point, Douglas, just 30 years of age. So certainly had some, you know, tripped up early. But since that last one, you can just tell us clearly decided to level up. Orosa may have been like the best dance partner for him to, just given that he was going to kind of accommodate the style that would, that he could showcase on. Like that, that, that seemed like it was in evidence as well. There was some good exchanges in that fight, you know?

Yeah, for sure, for sure. but it was, I mean, it was for the most part, one-way traffic. Yeah. And then last but not least, I mean, what does there say about Terrence McKinney, Chuck? The evil conneval of MMA. That's perfect. This guy, look at it. He gets up, I mean, this is the most amazing part to me about, keep this picture up.

Look at the top photo here of Kyle Nelson. He's raising a leg to, and he's getting his arm down, and he's burying his head. The foot even of McKinney even lands on the shoulder and it still does enough to rock him. The shoulder just like knock him. Was it the shoulder that went into the chain? Because it did look like his head snapped as this happened. Like, um,

Mr. must have been a connective impact there or something. I'm not sure. Did it drop them to replay? Yeah. I mean, he's got to be one of the, like you,

you mentioned like is he one of the most exciting fighters or is the most fun fighter in the UFC. It's got to be up there, right? The dudes fought 26 pro fights. And he's, there's never went to a judge of score cards. I mean, that,

that tells you. So that tells you that tells you that he's going to play roulette with whoever he, stands in there against. He has plenty of losses. But you just know he's going to deliver on something, right? Like he's going to either go in there and get knocked out or he's going to knock somebody out or it's going to be something crazy and we're going to be talking about it. The more astonishing thing for him, man, is that in those 20, whatever amount it is in the UFC, he's never won a performance of the night bonus. If anything, he's a good look charm for the UFC because his performances are always

good, but he's always on very good cards. And I kind of look back, he's been on like Iliot's the poor you cards and, you know, some of these, like, where they just had, like, incredible performances. And you're like, well, McKinney, it's bad luck, but it's also like, when he's on a card, it seems to deliver. The whole card does. Here's his run, if you count contender series and UFC. I'm not going to read everything, just, just the rounds. Ready? So, uh, round two, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one, round one. Wow. Round one, round one.

There's not even a three. Did you even name a three? No, he hasn't touched the third round. I mean, that's what I'm waiting to see. What does he do in the third round? As he still got stamina at that point, you know? He is evil can evil of MMA. Shot out of a cannon.

It's incredible. Yeah, I mean, usually guys cool off when they start like that. And he hasn't at all. No, that's, it's fun. He's committed. Guys, if you didn't see it, Yukon and Duke yesterday playing an incredible game, Yukon getting the buzzer beat or finish.

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We'll talk about the preliminary side of things. Actually, yeah, I'll go to you first. I'll go to you first, Chuck. What should it, what, what do you make of the Musayev and Bob Mondes fight? a fun fight in general, Musayev gets the nod, but there's a fair amount of cheating that happens between fence grabbing,

headbutting, and the like. How do you understand what happened here? Well, I mean, watching it in real time, the most pivotal moment in that fight, do you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay, I saw that this thing was like, okay.

The most pivotal moment in the fight was, I think, second round, right? And Bahamandes is getting, like, he looks like he has a chance to either put the fight out like he can finish the fight or he's going to put himself in a dominant position by suplexing him off that, you know, off the fence, it was so obvious that fence grab that it changed the momentum of that fight. And it's rare that you see something that blatant go unpunished where it actually swings the momentum in the reverse favor.

And then later in that round, there's an obvious headbut. And you see this land and you're like, okay, what is happening? it almost was like Baham Bendez was in some kind of like bad dream like a nightmare because what was happening like he went from winning that fight to losing it to getting bloodied up and bludgeoned at the end what a turn of events and I honestly I was

I was racked my brain to remember something where it changed that drastically off a fence grab can you come up with a fight that did I know we've had some bad ones in the past but like in a moment of clear offense where you have the moment to put a guy away or to at least really establish and dominate with the position and the fence grab changes everything. Long Island Luke, come on on in this one.

Where on all-time fence grabs, relative to Chuck's question, are you? And also, what did you make of this fight? Well, I told you pre-show that, I mean, I was, you know, gone, a few beers in, 20 bong hits. And by the time this fight is happening, I didn't even notice the fence grab in real time. I'm just going, wow, what a war. This is a crazy fight. But again, you know, I'm juggling a show. I'm reading the chat.

You know, I'm doing a bunch of shit. So I'm really not a good person to ask for that. As far as it changing the momentum of like, as far as egregious fence grabs and UFC history, I'm really trying to think of a different one. I know there was like, there's got to be one. I got to go. They're so ubiquitous that it's honestly hard to remember. But, but one that just clearly 180s the fight from where it was heading to something else.

Like that's, it's, that was drastic. you know. I don't know if the commission would do anything about it because at the end of the day, it's they, they give so much latitude to referees to be shitty that, um, yeah, I don't know, I don't even know if this is reviewable, but if I was bottom one as his team, I would absolutely be bringing this up. Uh, Chase Hooper has now been stopped twice in two fights. What do you, what do you think here? What, what lesson can we infer from the results in this one? Doesn't it feel like, I mean, I know he started very young, but it feels to me like he's got to bulk up a little bit, man um you know i like this this particular fight who's the who's the who's the cat i'm sorry who's

lance gibson jr lynn's gipson kind of knew what he was going to do like it was obviously that he knew what he was going to do they had a plan to counter it and that plan worked and it didn't feel like chase had a plan B of his own and so like he just went in there you know trying to get the fight to where he's comfortable and you know on the ground and where he's got some submissions and we know he's very good but he couldn't do it and then that's what gets him trouble in the end is just kind of selling out for was it a big elbow right like a big elbow we ate in close and like that changes the fight and i feel like in his last fight too uh he was fighting alexander hernandez he wasn't able to kind of get it into his realm and then he gets knocked out

in that fight as well it just seems to me like if you need if you're going to dictate if you want to put the fight where you need it you need to bulk up a little bit i just feel like he's not able to get the fight where he wants it yeah i mean i just i i agree in general and i think you know, just working on his athleticism through training is really, I think, quite important, both for like static, isometric strength as well as, you know, working on reflexes. And I mean, people always think like, oh, being rangy is good. Being rangy is good if you know how to use range. But if you don't, it's actually quite a lot.

Yeah, 100%. That's right. That's right. But if you're tall and you're not like, you know, if you're Stefan stroving it, you're just going to get bombed on, you know. I mean, he's, he's, was he 26? He's still very young. He's like, I know he's in his 26 years old. And you're like, you can't, he's got time to do what we're talking about. He's got time to put some tools together and to get better into bulk up and to like, you know, get a little more, a little more wily in there. Maybe like mix things up a little more to fool his guys. But, you know, I always, I always kind of point to Charles Oliver, who started very young. And I think he was, I looked this up. He was eight four and one through 13 fights. Chase Hooper is 13 fights in. He's eight and five. If you want to look to guys. who were able to put stuff together, look to guys like Charles Olivera, right? Who made a crazy career after a kind of inauspicious beginning.

And Chase Hooper's got time. I just think he's got to, like, dedicate himself to some aspects of the game and then, you know, well, get himself a little more well-rounded. Yeah, I would largely agree with that. Then we have, okay, give me your score for the Ricky Simone versus Adrian Yanyes's fight. I had Janez. So, okay, the first round on the scorecards is where it all,

went wacky, right? Because I had Janez winning. I mean, it was a close round, but I thought it was definitive enough. But then you see these score cards and you're like, okay, wait a minute, this is, we're all off on the wrong foot here, or at least us who believed that Janice was winning the fight. So I either had it 2928, Yanez or 2927, if you wanted to give that

10-8 at the, I didn't necessarily think you had to because the finishing moment came at the very end. It wasn't like he had him at death's door for like a minute of that fight before it ended or something like that. So the 10-9 score I would have been okay with. But either way, Yonaz wins either 2928 or 2927.

Yeah, I think 2928, I could even see a draw. To me, it's one and three, Janiez, third round 10,8, although in one of the judges score cards, I only gave him 10.9. Right. But I could, so for me, it's round two, Simone, round three, 108, yonyes. Like, no question about it. Yeah. Question is round one.

I think you can go either way on it. really just depends. But, like, deaf, so I don't hate that it was a draw. The thing that felt unfair was that, like, by pride rules, like who won the fight overall.

Yes, clearly Yanya has won the fight overall under those considerations. That's the Stockton rules as well. That's the way Nate Diaz. Well, but you know what? It is an interesting way of thinking about a fight. Like, there's, you know,

like dividing it up by rounds and then counting who won those without, you know, any consideration, like you're just judging each as a individual unit. This has many benefits, but it has downsides, too, because it doesn't capture, like, that scoring criteria can't capture the broader. That's a clear example.

Clear example. And also, I'll say this for you. And yes, people were kind of burying him. And I was a little bit worried, too, to be honest with you. But that was, I think in general, pretty resilient performance from him. Especially in the third round, it was like suddenly, like, if there was a lack of confidence or maybe a little bit of a gun shy feeling towards, I don't know what, like, you saw it a little little bit in the first round.

Second round, certainly like, he got kind of nullified. that third round man he found a rhythm he found his range he was landing those shots were clean he almost puts him away at the end to come in in the third round and really take it at that point man that was i thought that that was eye opening yes i totally agree so i think he unfortunately does not get the nod but um he definitely showed me there's still a little bit of gas in that tank for sure uh all right okay what the fuck marching tibora Tyrell Fortune.

Oh, man. Chuck. Chuck. I don't know about old Buffy. Dude, Buffer might be losing this fastball, y'all. I don't know.

I mean, I'm not trying to kill him, but this is great, like, look at that. Yeah, I know, man.

Ever since, this was bad, dude, because the guy left the fucking cage. They had to call him back. Like, that was bad. You know,

Bruce has never been the same. So was it, well, UFC 100 when he tore his ACL trying to do the 360. Remember the? Yes, yes. That was the beginning of the end for, no, I do, you know, that's a lot of shows that, that dude, that dude has gone through and, uh, you would expect some mistakes.

But that, these types of mistakes are always so bad, aren't they? Again, Long Island, you had a story about this one too, right? I bet I'm Marchine Taibura. So they, they say Taibura and I'm celebrating. And then, and then they're just staring at him on camera. And I'm like, oh, he's waiting for a post-fight interview and they don't want to give him one. But no, they were waiting. to call back Tyrell Fortune.

So yeah, the whole card was wacky with that. Yeah. I don't give a fuck about the fight. Although I thought Fortune was the rightful winner too. I was like, what the fuck? The only thing with him is, remember when he came up in Bellator?

It was kind of like, they had signed this pack of wrestlers and he were like, okay, man, this could be the future. They might have a bunch of guys, Aaron Pico and these guys that are going to do something, and stuck them on it. It's like they never got out of that prelim mode, you know?

And here we are with Tara. This was his debut, right? like this was his debut in the U.S. and still on the prelims, you know. Yes. Yes. It's just been insanely strange to watch that. Casey O'Neill gets an absolute barn.

We talked about the Women's of M.A. side. This was another example of that where Casey O'Neill beating Gabriela Fernandez, Fernandez, however you say it properly, just bodying her. And this is what I love Chuck is that, you know, I've been waiting for like, so often these women's fights, they're like, you could say, you could say they're competitive because there are a lot of, you know, 29, 28th or split decisions or whatever.

But the problem with these fights have been that one of them is not effectuating change on the fight. Like they're just kind of doing a little bit to each other over the course of 15 minutes. Whereas in this one, and certainly in the commain, like they put the fucking boot to their opponent. That's what I've been waiting to see, you know? You know, and doesn't that, like when you talk about the overall product,

of a car like a fight night if you get two crazy finishes in the women's ranks because I and fairly or unfairly like you look at those and you're like okay those may that may be a distance fight and in the prospect of it you're like well you know these fights may not

be that they may not stand out but they both stood out right like and I think that that's big when you have an event like to get unexpected results like that Casey's she's always kind of been like a nasty fight she goes in there and she wants to throw down but good for her to kind of get something that was a first round right like that was in the first round so yes

it good for her to kind of you know showcase that way i felt like she needed that long island should i care that navajo sterling be bruno lopez no but i did cash the over one and a half and sterling by keel in that fight let's go lunches on long island yeah casey o'neal got robbed dude casey o'neal should have got the performance bonus it's honestly it's about mcanny that poor guy sure Terrence McKinney should have too. No, but let's be real. Terrence wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as Casey's was. Casey and Grasso should have got the bonuses.

They gave it to Joe Pfeiffer. Like Joe Pfefer, nice win. Wait a minute. Brasso didn't get it? No, no, Grasso did. Oh, okay. I was like, what? But with Joe Piper, and I feel like it should have gone to both girls.

Fight of the night was Musay of Bahamundi's rightfully so. That was a bang. Yeah, it was a good fight. Just weird that it went the way it did because of blatant cheating. Okay. Yeah. So that is the UFC. Seattle card. Quite a fun one. Let's go to topic number four if we can here, Chuck. PFL Pittsburgh. Honestly, they had a great night too. Let's start with that main event. Johnny Eblen

bulldozed Brian Battle. I mean, this was one way traffic. If ever there was one, gets it in the first round, chokes him from the back. That's the whole show. Let's ask, though, how redemptive to Eblen stock was this victory? I thought it was great. We know the dude as a competitor. like he's going to be that guy he's coming off a loss in which he was kind of you know he was winning that fight he was when he was going and going away until he gets caught in the last minute against castello vancinas ends up losing this felt to me like a little bit of a buzzsaw moment because if you got a competitor like that they just they pin their ears back and they get back to work and a guy who's a wrestler like that is just like i'm going back to what works for me and you knew that this was coming and i think that in that sense I thought it was fully redemptive for Eblen to show like, hey, man, I am not going anywhere. I'm still the most dominant middleweight in this, in this promotion. The more glaring side of it was the lack of resistance, right, from Brian Battle. I think that he, you know, I talked to him before the fight and there was just some,

there's red flags with guys who are taking a wrestler like, what they don't understand that they're kind of going into a buzzsaw a little bit. And they're like, ah, he's just a name to me, man. I'm going to be able to do what I do in there. And you're thinking, that's probably not the right mindset going into this fight and it certainly played out. I actually, after I talked to Brian Battle, I felt pretty convinced that Eblen would win. I did not think it would look that easy.

I mean, on Friday's MK, I was, I said it. You can look it up. It's not that I didn't, I wasn't curious about Brian Battle. I was curious. But I was not, I was not, because the fan base responded really favorably to him before he left the UFC at a way that kind of surprised me. Because they were all like, well, you got it. This guy's marching people down and blah, blah. I'm like, that's true.

The long jab, powerful puncher. Like, again, there's reasons for enthusiasm, but he hadn't beaten anybody good. And I was like, well, what the fuck are we doing here? Yeah. And then he goes up against Evelyn, to your point, who's not just a competitor. You could comfortably put Eblen in top 10,

middleweight division of UFC. And it's just a dogged wrestler. Randy Brown took battle down twice in the first round of their thing. I'm like, dude, if Randy Brown is taking you down like that, I know. I know. Fucking Johnny Eblen is. going to put you into the wood chipper and that is exactly what he fucking did.

So I don't, you know, you can question the value of the win in the sense of battle is good, but against this kind of caliber of opponent is definitely untested. But I'm going to say, I think it's pretty redemptive for Evelyn. He needed a, he needed a dominant, good, okay, solid win. And he got it. And I think that that is, clearly he's the next guy for Van Stinas. In a very strange way, Brian battles. you know, kind of trajectory.

Because he was like 6-1-1 or something like that in the UFC. Misses weight a couple times, you know, and the second time as a middleweight. He still comes in over and they part ways. But they were trying to book him for the fight that got canceled in Chicago. I'm trying to remember the guy. They had him against a guy who would have probably exposed Brian Battle in the exact way that Eblen did.

And I was kind of, when the fight was supposed to happen, I thought that was maybe going to be the case. It's almost like he got he bought some time though to build up his own cult of personality over that time because he goes over to dirty boxing stands in there. And is, you know, was able to, you know, have some exposure and kind of like land on his feet. And then he ends up in a main event and PFL. And I kind of felt like what we were saying like, obviously this was not a good matchup for him. But it was like, dude, I don't know if he was if he, if he goes through with that fight in the UFC, probably none of this happens.

It almost like bought him this year like this kind of strange victory lap over the last year. Um, yeah, it has been kind of weird. Well, that one came to a screeching hall. Nevertheless, Brian Battle is still a good signing for PFL. I think still can be a part of some fun fights there. Um, I don't think it's a bad thing that he's part of that organization. I just think Eblen put out a reminder being like, right, I'm going to be able to do things in this division that only a couple of guys at PFL are going to be able to deal with if at all. Rusey.

Boe, right? That's, that's the guy. Long Island is supposed to do it. Yeah. Nersolson Roosevelt. Yeah. That was the guy. I mean, if we didn't find out against Eblen,

we were going to find out at that moment, right? Yeah, exactly. Good point. I'm Luke Wilson. Join me each week for Film Never Lies. Since retiring from the NFL, I've had a lot of my mind, and now got my own show. If you're tired or lazy takes,

if you want honest conversations, join us each week. Film Never Lies, available on all TSN platforms and the IHeart Radio app. Impakasanga Nye in the Co-Main. I tell you what, man. Look at this photo, bro. Look at this photo of him just gyrating and cavorting.

Like five people, yeah. In that, in that octagon. And he's dancing in the background there. Yeah, he stops fucking, uh, Dalton Rasta in the first round, just three minutes and 18 seconds, Dalton Rasta from the Pittsburgh area. PFL was in Pittsburgh. Uh, unfortunately, Impa silenced the crowd, which was not great. However, however, I got to tell you, dude, Impeka Sang and I just continues to be a part of,

of like I don't know memorable fights memorable action you know so what do they do here with him do they give him a title shot what do you think I mean they seem to think so on the broadcast I mean the the Ebblin fight like if Eblin and obviously he showcased very well but you're like to put him against Costello right it's it's an obvious slam dunk it's a the way the fight went down it was almost cinematic storybook ending for one guy you give the other guy the chance to get it back but you do set up the possibility of a trilogy all that stuff I would almost like put that on the back burner. You got Castell, like he just went into Spain and we were talking about this and kind of, you know, a tailor-made event was able to win against Fabian Edwards.

Capitalize on that a little bit. I think you would have a very fun fight if you were to put him against Impo, right? Like I think if you put those two guys together, that's a fun fight, but you still have that Eblen fight in the future. That would be the way that I would handle it if I'm the PFL, but it would be interested to see if they just automatically run back. Sometimes you're like, you want to be a. in business with Costello, Vancinas, who they took to Spain, and I think that they believe that he's got a little bit of the, you know, that

kind of Spanish, you know, that rabid fan base is like part of what's happening, so they got a guy who represents more than just a champion. Or do you want to be in the Eblen business where, you know, they've been at, Bellator was in it, and you're like, well, that's good. He's a very dominant guy, but maybe not a needle mover.

If you're thinking like that, I'm putting him in that title fight. Um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, I, Um, uh, is last UFC fight was against Carlston Harris. Oh, wow. And he, and he lost in the first round, uh, getting punched out and then finished off on the ground. It's like, dude, did they rematch today? Who's picking Carlston Harris? Nobody. I forgot all about that fight. But that's, that's good on him. Again, there are certain

guys who go over and they make the most of their transition, right? Like they, they, he's, he'll always be part of that Joaquin Buckley, you know, footage forever, the B-roll, like it's going to exist forever. But he has been, like you said, man, there's something about him. You see his name and it's all, it's not in the, it's, it's, it almost has that feeling of something will happen, right? Like something good, something wild is going to happen in his fight. That's kind of what you want with a guy like that. For sure.

With Dalton Rasta, I feel bad, but like it's kind of, you know, like students of the game, pay attention. Rasta overcommits and Kassanga and I makes him pay for it, uh, positionally with his feet, I mean. and then same thing with macy barber chuck she over commits and then has to get back up a little bit but you're stuck is it just donk is it straight donked them that they do this like it's it's gonna be teached out of because i feel like it can it can definitely be teached out or taught out it's just you've got to have the right i mean the student has to want it and the teacher has to demand it and i often find that that's not the case like it isn't boxing but it's not the case in mama you

got to remember though like it's a tough thing to do pressure in m m ms yields so many rewards that getting people to not pressure as hard, like pressuring just the right amount, it's actually much more difficult than it looks. And so that's why these guys just jump into range, you know what I mean? Because it seems like it's forceful and it's immediate, but it's also just reckless against somebody who can punch your lights out. Did you think you'd fare better? I mean, like, when you, the promotion risks something when they're like, all right, you're

from Pittsburgh going to put you on a co-main event against a guy who could like silence the room and I mean everybody kind of knew that. Did you think that it would be a closer fight than it ended up being? Yes. I still would have favored Kisangana. What were the pre-fight odds on that one, Long Island? Do you know? Yeah, Dalton was like a minus

185. Impa was like plus 150. That's crazy, man. Yeah. Yeah. Dost was coming in off of a fucking head kick kale loss, you know? Yeah. I thought that it would be kind of a back and forth fight. Like you'd see some fireworks both ways just sky fight and someter. But it ended up

being you're we were talking about the you know um craziest women fights it reminded me of the jessica i when she got knocked out wasn't that in cleveland i feel like it was in cleveland she fought valentina but i could be wrong about that but wherever it was it shut the like it was like it was more of like a oh my god what did i just see when jess guy went down after that head gig um the rest of the card maybe up to your interest josh frem got a uh very nice stoppage over uh uh Al Salawi. I'm not sure I'd say his first name. So there's some interesting moments on that one. I will say that this young up-and-coming 24-year-old prospect, Alexi Paragande, Pergonde.

I'm not sure he pronounces his name. I got to start watching these broadcasts with the volume up. Yeah. He beat Louis Arce. Arce arguably made a run back in the third round, but nevertheless, at 24 at 8.0. No, no. That's a pretty good win by him. Did you have two TV set up, like, or was all of it? Because I went from the UFC over to PFL, and it was kind of already on the comane, but I didn't have two TV set up.

I had to watch it after the fact because I went to run out. I did my post fight show, so I was actually, I was getting updates about it when I was doing. So diligent. I know. Well, gotta make that money. You know what I'm saying? Very quickly, before we go to topic number five, let's talk about our good friends at,

I got it right here. How about this? Cuervo, yes, April 8th. You can join us again in studio. It's going to be a fun-ass time, April 8th. I feel like this margaritas, Brian Campbell. That's right. we get ready for UFC 327. From face off to final decision, Fight Night delivers the adrenaline and Cuervo the energy to match it.

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And we're going to be enjoying some Cuervo, April 8th, April 8th in New York City to get you ready for UFC 327. It's always the best. All right. Very good. Big thanks to our friends at Cuervo. Let's go to topic number five here, if we can, Chuck. Just combat sports from around the weekend.

There was a lot going on in all of this. So one of my favorite results this weekend, I mean, Moses Itama just absolutely sending, you can see it here, Jermaine Franklin to the fucking land of Winding Ghosts, 21 years old. Dude, true or false, Chuck, in either MMA or boxing, Moses Itama is the most exciting thing in heavyweight combat sports. Oh, man, I mean, we still got Marchens Hebrough. Let me think here. No, I mean, come on, in the UFC, it's like, in the UFC, it's, there's nobody right now who's matching this. And honestly, in boxing, when you get a young dude like this, I mean, I hate the Mike Tyson references to stuff like this.

But you see an uppercut from a 21-year-old guy. Does it not remind you of before Trevor Berwick, like kind of the Marvin Frazier type? The guys he was just knocking out before he got to that moment and you're like, this dude is coming. That's exciting. When you see young guys do this, it's always very exciting. And dude, look at that knockout, the spray that comes off of him and just the stagger. I mean, look at this. Boom.

It's almost like you see the ghosts come out. But it's, that's just, that's phenomenal stuff. He uses, even in the Dillon White, right? Like, he's, he uses his spotlight really well, the little escalation and talent stuff and guys he's facing who should give him more problems and they're not at all. That's exciting stuff, man. Yeah, he do. He sets up shots.

You know, he takes his time. He picks his punches, but he's fast. He's athletic. Holy shit. poised. Like he just looks like he's not even bothered by it, you know? Yeah. He's ready for the moment. He looked incredible. All right. Let's go to

what our friend of the show, Brian Campbell, was commentating this weekend. Sebastian Fondora basically stops Keith Thurman, I believe, a six round stoppage. Um, and not, it didn't just stop it moving. This is basically a pretty good indication. This is the final sequence, obviously, Chuck.

But like, it was, I mean, Thurman got bombed on here. This was, you know, kind of hard to watch, to be honest with you a little bit. At least the last couple rounds when it was starting to go real fucking bad for him. Has Sebastian Fondora

who looks like a gigantic praying mantis. He does, man. Because he convinced you to take him seriously now. I think so, man. Who's he 6 foot 6? At 154? Like fighting it's just, it's such a, it's a bizarre, praying mantis is the exact way to say it.

But man, he's in there now. and there are fun fights. It looks like they just made the Boots Zaya's fight, by the way. Yeah. I see that now. I mean, I was actually going to say like one of those types of fighters might be a lot of fun for him. But that fight's a great one too. I'm not taking any way away.

I think that that's a very fun fight. I think that you should take Fondora serious. I mean, it's fun to you've got like the sibling between him and his sister, kind of ruling two sides of the boxing world. And yeah, man, I'm looking forward to see him more from this kid. I thought he was great. The only thing that wasn't so great was after the fire. I don't know if you saw this.

He basically was like, you know, I'll fight anyone, but, you know, he's going to prioritize a PBC opponent. And it's like, dude, Fondora is, I believe, the regular, like the normal WBC champion. Virgil Ortiz is the interim one. Right. Of the same weight class, same sanctioning org. And he's like, oh, I don't want to fight.

because he's not PBC and it's like, I'm like, boxers, this is the worst time. I mean, it's a little late now, I suppose. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore.

But like, while they're going through Congress to get laws rewritten about how this shit's going to go, these guys are like, yeah, I still don't want to fight outside of people in my organization.

You're, you guys, you deserve what's coming to you. You know what I mean? Also such a buzzkill on the microphone to do that. Like, you're like, dude,

just let people believe that it might happen at least. Why, you don't have to express that, you know? Yeah. Just lie. to us. I know. Face.

That is the fight to make. That is the fight to make. Now that the other guys are booked up. Armin Sorukian side quest, Chuck, they keep yielding good results. He wins 9 to 3 of Georgia O'Poulas and he gets, watch here, he's going to pinch him down right here and then he's going to go to the back and scoop around

and here comes a 4 point throw. Boom. So he closed it out. It was 5 to 3 and that made it 9 to 3. He wins the rivalry. I don't know. You still enjoying these? What do they do? for you. I mean, I am, but it's like it's, it's kind of new. I've told you before, you know, I confess, I don't watch a ton. Like I should watch the NCAAs as they're kind of happening. I know you, you check in on those. I just don't do it. So even the scoring and stuff like what we're,

what we're looking at, especially tactically, I'm like, you know, I don't know what everything that's going on. But dude, when he makes that and it's a four point and it's a fairly close match at that point, and it brings the house alive. I mean, that's kind of fun, isn't it? Like, I, I thought it was a cool moment. RAF puts on good shows, man. Yeah, man. Their matchmakers are clever. I really like their product.

Yeah, and they got like a big show. Their next one is like Marab is on it and in Philadelphia. I mean, it's just, I love to see these guys kind of thrown into the, you, it's, it's kind of a reverse way of looking at wrestling. Like you see it filtered in through MMA and then you're like, okay, wait, now let's just strip it down to its essence and watch these guys on a mat. It's kind of fun to do it this way. It certainly is. Colby Covington gets the win over Dylan Dennis.

Here's the end of it via tech fall. For folks who don't know what tech fall is, that basically means mercy rule. Right. When you just absolutely, it means, it's 12 at the NCAAs. I forget what it was for RAF. But, you know, look at this. He's going to turn him here. This is called a gut wrench right there.

Boom. You know, just beating the bags off of him. He just ran out of gas. it seemed like that like he didn't have the stamina to it's i mean he started off it started off a little more competitive but just as it went on it felt like he had nothing for cobley yeah well these guys who've been wrestling since they were my daughter's age you know they've just got a certain level of yeah comfortability with it all and it was hilarious like chel son and asked him these questions and then colby did a chel son and on him where he answers not the question he was asked

just whatever he wanted to like make it a focus on you know chel could appreciate that he he better He's the one who did it, you know, in MMA anyway. All right, that's our top five. What a great weekend. With that in mind, let's go to our segment where you get to ask us questions. It's time for DMs from dogs. That's the first thing you hear before the police come out and say, this is a prostitution bust. All right.

Topic number one. From Perk 3,000, excuse me. I understand the fans calling for Izzy to retire, not wanting to see him lose another fight. But other than that, why should he? He gets paid a couple million every fight. He does not get paid a couple million every fight. Let me fucking assure you. And this is the thing he loves to do most in this world. It's not like he's getting destroyed. Yes, he is, like Tony Ferguson was on his way out. If he wants to keep going and isn't taking serious damage, why not? Every part of the premise of this question is wrong. He doesn't make two million a fight and he is getting destroyed. Yeah. It's a tough

I mean, we covered this pretty ad-nostic, but like, it's just, it's a tough thing, right? I don't know why. I guess I just don't like the open-endedness of what he's doing. I don't really love the, you guys are going to have to kick me out. Like, there's something about his comportment and his makeup that I feel like should know better than that. Maybe he's just saying it. But I'm like, I don't like that kind of mentality when a guy doesn't seem to be meeting the standard of who's standing in front of him. it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's amazing that people would think in a non-title main event

he's making two million dollars no fucking chance that's true that's probably three or four times what he's actually getting that's an insane thing to think yeah um but uh the other part too is like okay is he getting abused like tony ferguson was getting abused against justing Gachie, no, he's not getting that. But that's what's next. You keep going and that's what's going to happen. You can't get out of the way the punches, man. Yeah. And the other part too is like, too, like getting

battered like he did, like maybe his nose got broken, I don't know, but I'm saying just the punches like he took generally. Dude, these are going to fuck your life up if you take enough of them. Like looking at this and thinking, oh, this is a thing you can just, he's treating it. Like, the question was like, you know,

it's like playing pickleball. Like, you know, everything's fine. We're just, you know, hitting the ball out in the old pickleball court. Dude, this is not fucking pickleball. He used to have a little bit more of, it's just like a spring, springy evasiveness. So he could just kind of get out of the way. And once that goes,

it just changes everything, you know? And so like there was one, I know there was one big punch. I think it was a right hand that Piper landed that was pretty telegraphed. And I mean, it was just, it was just standing there and then just telegraphed and it and it connects, it full on connects. And you're like, that's just not a punch he would have gotten hit with earlier in his career. All right, question number two.

From pursue, uh, or no, excuse me, uh, per used dreams. Uh, whatever the,

or per us dreams. Whatever the fuck. Who cares? What are your thoughts on the AI, oh, I'm so glad someone asked about this. What are your thoughts on the AI slop argument from Dana? Or lack thereof.

Just shut the fuck up and watch the fights. Are Dana's thoughts, by the way? Let me set this up for the audience, Chuck. if they didn't see it. Someone in the post-fight press conference asked Dana White about, hey, some of the fans are upset

that you guys are using AI to generate some of these graphics or images that you're using for, you know, both the television broadcast, but beyond that as well. And Dana, first of all, I didn't even understand the question, like, what's the problem? And then someone had to explain it to him. It was, like, they're using AI. And his response was,

here's my response. Shut the fuck up to the fans and watch the fights. What do you think? Chuck. Well, you did have a good night of fight. So you understand like, hey, why are we talking about this? We just said that we finally had the best night of 2006 on Paramount Plus. Yeah, but this made it worse. Here we are talking about this bullshit answer. And I'm like that, unfortunately, anything that feels cheap or lazy is going to glare at you. And especially in a new era, like where you think that they're going to go the extra mile to do these things.

I noticed it right away. Did you like when you're watching it, you're like, wait, What is this? Of course. I mean, it's just like anything, like you go see a, you seem like a man of taste. So like you would probably rather watch a think piece of a movie at the Limley theater.

I'm a dub tea and I really want a vape. Yeah. Rather than like some, you know, uh, explosion CGI type movie. That's definitely true. You would choose that.

And I, I feel like that's kind of the cheapening effect of something like that. Come on, man. Have something like you have like, you have the monopoly on the sport like put some effort into it. I, I'm,

maybe I'm nitpicking, but that's the way it feels to me. Like, dude, just think about something for a second. Like, you know, Dana White makes probably a lot of money. Does he make as much money as like the McDonald's CEO or something like that, right? Like, yeah. Maybe, maybe it's on par. Maybe it's even a little bit more. But, you know, like the McDonald's CEO is a pretty well compensated position, right?

Tens of millions probably per annual. Yeah. Could you imagine the McDonald's CEO responding to someone saying something about how his product is a little lazy? and him responding, shut the fuck up and eat the fries. Can you imagine something like that? The reason why you can't imagine it, even though that's a huge company and they have a big market share and the owner, or I should say that the owner, but the president of the McDonald's or the CEO makes a lot of money is that it would be automatically ruinous for any brand that still has to answer to their customers. this is the kind of thing that not even a fucking power company

an electric fucking company says to you about your fucking bill even they don't do it I want everyone to understand this is the problem with the UFC and it's been the people like oh it's the Paramount era it's Hunter Campbell it's Monopoly everyone it is fucking time

to stop blaming Paramount or Hunter Campbell or whoever the fuck it is monopoly. They don't, they know it. They know they don't owe you shit. And there's nothing short of just leaving the shit completely alone

that you can do about it. And they fucking know it. That's the fucking problem. Well said, man. It's true. It drives me fucking crazy. You know what's crazy? Even us, even us talking about it and pointing this out, like, you know, there's a, there is such a knee-jerk fan reaction from certain

fans who are, who are being talked to that way that will be like, dude, Dana's where he's at because, you know, they're just going to defend it anyway. Like, it doesn't, that's the, that's the craziest thing. There's certain dogs beneath the hail who like the abuse. Yeah. Oh, dude, Dana told us to go fuck ourselves. Hell yeah. He's so cool for that.

You know? Yeah. It's like, dude, you ate paint as a kid. I can just tell, bro. You don't have any sense of self whatsoever. And then the other part two here, Chuck, last thing on this, and we'll move on. But the other part too is it's like, part of, listen, I use AI at times as a way because I just don't have a 24 hours in a day to be able to do all of the things I want with the kind of manicured process with all the things I've got going on. I just don't have the ability to do that.

But I try to, I gave up my chat GPT account. I only use Anthropic. And there's no responsible this choice, but I feel like that's a better one than Open AI. I try to be very, very limiting in the ways in which I use it, either for research or to help out with thumbnails on my political channel, because I just don't have time to sit there and make them. And so there can be use cases for it. And I try to lean into those and I try to be mindful of it for any number of reasons.

But like the UFC just signed a $7.7 billion deal. They could easily afford the kinds of teams that they need to be able to make stuff that looks really great on camera. They're just doing it cheaply. And it's like, this is emblematic of everything. You're giving us a worse product because you're cost cutting. And we're all poorer for it for then Dana to be like, go fuck yourselves. It's like, dude, they don't, customers understand.

They don't give a fuck about your opinion because they know you can't do shit about it. that's the truth. Amen. All right. It's true. There you. All right. Topic, question number three.

You don't know Tyler says, is it time for UFC to change out commentary teams more frequently? Do we need to rotate, Chuck? What do you think? I mean, they already rotate, obviously. Do you ever go back? Like, you know, you go on the fight pass, which I love because you can go watch old fights and just get a sense of whatever happened.

And, or just revisit. But like, you get Mike Goldberg, and he's just. like, that's it's hard to be a rock star, right? You know, or something like that, right when Ronda Rouse is getting knocked out and you're like, oh my God, everybody's panicking and he's like, it has gotten so much better from those days.

We don't realize it because you just kind of watch it in a linear way and you just keep going. But it's so much better than the old days. Yet I understand the question. I understand the concern because there are times where the booth gets almost a little too giddy where they just go off on these little side jaunce uh and that can be fun but when it becomes too fun like where it becomes a little too

lucy goosey there's times that that bothers me i don't know why like it's usually a cornea booth uh you know where he's just laughing and having a good time and talking about something a little bit of that's cool but there's there's also i don't know there's a great jew at all like there's just times where i'm like come on guys stay on point here a little bit you know um i think that we got like you got to be kind of precise about the the criticism first of all i feel like the play-by-play side that UFC has is super strong. Yes. So that'd be John Anick, Brendan Fitzgerald, John Gooden, and even Dan Helly, I'd throw in there as well.

Yeah, yeah. They're all good. And John Anick keeps everything on point. Like the thing I'm talking about, he'll reel it in. He'll know when it's going too far. Like, I just don't have any meaningful criticism about that side of the ledger at all. To me, the real problems are on the color side. Okay.

I think Paul Felder's good. I think Laura Sanko is good. I recognize that there are limits because, you know, D.C. can get a little giggly with Rogan. That's not a great combo. But in general, especially when he's like really leaning into the rest, like, when DC is focused and talking about technique, I love his commentary. Yeah.

You know, Cruz. Or when he's just, I feel like he's really up on what's happening. Like, I'm not trying to, I know it's a big workload, man. They're running shows every week. And there's seven-hour shows. It's a lot of fights. It's a lot of knowledge. you have to carry around from week to week.

For sure. So you have to give him some grace on this, but I do sometimes I'm like, you know, I don't know, maybe the like the research part of it could be stronger and, you know, not just with DC. I'm saying like in general. There's some of that.

And there's some other ones on there like, you know, I'm not going to go through all of them. But, you know, I like most of what I, but I just feel like they haven't, they, Kies is coming up and I think they're still trying to get him, you know, some reps. I feel like,

they need to be a little bit more aggressive with trying out some other names, but they'd like to keep their guys. I agree with you. Dominic Cruz, Paul Felder, those types of guys really do a great job. If you were just like kind of towing that line between the officiantado who's watched a lot of fights and the person who hasn't watched a lot of fights, kind of given you the basis of what you're looking at, you know, and it's especially certain setups and, you know, why it's, why it's effective or whatever it is. They do a very good job of towing that line. That to me is very good commentary.

Let's go to the next question. This is from V. Sanchez underscore 88. Will Long Island Luke ever do a fan edition of Prop Quiz? Long Island. I'm not against this. Not against this whatsoever. The problem being is that obviously I cater every topic to the guests. And like if a random fan is doing it, I obviously know nothing about this fan.

So maybe if I come up with just some generic. topics, I'd be into it. But I definitely need to broaden the contestants. We need to bring more people in. So anyone's seeing this, hit me up. He's like, I'll take any fan as long as they're celebrity and they're going to bring a lot of traffic to myself. As long as Brian can bang your wife.

Oh, yeah. All right. Last but not least. That's the best one. I know. Question number five. Do you have any April, any funny April Fool stories? No, I'm not a fucking idiot. No. I mean, do you remember, though? who was it the dude like there was fighters there were a couple of fighters and they were bad they were in really bad taste they uh when twitter became a thing and they would tease out like i'm out of my fight or whatever yeah or they'd be like my fight is canceled or whatever and you'd be like news outlets wouldn't you know they would almost be trying to run with this and then they'd be like no it's all a joke you know there's been some bad ones April fools I'm not a fan April fools is for dullards just straight up you can you can quote me on that for dollars or kids

But I mean the adults who play it out, I'm like, come on. Yeah, listen, if you're my daughter's age and you want to do April Fool's, cool. Exactly. I'll play along. But for anybody else, go fuck yourself. Fuck you, bro. Yeah, here, I want to turn to Dana White. Shut the fuck up and watch MK.

Okay? Who the fuck do you think you are, brother? Yeah. You're going to have to, you're going to have to get the snippet of the, of the, you know, whatever we're just talking about, where he's going on about the AI. You need that one in the repertoire here. Yeah, exactly. I'll at it. But for now I got this.

This weekend, I'll be doing the crack. Dude, Long Island's going to get you with that sound machine. Don't think he won't. Oh, baby. All right. With that in mind, remember, we're still running a contest, so keep sending them morningcombat at gmail.com, but it's time now for some fan subs.

Let's do it. You've got mail. Viewers. All right, this is from, first one, it's from Quinn. It's a meme. And she's, are he or she says, what the fuck? Are those hats? Oh, Chuck Mindenhall, whenever Long Island Luke puts him on full screen with that wide

angle shot. Yeah, because you go see all the hats in the background. Yeah, I got a pile of them over there, you know? That's how I end up with Detroit. Is it you just grab something, put it on. I wish I had that many hats. I have like three hats. I don't even, I don't think I've ever seen you wear a hat.

Only when you're going into public and you're trying to avoid, like, fans. Yeah, I've seen you do that. I definitely put a hat on and a hood up and then like just walk around like this middle fingers. Don't fucking talk to me. I'm teasing. All right. Topic number, or what's not talking about number two here on this says,

Good day, jents. This is from Jeff. Making a meme competition has stirred my creative juices. All right. We've got five memes and a video as well. Here we go. UFC champions reading legal documents defining what their championship belts actually mean. All right.

Not far off. BC as an orangutan and then the straw weight he's going to interview. Oh, yeah. That's how it appears to them, at least. I don't know if you can ride a tricycle. Here's Mark Zuckerberg. Hi, I'm your neighbor that booed you at a UFC event. If you need anything, I'll do my best to make it worse.

Come by the data center anytime. I do hate Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah, look at that. All right, your choice is become a lawyer or cover the most racist and sexist sport ever. And then there's Jed who's sweating it out. That's pretty good This is This is

MMA is the official sport of fascism It is just I mean In fucking insane How full of awful people it is All right next Here's the urinal And then coming up Did you hear Kid Rock is performing

A UFC Freedom 250 Do you think they're gonna have Kid Rock at the White House? I think I'd spritz on that guy If that happened like if somebody came up to me Empty Urines I don't know But it does feel

That fits kind of the motif they've been going with. Every time you see Trump in an event, isn't Kid Rock right on his side? Like, they come out together. Dude, the oil's going to be at like $250 a barrel, and there's going to be, ball with the ball, the bang, go, digger, digger. And people are going to be like, yeah, we want you to take MMA seriously. That's not.

No. No. What's the video? Just fired the person that does that, but now you have been promoted. You are now one of my elite employees. You missed some trash over there, honey. It's not bad.

Not too dissimilar from how it went. All right. This is from Kelsey. Is this a girl? Is this a girl? Apparently. All right. Yeah. Longtime fan of the show, Kelsey writes. Listening for a few years now.

So yes, you do have female listeners slash dogs. She might be the only one. This is the meme I came up with. I think the Netflix card is better than the White House card and agree with the sentiment that it should have been better star power matchups, but Long Island's hate for it as high for how much he loves fight night prelims.

It's good point. Fingers cross the cards, get better matchups that are more relevant to the rankings, keep up the great work. What's wrong with this meme? This is a great meme. What's wrong with this meme is I've actually defended the White House card. I've anti it.

Oh, so she should have put the MVP card on the girl right. There you go. But her point was that she's holding the MVP card higher than the White House card. You know what your problem is with the MVP card. It's just that there are too many prohibitive favorites on it. And you're like, nah, this is. Yeah, it's not a good betting card. That's what it is.

No, you know what it is? People gave me a lot of shit for those comments, by the way. And they're like, bro, you stream, you stream Apex prelims. And I'm like, I never said I'm not going to stream the MVP card. I said, I'm not going to go to it. I said I wouldn't go to it if it was the local thing in town. Just like I wouldn't go to a shitty apex card if it was the local thing in. Yes, you would.

Doesn't mean a lot of them. What if they were given a free banana head liqueur or whatever it is? Howlerhead? Howlerhead? I don't think they're still involved with that, are they? I haven't seen that around much anymore. They are involved with Bud Light though. And anyone who knows me, you know,

that's how you get me to a place. Is that your beer of choice, Bud Light? Sadly, yes. I'm not a beer snob at all. I don't think you need to drink great beer, but Blood Light is also just bad. You know what I mean? tea and I really want to vape. That's fair. All right, from Donagan. Donagan and

Anderson day one donk still sat over Brian's leaving, but I'm excited about the new full-time Friday host, the famous and talented Glup Shiddo. And just like Brian, he is a huge fan of women's 115 pound of age. So do you know who Glubb Shitto is? Is he a Star Wars character? I, no, not really. Sort of. So yes and no. So like he's not a real Star Wars character. Okay. someone had to explain this to me a while ago but I learned it my understanding and if I'm getting this wrong some nerd can correct me

my understanding is that like the Star Wars fan base is so accommodating of like new characters that they don't ever quite like they oh we like jar jargon banks we like all the awful ones yeah and so like they could roll out one called glupp shito you don't know anything about them you'd be like yeah he fucking rules you know glop shito just a banana slug

you know just a banana slug that no one gives a fuck about, you know? Did you, I don't know if you ever gave me like a, do you have an opinion of like the Star Wars to charge our being set episode, though, all of those like, did you like those or? George Lucas and that whole crew should be sent to the Hague. Dix. Dicks. Dicks everywhere, Dicks. Dude. These people who grew up with the Phantom Menace when they were kids arguing with me that it's actually great cinema is one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen. I genuinely I'm like, I, like, if I see that and then I also see that you got charged with like some sex crime, I'm, I'm going to think poorly of you in either way. Right. But like, you'd be surprised how competitive not thinking Phantom Menace is bad is on par with me looking at your sex crime on your rap sheet. I'm like, these are not, these are both really fucking bad. What are you doing with your life? Exactly. Embarrassing the people. All right. From Matt, we got a meme here. He says, I'm coming for that signed. I'm feeling these margaritas, Brian Campbell.

Holy smokes. I'm so glad I was there for that event in Vegas when you guys were. Yeah, I don't remember you being there. That tells you a lot. I showed up on stage. I showed up on stage for a little while. I know. I do remember that.

I'm teasing. But like, Jesus. I'm never going to live that down. All right. Last man, I leaves, we have one from John McLean. Says Long Island Luke's brain 10 beers and bong hits into the main car. Oh, God.

This is accurate. That was me in that moment. And I was, you know, I lost my Macy Barber money line bet and that was me. It's like so funny. It's like I missed the Musayabam Mondes fight live and then I went back in Washington. Like, oh, wow, this is so fucked up. And then I talked along out. He's like, I didn't even notice.

I know. I made a fan sub while we were live, Luke, because I noticed you were wearing the UFC Seattle flannel. So who wore it better guys? Wow. You were Kyle Nelson. Wait, is that legit? Dude, they were giving these out.

It looks exactly like what Luke's wearing. Yeah. So every fighter was in it. Macy Ward for Media Day, you know, everyone had it. Hell yeah, bro. This is the only Carhart thing that I think I own. So this wasn't deliberately an homage to like the fight. No, no, I just wore it like a fucking idiot.

It's a coincidence. All right. Chuck, why don't you tell the good folks what you have that they can read or they can watch this weekend I'll be doing the crack. Yeah, I'll be doing the crack. Besides fentanyl. I, uh, this week are doing the crack on Wednesday. So, uh, you can cut that off long on Luke.

don't know. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's a Wednesday show this week. And I'll have a couple. I have like some columns coming up and I'll have a feature probably rolling out on Monday that involves cup of Swanson. Very good. Long Island, Luke, what do you got cooking?

I'll have a bet breakdown for this really terrible UFC Vegas 115 event. We got this. Have you looked at this card? It is awful. Shout out to the main event. It's a fun main event. What's the main? I mean, Moikano, Chris Duncan. Oh, right, right, right. It should be a bloodbath, you know. But I'll bet breakdown for that. New tourney for Prop Quiz starts on Friday.

Hopefully, you know, I can get an episode before that. But yeah, so tune out for that and, you know, watch along for this Apex Slop on Saturday. Hell yeah. I will not be watching the Apex Slop this Saturday. You can, I'm going to be spending time with my family. Let's see. What do we have going on for me?

You can just go to my YouTube channels and all that good stuff there. Go check that out. Of course, we're always on social. Chuck is as well. Yeah, you can find everything on IG and Twitter for him. Reminder, Morningcombat at gmail.com. Keep the memes coming. We're going to announce the winner for the last month this coming Friday.

So be on the lookout. We'll get that done. To keep sending them in. We love them. We appreciate them. They make the show better. So thank you to everyone who contributes to them. Even if we like them or we don't.

We appreciate all of them that come in. So thank you very much. Shut the fuck up and keep sending them. Anything else? Oh, yes. Morningcombat.combat. Shop. Today and tomorrow, these are the last two days to get 40% off on all the t-shirts, all the designs you see.

40% off just today and just tomorrow. And then that is it. All right. For Long Island Luke, for Chuck Mendenhall, I am LT. We'll see you guys on Friday. Appreciate you guys watching. Until next time, may all of your gains be loyal. This is an I-Heart podcast.

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