MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jon Jones Beats Dominick Reyes, UFC 247, Gary Russell Jr.

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Luke and Brian debate Jon Jones controversial win over Dominick Reyes and break down the rest of the UFC 247 card. They also talk about Gary Russell Jr's big win over "King Tug" and if a big 2020 is ahead for Russell. #MorningKombat #JonesReyes #UFC247 MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL, Showtime's first live digital series, spotlights the weekend’s biggest news from the world of combat sports. MORNING KOMBAT airs live every Monday at 12 PM ET / 9 AM PT. Subscribe to Morning Kombat! https://app.radio.com/listen-live-morning-kombat     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It is Monday, what is the date today? The 10th of February 2020, and it is time for Morning Combat. It's been time for Morning Combat. I'm so mad right now. I'm so angry. I don't understand what your terrible argument is, but apparently Eminem's rap catalog is like two attractive women in their 40s, whatever. Neither here nor there. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas, host of this program, alongside my co-host and trusty steed, Ryan Campbell from CBS Sports, among a variety of other places as well. We appreciate you guys tuning in.

Before we get to anything else, of course, please give the video a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel. We also appreciate that when you do. We're really trying to drive those numbers up, so tell a friend. I always tell folks to tell people about it. Please do. Look, MKUltra is like nothing else going on in the combat world. Look, we tell the truth, alright? And on Mondays at noon, work sucks, I know.

This is the remedy right there, okay? And also, there's no marketing in this world like WOM, word of mouth. That's the number one form of marketing. That's how you can pass a lot of STDs that way, too. Dual threat. Dual threat. Alright, you can pass a lot of STDs that way, too. Dual threat. Yes.

Dual threat. All right, we've got a lot to get to. Did you enjoy 247, by the way? No. Well, I didn't think the card was that bad. That's a little unfair. On paper, it was horrible. And I saw some dunks in our comments trying to defend it, by the way.

There's certainly surprises, people that jumped out, a couple of decent good fights. Overall, though, the controversy that came out of the Jones-Reyes fight and the spinoff debates that fuel shows like this and your radio show all week, I'm sure, it was entertaining. It created a storyline. Had Jon won a lifeless decision or sort of easily destroyed Reyes, I think we would have exited that card going, man, they got to do a little bit more for us. Let's kick it off. We'll go to you first in here. All right, folks. Jon Jones, controversially, but John Jones retains his UFC light heavyweight title. He wins a unanimous decision in Houston, Texas. The scores were 48-47, 48-47, 49-46. That means two judges had it three rounds to two for John Jones. One judge had it four rounds to one. All right, Brian Campbell. Yes. Let's get into

this. I talked a lot about this on the weekend on YouTube on my personal platforms. So I would love to hear from you. First question is this. One, how did you score it? Two, is it a robbery? 48-47 was my scorecard for Dom Reyes. Which rounds? Rounds one, two, and three. Four and five for John. I agreed with what you said and dissected. Spoiler alert. Professor Salt-N-Pepa was there saying, look, one, four, and five, can't argue them. They're clear. Two and three are sort of the closer competitive rounds. Robbery is always such a tough word in this spot.

Was this a robbery? No. A robbery, it sort of teases the idea of corruption mixed with ignorance, right? I think this is just a little bit more of ignorance. Boxing fans were uniting Saturday night going, oh, welcome, welcome to the Terror Dome. It's called Texas, right? Texas forever.

I mean, clean heart, full eyes, can't lose. Actually, you can lose because Dom Reyes did, and he should have won that fight. What was the Paulie Malignaggi fight where he went crazy on the Texas team? The first one against Juan Diaz. And, you know, boxing is full of shit, man. I used to love this sport. Great quote by Paulie, by the way.

Look, here's the deal. We're already stuck in a world in MMA and UFC at the highest level where we are using an archaic boxing scoring system. State by state, the commissions change the rules on so many things anyway, as you saw Saturday night with Texas using an archaic rule set. But the fact that they still haven't figured out at the highest level. We see decisions like this in boxing all the time, whether it's straight up corruptness or whether it's just we're going to, it's just a combination of it all. Usually in MMA at the highest level, they get it right. I think this

was just not ready for primetime judges in a state that isn't always in the top loop in terms of getting the top fights. Yeah, you'll see pay-per-views in Dallas every once in a while, but I think you just saw people who didn't necessarily fully grasp what they were watching. Now, I don't want to sound like an angry, stupid hypocrite here. It was a close fight in the end. John made a huge rally, and if you had it three rounds to two for John Jones, you're not like, let's kick you out the door here, okay? You could have preferred certain things, but I went back and re-watched rounds two and three multiple times as i'm sure you did and came away with the same thing i don't see how you give john jones a second round i really don't we are we are scoring damage at the end of the day reyes came forward for most of that round he did much more

activity it just seemed like that was a pretty clear round wasn't one-sided but it was clear right round three is is the problem round but even within that, Luke, it's like, are we just going to score for Jones because he looked bad in the first two and because he came forward in the third? He wasn't landing damaging shots. I thought that in a very tactical round, which round three was, Reyes was doing the better work.

He was smartly mixing in body shots. At every turn, he was filling in gaps with activity. I just think in the end, you could have it both ways, but you've got to sit there and say, what do you prefer more? And if you're giving round three to Jon Jones, you're only giving it on the idea that he pushed the fight forward. But it's the same thing as giving it to somebody who gets takedowns but does nothing with it.

I think we're advanced past that point where you're not just scoring activity anymore or intention. You've got to score damage and things actually happen. So I think this was scored under the wrong precepts. I think it was scored under, you know, old boxing judge transferring over to MMA, which is sort of the long-held thing that people criticize whenever there is a bad decision.

I know we can't have UFC-controlled judges. There's an impropriety factor there. It's also illegal. It's illegal. You get it. But we need something different than the boxing state commission of each state pretending even 25 years into the sport that they really know what they're doing with MMA. Yet MMA is still jungled under the state of boxing commissions for every state. It's not like they have a separate MMA team, right? It's just sort

of just thrown together. I could hear an argument on changing the scoring system. That'd be fine. But even under this scoring system, can we just get MMA experienced people? Can we get ex-fighters? Can we get... The thing is... So that's why even though when you say, I would rather have UFC oversee this, you can't because they're the promoter and you don't want any sort of fear that they're paying or manipulating or whatever.

But I would rather have an MMA organization be able to hire, fire, demote, promote people that are actually doing their job based on performance. Because fight to fight, I mean, it happens on the undercards all the time in UFC. We don't make a big deal of it, but we are just seeing scorecards like four to one for Jon Jones that make zero sense. This is a complicated one. I know folks think it's not, and folks are like, oh, what's the point in bitching about it? Nothing will change. I never understand that attitude. It's like, are you the kind of person that when the waiter gets your food totally wrong, you just end up, it's like you ordered steak and they bring jello. You're like, yeah, I'll eat the jello. That's fine. I have no problem. Who are you?

Who are these people? Yes, you should say something if something is wrong. I don't understand our attitude at all. Now, how did I score it? I got rounds one, two, and three for Reyes, four and five for John. Like you, I can squint and sort of see how somebody could come up with a third round for John. So in that sense, is it a robbery? No, it is not. Do you know who Jon Jones is starting to become? The boxing, or the MMA equivalent of, from boxing? He's like MMA's Canelo, where every time it goes to the scorecards,

you think, man, I think this challenger finally got him. And it never, ever happens. They just, the judges just seem to keep finding a way. So stop, pause at that point right there. I want to dig psychologically deeper into this. Is it just that people come in with a preconceived notion? Now you can't trust anybody on Twitter because they're probably drinking, don't know how to score a fight, have money on a certain person

so whenever they're giving you a hate for how you scored it. I mean I get people that are like, how the hell did you give one and two to Reyes? I'm like, okay, delete, really? But just for people that actually do know what they're doing, judges that are paid to do it, is it just that they're thinking so much in their mind, Jones is probably going to win this fight

and he's probably going to end up winning dominantly because he's the greatest of all time. And then when round one slaps them in the face and they're like, oh my God, John got hurt, backed up, thrown off his game plan, basically dominated it in round one, right? A shocker. Round two was a little bit closer,

but Reyes scored the damage. So I guess you got to kind of give it to him, even though two of the three judges gave that to John as well. Is it just by default that when John closes the gap, that, you know, subconsciously it's all, well, that's a John round because we thought he was going to win.

He started off bad, but look at this comeback. I just, there's no sort of people. Well, let me ask you this. Canelo has a reputation in boxing for being the guy where for example This has happened many times, but let's use the first triple G fight as an example You went into the scorecards you think do that that guy might have just beaten Canelo This is this is a big deal and then it just sort of doesn't work out that way Why do you think in boxing Canelo just seems again Mayweather fight not with Sandy, but even in the Mayweather fight, he got a draw, which is totally unjustified. Boxing's got to hit.

Why did Julio Cesar Chavez get a draw against Pernell Whitaker, right? But Canelo has this repeated pattern of this happening. Boxing has one of its feet much more dipped into the pool of corruption. It's obvious, right? The house fighter in so many cases ends up getting the benefit of the doubt all the time. So why can't John Jones be the house fighter? Well, that's the ends up getting the benefit of the doubt all the time. So it's not just the idea of... Why can't Jon Jones be the house fighter? Well, that's the thing. We never have that consistently in MMA.

Why do the titles change hands so briskly, so quickly? Because it's largely a fairly contested contest, the way things are set up. Okay, but he's been the champion forever, essentially. For Canelo specific, there are some blatant Canelo fights where you're just like, I can't even see how the scoring got there. But one thing Canelo does really well is he's economical and he's counter punching and he lands hard telling blows. And there are a certain subset of judges in boxing who are just always going to recognize damage above everything else. I think in MMA, that's

more likely to happen. More often in MMA do the judges and they should recognize damage as a higher form of currency than ring generalship and controlling and making a guy sort of, you know, fight your fight, right? I don't get how the judges miss this. So I'm asking, is it reactionary, though, to he looked better that round, he's the champion, oh, we've got to give it to him. I think that's what it's got to be. I think that's part of it. That's one part. We'll get to another part with the rule set here in just a second.

Here's the second part, just about the to another part with the rule set here in just a second. Here's the second part, just about the nuts and bolts of the fight in particular. I thought that Dominic Reyes had a great game plan. You saw when I did it in Dissected, I encourage everyone to watch. Jon Jones is very hard to land on in his face. It's not easy to land a hook, an uppercut, a straight. He slips, he covers, he gets out of the way, he posts a hand on the shoulder to slip or to just post away like a Heisman. He slips, he covers, he gets out of the way, he posts a hand on the shoulder to slip, or

to just post away like a Heisman. So what Dom Reyes did, a lot of his shots, particularly in that third round, Brian, he went to the body a lot. A lot of body shots, a lot of body shots, a lot of shots to the leg. And numerically he outstruck. But the thing about it was, John, there was a couple body shots where you could see him go like this and back up, and he gets kicked in the leg. But he combines the fact that he's hard to hurt in the face, or that he's really telling blows, with the fact that he's

got a good poker face. When the fight's over, his cornermen have to carry him out because he can't even stand on his own two feet, but in the rounds, he's getting kicked in the leg, and he kind of acts like nothing's ever happening. He's very gifted in that particular regard. I think the judges get confused by all of that. Now, in terms of the fight itself, again, I had it 3-2 for Reyes. I can understand how it could go the other way. To me, the bigger consideration here, and this is the second part of this question, which is, should the UFC go back to Texas? And here's my view on this.

I understand there's a business consideration involved. One of the Fertittas, I believe, owns that arena, right? The Lorenzo brother or cousin, I can't remember which one it is. The Toyota Center in Houston. Nice venue, by the way. They use an outdated rule system that values forward pressure. Go back and watch Dissective, and just see for yourself. It is clear that Dom Reyes built into his game plan backing up and using lateral movement to draw John into him to then crack

him. And it worked to pretty good effect a number of different times. Here's my point. You asked how you can get a 4-1 scorecard. We are so used to watching modern fighters with modern games. Under modern considerations, it's just not possible to find four rounds for him. Three, I can squint and understand it. Not four.

However, if under the old rule set, where you really have, you're required to value forward pressure, I can honestly see how in rounds two and three, you can say, well, one guy had more damage than the other, but it wasn't by a huge amount. And the other guy was marching him down the whole time. I got to take that into consideration. This is my key point. If the UFC has to go back to Texas for business considerations, I get it. They cannot take a title fight there again. It is not fair. And this is the key to understanding all of that, Brian. It's not that the modern rules have a different view of forward pressure. The modern rules, the key insight is, let's develop a system so that you, Brian Campbell, the fighter, me, Luke Thomas, the fighter, we can develop our own style and the new scoring criteria will accommodate it

if it's effective with damage and grappling and the things that really matter. With the old style, it forces fighters to change the way they fight. You now have to accommodate the forward pressure rule unless you knock a guy out. Otherwise, you are fighting not merely your opponent, you are fighting the criteria. They cannot go back to Texas with a title fight until they change. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree with that at all,

but I think it even goes deeper. Anyone with a boxing background realizes the history of corruption in boxing in Texas, the constant employment of judges and referees who have a long, bad, dark history of screwing up badly, yet some are related to certain commission members. I mean, it's a mess in Texas. It's a running joke.

I hope that wasn't the case in this part. I hope it smells like what it looks like, which is just sort of ineptness in the end. Maybe not knowing the full concept and maybe playing into what you're saying on outdated rules, and that's fine. Let me ask you, let me ask you. The guy who gave it four rounds to one for John, which again, under the Texas rule system, I can see it, to be honest with you. I don't agree with it, but I can see it.

But, you know, hold on, hold on. Let me ask you. How can you see it, though? Again, not under the modern system. Round three, yes, but two. Dude, honestly. Reyes came forward in two and visibly hurt John twice. Visibly made him back up.

John hasn't back up and run from an altercation since that street corner in Albuquerque that time with the pregnant lady. I mean, look at his career. It's insane. I hear you. I'm in agreement with you. But I can sort of see it. But here's the point I wanted to ask you about. Because honestly, people ask me and I don't know what to say.

The judge, Judge Solis, I forget his first name. You'll have to forgive me. Who scored that four rounds to one for John, he also gave it 30-27 to Andre Yule, which I cannot grasp. And here's the real kicker. In the fight between James Krause and Trevin Giles, when Krause had Giles' back for nearly four minutes and had multiple choke attempts, a couple of them were pretty tight, he gave that round to Trevin Giles.

Yeah, it could have been a 10-8 for Krause. Okay, ready for this? That guy has a black belt in jiu-jitsu and has his own MMA school. Square that one for me because I cannot comprehend that even a little bit. I mean, there's no hints of corruption in there. It's just ineptness, which takes me back, even

with somebody with an MMA background, which sort of fits the criteria of I'm saying, why don't we have an old boxing guys do it? There's no accountability at the state commission level. We see it so many times in big Vegas boxing matches and reporters will go up and call out the Bob Bennett's and say, why is this person still employed? And there's a lot of BS answers. Boxing has, look, MMA, I always say this, UFC built what it is today on the idea of boxing fans who were sore about what the sport has become creating this new sport and saying we're going to be completely different

and we're not going to do any of those things that get people angry. Well, the closer modern UFC gets to boxing, the more it pisses people off. I think we're starting to see a point that you've got to cut it right down the middle right now and create some new system of how you get your judges and your referees and how they are held accountable. But what is that? It's a volunteer army. How do you recruit people to come and train up so they can give away their Friday and Saturday nights for very little money? People keep talking about, we got to do this, we got to do that. Okay, by what mechanism? By what

mechanism do we actually address this problem? Unless the UFC gives money to state commissions for this or some other entity, I don't know how. People are like, oh, we need an MMA-specific commission. Dude, most states, like not named Nevada, not named California, not named New Jersey, they don't have a state budget to pay for anybody else. They can barely send enough regulators to various parts of the states. Like in Virginia, for example, if you've got a fight that's in Roanoke, fuck, man, that's not easy to staff for your Virginia Department of Licensing Regulation, whatever it's called. So I keep seeing people proffer these challenges to it, but they're not realistic. I keep saying this to people, and they kind of dismissed it and dismissed it and dismissed

it, which is the big benefit of the UFC running towards regulation is it saved the sport. Good. It is secure. It has a foundation that they cannot take away from it, at least not very easily. The problem is they gave a brand new fetus, essentially, to these state commissions. And now it has grown into an adult. And they don't know how to accommodate for all these new changes, new realities, because they're government bureaucracies. They don't make changes very fast, and they don't make them uniformly.

Money seems to fix any problem, even in fight sports. So I don't know. Do we raise the salary for judges so we get people going after them? Who's we, dude? Who's we? At some point, the UFC doesn't want this. UFC does not want this image

in which you pay the money for a pay-per-view and you watch a fight like you did. And by the way, we just skipped over the fact that Jones Reyes was an incredible fight. It was a great fight. I mean, it was one of the better title fights we'd seen in a long time. You don't want to know that your eyes saw one thing and then you see

the exact opposite with the decision. And again, it's not lost on me that the fight was close. Again, but that's a boxing thing. That's always about, you want to get away from that. So is it an investment that UFC has to make with more money to get better training and deeper? Maybe that's the key in the end, Luke. I don't know.

But I do want to say one thing. This felt and looked a lot like Johnny Hendricks, George St. Pierre. I left that fight going, man, they screwed him. GSP took way more damage in that fight. I mean, he was really messed up in that post-fight presser. Remember that? Yeah. The famous photo that Esther Lin has with the ice pack here and his whole face.

And hearing him talk, he was very much not with it on there. But I had that same feeling of remorse for the fighter knowing, and look, it wasn't a robbery again, but they did Dom Reyes dirty in the end. There can be a difference between there. It's not that there would have been a consolation had one judge scored it 3-2 for Reyes, right? Would I feel better sitting here right now? Maybe. He doesn't win anything more in that case.

But he deserved at least one judge going, well, hold on like three, two Reyes. The fact that it wasn't is where you get the extra level layers of outcry. Cause then you can go see, he never had a chance. See, and I just want to say one other thing for people that still don't understand the idea of round by round scoring in either boxing or MMA,

because I see a lot of this online. Well, he didn't actually beat the champ, right? He didn't actually go out there and whatever mixed with, well, how do you win a fight? How do you win a championship when you're running out of gas last two rounds? Please, people, wake up again. Please. It's round by round. It's five individual fights within one

fight. Can we get that? Nobody waits till the end and goes, oh, John had a better gas tank in the end. He was coming on late. It doesn't matter. And also, people don't understand this. When the round is over, so round one ends, they have to turn in their scorecard, and that's it. They don't get to go back and change it. I can't deal with any more of those people. But here's the other part. With the system crashing early on, remember that? They're like, we have to add all this up.

And then if you saw the scorecards for the main event, the first two rounds were all written by hand, and then the other three were written in or printed out on the computer, essentially. And it's like, dude, I don't mean to get into this because I don't want to make a political... Is this like the 2000 election? It feels like Gore versus Florida, or Bush v. Gore, whatever it was, all over again. Or the Iowa Democrats whoring Bernie Sanders.

It's just like, oh my God, you cannot go to a commission that does not have its shit together. And Texas does not, on any circumstance, have their shit together. And I know we can't hold what fighters say afterwards, but John's saying, look, you know, I think I won that fight. Look what I did in the wrestling at the end. Well, John, you did the wrestling in the two rounds in which everyone knows you already won and no one's disputing,

and you took him down four total times and he got right back up all four times. There's not much you can get. There's not a lot of hefty factor in that in terms of the score. In rounds, he already won, by the way. So now the question becomes, what should be next? We'll talk about whether or not the champ-champ fights are in play in terms of the score. In rounds, he already won, by the way. So now the question becomes, what should be next? We'll talk about whether or not the champ-champ fights are in play in just a moment. But a fight that is gaining a little bit of momentum is,

what about a rematch, in fact? What about an immediate rematch for Dominic Reyes? I wonder what you feel about this. There have been two rematches in Jon Jones' career. Obviously, the Gustafson rematch and the Cormier rematch. In the first Gustafson and Cormier fights, they both go the full five minutes. In the second Gustafson

and Cormier fights, he stops both of them inside of three. Now Cormier looked pretty good before he got stopped. He had made some adaptations too. Gustafson I don't think ever really got going, but the common denominator is... He had injuries, he had a lot going on. Right, I mean there's a bunch of stuff happening, but the common denominator is it does not go well for folks that

passed his prologue in terms of that. However, the difference between those two, Brian, and this situation is that there was a lot of time in between the first and second Cormier fight, and especially the first and second Gustafson fight. John has never had an immediate rematch. That would be very much a first for him. So while he simply does better in rematches that he has had, what do you make of the idea of A, there being a rematch, and two, if that's the case, knowing what we know about John, do you like Dominic's chances? I felt it weird that this was not really a topic of conversation after the fight, whether it be in the cage or in the post-fight press conference afterwards. And it's not that

I'm going to sit here and damn Dom Reyes for being humble and being like, well, it is what it is. But if I'm Dom Reyes in that spot, I'm maybe talking up a little bit more about how the judges got it wrong. Can't you see what I did out there? With that said, though, certainly Dom deserves it. I almost want to press pause and time out and, you know, no dong jokes, no over-the-top prove how smart and angry we are. Can we just celebrate what happened on Saturday night?

And that's this rare, pure moment in sports where somebody makes the leap right in front of you and goes to a level that you didn't think possible. No, no. We said on this show last week we knew he was capable of something. There's a difference between saying Dom Reyes is a live dog. And when I say live dog, I think it's possible he could hurt John. It's possible he could have moments in there, Luke. There's a difference in my mind from doing that and saying he can win three rounds.

He can make the great Jon Jones back up. He can cover up, get hurt. I didn't think that was possible. I didn't think his takedown defense after watching the Volkan Ozdemir fight was possible on that level. Five-round cardio. So I just want to celebrate for a moment. Well, the five-round cardio was the part that got him in trouble a little bit. All right.

But Ray's family is watching this. They're like, can we celebrate the guy? No, no, no, you're right. I mean, to see somebody become something I didn't think they could was fantastic. And that fuels this next argument where I think UFC and Jon Jones have to get into a room. And they have to go, what are we doing with this heavyweight move? Because, Luke, Jon Jones is 32 now. He's not the same guy.

I'm not going to subscribe to any idea that he's washed or anything like that, but he's certainly not the same mid-20s, attacking, youthful guy. He's smarter and more efficient, and the younger athletes today are catching up with him to a degree. Dom Reyes has legitimate star championship potential right now, I believe, from this performance. Like, it was an eye-opener. It was a wake-up call.

I think UFC has to figure out, do we want to take the chance of wasting that by giving him an immediate rematch, knowing that John's future is more likely at heavyweight than not? And with John being 32, when DC moved up to heavyweight, moved back up to heavyweight. I was just sort of like, damn, even pushing 40, the speed advantage that he has against those guys is mind altering. I've wanted John to go to heavyweight for so long to really start the second chapter

of his legacy, put the idea of being a GOAT way out where it can't be touched. He would age so gracefully, in my opinion, with that gap in speed from light heavyweight to heavyweight and just be able to flourish and shine. If you're UFC, do you want to basically say, hey, John, we'll think about the Adesanya thing. That'd be a nice time waster, right? But if not, you're going north because we got to find out right now how great Dom Reyes is. Let's go Dom Reyes against Maheta for the interim title, right?

Like, let's roll the dice in that direction. I don't think you gain much unless John's future is at 205 and he wants to stay there and he wants to be essentially this Bernard Hopkins start to the end of the career in one division, you know? So here's the way I look at this. Here's what I don't want to see. I have no interest in John Jones versus the winner of Corey Anderson and Jan Blahovic.

Now, maybe the winner of Anthony Smith, Glover Teixeira, if it's Anthony, but if it's Glover, Glover's past 40, I just don't like his chances. I will say this, though. If John stays at 205 while the immediate fights other than a Dominic Reyes rematch don't interest me, to me it was clear on Saturday, you're right, he's not the same guy. What's keeping him really competitive in these fights is he has unbelievably good defense. And chin. And his chin is amazing, but he doesn't get hit that much. You'll go through it undissected or just look at the tape yourself in slow motion.

He is so good. A lot of shots you think land, they kind of graze. He's so good at rolling and covering. He's just got unbelievably great defense. And that is so valuable for him because that's going to keep him fresh over the long run, except to the body and to the legs. The key for me is that his offense has deteriorated. Now, understand what I'm saying.

I am not saying it's fallen off a cliff. That's not the truth. When you use the word deterioration, I'm not here to challenge you. I'm sorry. I want you to explain it more. Is it more that the speed and explosiveness has slown down, or is it mixed with the mentality of not wanting to walk people down and take chances? All of the above.

I think he, it's partly, I don't think he has the same wrestling ability that he once did and or the game has just caught up, right? Because he used to like, when John used to want to take someone down, they went flat to their back. That's just not the case anymore. Partly that could be because he's smarter about reserving his energy and going the distance. Part of it could be that people are just better at stopping the takedowns, but here's the fact, it's just not as effective. The only fight that the wrestling was worse for John, I want to say, was the first Gustafsson fight where he went one for 11. This was two for nine.

So this is like historically one of his worst performances in terms of wrestling. And in terms of the striking, he's a bit of a rhythm guy. He has to kind of get going a little bit. These guys like Dom who can stick and move, they're terrible matchups for him in that particular regard if they can stay within their stamina. Here's my point. Dom wasn't the guy to do it on Saturday, whatever one's opinion. The Barbarians at 205 are at the gate, Brian Campbell.

They are at the gate, and they are knocking. And I don't know if it's Corey Anderson. I don't know if it's Jan Blachowicz. In fact, I don't think that it is. But sooner or later, if he sticks around there, they're going to have his number. Because the truth is, as good as he has been, maybe the very best we've ever seen, if you fight tough guys long enough, eventually tough guys win.

That is the thing you just cannot beat, especially as you age and especially as the game. There is, Mike Bond from MMA Junkie told me, there's five hours and 40 minutes of footage on this guy. You can watch all of his development. Shogun may have lost. Rashad may have lost. Lyoto may have lost. Dominic Reyes may have lost. But each of them helped fill out the blueprint to see where this guy is at. Someone's going to put that all together. Maybe it's Dominic Reyes in the next fight. I wouldn't mind seeing it, but it's going to happen. Now, we've got to move along, so let's talk about this. If it's not Dominic Reyes, Brian Campbell, let's make a choice here. We talked about it last week. Is it Israel Adesanya? Is it Stipe Miocic? The question for you is, given how John performed, and again, you can make a very clear case that he won, given how he performed, which one makes more sense

for the UFC right now? Here's what's, there's a wild card factor in me answering this question. There's a simple answer to this one, Brian. There's not, though, because John, if you hear him talk over the last year, after this comeback from the most recent USADA failure, is about history. And the one record he doesn't, now he's closing it. He's three wins away from Cerrone's most wins.

He just became the winningest fighter in title fights. He doesn't have the title defense record, though, because of the breakups in his title reign due to his things outside the cage. So I almost feel like he would want to linger at 205 and say to himself, well, I could be race in a rematch. I could be Corey Anderson.

I could beat whatever. I don't want him to linger. I don't think the UFC would want him to linger. I, that's why I think sitting down is a big part because I think the path for Jones is to explore the idea of an Adesanya fight, which would mean Adesanya beating Romero coming up and would mean they both want it,

we want to go down this road, we can make it big, we can make it fun. If not, though, I think the move is to heavyweight, and I think the move is a non-title heavyweight bout that main events a pay-per-view that does big business because of the intrigue against a former champion with a name, and then you wait out the winner of DC Stipe 3.

I think part of John going public to Ariel in the interview and talking so matter-of-fact about, I can beat Stipe tomorrow and I want to, I think it's still a little bit more of this DC thing will never end. You know, what if I can win DC's title and hold it up in front of him type of deal? I think that's not as realistic now that John kind of struggled to come away with a decision here. I think that it would be fun to throw him in that pool. It would do so much for the heavyweight division and just rise up the value and create fun matchups. So I think the answer to your question is both,

but you go through the idea of the Adesanya fight first because as we said last week, when John moves up, that window closes unless Israel can prove he can keep rising in weight and be the same guy in each weight class. So here's what I would say. There is one more piece of the puzzle we have to figure out here, which is Romero versus Adesanya. And that presser on Friday was unbelievable.

The promo that they played on Saturday gave me the chills. I am insanely excited about this fight. I'm more excited for this fight right now. Watch lightning strike me down right now. I am more excited about Adesanya Romero than even Habib Tony. And it doesn't even make sense to say that. But as I'm sitting there watching them. Blasphemy.

As I'm sitting there watching them at the press conference on Friday, I'm going. It's the perfect fight. The violence in this fight and the skill level and the fact that both are going to come forward at freaking will to prove something, right? Romero finally cashing in and saying, I'm not that lovable bridesmaid loser, weight cutter, you know, USADA guy. No, I'm the freak of nature that is going to win a title in my early 40s.

And Adesanya saying, I got to beat up the toughest guy in this jail to prove to you who I am. Here's the thing. Adesanya, in terms of the challenge he faces in Romero, it's a big physical challenge, big power puncher, athletic explosive, all that kind of stuff we all know about Romero. But the thing is, his control once he gets the takedown has never been good. That's why Robert Whitaker was able to get up. He's not a folk style Khabib wrist ride guy. But in terms of getting a hold of you and putting you down, he can do it very easily. To me, I want to see how Adesanya answers the physical challenge, both in the striking and the wrestling department there.

If he handles it ably, and the fact that he is taking it on when he doesn't have to, is just... You're saying Gastelum. This could be... By the way, yes or no, because I want to finish my point. Champions seeking out fighters that are boogeymen of the divisions when they don't have to, it does not happen in combat sports. And when it does, insert...

Come on. Give me what I need right now. So here's what I will say. Maybe you give Reyes the immediate rematch, but one way or the other, if Adesanya beats Romero and looks like he is capable of answering some of the physical challenges therein, that's the guy to beat Jon Jones. Because on the feet, Adesanya is going to style on basically anybody in the UFC. Obviously, as we know, John has such a reach. He's got a clever, he's got an amazing fight IQ.

And while his wrestling has deteriorated, that's been something of a lagging part in Adesanya's game. But if he can shore that up, I'm telling you, that's the way to go. Adesanya at the press conference when asked about it saying, summer of 2021, Raiders Stadium, Las Vegas, we'll do it then. Why do you think he's pushing that off when, again, the idea would be that, I know John would be a year older, but he'd also be going higher up to heavyweight by then. Yeah, well, he knows he needs the time to work on that.

But one thing that's been very clear about Adesanya, he just gets good so fast. And for him to say during the press conference, which is true, like, I've done all this in less than two years in the UFC. It's insane. I was in the room when you filmed Dissected. which is true, like, I've done all this in less than two years in the UFC. It's crazy. I was in the room when you filmed Dissected. It's a decent show, I'm sure. You can say nice things about it.

It won't kill you. But you were using language on that show, spoiler alert, that led me to believe that John's performance against Reyes makes you believe in your heart, Luke, that Stylebender has a much better chance than you would have said a week ago. Yes, the only thing that's different is when you look at the way in which Reyes

stuffed some of the takedowns, part of it is that Reyes' takedown defense has improved. We talked about it last week, bad first order, but good second order defense. And that was true when he got tired in the fourth and the fifth. But in the second and the third, when he was stuffing them,

his first order looked pretty good there. Part of that was he was really technical. He got the underhook right when he needed to. The other part was, dude, Dom Reyes is a physical presence. I think people fail to appreciate that a little bit. He's a strong guy. And there's moments there where you can see him and John in kind of these, I wouldn't call it neutral positions, but the kind of position where like, if we're locked in it, the person who's stronger and wants it more is going to win because neither has a technical advantage per se. And Reyes won them early. So to me, it was like, ooh, that is interesting. Now, is that something Adesanya

can do? Because I had them both at my UFC 244 Series XM pre-fight party. Dom Reyes had 12 yinglings. He's like, I don't get yinglings on the West Coast. Yingling in the house. Shout out to Jack Crosby. Yes, yes, you. Shouts to Dom Reyes. He's a nice guy to begin with. With every beer, he becomes, like, dude, but 12 beers later, he was like Winnie the Pooh nice. Like me on this show during our drinking episode, right? Yeah, he was the nicest drunk I'd ever seen. Point being is this.

I saw them next to each other. They're about the same height, but Dom is clearly a lot thicker, right? So there is that X factor there that makes the whole thing interesting. But on the feet, dude, who beats Adesanya on the feet? I don't think anybody does. Anybody. Let me ask you this, Luke, all right? This date, 2021, who's your light heavyweight champion of the world? Oh, that is a good one.

Okay, so February 10, 2021. Boy, that is a good question. That is a great question. I'm going to say Dom Reyes. I don't know exactly how it happens, but I don't want to get drunk off one performance. But he just walked in there and beat the GOAT. We saw it with our own damn eyes, Luke.

All right? You know, I'll say Adesanya. I'll say Adesanya. How about that? The light heavyweight champion of the world? I'll say Adesanya. Yeah. I'll make that call.

If that happens, and I'm referencing a question at that press conference on Friday, would he be rivaling Conor in face of the franchise stardom for the UFC? Wow. The first person, let's say, here's the thing about beating John. You beat him by decision, it's momentous, it's huge. No one has ever done that. But the first person to stop him, unless he's completely over the hill,

let's say it's in relatively recent time or in another year or two, before 35, that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. I'm just so freaking fired up about this calendar year for the UFC, what we have coming on. It's not just Romero, Adesanya, Tony, and Habib finally, and Ortega rumors with Zabit. And then you begin the idea of Conor coming back in the summer.

That Raiders stadium in Vegas just waiting to be inhabited by a monster. By the way, shouts to Ortega. Did you see him on the broadcast? He had written happy birthday to my sister on his phone. Your sister? No, no, no. Like, happy birthday to my sister. Oh, all right.

Although, you know, probably it was to my sister as well. Wow. Knowing how Brian Ortega. Happy birthday, Hallie. Yeah, it would it was to my sister as well. Wow. No one out Brian Ortega. Happy birthday, Hallie. Yeah, it would have been great. I thought it was a nice little touch, Brian Ortega. That's a very sensitive young man. Okay.

Now, there was another fight on this card we have to talk about, which is the co-main event. Valentina Shevchenko retains her flyweight title in what can only be described as a complete demolition of Caitlin Chukagian. The question, Brian Campbell, is what on earth does the UFC do about her? Because here's the good news. The good news is she's trilingual. She can speak Russian, English.

She did a whole interview I saw. I went to the UFC's Español YouTube channel. She did a whole backstage interview perfectly in Spanish. She can dance. She has a gun tattooed on her hip. She did a whole backstage interview, perfectly in Spanish. She can dance. She has a gun tattooed on her hip. She's sneaky hot. That's what you say. She's a competitive shooter. And she is, at flyweight, I think we both

agree, she's untouchable. There is just no one who can beat her. That beating she put, like we knew she was going to win. But there's a part of me that's like, well, Chukagian's a good mover. Maybe she'll survive or something. But no. The traps that Valent a good mover. Maybe she'll survive or something. But no, the traps that Valentina was shedding. And people never talk about it.

How about her takedowns? They're physical. She lands immediately past the guard. And that crucifix, dude, it was like, I said this on Twitter that night, it was like if Matt Hughes in his prime had elite kickboxing. Matt Hughes used to take guys down, pass guard, get to crucifix, and just bang them out and it was like this hard to kind of

watch scenario. Well, she's doing that except on the feet. She's lights out. Her physical strength compared to these 125ers compared to Bantamweight is just,

it's not the same. As great as she is, and look, she's flawless. She is almost a perfect fighter in her absolute physical and mental prime

and all that background in Muay Thai and everything coming together. But the question is, what do they do with her? As great as she is, the division underneath her is equally as bad in the other direction. And I don't want to say that they're bad fighters, but they're a pool of average fighters that are very reminiscent to when Ronda was beating Alexa Davis, Ronda was beating Sarah McMahon, and shout out to all of them. They all had qualities that made them good. But in the end, they're average title contenders. And that's the only people left at 125. Hearing Dana talk after the fight, I don't think he's that into Shevchenko,

Nunes, three right now or right away or anytime soon. And obviously, that's the fight, the defining fight of her career. I mean, if she beat Nunes and did it somewhat convincingly, you can make go arguments by that point, right? You should be a two-division champion. I mean, it would be insane. Here's what I think they should do, okay? Almost make her into a Rousey in a way. How do you do that?

Keep her incredibly busy and then just basically have a talk with her and say, we can't have any more of these Liz Karmouche fights. We can't have five-round stinkers. Go out there and finish these people. If she can stay active, be fighting every three months and just go down the line, Calderwood, Roxy, you know, across the board, whoever's left there, Lauren Murphy. I'm not saying these are going to be fun fights. I'm not saying these fights are going to sell, but if they're meant to showcase how great Valentina is and you start to play up a narrative that's almost Henning Baral-like. Remember when Baral wasn't moving any product,

and suddenly Dana's like, well, this guy's the best in the world. Don't you guys see this? If you get her in that sort of mode, it could buy some time. But what we need, Luke, is a legitimate 125-pound contender. We will not have that, I don't believe, until Macy Barber gets more years and fights and figures out. She's the only one, I think, with a plus potential right now of who is in the division.

But here's what Valentina said after the fight that's so interesting. She talked about, yeah, I'd love to fight Amanda. I'd do it tomorrow, right? I'd move back up to 35. But she said, my walking around weight is 135.

So she said, cutting to flyweight at 125 is not even a cut. She basically said it was easy. Could she make strawweight? And we just never talked about it, and she hasn't talked about it. Like Frankie Edgar, who's at 155, he can make a handsome weight. Right. Or could she meet a strawweight champion who had became a star? Thinking Wei Li Zhang here. If

Zhang destroys Ioana and puts a couple more title defenses, could they meet in the middle at some type of weight? Are we not seeing the super fight potential of the weight class coming up? Because Luke, you know this as a fact, because right now you can go on UFC.com slash rankings and look up women's featherweight. There is not a top 10. There has never been a top 10. UFC, the company that started that division in 2016 still has not put up a top 10 rankings. And it's not just 145 where it's empty. 125's empty, and I got news for you, 135's empty as well. 115 is the only weight class with depth, personality, sellable characters. Maybe Valentina's future is colliding with them in some form.

I'm not saying it would be easy for her to make 115. It's a fair point to consider. I just think we're overthinking it a little bit. Look, eventually this charm where she's beating up on overmatched people is going to wear thin. But there is a little magic to what Scott Coker does, which is he had the right idea, a very Japanese style of matchmaking. People are like, oh, Fedor had a bunch of cans in between tough fights. Yeah, why do you think he had such a long career as a consequence?

Because he had a bunch of cans in between actual tough fights. So eventually, three, four fights down the line, people are going to be like, OK, we've seen the lion eat the deer enough at this point. However, right now, look at who she has to go up against. There's Jessica Akin, she already beat him, Joanne Calderwood, Jennifer Maia, Roxanne Modafferi, Viviane Arujao. She annihilates these people, and I don't think it's particularly close. So let it happen.

Let the inevitable beating take place. And then let's reassess. Maybe a 115 drop is there. Maybe a 135 fight, a rematch against, or I should say a trilogy fight against Nunes. Maybe then it makes a little bit more sense. Because right now, if she goes out there and keeps turning in performances like she did on Saturday, you can't do it forever. But for a few more times, it's going to build a star. So what you're saying is don't panic. Don't panic. Don't panic.

Don't serve up to Amanda yet. Not yet. Let's let that play out. You don't have to let it play out because, dude, it's going to make her look very, very good. The UFC could use another star. Tough question time. Who has improved more since the second time they fought, Valentina or Amanda? Or is it, or is that, or can you not answer that question?

I can't answer it. Because Valentina moving to 25 has changed. And also, Amanda got a lot better, too. It's hard to answer. All right, before we get out of here, there was a fight on Showtime over the weekend. Gary Russell retained his featherweight strap at 126 pounds by defeating the fighter with the best nickname in all of combat sports, King Tug. Interestingly, the scores were wider than I had it.

I had a 115-113, I think is how I had it. King Tug closed the gap in those championship rounds. But early on, here's how it looked to me, Brian. He was too quick. His feet were too fast. His hands were too fast. His ring IQ was too good. King Tug kind of made it interesting, as you mentioned later,

when Russell visibly slowed, then the fight got a little bit more interesting. But the early lead was too much. Now, here's what he's calling for. I want to fight against Leo Santa Cruz at 130. That'd be up a weight class. Or even I want Gervonta Davis, who's got his own issues right now. We'll see how that happens. I'd even go two weight classes up at 135.

Here's my question to you, Brian. I'm happy to see him look good against a very tough challenger. I'm happy to see him call somebody out. Do you buy that they're going to make any of these fights? I just, it seemed to me like it fell on deaf ears a little bit. So I will listen to all the interviews that Gary gave after the fight, right before the press conference with all the reporters backstage. And, I mean, you remember that in that scene in Major League II

when the Asian outfielder's doing the no mobiles? This guy's all mobiles all the time. And to hear him say, look, I've only been fighting once a year because no one's wanted to fight me, I don't know if I fully believe that. But at the same time, Luke, I am so happy that he wants to dare to be great now. He's right at the mountaintop of his physical and mental prime, and he wants to fight multiple times per year and call people out. There's a good and bad in that.

The great is we want to see him dare to be great because he's so insanely skilled. He has pound-for-pound top-ten potential. You saw what he did with his hand speed. He likes to get in there and fight. I wonder, though, if that's going to be a problem with him, Luke. Can you imagine him getting a lightweight title bout against Gervonta? And, by the way, he called Gervonta everything from basically a pussy to saying, like, get some balls and get your team together.

You're saying I can't sell. Why don't we find out? Why don't we do this fight in D.C. and find out? Yeah, D.C.'s finest. Is Gary Russell's penchant for mixing it up, Luke? And we saw this again in the JoJo Diaz fight that he was well ahead on. He almost let Diaz back in. Did it against King Tug as well, maybe due to fatigue.

But he is so damn confident in himself that I fear at 135 that could become a problem. Now, at the same time, look, remember Shane Mosley was arguably the greatest lightweight we'd ever seen? Moves up two weight classes to welterweight, beats Oscar De La Hoya. It was just in him. It's greatness. Maybe the size difference in the chin and all that is not going to matter because Gary Russell is that mentally tough, but could you imagine his speed at lightweight? He is going to dance around some of these guys. Yeah, but he can't put some of these guys away at 126. You think he's going to start mopping the floor with people? Well, he's not going to be a knockout puncher.

He's going to be a slick boxer. Okay, but if he's getting tired at 126, and these other guys making it close and leaning on him, for example, that's going to make it really difficult. 130 I'll buy as a reasonable jump, especially against Leo Santacruz, who I think can be a little bit one-note with his movement. But against Gervonta, it's like,

dude, I don't like that fight at all. But here's the deal. I think he was trying to be a little showcase here against King Tug. I think he was thinking, man, in the late rounds, I'm tiring a little, but I'm just going to dig in there. I'm going to stop him. Well, it didn't happen because Nian Bian was a tough bastard

for Mongolia, and he came after him. But I don't know if it's going to work. It's going to be one of those things where the experiment, we have to see what happens. Him against a very elite lightweight. But you've got to love, after all these years of teasing us, Luke, with the ability and the talent, putting his balls on the line now and saying, let's find out how great I can be.

I hope he's picking up the phone to Uncle Al. I hope Uncle Al is like, hold on, let me hit the button on Total Phone. I've got Gervonta on line two. Let's make this fight happen. Do I want to see Gervonta against Leo? Yes, for a lot of different reasons. I want to see Gary Russell against Gervonta more, by the way. Do I want to see Leo against Gervonta? Yeah, sure. Great fight. Let's do it on pay-per-view. I want to see Gary Russell against Leo a lot more than that. Gary Russell's been this intriguing sort of facade in the desert, and now he wants to be real. Let's

find out. You mean Mirage in the desert? Mirage, facade. Facade. Who's putting facades up in the desert, and now he wants to be real. Let's find out. You mean Mirage in the desert? Mirage, facade. Facade. Who's putting facades up in the desert? I mean, look, my factory, I mean, I've never made it as a wise man, right? I really couldn't cut it as a poor man's steel anyway. All right, nickel fail over here. We're like nickel whack, all right? Nickel whack, yes.

With that in mind, those are our top five points. Let's get to where you get to ask us questions. This is DMs from Donks. There's the imagery. There we have it. I don't have 4K DMs. I can tell you that. By the way, people were asking me, does it go down in your DMs? And I was like, let me explain something to you. I look because I have metrics on my YouTube audience. My YouTube audience is 96.1 male. 96.1. It does not go down in my DMs. Let me just make that perfectly clear. And what's the other 4%? Colombian women?

No. Just sundry other genders floating around. Okay. Let's go to the first one. I'm not sure which one's first on my list. I need to see it. There we go. From Suspect Monkey, it's all about the champ champs these days, but which two neighboring weight classes, Brian Campbell, do you think would be the hardest to earn and hold titles in simultaneously? That's a great question. It really comes down to, in MMA we're talking, right? That's what we're talking here. What two weight classes are the biggest gap?

I think you could almost argue, although Ryan Bader's doing it on a smaller level in Bellator, that light heavyweight and heavyweight, in some cases, is a monstrous gap between the two. Brian Campbell, you know better than this. In some cases, is a monstrous gap because there are so many light heavyweights who... The answer is lightweight and welterweight. That is by far the hardest.

By far. You have a 15-pound jump and you have the two... Bantamweight is up there, but bantamweight and featherweight are only 10 pounds apart. And then again, featherweight and lightweight. At lightweight to welterweight, you have a big jump in physicality. It's only one weight class up. And those are the two most historically, and even presently, I would argue, talent-rich divisions in the sport.

It is lightweight and it is welterweight, for sure. Not every light heavyweight is cut out to go up there against the big boys. That's true. If you don't have a speed advantage, you're going to have a problem. I'll say this. The fact that you've seen somebody be champ champ at lightweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight is interesting. You've seen a champ champ at feather and light, right?

You've seen those. We haven't seen a champ champ, have we? I've seen a BJ Penn hold titles in both. Not the same time. Not the same time. Not the same time. And it's kind of different eras to a degree as well. I don't know.

A little bit. A little bit. I mean, he beat Matt Hughes off a title shot he didn't deserve, which is fine. He smoked him. But it's a little bit different than doing it in the modern age. I also saw him lose

that heavyweight in a parking lot a couple times on TMZ. At the Lava Shack. Oh, God. All right. Next one. This is from LurkingFool69.

That's a great name, right? It's always like, dude, these guys have names like BootyEater69. At Arrest Me, please. Yes. It's like, do your parents know about your fucking name, right? It's always like, dude, these guys have names like Booty Eater 69. At Arrest Me, please, yes. It's like, do your parents know about your fucking names, man? Someone told me that Israel Adesanya got that Bart Simpson energy.

Somebody's stupid. What does that mean, and why is it so funny to me? Am I a low-level primate? I don't even know what that means. What is that Bart Simpson energy? I would guess cartoonish in some ways. By the way,

if you know anyone who uses this language convention, got that blank, blank energy, unless they're cool, like, verifiably cool. Like, you know, Adesanya's verifiably cool

because he's a champion and he can, you know, he can dance and all that shit and he's in good shape. But if you're like your co-worker, like, if you work at, you know, TurboTax and the dude in the cubicle next to you is like your co-worker, like if you work at TurboTax

and the dude in the cubicle next to you is like, dude, that guy got that Bart Simpson energy. I'd be like, get the fuck out, Jeffrey. What are you doing? Who are you? All right. I don't know what that means. I don't know what it means either.

I don't think that makes me old. I think it just makes me a little bit more normal look. Yeah, I would agree. Any of you zeros know? You're like 10 years old. How does that mean? How old are you? 11.

11, I guess. Yeah, that's pretty close. All right, next one. At I think it's broken 22. Who were the first 21 I think it's broken? Do you think Rogan will ever be in the UFC Hall of Fame? That seems like an easy, easy call. Yeah, I mean, look, with 11 and 7, Matt Serra in the UFC Hall of Fame,

it seems to be very WWE Hall of Famish, where there's no rules, just put in whoever you want. Put in the good company men. Well, dude, Rogan outdates Dana White and the Fertittas. Bruce Buffer's going to find his way in there, too. The real question seems to be, I don't think Rogan had a great broadcast on Saturday night. So the real question to me is...

Okay, so what was your issue with him? Because I mostly don't listen to the broadcast. Dominic Cruz I listen to early in the night, but then as it goes on, I'm so focused I don't even hear it anymore. So what was the objection? Well, I think Dom was the best in the game, yet I thought Dom and Joe were overplaying what John was doing before he was actually doing it.

Fourth and fifth rounds, John was doing it. Second and third, I don't think he was necessarily doing it. They were getting so excited that he just sort of woke up out of a dream and was trying to be offensive. I think Joe just harped a little bit too much on things, whether it be that judge who may or may not have been looking down at this phone, then they find out it might not have even been a judge. It may have been a commission member. I mean, that's tended to be a criticism, right? That he'll find one thing and then just like a dog on a bone, just kind of stay on it.

They tried to get him off talking about the judging. He's like, no, I'm not done talking about that. And I mean, it's just whatever, whatever it is, what it is. But yeah, he's the greatest. He's the greatest. He's my favorite broadcaster they've ever had. He's the most important MMA ambassador, I think, at least historically speaking, if not certainly now. But even now, it's probably true. And his bona fides as a real fan of MMA, but when it was called NHB, he was all in, right? GHB, too.

Yeah. What do you think is the all-star, all-time three-man MMA announce crew? I'm going to give you mine first. Are you ready? Yes. Joe Rogan on color, Randy Couture on fighter analyst, and Mauro Ranallo running the point. And that's not a Showtime guy saying that. That's a Mauro guy saying that. So Mauro Ranallo is the best combat sports broadcaster ever. Well, of our generation because you know you got the Howard Cassells who did boxing and stuff like that. But certainly of our generation

no one has, he's done pro wrestling which is not a combat sport but certainly part of the family I acknowledge. He did high level kickboxing with Glory. He did Pride. He did Strikeforce and he's done boxing as well. There is no commentator that even comes close to Mauro Ranallo in terms of play by play. So he's got to be on the call. You could put Joe on there as well. There is no commentator that even comes close to Mauro Ranallo in terms of play-by-play.

So he's got to be on the call. You could put Joe in there as well. But you would switch up the fighter analyst. Who do you think, for your money, is your favorite fighter analyst? Dominic Cruz. He's great. He's great. People would say the better one to have for that group might be...

Because Dom and Mauro have very different energies. Yes. So you might get a DC in there because DC is very good too. DC and Mauro would be very good, yes. So something like that. But you know who's also good? Al Bernstein, our Showtime colleague, he and Quadros used to do the, remember Elite XC would have their version of Showbox, whatever that was?

He was good. He was really good. My brother-in-arm is John Anik. Pretty damn good too. He's amazing. John's on his way. It's just my brother-in-arms, John Anik, pretty damn good, too. He's amazing. John's on his way. It's just that Mauro's been around forever, and he's done every gig. It's not to say that John's not great, but Mauro is your goat.

Like, for me, he's your goat. Okay. From I Am Taskmaster, will we ever get morning combat merch? Y'all must hate money if you don't make us a tip-to-tip shirt. I know we got a bunch of Andy Kings in here who are about us, who will do anything for us, but what's the first question I say every time I walk through the door? Where's the merch? Where's the merch guy?

We got a merch guy? What's going on? We got the merch? You know who's got merch? Who? All the smoke. Well, they may deserve the merch. Yeah.

They've also got a million downloads and shit, but yes, they've got merch. Ash, we got any merch? What's going on over there? Dude, she's too busy bumping that new Eminem, bro. He's rapping about all the cool things like Sesame Street and shit. Oh, my God. If we could choose our own merch, I mean, we could sell the crap out of these right here, I think. Dude, the tip-to-tip shirt.

Cup condoms. I'm annoyed by all the tip-to-tip comments, but even I recognize what a moneymaker that's going to be. You get one of those shirts where you just take the outline of that? Yeah. Oh, my God, dude. Maybe FJ. Oh, and a fuck J. By the way, J is so desperate to be on camera.

It's not... Every time he comes out, he's like, is this the week we get to be on camera? And we're like, no, J. We're not trying to make our audience queasy. You understand that? Get back in the dungeon. Wizard of Oz.

J, J, fighting. Fighting in my ear. And by the way, when you talk in my ear, it's like the buzzing of flies to me. I hope you understand that. I could do a hoodie. Can we get a freaking hoodie, please? Yeah, the answer is I don't know.

We beg Showtime. And their answers are like, come on, guys. They're trying to get us out of the bomb shelter one of these days. We'll see what happens. It's like, come on, guys. You're more than combat. Nobody cares. All right. And then lastly, it's R underscore D underscore Raul. Parasite won best picture and Joaquin won best actor. Both deserving thoughts on that, Brian Campbell. I am very happy, Luke, that you challenged me to be a deeper soul. You and I had some beers in the hotel bar, and you were just disgusted at what you thought was my intelligence level. You misunderstand me.

I come from a factory town. You were basically like, your whole life doesn't need to revolve around pro wrestling and fights. You were trying to get me to name drop books I've recently read. You were basically trying to figure out how big of a shit you can take on my educational background. And I fought you off well, but you were like, MF-er, go watch Parasite. Because I told you that's my new thing to combat road depression is going to the movie theater. Is that right?

I didn't know that. In Vegas, there's just too many sins that can entrap me. You know what I mean? That's true. So I saw Uncut Gems in Vegas. That's on the list. I promised you I'd see that. It's on the list.

Oh, my God. It was so good. I know. I'm dying to see it. I know I was high as balls, but it was so good. But then I saw Parasite in Jersey City. Do you agree they should have won Best Picture? Yes.

It was freaking amazing. I mean, I was texting you right after. It took me a couple hours to sort of really frame the full message they were trying to say. There's so many layers to it. And that dark turn within that movie was out of nowhere and frightening. Did you see Joker? I did not. You've not seen Joker?

No. I saw Joker. I watched it on, I paid for it on a Fandango now at home a couple weekends, maybe a month ago. Something like that, just recently. And I had heard all the weekends, maybe a month ago, something like that, recently. And I had heard all the controversy, and I was like, okay, well, this is going to be a show. Let's see what happens here. And basically my view was that Joaquin is amazing,

and the movie's mediocre-ish, but not particularly, I didn't find it disturbing. I didn't understand what all the hoopla was about. Did you think the Brad Pitt in the Hollywood movie with Leo was as worthy as the hefty level of nominations it got? No. I didn't as well. I watched that on a plane.

My belief is that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is one of Tarantino's worst movies. I mean, Brad Pitt was amazing. I said that on Twitter and everyone's like, no,

there's other ones that are way worse. You have a way of stirring the pot and getting people wanting to kill you on Twitter. I can tweet

two plus two is four and I'll get ratioed for it. You understand? It's just the way my life works. But okay, even if it's not the worst, it's not one of his

better ones for me. I didn't see 1917 yet. I've got to do that. It's still playing. So my best friend who has also served in the military, he was in the Army, who we are like in lockstep on military movies, he walked out of it. He walked out of it. PTSD or what?

What he said was it shot really well. Like it looks beautiful. And as a story, it's completely empty. And this is a guy who served two tours in Iraq. He had Army Ranger. He was a tough bastard, man. Ford Ferrari. Should I see that?

I saw that you tweeted about it. Dude, Ford versus Ferrari. I'm not a car guy. I'm not one of these guys who's like, oh, look at these engines. They're loud. You were a mathlete in high school. People need to remember this. Yeah, I was a dork.

But, dude, that movie is great. Really? That movie, dude. Matt Damon is so much better than you think. Christian Bale kills it. And all the little minor actors in it, they do a great job. That is a well-shot, well-written, well-executed piece of film.

I was so shocked at how good that was. I've not seen Jojo Rabbit, which apparently was pretty good. I came from a divorced home, so I know it's shocking to some of you because I'm so normal. So I can't see Marriage Story. I just can't do it, dude. I can't. I'm not going to clown on you for that. You know what I'm saying? I just can't do it. For me, Matt Damon is the defining actor of my movie-watching era, my adult movie-watching era. So I'm going to go see Forbidden.

How many times have you seen Jason Bourne, motherfucker? I didn't really go down the road with that franchise, but every other turn I was there with him, all right? What, Fabulous Mr. Ripley or whatever the hell he's called? All right, that's the end

of the conversation. I'm just saying, what other movies was he in that were good? Good Will Hunting, okay, I'm fine, whatever. Rounders. I do like Rounders, okay.

Pay that man his money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, that's good. All night long, check, check, check. All. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, that's good. All night long. Check, check, check. Alligators are blood. Yes, yes. All right, I'm with you.

That's actually a great movie. All right, thank you. Okay, and that's it, I think. Maybe a little movie called The Departed. I don't know if you saw it. One of the best movies of all time. I thought Departed is... Hear me out.

Fantastic. Departed is good. Departed is good. Oh, here we go. What are you going to qualify it with? What's your qualifier here? Jack Nicholson is good. Leonardo. Departed is good. Departed is good. Oh, here we go. What are you going to qualify it with? What's your qualifier here? Jack Nicholson is good. Leonardo DiCaprio is good.

They're all great. Let me finish. Wahlberg? Matt Damon is great. The movie itself is good. I wouldn't call the movie itself great. Jay is saying that's like the... You just named like five of the best actors of our lifetime who all put forth incredible performances.

He's right. But you're like, you know what? It's like The Irishman. Dude, Robert De Niro was incredible. Joe Pesci was incredible. Al Pacino was incredible. The movie was good. But the movie did not hold up to the individual performances.

So you're saying like it's steak served on a paper plate. I don't think that works. That's a little strong. Yeah. The movie's great, okay? It's good. I'm not saying bad things about it. I just don't go, oh my God, I'm watching The Departed.

My favorite scenes are the ones I beat off through. Call all your nerd high school friends and watch The Ill Postino and The Pianist and all your other weird... I don't like those movies. I don't like those movies. Yeah, all right. But I'm glad you got to enjoy Parasite. And by the way, show of hands, who's seen Parasite here? Oh, okay, we got some book readers. Good, very good. Yeah, you got to enjoy Parasite. And by the way, show of hands, who's seen Parasite here? Oh, okay, we got some book readers.

Good, very good. Yeah, you have to read them. Funny enough, I mean, it would make sense. I told my dad, I was talking to him on the phone, I'm like, Dad, I saw this great movie, Parasite. It's got Korean subtitles. He goes, Korean subtitles? Hell no.

And I was like, oh, that was my exact reaction to you when you told me to watch. Turning into your dad. Thank you. All right. The floor is yours, sir. Oh, hey, hey, it's time for... I mean, it's time for...

It's time for dongs. It's time for... Listen to that Freudian slip. Listen to that. The number one segment in all of combat sports. We search the high, low, the good, bad, and the ugly. We comb the desert, and we have found shit. It's time for Have You Seen This Shit?

Luke, we will begin at the aforementioned UFC 248 press conference in Vegas on Friday afternoon. This was the viral moment. I know you have seen this shit. Luke, I popped out of the building watching this online. Is Romero not incredible? I mean, the expression on Dana White who is becoming,

you know, he talked about it in the post-press conference, he can only hear out of one ear and the other ear is bad. And, I mean, I think he, look at his reaction there. He thought the whole time they were going to fight each other. But this was like the cherry on top of my 248 fight boner. What did Jake Hager say that time? He said, I got a phoner. Remember that?

In Bellator, you know what I'm saying? He clarified to me it means fight boner. He's so excited about this fight that he's erect, Luke. Do you understand? First of all, it's just weird, number one. Number two, you have the Js that Adesanya are wearing are slick, number one. But, okay, so he's Salsad. He did a split in type jeans.

Hold on, you missed the first part. Adesanya Salsad, then Romero crip-walked a la Serena Williams. I knew you were going to actually break this down. There he's crip-walking, and then he does the backflip, and then he does the split. Romero is an amazing man. Do you have anything bad to say? Look, Adesanya looked like he was about to start dancing. And then he was like, wait, wait, I can't compete.

People keep saying that. I don't believe he can't compete at all. He can absolutely hold his own. He used to be a dancer. Did you ever see him? Did you see him when he went to Nigeria for vacation? He had a dance-off in the streets. But this made me pop.

Did you answer the question? I did not see the dance-off in the streets. It's on his Instagram. Go watch that and tell me if he can't handle that. This felt like Breaking 2, Electric Boogaloo, a great 80s movie. Did you ever see that? Please go to the next one. Okay, alright. Hey, we're going to move on here. This is a user submission. The guy with the blood on the back of his neck is John Hazelwood. This is regional MMA.

And he's about to send this dude to hell, Luke! Luke, look at where this show has gone. We have fighters out there in the Midwest, probably, in the dark cage. How dark is that cage, by the way? How do you even see each other? Jesus. Sending people to hell with blood all over their body and sending us the footage.

I think he's fighting a boxer. Look at how wild these punches are. Check this guy out at Hazelwood MMA on Instagram. Yeah, you know what? We should tell. If you're a regional level fighter and you get a nice KO or you've been KO'd, send us the footage. They're probably already on the show.

They've probably already been on there. But shout out to John Hazelwood. We'll support his career. I'm going to follow him moving forward. All right? Why was he bleeding on the back of his neck? Because anything can happen. But shout out to John Hazelwood. We'll support his career. I'm going to follow him moving forward. All right? Why was he bleeding on the back of his neck? Because anything can happen in regional MMA, Luke. That's a fair point.

Anything. That's a fair point. The cage could fall apart. Like, anything could happen. The circus tent could blow off during a Kansas tornado or something. They might be throwing blood from the audience. That's what I'm saying. Their feces or something.

All right. Hey, let's move on. I know you saw this, Luke. 64-year-old Super Bowl hero Phil Simms on the set of Showtime's Inside the NFL. Look at that user who sent it in, at bdaily223. Some zero. Some teenage donk in the basement. Some nobody. Phil Simms crushed 20 pull-ups. Yeah, not really. Okay. And it was just awesome to see a man this jack still, 64, go at it because luke

even in my prime prime campbell yeah i'm probably doing three right now maybe one and a half yeah or maybe a half of one right now because i'm fat lance bound fat guy in a little coat right now you know what i'm saying so i got in trouble on twitter for this one well this is what i wanted to transition to you got sent to hell, Luke, by everybody because you got on there all tough. I did not get there all tough. Pretty good, but he couldn't crack it in the Marines, I'll tell you that much here.

It's not exactly what was written there. You know what I'm saying? Why is reading comprehension such short supply in America? Luke, I went down your mentions on that thread. Those people came out with the pitchforks, with the baseball bats, and guess what? I think they were right. Because maybe your intentions were different, but you totally came out like,

and it wasn't like I'm smarter than you like normal. It was I'm stronger than you. Here is my major problem on social media. I do not have a worthy adversary. These are zeros who don't know how to read properly. Here is exactly what I said, and this is true. In fact, if you go back and read it, I've not deleted it. I've left it up. It is a commentary about the Marine Corps. Here is,

I said it quite clearly. I even put it in all caps that this dude is strong as hell. Dude, for a 64-year-old man to be doing that is crazy. Let me finish. You asked me. I will finish. I will finish. Good, sir. Here is the problem. First of all, they're not pull-ups. They're chin-ups. The grip changes. Stop, dude! Do you, swear to God, do you understand the difference between this and this? It changes all the muscle groups that work. This is a strong ass grip relative to this. So number one, they're not pull-ups, they're chin-ups. That's the first part. Second part is, in the Marine Corps, you can call it what you want to call it. You can get mad about it, but it's a fact, and it's damaged my mind. I am crazy. I understand.

Are you saying Phil Simms couldn't come to the Marine Corps? God damn it, dude. What is so hard for you to understand? I need to finish the point. Are you saying Jesus Christ can't hit a curveball? Can I please finish the point? Can I please finish the point? Go ahead, Luke. You have a producer credit. It's your show. The point is, in the Marine Corps, and this is true, any Marine watching this will be like, you know what? He's kind of right. The way it works is you have to take your grip, and then you have to go elbows out, and you have to stop all the way dead hang.

Then you have to come up above the bar. If your knees come up, it's a zero. If you don't go back to a full dead hang, it's a zero. Watch his elbows. They stay bent the entire time, and he kips on the way up. You know how I count these pull-ups, Brian Campbell? Zero, zero, zero, zero. Ray Lewis is loving it.

Here is something you can't understand. But I love the viewers coming out and just sending you to hell. It was reminiscent of the last time six years ago that, I'm sorry, three years ago that you got sent to hell. Jay, do we have that footage? Oh, you brought this back out? That was a good day, huh? I'm sorry, Luke.

Look, I don't like you. Yes, yes. Look, again,'t like you. Yes, yes. Look, again, you can do whatever you want. You can show whatever you want. I'm Osama bin Laden. I get it. Yes, you're the Osama bin Laden of the show. So the point of this question to John, you were basically like,

John, are your 30s going to be better than the 20s when you did drugs and, right? No, that was not the question. All right. You're the one saying horrible things about him, not me. I don't go out of my way to. He's the greatest fighter of all time. I don't go out of my way to slander him. Right? No, that was not the question. All right. Well... You're the one saying horrible things about him, not me. I don't go out of my way to... Oh, no, he's the greatest fighter of all time. I don't go out of my way to slander him.

The point is, you can say I'm wrong. Here's my challenge to you. Yes. And here's my challenge to every viewer. Find one Marine, one, who says my characterization of Phil Simms' pull-ups are wrong. Find... This is very reminiscent of the... Look at me. Look at me. Look at me This is very reminiscent of the decade hasn't started yet.

Look at me. Under the Mayan calendar, it's next year. It was a nominal versus ordinal difference. Look at me. I know facts are hard for people because you guys like to believe in fantasy. Find me one. Find me one. One.

Where's your isokin? There you go. One. Find me one Marine, Brian Campbell. Find me one. I found this shit. Hey, let's move on. You like to criticize people at the gym who have bad tendencies. Look at this guy with the plumber's crack on the bench right there.

No wipe down afterwards. Shout out to AC Slater for posting this. By the way, you can tell where this is. This is Planet Fitness because all the machines are purple. Luke, no wipe down afterwards. Oh, that is so gross. And why is he wearing a belt? Did you see Derek Lewis showing some plumber crack during the Latifi fight? Yeah, no wipe down afterwards. Oh, that is so gross. And why is he wearing a belt? Did you see Derek Lewis showing some poma crack during the Latifi fight? Yeah, but that's

understandable. I mean, it touched. It basically touched. And he's just yanking the weight back, you know. Hey, why don't we stay on this trend of workout fails?

Let's check out this girl. I do love workout fails. Can you rate this girl's deadlift form here? That's not a deadlift. That's a snatch. Oh, you can call it a deadlift because she's not coming back from that look.

That is... This is a snatch. That looks painful. So the weight got too far behind her. Watch. See how she bumps it on her hip crease like that and then throws it too far behind her. I heard it was snatch and hump. All right.

You actually have to catch the weight. She pops it and then doesn't catch. Boom. There you go. I mean, she crushed some organs. That's very painful. Yeah, that looks not good. This is why I don't do stuff like this in public.

I don't want to end up, you know. Yeah, this is also like, oh, could you do better than Phil Simms? No. That's why I don't put it on a fucking camera. Could you do better than the next guy? Rate this guy's form. I don't know what you call this. Is this a squat thrust?

I don't know what you call it. It's a high bar squat, first of all. Rate his form here. What is he doing? Oh, wow. Wow. I think, wow. Is this you practicing for prom night?

If Ricky Martin should write a song about this guy, he bangs. Look at this guy. Dude, what is he fucking doing? I'm just going to ask you. You're the judge on all things powerlifting. What is he doing? He's going backwards. Yeah. All right. Hey, it's time for spinny shit. You ready he doing? He's going backwards. Yeah.

Alright. Hey, it's time for spinny shit. You ready for this? Yeah, yeah. Let's go. Go back, go back, go back, go back, go back, go back. Go back, go back. Can you go back, Jay? Oh, Jay, you suck. Go back. Watch. Look at the guy on the leg sled in the back. Watch. He's just looking at his dude like, what the fuck is wrong with you? So he's preparing

for something. Watch, watch, watch. This is training camp. Look at the guy in the leg sled. This is training camp for something, right? He's like, what the fuck are you doing? More like banging camp. Maybe he's an adult dancer. Maybe this is the...

He's getting calves a workout. All right, all right. Hey, let's go to some European MMA, I believe, here. It's spinny shit time. Watch this flying knee, but more specifically, watch what happens afterwards. Oh, he made him do the cabbage patch, Luke. Look at that. I don't know.

Did you see that? Oh, I forgot about the cabbage patch. That's a 90s dance, Luke. Yeah, shout out. Yeah. Look at that. Zero with the counter. Unbelievable.

Blah, blah. Look at that. Look at that. Oh, man. I'm going to send them stumbling as if they had a ton of beer. What kind of dance was that? All right. Hey, let's move on here.

Did you see the picture on Instagram from Bellator welterweight champion Douglas Lima going nose to nose with UFC welterweight champ Kamaru Usman? In the caption, Doug Lima was basically like, Dana White, the ball is in your court. Luke, the idea of super fights, champions in both divisions in UFC and Bellator, probably not going to happen. We've talked about this in the past. Actually, definitely not going to happen. We've talked about this in the past. Actually, definitely not going to happen, and only in our dreams.

But if this fight took place tomorrow, what's that shit look like? I still like Kamaru's chances, but are you with me in thinking that is one of the most interesting fights you could make at 170 pounds? Just seeing them, sometimes you just got to see them together. I'm sure they both...

Dude, Douglas Lima's big. Jesus. Why did this photo come out? Are they managed by the same guy? Are they both Ali? No, I don't think so. I think Lima's a Brian Butler guy. Okay.

But I think Butler is the one who put the photo out in the atmosphere. But I popped for it. I popped just the same. I'm with you. Let's roll on here. Speaking of European and Polish MMA, crazy things happen. Luckily, we have Grubacka Hitman. I saw this.

I saw this. This guy kind of looks like me, right? Look at, I don't know what he's doing, but I'm loving it, Luke. Again, this is you training for prom night, I am certain. Look, this is the type of performances I can get down with, Luke. That's, wow. By the way, I didn't, all I saw was the gif. I didn't see, I didn't hear the audio.

I didn't, I, you don't need to. Did it sound good? We've reached completion. We've reached, wow. That is, yeah, that's. This is late stage Eminem. This is sexy violin time. Wow. Don't get mad at me back there. I see you making faces. Wow. Is that the rhythm method? All right, let's roll on from this, Luke. A lot of people on the internet trying to do these, you know, challenges and stuff. You know the Mentos and Coke challenge here? I saw this poor lady. This poor lady. What is this lady doing, Luke?

She gets bukkake'd by the way. Oh my God, Luke. Here it comes, drops in the Mentos. Watch this. I wonder how this works. Not one. Black and white, take that, take that. Luke, you've had dates end like that. Luke, we have a saying on my podcast, don't tease the bag or you'll get the mess. Wow. Wow, Luke. Yeah. Remember, what was it in grade school? Was it baking soda and vinegar? I don't know, Luke. Wow. She just didn't know what she was into. I'm playing a song on my violin right now for her tears. That's, wow. Yeah. Okay. We're

going to close with, no dongs this week. We're going to close with this. I am shocked. I am shocked. Yesterday was National Pizza Day. Did you celebrate? I did not. All right. You're a big pizza fan. Let's do a medley of pizza fails.

Look at this guy in the subway. Oh, man. Good Lord. Oh, this poor bastard. Yeah. I don't know how that happens. That's, yeah. Wow.

Well, the rats are going to have a field day with that. When he wakes up, he's going to be pissed. Let's roll on from there. This drunk dude ordered no pineapples, and he got them, and he was pissed. He's trying to send this slice to hell, but he accidentally steps in the wall. Oh, my God. Oh, it's on. Luke, it's on.

It's on. Can we move the camera there? Can we slap the guy with the slice? Oh, ground and pound, and I think he got finished. Wow. Look at this guy. By the way, that looks like. That's a big-ass slice right there.

And also, that looks like. Where is this? I don't know. It looks like D. By the way, that looks like... That's a big-ass slice right there. And also, that looks like... Where is this? I don't know, but... It looks like D.C., to be honest with you. These might be your people. Or Brooklyn. No, maybe that's New York. I can't tell. Yeah, these are very hipsterish. This is very Brooklyn right here. Yeah, yeah. Why would you slap the guy with the slice? I think he was just going to throw it, and that

guy happened to walk in the way, and then he got beat. Oh, he just got bodied by it, yeah? You think that's fake? I'm never sure. I don't know. Let's go to the all-time greatest pizza moment in sports. Do you remember the famous Fenway pizza throw from a couple years back? No. Look at this. This is one of the greatest moves by a fan ever. Foul pop. Everyone's focusing. And look at this guy. See him right there highlighted? Yeah, with the Patriots. Of course he's wearing Patriots. Oh, just fire the slice across. Of course he's wearing Patriots here. Not, just fire the slice across. Of course he's wearing Patriots gear. Not only did that guy get douched with beer, he caught a slice right on the shoulder.

So what, he was bitter that he interfered with the play? Is that the idea? I think he was just looking to clown a guy. I'm down with that. All right? Look, anything can happen at a sporting event. You get drunk. NFL fans are going to fight.

Take that. Throw a pizza. Yeah. They ended up throwing him out and arresting him. The guy who threw the pizza? I don't know if you remember, Luke, 2016, the Andre Berto-Victor Ortiz rematch. Berto wins by knockout with an uppercut, and while Victor Ortiz is walking out, oh my god! Look at Coach Haas with the mohawk. He's about to throw down with the guy.

Follow-up to this story. I talked to Coach Haas, Joseph Janik there, last year about this incident. He said they could have pressed charges, but once Victor Ortiz found out that the guy who threw it right there was going to be put back in jail and separated from his kids, Victor decided not to press charges right there. That was a nice guy. Yeah, well, he got served up with a... I said no anchovies. No dongs this week. Look, that was fun. That was probably one of the best... I don't know, like a dick-shaped pizza or something. That was a good one. I don't. I don't.

Oh. Jay, Jay. Yeah. Sorry, Luke. Sorry. Wow. I've never seen a straight man who loves hog more than you. It's just a dick in a box.

You know what I mean? I mean, step three, right? I said this on my live chat. This is true. If there was a robbery at a bank, your answer, like the police will be like, can you identify the suspect? Brian Campbell will be like, well, I've got good news and I've got bad news. I didn't see his face, but last week I saw him in the sauna at the gym.

I can tell you about every inch of his dong. You see the size of the sausage right there, Luke? Every color, every dislocation, every wrinkle of skin. Yeah. Wow. He's circumcised. I know that for a fact. Be on the lookout for a circumcised man.

Is that service? You know any parlors? You need help. Probably a few massage parlors. You need help. You need help. All right. All right.

Yeah. Thank you. Have you seen that shit, Luke? Now I have. Yes. Very good. Some people are calling that the greatest segment in our show's history. You know what?

It is certain. Look. Oh, I got another job, people. No, no. There's a certain segment of our audience that I think they don't tune in for the first part. They kind of tune in around the questions. They just want to see you delight in other men's penises. That is really what they come for.

That's an unfair generalization of the spirit that I bring to both this sport and this show. Sorry, the elderly getting eaten by bears. You see this picture over my head. You think, man, those guys are touching dicks. I think, look at the passion on their faces. Look at the idea of we... They're also kissing. Look, we are grown men who talk about other men fighting with spare clothes on inside of a cage.

Think about what we do. And these guys are like, this is my life. This is my passion. I'm going to kill you. That's the spirit that we bring to the show and that they embody behind that broken frame. No, that picture is up there with, by the way, the caption on the picture I'm reading here says, tip to tip, they're up there because their dicks are touching.

Their erect venuses are rubbing one another. I do not represent that. Okay, time now for odds and ends. What's your odds and ends, Mr. Brian Campbell? This weekend, UFC comes to New Mexico of all boys. Is it UFC Rio Rancho? Correct. We talked about what could be next for John.

There's an important light heavyweight bout in that main event. Jan Blachowicz against Corey Anderson. Who do you like, and is there any possible chance that the winner gets John Jones? I don't think so. Between, or I should say, among Adesanya, a move to heavyweight, whether it's Stipe or not, plus Dom making it close. If Dom had gotten blown out, it might get a little dicey. But the fact that he's still very relevant as a figure.

Do you think Jon cares about this title defense record? Do you think he wants to linger? Because he's so passive-aggressive about this heavyweight move, Jon Jones. Every time he talks, it's in another direction. But I think Jan Blahowicz needs an exciting knockout. Because he was so roaring against Chakre. He needs something big here. Corey Anderson obviously is on a heck of a run. an exciting knockout. He was so boring against Chakre. He needs something big here.

Corey Anderson obviously is on a heck of a run, but I don't think either of them are going to get him. No, I'm with you. But what I care about is this co-main event. It's just one of these sloppy, weird circus fights that you just got to see. It's Diego Sanchez, the brawling legend, against Michelle Padeta. Backflips and all.

Gassed himself out and got knocked out last time. Tell me you're not looking at this card and going, yep, gotta see what happens on that one. Gotta see what weird shit... I'm a little bit worried about Diego Sanchez's brain health. Oh, I'm more than a little bit worried. I mean, the amount of damage he's taken. He's the only one left in the Ultimate Fighter Season 1. Yes. He's out there still doing it. And Pereira

is not the best taunt I've ever seen, but he's got knockout explosive capability, so it's like... I don't know. He'll try anything like a pelvic thrust knockout. He'll try it. Get that violin player. Actually, he should probably get that squat workout going, right? Work on that thrust maybe? Okay. Last but certainly not least, I'll give a shout out. How about James Krause? We've been talking about hogs. Let's talk about some balls, some big balls, Brian Campbell. James Krause takes a fight on what? 24, 36 hours notice, something like that. People kept missing this point, up a weight class. And

dude, this is the one time, not one time, but sometimes guys change weight classes and you don't necessarily notice a ton of physical differences in MMA. I noticed all of them here. Trevin Giles could easily, not easily, but he was more ready to absorb the damage. And he was handing out hard hammers to James Krause. But, dude, he stuck it out there, found a way to take it all the way to the distance. And he gassed, which is understandable in this situation, and then found that second win in round three, which is incredible. He's unbelievable. And he got the bonus, which he should have.

I'm really happy for him. You could have argued he won that fight. I thought he was going to win it as they head to the finals. But, you know, in the end it didn't go his way. But shouts to James Krause for just being a man among men. Pretty amazing. Any last things about this you want to get to? Caleb

Plant, the super middleweight title holder in boxing, comes back this weekend and has stayed busy in Nashville, not far from where he was raised in Tennessee. PBC's got some big plans for that guy because he's a slick white guy. He's a fox guy too, right? Yeah, and I mean, that division has a lot of players. When he eventually fights Jose Benavidez, I want to be their front row for that. I'm sorry, his brother, David Benavidez Jr., his older brother.

I want to be their front row for that. All right, very good. Well, okay, so that's the show today. Be on the lookout for a couple things. Number one, morning combat dissected. Number two, we're back next week. Oh, you should preach about the subscription thing. Like, threaten them.

What I'm going to do, yeah. Well, I'm not going to threaten you, but here's what we are going to say. Please like the video and subscribe. Tell people about it. Send this video to somebody who needs to see this program, because Brian's got his views and I've got my views, but there's one view that we share. There's no program in combat sports like this. It doesn't exist. Showtime took a risk on this, which means we need folks like you out there, male or female, whatever you are, tell people about the program. And, of course, you can see below here ways you can follow us on social media and then the channel itself. Yeah? Yeah.

There you go. You want to do a pull-up challenge and have Phil Simms referee it here? Fuck no. I'm so old and decrepit. Here's the thing. I didn't say I was better. I just said those don't count because they don't. You and I were 40-something-year-old white guys. We're a little washy. I get the fat Lance Bass thing going on right here. We should have like a challenge. We're just getting in the best shape of our lives and then, I don't know,

fight or something or do pull-ups or something at the end of it. How about you come to D.C. and lift weights with me? That'll be a spinoff morning combat. I'll tell you about this. I'll make a promise. You come to D.C. and you do some deadlifting with me, we'll film it and we'll share it. All right.

Can we work on that move the guy was doing? Which one? Not the chick that got pinned down. Oh, like the one where you're humping the air and then going backwards? We could try. I've never done it. I don't know what it's called.

Not like standing near each other. I don't want to tip the tipper. Well, the only way it works is if you spot me from the front, and then we go back together at the same time. I guess that will cancel our show. All right, so that's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Thank you guys so much for watching.

We'll see you next time, and until then, may all of your games be Lord. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.