MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jon Jones vs Francis Ngannou | Fight Announcements | Bellator 256 Storylines | Ep 140

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

MK all day. Every day. Luke and Brian discuss the latest with the Jon Jones-Francis Ngannou negotiations. Plus, they breakdown the latest fight announcements and talk about this weekends Bellator 256 storylines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Reveille, reveille, donks. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. This is our passion. That's the spirit we bring to this show. I'm Luke Thomas. I'm Brian Campbell.

This is Morning Combat. It is the 7th of April, 2021, and it is time, donks, for Morning Combat. Hello, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm from CBS Sports. I am joined on this beautiful day in your nation's capital by the king of Connecticut himself, the gas station trash panda, the cute mine on it's Brian Campbell also from CBS Sports hi Brian hello looky it is hump day get fired up have you noticed lately your I don't know distinct line of questioning of my true character has not exposed me as more of a despondent, ignorant factory town jerk, but I think you're subtly trying to expose that I'm not hard, Luke, at all, okay? That I don't come from the same hardscrabble streets I preach of,

that I didn't fire a weapon, or I didn't work as long in a factory, or I didn't visit Doha, so I ain't as tough as you, bro. All right, say it to my face, all right? Are you mad about Monday's show or something? You know, people started to question what this guy's really made of. Come live where I lived, alright? That's all I got to say.

Listen, here's what I did call you. I called you the king of Connecticut. I have to tell you, BC, it is an absolutely spectacular day outside right here in Washington, D.C. How was it in Connecticut? It must be pretty mild slash a little bit chilly, right? Yeah, a little bit chilly, but absolutely beautiful. Last couple of days walking the dogs, getting outside.

You can feel spring is coming, Luke. I'm even fired up enough to go change the oil on the riding mower. I think I'm getting ready for that lifestyle, okay? It's chop wood season in terms of manliness. It's time to mow the lawn. And, Luke, one more thing to go full circle on who we are and where we came from. This didn't make our rundown this week, but have you noticed that the Anthony Joshua Tyson Fury talks continue about location?

And Eddie Hearn said we're down to Saudi Arabia and Doha as potential sites for this super clash in July. How about a full circle moment when vaccinated Thomas makes a return to his old stomping grounds? I'd love that shit, okay? Let's do that. That's funny. Yeah, I haven't been back since I was... Or I've never been...

I haven't been back since... Actually, I've never been back. I haven't been there since I was two? Something like that? So, yeah, I guess it'd be cool to watch from the zone or wherever this fight's going to air i'll probably on pay-per-view uh bc we have a lot to get to today we have some jones and ganu stuff we've got the new venom fight gears here we've got some match-ups to talk about some bellator storyline some one but first bc i have

to tell you i have a triumphant moment in the story of the front yard gym may i please turn off my dehumidifier start the story i'm listening all right this is very short it's very simple but i think incredibly pointed now to your to your point it does look and feel a little weird when you start lifting in your front yard there's people walking by i live in a major city know, they kind of think you're a bit of a weirdo. But when the weather is this nice and I'm setting the example for all the neighbors, they can't help but notice. The lady directly across the street from me, who's got a green thumb,

so she's always in her yard and, you know, planting this and pulling up that and blah, blah, blah. She's been seeing me out there. Well, yesterday, which was also a nice day here in the nation's capital she hired she has one of the nicer homes and properties a personal trainer or somebody and she worked out with kettlebells in her backyard but her backyard her front yard both face the street the same no fence no fence my neighbors are now working out outside in their yards after seeing your boy doing it how about that turns out luca more than one person has had the you know the the great dream of their lifetime

to be able to work out in their yard with you unfortunately that homeless guy is pounding sand but great to hear for your neighbor uh you continue to be an inspiration to so many luke i love this i didn't by the way i am inspired by your you know wake up call when you and i spent over a hundred dollars on taco bar maybe just you actually you know that was the turning point moment in our health life luke where you said no more it stops right here i'm gonna break the chain all right of just being a gross piece of shit all right so um yes all right we can do this together luke thank you very good Very good. We also, as I mentioned, beyond the show having to get to,

we have other pieces to mention, like trying Showtime. Would you like to try Showtime? You certainly can. 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, pound sand. And if you want to take the plunge to watch Bellator,

of course, you get the entirety of the Showtime experience. You can go to that URL you see there on the bottom of your screen, show.com slash bellator MMA. If you sign up up now you get the first six months of all of showtime for five bucks um let's see you want to email the show you can go to morningcombat at gmail.com that'll be for today's fan submissions although those are already in but for friday's dead wrong i think we're going to try and keep that alive although i guess we'll see. And what else? Oh, MerchBC, speaking of which,

I really like your green hoodie. Oh, hey. Oh, hey. Check it out here. United States don't corpse in the house, Luke. Okay? Yes, this could be part of the future. We'll see. I believe key decisions are being made as we speak, Luke, as they set to go to print

with get those sweatshops ready, right? Apparently, it's all made in America here. So get those people ready, Luke. I'm excited about this. 2.0 is coming, but you can still get our classic line, right? The same thing that it's good enough for Bill to wear in his RV every single day of the year, hitting up our national park circuit with Jen. It's good enough for you too. All right. Let me ask you a question. Did you put we jack you late art and spell it without the E at the front? Cause you don't have an E or did you think ejaculate was spelled jack you late? Well, you have to ask yourself, is that sign art is what that's trying to say.

Art, you know, is art, art, really?'s trying to say art you know is art art really there's a lot of questions luke but do understand um when i say mk is coming i mean it we jack what's the difference between jackulating and each jackulating as i asked to start monday's or excuse me wednesday's program tune in to the end of the show to find out. All right. Yeah, all right. All right, let's get to the show here. If we can, of course, like and subscribe.

Thanks to everyone who is watching. We'll have that question answered, I suspect, later. It'll be gross and awful. To start things off, though, BC, let's go to this Jones and Ghanou topic. This thing is still kind of brewing out there still kind of floating topic of conversation in the industry and a video has surfaced that is not new in fact it is old but it is referential in many ways to the current situation that we have john jones i want to say a year maybe two ago went on one year it was a year okay so he went on steve-o's podcast bc maybe you can bet set this up better than i could because you were the one that initially i had sort of as it popped

up you brought it to everyone's attention again and he addresses a number of topics i don't know if we're going to play the audio or not but from your vantage point how should folks understand this interview yeah so i got duped as a lot of people did because last week, or maybe it was earlier this week, these clips resurfaced, as you mentioned, and Manish is telling us we do not have any clips, so we'll just sum it up here. But you guys remember, of course, last spring after the quarantine had hit, McGregor kind of did another fake retirement, and then Jon Jones went public with the fact that he was offered the same amount of money to move up and fight the winner of Stipe against Francis as he would have to defend his 205 title against Dom Reyes.

We remember the back and forth that him and Dana had. Shortly after that, not even remember this interview, Luke, but he did go on Steve-O's little camper podcast that he's had. And it's wild how much these quotes, which have now resurfaced because it's timely again, still ring true today, not just because John hasn't fought since then, but because John is back in this open, very public debate of pay me. Pay me what I'm worth. Pay me what I deserve to take on such a crazy challenge. And it is interesting to watch this extensive interview, Luke, and see the quotes where Jones is coming to life in terms with, I can get my jaw broken. I can get knocked out cold here.

What else? You know, I've done the work for 10 years. If I don't deserve this, what do I deserve? Those type of quotes, which you expect, Luke. But I love the sort of next level quotes where he was basically saying, you know, I want to become a free agent. I'd love for there to be an open market. I'd love to be able to fight for another organization and find out how much I'm worth. And maybe I have to sit out two to three years to do that, but maybe I'd be willing to do that to help others. And look, it's one thing to say that.

It's another thing to do it, right? So let's not put the cart before the horse. But we've been saying that forever. When is change going to happen? When somebody with something to lose stands up and takes a stand and one key quote in that interview with steve-o as we continue to figure out is the jones and gano fight happening next will ufc produce the money is there a middle ground number they could reach was john saying you know maybe if i did sit out two to three years to make these changes i'd be remembered

for something more than just winning a title. So this was very interesting stuff that, as we mentioned, happened a year ago, but it could fit in right now today. I know Nganou also had an interview just this past week with TMZ about this topic. So Luke, as much as nothing's happening, a lot seems to be happening right now as we navigate this. Will this fight happen? I know there's been rumors of the ufc

uh kicking around the idea of doing derrick lewis and inganu in june uh where do you sort of sit on all things considered jones and gano right now right so there were some reports monday that inganu was offered derrick lewis on june 12th but the timing doesn't work for him i guess we'll have to see what they end up doing i tend to think think they probably will make the Lewis fight. I don't know if that means they won't make the Jones fight at some point afterward, but I don't anticipate, and we don't really know, we're all sort of being careful here, weighing the evidence, but I don't anticipate that the Jones fight is next. Here's what's going to get interesting. If he did that interview a year ago, it's now April, right? So let's say he did it late March, early April of 2020, which

means we're sort of like very early in the pandemic. He was still coming off that win, the very controversial win over Dominic Reyes just that past February, if memory serves, right? So he was still basking in the glow of the wind. Very controversial. I thought Dominic Ray has won, but you get the idea there. He says in this interview he wouldn't mind sitting out for a long period of time. Well, a year of that has passed, BC, and you see his frustration on Twitter, understandably. And you wonder, could he really keep this up another two years? I don't know. I think he'll keep it up, BC.

This is my official guess, and that's all it can be. It's just a guess. I think he'll keep it up, BC. This is my official guess, and that's all it can be. It's just a guess. I think he'll keep this up a little while longer. I really do, and I think UFC will go to other choices with Francis because Big Francis wants to compete, and he wants to make money, which is understandable as well. After that, I think Jones will come around, and there might be some minor concessions in his direction.

That's my official guess on this whole thing. I mean, do you think that as much as we are emotionally charged for two purposes, one, Jones and Gano seems like the next fight, right? It just makes sense. John gave up his title and moved up. We now have this red hot champion in Gano. I mean, it just feels super fight right now. The other half of it is us sort of saying, look, fighters deserve it, man.

You know, and if you, like we said the last few weeks, if you can't pay John for this fight, uh, big time money, who are you ever going to pay for a big fight ever? Right. But that's sort of an emotional side of it. Is it actually smarter for the promotion to put this thing off? Not a year or two years, but sort of put it for the end of the year know they have more time to negotiate with John and try to sort of maximize on the potential because look as much as we all saw what we saw with Ngannou we have no idea what Jones and Ngannou will actually look like when it

happens would it be smarter for the promotion to run Ngannou into Derek Lewis running Ngannou into the next guy in line with the thought process being if he could be active and be explosive as he's been. And look, let's be honest, who the hell has survived his punch except for Stipe the first fight and Derek Lewis in that really weird fight that, let's scrap it from memory, it never happened, Luke. Okay, it never happened. It's Rocky V, okay? It never freaking happened.

Nobody's been able to stand in the heat of that kitchen. Is it actually smarter for the UFC to francis in there two more times through the summer if they can and set this thing up for like allegiance stadium december let's say john and ganu and give them more time to get to whatever that middle ground number is in the impasse between them and what john jones believes he is worth so that we can make this fight happen because it's never going to happen at the UFC's price it's obviously never going to happen at John's price there is a middle ground you'd have to believe where something can happen I don't know I think that they might be happy if they can keep Francis active and he can

keep winning to just say we can do this and because we have so many other plates we're spinning that are doing really well for us, we can just sort of say, we're going to make money on this fight, or at least let's say we're going to make money on Francis's heavyweight title campaign, but perhaps not as much as we could because we don't want to go for,

we don't want to be leveraged by the existing talent, which is really what this is all about. Once you get leveraged, the idea would be, oh, if you can get leveraged once, you can get leveraged multiple times, and they're trying to be leveraged by the existing talent which is really what this is all about once you get leveraged the idea would be oh well if you can get leveraged once you can get leveraged multiple times and they're trying to draw a line in the sand basically put a stop to that dude you're asking do i think that they could that could go on for a while especially if francis is getting them out pretty quick i mean derrick loose has won but let's see what happens after that you know most of the time when francis fights they don't go very long if he can keep that up i think they're happy to just keep him busy, dude.

I honestly believe that. And then when Jones and Ganu happens, let's say another year from now, or a year and a half even, and they made some minor concession to John, and the fight doesn't do as well as it could have because it's maybe past the expiration date or there's other contenders or whatever,

they could even look back and be like, you see, it's a big fight, but it wasn't as big as everyone said. We didn't need to do that. This worked out when it was supposed to work out. And I can understand. They hold so many cards. Last thing on this, they hold so many cards

that they can play a bunch of different hands at the same time in terms of their goals and ambitions. I think that this is an interesting story to follow for a lot of reasons. One, I think you just nailed out an interesting scenario that they can just kind of wait it out and do the i told you so see we didn't have to pay that transcendent athlete that we call the goat out of one side of our mouth but then out of the other side try to you know break down why he doesn't deserve more than 20 of the uh of the night's pay on that night but i wonder

luke because ufc never marinates marating is a term that we unfortunately use in boxing when it comes to promoters having a great fight in front of them, realizing that great fight isn't at its financial maximum point, and taking the chance of doing the long-term booking. Obviously, the greatest example of that is Mayweather Pacquiao, where I can't say this enough, Luke. The powers that be in boxing are so freaking lucky, Al Heyman, Bob Arum,

that Mayweather Pacquiao came around again to still matter five and a half years later. Considering that Pacquiao had lost twice in between, including a one-punch flatlining knockout against Marquez, yet five and a half years later, they were still number one and two pound for pound, one and two in their generation, one and two in the welterweight ranking, so it still happened. It came too late, whatever. But the whole marinating term did first come from Bob Arum when he had a chance to make Yuri Orkus Gamboa against Juan Manuel Lopez in

this great featherweight showdown in 2013, and he waited. And Lopez got knocked out twice, and he got trashy, and we never saw the fight we don't see that in ufc they control all the cards they can make the fight tomorrow if they want to whatever but you mentioned could they give john a concession in the meantime what if they look at this as this fight's going to be massive either way but could it be more massive in a year from now if we build in ghanu star like i just mentioned even more by giving him quick mike tyson like knockout potential possibilities and then offer john the concession of a very winnable pay-per-view headlining heavyweight debut luke you weren't

knowing me all too well in 2012 when i worked at espn as a backup mma and boxing editor but i once proclaimed out into the ether sphere of life that one day Jon Jones will make his heavyweight debut and it will come against Brock Lesnar and he'll win that fight by head kick knockout and make a lot of money doing it. Somehow, I don't know, 10, 9, 10 years later, this fight, it's still there, Luke.

Do you think they could do something like that where they say, let's keep Jon happy, let's give him a soft launch into heavyweight. Let's give him those millions he thinks he deserves. We'll call up Brock because we're going public with the stock and people love casual crossover fights. That one's it. I mean, I'm just wondering if we see when we talk about going public, how will that change UFC matchmaking? I don't want it to change where we go to boxing levels, Luke, where we start slow-pacing

shit, alright? I don't need that. Yeah. Although you could get there. I do wonder, is there something to this, and then, by the way, it should be noted that Francis has said, according to TMZ, when asked, like, do you think John deserves more money, he's unequivocal

in his support. He says, as far as negotiation, negotiation yeah he's asking for money he said show me the money but i think that makes sense and ganu said i think for a mega fight everyone would like to have a mega pay same as mine i want that fight i would like to have good pay and every other fighter out there would like that there's nothing irrational in this everything is normal everybody's expecting that we are doing this in order to one day have a big payday a big fight day when it comes to that moment you are like like, I wish I had what I wanted. So I believe in it. I see, show me the money for me, prove to me he really wants it. Or if you show the money, he's going to fight. So I

want to give credit to Francis for not dumping on his opponent. More to the point though, BC, if they offered him Lesnar, that's kind of interesting, right? Because Lesnar sells a ton of pay-per-view buys, even now. He's something pretty significant. Is part of the reason John wants more money is that he doesn't trust the sales ability of Francis? Like, in other words, if you asked him, what would you make more on, fighting Francis or fighting Brock? The answer's going to be probably fighting Brock.

And if you do that and they didn't raise your pay pay you just got more because there was more money to be made by virtue of the uh aggregate sales or percentage stayed the same maybe that might solve his problem is this sort of an indictment on Francis a little bit I don't think so I think this is just John waking up and realizing I've been a headliner forever I've made some big fights that have done pretty damn well on pay-per-view. Not Conor, not Brock levels, but pretty damn good. And even in my biggest, most recent ones, I'm only clearing four to five million, yet

our friends across the street in boxing who have a much different system and a much different pay percentage, these guys are getting huge numbers for sometimes winnable pay-per-view fights in which they won't take damage. So why do I need to move up and fight the most dangerous? I mean, I like that John is straight up saying, look, like this could be the fight that I get wrecked.

And I'm willing to take that risk and that challenge. But something's got to change. And I do agree with that. And look, this all leads us back, I think, to a story that was just printed in the last 24 hours online. Did you see Bloody Elbows? John Nash put out a very educational story based on John Jones's claim last year about why can't he make the same money, let's say, Deontay Wilder made in the Tyson Fury pay-per-view rematch, sort of a certain block guarantee.

Why can't he make that? Did you read this, Luke? I did. So it was educational from john nash who always does great in the in these topics from the standpoint of like here's boxing structure here's the ufcs here's all the advantages they have here's why boxing is potentially handicapped by the ali rule right and why ufc and boxing have different structures there and there's more cooks in the kitchen but i think one thing that was interesting in there luke is that he did bring up this fact guys like wilder made some of those big purses

but the promoters did lose money on some of those fights like when wilder took that big paycheck to fight dominic brazil on showtime and everybody was hoping this was the setup fight to get them to the fury rematch well it was and then. And then supposedly, you know, in theory, everyone will cash in at the Fury rematch. We don't see UFC put themselves in a position where they could potentially take a loss on things because, as John rightfully indicated in that story, they are so in wealth from this ESPN deal. Kudos to them for signing it, by the way.

But they make a profit as long as they put on the minimum number of shows, no matter if they don't sell anything, if the ratings suck, if the pay-per-view bombs. They're already in the profit there. So they're at an advantage boxing isn't. So should that tell you, Luke, that we should be harder against the UFC for not taking these chances? Does that tell you? I mean, what does that tell you? It tells you that yes there

are structural reasons why john makes what he makes and some of those are understandable and fair and some of those are understandable and not fair um and drawing a line between those can be difficult but uh nowhere in the article i mean it's a great article i agree but the idea yes to get ufc to pay more from a structural which lever can we pull standpoint John doesn't really have very great options uh there's a couple of things you could do with a public social media campaign combined with sitting things out combined with whatever but they're not especially effective so in that sense it's explanatory in terms of why John makes what he makes but I just want everyone to be clear.

These circumstances, none of them are permanent. They just are what they are at the moment. To the extent that people are willing to try new strategies or change the circumstances, then the purses change. I want folks to be very clear about this. None of these are immutable laws of the universe or gravity it's just what the laws are and then how they change the dynamic in the industry and what incentives they create so you know is john going to get more money from the ufc only if ufc somehow decides that they kind of want to despite not really having much of a inclination or frankly a need to in terms of

you know their leverage position um which is why i'm a little bit down on the idea that it will although one never knows but what about that specific thing that that john nash uncovered there that i mean look boxing promoters have to they they take the risk that's why the promoters are important right they take the risk they they put the money up front to put on the big shows and hope that the combination of the live gate and the pay-per-view sales pay back the large purses that they guaranteed the fighters right you know fighters have more built-in bonuses let's say than most UFC fighters have very few have pay-per-view points in the UFC but what John's point in that there was you know Wilder made these big purses but promoters had to take big chances in fact they had to lose money in some fights to set up to make money after

are we asking too much of the UFC knowing the control they have to say why are you not taking more you know big chances to pay your fighters obviously we both believe the fighters deserve more but from a business structure UFC would laugh at us with that argument right right but then again this is not a difficult argument to make when we talk about fighter revenue as a you know what share it is we're not merely talking about rank and file guys who are happy to get a four thousand dollar check well you know venom check not Reebok you know we're talking about everyone the entirety of how much they pay out every year is 20%. Now, to your point, there are a different set of incentives in boxing that create for a fighter benefit. In that particular case, he's huge purses because the promoter has to take a series of short-term risks for some long-term payout that UFC is not in that same position. Sure. So I don't think, given the structure of things as it currently stands,

you can really make a strong argument for John to match Deontay Wilder pay. But that was never really the argument. The argument was not, does John deserve penny for penny everything Deontay got? The argument was basically that could the UFC pay, it would depend on what your definition of substantially more is, but could they pay more, satisfy John's curiosity,

and still, for them, make a fuck ton of money. Dude, if you go from 20% as an overall percentage, let's say, and then 35%, that's a pretty fucking big increase. That's significant. And so I don't know if you get to 50,

I don't know if you get to 25 million or 20 million for Deontay Wilder, BC, but you probably get 2X or 1.5X of what John's been getting. And again, I think he'd be pretty happy with that. 2X on what you've been making, most Americans would take that deal. Well, here's the reality that's hard for us as fans of all combat sports, this reality, Luke, until MMA figures out, or really until UFC figures out how to pay the fighters what they actually deserve and still pull off their goals of expansion

and pay off all their celebrity investors and all that stuff, Luke. Here's what we're going to deal with, the fact that if Francis Ngannou just had the biggest win of mma career and yet what have the headlines been in the last three days not all about john jones they've been about francis open to the idea of boxing tyson fury and deontay wilder promoter eddie hearn open to the idea of matching dillian white against uh francis and gano luke at the end of the day, even though MMA and UFC in particular is the more dolled up, legitimate,

cleaned up, and entertainment delivering product than boxing is across the board for many reasons, most due to the control that UFC owns over everything, which that John Nash article really broke down in layman's terms. Yet, at the end of the day, their biggest stars are still looking to cash themselves out

in something in which they would, on paper, have no chance of winning because that's the market we're in. That you can be great and be a UFC champion. God would just climb the damn mountain, Luke. But instead of talking the realistic options of Jon Jones next, including him, including Stipe before he lost to Francis, people are still talking about, well, you know, I'd love, I'd love to go over there and fight Fury or Joshua and get a taste of their money, even though I'm guaranteed to lose.

That's an indictment on your sport, Luke, if you're an MMA only fan that we're at this crossroads, that somebody even like conor mcgregor who reached a level of commercial height nobody did in 2016 a level of leverage against the ufc that nobody has ever enjoyed and may never again and still until things change he still had to go to boxing to make the life-changing payday luke how do you fix that broken issue ali act lawsuit unionization or you don't you don't this is um this is a situation that we come to all the time this is why i always tell folks who become fans of the sport you got to figure out pretty quickly you know who's making what kind of money in this industry and how,

and then how you change that. It's not going to be easy. The UFC is an entrenched, very powerful business. They're not breaking any laws. They're operating above board, but they're also taking advantage of the way the laws are structured and the incentives are structured, and in many ways creating them. And this is what

you're going to get. So I always go back to folks, you want to get more money, you want the situation to be different than it is. However you wish to remedy that, you have to structurally change the industry and nothing less will work. There's no half measure, there's no nothing. It's either go big or go home or just keep doing what you're doing, which is some guys can make money this way. You can make good money this way. But are you making the money that you're supposed to be? I think that is the issue.

Well, final note on that, Lucas, this does feel a lot like every VH1 behind the music episode where we're like rock band sells millions of records and goes platinum. And then every single member laments that they lost all their money because the record company had their publishing rights and their manager screwed them over and they had to tour endlessly for the rest of their lives playing that one hit they had just to make ends meet doesn't it feel like that right now we're at that point in history in mma all right i don't know about that that seems a little desperate um i just know i you know i had someone on my live chat reach out bc before and they were like oh

you used to care like really it was so much about pay and your fiery reebok takes and it's like dude at some point man you just can't keep saying all the same thing we're gonna talk about this venom deal in just a second i don't know what to say say. It's the Spider-Man meme of Spider-Man pointing at each other again. It's just time ends up being this flat circle where you revisit through all these new problems. You go back to the same root situation. And media is not really in a position to meaningfully solve it. We can address it. We can talk about it. We can bring it to light. And that's something. That's actually pretty important.

Sometimes that can be the facilitator of change. But the change itself doesn't come from us. It comes from other people. And they have so far shown, except for the UFC, who wants to keep things the way they are and they have gone about their business to conduct it that way,

they have to make change or we will just have this conversation ad infinitum. If the greatest of all time can't get paid jumping up a weight class to take on that beast, dude, it tells you there is a massive incentive structure problem. All right, we got to move on though, BC. The old way wasn't working, Luke, so it's on us to do what we got to do.

All right, topic number two, BC. I mean mean can't a brother get a little peace right yes uh fight announcements there's two of them bc and they're both on the women's side of the of the of the i don't know aisle or whatever we're gonna call it uh two of them i love them i want to talk about the one that i saw announced first although it'll happen a little bit later. Macy Barber taking on Miranda Maverick. I'm guessing a 125. They're going to fight on July 24th. Can I tell you, this is not at all fair, a comparison.

Not even close to being fair, a comparison. Macy Barber is in very much a winnable fight here, okay? But can I tell you what vibes I got on this fight, BC, when it was announced yeah please can you talk can you tell me luke brandon vera john jones uh when this fight when that fight was made which was a fight that took place on versus back in the day it was like brandon vera when he knocked out fabiano scherner folks may not remember this he knocks out fabiano scherner on one of the fight nights it It was a fantastic knockout head kick. Flattened him. And then gets on the mic

and says, I'm going to become the first UFC fighter to become both heavyweight and light heavyweight champion. I'm going to be the first to do that. Or the next one. Maybe Couture had done it. I can't even remember the timeline anymore. But he was going to do it. He was going to be one of those guys. Maybe at the same time. I don't remember the exact specific claim. And then he did have some nice wins. He beat Justin eilers he beat frank meir but then he lost to tim sylvia and blah blah anyway he came in off a loss i think to couture into the vera fight and you had the situation sorry i'll wrap up here they screwed vera on the cards luke i just wanted to speak truth into this microphone against Randy or against Cooter okay fine but the point being here is it was the guy who was the golden child who kind of faded who ended up fighting the real

golden child of that division uh your response to Barber versus Maverick it's probably it's got to be your dream fight in a lot of ways I love this fight i mean macy barber what a two fight losing streak luke coming off that injury she didn't rebound i think she's got a lot of talent but still has some things to figure out and now you're matching her up against what luke maybe the real macy barber maybe the next macy barber maybe that young already almost a finished product fighter who's showing so much potential and in a shallow division where let's not forget had macy barber defeated uh oh what's her name um from anime fame luke uh roxanne modafari in that fight and not been upset she would have fought shevchenko next i mean she would have attempted her to beat john jones's record um this is very interesting matchmaking

this is not a soft touch for for macy barber to get well this is okay two in a row let's figure this thing out right now against the person that may be replacing you in terms of our love and care level i love this fight and also i'm starting to love this night luke because it's not on the rundown but did you see on that same night july 24th there's another women's fight that has a lot of questions needing answered. When Aspen Ladd returns from a lengthy leg surgery, knee surgery, whatever it was, although

she's still hiking out on the nature trails with the dogs on IG against Macy, how do you say that? I always get it wrong. Chasen? Chiasen? Chasen Thunderpile, I think is how it's pronounced in Greek. So really, Luke, that's a great fight I mean Luke, as much as Miranda Maverick

and Macy could be producing the next person at flyweight we need to care about, could Ashman Ladd sneak into a title shot here with a win over a 7-1 Macy Chiasen, or what Luke? I mean this is a very interesting fight there's nobody at Bantamweight

except for GDR who already beat Aspen Ladd, but this is an interesting test. Yeah, last thing I'll say about the Barber and the Maverick fight, that's a tough fight for Barber. Unless she can show some real development, which of course at her age is certainly very, very possible.

But it seems like if you had to ask who makes better decisions in the middle of a fight especially when they have to adapt like what they were doing didn't work they need to make an adjustment um or their opponent changes so now they need to i would argue that's miranda maverick at least that's what i've seen thus far as it relates to this fight the bantamweight fight between macy chiasin uh and aspen lad i love this contest do chias contest. I think she's been out of Fortis MMA, if memory serves,

and it has done her wonders. She looked great in her last fight against Marion Reneau. In the case of Ladd, she had the hiccup against Duran Dami. Okay, but in general, dude, she's looked pretty good. She's very young. She's only 26

years old. She rebounded against. She's only 26 years old. She rebounded against Yana Kunitskaya. That's a very underrated fight. Super underrated fight is what I would say. Yes. Don't we have a third chick fight to get pumped up about, Luke? This one might be the best of them all. This is a risky fight.

It's a hell of a contest. For May 8th, Bantamweight. Excuse me. What am I saying? Strawweight. Angela Hill taking on Amanda Hibas. What a fight. You have Amanda Hibas who needs a nice rebound after that loss against Angela Hill who has had a couple of fits and starts but has definitely been surging.

And you got a little bit of a striker versus a little bit of a grappler. That's a great fight, BC. It really is. And even though Hill had those two setbacks against Klaja and Michelle Watterson, they're both split-decision defeats, one of them a fight of the night, in which she's really shown us that she might, you know, I mean, her evolution from journeywoman early on to, oh, my God, is she a legit contender?

I think what she came out against Ashley Yoder, which, you know, is a decent test and looks spectacular and looked like she was going for the finish in March when they fought Luke. She's showing us that she's ready. This is a tough fight. Again, great matchmaking to say, Hibas, you look like you were about to make that leap. You had a setback. So now we'll match you against the person who could be ready to take your spot in that spot look i mean john jones fight pay notwithstanding ufc matchmaking is so damn successful across the board consistently for

a reason this is great matchmaking i really enjoy this fight and luke it's going to be a high pace it's going to be fantastic i hope we get some great live shots of uh mr heboss's uh you know forearm tat just to get us all kinds of fired up for the art we're going to see in the cage that night yeah that's going to be a good one i i agree and two very likable people two hard-nosed competitors um a lot to gain with that one all right bc there is a bellator ahead of us on friday it's the beginning of the light heavyweight Tournament. It's Bellator 256, Bader versus Machida 2, of course. It will take place at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. A lot happening on this card.

Kat Zingano's on this card. Liz Karmouche is on this card. But let me ask you, when you're thinking, we'll talk more about this ice, I will, on Friday. But with Bader and Machida, this is the beginning of the tournament. It's kicking off. We did a whole preview video. You can check that out on Show Sports.

What are you thinking about ahead of Friday? What story between Bader and Machida is centering this fight for you? It's less about their rivalry because, look, they fought in 2012. They were both different guys back then. Bader's gotten a lot better. Machida, although still dangerous, and by the way, give him credit in his early 40s for how he's still relevant and still a big name in this tournament. He was obviously a much different, more dangerous version of himself.

Basically a one-punch knockout. It's like that didn't happen, Luke. To me, this is more about which was one of the bigger storylines entering this tournament. Ryan Bader's fresh off that knockout loss to Vadim Nemkov. Yes, he's still your heavyweight champion. But Luke, what I love about Bader is he's typically pretty honest, right? I mean, he'll take the L and tell you about it. And he said, look, you know, Nemkov was the better guy that night, but I had some personal issues. And I don't think he's saying that Luke as an excuse. I think he's just saying it as like, look, honestly, I wasn't as prepared

as I needed to be. I had some distractions. I went in there. I wasn't myself, and I got served. I love the storyline of Bader saying, no, I'm not going to go rest on my heavyweight laurels and just defend that title against any stick kickers that they got out there from Mitrione to Czech Congo. He's like, no, I'm going back down to 205, and I'm going to take my shit back. So I think for me, look, you know, I mean, this fight, it's got a storyline, but you look at the betting odds. Our friends at William Hill have Ryan Bader as a solid three to one favorite. Bader should, right?

He should win this fight, but I want to see how focused and sharp he is because the Bader that emerged in that heavyweight Grand Prix, Luke, as we know, it wasn't the old school wrestling Bader. It was a confident boxer who had really taken all that stuff he worked on through wins and losses in the tail end of his UFC career. Largely wins, by the way. He's got a much better run, if you look back at his career, than people realize. We remember the big losses for Bader, right? The Tito tap out, the Jon Jones loss, getting sent to hell once or twice by a big puncher. But there's much more wins in between. But the way he evolved in that Grand Prix to be a puncher, to have that short check

left hook, it'd be almost an out punch for him. Luke, I want to see him get back to looking like that. Not the somewhat shell-shocked guy he looked like against Nemkov, where he just got, you know, ultimately railroaded there. I think he should beat Machida, but I want to see how impressive he can look doing it, Luke. And I'm not here to count out Machida's chances, but I'm more here to see what Bader can do. Yeah, this is an interesting one.

I've kind of got my eye on, I think you're right. Listen, Bader had a great run. I mean, did he even take a punch in the heavyweight Grand Prix? I don't even think he took a single punch. And then he had that terrible loss to Nemkov. But Nemkov, you and I both know, dude, that guy might win the whole thing again he might be the Patricio Pitbull of that division or something like that right just a utterly dominant figure we'll see how things go and more to the point um I do think he's going to rebound I like that heavyweight form heavyweight's

great but I still think he can compete a little bit for me it's going to be Machida because he's 42 now but he's going to be 43 in May BC so he's not far from that I think that was the year even even old Randy Couture I think he may have gone a little bit longer right maybe he's close to 47 or something but you know you're starting to get into like very rare territory as a competing combat athlete at 43 years of age even in a heavier division like 205 pounds here's the interesting part for me so he's 2-2 in the Bellator cage. He has the win over Carvalho, which was a split. He TKO'd Chael Sonnen like it was nothing

back in June of 2019. And then he lost to Mousasi and Phil, but both of those, the last two, they were split decisions. I'm torn. Yeah, he didn't look awful. Huh? He didn't look awful.

Right. That's exactly it. I'm torn, BC, because on the one hand, he did not look awful in either of those. On the other hand, this is where I'm a little bit tripped up. If you had to ask me if this was the guy at 33 years old versus 43, would he have won both of those? I think he probably would have. I think he probably would have beaten both of those I think he probably would have I think he probably would have beaten both of those guys especially because you could also make a claim that Musashi has fallen on hard times a

little bit as well although not so much Phil he took Phil the distance too so I tend to think that he's definitely still a live threat here but I wonder if we're really overestimating his chances too. Yeah, I mean, look, welcome to the Machida era. That lasted one night, but he's no longer that guy anymore, I think, who's a threat to knock you out with a clean counter shot on some weird karate move you didn't see coming. I think Luke, although he stayed, again, to his credit, very relevant and competitive at his age, I think he's got to outsmart you and

outpoint you I think Phil Davis left the back door open to give Machida a chance to do that in that split decision loss to Davis I don't know if Bader's going to give him that but it will be interesting to see if Machida can stuff some takedowns if he can hang around and this fight goes length can he slow down the pace enough and get Bader missing where he can backdoor a decision? I think that's his best chance of winning. He's a crafty, credible out right now, but this ain't the Machida era anymore, Luke.

BC on this card, as I mentioned, Karmush taking on Vanessa Porto, who had a nice run of late in Invicta. Jeremy Kennedy taking on Adam Boric. He's back out of the tournament, but he's looking to stay active. That'll be a featherweight contest. Let's hit that quick, Luke. Did you know Jeremy Kennedy's the Adam Boric. He's back out of the tournament, but he's looking to stay active. That'll be a featherweight contest. Let's hit that quick, Luke. Did you know Jeremy Kennedy's the betting favorite there,

the UFC and PFL vet against Boric? I did not, but that's a little bit on the surprising side. Do you like Jeremy Kennedy? I'm sorry, Jeremy Kennedy. Good God, Jeremy Kennedy. What is he, the left tackle for the Atlanta Falcons? What am I talking about here, Luke? Lincoln Kennedy? Where am I going with this? It's a competitive

fight. I don't know. Borich obviously didn't look great against Darian Caldwell, but I think in general has performed quite ably in the Bellator cage. That's surprising to hear. Kat Zingano taking on Olivia Parker. Kat Zingano is an interesting one, BC. We talked about this, I think, on Monday's show. You watch her fight with Tate and then she's just a destroyer she has not been that in a while no no she's been you know evolving with her age to try to I think become more ground heavy and conscious rely on technique and strength she's not the explosive force she once was and look i i'm always going to lament cat cat zingano's career because she never fully capitalized on what that tape fight could have meant and the version of who she was in that fight meaning that she had the disastrous

knee injury afterwards although she did work her way into a ronda rousey fight you know she kind of blew it let's be honest right she went for craziness in the opening seconds and blew it. And then since then, it's been so up and down of layoffs and maybe flat performances. She had the decision loss to Juliana Pena. She had the, you know, these fights where you're like, uh, um, she never really had her moment or maybe reached her potential. Uh, now it's a different version of her. And I, and I give her credit for rebounding in Bellator and look she's in this title picture

but do you think this is win and you get the winner of Cyborg Smith or do you think she's got to do something spectacular here? In Bellator you got to be honest about the realities the divisions are simply not as difficult well partly they're not as they're just not as much depth period there's not as much depth so I. There's not as much depth. So I tend to think if she, because she had a win in her Bellator debut over a very unheralded opponent. So you beat someone here, you got two in a row, you know, you got a big name probably.

But, you know, dude, she's 38 years of age. She'll be 39 in July, which, you know, it's kind of, it's funny. You know, first mom in the octagon and that kind of age. She'll be 39 in July. It's funny. First mom in the octagon and that kind of stuff. We don't have a ton of experience with a generation of female fighters that we cared about getting older. You might have individual ones that you paid attention to, but we're starting to get to a point where a lot of them are getting to those late 30s stages,

and it's going to be a hard decline probably for them. We'll see. William Hill has Kat Zingano as a minus 833 favorite against her, again, another unheralded opponent in Olivia Parker. Luke, I forgot, in that recent stretch Zingano had before leaving the UFC, and by the way, didn't UFC cut her when she agreed to be the host of that Ronda Rousey espn series they were doing on the plus about fighters and and she cat i think cat got cut because she decided to host that show and

ufc didn't want her to something weird there anyway i'm talking about the megan anderson fight tell me if i'm wrong in my memory here luke when she lost to megan anderson on sort of that freak eyelid kick that that she couldn't continue because of her eye there, was she like one win away from getting Amanda Nunes? Not just because the Bantamweight and Featherweight divisions are so barren in UFC, but because she's the last person to beat Mandy? I feel like she also missed out there, Luke. I don't know if she would have beaten Megan Anderson straight up, but had she, she may have wandered into a Nunes title shot. So maybe for her, obviously, the big final carrot there

is to get into a fight with Cyborg and see if she can have her moment. But it's been a lot of ups and downs for Ol' Cat. Yeah, it's just the thing is, it's like someone who she's fighting like this a few years ago, more than that maybe, let's say seven or eight years ago, she would have fucking bodied. You got to go look at old Kat Zingano videos, like even regional MMA before she got in UFC, and she would wrestle these women and they couldn't deal with her physical strength or her wrestling ability or anything. And there's still some of that to be clear, let's be fair, but

I don't know. 39 is a tough age to be for a professional athlete. It doesn't matter who you are. So there's that. Okay, BC, let's talk about this if we can here for just a little bit. One on TNT is what, tonight? It's tonight at 10 p.m.? Yes, it is, Luke. I think it's 10 p.m. Eastern on the old TNT.

It's our boy Chachri, all grown up in the States, Luke. Well, here's what's kind of interesting. It's going to be the debut of one on TNT. It's our boy Chachri, all grown up in the States, Luke. Well, here's what's kind of interesting. It's going to be the debut of one on TNT. Demetrius Johnson's on this card. Eddie Alvarez is on this card. Also, I've learned of late, you know, I try to flush all of the turds that are pro wrestling tweets off of my timeline,

which is a little bit harder of a thing to do than you might imagine, BC. One of them snuck through, one of the turds snuck through, and i saw that it's actually going to be on one on tnt following an aew show that will be the lead in programming is that right well not only an episode of aew during by the way wrestlemania week meaning aew is looking to compete with everything that wwe has going on. WWE's got like Hall of Fame on Tuesday night,

back-to-back NXT TakeOver shows, back-to-back SmackDown and then WrestleMania Night 1, WrestleMania Night 2. I mean, they're going all out. AEW has confirmed that Mike Tyson will appear on tonight's episode on TNT. So Luke, that is a very interesting lead-in because Tyson,

remember when he made that appearance? He went in the ring and went face-to-face. He had Rashad and Henry Cejudo behind him and Vitor Belfort, and it was kind of clunky, but it was fun to see for old-school wrestling fans. Tyson will be back tonight. I don't know what that means, but you could have a worse lead-in, Luke, to get you excited about combat. Yeah, i guess uh any of these fights blow your skirt up you know i'm gonna give one credit here okay i said the other day that there's you know maybe it's the the pandemic or whatever there's just not a lot of buzz from an mma fan perspective of like man i gotta see these matchups but you look at the totality

of the card and there is a little bit of everything for everyone. I think it's smart matchmaking here from Chachri and folks. Not only is the main event solid, it's Mighty Mouse Johnson fresh off having won the flyweight tournament to get the title shot against a proven champion for one in Adriano Marais. A guy who's won something like six of seven, Luke. The only loss was by split decision when he lost his belt. He came back the next year and redeemed it. I can't say the guy's name who he fought I can't pronounce it and I don't know if anyone's ever heard of him anyway but he's a decorated champion there this is a decent

interesting fight you get Eddie Alvarez back looking to to in his late 30s restructure but Luke from the standpoint of like you know flashy things to look at. Don't we get the roo-groog on the undercard? And don't we get this Muay Thai sensation from Thailand, 23-year-old Rod Tang? Oh, he's a beast, Rod Tang. Jit Muang Nan. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that, but basically everybody who loves one jumps in my DMs and is like, BC, fun jokes about Chhatri and The Apprentice,

but Rod Tang should be your guy. You and Luke should basically be his biggest fan club member. He'll be facing Daniel Williams, an Australian, in a Muay Thai fight, Luke, which will be part of the three-fight main card to kick things off. So I've watched some highlights of Rod Tang. He lets people punch him in the face. He's an absolute savage, Luke. This should be fun to watch. And, you know, all things considered, you really can't go wrong putting Eddie into a brawl and finding out if Demetrius can win your championship for the first time,

which is why you made the trade for Askren in the first place. You know what, Juan? I'll take it back, most things I've said lately, okay? I'm going to be watching, and I'm going to be interested. Thank you, Chachri. Let's get more roo-groo on the TNT, please the TNT please yeah I mean here's the thing the card is actually pretty good it's a pretty fun pretty good pretty interesting card listen the issue with one I'll be very serious about this the issue with one is not really their product I mean you can

take whatever criticisms you want to take no Nobun's product is perfect, BC. They should have not matched up Sage Northcutt with Cosmo Alessandri. Okay, that was a big mistake. He broke his face, Luke. He broke his damn face. It was just inappropriate matchmaking for a guy of that ability. But the point being is, look, I like the way they judge fights. I think judging them as a whole actually yields you better results. I like how they can put in kickboxers with MMA gloves, and they can put it in a cage,

or they can put an MMA fight in a ring, or they can just play with so many different things that American promoters, by law, are prevented from doing. I mean, part of what happened was the UFC went commission to commission to commission, and they got MMA regulated but they got MMA regulated in the way in which it benefited yes many parties but primarily them and I'm not bashing them for it like anybody who was in that role was going to do that but one of the things that it did was stifle innovation it actually made it hard for competitors to do something different because everything was kind of homogenized.

One is not encumbered by that. They can just take risks and they can play with different things. And I think more often than not, it's at least worth looking at. It's a good product. The problem with one is not that. It's that they got a guy at the top who says a bunch of shit that seems quite obviously false. And they make a bunch of claims about how successful the organization is when all the original reporting around it shows that all of that is false and they make this big to-do about what being about honor and bullshit it's all nonsense if you want to watch a good fight watch

one but don't believe the dumb shit the promoter has to say and i also didn't like remember that first card they had after they made a ton of noise and michael shavello came out and was like this is the biggest night in MMA history. I was like, whoa, bro, come on. Like, come on, you know. So, look, I had Chaudhry on my old CBS State of Combat podcast about a year and a half ago. I actually enjoyed the conversation.

He was an interesting – he's kind of an international man of mystery. Yeah. Let me say something on the show I've never told you. I know what you're about to say, so let me serve it to you. I think you should get in contact with those over uber aggressive one pr agents and get chatri on morning combat luke versus chatri the loser is fired i need to see this interview luke okay well that's not i mean i would be happy to talk to him i don't think that's going to happen i've been

asking for the interview for a long time and conveniently every time I ask for it, he's traveling or he's busy or, you know, something like that. And by one of the guys who helped Chachri do that, by the way, is Lauren Mack, who works at PFL. And don't think I have, don't think I forgot about that either, Lauren. I have a long memory about that one. So, you know, he's got a lot of enablers that prevent him from having to answer any kind of question about reality, okay as it relates to this event do i recommend it bc yeah sure you should absolutely watch it it's going to be a good event tonight one puts on legitimately entertaining um events so there you go what time is your morning combat one championship instant reaction pod going up tonight?

Well, that's asking a little bit much. That's asking a little bit much. But we will talk about it on Friday or on my live chat on Thursday. How about that? That's pretty good, right? Yeah, how about that shit? All right. You can roll that one up tightly if you want.

You mentioned Mike Tyson was on the AEW lead-in. Anything else special about it? Is it just that or are there any titles on the AEW lead-in. Anything else special about it? Is it just that, or are there any, like, titles on the line or something? For Tyson, I'm not sure. You know, I haven't been watching like I should be. I really like AEW. I'm just taking an extended pro wrestling break right now. And a lot of people are mad at me, Luke, because I was the banger,

the drum banger for years saying WWE will make you sterile if you only watch their main roster booking what you know AEW has the chance to lead this revolution and they've been pretty damn good thank you Tony Khan and company um I just haven't been as tied to the TV of late um you know sometimes you gotta take a rest Luke pro wrestling could take over your life if you let it okay uh yeah well don't worry That won't happen to me. I promise you. I think we'll be good.

Okay, so that'll be at 10 p.m. By the way, does AEW end on the dot at 10 or like 10 and change? They'll do the and change thing, the old school like, you know, Raw and WCW Nitro sort of spill over into the next thing to improve ratings. But I don't know.

It'd be interesting to see if they go off camera with like Tyson in the ring, ready to punch somebody. And then it's one championship with Roug Roug. You know, I mean, it works, Luke. You know, I'd watch Vitor Belfort against Roug Roug. That's some carnival matchmaking that I'd be into. So hopefully one is listening to me. Thank you.

There you go. Alright, so let's go to our last topic here before we move on to some other segments here on the show, BC, which is that the Venom fight kits are out. Now, as we know, Reebok will still make the shoes, perhaps some sundry other pieces of apparel or gear or whatever, but in general, the official outfitter of the UFC

is Venom. They debuted their kits and everyone had opinions on them. BC, go first on this one. The Venom kits are out. Your reaction? Kind of shitty, Luke. I mean, you know, I feel like this is set up for us to shit on it. And, you know, you were sort of very against when they signed with Venom,

and what history does Venom have in producing this? That's not what I said. That's not even close to what I said. So here's the kids, by the way. What's her name? The young Hanson, right? Kaylee, or not Kaylee. Kay Hanson,

correct? Kay Hanson, yes. Brian Ortega, Aljo Sterling, you know, very handsome. Young fighters, you know. Very handsome and beautiful models right there. Well done. Look, I think it, very young fighters, you know, very handsome and beautiful models right there. Well done. Oh, look, I think it's, it's, it's kind of shitty. I'll be honest with you.

So in hindsight, look, I've used to get on me when I would say this, I, I never liked the, the parameters around the Reebok deal, how it took away sponsorship money, how it only paid out a certain amount, how it did a lot of, let's say, potentially negative things. it only paid out a certain amount how it did a lot of let's say potentially negative things but i always really enjoyed the the reebok fight kits the t-shirts i've purchased the quality of the merch like i've never had an issue with their t-shirt designs i thought the in cage uniforms that they had access to picking were all pretty damn solid luke um this looks this looks pretty shitty to me so i just always was against the uh what it did to the fighters i never minded the idea of having a uniformed look for a promotion

i you know look it's every other sport does it what's the issue on that um luke if this is what venom is going to look like here uh yeah you know yeah it looks like training gear if you were in the hunger games you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's got like the stripes and everything are like a little futuristic, body conforming. Look, man, Venom, here's what I said back when they announced it. It's like I sort of got that they would go with Venom because they're endemic in the combat sports industry. They sponsor Lomachenko.

They make all kinds of training gear. And I will say, remember, whatever we say aesthetically, there is a functional component that the athlete wearing this has to say. And most folks I know who have Venom gear, they actually really like it. So in that sense, I think they're making quality gear. And as long as we don't have Reebok or I should say Venom wardrobe malfunctions, we'll all be fine. But it's like, I don't understand. This is what Venom does, man. It's like they make garish, over-the-top, Liberace showy shit.

And this is a little bit more streamlined. It's not so Ed Hardy. But they make things that are loud and just in your face. And that's what Dana White likes. He likes that kind of shit. It looks too much like the reebok stuff just worse like you don't mean like i like the reebok stuff it was uniform it was

it was unoffensive it was kind of cool in some designs this just took that and just put some unnecessary lameness on it but then again look maybe it's not for me okay i'm here's the deal luke i'm 42 and i'm actively going in the other direction in terms of coolness, in terms of willingness to adapt to technological advances, in terms of anything that doesn't involve me and my records from the 70s, Luke, and my artwork. You know, I've probably got two years left at the top, Luke, in terms of viability and coolness and cool factor. I better save every dollar i've earned because it's only going to get worse and fatter from here and more pale okay yes it probably will so it's like you know they're going to get you know enough for the cost of inflation on the raise on these things that you know here's the thing though bc like i didn't wear a rebot kit there's no chance i'm wearing any one of these Hunger Games fucking practice uniforms. Are you surprised?

Last time I checked, tap out is an expression of combat known worldwide. I'm surprised we didn't go there with this or maybe even affliction. Go the full bedazzled route, Luke. Nah. Although, you know, everyone loves that loud shit too. Hey, true or false true or false i guess you and i were at a showtime boxing pay-per-view event involving the charlos and one in which we hosted the damn halftime show thank you very much i cashed that check what

are you going to do my kid needs braces i don't care and uh luke did steven espinoza true or false walk in with a bedazzled black t-shirt that could have been from the Affliction catalog. It could have been. I can neither confirm nor deny these reports. No, they're true. They are very true. Very true. He's a stylish man.

All right. I love that guy. Thank you for the checks. Thank you very much. Yes, the checks are nice. I'll just say, yeah, I mean, listen, if you want it, wear it. It's here to stay. You know, I mean, this is an it wear it it's here to stay you know I mean

this is an organization for UFC 100 wanted to have a limp biscuit pool party I mean this is what they do so God that was a long time ago Luke that was a long ass time ago you think I forgot I did not forget I remember getting that email in the press release being like you've got to be shitting me

but okay I guess not alright BC I think that's when we turn the show over to you, sir. What you got for us? Oh, hey, Luke, you know it is that time again. So why don't we do it? Here's the best segment in all of combat sports, and it happens every Wednesday. It's called the Wheel of Death.

I'm, like, legitimately nervous for today's Wheel of Death, and I don't know why. Luke, you know what we do every Wednesday? We make you spin the black circle. We have ten categories. You'll spin it five times, and I'm sorry, Luke, whether it asks you to drink your own piss or tell a deep, dark secret, you get what you get.

It's a segment built on the idea that Luke doesn't like answering certain questions unless we make them. So, Luke, let's get into your 10 categories for this week's wheel of death here we go dustin piwawiway dead drunk or naked any given saturday expired latina booty canuck cucks women's suffrage and succotash imp. Impromptu Improv. Touch Me All Over. Intergalactic Intercourse. And everyone's favorite, Luke.

Punch Pie Co-host. I should have choice over these, and I don't, and that's bullshit. Well, I mean, look, do people step up to the Wheel of Fortune wheel and go, Hey, Pat, you should allow me to get the $1,000, all right? No, but they get to spin it. Look, you spin it, too. You may go bankrupt. You don't know, Luke, okay?

I mean, can you buy a vowel? Not on this show, all right? So why don't you spin that shit? All right, spinning. There we have it. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right, Luke. Football question.

Any given Saturday. People love my long-winded intro, so I figured just lean into it. Here we go. Yeah, you know who doesn't? Me. If you're new to hanging out with me, you must know that I love debates and rankings and all those subjective things we use to fill time on podcasts between the actual fights you know the barber conversations of the fight game so for example luke not only do i love

debating things like the 10 best heavyweights in boxing history i love even more the weird sub debates like who was the greatest boxing heavyweight of all time on their best night you know was it muhammad ali against cleveland will Cleveland Williams a year before he went into Vietnam exile? Or was it, like I like to say, Riddick Bowe, 1992, that one fight he got in extreme shape, fought at Vanderholy Field the first time, and produced an instant classic? So Luke, keep in mind that thought process here.

What if we use that same style of debate in MMA and we didn't limit it to just heavyweights throughout your mma watching history luke what were the three best one night performances you ever witnessed in which you are willing to put that version of that fighter up against any in that division's history throughout mma any given saturday night luke what are the three that stand out to you the most hmm fedor versus crow cop um that was just a magisterial game plan and execution and uh didn't result in the most you know brilliant knockout or anything but it was you couldn't imagine how hot crow cop was at the time and this fight was

fucking huge i think they had 50 000 people there to see it it was an enormous event and fedor absolutely let everyone know who the best heavyweight in the world was at that time because there was some dispute about it and it was just amazing you could also to the spirit of this question would you put that version of fedor up against literally any heavyweight from any era and somewhat like your chances? Yeah. You could also put the one who beat Noguera at Pride Body Blow because no one expected Fedor to do that. And they didn't know who he really was at the time. And Noguera was this big fixture in the division.

And Fedor went out there and absolutely fucked him up. That was a big deal. I would also say you could do a toss-up between St. Pierre 2. That's a big one. Or even St. Pierre versus Penn. There was times where you just, you think about the guys who are just real pros,

very prepared, and know how to get prepared. They tend to have some of these performances. You could maybe throw in Cruz Mizugaki. That's a big one you could throw into. Despite the layoff, he came in there and just looked insane. He ran through Mizugaki like it was nothing. Because, look, the spirit of that question is that even though Riddick Bowe went on to win the heavyweight title he's a hall of famer that night you got a six foot five guy who can fight on the

inside as quick as a great chin and has knockout power I'm putting that version of that man up against Ali uh anyone in history I'm serious I'm by saying that and and that's what you gotta think I have to think more about it but those three come to mind right away just just these people who are you know consummate consummate pros in mma they would they all kind of had one night where they came out and you're like right that's why i believe in them that's what that that shit right there is why i'm like wow they are something special you know our producer mikey more mile uh was so excited he texted in max holloway versus calvin cater fits this category yeah there's many you could give that's a great reminder

for me it's john jones against leota machida luke that was a bad man that night he might have lost the first round in that one i know he got he got he got kind of rocked or popped you know pretty hard with that left cross but uh what he ended up doing, the complete game he showed, the nastiness, the damn freaking lifeless chokeout, Luke. Yikes, right? I was at Con Peterson that night. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

Good memory. All right, Luke, we got one in the books. This is such a great segment that people can't wait to see what's next, Luke. So why don't you jump to the wheel and spin that shit? Great intensity and passion out of Luke. Oh, fucking hell. Oh, hey. Women's suffrage and succotash.

Luke, do you really... This better not be. What's the best dish women make when they're cooking? I don't want to hear that shit. Luke, do you really love women's MMA as much as I do and as much as you should or as much as you're constantly trying to make it seem like you're woke and you're not secretly hoping that all women's straw weights

would just shut up and make you a sandwich? Do you really appreciate the art of women's fighting in today's MMA? Yes? Yes. Prove it, Luke. And to prove it, that you really aren't some sexist misogynist at your core it's trivia time on the wheel of death luke i'm going to put 90 seconds on the clock here okay

are you ready for this i guess all right let me get my clock ready okay here we go. Luke, I need you to name 10 of the top 15 women's pound for pound fighters listed on the UFC.com rankings website right now. Your 90 seconds begins now. All right, Shevchenko. Let's see, who else is going to have Rose on there? You're going to have, let's see, you're going to have Nunez on there. You're going to have, I'm guessing, Holly Hol rose on there you're gonna have uh let's see you're gonna have nunez on there you're gonna have uh i'm guessing holly holm on there you're gonna have um did i say andrage already i can't remember no you didn't is she on the list she can pick up one there um i'm out of i'm out of ideas

oh uh wang xiaoli or xiaoli you know correct jang wiley uh you wanna halfway there for 45 seconds to go you wanna correct that's seven uh so put it behind the finger. There you go. Ooh. How about... Fuck. 30 seconds left, Luke. I've never really paid attention to the list that much. I don't ever look at the rankings,

and now you're putting me on the spot. Or maybe you're just a misogynist bigot. Yeah, it could be that. It could be that. It could be that. I give up. There you go wow you're willing to take the l in order to keep the segment flowing luke that is uh

hey i'll let the results speak for themselves luke you could have said nina answer off carla esparza cynthia calvillo claudia jan janan yes caitlin chukagian espen lad gd, GDR, you big jerk. Wow. All right, Luke. There you go. All right. I didn't realize. I'll be honest. I didn't realize some of them were ranked that highly.

Okay, Luke. Let's go to spin number three. You get what you get. Let's see. Come on. Improv. Improv. If you picked improv, I'm quitting.

I don't pick these, Luke. It's random, all right? It's Jermaine Durandamy. Oh, hey. Touch me. all all over if you're willing uh luke this ain't as graphic and gross as it sounds people think all we do is create ridiculous scenarios here to try to embarrass you how about we do something nice luke what's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for you that touched you you mean like outside of a like a romantic relationship what's the nicest generous loving thing anyone's ever done for you i mean my wife

married me and gave me a kid like what i mean you know outside of that luke okay outside of that um the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me i'm trying to show a sweet side to you luke i'm trying to show all facets we just showed your misogynistic natural tendencies now we're going to show this the good side you know i don't know if it's the nicest one but it's one i like telling people about i particularly like sharing this because um you know he has a reputation outside of what my experience is with him. But I remember that in 2012, I did a show on Spike TV with Nate Quarry and Craig Carton. And Craig Carton, years later, would subsequently...

He's like the number one sports guy in the number one radio market in the country and out of New York. He does huge ratings there. He did the morning show with Boomer Esiason. And at Mayweather versus Pacquiao, I saw him there with WFAN. Our show had been off the air for a couple of years at that point. And he saw me, waved me over, and, you know, he had Boomer there with him. And he introduced me and stuff like that.

That was friendly, but that wasn't especially nice. But what he did do was, the guy who ran SiriusXM Sports at the time was his old boss at WAFN. And my boss happened to be there. He was the head of sports at SiriusXM, and he called him over. And Craig put his arm around me and to this guy was like, this is the next generational talent. You'd be a fool if you didn't give this guy a show you know what are you doing why is he i was only part-time with serious xm at the time like you

know this whole it's one i was embarrassing because it went on for so long within a month i had a five day a week show on serious xm yo dude that's a moment that guy went to bat for you hugely and this is the point i always try to tell people about craig craig didn't have craig didn't need to do that like he could have never said anything i would have never expected it i would have never demanded it or asked for it wouldn't even occur to me to think about it bc and he went ahead and did it and not only did it he went overboard um so when people do nice things and they don't get anything out of it other than they just want to do a nice thing they're very memorable so craig gets his reputation as being you know and he obviously you know he committed some fucking crimes and he went to jail for it um you know he

stole basically but um he may he may have gambled away his kids college future that same night that he put you over to the bosses but it was really nice of him i doubt it because he's making a shit ton of money again at wfn so i think he's doing okay but that's why they call it the fan wfan right wnbc yes yeah the fan that's right but there's lots of the fans that's there's not just that one well when you're from the new york area like i am luke there's only once there's only one the city right there's only one the fan okay when people say hey i'm gonna head out to the city this weekend they're's only one the fan, okay? When people say, hey, I'm going to head out to the city this weekend, they're not talking about D.C., bro, okay?

They're talking about there's one city in this country, in this world, actually, Luke, okay? Yeah, there's one. Yeah, well, there's also 106.7 the fan here in D.C., so. Shout out to Chad Dukes. That's my guy, okay? He got fired. I know.

All right. We've got a recurring theme here. All right, Luke. Well, that's a very nice story. Thank you for sharing it. You very easily could have said when BC pitched the idea of you and I doing a two-man show, then BC helped you get into CBS, and BC forced you to move closer to him so we could do the show in the studio every day, and then BC helped you lose weight and be nicer to people,

and you stopped blocking people on Twitter, and then one day when somebody on a glad I called that guy list didn't take your organs and leave you in a pool of blood in a tub in a damaged building you'll have me to thank. So those were also in play as possible. In a damaged building?

Yeah, dilapidated. A dilapidated? Thank you. Thermopile all right luke spin it number four let's see if we could get gross now let's see what we got come on booty booty oh hey look speaking of gross how about ever are we ever on the show going to get the good ones? Every week, it's the worst ones. All right, it's time for Intergalactic Intercourse. Yes, Luke, this one is about hot, steamy space sex and nothing else.

Luke, imagine your life became a science fiction movie, and from the moment you woke up tomorrow morning, your life had been transformed from a mundane one as a combat sports journalist in Washington, D.C. to a young bounty hunter and a possible future Jedi in the fictional world of Star Wars. Not only would you be single in your new life, walking the dusty streets of Tatooine alone, you would be ragingly horny, Luke, in this scenario. Okay, so I know that's a it's a departure from your normal daily life but imagine that luke using all nine of the star wars films that make up the three trilogies and the spin-off movies like rogue one and solo combine for the

listeners a top five pound for pound list of which planetary poontang throughout the movie's canon you would most actively seek out from number five to number one which actresses would i bang is this what this is about no no no they're they're they're intergalactic characters stay in character here luke okay please yes but that's the that's the premise of the question oh god um all right you know i don't write these for my pleasure this is what the people want to hear let me see if i can name five and then we can rank them all right five that stand out well you know stand out or not you got to do it oh good good i'm gonna end up i'm end up banging Chewbacca because I can only name four. All right.

Jyn Erso. Yeah. Well done. Well done. Cara Dune. Who was the other? Wait, wait. Who's Cara?

Oh, Cara Dune. Is that? You're talking Carano from the. This is Carano. Yeah. Yeah. I'll include this. I'll include this. Okay.

Go ahead. That's fair. Yeah, I'll include this. I'll include this. Okay, go ahead. That's fair. Yeah, that's very fair. I guess you got to include Princess Leia, but she was always homely as fuck to me. Not in episode three she wasn't, Luke. They made her starve for that. Do you remember that?

The Jabba scene? God rest her soul, but she's homely. You're wrong. You're actually wrong about this, but keep it going. Keep it going. Oh, who was the Natalie Portman's character? Padme padme padme come on bro all right so that's four padme from episode two yeah you know where you're going boy it's amazing how the universe is filled

with nothing but white women um it's a fair point it's a fair point no i i can get more latinas on earth than i can in alderaan? How is that possible? Well, what about those dancing chicks that Jabba threw in the pit? They were minorities, right? I don't know if they were minorities. Hold on, hold on. Let me see if I can get a good one here and think this through for just a second. So the first three, second three.

Who's in the last three that I care about oh no they're all zeros too in the last three you know it's who's the main ray ray are you gonna put ray oh yeah ray another white woman this is the one with an accent boy the universe not not as much racial diversity as you might imagine on these uh deportures there's there's no lbbs out there in uh in uh coruscant luke no there's not all right so if I had to rank them, I would go... We're talking about characters here, not people. I'd probably go Urso 1. Yeah.

Wow. All right, Luke. Dune 2. And they're interchangeable in that slot that slot let's yeah yeah yeah and at that point maybe even maybe even how i named him so padme i put leia absolute dead last you're wrong about that padme three is where you should be leia should be four luke no leia shouldn't leia gets on the list by virtue of that you have to make one, but no. Zero. Homely. Alright, what about the fake Padme

that they used in episode one to protect her? You can add that in. She's fucking dead. Fuck her. Oh god. Wow. Alright. Okay, Luke, that'll sum that up. Thank you for the good faith response. You only have one more spin left, so let's see where your luck takes you. God, kill me oh classic favorite luke your favorite wheel of death segment and it's not only back luke

it is back with a bang you know the premise i share three random names with you you pick one that you would punch in the face oh can i change my last answer hold on i just got it i want to sub out leia and put the woman with the british accent from the uh han solo movie she worked for you know red dawn or red scorpion or whatever the fuck his name was oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, I only saw that once, but I'll back that. I'll back that. Okay, so there you go. Yes. See, I told you, Leia doesn't even make the list, bro.

She's a zero. Well, you missed that. I don't know how you missed that, but you missed that. Maybe she was... I mean, what if you found out her uncle was Colombian? I wouldn't believe it because she doesn't look it. Sorry. All right.

Well, Luke, you know what Pie Punch Pie co-host is. So here's the deal. Three names. One, you would punch in the face off camera and no one would ever find out. Another, you'd have to throw a pie in the face of. And the third, Luke, you would have to replace me with

as your MK co-host following my tragic death from vehicular penicide. So here we go, Luke. Your three names for this week's Punch Pie co-host are Mike Goldberg, Coach Joshua Fabia, and Coach Latore

Gonzalez. Well, you gotta give the pie to Coach Latore. That's easy. Well, then you're dealing with Mike and Ocean afterwards, Luke,ke okay so you deal with that all right bro aren't we just literally giving them a slice of pie we're just being nice no to the face luke pie oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh sorry sorry i misunderstood okay um so i could wait this is not this doesn't work out right because i punch someone in the face

and i put pie in someone else's face. That's just two versions of the same thing. One's a little bit worse than the other. Yeah, but the punch is off camera. No one has to know about this, Luke, okay? All right. In that case, Latore is going to be my co-host because I can't punch her or put pie in her face.

All right. So I got to punch her co-host with Joshua Fabia and Mike Goldberg. Now, why can't you put pie in her face? Because you always got to worry about the payback, some punk that you left up way back, coming back after all these years? Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat? I'm just going to say this because I don't know how else to do this.

I guess I'd punch Joshua Fabia, and I'd give pie in the face to Mike Goldberg, but I wouldn't do any of these things. I wanted that to be very clear. All right, Luke. I'm sorry if I incriminated you for the sake of entertainment. Thank you for a good faith response to a good faith question. That's the wheel for this week.

Let's see if it stays around, Luke. I'm always willing to dump these, okay? People hate dead wrong. All right, maybe we were dead wrong for doing it, okay? People hate fan submissions. We're about to find out whether we should still be doing that segment luke i want to use usually a winner all right i feel like we should only do wheel of death in person moving forward

i like that idea all right all right uh morning combat at gmail.com is your email address for all things fan submissions and dead wrongs. So here's the deal. Here's your artwork and more. It's called fan submissions. Fan submissions. We've got mail. All right. I did not check these out.

This is Mikey Mormile's project. So here we go. Glenn M has the first one. Hello, donks. Here's a picture of my daughter, Isabel, getting her MMA fix from the two hardest working blokes in MMA journalism. She appreciates the show at seven months of age because she can understand BC's level of humor. My wife has been suspicious of how much time I spend per week listening to Luke and suspects that I may actually be in love with him and wanting to have an affair. If only I was that lucky. If you do

actually show this on TV, my wife will go crazy because I've been specifically telling her not to let our daughter watch TV and especially not the hairy one that is Luke Thomas. Thank you. And before you comment on my cable management, at least they work. And I generally have no technical difficulties. Love from Australia by way of ireland and taiwan glenn m wow luke how do you respond to that yeah his cable management needs work it's not great uh also just stacking shit in your house needs some work there as well you know can you blow that up again one more time here man you gotta put a little more effort into it you know i'm saying he's just stacking shit on top of shit there.

He's got newspapers and books. Are those jugs of beer, Luke? Growlers. That's what we call them. Growlers. Although I will say that the stuff he has for his daughter is identical to all the stuff I had, too. And that's a pretty sweet guitar he has right there.

Is that like an Ibanez or some knockoff Gibson Explorer, Luke? What is that? I don't know, some knockoff Gibson Explorer Luke what is that I don't know but if I was to rob his house I would take it all right all right and a very beautiful daughter there thank you Glenn for the support of our show we appreciate it Callum B is next he says at Christmas I sent in my holiday setup of a martini with MK which Luke called adorable but a borderline drinking problem this time it's easter and whiskey sours with mk cheers guys love all the content especially the bellator stuff wish you continued success and look forward to that merch being available in the uk look how about calum b getting down with the

drink with your old boys from the mk for a second i thought that that bottle said Abner Luwima, and I was like, is Abner making booze now? But okay, you won't get that joke unless you watch Police Brutality in the, what was it, 90s, 2000s in New York City? BC, when was the last time you had a legit whiskey sour? A real one, like a bartender knew what they were doing when they made it. Maybe at a wedding like 10 years ago maybe probably i've probably thrown up off of drinking too many of them after dancing to cnc music factories gonna make you sweat did you do the crotch chop thing until you got thrown out yeah yes i did look the problem with that night at seaton hall well there's a lot of problems, usually mostly involving vomit, but I became known as that guy who does the crotch thing

that whenever I resurfaced at that campus years later, people were like, oh, are you that guy that did that thing at the thing? You don't want that reputation, Luke. That's what my fraternity brothers used to do at karaoke. I've told you this story, right? No. They would show up to a packed karaoke place and like let's just say adams morgan or georgetown to highly trafficked areas full of bars right and what they would do

is they would sign up for this is very stupid i just want to preface that the punchline here will be very dumb but they would sign up for like to sing a duet together and they they would pick any random song like the eurythmics or fucking whoever. And then it didn't matter what it was. When it came on, they would say, we built this city over and over again until someone got on stage and physically removed them. And at one time, they had done this numerous times to the point where they'd be like, they're like Dana White playing blackjack. They can't go to the point where they'd be like they're like

dana white playing blackjack they can't go to the palms anymore you know what i mean yes yes yes so i do support that luke yeah so we showed up at one place and i was there stage side just to watch the reaction from the crowd i was hammered and they went into it like we built this city we built this over and over again just saying we built the city and there was a guy in the front row he goes hey asshole the words are right there it's like dude i don't think the issue is that they don't know how karaoke works oh you only you privilege white people from william and mary yeah yeah i'm sure all you frat bros had fun playing quarters, Luke, and doing... Let me say something.

There's not... What is... Let me ask you this, BC. Serious question. In your professional or educational life, that's the only one that counts, is there ever a decision you've made where you're like, you know what? Sometimes decisions can be good and be bad. It's kind of a wash.

It's just the direction that you took. And there's some decisions in your life that you took that you knew that were bad is there one that you took that you knew was good wow i've never been asked that normally i focus on dropping out of college bad decision uh uh you know there's there's many of those bad decisions i've been i've encountered and endured and overcome um one decision that you look back on and you're like, I am so glad I did that. Yeah. Sometimes to get something, Luke,

you have to be willing to lose something. And there have been times where I got opportunities that I thought I dreamed of that didn't end up feeling right. And I took the chance of losing them to gain something better. So what I mean by that is my whole youth, Luke, I grew up 20 minutes from ESPN. I was just like, man, I just want to work at ESPN, any form. I'll be a janitor there. I'll log hockey highlights overnight, whatever, just to be like, I'm where I'm supposed to be. I got the dream job, Luke. When I finally got a chance to work there was like a

part-time nighttime job where you like watch baseball games and log the stats and the pay stunk and i had a full-time job during the day and i tried it for a week and you know i couldn't get home at 2 a.m and then be at the factory where i was working at the time at 6 a.m and try to make this dream happen and i i i gave it up and I knew that that was weird to give it up. But I just knew it wasn't the right time and it wasn't the right setting. And it was so weird. I was just sort of like following a voice in my head that it's like, man, I'm giving up my dream. I got my dream and it just didn't feel right at that moment. And I gave it up. And three months later, they called me back and they were like hey we had your resume on file I think we got this perfect part-time temp job for you and that led

me down the path that I ended up taking at ESPN and then Luke six months into that path with ESPN working a really crappy part-time night job not doing the things I thought I was being hired to do I got to a point again where it was, I would try my best to juggle two jobs. I'm not getting paid a lot, all this. It was crap. I had to come to a point. I'm like, you know, can I pull this off? And I asked to be full-time and they said, no, I couldn't, you know, I was working 70 hours a week, was getting tough. So I went to the boss's Luke and said, look, I can't do this anymore. It's killing me. I'm not a good employee at night or during the day. It's a little bit too much. The hours are rough. If you can't make me full

time, then I've got to go figure something out for my life right now. I'm at a quarter life crisis. I'm at a turning point here. And I quit on the spot, Luke. And luckily they said, no, don't do that. We'll make you full time. We'll figure it out where you got potential. And so there's been a couple of times, Luke, where I oddly was willing to give up the dream because I just knew in my heart it wasn't working and it felt right, and other doors opened up. So I think there are times, Luke,

if you just follow that feeling of which direction you should head, even if it doesn't make sense, you'll get there, Luke. You'll get there. You got to bite down hard. Well, I was going to say this is more of a personal thing but it happened in in high or college so i have to call it that but joining a fraternity was one of the easily one of the best social life decisions i've ever made don't regret that for a day that was absolutely a game-changing call but did you regret outside of the benefits it gave you from the standpoint of friendship, other men having your back, great moments involving alcohol and women and, you know, whatever.

And the pre-Facebook expose your bad inhibitions to the world era, Luke. We were that last generation who could do really bad things and no one would find out about it, Luke. it luke did you regret it when you were getting initiated in some satanic homoerotic bohemian grove skull and bones bootleg yale william and mary version when they put a blindfold on you and stripped you down and whipped your bare ass with a horse hide and had somebody teabag you and tell you it wasn't and i mean did you regret it in that moment, Luke, when you gave away really your decency and your soul just to have a bunch of drunk friends and we're in the Greek Kappa Bama, your mama, you know? No, Luke, screw those organized gangs, okay? You and your people, Luke, can go pound sand at your Pi Kappa Greta reunion there, okay? And do shots of whole grain and talk about the good days, alright?

Luke, I don't need you or your fraternity, okay? Are you done? If you're in college and you've been thinking about joining a fraternity, I can't recommend it more. It'll be one of the best decisions you ever make. So there you go. Do it. I didn't do it my freshman year. My freshman year sucked.

I did it my sophomore year and it was game changing. All you had to really year, and it was game-changing. All you had to really do, Luke, was get in shape, talk to people, look them in the eye, ask what they're doing later. You didn't have to sell yourself in whatever weird ceremony you went through to be able to be one of the boys. Yeah, we just poured beer on each other. That was it.

Notice, Luke, you haven't come up with, oh, you you're right bc i went through that i did that notice you're not sharing those stories because deep inside luke i don't know because you're saying demonstrably idiotic things i'm supposed to respond to every time you do that i would be out of breath did they burn a tattoo into your shoulder what did they do to you luke no the black fraternities do some branding you ever seen the one that um that uh ovitz st peru has yes um i think lloyd irvin has the same one the q dogs i'm not they do that kind of stuff luke say again to that stuff no i'm not into that no the branding even that's a little much for me i'd do it if i was really committed to some organization but i don't know what

organization that would be at this point where i would do that so what was your fraternity luke sigma pi the alpha eta chapter which has since been shut down i think did did they hurt you no it was fine during my years we actually had good we had a risk management officer we took it seriously but the subsequent generations did not and i know for a while that we were we were on fraternity row we got kicked off fraternity row after year after i left years after I left. Because I went back a few years after I graduated. They were still on the row. But then after that, let's say, I don't know, 10 years, they got kicked off.

And then I think their chapter got dissolved due to poor recruitment. But in my year, it was great. I loved it. It was fun. Well, one day we'll get the real stories out I'll do a little research I'll do a little poking around and find out who was poking around back in the day there Luke alright let's move on to Bruce B

he's saying bringing the kids up right really enjoyed Bellator 255 thanks for the heads up on the Showtime promo Luke Bruce B making his kids go tip on tip you okay with this look at these little angels. This is wonderful.

Well done, sir. Cute kids and they're funny and they're smart. I love it. Yeah, keep them away from fraternities. Well done, Bruce. You're raising them great here. I appreciate this. All right, David S has two, Luke.

Here's the first one. The last piece I sent in, I was a donk and didn't specify that my artwork was a picture of Luke and B.C. as the characters in the Predator movies. This time, there I made sure there'd be no question about what it was. So here's my take on Luke's mind every time B.C. goes to the jokes.

Is that it? I think that's it, Luke. And here's number two from david s however bc i love the jokes and hope they don't stop and luke really glad you haven't taken my art pieces to the land of wind and ghosts morning combat is hands down the best combat podcast and i wish you both more to come you should get this tattooed on you i i kind of like this i like this guy's art style here luke david s i'm into this okay i like that a little it's a little funky but it's good look we should probably take a dead wrong we should have known that was predator because everybody was like what are you guys crazy is not your favorite movie how do you guys know like the it's just the predator's kind of hands and sort of his body we should have

known i think but it's just your face is your dumb face all right all right thank you david s we appreciate you and your artwork okay i can make that into a poster luke that i look jacked in that one uh kevin l has two of them here luke here's the first one a very low effort meme he says reggie jackson and moco chilling yeah absolutely look they could be friends they could hang out that does look like moco right there a little bit yeah wow well done there and here's number two he says here's a pic of luke and bc climbing aboard the mk rocket ship to the stars i just hope it doesn't meet the same fate as the challenger oh bro too soon all right wow jesus christ come on guys also i like how you're taking a hot dog into space that's very important they know me too well on this show luke all right robert's got one he says

thanks for doing what you do exc Check out this movie poster, Luke. In the tradition of Tonto and the Lone Ranger, Sundance and Butch, and Costello and Abbott comes a new kind of dynamic duo, Campbell and Thomas. I don't know why you're remarkably shorter than me, but I love how I have a gun and you don't. That is very appropriate, BC. That's very, very true to life.

That is true to life. Is that supposed to be based on a movie? What am I missing here, Luke? I don't know what movie that is. Is that Predator and I just missed it again, Luke? No, no, it's not. All right. But they're handcuffed, so I don't quite get it.

Also, you're not that much shorter than me, just like an inch or two at most. Yeah, I'm a very big man, Luke. All right, final one from Richard A. He says, love the show guys in all caps made this for you check my shit out at soundcloud.com slash axe tracks no need for the promo i just think you guys would like it i produced for a guy named uh all right he's got some other shout outs to himself here luke here is axe tracks who has made us i believe a theme song for our show.

We appreciate that. Let's check it out. Morning, combat. Yo, BC. Luton, I saw you. There's that banger in Da Club. Stay frosty. Stay frosty.

Once you start to die, that shit, it gets costly. Have you seen this shit? Too many dick jokes, BC. Stay frosty, stay frosty Once you start to die that shit, it gets costly Have you seen this shit? Too many dick jokes, BC That shit can get costly Now it's MK all day Back in high school, Luke's the guy knockin' books out of BC's hands in the hallway As he walked away, you heard him say, Luke Thomas rules But BC lives his life out on the edge. This is precisely how we got his revenge. He used to think and plot quietly.

Doing push-ups and broken glass. No game seen the last of us. It was in the back of his mind. That day on, he started packing a nine. Any day can make a hole in one. He never golfed, but he's still ready to smack Luke with the back of a nine. Parked outside, sit back and recline. Wait for the perfect time. Okay, I've had enough. It's fine.

It's good. Okay, no mas. No mas. No mas. No mas. Looks like thank you for your offerings, but I'm done. Please, I'm done. I'm done.

Yes, I'm tapping out. You know, it was nice. It was nice. month looks like thank you for your offerings but i'm done please i'm done i'm done yes i'm tapping out you know it was nice it was nice it was reminding me of uh low budget no limit rap albums from like silk the shaka 1999 or whatever yes yes luke good timing we're done with the fan submissions morning combat at gmail.com. Luke, will that segment survive? Will Dead Wrong survive? Will the Wii survive? Yeah, all of them will survive, yeah. All right, hopefully we survive too, Luke, okay? We will survive.

In fact, I'd be willing to reenact your Phi Beta Kappa initiation sequence in the next documentary on camera. Do you know Phi Beta Kappa was founded at William & Mary? No, I didn't. I didn't. For folks who may not know know that's the fraternity you get into when you graduate with like a 4-0 from college so there you go look who were william and mary did they did they consummate their relationship do you believe yes they were english

royals all right there you go uh thomas jefferson by the way i saw this if you actually go to google like william and mary and it'll be like overview, blah, blah, blah, like all the different things you can look over, student population, not rent, I'm sorry, tuition. And then it has famous alumni. I didn't even notice until someone showed it to me. I'm dead last in famous alumni, but I made the list. It starts with Thomas Jefferson,

and then you scroll all the way down to the zeros like me, the hangar honors. But I made the list, BC. Google says I am a notable William & Mary alumni. How does that sound? That is pretty awesome. To be on the same list as anything of Thomas Jefferson, that's pretty awesome, Luke. Unless it was some slave owner list or something.

You don't want to be on that, Luke. But well done right there. When you Google Naugatuck Valley Community Technical College college luke where i received an as in general studies you don't really see me under famous alumni i don't know why i mean do they they even know i went there luke i don't know uh that's funny that's funny bc okay well we appreciate everyone sending that in of course morningcombat at gmail.com good stuff with all of that. Let's see. BC, you're done, right? What's your plan for the rest of the week? I will be on Friday morning's Morning Combat show, Luke,

to set the stage for all things Bellator 256 and get our weekend plans going. It's only this weekend, though. I'll have my own plans as I head out on a much-deserved vacation with the family, Luke. I'm not going to hit you up on vacation unless it's an absolute emergency because you need a break from me and i know that i can feel it oh no luke you and i we we don't we don't have an expiration yeah we do yeah we do all right maybe i do maybe i do luke what are you gonna do about that uh well i wish you nothing but a good time i by the way i

bought my tickets yesterday with the airline we bought them on you can just change the date virtually wherever you want but i did buy my tickets to col the airline we bought them on. You can just change the date virtually wherever you want. But I did buy my tickets to Columbia yesterday. They were so fucking cheap. They were so cheap. When do you plan on going? In August. That part is when in August is still up in the air.

But August, we're going. Are you going to go on vacation or are you going to go to live there for a while? So I'm going to go. I'm going to do both. I'm going to work at least one week there maybe two probably just one and then i'll do another like 10 days of vacation something like that so i will work and and live there but you know once i do mk i'm headed right to the beach you know what i'm saying it's gonna be what part of jamaica are you from? Right near the beach. Boy-ee!

I don't hate you, but I do want to hit you over the head with a shovel. I do want to do that. If you would like to try Showtime, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial. And if you're ready to make that commitment, you can go to show.com slash Bellator MMA, where you can pay $4.99 a month for the next six months. BC, we asked at the beginning of the show did you not know that

ejaculate is not a word and that it's ejaculate or did you run out of space and letters? I ran out of space, Luke, and went in the favor of comedy and deep thought to really make people have to think. Otherwise, we could just make up like, you guys might ejaculate but we at mk we skip the e we just go right to the ejaculate part i mean that's what we do around here there's women who work on this show who

are going to hr as soon as it's over i want everyone to know that so if you've enjoyed mk thanks it's been a fun show. Yeah. I'll say this. If you want to follow Morning Combat, it's the same name everywhere. YouTube.com slash Morning Combat. Morning Combat on Twitter and Instagram. BC and I, our names will differ there just a little bit.

Get the submissions in. Morning Combat at gmail.com for Dead Wrong. And yeah, that's it. Enjoy one on TNT tonight, and I'll be back tomorrow, 3 p.m., with the live chat Friday with BC pre-vacation. He might have a road beer or two already in his tummy. We don't even know. And then right now, you can check out Road to Light Heavyweight on the Show Sports YouTube channel.

BC, if you look at the comments, it's all like MK all day, nearly every day. Yes, MK boys, go BCc go luke it's like overwhelming comments about you and i so thank you to everybody this it's not doing bad look people are watching that so good it's also our friends at bellator posted on their youtube channel as well also luke people can check out uh today i believe we are publishing a bunch of fun interviews i sat down with uh marvin vittori ahead of Saturday's UFC Fight Night card on ABC. And you know how fired up Vittori gets, Luke,

about all things everything. About all things everything, Luke. So that'll be a fun one. I also sat down with Tony Harrison, Luke. You know this guy, the former WBC 154-pound champion. Luke, he hasn't fought since that incredible rematch in 2019 with Jermell Charlo. He'll be headlining a return on Fox in a week-and-a-half fun interview with him.

Wow, that's good stuff. So check that out. Luke, I hope next week when I'm enjoying our country and just unplugging that you will take this show to the next level, Luke. I'm going to do my best. I mean, the show without you can take this show to the next level, Luke. I'm going to do my best. I mean, the show without you can't really go to the next level, and I think you would agree with that. But we might find some other people in the world who share that MK spirit,

and at a bare minimum, I can keep that flame burning for you to put the gasoline on when you come back. How about that? It's going to need sauce of some kind. So if you can put a help wanted post for any potential jackulators out there, Luke, we've got a sauce drought here. That's the official sauce. I was like, that's the official sauce of MK.

Jackulate sauce. That's your sauce. The jackulate sauce. Yes. We're going to have to make bottles of that and then just sell it. It'll just be ranch, but we'll call it jaculate sauce. Oh, God. That's awful.

Yes, yes. Shout out to all our great listeners and friends. Imprint Brewing, we love those folks. Shout out to everybody. Thank you for patronizing us as we patronize you. We appreciate it right for mulca cbs sports showtime that's brian campbell i'm luke thomas we'll see you i'll see you tomorrow we'll see you guys on friday and until then may all of your gains be ejaculated and loyal Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.