MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jon Jones Speaks | UFC 283 Picks | Fight Announcements | Mighty Mouse | Ep. 399

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

On Episode 399 of Morning Kombat Luke and Brian kick off the show by reacting to a few new Jon Jones interviews. How many fights will he have at heavyweight? Will we ever see him face francis? The boys also discuss Francis Ngannou's status as a free agent. Will he get the Fury or Joshua fight? Next up the guys break down a bunch of recent fight announcements and discuss how stacked the UFC 285 card is. The boys close out the main topics by breaking down Mighty Mouse's comments about his championship pay in the UFC and Stephen Fulton vs. Naoya Inoue. The boys close out the show with UFC 283 picks and Dead wrong. (00:16:50) - Jon Jones (00:35:10) - Francis Ngannou (00:51:00) - Fight Announcements (01:04:00) - UFC Partners with Betting Integrity Company (01:27:15) - Stephen Fulton vs. Naoya Inoue (01:39:00) - UFC 283 Picks (01:58:20) - Dead Wrong Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

oh yeah it's that sound again. The sound of art. Friday, January 20th, 2023. Live, local, and late-breaking. It's the award-winning combat sports showcase known as Morning Combat. I'm just one half of the equation. That BBC with the BDE. The beige fella inside of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania today.

Hotel life ahead of tonight's show box, the new generation card. This is Brian Campbell. Welcome. Thank you very much. But the man next to me, right? Nation's capital, integrity, toughness. It's Luke Thomas. LT, are you ready to set the stage for UFC 283 or not?

That's the question I have for you. I am, although we tested this setup yesterday and it wasn't choppy and now it's choppy again. And I really don't know what to say about that. Not on me. I did everything that they asked me to do. I wonder if Mikey, our intrepid producer, wants to put the video straight on you and then I could change my frame rate maybe back to 120 and see what that does because it's a little choppy.

It's a little choppy. The a little choppy yeah that's what i can do the waters of life are equally choppy okay we persevere nonetheless uh does my skin look jaundiced or is it just my overall color scheme inside this hotel room that's for you to decide but uh 9 p.m eastern tonight showbox the new generation only on showtime six undefeated fighters on this triple header. Check out your boy BC, Raul Marquez, Steve Farhood, Barry Tompkins, all that stuff. Showtime, you can get, by the way, 30 days free right

now by going to Showtime.com. An additional six months at $3.99 a month for boxing, Bellator, MMA, great quality entertainment. I think that's a deal, folks. And you can also get great deals, by the way, on our fantastic merch, morningcombat.store.

I mean, who loves you, baby? You can look as, I want to say as cool and unwashed as me, but, you know, we all know that would be a lie, right? But you can look the same by going there. Bomber jackets. Here's one thing about these bomber jackets. They're high quality. You can decide for yourself if this is a desperate move to stay in the cool game

or if this is the next move for you, the extension. But I get a lot of people asking, you know, a lot of whistles, a lot of catcalls, a lot of people asking me, you know, what you got going there, BC? Award-winning shit, okay. It believe that, believe that, um, we're going to get Luke on here shortly back on once he gets his technical difficulties broken down, but great show for you today. Uh, obviously UFC two 83 is, uh, you know,

down in Brazil about 24 hours or more from now, we're going to react to the weigh-ins. We're going to provide our picks and we're going to update you on what happened on last week's uh debut of the head-to-head challenge each week between luke thomas and myself i took a shellac in and that one spoiler alert we'll see how that plays this time and recap the latest news hey a lot of fights being made in boxing and mma or the rumors of them that are really tickling our fancies. We'll look back at Jon Jones's recent comments, Stipe Miocic, and so much more. But while I have Luke Thomas here next to me,

my partner in crime, Luke, people have knocked on our doors for a while and said, BC and LT, I'm already going to do it. I'm already going to be there Wednesday, February 8th. King's Court, King's Place, London, right? The venue is King's Place. To see your 90-minute live show. I've already got the tickets, the airfare, the hotel, told my boss to F off, all that good stuff,

because we know your brand. We trust you. But you keep teasing that there's big names to come, the type of big names that are going to appear live on our show and sell that arena out. Luke, we are talking to a lot of different people around many different combat sports here. But I think today we can reveal the first domino to fall. I'd love to throw it over to you, Luke.

MK in the UK now has a big name that's going to be right by our side on that stage come February 8th. We have two guests to announce. By the way, this is not necessarily all the guests, but we definitely have two guests to announce today. So on February 8th. We have two? I thought we only had one. Look at this, Luke.

I thought we had two. Luke, let's verify that. Well, you know what? I'll announce the one that I know we can announce, and then I'll get to the second one if Mikey says we can get to it. So let's announce the big one, the one that we know is going to be there, that's fully signed, ready to go. Joining Brian Campbell and I, February 8th, London, England. It's going to be

Dan Hardy. Dan, the outlaw Hardy is going to be, oh, the last one we're finalizing details. So we can only announce Dan Hardy today. Trust me. There are other ones. Dan Hardy is going to be there with us on stage. He's going to join us for the show. We'll talk to him about what's next in his life. Obviously he does some work still for BT sport. He's going to join us for the show. We'll talk to him about what's next in his life. Obviously, he does some work still for BT Sport. He might try to get a boxing match, which, of course, he was trying to get one with Diego Sanchez, and it fell through, blah, blah, blah. And, of course, he's got a lot going on in his life. Plus, we want to talk to him also.

Folks might be asking, like, what's the show going to be about? We're going to give you the MK experience, but I also want to talk about the state of UK MMA and really who better to do that on stage with us on that night in London, England, than the outlaw himself, Dan Hardy. So Dan Hardy is going to be there with us. It's going to be a great time. And, you know, you talk about fight season in the near future to talk to Dan Hardy about. There's a big one coming to London. A big UFC pay-per-view card will come to London.

So there's going to be a lot to talk about in the overall news cycle. And look, you know, this outlaw, Dan Hardy, once wore a damn moh U to the UFC Octagon for a title fight. I mean, this guy pulls no punches. Uh, I'm excited. I'm excited to break bread with him, Luke. And that's just the beginning of some big names that not only will be at our live show, we've got additional big names that we're shoot. We're going to be shooting some very fun content with, uh, we're going to make this UK experience special. So hit that QR code in the corner there. Get your tickets to the live show. One and only. We're not like the Rolling Stones here announcing our final tour every year.

But for all we know, Luke, this is the only time I'm going to go over there with my brethren, try to unite those two islands together under the spirit of honest, old, washed, cranky men. And I couldn't be happier. Let's do this thing. And I got to say, you know, we got an update on the ticket sales. Guys, we're not doing a bit. It's not a bit. There's not a ton left.

There are some. There are definitely some. But if you're going to go, you got to get them. You got to get them. Like, there's a decent chance. I mean, I can't, you know, one never knows. There's a decent chance these sell out or get pretty close to a sellout. So if you want to go, if you want to go see BC, me, Dan Hardy,

you want to talk to us, you want to watch the show. And by the way, I think there's a lot of other things going on on the whole festival. You can go check out the whole festival just beyond us. You've got to get the tickets. You've got to go right now. This is it. If you wait another week or two,

I honestly don't know what's really going to happen. So get your tickets i don't want to tease things that won't happen but you know dan hardy's a big name we're talking to some very big names as well so uh you you might want to get them now so you so because when we announce some of these names if we can get them there may it may not be there then but uh shout out to the sports podcast group uh who named us the best sports podcast of 2022 put us up on billboards now we are headlining their inaugural pod live uh festival can't wait for it so there you go right there luke any other uh details you want to talk about as we head into today's vibrant loaded friday show to set the stage for the weekend to come no there is ufc 283

tomorrow uh and of course, BC is going to be on Showbox tonight. But I just want to remind everyone, just as a sort of a standard reminder, we will have a post-fight show tomorrow right here at youtube.com slash morningcombat for UFC 283. So results, analysis, your questions, the whole nine yards. Be here tomorrow night for the post-fight show reaction for ufc 283 shout out to our captain mikey mormyle on the ones and twos today as we get ready to launch the ship luke i would be remiss if i didn't uh you know share share the the old rip uh for those who've been gone in a past uh recent memory jeff beck luke guitar god and now dav Crosby. David Crosby died?

Yesterday, yeah, 81 years old. For my musical listening ship, especially right now in the 70s vinyl renaissance I'm going through, these hit hard, Luke. These hit very hard. I don't know if either name rings true to you, but there's been a few rough passings in the last

couple weeks of some of these people we loved near and dear so uh yes i'm trying to figure out if i so they see this blur that happens when i move this like chippiness this is on my this is my mac it doesn't happen on my pc and i'm curious to see bc can you hold the show for like a couple of minutes so i can switch everything over to my pc camping is the only skill luke that i ultimately uh bring to the table. By the way, I did rewatch the great David Crosby documentary last night called Remember My Name by Cameron Crowe, which I think was, yeah, Luke, go away. I got this. I got this. Which was one of the most

honest rock documentaries ever done from the standpoint of here's David Crosby, here's his impact on music, and here's all the mistakes he made, and here's the detailed reasons why, and the great regret he has but you know that renaissance he had at the end of his career uh was certainly special and uh damn another legend gone and you know i could go links on both guys but uh tough to see right there apparently they found carol baskin's husband a year ago and no one was talking about it and now that story's getting passed around i don't think they actually found him though. I think she just said, she claims Carol claims that she talked to what the FBI and they,

and they say he's, he's been, he's been on the run in Costa Rica for a long time. So, so maybe she didn't kill him. I don't know. That's up for your interpretation at the end of the day there, but RIP to two great rock legends there.

I'll be playing a lot of, I mean, you know, we recorded with Chuck M playing a lot of, I mean, you know, we recorded with Chuck Mendenhall on Wednesday in Jersey city, you know, and, and, you know, just it felt so good to get the A team back together, the current eight, maybe the best eight, you know, maybe the best team, not 92 dream team, but maybe the best team that this, this combat sports journalism game has seen. I couldn't, you know, I've kind of felt a little CSN vibe, right?

Kind of felt like, you know, that this super group, you know, so a shout out to the MK, shout out to the great Chuck Mendenhall. You'll be seeing some, some great content to come. Luke and I also, we rolled up those sleeves and went deep on a resume review. That's a big one, but I think you're going to love and enjoy, especially now that this resume review curse has been dead and long and buried there. But final plug to check me out tonight on 9 p.m. Eastern on Showbox. And I'm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which I've never been here before, outside of just

passing through on the highway on the way to Florida. But, you know, this is the home of our one of our great producers, the birth the birthplace of Corey Minici. So shout out to Minici. I have to say, I felt I felt one with this. This is a real factory town. You know, not that mine isn't mine. Mine used to be now mine is still in that, you know, multi-decade recovery era of who are we let's redefine, but Bethlehem is a proper, uh, factory town community. And, uh, I don't know. It just felt like home. It just felt like home here, you know, a little, a little edgy, a little,

a little rough on the edges there, but some charm, some, some pride. So, uh, thank you so much Bethlehem PA for having a showtime here this week. And we'll see where else show box can take us around this great country. That's, that's the cool part about show box, by the way, is not just the premise of, you know, young, you know, in, in, in theory, young, unbeaten fighter against fellow young, unbeaten prospect to find out who's going that way and who's going that way, which you're certainly going to see tonight in the main event with Sean Hemphill and David Stevens at Super Middleweight. But also at the same time, you know, it's like still that old school barnstorming tour of America. So I got to see Deadwood and some donks came out for that one. We'll see what happens tonight in old Bethlehem at the Wind Creek Casino here. Luke Thomas finalizing his technical issues,

which is certainly on brand for this brand. But shout out to everybody who's checked out our bonus content, of course, at youtube.com slash morning combat, where you'll get Saturday's UFC post-fight show, where you can get some great interviews. Luke Chattin with AJ McKee. Luke Chattin with Bellator's Brennan Ward, which you really need to check out.

Detailing in very human detail the incredible journey he's been on from drug addiction and now back heading into the February 4th CBS card there, the Fedor Baydor 2, or however you choose to pronounce it there. But good stuff these days in the MK land, and we don't get here without you great people. So I know we didn't do, have you seen the shit this week? We didn't do fan subs.

We'll rebound next week. You're going to get a little bit of dead wrong today. Of course, if we can get to that ending point, but it, it does feel like a special time for this brand. And there's been crazy MMA headlines lately. And,

you know, we don't all have to agree certainly on the fallout and how things have been done. But as much as you guys have gone out of your way of late to shout out us privately i have to do the same for all of you our subscribers are totals are up uh things are looking good here and some great fights to get into this weekend in that uh 283 from brazil card and an interesting potential here of what's going to happen in this light heavyweight division i know we just saw uh we just saw friend of the program anthony

smith who weighed in as the backup initially missed weight i i guess technically missed weight the second time when he came down at 206.5 i guess making him ineligible to fight for the level light heavyweight championship in an emergency but uh could you imagine if that division took another weird turn, if somebody dropped out? Let's not even put words to it. Let's enjoy Jamal Hill versus Glover Teixeira this Saturday evening. Let's start our show right here.

Luke's very, very around the corner from being ready right here. Topic one this week is related to all of these headlines that have been going around, particularly Francis Ngannou reigning and defending UFC heavyweight champion, now free agent, no longer the title holder after he vacated it. And March 4th, we're going to have a big one here. It's going to be Jon Jones, Cyril Ghosn for the full heavyweight championship. So the Francis side of it is certainly, you know, it's too fresh and too detailed. I think too important to completely fall out of the headlines, but we should get some, some turn into the direction of the larger story

as it pertains to the cage and pertains to the title picture at the moment. What is Jon Jones going to look like? What is his mentality three years removed from edging out Dominic Reyes in his final UFC fight at 205 pounds. Now moving up, it took forever. Richard Schaefer got involved, but here we are. We have a deal. And John talked to a few different media outlets, which, you know, he's been quiet overall on the grand scale for the last couple of years. In and out of trouble.

He's not a regular guy that's just going to show up on the MMA hour, you know, on a consistent basis or any of your other favorite interview platforms. But I know he talked to Sports Illustrated this week. I know we talked to John Morgan as well of MMA Underground. So a few quotes we can throw to here and look around. But it's like, you know, putting aside all the other stuff, it is really great to see what John's going to look like and seeing some of the early videos.

I know Henry Cejudo's YouTube channel has been putting out some very good content now with Cejudo being a key part in the corner, along with the captain, Eric Albarracin. And, you know, you get a little look at what they're working on. Nothing too much, but they gave you just a little tease of it. And, you know, the expertise and the decision-making and the timing that Henry Cejudo has and the focus on wrestling, I think you can start to understand what direction he may be leading john in for this big debut but as john talked about just that returning uh not necessarily a new deal but a you know a new financial scale in that overall eight fight deal uh john

was asked by john morgan specifically about his future plans and here was the goal my here was the quote my immediate goal is to to beat Cheryl gone and beat Steve a Miochich. After that, it'll be conversations with the UFC to see what makes sense. I'm guaranteeing the fans at least two more fights out of me. So I think that's a very interesting quote. When you look at what happened in Ghana,

they couldn't make the deal happen. Both sides wanted things that, that, you know, either weren't going to bend for. So you do get to instantly substitute the star power of John Jones for sure but it looked in the immediacy like John Jones is not going to be here you know for for just a good time maybe even a long time with that eight fight deal and the potentials that bring with that now John saying maybe you get two three more fights out of me look uh we're not

going to know uh what we're going to get out of him until we see him in that first fight and see what he looks like and all of that. And it could go in extremely in either direction in terms of him bouncing back with a bang to become a two division champion and almost cement already that growing legacy as the GOAT or to be interesting what happened if he goes out there and I'm on the brightest stage against as difficult guy and Cyril gone and what that does to the direction of his career. If it goes disastrously. Now we have Luke Thomas,

the troubles Luke, I believe now are behind us. Not really. It didn't really work. I was supposed to put everything on my PC, but I couldn't get any of these effing things to pair with my PC. So it'll have to be next week. I think at this point, the people just want you, Luke,

in any way they can get you. I'm sorry about all the troubles. BC, you know, we can ask the producer. We tested everything ahead of time. It looked great, and then we go live, and it looks like this. I don't really know how to explain it. It's getting to the point, like the guy mowing the lawn next door, Luke, where it's only bothering you at this point. Fair enough.

Okay, sorry about that, guys. BC, I appreciate your vamp enough. But, uh, okay. Sorry about that guys, but let's, let's appreciate your vamping. Absolutely. We're going to dissect some of these John Jones comments to try to, you know, continue to tell the story of what this means for the heavyweight division and John returning in any form is obviously a big deal. What do you make of him telling John Morgan that he wants to beat gone? He wants to then beat steep.

And then he wants to talk to the UFC about, I would think, maybe re-upping one more time and trying to get a better financial deal. But he did say, I can only guarantee the fans at least two fights. Yeah, I think that sounds about right. Guys, he's 35 years of age. He's been fighting for a very long time. He's been fighting since his very, very, very early 20s

and has taken lots of time off he has made accumulatively i think a fair amount of money and you know he's doing the whole michael chandler bit not here for a long time here for a good time i mean honestly bc i don't i don't know why that would be any way surprising if francis was around you know maybe that changes the equation or if he loses to either cyril or stipe or something like that, that might change the equation as well. But assuming he wins, what else would make sense to keep doing to fight a very tough Curtis Blades? I don't even understand that. I was surprised by that, Luke.

Unless things go absolutely disastrously. Let's say he just, you know, let's say Ghan even stops him. It's just like an absolute disaster. Then he would mount another comeback, and let's say that is a disaster. Look, that's an idea of, okay, it could be done right there. But Luke, you have to think physically, even with the damage he's put on himself mentally and physically from a lot of the outside of the cage abuse, he hasn't taken punishment in the last three years. This is the ultimate refresher. Rebuild your body in the long form and heavyweight you can age late in.

John has certain skills that are so elite that you have to believe could age somewhat gracefully. And isn't there something about, look, you can't ignore the trouble John has had and how that's always going to be a factor in how long he will be here or how consistently he can fight. But do you believe that John being active is better for the potential of him holding it together? I kind of feel like it would be, especially if he has success, but maybe, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the success is ultimately the thing that leads him down the dark roads. Life is tough, Luke. I just don't know why folks would look at this and think this is something this, chapter is built for longevity he's been in the fight game 15 years ish something like that uh certainly by the time that his you know next birthday rolls around so we're talking a very long time prize fighting and i get what you're saying with long breaks and there's other reasons why you might want to consider this the thing that he could

keep doing and keep going but i i was not surprised by this at all i was surprised he's actually signed to come back first of all the eight fight deal you knew was a retirement contract right that's what they're doing they're locking him into a retirement contract and then you know which isn't to say that after two fights if he goes in there and blows the doors off these guys that they couldn't figure something else out for future fights I mean again there are some ways he has three maybe four but he's been burned out for a while i think he's i think he both loves mma but it can get bored by it over time which is why he was never you know living the monastic life that a lot of other fighters have to even very good ones where they're constantly in the

gym i also don't i mean dude that it's it sounds kind of silly but it's real that injury he suffered against chael sonnen is debilitating that is. To smash up your big toe like that where everything is coming apart at the seams, your big toe is huge for things like explosion, balance, coordination, agility, all those things. And it was badly damaged in that whole thing. So to me, it's like that is not the reason why he couldn't keep going, but that among all the other injuries he's piled up, that among all the other fatigue and everything else he's built up.

Two sounds right. Two plus bonus night, whatever you want to call that. That actually sounds about one of the smartest things he's ever said, to be honest with you. I bet the under on that. I just feel like you take three years to rebuild your body, and he does still in a larger sense have some certain things to prove. If he loses, if he loses if he loses bc

there's no question it's more than two but if he wins and he wins them both relatively easily i'm of the exact opposite belief but we'll see how it plays out luke talking to sports illustrated though he was asked about francis's decision and i think it's here's what's really interesting luke is you know right now it's a fertile time for UFC headlines and a lot of them being negative. I want to see if all these changes from the Dana White scandal through PowerSnap, through the gambling situation, through all of that, if this is going to lead to the beginning of a new era of empowerment for the fighter. But how about speaking out for the fighter? I was surprised at some of the negative speaking out about the PowerSnap league in particular, which we'll probably touch on later later by some active fighters right now that

felt refreshing. Like Matt Favola going ham on the Twitter. I haven't seen a lot of people speak though. When asked about the Francis situation in any way that like that was an empowering moment, let me use it and take my power. And I get why you certainly get why, but you get also why everybody's asking each one about it. Now here's John specific quote. I'm happy for Francis in the sports illustrated interview. I'm glad he knows his worth. No man has a right to shame another man for fighting for his worth.

I was in a very similar situation as Francis as at light heavyweight. I was never happy with my salary. I had to sit out three years and I missed a lot of time, but now we're here. I encourage Francis on his journey. I wish him all the best. Another company is going to be truly best blessed by him, but I do believe our paths will cross. Dana White always gives the fans what they want to see.

And a John Jones and Ghanu fight will always be a fight of interest. So I'm not counting it out. I will keep an eye on Francis. Makes sense. This has fade, fade, really has fade or versus Randy potential of being the kind that got away, especially if both can continue winning big fights and doing big things here.

But Luke, do you think we'll see anybody follow up on the Francis situation by speaking out? More than just saying, hey, man, he's got to do what he's got to do, and I commend him. No, the fighters are, there's two problems with the fighters. They either have Stockholm Syndrome or they're deathly afraid. It's kind of funny, right? Like the fighters, when people are like, oh, they're afraid of their opponents, 99% of the time that's not true. It's not true.

I mean, it can happen on occasion, but it's very, very rare. But they are terrified of the UFC. They're terrified of rocking the boat. They're terrified of being part of a movement where they're seen as malcontent. Someone asked me on my live chat yesterday, BC, like, should, should Francis have made the negotiations public to then get the fighters on his side? And I'm like, bro, the fighters would have abandoned him on the side of the road. If he had tried that, like, no, like that's a terrible idea that wouldn't have worked at all. So no, not surprised i mean the fighters are you know

they're incredible athletes they are incredible technicians they do the job of something that is just you know remarkable to watch but when it comes to acting collectively or frankly even individually to secure their futures they're terrible at it they sign with bullshit managers they repeat bullshit talking points. They don't want to unionize. They, they don't want to do anything. You know,

I'll, I'll support them where they deserve it, which is the overwhelming majority of the time. But when it comes to pointing the finger at like why their situation's not better, here's the reason why they won't do shit about it. That's why. So no,

they, that wouldn't, I don't, I'm not in any way surprised that they didn't use this moment as a sort of a springboard for anything else. All right, spinning it back on Jones. Look, it's been such a negative stretch for Jones whenever we talk about him, rightfully so, that you see him confidently laughing and being encouraged

by new coach Henry Cejudo on Cejudo's YouTube channel. You do remind yourself the good parts about John Jones, that the parts that we respect within the very challenging side of that, how do you think the fans will receive him? Because part of John's Teflon reputation and ability to get in trouble, but not let it like, you know, ruin his plan. I mean, he did get stripped of the title three times and came back each time,

but fans, I think, you know, from my vantage point have always wanted him to But fans, I think, you know, from my vantage point, have always wanted him to be great, wanted him to be active, wanted him to be that guy of their era, their Mayweather, and have a lot of times, you know, I mean, they made DC a villain during a lot of that rivalry from a public perception standpoint, just by always having John's back. This will be a true test, three years removed, but do you think fans in general would just be more happy to have this guy back chasing history than try to sit here and judge him or boo him or anything like that? The fans love to love John Jones and they love to

hate John Jones. You'll get both, especially if something happens between now and then where some kind of USADA issue, some kind of outside the cage issue, some kind of police issue, something like that, the fans will just pile on him as they always have. And by the way, that's not necessarily without good reason. I'm not suggesting that's unfair, although certainly he has been the subject of extraordinary ridicule at times. But they also love to love Jon Jones.

They love to watch him go in there. They love to watch the lion feast on the prey. They love to watch the great white shark return to his native waters. I mean, whatever metaphor or analogy you would like to use, they'll do both. So how do I think he'll be received? I think largely if he is, by the way, he's probably not going to be asked about firing guns drunk in his car in the middle of the pandemic. So that's probably not going to come up. He's probably not going to be asked about the incident in Las Vegas or in all likelihood he won't be. And I think in large part he'll shelter himself from that.

He won't talk to people who would in any way bring that up. Right. So I would be very surprised if he talks to Ariel, for example, though it's possible, certainly possible. But in any case, if those things aren't part of the, of the new cycle of the pre-fight discussion, and it's really just a question of John's greatness, the individual matchup, what does it mean for the heavyweight division? They will love him very, very dearly. They always have, they always will. And then when they want to hate him,'ll unload on that but it never really undoes the love so to speak yeah it's a fair point uh tied to this luke especially if john jones wins on march 4th in a way anything but controversial as stipe miocic wants next uh stipe is arguably the greatest

heavyweight in ufc history he has been inactive in recent years when, to be fair, he's playing the leverage in politics the best he can, meaning he only wants the biggest fights. He feels at times that they push him out and maybe this happened again right here. But he's proven in the past he'll wait it out. He waited out, you know, some certain key moments there, got himself into that trilogy with Daniel Cormier. He wants the winner here next. I love how you could sell that fight, by the way, of greatest heavyweight ever Stipe against greatest fighter ever John to try to, you know, I would have loved

if that was the initial title bout though. Not against Gon sliding in here, but Stipe caught up with Ariel on the MMA hour and gave his thoughts. And Luke, from his vantage point, he was approached and offered the fight for March 4th. He signed for it, but he didn't find out he wasn't the one chosen by UFC until we all found out during last Saturday's fight night broadcast that they went in the other direction. He was

disappointed. The quote was, yeah, definitely disappointed. Jones is a great fight, a great matchup for me, but at the end of the day, it's not my decision, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens. I think those two guys are going out, going to go out and have a great fight. They're both gamers and I'd love to get a crack at whoever wins it. Luke, I don't think I'm overstating that. I think it's a, it's big business. There's history on the line and it'd be a great fight. Cyril gone or John Jones against Stipe Miocic next. Yeah, I will say, you you know he lost to francis in march of 2021 it'll be march of 2023 before this fight with john jones and gone happens i gotta tell you i would not in any okay if they make the fight to me i'm okay with it for the reasons that you've kind of articulated but bc

let me spin it back to you just for a second you don't find it a little bit weird that the guy basically sat out for two years and is like i got next coming off of a vicious ko loss well that that was going to be ultimately my question after your response is like he's historic he's a legend no one's questioning that he's also a really nice guy no one's questioning that but how long does that just allow you to be that old name in the bullpen always trying to be the cake topper when you've got a hungry and active division at the moment and you've got curtis blades in particular who's done a lot of things but i mean i don't imagine sergey pavlovich oh for sure but but outside of somebody else getting hot for a moment and then that just becomes the right fight, I don't see them saying to Stipe,

okay, if you want this, we're only going to want it if you go out and beat Curtis Blades first. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, it's like, okay, if you did standard business practice, Stipe would have to fight somebody else first, right? Pavlovich, Blades, whoever it ends up being. And maybe he wins it, maybe he doesn't. Like, reminder, Stipe is 40. Now, you might be like, well, it's heavyweight. Okay, but even at heavyweight, 40 is starting to get up there

a little bit. That's relatively old, even for heavyweight, or at least it can be in many circumstances, although, as we know, understand, not necessarily always. But I just want to point out, like, he would have to fight a Pavlovich, he would have to fight a blades what is going to be the fan sentiment if you told them he has to fight one of those guys before he could fight john and by the way you know john's got a very limited window potentially two fights right potentially then why would you get in the way of it i understand it so i think in the end the right call probably is steepay next for for the thing the reasons we're examining however this might be one of the very few times where we ever endorse someone sitting out for two years very quietly by the way for two years and then just getting

a title shot right away that you you won't see this situation happen very often yeah interesting stuff but if the promotion gets an opportunity to make Jones Stipe, they're going to make it. I believe that. I think it really just comes down to that, right? Like you get a chance to make it, make it just fucking do it. Right. I mean, that, that ends up being what it is, but it's unusual. It's unusual. And that can be hit or miss, or it can break your code or not. For some people, when Bisping Hendo two got announced for the title, it was like, yeah, man, cool. I've always wanted this. You know, did that speak to the rankings at the time? This is not comparable to that situation though, in my opinion.

And there's too much history at stake. Sliding into our second topic, Luke, we are staying in the MMA's heavyweight division. Only we're not talking about a UFC fighter. It's the fallout to everything that happened with Francis Ngannou. And, you know, everybody's allowed their opinion. And I've seen a lot of negative opinions still against Francis a lot of them smell Luke but but you know you want to give the the you want to be able to take in the full thing there uh just a reminder and maybe something you and I didn't

fully say as eloquently like he was actually a free agent allowed to to go public and seek offers uh in in early December we found out from that aerial interview. We said that on the show. We didn't explore it, though. So good for you, Luke, for saying that. I may have missed that in the moment. But the whole idea of like if it was about money, dude could have been parading around trying to get offers at that moment. But no, he still wanted to talk to the UFC,

whether people can argue it was good faith or not. And the fact, Luke, that they wouldn't even negotiate with him about any of his demands, it's like, I get it. And dude, I've been touched at how big this moment has felt and meant to certain fans, celebrity fans sometimes that we talk to who are emotional over this decision. So there's a lot of moving parts to it. But one of those parts is that Francis thinks he's going to be boxing this

summer and Luke he seems to be only talking about the direction of doing it legitimately uh and doing it on the title level and trying to to go for all I mean what are your expectations here in terms of him actually being able to get a boxing match yeah because you know you're going to get a boxing match in the summer? Because, you know, you're going to get a lot of people saying this. He's an attraction in an odd way in the true sense in the boxing game. But do you think promoters are going to be willing to jump at him and do this? Yes, I think they're going to try.

I think they're going to try. So let's back up a step. So currently as it stands anthony joshua does not have a fight booked true or false uh true but people are expecting based on his own words to try to fight three times this year and to like you know go after tough competition and doing okay yeah i'm just sort of putting it out there so fury and usic if that happens when is that expected to happen i I would guess in the April area. I don't want to say March because I feel like if it was March,

you'd have to be announcing it now and doing a very aggressive campaign. Okay, and then Wilder and Fury, excuse me, Wilder and Ruiz, we just haven't heard yet, but I'm expecting what? Maybe second, third quarter, something like that? Maybe even earlier, Luke. Maybe even earlier. I haven't heard anything to give me confidence in that, but it's easy to make.

Everybody wants it. I feel like you could see that early, maybe even earlier. I haven't heard anything to give me confidence in that, but it's easy to make. Everybody wants it. I feel like you could see that early, mid-spring. So it does line up a couple of different ways where if you wanted to fight July or August, June seems a little aggressive, but July or August, that does seem possible. But again, we've sort of spoken about it. If Fury loses to Usyk,

I would imagine he's going to want a rematch i don't i think he will beat usic but you know one never knows so that could complicate things aj to your point you know it's kind of like changing everything up and really just wants tough fights or seems to want tough fights anyway which is commendable but that would not necessarily put him in the francis and gano sweepstakes by the way he already makes shit tons of money so it's not like he needs one of those big fights to get a big check um and then with with wilder and ruiz now that's the fun one because i do think those would be relatively easy to make no okay not with ruiz but assuming wilder wins uh which he probably should i think uh andy's a better boxer but you know wilder has just nuclear power in his right hand

and that seems to be enough of a difference maker. So I think that you could there's a couple ways that could go, but listen, man. It's funny. You know what documentary we were talking about? I think you and I were talking about the other day when Bush had to follow Korn at the

99 Woodstock event. Do you remember this? And we were both like amazed that, you know, Bush was able to like go out and do that. Because if you see the documentary, like Korn completely destroyed the place. I mean, they had the crowd in the palm of their hand. And then Bush, you know, with glycerine

is supposed to come on after that. And they're like, what the fuck are we going to do? You know, they haven't had Gavin Ross. They'll be like, how the hell am I supposed to follow that but they did they did and they made it work but his analogy was it's like you ever been at on a cruise ship or on the boat at sea you know the the the ocean is dark and it is vast and it is almost to an extent quiet as well he goes it was like jumping off of a boat into the black abyss of the ocean in the middle of nowhere and just hoping that eventually you find a life raft. That's what Francis has done.

He has jumped off the ship into the middle of the ocean, and it's dark, and there's nothing around. And he is just hoping that things kind of line up for him. Now, he can make his own luck in certain ways. I suspect if Fury and Usyk fight, you are going to see Francis front row at that thing. If Wilder and Ruiz fight, you might see something kind of similar. He's going to make a lobbying case for himself, but it is very speculative,

BC. You're asking what the chances are at this stage? It's impossible to know. I'd say probably 50-50 is our best guess, but he has wandered into the abyss, and only God knows what will happen next. I think his best case timing wise and trying to align himself with one of those big names is if the Fury Usyk fight can happen as soon as possible.

And if Fury can win without any need for a rematch, you know, what else are you going to ask for Fury at that point? Yeah. If you want to do something, you know, fun and crazy and crossover, go do it. No, one's going to be pushing you, you know, aggressively in any direction. Plus Anthony Joshua, which I would believe is Fury's next big, true super fight separate from any Francis experiment. We need time for Anthony to get better. But in talking to Ariel, Francis did say he would prefer Fury and Joshua first on the same level in terms of who we would, if he had to choose Wilder is sort of in that next level below in terms of

someone he's interested in. But Luke, I have a couple of questions related to this because on the flip side here on a devil's advocate, he doesn't have any boxing experience outside of, you know, come training in France to initially try to become a pro boxer. So even when Floyd Mayweather fought Conor McGregor, which

had an exhibition feel, but was a real 154 pound fight that counted on Floyd's unbeaten record, which I think by making it a real fight, it made it even more exciting from the idea of like, could Conor be the one that lands the first, you know, hands him the first L, but there was a lot of debate about, you know, is it safe commission-wise, which doesn't always tend to be a problem to get through at the end of the day for promoters whenever there is an issue with the commission. But commission-wise, was that even safe and smart for somebody with no experience? When we're talking about heavyweight and the heavyweight title, there is, of course, that one reference of Pete Rademacher back in the, he was a 1956 Olympic gold medalist, and he fought for the world heavyweight title in 1957 in his pro debut against Floyd Patterson and lost. But you can certainly see the allure and the gimmick there. Rademacher was almost

doing like a Lomachenko, but even more dare to be great. And it didn't work out, but it was a spectacle. And the dude was an Olympic gold medalist at heavyweight makes sense while Fury and talk about a fight with Ngannou sometimes centers around mixed rules and MMA gloves Ngannou said he would rather do it the real way for the title pure boxing do you think boxing would have an issue of taking an MMA fighter with zero experience and not just putting him in a fight against arguably the best in the sport and certainly in that division in Fury, but look for the full championship, for the undisputed championship, if that's the way the timeline falls out? Is that fair to this game? Is that legal?

Dog. You and I both know what's going to happen here. One of two things. Number one, they'll put it in Nevada, and Nevada will do what they did for Mayweather McGregor where they're like we'll look at his status as an MMA fighter and you know listen if any heavyweight has status it's Francis he's the number one fucking guy right and in terms of everyone he's faced except Derek Lewis he's beaten them in the UFC right so just sort of keep that in mind and of, if he fought Derek Lewis at this point, I would like Francis' chances to win.

I think you probably would as well. So just keep that in mind. He's the number one guy. They're going to say he's the number one heavyweight in MMA. You know, whether they'll do 12 rounds or not, I don't know. But, you know, probably. But, you know, they'll either get a commission to sign on to it or something like that.

That's the first thing that's going to happen. If that doesn't happen, a la Margarito not being able to get sanctioned in New York, they'll just commission shop. They'll just move it to a place that will regulate it. This is not a stumbling block. what you call it a a place of uh renown a place of prestige and either beg them to do it and find some kind of way to get it done or if they reject it they'll just go to texas or florida or saudi arabia or whatever like that that's not going to hold this of all the things that could hold this fight up that's not one of them well you know i don't think it ultimately will and i wouldn't fear for him you know in a health sense outside of the regular fears that you have in a fight,

like, you know, in a combat sports event, but it is interesting just to play that devil's advocate and make sure, you know, would this be accepted by the sport? I think ultimately it would be, and it would be interesting based on how you could potentially sell it

there. But my final question on this in the Ingano boxing direction, Luke is if he can't get any of those big names we talked about, do you think it's smart to take any boxing fight? And I know like you mentioned Derek Tresor's name in the past as the idea of like a guy who's absolutely legit, but is older. Is that sort of the perfect thing? I mean, it is a gamble for Ngannou, whereas I don't think Ngannou's just doing this for the money or the freak show element or the leverage that he has in trying to create this. Like, I really think it's scratching an itch. It's part of his life of always having big goals. I mean, there was a very inspirational part of his speech to

Ariel about, you know, every time he climbs a mountain, it's the, it's the bottom of the next mountain. And like, that's why in a very romanticized sense, you almost want to cheer for him to try to do something absolutely insane, with no experience just crossing over and fighting the heavyweight boxing champion of the world but um do you think it's a risk to fight anybody else but the but the most elite biggest fight he can make opponent um i mean how how much do you actually believe his intention is to do this on a on a long term on any form of a long-term level beyond one fight zero maybe maybe two like okay so let's say he fights Tyson Fury or Wilder right something like that and you know Lady Luck is on his side he lands one of his big punches and he knocks him

out and this is all very surprising he would do it again for one of those he might even do it a third time like let's say he fought Wilder once and then one fought wilder twice and then loses whatever that may be first of all they could do a trilogy at that point but at that point whatever he whatever uh he he is building off of a bit of a capital he has built right positive capital okay he's going to spend that positive capital trying to get the biggest name possible and if that leads to other subsequent bouts where he could also either gain more capital to spend, right? Like he did well enough against Wilder that Fury wants some or vice versa. Yes, you might see it.

But why would you spend that capital on Chisora or Dillian White or Povetkin or, you know, any name that's kind of out there in the heavyweight division that, A, won't sell a ton, B, is frankly dangerous to varying degrees, and that if that goes in any way wrong, it blows up the possibility of getting one. The worst thing you can do in combat sports is make fights that don't necessarily need to happen that interfere with the ones that do. That's what he would be doing. It makes zero sense at all all unless you know unless he got 100 million for one of those by some suitor or something which is extremely unlikely as well the goal is wilder fury joshua period any of those names great anything other than that you're in

trouble that's a smart take and because uh he does have the potential of being able to fight not just somebody in those names, but Fury, especially if Fury then becomes Undisputed Champion leading up to it. You don't risk that. You know, at that point, whether you're doing it more about money, royalty, you know, achievement, competition, any of that, you go right to that. So crazy that we're even talking about it, though, Luke. It's going to just be another wrinkle to this, this new combat sports year, which I think

on a boxing side, we're, we're really anticipating the potential of some big fights landing and some already getting announced, but you know, I think UFC side, it was a, it was a good, I thought it was a good year last year where some people who thought it was a step back, but I feel like we're going to, the best thing to do to get out of the way of all these headlines, Luke is to make great fights and do it. So having the Francis boxing experiment just injected into our already busy schedule is somewhat interesting. I know if I try to make a Jake Paul question, you're going to just tell me you don't have any care, whatever.

But who do you think would actually win a Francis Ngannou Jake Paul boxing match right now? It's not being talked about. You don't want it. It's ridiculous. But who actually wins that? I would probably say Francis, because at that point, weight classes matter. talked about you don't want it it's ridiculous but who actually wins that eight i would i would probably say francis because at that point weight classes matter and you know who's the more skilled

boxer probably jake paul like you know uh pound for pound talent or something but dude the power of francis is overwhelming and he would be able to take any shot jake would deliver i you can't say the reverse at all um is, is there any part in Jake final question? Then we move on to the good stuff, but you know, Jake's crazy. You know, Logan took the Floyd fight thinking there's a great chance he can get knocked out, but he wanted to have this moment on his life resume of like, Holy shit. Look at, I did this. You know, I jumped off. Why am I falls into the water? I mean, I did that on camera, you know? Do you think that there's a big enough daredevil in Jake Paul to even consider this idea?

No, no. I don't think that, I think it's wrong that Jake wants easy fights. I mean, we'll see what Tommy Fury's got for him. Probably not much, but we'll see. And then, you know, Nate Diaz is not in his twenties anymore. He's pretty close to 40 at this point. So, you know, it's not like he's fighting the toughest guys he could be fighting. Pretty far from it. He is selectively picking them for, you know, all the different ways in which he can. But I thought Anderson was a step up from Tyron and so forth. But that is a bridge too far.

That is a bridge too far. And also, you're like, well, Logan fought Floyd. Dude, Floyd is half Logan's size. You know what I mean? Like, part of the reason that was sanctioned was, one, it was an exhibition, and two, it was like the guy who was much bigger was far worse as a boxer. That was sort of the reason there. And even then, you saw Floyd stealing on him constantly and couldn't put him away.

That was really somewhat surprising if i can be honest with you i don't think jake wants to do that it's not strategic it's not smart you could get fucking hurt don't do that right no you disagree yeah i don't think it's worth it in the grand gamble you know you know if because i know you have brought up jake paul mike tyson i do think that might be a little bit different i mean there's a morbid element of jake paul versus mike tyson but the guy's also in his 50s so that does yes he's in his 50s he's not the top I do think that might be a little bit different. I mean, there's a morbid element of Jake Paul versus Mike Tyson, but the guy's also in his 50s. So that does.

Yes, he's in his 50s. He's not the top dominant force. He would still box. I think Jake's ears off. I even then I still wouldn't like Jake's chances, but that is such a once in a lifetime dream matchup. If you're Jake, if you're not, not saying for the customer per se, but certainly for Jake.

And again, I do think there would be a customer base for it. I can kind of squint and understand that. But Francis just seems like you get all of the danger, some of the financial reward, but not on par with what you would get with Mike. And yeah, no. Luke, topic number three takes us to recent fight announcements. We want to be able to react to these properly. We had already mentioned on Wednesday's show that Amanda Nunes Irene

Aldana not official but reported by Rafael Mourinho for UFC 285 uh holy crap is that card coming together potentially with a bang also on that card Valentina Shevchenko defending the flyweight title against Alexa Grasso which which we mentioned. Bo Nickel getting his long-awaited UFC debut under order. Not that long-awaited, considering he just won twice on the Contender Series, but it had gotten pushed back against Jamie Pickett. So, Luke, UFC 285 is really starting to come together here. It certainly is. First of all, we didn't really talk about it in our predictions.

We should have had more of a discussion about what kind of year 2023 is going to be for Bo Nickel, who just looks to be a once-in-a-generation kind of prospect. I just want to point that out. As you mentioned before, Amanda Nunes versus Irene Aldana. Amanda Nunes certainly accomplished much more than Aldana, but Eldana's a good boxer. She's on a decent win streak. Like, I like that matchup. She's going to go after it.

Yeah, exactly. She's going to be willing to get stopped to try to win, and I think she brings a new wrinkle to a challenge of Amanda. And even though Amanda, I mean, bounced back spectacularly against Juliana, she is getting into her 30s here, and the division's largely empty, but somebody's going to come up and be her Tayo Santos soon, Luke, which made Valentina suddenly potentially look human

in the right matchup. Alexa Grasso, though, Luke, that's not a bad fight. That's going to be an interesting test boxing-wise. And by the way, Aldana and Grasso from the same camp in Mexico, you have two women from Mexico, like Mexican nationals fighting for UFC weight class titles in separate, well, actually in the same month, but in separate events that are roughly the same time. Yes. Yeah. No, sorry. No, that's the same card. What am I saying? Exactly the same card. I apologize. Yes apologize yes 285 so you're going to be getting them on the same night that is a huge moment for mexican mma that's a huge moment for

women's mma just in terms of like the growth and where you can now harvest contenders from in terms of the global population of fighters like this is all really good news even if the powerhouses in nunez and shevchenko retain their titles titles. This is still a great sign is what I would say. Well, there is still a big if all these fights go down because the Nunes fight not officially announced by the UFC. They did send out a press release just the other day probably to rile up ticket interest promoting Jon Jones and Cyril Ghosn in the main event, of course, for the vacant heavyweight championship.

But if it ends up being Jon Jones's return for the heavyweight championship, Amanda Nunes back and Valentina Shevchenko back, not only was that a loaded top of a pay-per-view card, which is already pretty good top to bottom. Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only.

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that rewards your good financial habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every But then, Luke, you almost are just setting up Amanda and Valentina then fighting in the next pay-per-view cycle for their trilogy if both win. So there's some connective storytelling potential here, tissue that I like. And the fights that I were mentioning else on this card that have been announced, not just Bo Nickel against Jamie Pickett, Jeff Neal against Shavkat Rachmanov,

Derek Brunson versus Drikus Duplessis, Cody Garbrandt, Julio Arce at Beck and Bantamweight there. A few others that, you know, Jessica Penne, Tabitha Ricci, Luke. You know, I mean, there's some good ones here. Also the brother of Javed Basharat, Farid Basharat is on that card as well. He's also very good. The Basharat brothers are very talented. The Bash Bros, as I think they're called, right?

The Bash Bro. That's a good one. I haven't, we haven't heard that one in a long time, but yeah, it's a good one. Luke, how about this for a March 11th UFC fight night main event that I believe is all official and announced in the Bantamweight division. Wow. Dude, Peyotr Yan, the former champion, Luke, he only matches himself as difficult as frigging possible. He may have come up empty in the recent attempts to get back that championship

that he once held. But Murab Davalashvili, who has needed an elite opponent here to get himself into the title position, they're going to face off. And I love this fight. I love this fight for its geopolitical implications. There's a Georgian MMA journalist I follow who told me this is probably the biggest fight in Georgian MMA history. If you think about it, which wouldn't have occurred to me naturally but that's something that he had said i mean a georgian mma historian luke okay but you're talking about a guy in dewallish wheelie who has climbed the ranks he did beat jose aldo or whatever happened

with it was it i think he did win but it was like the worst you know it was a terrible fight it was at an altitude it was a whole thing but he has steadily climbed the ranks he's within the elite team and he is taking on a guy who was the former champion who happens to be from russia there are we what we sometimes want to remove the sport from the world in which it exists but there is obviously some geopolitical considerations there that i think are going to make the fight big for those audiences russian and then worldwide too obviously because it's a relevant fight for the bantamweight division but it's a huge contest you know jan has had to deal with sterling jan has had to deal with o'malley very different kinds of guys dwalsh really is not really the o'malley type he's

a little bit more sterling they do train together but even then he's not the same positional control guy that like sterling to me is the grappling equivalent of a of a boxing slickster. You know what I mean, BC? He's just real smooth, real clever, real fundamental, especially with his back takes and back control. That's not DeWallace Wheatley, but what does he have that no one I've ever even seen maybe has? He has a motor that is out of control. His cardiovascular conditioning, and this is true of a lot of fighters, but not even as true as he makes it, is an absolute weapon. He can go as long and as hard as he needs to. Pause on that one, by the way.

But he can certainly push the pace on his opponents as far as he needs to. He doesn't have to apportion his offense. He doesn't have to worry about what are my resources going to be the third or fourth minute into a three or even a five round fight doesn't matter at all doesn't care he can just go he lacks a little bit the polish that a guy like yon has yon is significantly more well-rounded and has significantly more developed skill sets but against that motor bc it almost cancels out everything and for yon to be as frustrated as he's been and yet to accept a fight like this is interesting, man. Really interesting.

DeWallis Wheely is a guy you could lose rounds against by just being unable to get your game going. Right? I mean, look at the Aldo fight as a great example of that. Right? Just by virtue of how much he does and how quickly he does it and how aggressively he can do it without concern for the cardiovascular implications, it just runs. It's like the wave that just runs over the shore of the beach. It doesn't matter what kind of beautiful sandcastle you have built. The wave will smooth it all out no matter what. So man, this is a really tough test, but I will say this. If Jan can get get past him he reasserts himself at the top of

that division I think with authority by contrast if the Wallace Whealy wins that is you could say the Aldo win is the best win I would disagree I would think if he beats Jan that would be the best one on his career and when I say best win I don't mean like it looked the best I mean just the best name on the resume but if he beats Jan to me that would be the best name on the resume but if he beats yon to me that would be the best name on the resume by a million miles now he's a title contender and then bc if sterling is still the champion well then you have some interesting questions that begin to get asked after that point now out of everyone who's been in this spot where their teammate is the champion and we've seen different reactions and you know what a friend and what a friend you have in daniel cormier right who will go to another division altogether and who knows if Aljo will hold

on to the belt let alone not just move up anyway because he's talked about it a lot but they will not under any circumstance fight each other because of how much they've become brothers and depend on each other and Murab looking at Aljo as a as a mentor and you know and almost as a life mentor in some ways too in helping him transition to moving to the States here. But it's crazy that Murab actually lost his first two UFC fights in succession there and then ripped off this win streak that is now eight in a row, and he's raising his game

with each step up the ladder. And Jan's one of the best fighters in the world, Luke. You know what I mean? Like if we did an extended pound for pound out to, you know, 2025, I mean, he's going to, he's going to figure into that a lot yet. He's lost three of four and one was a DQ that he was winning and two were split decisions, even though I did think he lost, uh, in a way against Sterling that wasn't split in my own personal judgment, but he just as easily could have beaten O'Malley and certainly was,

uh, was elite in game in that fight. So I love that Piotr Jan just, just doesn't give an F man. Let's go right back to it. Let me get right back in there and show you. And I think if from the idea of, you know, looking back at his recent run, certain big mistakes he made that you'd like him to change, but Luke, he's not getting outclassed in there.

He just wants to constantly face the best and try to become champion again. Damn, this has big stakes, and I love it. I could romanticize it left and right. But how about this, Luke? Are you moved by UFC 287 on April 8th when Michelle Watterson Gomez takes on Luana Pinero? No? Not moved?

No, I mean, I don't hate it. I don't hate it uh i don't love it i don't well maybe i use that luke as a palette you know refresher the little the little sorbet before i give you the meat here and that meat is this april 15th edson barbosa versus a man who is m approved. And you're looking at him, Billy Quarantillo, who is an all action machine trying to prove that he belongs at the cool lunch table, Luke. Uh, but he's got to go up against a legend and a violent one. I love the flaming shit out of this fight.

Luke only this, that's not the right adjective to describe it. This is a great fight. This is a sick fight. And dude, look at the, this is the picture right here. They're showing it right now. Our producer, which was

the win over Alexander Hernandez. Hernandez came out in that first round and looked great. Now that was down a weight class, obviously, which didn't work out for him. But he looked great in that fight. Once he dealt with the early difficulty ability, Quarantillo did, of Hernandez. Hernandez started so strong.

But then Hernandez, I think, mounted a comeback towards the end of that first, and then certainly in the second, he put it on Hernandez, winning via stoppage in there. He looked great. Now, he came off the win over Shane Burgos, which was understandable, but he had a win over Mowgli Benitez before that. I love this for Billy Quarantillo.

Now, Billy has to know this. I'm not saying anything he doesn't know or the audience doesn't know. That's a tough fight. Barboza is not what he once was, but he is still... You fuck around, you find out against Edson Barboza. You're going to find out. Yeah, I'm sure Billy knows that as well. But I love the way you framed it, right? Because Billy has been

a fun fighter and he's been a good fighter. He's got wins over Spike Carlyle and some other fun action fights that have been there. But you want to start climbing the ranks. You want to start making a name for yourself. You really want to see exactly how far you can go. This is a great fight to begin to really push that off, especially off the back of the Hernandez win.

So very tough fight for Billy Q, but a fun one for the fans. Can't wait to see it. And big, big stakes for that young man's career. Barbosa is, what is he, 36? He's an old 36, man. He's been beating up. And he did reinvent himself at a lower weight class and all that. But since he beat Benil Dariuch in 2017, just three and seven since then.

But look, I mean, there were some crazy fights in there from Habib to Kevin Lee and Dan Hooker as well to kick that off. Most recently, losing streak of two fights, getting stopped by Giga Chikadze and the decision loss to Bryce Mitchell last March. So yeah, let's find out what that fight crossroads. Indeed, TJ Brown versus Bill Algeo set for April 15th, the same night, Luke. I don't know if you love that, but Carol Rosa against Norma Dumont. UFC fight night, April 22nd. I don't hate that. All right.

No, it's a fine fight. And also, Luke, how about this for Bellator 292? James Gallagher versus Leandro Higo. Okay, okay. That's a tough fight for Gallagher, who, by the way, switched up his whole life and left Ireland to go to James Krause's camp and now that whole thing fucking blew up I don't I don't know if Bellator has put the same kind of restrictions on working at that gym that UFC has but I doubt it matters at this point considering everyone else probably had to leave and the gym is in whatever state that

it's in uh you know it's not great and so he's had to reinvent and everything. He was riding so high early and has had a lot of difficulty. He still is quite talented, and it's a winnable fight against ego for sure, but that's a tough fight for him. And yeah, we'll see what happens. Picture him riding dirty. Luke, I have, after that conversation we had with him at that interview that time, James Gallaher,

you know what I'm talking about. I do, yes. He was like, guys, not on the air, please. Okay, not on the air. Please don't mention the pipe i'm laying on air uh topic number four luke ufc has taken the formal legislative steps to continue to build the walls that are necessary to separate them and the money they can make on legalized gambling from the potential of further scandal fight fixing, all the things that have been associated or at least threatened in the James Krause,

Derek Minner and et cetera situation. UFC now partnering with betting in with the betting integrity company. They've announced a new updated, expanded code of conduct in terms of the rules on who can bet and who can't uh every single fighter under contract including their managers nutritionist trainers anyone associated with the camp now officially banned from betting on any UFC fights and Luke the fallout which is certainly not you know is which is connected with this is the province of Ontario fully once again, restoring legalized betting on UFC. There's some details here we can go through,

but your general reaction to what I have to believe was an expected move, right? I think in general, I mean, this, you know, listen again, I had someone ask me,

Hey, if the UFC wanted some good press, could they really just do a better job of in this, in this climate where Dana White's issues and then this James Krause issue and everything else that's going on, could they just try really harder to make fun fights? And it's like, guys,

I'm pretty sure that those matchmakers are maxed out. You know what I mean? That job is not enviable. It sounds cool. I'm the matchmaker for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and I'm sure some people would love it, but it's hell on your life. I mean, the travel and the hours. You just can't imagine what they have to do. It's like, why did Joe Silva take the money after the sale

and then just leave the sport? Probably because it took years off of his life while he was doing it. Look, it's not just matchmaking. The other half of it is contract negotiation. And obviously, they're bringing in Hunter Campbell. Does Lawrence Epstein do contracts too, Luke? I try to get everybody involved. I don't, what's it was a Hunter Campbell. And does Lawrence Epstein do contracts to Luke? I try to get everybody. I don't think he's involved with that.

No, it's certainly Hunter Campbell. And I know Dana's got a big influence, but matchmakers have to do something called talent relations. And we've heard for years from Jim Ross in the pro wrestling world. It's like the, you know, the absolute worst job you can have that ruins relationships and makes you a babysitter. And yeah, it's rough.

Yeah. So what I was going to say was, you know, I don't think that's the answer to the way to get gooditter. And yeah, it's rough. Yeah, so what I was going to say was, I don't think that's the answer. The way to get good press, and again, I don't think that USADA does what people think that it does. But remember, what did they do when the TRT scandal hit? Like when it finally blew up and they were getting headlines?

They said, okay, let's do the corporate buttoned up responsible thing, at least what the public perceives to be the responsible thing. And let's go get what people perceive to be the very best drug testing that you could probably get for an independent organization. And let's do that. And that actually got them really good headlines. And in some people's perspective, it made it at least it didn't fully clean it up. It made it a lot better than what they had before, right? That

was actually what you do. You actually go and address the problem in a sort of buttoned up professional way. In large part, I view this like that. They had a bit of a very unregulated gray territory where there was just a lot of misconduct, but who was really watching, who really cared? No one was really bothered by it. And then they had an issue blow up and now they're trying to do things to address it. It's good that they got reinstated in Ontario. I think partnering with U.S. integrity is, I mean, it's hard to see how that's a bad thing, right? I mean, what would hard to see how that's a bad thing, right? I mean, what would be the downside of that, at least from what we can see right now?

So all that seems quite good and quite fine. The only part that comes back to me on this, BC, and I've actually contacted a couple of lawyers about this, and they didn't really have a good answer for me either, which is it is very much not clear to me by what regulatory mechanism they can actually enforce that code of conduct in the following provision namely that um let's say one of the cornermen for one of the fighters see something uh at god knows what kind of an event or whatever that gives him a bit of a an inside track he uses that to bet uh on something and it's suspicious or whatever like how would they even identify something like that? How would they enforce it? And then the penalty for something like that would be that you would penalize the fighter. What if the fighter was totally unaware of it? That seems to me like something that has really not been fully explored at all. And that, by the way,

doesn't even get to the situation of how do you enforce it from a logistical perspective? How do you enforce that from a legal perspective? By what legal mechanism do they have to penalize fighters for the conduct of people they have no control over who might do something without any of their knowledge? That seems to me plainly absurd. And I don't even know if that's legal. So the fighters are not, if past is prologue,

they're not going to do a fucking thing about it. But I just want to point out, when we get to this conversation about employee versus independent contractor, what plumber do you know is exclusive to one single employment entity? And B, depending on the nature of their work, can be penalized if somebody in their family or in their orbit who's not really working for that other organization because they're not does something that that other organization or the other body of the employer doesn't like that is like you could never ever ever enforce it these guys are employees they're treated like independent contractors but they're employees and i think something like this really begins to muddy the waters even if by the way i want, I want to be clear, BC last thing, last thing. Well, you have to do it though. Right. Right. So this is, so this, but this is the thing. I'm so glad you said it.

It's not an unwise rule, right? It's not a stupid rule. It's not a bad rule. And if they were employees, you wouldn't bat an eye. You'd be like, yeah, that's exactly what the organization did. It only becomes an issue because they want the benefit of classifying them as independent contractors, but they want all of the benefit that actually comes with basically treating them like employees. It's that tension there that causes the problems. Yeah, and you're not talking about Nasikawa. I got it, Luke. And also, dude, this is so much out of the vince mcmahon wwe playbook the

way that this is still like this and you know that's considered still a wild west way although i think the treatment of athletes has gotten better in recent years to a certain degree but uh it's wild but yeah you have to have this to cover your ass first of all but i also to put out that fear in anyone that potentially because you can't i agree with you you can't monitor it you can't be on top with you, you can't monitor it. You can't be on top of it. It's going to be hard to catch people unless they make really stupid decisions. But in hindsight, James Krause bragging about it on Ariel,

even before that became the rule. So technically what he was doing, most of it was legal or some of it, you know, whatever you can decipher for yourself, you know, that just announced, Hey, bring attention this way, but you're not going to be able to enforce it as much as, as it's going to deter people. But Luke, if you're a fighter who feels like you are in a position where you're so burdened by the current pay structure and the rights you already have, and you were using that in a, as honest the way you could meaning betting to offset your income,

man, that's got to suck now. You know what I mean? First, the Reebok deal. Now this, it's just a continuation of that direction, but God, that's how it has to be in there. You have to have these safeguards built in to protect yourself because you know, you lose that integrity. You lose a lot more than money. Yes. I mean, you can have all the bad press in the world about your product, but maybe the worst kind of press you could have is that your product is not what you say it is, that it's fraudulent. That's the worst you could have. So again, I think partnering with U.S. Integrity makes all the sense in the world. I hope they do their job. I would love for this to go away and case closed and it's fine. But the restrictions that they place on these fighters

and then now coaches, agents, managers agents managers cornermen anyone in that orbit the penalization of the fighter by virtue of their actions i mean how on earth is that legal you won't know until it's challenged we know they're not going to challenge it but it is you know to borrow from dan lebitard it is highly questionable there you go there you go well done there luke uh somewhat transgently connected to this okay that's a weird that's a weird word bc that's a weird word i did not mean that under any potential uh negative uh connotations beyond my own ability inability to make fake grammatical choices luke but uh i will tell you this uh because we have nowhere else to put it in the show like this is ufc with

this betting running toward regulation like they did to, you know, eventually get UFC fit for cable TV. But like they also did for slap fighting Luke with the debut of power slap on TBS. Was it Wednesday night? Thursday night? Whatever, Luke. Wednesday night. And but it's a different game. And the backlash was there when it launched, and the backlash seemed to potentially have a big effect on the ratings because what they're coming in overnight there is that Power Slap, the Dana White Pro Combat Slap League, in its debut episode, had one of the greatest lead-ins you could have with the red-hot AEW wrestling show ahead of it.

And, Luke, I believe the wrestling show peaked at just under a million viewers, whereas the power slap averaged just 295,000 following that and did just a 0.1 in the 18 to 34, whatever category you're looking at, everyone's looking for to connect with. You're probably not surprised MFR, but do you have any comment about this or the larger reaction, which refreshing to actually see fighters,

a few of them, I mean, guys like Ben Askin who have nothing to lose, but others who might who have been going against it, and then to see concussion experts like Chris Nowinski, the ex-WWE athlete, basically describe in a quote tweet exactly the carnage that comes in a sport this barbaric and ridiculous. Damn, I hope this is the end for this, Luke. And not out of a grudge, just out of decency. I mean, what does this say about America, Luke Thomas? Yeah, it says that, you know, I did a sports radio show here this morning

and they were asking, like, isn't there an audience for this? And I'm like, a declining one. I mean, they had a lead-in of a bit of just under a million and they averaged uh just under 300,000 so they lost they i mean you could say did they lose six or seven hundred thousand over the course of it that part's hard to know specifically but they couldn't retain the audience if that number is correct that means it lost over the what you want is whatever your lead-in is you want to build over the course of the broadcast right so that's what you're looking for. You're looking for either to hold the audience or grow it during the actual broadcast of whatever you're looking for. The exact opposite happened under this condition.

They lost the audience over the course of the broadcast. It's sort of two responses I have to it. One, BC, is that it tells you the reality of this. Like, BC, boxing, and I mean this in a serious way for just a second, right? Maybe you could say combat sports at this point, but certainly, like, dude, what has been the great love of your life? And I don't mean romantic love. I mean the thing that drove you from like a personal passion thing before you ever met your wife. Dude, boxing has been the love of your life in that sense.

You know what I mean? And you've been watching it for the vast majority of your life at this point, certainly almost nearly the entirety of your adult life. MMA is something approximating that for me. We could say combat sports. Could you imagine yourself watching another 20 years of boxing? Easily. It's not hard at all, right? 20 years of MMA, I can watch it.

Can you imagine watching 15 years of slap fighting? Like, here's the interesting part about it. On the one hand, it's both revolting and awful for all the reasons aforementioned and two it's fucking boring it's boring like it dig you you it's you kind of it works on your phone when like you're you know scrolling through youtube shorts or tiktok or instagram or whatever and then it comes up and you you see someone get hit you're like oh wow that's something when you actually try to watch the programming there's really just not much to it and i think the lack of the interest and from the audience aside from the revulsion

speaks to that the second part is we now have the ultimate surfer we now have the boxing reality show which i believe was called the fighters and we now have this among other independent efforts from dana white and and i want folks to understand something bro put some respect on howlerhead's name i don't know much about howlerhead i've not tried it i don't know what kind of market no i mean that looks like a win for him right yeah it's probably a win probably everyone's got a liquor these days but in terms of like television programming it has been a series of failures for him and not just failures like very dramatic ones the fighters lasted one episode the ultimate surfer flamed out and this looks like it's going to have an even worse week two

than it had in a week one not to say nothing of the controversy that came from it and the other part too is they use they like unlike the fighters and unlike um the ultimate surfer they use the full court ufc press here using ufc fighters ufc programming ufc digital assets ufc architecture ufc athletic justification uh commission sanctioning they used all of these things and they still couldn't hold the audience at all from a fantastic lead in. You'll note, BC, they borrowed the same thing they did from the Ultimate Fighter. What was the lead in programming for the Ultimate Fighter on Spike all the way back in 2005? It was raw.

It was WWE's raw programming. That was what their lead in was. They used AEW this time. They borrowed all the same parts. So not only do you have now a series of failures on the television side, they're not even doing it in an original way. The ultimate surfer is just a bar of what they already did. This was really just borrowing from what they already know from the UFC product. They just kind of transport it over. Like, this is what I mean when I say, do I think that the UFC benefits by having Dana White's presence? Yes. But do I think removing him really causes long-term cost to the business?

I don't. What on earth is the argument for that at this point? No new ideas, and the other things he tries to launch don't work. That thing he did with MMA was so amazing, you can't take it away from him. But that you need him to still do the same old show, it doesn't work anymore. People are not interested in that they want new fresher ideas and they're not coming from him do you do you think it was i mean he was allowed to i mean this is like a competing entity not a competing entity against ufc but like this is a separate dana side thing he got his own tv deal separate from you know espn

but like you mentioned using the u the UFC vehicle to promote it, that I thought was a little interesting. The aggressiveness used, obviously they just cloned their own presentation and strategy, like you said, which they've done a few times, but it kind of only works here unless we see UFC cliff diver or, you know, ultimate cliff diver coming out soon, Luke, but interesting. I'm trying to think of how I was trying to frame that to you. Take it back, Luke.

Take it back. I got a lot of fun. I don't have much to add beyond that. It's just like it turns out I think what's going to happen with slap fighting is that we wanted to be like, oh, my God, this is so stupid and so revolting that it doesn't deserve airtime. And, you know, people ask me, like, does that negative pushback hurt the product? I actually think it actually generated publicity for it. Certainly some awareness for it at a bare minimum, right?

Maybe it actually boosted it in the short run. But it just turns out in the end, it's just a shitty product. It's like, forget about the medical implications. Forget about all that stuff. It's just a bad, uninteresting, lowbrow shit product that's not fun, cool, or really able to grab and hold people's attention. I don't even take that into factor. I'm looking at the health side because I didn't try to watch this. I don't want to watch it. it out, especially Nowinski, who is doing such a great job, you know, in his full-time job, Harvard graduate in, in campaigning and discovering and exposing everything that,

that trauma brings in head trauma. And obviously there's a difference between accepting boxing and mixed martial arts and the NFL and NHL and the head trauma that happens sometimes in, in fair fights. There's nothing fair about this, but if you don't know, if you didn't see it at all, you have a certain amount of time. I think it's one minute after if you're dropped and you're obviously concussed and people that were dropped, it was like, you know, their body was shaking like a boxer that's been knocked out. You know, look, the rules are that you have 60 seconds to kind of revive yourself and get back up. And you could say, OK, that's no different than getting knocked down in boxing. Right. And you have 10 seconds to kind of revive yourself and get back up and you could say okay that's no different than getting knocked down in boxing right and you have 10 seconds to get back up uh i think the only comparison there is the 10 seconds i mean these guys are getting

viciously concussed and then revived the very you know the you can't say much about boxing and the safety history and all that and the danger you you really can't even though it's at least organized from a safety standpoint but you know if somebody especially in this era gets dropped and is visibly knocked out, even if they revive referees are more often than not jumping in without a count. It's built into the structure of this that, you know, if you can survive, uh, you know, being knocked out cold and get revived and do it again. I mean, it's obviously the worst message you could ever send if you're a fight promoter and the fight promoter. But why are we not mentioning the thing I forgot earlier?

It came back to me. The Fertitta's involvement in here. When this was first announced, Luke, in the press release, it was Dana White and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta like reuniting to launch something. I'm surprised at the success those brothers have had. And, and you know,

no one, no one can be undefeated. You have to have failures and UFC almost was one. Let's give them credit for getting through it. How did they look at this as like, and not see the other side of it, the messaging, the all that,

I mean, it even survived. Dude, they're convinced they're geniuses. They're convinced of the surety of their own ideas. And I've spoken to Lorenzo. Lorenzo, I mean, all of these guys, Dana, I don't think has, Dana has a very clear sense.

He's a very legitimate fight fan. And I think that understanding of being a real fight fan gives him certain wisdom about what works and what doesn't inside the fight game itself. I do take that seriously. Again, his success is not accidental. None of their success is accidental. And the Fertitta's as well. Like I've spoken to Lorenzo a couple times.

He is a very, very bright guy. I've never spoken to Frank, but I'm sure he's something similar. It's not that these guys are dumb guys. I don't think so. But when you have major success like they've had, you've seen this in Silicon Valley, guys who are able to start certain projects that work really well. Then they want to start subsequent ones, and they're all fucking disasters, and none of them work. Sometimes you get guys who can leverage as VC investors subsequent projects, but you get a lot of them like they did this, then they can't do anything else. That's very, very common. And the reason why is because these guys in general, not just the Fertittas or White, but like we're talking, let's say Silicon Valley,

they become convinced of the certainty of their own ideas, right? If you have one big hit that really works, especially when everyone else speaks out against it and that doesn't get it, you just know they're wrong. You've seen this before, right? That's what your mind is telling you. When in reality, the truth is most people, especially the ones who are successful like that, don't have multiple successful projects in their life. It's just very, for anyone, for you, for me, it's just very difficult to do. BC, we should say it out loud. This is probably going to be our peak. I mean, I don't know that maybe not, but like, it wouldn't surprise me. This is not my final album, Luke. This is not the last one.

Yeah, but I'm just saying, if it was, it wouldn't surprise you. This is not my final album, Luke. This is not the last one. If it was, it wouldn't surprise you. Life comes for you fast. You get these guys in these executive roles. They just are convinced they know how to do things right and no one else does by virtue of the massive success that one big project really did for them. Again, you can't take away what they did with UFC. It was amazing

how they resuscitated it and built it into what it is, but that doesn't mean they have competencies to go launch other things. It doesn't mean that at all. And the fact that these things are failing every time they try should tell you that. I just, I just don't understand how somebody that successful could push through so much hypocrisy, even just from a business strategic sense. Like this thing actually went to TV, you know,

this closely removed to a public slapping incident of the guy's name on it. Like that was standing Luke, like they use the UFC to launch this, but even in the UFC, which has to maintain a certain level of health standards to be, to be absorbed by the mainstream. And they've done a great job of that. If you get knocked out and it's visible that you're knocked out, dude, you can't even in that sport, get back up.

They're going to stop that fight. If they felt like you've been knocked out, that's built into like this slab fight. Like, I don't see how you can be, you know, talking out of both sides of the mouth at the same time. It's, it's not just hypocrisy. It's, it's like, it's just showing of late that there's just a moral standard within this business that is just not there and yeah i don't know if i'm just too numb and used to it in boxing but it's different though because of the way the structure is but ufc of late which is one of you know has been one of the joys of my adult personal life as you mentioned along with boxing it feels fucking grimy lately and i'm and i'm getting kind of sick of it you know because the product's great the athletes for the most part are great and they inspire me on a

regular basis and i love their their life stories which is a big part of my job my one of my favorite things is writing pre-fight you know feature columns for cbs sports I have a big pay-per-view, especially when you've interviewed somebody and you're framing what this moment means to their life, not just their career. Where we're going with this lately is just like, damn, it's not about politics. It's not about anything. It's about decency. It's like, what happened? You already know that they're aggro they're that they're aggro dudes

but they they they built this thing that and they you know sanitized it enough and they gave it to us and we loved it yeah i mean also you know i was i said this on the morning radio show i did this morning it's like oh well these guys don't take as much as boxers first of all we don't even know what the health effects are of just getting clubbed in the face with no defense over the course of a year or five years or 10 years under this rule set. Please spare me that this is safer. You have no fucking idea if that's true at all. In fact, I'm extremely skeptical of it. Number one, number two, BC for all the issues in fighter pay, I'm going to guess in UFC, if you're good at this, you're going to make a lot more money

than you are doing slap bullshit. Like it's like you really expect me to believe that the people who are under scrutiny for underpaying fighters, which by the way still has done a little bit in that regard, is going to then like handsomely reward these people and that they're also going to get proper medical care. Like all of this is like they're just taking a playbook

that they work with in one environment and then trying to use it in another, but to your point, doing it in a much more nakedly questionable way and then wondering why people aren't on board with it. It's a bad idea. It's bad execution. It should have never happened, and it looks like because it's frankly boring, it probably won't last. That will be the final arbiter.

It's just not good entertainment, at least in terms of what the vast majority of people seem to think. I don't know, dude. I mean, we're all adults at the end of the day, Luke. And even as a respectable, responsible adults, we make questionable decisions. It's human life.

But there's just been some absolute bullshit lately that just, wow. All right. Moving on to the potential of actually some good news here. Topic five. How about this? When we reported the news that was Niowa Inoue, the pound-for-pound king, the undisputed Bantamweight champion, vacating all four titles to move up to 122 our end of the rainbow goal if he was still in the division was to have steven fulton jr the unbeaten pound for pound level unified champion at

at what do we call in this uh super bantamweight 122 junior featherweight a fantastic division that if they could get together for some super fight down the road for all the belts, you know, we could be talking about legitimately fighting for the pound for pound number one crown potentially. Luke, that might happen this spring. Mike Coppinger of ESPN, Keith Ideck of BoxingScene.com and their own reports kind of told the picture here. Nothing's official, but here's the report. Stephen Fulton and Naoya Inoue have agreed on the key terms financially and have signed off on it to put a fight in order where Fulton would travel to Japan and defend his two titles at 122 pounds in what, in theory,

would be his final fight in that division before moving up to featherweight. There's the assumption that it's going to air on ESPN+. in a way not only has a co-promotion deal with top rank but his japanese promoter mr honda is ultimately the signal caller here we could end up seeing fulton versus in a way in like may or june on like a weekday morning luke and this is on my wish list if there was nothing that could get in the way and you said bc what boxing fights do you want to see this year? It's all the famous ones you like, plus the idea of Devin Haney versus Shakur Stevenson, and, you know, Better Beavis, all those guys.

But this one right here is like, holy shit, and we're going to potentially see it right now if this report is accurate, Luke. And it seems like it was more about Fulton just saying, I want to be great. I want to find out right now. Oh, the best fighter in the world is now in my weight class. Oh, and he fights for another network and promoter.

And on the other side of the globe, I'm in. Scooter, cool boy, Steph, whatever we want to call you, bro. That's D2BG stuff. Daring to be great. And I think he deserves the same praise that we give Ryan Garcia for making it happen behind the scenes to be able to fight Tank Davis on Showtime pay-per-view. I say the same thing about Stephen Fulton here, Luke. Wow. Is this, could this be a special fight this calendar year? This is, I mean, we were hoping to get Fulton Jr. versus Murajan Akhmadaliev,

who is not necessarily a big name, but quite the hammer, right? But either way, Fulton Jr. versus Muradjan Akhmadaliev, who is not necessarily a big name, but quite the hammer, right? But either way, Fulton's either number two or number one in that weight class at 122. So let me see if I understand this. The guy who had unified at 118, in a way, we've been talking about him on this show for a while now. BC hit me to him a long time ago. He's already a three-division champion, by the way. Yeah, already a three-division champion champion was unified at 118 drop the titles moves to 122 and his first fight which is going to be on espn plus now it's going to be in japan he's going to be taking on steven fulton jr the slickster the guy who can seemingly do everything out of philly undefeated i mean two

weight or two division or a two two belt belt holder in, in, in one 22. You just gotta be kidding me. Like, and it came together easily, you know, for all the folks being like, well, we don't get the fights we want in boxing. It's not an unfair argument. Like we were already, listen, Spence Crawford was supposed to happen in November and it didn't. And we are, maybe you're going to get Garcia versus tank Davis in April, but you know,

God only knows. Right. It seems that we, who the hell knows. Maybe we'll get furious. It should happen. Right. It could happen. But like a lot of this is like, what didn't happen or could happen, you know, God only knows, right? It seems that we, who the hell knows? Maybe we'll get furious. It should happen, right? It could happen. But like a lot of this is like, what didn't happen or could happen,

you know, shoulda, coulda, woulda. These two guys said, fuck it, let's go. His first fight at 122 is arguably against the very best guy in that division, who, by the way, if you've not watched Fulton Jr., he's amazing. He can do everything. He's fast.

He can jab. He can move. He's got good defense. He can, he's fast. He can jab. He can move. He's got good defense. He can lead. He can push. He can retreat. He's got great ring craft. I mean, he's just a very good fighter. He doesn't have huge power necessarily, but he's really talented. Danny Roman's a good fighter, and Danny Roman had nothing for him. It was a blank sheet he had out there. And again, the fight against Figueroa was a potential fight of the year contender and he's going to fight in a way in his first one dude this is what you want out of boxers you want boxers willing when they're done with their contemporaries to keep moving up

to more difficult challenges i'd spoken to fulton jr he's like i always want to smoke and you know fighters say that and especially boxers say then you're kind of like yeah right like when the time comes we'll see well the time came and he did it he did it now bc this is my question to you pbc has rights under fulton so how did this fight get made if one guy's on one side of the promotional track and one guy's on the other in a ways with top rank and it's going to be in japan and it's going to be in espn plus fulton jr has been fighting on showtime, PBC cards, whatever. How did this, how does this work? Well,

to reiterate what I said earlier, it's, it's been reported that it's expected to be on ESPN plus, but we, we don't have a date yet or, or, you know, it's probably in may,

but obviously the key parts, which you're asking me, according to the reports from Coppinger and IDEC, they've been through the war. They got, you know, so I don't know, Luke,

I don't know. This is a great move for boxing. This continues an interesting new trend here of maybe getting things we didn't think were possible that we could. And does that involve a fighter going back to his team and pushing to make it happen? You know, if this was Al Heyman making that happen for a fighter who, you know, campaigned for it. Because, Luke, what we found out through the reporting of both guys is that Fulton was already intending to move up to 126, have a rematch with Brandon Figueroa, the fight of the year a couple years back, and do it this early spring. And now this came together.

I don't have the details. The report was sourced out as a report. So we're going to see if this all comes to light and this ultimately gets announced. But however, the sausage was made, dude, this is a win for boxing. And for, I think this future trend that I'm starting to talk about in different interviews and people have me on the American boxers of this new era, they want the smoke and they want it right now. They don't want to spend all that long time. You know, they want to become champion and they'll defend, but they're not willing to just go the path of the slow grind to the big fight at the end of the rainbow. This generation wants it right now,

and that's going to do wonders collectively for the sport. And, Luke, part of that report, by the way, was that Figueroa could end up facing Mark McSile, the former featherweight champion. So if that ends up getting announced as a consolation, dude, that's a fight of the year fight waiting to happen right there. Fulton, in a way, could, I mean, dude, imagine if Fulton beat him in a way where, like, the weight wasn't the enduring difference.

Like, let's just say he's the better fighter and he beat him. You would have to ask yourself what you're going to do with him pound for pound. He might be number one. You know what I mean? Like, it might be a transfer of power right there in front of your eyes. There's no bigger stakes than that. That's it. That's what, at the end of the day, outside of the money,

and Floyd's the rare guy who was able to do both, right? He was able to win on both sides. But there is no bigger stake in the game than to fight the person that the sport believes is the best in show at the moment and defeat them to let the world know there's a new sheriff in town. There are a lot of people competing for this pound for pound throne. And if Spence and Crawford do fight, the winner could have a say just the same as could the winner of Fury and Usyk, as could Canelo on any given day

should he challenge himself and beat B-Ball again. Wow. You hear what we're talking about? We're talking about active ambitious stars in their prime who want to dance and maybe we do it on your network here maybe we do it again on my network it's something's happening here and i don't know what it is right i'll just say this john the boxing system doesn't have a great way to force matchups short of its mandatory system, which by itself is not great, but sometimes does work pretty well.

You go back to Lopez and Kambosis would be a good example of where it actually worked. But in general, what it needs for big fights to happen like this is for the fighters to want it. They have to want it. At the end of the day, they have to want it, and they do, and there's no question about it. The speed with which this fight has been made, BC, has been shocking, and it just goes to show you if the fighters want it, anything is possible. Truly anything is possible. And so when the fighters do something like this,

we should be very grateful, very acknowledging, and thank them because if it's not for their moxie if it's not for their minerals it just wouldn't happen you know what we should do take every promoter and network executive in boxing send them to like a getaway you know on a remote island a getaway retreat luke where there's just you know edibles and ayahuasca and the greatest fights in boxing history just playing on a loop on tvs all over the the yoga room in front of them and you know, edibles and ayahuasca and the greatest fights in boxing history, just playing on a loop on TVs all over the yoga room in front of them. And, you know, maybe Rashad's there with some toads and then, you know, they come out of there going, let's all work together for the betterment

of the sport. Because at the end of the day, boxing was always boxing, meaning boxing is always great. I know that's a controversial statement. No, it's a right. It's a true statement. Okay. It's not always great, but it's never, it's always just a, just a quick couple of things from happening from being like fucking great. It's always, you know what I mean? Like it cleans up quickly and, uh, and you're like, oh, that's that guy's marriage material

suddenly. Oh, he's not going to be again next year. But right now, he is. So savor the flavor. When boxing cleans up, Luke, it is what a time to be alive, bro. It's like that long-term investment you did in that shitty property, but then that town became a resort tourist trap and you were able to sell it. Like your house, Luke, one day you're going to sell your house in DC and you're probably, you probably quit MK cause you'll be loaded. Yeah. I mean, my house is not great, but the real estate prices turning into a very valuable piece of real estate. So we'll see. You can get a mansion in Orlando next to the, I could get, I could, I could house, uh, you know,

South American leaders on the run at my place. If that happens, we go, uh, Luke, we have a great partner in what we do. They're called money line lion and they got this thing called the hammer of the month where they put our viewers on notice we got we know you guys love combat sports you watch big time boxing bare knuckle mma all that stuff along with us and i know when you're watching somebody just jumps through your screen and makes you go man hashtag holy hammer right hashtag? Hashtag hammer of the month. Who on the undercards or early in the main cards are coming the hell on? You've let us know. We've got Aaron Blanchfield holding the hammer soon under the,

if the mail system goes through Luke, Ilya Teporia going to put his hands around that. Who is it this month, Luke? There were some great nominees on last week's UFC fight night card. And in 283 this weekend there are no shortage of opportunities for other people to enter this conversation.

At MoneyLion on Twitter, at MoneyLionInc on Instagram, use the hashtag LetYourVoteBeHeard or you can scan the QR code at the bottom of the screen or go to MoneyLion.com slash Morning Combat for more information. Luke, when you look at the bottom of the screen or go to moneyline.com slash morning combat for more information luke when you look at the 283 card as we begin this healthy transition into our betting segment

where we give you our final picks here baby um if you see any hammers that are that might that might be coming on man there's a lot of different ways this could go obviously your main event would be a candidate if it wasn't the main event i'm just saying the matchup would produce it the bomb fiend brothers are interesting and worth paying attention to terrence mckinney is worth paying attention to um yeah there's a lot of different ways you could go on this one i i'm you know well would you count gilbert burns and neil magny probably not right there's a little too advanced no gilbert burns has a new haircut he let the curly hair grow out i saw i saw um and. Um, and he, and he's just as like, he's just as much about that life as he's always been Luke. He's he, he may drop a hammer

on Saturday night. Okay. But in any case, like you just look up and down that card and it's just filled, filled with potential, great possible hammers of the month. You're damn right. So, uh, once again, QR code in the corner, thank you to money line. If you're watching right so uh once again qr code in the corner thank you to money lion if you're watching you see something at money line on twitter at money lion inc on instagram if you see something in this game you better you better recognize and say something luke it's time for our growing segment week two of it it now has a name luke do you want to set this up you want to launch to it yeah so last week we just we launched a betting segment uh or at least a pick segment i should say you You can bet.

I mean, bet accordingly. Be careful with this. But just a pick segment. Don't get caught by the UFC, please, okay? Yes, exactly. More just for fun. I hope folks understand it. But we want to do it.

Go head-to-head. We did one last week we're going to do, or whatever it was, and we're going to do one this week. Are we going to go over the results of the last one first? Yeah, I just wanted you to say the name, Luke. That's yeah the name is okay bet which is uh you know some of my friends say that so that's the name of the new segment you know i did offer i i did offer the kraus inspired parlays and punani and it got shot down it did it did i also i also offered the bet off and uh the producers were like we can't probably sell ads against that so

we have to get a different one but okay bet is the name is the new one which means like all right let's do it all right i'll do it so here's the the premise five picks from each of us we're going to pick who wins the main event of the biggest card that weekend we each get to pick a favorite to win that is within a certain respectable betting threshold any underdog to win an over under and pick a specific fight in which direction it goes on terms of going the distance or not and then whether a fight will end in ko or submission and which one will it be luke in week one you took me to the woodshed our fight got canceled there at the last minute on our over under pick after the weigh-in. So that was a push, but your boy BC went over for,

as Sean Strickland took out. He mobbed off. We both had Nassar Dean. We both come up empty there. But after that, Luke Thomas, you get the opportunity to gloat. We went head to head in a way with Pennington versus Vieta and you handled

me there. So shout out to team tiny tornado and the addition to new addition of the family. But damn Luke, you, you, you hate doing this. It was like the time we had that free throw contest.

Remember that we filmed it. Yeah. I didn't want to do it. And then I won. So what are you going to do? Here's this, here's the thing you see, I would like to gloat and dunk on you.

And I probably should, because when the roles are reversed, you're, I just know you're not going to be the bigger man and you're going to dunk on me. Cause you should because when the roles are reversed you're I just know you're not going to be the bigger man and you're going to dunk on me because you're a piece of shit so so I'm a big Campbell again is this where you're going to absolutely be a shithead to me but here's the reality I just have to be honest with myself yeah it went better for me last week than it did for you but I just know I'm having done this long enough i'm gonna have a week where i go over four

over five whatever i'm gonna fuck it up so nice start but it ain't gonna last and we have tried to put in some safeguards to prevent any duplicate picks outside of number one the main event the most important fight so uh the whoever is in the lead at the time will get first rejection we didn't we didn't pick anything similar here luke except for potentially the main event we'll see where we went in that direction but if you want to know the stakes we'll get first rejection. We didn't pick anything similar here, Luke, except for potentially the main event. We'll see where we went in that direction. But if you want to know the stakes, we are going to have to do something embarrassing if we lose by the end of this calendar year. I believe the working idea is

I make you go to a concert of my choice with me or you do the opposite and we film it with Jake and the MK doc crew. Maybe we go backstage with the band, Luke. Maybe we push the show forward so that I can do my CBS Sports HQ hit. That's great. That's great stuff. All right, this week's OK Bet, Luke. I'm assuming we're largely focusing on UFC 283 on Saturday,

but I'm sure anything's eligible if it's prominent enough. We start with the main event pick, and we start with UFC 283 and the light heavyweight title it's vacant Glover Teixeira the former champ Jamal Hill red hot with three straight knockout victories he got it was an advantageous position of course for the number seven Hill it took a Jan Blachowicz uh Ankalayev tie draw to get to this point Luke the upset feelings afterwards but no matter what you think about this fight they're're going to bang. Luke Thomas, who's your pick for who wins this main event and why?

I've actually not seen the odds. I had them up earlier. I don't know where they are, but I'm going to go with Glover. I'm going to take Glover because, I mean, we kind of all know the score here, right? Hill has got fast hands, great accuracy. He has dropped any number of opponents on a great win streak, but he's got a massive, massive, I would say, problem with his takedown defense.

The numbers in terms of the overall percentage don't speak to it, but I had this piece up from our man, our guy Dick Mann. I don't know what I did with it. I'll have to find it. But he had pointed out that there is just a gaping hole in his takedown defense and that even a guy like Tiago Santos was able to get him down pretty repeatedly. In fact, I think in terms of per 15 minutes, how many takedowns he surrenders,

which I think is plus three, so more than a takedown a round, that's one of the worst for a ranked fighter. So if Glover, who has good takedowns and good guard passing and good ground and pound and good jiu-jitsu I have a feeling if he's able to get that takedown he'll ain't gonna get up um but of course he'll could KO him so it's close but you know I wouldn't really bet if I didn't have to but I'll pick Glover in this case I love picking this fight because there's so many ways it could go it could be explosive it could he'll could get completely gassed out and dominated on the ground and submitted.

It's wild as you ask for the odds or friends at Caesars minus one 30 Jamal Hill plus one 10 Glover to share a trying to become a two division champion. It's I actually think what you did is the safer bet overall going Glover to share a, but I'm feeling something here and I love Glover and he's the king of Connecticut. Anytime he wants to put that crown on, I'm just feeling this. He's 43. We're asking a lot of him to come back after an all time violent, pour it out action fight in which although Glover was insanely amazing in that fight and all action friendly, but also just, man, he stepped up. You know, he kind of fought like crazy until he could no more

and collapsed in round five and, you know, was submitted, which was a monster, you know, development there. Are the odds anywhere clear that Hill could do something like that exactly and take him late? No, they're not in this case case especially with the ground game deficiency but I am wondering if that was the last stand for Glover and that is a real thing in the fight game um you know when you're in a situation that you feels like your last chance at something big or whatever and you just go you know what I'm gonna pour it all out Glover had to go through hell to have those moments in that fight I just

wonder if there's a tax and a receipt mixed with the fact that look he's 43 and at this age you don't see even a light heavyweight you don't tend to see this right there's the Randy the you know is Captain America for a reason in a lot of ways in that regard um I just think that Hill's better on his setups and his explosiveness and speed in terms of getting clean punches off that this is a Glover who he's going to know the advantage he has on the ground, of course, and that's going to be part of the strategy. But I think Glover also loves being the aging action fighter right now, knows that he's willing to go to a place pretty quickly that he knows not everybody can. I wonder

if he'll can start connecting early and Glover can start opening it up. And if he starts willing to, and if he's willing to go there, I think, I think Hill can finish him, Luke. And you know, there's not a big detailed history of Glover being finished. So this is a leap, but you know, it's an opponent change. It was a grueling fight last time. And here we are again, we're asking a lot of the great Glover Teixeira, and he'll just might have that ice-cold demeanor to deliver exactly what's potentially possible here. You make a strong case, especially the one about like, you know, once you get the title and then lose it,

and then you're kind of like searching for it again, and like a, you know, not a desperate push per se, but a late one, it can blow up in your face. It's again, if I had money, if someone gave me like a million dollars to bet on this card, I wouldn't have bet on this main event. It's a little too hard to tell. It's interesting. I'm going with Hill. You're going with Glover. So number two, Luke on our betting five picks, each countdown is we pick a favorite. All right.

So first here, unless yes, please. Yes, please go ahead. It's a close favorite here, but i do have my eyes on this luke and it's going to be on the actual early preliminary cards lightweight division terrence mckinney against ismael bone theme and is he part of this brother group luke that are coming on the scene yeah the bomb theme brothers look this is a very close fight odds wise and i think there is a lot of opinion to believe there's a potential for both brothers if you look at their record and the destruction that they've caused on the lower level getting to this point, that they might just have a breakout night in front of their home crowd.

And Terrence McKinney's not a fighter that doesn't have mistakes and doesn't give you openings. He does, but he's also somebody who could take advantage in the moment. And I know it just happened to be two consecutive picks. I'm sort of banking on that big moment happening, and sometimes people criticize me and say, BC only goes with the sluggers, baby. I've also been in this game at the elite level

and know how often things don't go the way that you're just confirmed and you feel that it probably should right now. And sometimes it's interesting factors in there. Minus 125 Terrence McKinney. So it's a close one. Plus 105 for Bonfim. Luke, I think they get into an early skirmish here. McKinney's in play here to rise up and have a big moment.

I think that kind of lawlessness to the way he judiciously hands out his striking will catch up to him, certainly the higher you climb. But on this level here, as the road warrior going down there, watch out, Luke. Slight favor for a reason here. He could punch through the screen and give me that favorite win. He could, but for me, I'm going to go in a slightly different direction. I'm going to go with Gregory Rodriguez.

Robocop is what they call him. He is in a fight against a dude named Bruno Fajeda. If you don't know Bruno Fajeda, by the way, two N's in Bruno, he has one win, really, of note for UFC fans anyway, which was his win on the Contender Series over Leon Aliu, I think an Italian guy he fought. And he won that one. Switches stance a lot, but he gets hit a lot.

Now, he's got big power, but the thing is about Robocop, first of all, he was supposed to be fighting Brad Tavares on this card, I believe, and then Tavares fell out, so they couldn't make that. So Bruno is coming in on late notice. That's the first thing. Again, he's pretty tough, but he's very hittable, and while he does have big power, RoboCop has proven to be very resilient. You just add all that up, and it seems to me like this is one where RoboCop should win. I like Gregory Rodriguez as my favorite to win. He is coming on Luke. He's been making fun fights. We'll go down to the underdog now. And Luke, I had to dip into this light heavyweight bout because there is a lot of questions. It could be very entertaining when Paul,

and I'm told not to say Craig in the American way anymore, Luke, by some of my Scottish brethren there. I mean, I'd be Scottish by, you know, blood, but some of my Scottish brethren there. Craig. I may not be Scottish by blood, but I have a Scottish last name, Luke. Yeah, it's Craig, and we better get that right, they say, or there's going to be a problem bigger than the growing optimism of, yay, UK+, what an idea. Friendly, let's do it. That has not been well-received, Luke. But Paul Craig versus Johnny Walker is interesting.

And even though Johnny Walker has shown us a level of improvement and commitment to the ground, getting a submission win last time, and finally making it look like could this Kavanaugh puzzle make sense of him going to Ireland and training at SBG for his skill set and the way he's wired. Dude, Paul Craig's going to almost, in this matchup, if you really think about it, he's going to want it to be a typical Paul Craig fight in which in this matchup if you really think about it he's gonna want it to be a typical Paul Craig fight in which there's you know mayhem early to to get Walker off of a game

plan and when Walker takes such big chances when he's flowing there's gonna be you know opportunities there for submissions as well Luke so Paul Craig needs a big rebound this is a dangerous fight but I think it's winnable for him that's what I'm going with as your slight underdog of minus 170. I like that call. It was a call I would have made had you not already picked it, to be quite honest with you. So I'll go in a different direction for my underdog. I'm going to go with Shogun, which I cannot believe he is the underdog,

but he is. And I sort of get it, right? He's fighting this dude, I guess he was a Ukrainian, Ihor Potioria, who looked good on the contender series, but then fell quite short against Nikolai Negomoranu, who's a good fighter, but not like a super elite one. Shogun has looked like he's been on his last legs for a long time. I get that.

I get that he could go in there and take one punch and crumble, you know, like a corn chip just being crushed in your hand. That's a very real possibility. But we have just seen him storm back so many times. Plus, it's going to be in Brazil. The crowd's going to be going crazy for him. I just wonder if he's got a little bit more Shogun magic in him. I'll say Shogun Hua as my underdog.

Luke, how many people need to get food poisoning between now and Saturday night now that Anthony Smith was not able to make championship weight as the backup for Shogun to end up fighting for the title in like a Tony Ferguson versus Nate Diaz type. Absolutely weird situation. It would take a lot, but. Hey,

Dan Hendo got that treatment. All right. Yeah. Yeah. And they had for folks wondering like why Anthony Smith was there, even if he was going to miss weight, it's because I'm guessing they told him on like late that this was going to be a thing that they needed him for. And the other part is he was supposed to be fighting Jam it's because I'm guessing they told him late that this was going to be a thing that they needed him for.

And the other part is he was supposed to be fighting Jamal Hill. They took the fight from him. So I guess they thought if the worst happens, you could be the guy who fills in on the main event. Did everybody make it? We don't have egg on our face. I think everyone made it. For sure, the two title fights are 100%.

Those guys had all weighed in on the first six minutes. So the fights that we care about are largely intact. Well, Luke, how did one Davidson Figuered figuerito look uh terrible but he made it he made it all right there we go all right luke let's transition over to the over under let's pick a fight that either 100 does go or not luke i am picking ihor poteria versus shogun hua it's written on our rundown that i'm telling you it doesn't go the distance but hearing you talk about shogun Hua. It's written on our rundown that I'm telling you it doesn't go the distance. But hearing you talk about Shogun and knowing that that crowd's going to be going insane and knowing that Igor, you know, is he a killer, Luke? I don't know. Shogun's going to go the

distance in this fight. You say he's going to win. I'm going to change my over-under in the moment. Shogun goes the distance, win or lose in his final fight. That's my bet. Okay, bet. From my over under, I'm going to guess that McKinney versus Bonfim does not go the distance. Terrence McKinney, either he wins by the sort of balls out

style in which he fights or he loses by virtue of the balls out style in which he fights. I think he's going to be amped up. Again, the crowd is going to be nuts. Obviously for Bonfim, but I think it's going to be amped up. Again, the crowd is going to be nuts, obviously for Bonfim, but I think it's going to juice up McKinney as well. I think that that McKinney-Bonfim does not go the distance. That's my pick. All right, finally, on the head-to-head okay bet,

we're going with KO or sub. We have to pick it, and we have to pick the fight. So, Luke, I'd probably get plus money on this bet because Lauren Murphy is as battle-tested and look, you know, I'd probably get plus money on this bet because Lauren Murphy is as battle-tested and durable. It seems in this division as they come, although she was stopped by Valentina in her title bout, but Jessica Andrade, I don't know, man, she just has a way of, of taking that big weapon and rising to the occasion with it. Murphy's 39, but I don't consider her punch wary or anything, Luke. She's just somebody who kind of peaked late. But I think there's another large statement to be made here from Jessica Andrade.

And even though Murphy is hard to dominate and certainly, you know, take down and wrestle or anything like that, and that's not really what Jessica is going to be wanting to do here, I just have this feeling. And I'm going to take a flyer. I like to live on the edge, Luke. Give me a KO in the Andrade-Murphy fight. Wow, that's a big claim. I mean, it's on the table, but that's a very big claim. It's on the table.

I'm going to go for my KO slash sub. I'm going to go with Gylton Almeida winning over Shamil Abdur-Rakimov. And Almeida has great submissions, so maybe I should go with that. I put via TKO, via KO. Should I change that? I mean, I definitely think he's going to win, and I definitely think he's going to stop him. I'm going to be very clear about that.

So let me ask you, if Almeida wins, but I didn't get the method right, do I get credit for it, or do I actually have to call both the winner and the method? Is this your second fight involved in Almeida or your first? First. Okay. No, you just need that fight to end in either a KO or a sub. Okay.

So then I'm going to – You have to pick which one. Right. So the one I'm going to pick is Jelton Almeida versus Shamil Abdur-Rahimov. Almeida is giving up a lot of weight because he's not really naturally a heavyweight, but he is so fucking athletic. He is so dynamic as a talent. He's going to run over this guy who is a little bit slow but good

but kind of hittable. Almeida wins this one, I think, quite cleanly. All right, that's our head-to-head. They're locked in for the week, Luke, of OK Bet Week 2. We'll see who moves up in the scoreboard and the standings. This is for fun, okay? Don't live and die by this. But, Luke, people will want to hear your thoughts, though,

on this Flyweight co-main event. The fourth time that they're reading for a title, the champion is Devison Figueiredo. He has looked questionable is the best word I can say in these fight week shirtless picks of how hard of a weight cut this is, even though I've had people in my DM saying, give that guy respect. He makes it almost every single time, no matter if he looks compromised. But whether or not he is compromised, Luke does play into the prediction here.

Brandon Moreno is your interim champion. He stopped Kaikara France to come back and win. This is such a great fight, but who's going to win it? Tell me about that. I don't really know. Watching that third fight, there's a lot of times where Moreno lands and hurts him, and you feel like he landed one or two more follow-ups. It might have closed the show.

But it wasn't even enough to win that one. It is in Brazil. There's so much turmoil in the camp of Moreno. I probably will side with Figueiredo. But I will tell you, man, I think we just discussed it on Wednesday. The ability of Moreno to make adjustments this time, I think, is real.

His power is real. I think while you while you can be like, Oh wow, it's amazing that Figueiredo makes the weight and it is, it compromises his ability to take a punch. It absolutely does. So it's a very, very close call. And I like Moreno a lot. I would like to see him win gun to my head. I'll probably go Figueiredo, but it's a tough call yeah i think moreno there's there's not like there's no questions facing him with the trainer change and everything there but you know he's younger in the sense in terms of he's a vol he's a high motor volume guy if he

can push this into the later rounds i think he can win a decision on that it's not saying it's easy to not get stopped by figuiredo, but even in the loss last time, Moreno still went the distance. I think he's the fresher guy, but dude, Figueiredo surprised the shit out of me when he came back and won that title at 34 in this division against a guy who had just stopped him.

I love his swagger. I love everything about him. Let's close quickly, Luke, with our final segment here. We open up the chance with morningcombat at gmail.com, the email address for you to call us out. Did we say something that was wrong or were we just wrong? Or is it dead wrong? Dead wrong.

You better have some receipts for it though. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Male viewers. All right. This is from Mu Hamer. He's a regular on the dead wrongs. In today's emergency meeting episode at exactly 305,

BC states that Ngannou versus Gan happened on April 22nd. I don't believe I, oh, in April of 2022. Of course, in reality, it was on January 20th, 2002. Way to fumble into the holiday episode. You washed piece of shit. Just kidding. Really appreciate the grind. It's Mu Hamer from Austria. You washed piece of shit. Just kidding. Really appreciate the grind. It's Muhamer from Austria. Cheers from Austria.

All right, brother. Yeah, I was wrong. I was dead wrong on there. Yeah. Very good. Take that L. Yeah, it was January. You're right.

Okay. Number two is from Niklas. He's from Sweden, Luke. He spells it N-I-K-L-A-S. I like that. Yeah, like Nicholas Backstrom. Yes, of the hockey world. Yes. Hi, guys. I think this is the third time BC is

mentioning McGregor's bus attack before 223 and referring to Joanna as the one who got traumatized at the 39-50 mark of Monday's show. They've got more about what I did wrong, but yeah, I was wrong. I was thinking Rose. I said Joanna. I mean, they did fight each other that pay-per-view.

So they are somewhat linked together in history in a lot of ways. And maybe two of my favorite fighters of all time, Luke, along with Brian Ortega. But let's see what he does with that tattoo, Luke. I'm interested to find out. He says that was my favorite fighter, Rose, who got scared. Yeah, OK. It's incredible. By the way, whatever happened with Michael Chiesa's lawsuit against McGregorgregor i know people were mad we didn't ask that in the rsd and it wasn't because we were

avoiding it i just completely forgot yeah i was talking to him about other more important stuff like meat all right he would he would answer the question like here's the thing it's like why would we be afraid of asking him that he would answer it he's a fucking pro you know look i think our final one is also from muhammad i know loke and ashraf also wrote in about this but muhammad says a longtime viewer here i hate to do this but on the january 16th oh they put it in british date so it screwed me up so that was like a few days ago yeah 51 30 of morning combat luke said that only one fighter other than john jones had a reach of 84 inches or longer in ufc history while he is right that semi schilt has an 84 inch reach there are two other fighters

who have equal or greater stefan struve the skyscraper was 84 and a half also a seven footer also a seven footer and sergey pavlovich has an 84 inch reach does he really in a greater ape index than john jones so take this l i'll take that l i didn't know he had an eight that's crazy that he's that fast and powerful plus he's rangy shit so here's the deal about pavlo just real quick we can end the show people are already starting to say like every time we talk about heavy well like hey guys you're not mentioning him he's coming he like he may he may f this all okay but the problem is he, yes, he looks very dynamic now. Again, rough start against Overeem, but since then, off to the races.

I need to see him more thoroughly tested because if we get him pushed to the second round and he's tired and it turns out to be the Overeem thing was a harbinger of what happens later in fights, great. Or he actually gets tested and says that the Overeem fight was just UFC jitters. It was his pro debut. It doesn't mean anything. Move on. We just don't reallyitters. It was his pro debut. It doesn't mean anything. Move on. We just don't really know. Yeah, you're right.

I know that I got to take a whiz, Luke, and nobody beats the whiz. So here's a couple of reminders quickly. You can check me out tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern here in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on Showtime, Showbox, the new generation, unbeaten middleweights in the main event, Sean Hemphill, David Stevens, Hall of Fame trainers on the sidelines there. It's going to be a great night of fights, 9 p.m. Eastern. generation unbeaten middleweights in the main event sean hemp hill david stevens hall of fame trainers on the sidelines there uh it's going to be a great night of fights 9 p.m eastern you can get showtime for free by going to showtime.com 30 days free in fact 399 for six months each i mean

that's i'd take it if i were you uh luke thomas february 8th is a Wednesday. MK in the UK Live. Pod Live is the festival. We are co-headlining. Dan Hardy. And Dan Hardy's the big announcement. He's one of an expected couple guests that we're planning here. We got a lot of oars in the water, if that makes any sense. We're going to have big, big names to continue to follow this. But for now, dude, the outlaw, Dan Hardy.

Hell yeah. You can get your tickets by hitting that QR code right now. And I think you're going to want to be there. I think there's about 400-something seats in total that we're trying to sell out. And we're getting really, really – we're getting close, dude. We're getting really close. Yeah, we're down to the final wire here. So we're not doing a bit like, oh, they're selling it because they're not selling a lot of tickets.

No, we are. That's the problem. The problem is we want – what we don't want is to get fucking emails from people because i know this is going to happen who are like yeah i wasn't sure about buying it then it sells out and then they're like well i can't go fucking get your tickets now if you have any interest in going if you don't well okay but if you if you are actually thinking about going i'm telling you the tickets are there's a good we don't know if they're going to sell out but you know you never know but it seems like it's moving in that direction.

Please get your tickets now. I think I have an aggravated urethra right now, Luke. So we're going to put the hood on the car here and drive off. Thank you to Mikey Mormile. He landed the plane, Luke. Yeah, he did. Despite all the issues with the frame rate and everything, it worked out pretty well.

He was like Sully Sullenberger right there. Remember, dude, don't log off on this thing. We have to do something. So he'll end the show don't log off thc level than sully but uh thank you for watching folks uh youtube.com slash morning combat for more of our great content enjoy the fights this weekend saturday night luke thomas is going to hit you right in the face okay with a instant analysis from what goes down in bra. Okay. Thank you very much for LT on BC, man. This was fun, right? The best two hours of my week. Okay. Uh, stay well, be kind. We're out of here.