MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Jorge Masvidal vs. Leon Edwards | Open Scoring | Fight Announcements | EP 215

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

On Episode 215 of MK, the guys break down the latest news in the combat sports world. Jorge Masvidal is set to face Leon Edwards at UFC 269 on December 11th. Colorado has approved open scoring in combat sports. The guys discuss the recent string of domestic violence incidents in combat sports. What can be done to avoid this? The boys close out the show by discussing some fight news (Luke Rockhold, Tai Tuivasa, Brad Riddell & Geoff Neal) and looking ahead to the weekend. (8:40) - Jorge Masvidal vs. Leon Edwards (23:00) - Colorado Approves Open Scoring (32:30) - Domestic Violence in Combat Sports (45:50) - Fight News (51:20) - Early Weekend Preview (60:00) - Call Me Crazy (73:00) - Fan Submissions Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Reveille, reveille, dogs. Look at us now, tip to tip. This is our life. 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. Back to the scene of the crime, ladies and gentlemen. It is time for Morning Combat. Hello.

Hi. We are back in the bomb shelter, the Orchids of Combat, whatever name you just want to call it, Brian Campbell. Luke, 100,000 YouTube subscribers can't be wrong. They certainly can't. This show is a phenomenon. It's catchy. You can't get it off you. Nope. Nope. You know what I mean? I mean, it is, yeah.

It is a fungus. Yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. This is Brian Campbell. We're from CBS Sports. A little bit of showtime as well. And we welcome you to this Wednesday edition of the show. Like the video. Yes. Hit subscribe. Many of you have. Thank you very much for that, for putting us over the hump. We appreciate our new subscribers who came on board for Wilder Fury 3 coverage

just as much as our P1 Day Ones that got us here. So follow us, like us, subscribe, just as Luke said. And we are just beginning, Luke, not just today, but three days three days in the bomb shelter gonna get people fired up for bellator this weekend got some special projects to film if you know what i'm saying i'm not going where you think i'm saying i'm talking more about a resume review brother okay can we before we do anything else because we have you know advertisers to plug we have content to get to we have uh call me crazy today we have fan submissions today we have the wheel by the way on getting overnighted from the We have advertisers to plug. We have content to get to. We have Call Me Crazy today. We have fan submissions today.

And we have The Wheel, by the way, on getting overnighted from the West Coast for Friday. Okay, Wheel of Death on Friday. That's what I hear. All right, all right. Can we talk about your goatee? No, this isn't a Manscaped sponsor read, but Luke, I did forget,

the one thing I forgot to pack was my beard trimmer and razor, electric razor for this trip. So this morning, I was, I did forget, the one thing I forgot to pack was my beard trimmer and razor, electric razor for this trip. So this morning I was looking through my bag and you know that little man satchel that Manscaped gave us? Great sponsor, love them. They had the lawnmower in there. So I'm like, you know, I'm looking, I'm like, I guess it'll work on my face too, right? You know what I mean? I always think about things that cut testicles and go, I want to put that on my face. Yeah, it's like being in the shower, see your wife's razor you're like i do wonder if my legs would feel a lot better you know let me just try that shit no just kidding on that um but i tried it

and i i unfortunately it's not it's not a manscape error it's a manual error bc error i i went a little went a little too up and then so i would have had to really justify it as like a remember in the 80s and 90s it was cool to just have that part right in the front of your short hair? You know, typically if you were cool. So what would you call this look? I wanted to try that with my thing. It didn't work anyway. Would you call this a cucked Big Boss Man look?

Definitely not cucked. Unfortunately, I think it's a little French teacher David Appleton look. One of our fine listeners out there. HR violation David Appleton? Yes, yes. As our producer has told me many times, you will catch a case. Certainly might.

And as I told you after my dream last night, murder, in fact, was the case. BC, on the way to the studio today, BC texted me. He was like, yo, I had a dream. And that's where I strangled the life out of you in front of your family. Anyway, see you at 10.

But I woke up to a text from you. And I woke up from a dream in which you and I ronset just like this, doing the show. Before the show, we had a disagreement about a segment, which direction it should go. And it got a little unnecessarily heated with, like, bitch and that. You know what I mean? And then it got, but, you know, and we were, like, unhappy,

but it was fine. But then I was like, you know what? Yo, I'm not afraid to kill you in your sleep. I will carve you, bitch. And then the staff got all nervous. And they were like, oh my god. And then they're separating us. And then we're screaming at each other.

And you and I were looking. And I was like, I'm literally ready to kill you right now. You know what the issue is? No, hold on. And then we just started laughing. And then the whole staff was like, oh, man, it's a bit. And I let them think it was a bit. Right, but it wasn't a bit.

Wow, it was not a bit. You know what, this is what happens in a sexless marriage. Things like this. Bottom line, Luke, it was a dream, not reality, but I will cut your ass. Just the same. In the spirit of Halloween. Alright, so for everybody out there, let's remind everyone, if you want

to try Showtime, because Bellator is coming up this weekend, we're going to talk about it today, you can go to Showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, do something else. And by the way, you get everything on the Showtime app that's on demand, plus all the boxing that they're doing. It's a great deal.

Plus billions, bro. Plus billions. I mean, Axe's wife is pretty sneaky, right? All right, for merch, like this handy MK shirt, you can go to morningcombat.store. I don't know if we have any promo codes today. I don't think that we do. Oh, people want to know about the MK drug rug.

What's the update? I want to know, too. Where's our Jade Dunkelmaker? I believe we're very close, though. I believe we're very close for that. I know. I'm almost becoming like Trump-like, right? It's like, you know, I heard the people were saying it was bad. No, we are very close. HR violations and all. We are very close. And, Luke, I'm almost becoming like Trump-like, right? It's like, you know, I heard the people were saying it was bad. No, we are very close. HR violations and all. Yeah, we are very close.

And Luke, I have a feeling, it's just a feeling though, this shit's going to sell out within an hour. Can I borrow a feeling? This is going to be like Rolling Stones tickets on that Saved by the Bell episode where they were like locked in the mall and they were on the reality show and didn't realize they were, right? And they had to like camp out the night before. One time I have to tell you, by the time I tried to scalp my Rolling Stones tickets outside

the stadium, I nearly got knifed for it. That's a fun little moment. All right. So there's that. We have the, let's see. Oh, today we'll do fan submissions. Friday we do Dead Wrong. You got to get those in morningcombat at gmail.com, of course, is the place to do that.

And I am told to remind everyone, leave us a five-star Apple podcast review because we're trying to scam the algorithm. We want to pay you for scamming. We're literally going to pay you to help us scam the algorithm. So $50 gift card to who can make us laugh. Leave us a nice five-star review. You can just make something up like these guys are the best when they're talking about psychology and, you know, evolutionary biology. Just whatever. It doesn't matter.

But if you make us laugh We'll send you 50 bucks You know this John Gruden email story really has me wondering if I should send your text up to upper management My time yeah, yeah, buddy. Let me tell you something if you send my text I'm sending your text which by the way you're on the other end of those and I don't think you're gonna make it out Did you see there in Revell on Twitter today? Protecting the Schefter situation basically like if if peeing your pants is cool, then you can call me Miles Davis. He's like, I always shit my pants. Darren Rovell.

I know. It's like, who could service members of the industry quicker, Schefter or Rovell? One never knows. Amanda Nunes is a star, Rovell. Okay, deal with it. There you go. All right, BC, ready to get this going? Yeah.

I think I forgot something, I'm sure. The whole rundown, probably. Let's start with topic number one, if we can. We have an announcement, ladies and gentlemen. A fight. Not about the show, per se, but yes, there is a fight. I introduced that poorly. Jorge Masvidal will take on Leon Edwards. It is set for UFC

269. This will be a three-round fight on December 11th, for folks who may not know. Also, Moreno versus Figueiredo was moved to January 22nd. BC, the first and most operative question about this fight is, was this the right fight for the UFC to make for the welterweight division? Yes. Yes, it was. Because Leon Edwards, although he had the hiccup against Nate Diaz, I will forever just mentally just screw that up as we keep going. Even though he had the hiccup there late, I mean, look, he thoroughly won that fight.

How many more wins does he need? If you can't give him a title shot next, which you can't, because Dana rightfully so loved that Usman Covington fight so much that we're running it right back. This is basically a title fight for Leon Edwards with the built-in revenge from the three-piece Minnesota backstage incident after the Darren Till fight. All the way through, Luke, it's exposure and it's money,

and this is a big-time card. And while this may have replaced the Moreno-Figurado trilogy, which is moving a month later, it keeps that card on December 11th loaded with three legitimate main event fights atop that. This may not be a title fight, but it's pretty damn close. And Luke, storyline flip-wise right back at you, Rory Mazza has a lot of explaining to do at the elite level.

So that really makes this fight interesting. You're talking about catching a case. This guy might catch an L in this fight, Luke. Right. Here's what's interesting about this fight. Folks have been like, oh, Leon Edwards, what does he have to do to get a title shot? How many fights does he have to win? So let's look at his record very quickly. He hasn't lost, outright lost, since he fought Kamaru Usman all the way back in December of 2015.

Since then, he beat Dominic Waters, Albert Tumanoff, who was very good, Vicente Luque, Brian Barbarina, Peter Sabota, Donald Cerrone, Gunnar Nelson, Rafael dos Anjos. He had the no contest with Bilal Mohamed, and then he beat Nate Diaz, right? Here is the problem that he has. He has two problems, and this is why I think the UFC made 1,000% the right call. The first problem he has is that run is impressive. There is no taking away from it. But one, it doesn't quite have the name on there, except for the RDA fight that could

have got him over the hump. Fair. Very fair. But the other problem is, so one, it's not that there's no quality to it, but it doesn't scream like he just completely got the guys who are relevantly at five and three in front of him. That's the first problem. The second problem is, and it comes in part not his fault.

There was that pandemic. He lost two years of his career. There's a lot of things that have kind of set him up in a way that hasn't made it easy despite the winning track. The biggest problem he has, BC, it's not his fault, but it's time to fix it because he's 30 years old. Jorge Masvidal's birthday is the 12th of November. So he is almost 37 years old. 37 years old at welterweight is not typically a place

where you see a ton of winning happening at the elite level. It can happen. I'm not predicting that he will lose or that this is the end for him, but it certainly puts him in a part of his career that is closer to the twilight than we are often comfortable acknowledging. And nobody knows who Leon Edwards is. The fight with Nate Diaz was good, but Nate Diaz kind of stole a little bit of the thunder since then.

And more than that, the guy was off for two years, Leon Edwards. He does not have prolonged, consistent exposure to the American pay-per-view buying audience. If you beat Nate Diaz and then you beat Jorge Masvidal, BC, Leon Edwards is only 30 years old. Now you have set yourself up for somebody who could potentially be a star attraction. I think that also makes him BMF champion as well if he beats them in back-to-back fights. Well, I guess Kamaru is now the BMF champion. I'm not sure where that lineage went off.

Luke, do you echo, though, not here to, like, overextend and be a pundit and be like, well, just because Masvidal got knocked out by the champion, who's the pound-for-pound number one on my list, that he's necessarily going in the other direction. But I mean, at the very least, I'm going to guess you're going to echo that Masvidal has questions to answer at this level. But are you ready to put the gas down even further and just be like this? I'm not saying this. I'm asking you it.

Was Masvidal's amazing 2019 the very peak of what he can do, but not sustainable and not a true representation of where he actually has as a fighter Here's what I think he's up against Jorge Masvidal is a very very talented fighter. He is technical Everywhere he is never out of shape Even on short notice. He still tries to make a decent account of himself when he has a full camp You just don't have to worry when it comes to the actual parts of the fight game itself. Now, trading blows backstage, but in terms of fight prep, Jorge Masvidal is a consummate professional, and you simply cannot take that away from him.

So what happened was, over time, by that 2019, many factors had finally accumulated to bring him to the peak that he reached. You're asking, is it sustainable over time? I don't know how sustainable it is through 37, 38 years of age at 170 pounds. That division is unforgiving. And this is right about the time in terms of age where Tyron Woodley began to experience some problems. He obviously got the belt late, but it was hard to hold onto it. And the activity level fueled that, right, Luke? I mean, as much as the emotion did for going away for so long, going on the reality show, figuring out the baptism breakthrough plan, all that,

the activity fueled them as well as momentum. And sometimes you can get these momentum runs, whether it's Conor McGregor from 2015 to 16, or Tim Tebow for a second half of a season or Jeremy Lin for three weeks. Luke, sometimes you ride that wave of this is the very best I can be, but it doesn't necessarily mean that's who I actually am. I don't think a whole year is the same as Lin Sanity. I'm just making proper crossover references. Really, my career runs since joining the show, Luke. I mean, it is just... I will say this, though. Which side do you come down on on the Masvidal versus Usman fight?

Which is to say, did he lose via KO because he just went up against a guy who is generationally great? Or did he, not just did he lose, did he get KO'd because the age and the division and the skill gap

is beginning to present itself to be a problem. The easy answer would be yes to all, Luke, but I think it's more the idea of he lost the momentum, and the momentum was most lost, in my opinion, by taking that first Usman fight on short notice and then getting to a point in it where he's sort of like, I don't have the stamina to really win this fight. I can suck kind of safe face,

and maybe he'll get bigger fights off it, and he'll end up getting the rematch off of it. So kudos to him on that. But I think that, with the time off, really stuffed out his momentum. So my real answer is, maybe that's what great champions, and Usman is proving without question that he is one,

maybe that's what they're supposed to do to someone who is the level of Jorge Masvidal. Then again, that 2019 wasn't really who he is, Luke. You're going to get a lot of hate from me saying that, but maybe that's where it's headed. I don't, okay, so I'm not here to say all that's wrong, but I guess I'm trying to get clarity on this. What about 2019? You're not saying it's fraudulent.

No. But what are you saying about what you can ascertain about Masvidal from that experience? Well, it was the tail end of his physical prime which made it possible. So part of the unable to keep that up is just what we're talking about, that he's getting older. But I think it was also the activity level keeps you so sharp. And when that activity level is mixed with the come from behind wins like he had against Till, mixed with the almost accidental holy crap, look what I just did to Ben Askren, it certainly can raise the look of it

to a level that it might not actually be. But in that season, it also can raise your ability level to do things you didn't think you could. But if you back that up with age and activity, which he has, you can't sustain that. You can't sustain that. Look, it's the equivalent of you and I as functioning adults who every five to six, seven years go, you know what, man, I really got to get in shape. Like, this is too much.

I don't want to be, like, I don't want to look like this in pictures anymore. And then maybe, dude, maybe you find that run at, like, age 44 and you start running distance and you're, like, doing 10Ks. And you're like, you know what, this is it, man. This is my freaking, this is what I got left for my physical everyday peak. And you get into great shape and you look great. But you know what, couple years later, Luke, you're gonna get fat again. Okay, because that's not sustainable, Luke, okay?

It's sustainable for that dress you have to fit into for your wedding or to go look good at your high school reunion and try to pretend you aren't that guy on those Facebook pictures. But it's not sustainable. Feel like you're in a little projection going on? What I can't figure out is what if just said was literally the most brilliant thing ever or just absolutely ridiculous.

Little column A, column B. The one thing I think you could say in Jorge Masvidal's defense anyway is that, dude, the reality was that Kamaru Usman fight was always a bad matchup. He was never going to win in the wrestling department. You knew that going in. Look at the odds ahead of time. Find anybody who does any analytical work and see how they had picked pre-fight. You just felt like Jorge Masvidal was up against it. BC, the part that really took a turn about questioning what Masvidal had left was that he didn't just lose the fight,

which was somewhat expected, but that he got viciously KO'd. Yes. That was the difference. He had never been, he'd been stopped, I think, before, but he had never been stopped like that. He had never been completely one hit or quitter by a guy he was expected to be wrestled by. And so that has precipitated the questions. I still will say this, dude, this is a tough fight for Jorge Masvidal to win. It is a very tough fight. I don't think folks understand.

Leon Edwards doesn't wow you with huge power. He doesn't have the game's best jiu-jitsu. He doesn't have Khabib-like wrestling. But what he does have is this ability to manage rounds, to manage risk, to manage distance, to only get enough into position to win it but never overcommit, and to stall you out and to control you.

It doesn't wow you, like, god look at this but when the it comes time to tally the judge's scorecards his name comes up with the 10 more often than the nine i mean it's it's speed and accuracy it's all the things that are designed for you not to look good against so do you have to ask yourself if this is the right move for mosville right now if this saying, look, maybe I got one more run in me, then this is a guy you have to go through. And then when you add in the storyline of what they had, we had to cash in on this. They're pro wrestling, right?

You got to cash in on what happened backstage. But it's not a great style matchup for him at his age. Should Masvidal be looking for bigger names into fights that he can win? Well, here's the problem with Masvidal's situation. He obviously changed his fortunes in little situation. He obviously we don't Change his fortunes a good form. He made a bunch of money and that was long overdue But the situation he has now is dude. He didn't just lose the fight to come on I go back to the game. He got viciously stopped. So if you're the UFC you have a choice to make here What is your choice? Well, you could give him another title shot. No, that's not going to happen

Is there another contender you could give him that would make sense right right? Where, again, he's going to be 37 in November. You have another guy, maybe he's a little bit younger, who might deserve it. Wonderboy Thompson lost as well, so there's no rematch there you could do. Colby's on the way up. How about you just rematch Nate? Vicente Luque, you could do that, I thought.

That's a possibility. But, dude, that's a, like, if you're Nate, what fight is more winnable? Let's say Nate calls you up and says, BC, give me your advice. Do I take the Luque fight in terms of winnability? Do I take the Luque fight? Do I take a rematch with Masvidal?

What do you say? I say it depends on what your plans are after your contract because the Luque fight is supposed to be the last fight of his current deal, which could mean him just saying, look, I just want to get out of this deal and go do other things or have more leverage. This is a guy who style-wise, I know it's going to be the kind of fight I want.

So maybe I just fight Luque and it is what it is. And if I win, and that could lead me to a bigger contract and more opportunities, that's great. But I'm also willing to go in that direction. If that's the case, then that's fine. But if it's not, Masvidal is probably a, it's more lucrative and it's a better fight. No, no. In terms of winnability.

Just winnability. Even just winnability as well. With Masvidal not being at the same level that he was when they first met, I think that's more winnable for Nate. I tend to think I don't know what the answer is, but I think that his team believes that the Luque fight is more winnable. Which isn't to say that Luque isn't, you might rank him higher than Masvidal, you might favor him to beat Masvidal.

But there's a question of, like, one, Masvidal kind of knows what he's up against. He had three full rounds, basically, to deal with this guy. I believe that's right. They fought three rounds or whatever it was. Pretty close to that. You haven't fought Luque yet. And Luque might take some risks to kind of put on a show, which could then create an opportunity. I get your angle on that.

I'm trying to figure out why they would go one direction versus the other. Yeah, yeah. It's not that you're wrong. It's not that you may be right in the end, but I take the money against Jorge. Do you think, this isn't on a rundown, but do you think Nate's looking to get out or just get more money? Here's the thing.

Where's he going to go outside of celebrity boxing to get more money? Right, it's like you get one. You probably get one unless you get a great fight and you get a rematch. But you get like one Jake fight out of that if you do that. But if you stay with UFC, your problems that you've been railing against for a decade now, they just don't go anywhere. Could he get stupid money from Bellator, which has history with Scott Coker and Strikeforce and Showtime and all that, or a PFL or whatever?

Could he get comparable money for the type of money fights that he gets in the UFC? Dude, who would he fight in Bellator where he could sell 500,000 pay-per-view buys? Semtex? AJ McKee? Nah, nah. No, he's too small. No, but too small in brand or in body?

AJ McKee and Nate Diaz? Yeah, featherweight versus a welter? I mean, well... That could be the equivalent. Maybe a 155. Is that the equivalent of Strikeforce's Nick Diaz versus Frank Shamrock? Nate Diaz going and sort of... Maybe a little, a little bit.

Just pointing out, if you're Nate Diaz, you do have maybe one or two potential big fights outside of UFC, but it's not clear what other partner you could go to beyond that to make a bunch of money. So it's an interesting one. But in any case, Maslow versus Leon Edwards, UFC 269 should be a great one, just the same. By the way, any issue with the Moreno and Figueiredo fight being moved? No. They're looking at Anaheim, I believe Ariel reported, and Dana echoed that that could be the move. No, I'm good with that, Luke. All right, let's go to topic number two, if we can. Colorado, the state athletic commission in Colorado,

has approved the use of open scoring. Eric McGracken is a lawyer, combat sports lawyer. Well, he's more than that, but he does cover combat sports. He tweeted, quote, Colorado just approved policy to allow them to use open scoring in combat sports, of course. But more to that point, he made a big article about why it's relevant. Mark Muramundi did some reporting on this for ESPN as well. For folks who may not know, a very brief explanation, open scoring is the idea that rather than

the judges' scores being tallied all together at one time at the very end of the fight and then the scores being read one time to the audience, to the fighters, to the fans, they are given to the fighters on each corner after each round. And when I say that I mean the corners to get them in detail, the fighter ostensibly, right? If you're going to give them the corners you might as well put it up on a scoreboard somewhere, right? Exactly.

There's other ways you can do it. If you go back and watch the Canelo versus Austin Trout fight, they did it one time after the eighth round. Well that was because the WBC for a stretch had that option where a promoter at any point could kick in that option. That was one where they both agreed to it, it just happened to be a very high profile fight for it. Now the issue here is the same. If you go to Colorado and you stage an event, you are not required to use open scoring.

It is elective if the promoter wants it. Okay, BC. Yes. Is this a positive development for mixed martial arts, or is this a regression? I think it depends on where you stand on open scoring. So this makes Colorado the second state, along with Kansas. And I think, what, Invicta has done some experimentation with that in Kansas with that. Luke, this topic's been around in boxing because of that WBC thing, you know, which, but you don't see it a lot in fights. I

don't even know if it's still a rule with WBC. So it's the same debate to me. I don't look at this as, as a negative. Are you, are you, are you putting this part of the news into that overall one championship rules that gets approved in Colorado, Mark Ratner thing, or are you putting this part of the news into that overall one championship rule so it gets approved in Colorado Mark Ratner thing? Or are you talking just about open scoring? Column A and column B. Both, actually. I think the column three, it just doesn't have a lot of fire anymore, the Mark Ratner thing to me.

You know, like, OK, turn it on Colorado. It doesn't like the rule changes. OK, cool. They barely go to Colorado is what I'm saying. But that's not the point. I get it. They're dissuading other states from doing it. I think this is more of a debate on open scoring.

I don't like it for boxing. Could it change UFC and big-time elite MMA in a positive way, Luke? Sway me on that. Please, sway me on that. Well, here's the thing. Number one, let me just say something about the Mark Ratner story, and we can put it to bed because I agree there's a bigger story here. But what I would just say is currently the UFC has been investigated twice by the Federal

Trade Commission. They are being sued for many things. But part of the claim they're being sued by is that they are a monopoly. This lawsuit has not been dismissed. It continues to go forward. When an arguable monopolistic power vocally says on the record, we're not going to go to a state that allows rule sets that would allow our competitors to offer a meaningfully different product you should probably pay attention to that now that aside talking about the open scoring here is my view on open scoring because i just mentioned the canelo trout fight if you watch that fight what you end up learning is after they read the scores it was a very competitive fight. In fact, by that time, even though Trout had been dropped in the seventh,

could you argue that Trout was winning that fight by the ninth round? Even though the judges didn't end up seeing that way and even the on-camera showtime scores, I was one of those people who scored it in real time for Trout, barely. And yes, you could have argued it, which in this case, open scoring only exposed the Texas fraud. So what happened in that fight was, here's the story. It was very competitive. You could have had it a lot of different ways, but it was a competitive-ass fight. And they read the scores after the eighth round.

One judge had it 80-71 for Canelo, which I can only say is what? Impossible. It's nine rounds to one plus a knockdown. Or seven rounds to one plus a knockdown. It's basically not possible. And so they were clearly just mailing it in and it deflated the fight completely because now Canelo knows he's going to win

basically no matter what. And Trout doesn't have finishing power. And Trout, it ruined the fight at the end there. Okay, so here's my point. Using that as an illustrative example, I am perfectly willing to entertain the idea that maybe open scoring is bad, that maybe it actually,

in representing and in holding dear the fan experience, ruins it for everyone. Fighters love the idea of open scoring because they're begging for transparency, which I think on its own terms is actually a pretty strong argument. Most of the arguments against open scoring

are less like we don't need transparency, it's more about, dude, what should the fan experience be here? This is a spectator sport. We are selling tickets to this. It has to have an entertainment quotient built in. Does open scoring ruin that? And my answer is, BC, I don't think anyone has made the definitive case either way. But when states allow this and regional promoters begin to use this, now we can make broader claims about what happens in fights when you have open scoring. It's the attempt that I support, not open scoring per se. Maybe it's because boxing has more rounds, so there's more suspense built into

how did you interpret those rounds, where MMA has three rounds and they're five minutes. So I guess in theory that can make it easier to determine a winner, although you can obviously just flip the opposite and say it makes it harder. But in boxing, I like from the built-in entertainment, it's like a selfish, nostalgic feeling here, I like the built-in of not knowing who's going to win, and then you add in the, did they get screwed? Is there some corruption there?

And I know you're going to say, okay, you're just supporting corruption. No, I've always said, you make the referees and the judges and the commission members accountable after every fight. Bring them out on the press conference to the media and have to explain it. I think you will weed out the bad judges. I think you will not be able to constantly have corruption because it would be so in your face putting them in front of the media that it would fix itself. They don't want to do that. That's fine.

So I don't want it for boxing. That's my take. Mixed martial arts, though, I think is just a little bit different. Luke, would it kill that same experience of not knowing? So maybe you still don't tell the crowd who won the last round until you read the results. So in close fights, you still would have that suspense, right? Would it improve the action if a fighter that isn't a natural finisher realized that now they have to? That's the real question here, right? Right. Dude, there's a lot of ways this could shake out. It could shake

out right along the lines of your theory, which is maybe in fights that go 10, 12 rounds, open scoring kind of ruins things, especially when you get like the old Texas fuck off job and you're nine rounds down. You're like, what am I going to do at this point? Maybe it works better for MMA, not as well for boxing, especially for three-round MMA. That's one possibility. Another possibility is it doesn't make any effect noticeably one way or the other

in terms of deterring or incentivizing action, but it provides great transparency to the fighters. Again, when the fighters make claims like, hey, we deserve transparency, I don't really know how to argue against that. We deserve money. So make the argument. Why are fighters who are competing out there potentially risking their lives? Why are they not entitled to scoring transparency?

No, I'm saying they're entitled to fair pay. That's really what I'm saying. But what, OK, but are you saying- But in regards to open scoring, are they, I don't know if they're necessarily owed that. I think I would like to see an experiment. Would you even like to see the UFC go to certain states and try it out? Yes. For real fights.

So this has been my argument. Or maybe bring it on the Dana White Contender Series and experiment. Yes. Again, the idea is not that we are explicitly endorsing open scoring. What we are endorsing is we just don't have enough information to make a call. And dude, you know how it goes. Once you put that into the rule books, Colorado notwithstanding, it's going to stay there a long ass time. So you want to move in with the girl before you commit.

That's right, dude. I want to live in sin. I want to live in absolute garbage sin to see what it's like. Then once we have some information about it, dude, Jeremy Cruz for MMA Fighting wrote a story about how some promotions in Brazil try to combat extreme weight cutting and people are not making weight. And they use a penalization system with, I think there's some places that have, sorry, he went into a whole penalization system. So he looked at like yellow cards and red cards. He looked at taking a point from fighters who missed weight before they even competed. And what they found was in certain cases, if you took points from fighters who did not make weight, it didn't necessarily change weight cutting in terms of making it worse, and it did have an effect in the fights.

They were actually kind of able to notice that, but they would not have been able to get that information but for the laboratory that enabled it. I am saying Colorado has opened the door for us to have a much better sense of things, but we just need promoters to go and try. UFC should have done this. Remember when they were doing on Fight Pass all the Singapore shows? Yes. They missed a golden opportunity to try it there when they were their own sanctioning

body. They could have had all this data to make a decision, and they just said, fuck it, we're not going to do it. Look at progressive-ass Colorado. They gave the MMA world Chuck Mendenhall, and now they're continuing to give. Yes, and weed has been, I mean, the times I have tried marijuana in Colorado, wow. Wow. It'll lift you out your shoes and socks in that bitch.

Anyway. Can we get more coffee on set here? As Reef the Lost Cause says, that bitch will have you dancing with the stars like Rick Fox. Yes, yes. Oh, yeah. This is great. This is great. Luke, would you like to welcome a member of our staff on to fill this cup?

Is this the... There's not a bit here. This is just regular life. You know, this is how we do it. Oh, yeah. Let's get... Dude, in high school, before COVID... I think HIPAA laws would prevent you from packing on your...

Actually, I can't make this joke. Okay, Luke. I can't make this joke. Oh, this is our producer, Ashley. Thank you. Wow, I'm so surprised Ashley doesn't have a mask on. I could have poured it myself. I'm not trying to reverse gender roles.

Thank you so much for that. Thank you. I don't need any more coffee. I'm good. Thank you. He's like, you may put COVID in it. Yeah, probably. I bet you did.

Thank you. Thank you, Ashley. You're fired. Get out. Yeah. All right. Topic number three. This is a serious one.

I don't really know the best way to introduce it, so I'll just do the best I can. Do we have a domestic violence problem in combat sports? We might. We might. So here is what has happened recently, and this is when I say combat sports. I don't just mean MMA. We had several situations happen. John Jones recently getting arrested for and charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, but there's a police report and a 911 call you can hear to add to that if you'd like to. Chuck Liddell was arrested. He put out a statement saying, wait until all the facts are out.

Fair enough. All of these guys I'm about to mention are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But then yesterday it came out from reporting from Steve Morocco of MMA Fighting, Brian Campbell, that Luis Pena had also been arrested for domestic violence. This is not his first run in. He was arrested earlier this year for robbery and sudden snatching, battery, and criminal mischief.

You know, adding this, part of the details of the police report, apparently, were that he was punching two women with a closed fist. The UFC has since released him, citing that the police report was enough information that this guy has enough struggles, basically, and challenges. He needs to get his life in order. And they claim they tried to help him in between. Which they probably did, I don't know.

Okay, I guess I'll just ask you, is there a domestic violence problem in combat sports? Yeah, yeah. I mean, anytime you package multiple arrests that make these type of headlines, there is. There's also an issue rampant in any profession. And now, does it get elevated in combat sports or any sport in which you're taking hits to the head?

I mean, yeah, to some degree, Luke, even though it's not like a cause for it or necessarily the direct correlation. So we see a lot in fight sports, especially people coming from other places of lack of structure to get to where they are today. These are no things to excuse it. It just means I feel like we see it more in these sports,

and I would love to see it end. So the problem or the question you ask yourself now is what are the responsibilities of the promoters? What are the responsibilities of the networks at that same time? I made that comment regarding the Jon Jones situation, which wasn't related necessarily to domestic violence or that his most recent events arrest was domestic related. It was just a overall look at one star athlete that has continued to misstep no matter what opportunities were given him. And it's just the collective toll. But obviously, the John Jones conversation

will end up being linked with this when it happens to this fighter in Luis Pena, and he's gone. Now, Luke, is that unfair where one could go? Should fairness involve a zero tolerance policy that would affect everybody? Yes. But Luke, I think you also can remember working anywhere. At a restaurant, if it happens to the dishwasher, he's more likely to get fired than the assistant manager, right? Sure. I mean, that just sort of value in how things work doesn't make it right. I didn't love Dana White's response Tuesday

at the press conference. Now, in print, when it was tweeted out by the members that were there, basically saying, you know, we had to let this guy go, but hey, John Morgan asking, what about John Jones? Could this happen to him? Dana White basically saying, this could happen to anybody. When you read that in print on a tweet, it looked very much like,

hey, John's not actually guilty. It could happen to anybody. When you hear Dana say it, you get what he's saying. He's basically saying that no one is exempt from losing their job because of this, which is the right move. I'm harder on the UFC than I am on boxing, which is more fragmented and unstructured and, you know, for better or worse, and I'll tell you worse, also has more of a detailed history of this type of stuff happening.

UFC, though, is a publicly traded company at a very elite point with the ESPN deal. I would like to see, Luke, some type of stance, even if it's nominal suspensions that really don't matter because fighters only fight twice a year, more or less, to begin with. You've got to start stepping in and saying, we don't allow this. We don't matter because fighters only fight twice a year, more or less, to begin with, you've got to start stepping in and saying, we don't allow this, we don't want this. Firing Peña was that move, so that's good to see. But if you do nothing on the flip side to your bigger stars, especially someone like a John Jones who now has multiple accumulated missteps involving everything from arrests to drug test issues and all that and beyond,

then you are being completely hypocritical. So to answer your question, yes, there seems to be an issue of this in combat sports. Let's take the steps to stuff it out across the board, even boxing promoters in that broken sport as well. You hate to see these headlines, but if you're going to let one person go, do you have to do it across the board? If you want zero tolerance, if you want to remove that, if you want to say that we have taken a stand against this, then yes, you have

to do that. So I know they're going to wait on the Jon Jones scenario and yes, innocent until proven guilty and all that. But I would like to see when you're at this level where the UFC is and publicly sold and all that, where you are trying to clean up this PR. Let me ask you a question. Let's take, imagine we just had candidates X and Y for an experiment. You didn't know who was what. One ended up being the John Jones situation. One ended up being the Luis Pena situation.

But take out that you didn't know that at popularity levels or whatever. You just were examining the situations. What could be the meaningful difference, not counting their box office appeal, in the situations between Jones and Pena? I'm not saying they're identical. I'm not saying there is no answer.

I'm asking, what is the meaningful difference between their situations that were one which should be let go and one should be wait and see? Well, I think the Jon Jones thing, to echo my point I just made, is I don't feel that it's just a domestic violence conversation. For me, the Jon Jones conversation

is just a larger, you know, you get more privilege in a longer leash when you're a super big celebrity and a big star and a draw and the greatest of all time, but you should also face a different level of scrutiny just the same because you are representing that brand on a much larger scale. So I don't look at the Jon Jones conversation as just domestic.

Are you trying to make this just domestic? No, I'm just trying to see if you wanted to argue, which maybe you don't, if you wanted to argue, ah, no, their situations are meaningfully different as it relates to the crimes in question, what would you say? Because at that point, obviously they're not identical crimes, but what the difference would be between them materially in terms of what would justify getting cast off from the roster, I don't know how you can make that call without taking into consideration their brand power.

That's fair. There's just not enough of a difference to do that. On this question, dude, I don't know where to come down on it because, obviously, I do think we have a domestic violence problem in MMA and in combat sports more generally. I forgot to mention it, but how could I? The New York Times did a report yesterday on the situation with Cyborg Abreu, who is a very decorated jiu-jitsu black belt out of Miami, Florida, and his team fights sports, and how there was, according to the reports in this article, basically a systemic effort to,

and in three cases and potentially more, to not hold sexual abusers to account and doing everything you can to not let them be held to account. It's a terrible story. So even in there, in jiu-jitsu you have it. Here is basically the problem I think we're up against a little bit, BC, which is that I think it is a meaningful difference when you argue that the UFC is publicly traded. That to me is a different thing. I agree. How different is debatable is publicly traded. That, to me, is a different thing. I agree.

How different is debatable, but I agree that's in kind, not the same thing. On the other hand, here is just where we are. Do the fans and the media and the various players, the stakeholders, sponsors, networks, promoters, do they really care enough to cast out domestic abusers into the sport and what that would mean? If you actually had zero tolerance, if you actually in unison cast these people off, do you want what's left of the sport? I don't think that they do. I think that they want to find ways to fudge it.

I think they want to look the other way when they can. Obviously, some of these situations are morally complex. They're not all identical. And all of them deserve a right to be, in the case of the criminal considerations, these deserve to be handled. And they're innocent until proven guilty in many cases, obviously. But I just don't think there's pressure from certain parts of the community. But they have to shout for a

long time to get heard. And what is the consequence for promoters going and using people who have this history in terms of the blowback? All the incentive would be all the money lost if you didn't use them, not the business consequences that come from using them. And as long as there's that asymmetry in the market, that's it. There's no question about that. But when you are at the UFC's level, which no singular boxing promoter is and no other MMA promoter is, would it hurt them, Luke, to do the bare minimum and come out and make a case, stance against this publicly and say this is not tolerated across the board for any of our fighters, male or female, nor do we want this message put out there for our brand, which, by the way, appears on the Disney network,

because we want to start to retrain our fighters who don't all come from the same structured backgrounds and the same, you know, safe upbringings. We want to put a stop to this. So even if you created a training program within your PI and you suspended guys for six months or nine months and at least put out there that, you know, you get multiple offenses in this area, we are going to let you go. Why would that

be? Why is that a, is that hard? That's not hard. I think it is hard. I mean, you're right. It's not. But what I'm saying is I think it's hard for them because they have purposely backed off of the code of conduct for the implications it would mean for turning their, and I'm not saying they're like, oh, we don't want to cover domestic violence for all these reasons. What I'm saying is the UFC knows that the more you go down that line about we're going to have this code, and if you break it, we're going to punish you, you have blurred the lines between independent contractor and employee. And once they become employees, they can become a union.

And once they become a union, they can change the whole business. Councilman, tell that to Paul Daly. He got fired for less. He did get fired for less. Okay, tell that to a few others. He got fired for less. He did get fired for less. Okay, tell that to a few others, okay? Miguel Torres made a joke. Not a great joke. A very tasteless one.

Not a good joke at all, yep. A tasteless one, but he made a joke. In any case, I'll remember in 2015 when Real Sports HBO did a report on whether there was domestic violence problems in the industry, and they did try to make some improper points where they compared NFL to all of MMA. But the real takeaway was, and again, some of the math needed to be double-checked, but was there a greater chance if you had any background in fighting professional MMA

in terms of that population that they would have a higher rate of incidence of domestic violence problems relative to the national average? It's pretty incontestably true that it is. And there's not much of an incentive within the market to do anything about it. And without that incentive, I don't know what happens. I know it's putting a brand or a promoter or a leader of a brand in a judgmental chair, basically saying, is this sin bad enough where if we don't tame it, it could hurt our bottom line

and it could give a bad message? Or do I care about this sin more? Like, Luke, if somebody came out and made a, you know, a racial slur or something, you know, it's like now we're comparing, you know, is this sin, you know, forgivable? Or is this sin bad enough where we have to get ahead of the story?

I think domestic violence sucks. So can we make it important enough that people want to get ahead of the story. I think domestic violence sucks. So can we make it important enough that people want to get ahead of it? But this is not the same as John Gruden making fun of DeMarisa Smith's looks. I know. This is a crime. It's a dicey area comparing any of these.

But to me, all of them suck. But also domestic violence is really bad. And if you are more likely as a fight promoter to have employees that could go down this road, you should also be more likely to try to enforce and educate against it, correct? Yeah, but I mean, I think the— And that goes to boxing promoters, that goes to networks, it goes to everybody. It sounds like I'm forgiving them. I'm not. I'm just trying to be realistic about it.

It's like, dude, you want them to do something about it. What in the UFC's business model, as it stands today, and in terms of how the fans receive them and use them, there might be some fighters that go so nuclear toxic you can't use them, a war machine, BJ Penn at the end there, maybe Luis Peña has entered that territory. Chris Benoit. Yeah, you get the idea where it goes so far it becomes untenable. But as long as you're not in that case, I'm going to say it again,

who is pressuring UFC or any promoter, really, to do anything about it? And the answer is nobody powerful. That's the problem. And media has shouted about it. Doesn't do much in the end. Sometimes it can. Sometimes it can't. I want to say.

And that's not to say that if you feel strongly about it, you shouldn't speak out. But people ask me, like, when's UFC going to do something? I'm like, dude, when's it going to be baked into their structure? If there was a union, and the union wasn't, this is why I keep saying there should be a fucking union, because if there was, and all of these things were hammered out, this question about the nebulous, what should UFC do? We would already know between the agreement.

Hey, Norma Rae, maybe you found your life calling, and you just haven't activated it yet. I don't know. Maybe you're supposed to be that guy. I'm not the Pied Piper of fighters. Maybe you're the next Marvin Miller, DeMaurice Smith. Who else am I missing? Is John Gruden going to also make fun of my presence?

Probably. I hope he does. I hope he does. I mean, Luke, maybe you and John S. Nash should do a Robin Hood crusade to fix this game for the better, even if it means sacrificing your own good name. That's heroic. Why would you do that? Because I just crack dick jokes for a living

looking and cashing these checks, Biotre. Bitch! Anyway, so that's a terrible thing that's happening. Okay, with that in mind, let's go to some quick hitter fight news, if we can, BC, here. Topic number four. I'm just going to go through these,

and you give me some reaction to them and see how you feel. We got a bunch of fight announcements. We talked about the one at the beginning, Masvidal versus Edwards, but there are others. Namely, we go right to it. What do you make of this one? Luke Rockhold being out in his return against Sean Strickland. So I saw the video. It seems a legitimate

knee injury. So it's not like I'm going to say, you know, Rockhold, you, this or that, but it's a continued turn in the wrong direction for Rockhold, who has kind of had two careers in a way, Luke. You know, the first one when he was great and powerful upon ranked and the UFC middleweight champion, and then everything that happened from 199 and on. And that has been inactivity.

That has been getting knocked out in fights. He was winning. That has been keeping a very arrogant posture as a fighter, which I think has been his downfall, and it has been some of the decision-making. I know lately he's been feuding with the brand, and he went on Ariel's show and spoke openly in certain areas that I thought were actually refreshing. This fight could have been a gateway for him to getting back into a really big fight. If he goes out there, if he went out there and beat Sean Strickland and reminded us in his late 30s who he could be,

it could have been a nice springboard. Now it just seems like another setback. I am curious to see if this comeback is possible. I don't mean to be disparaging. What did him and Weidman do to each other that night? In that fight at UFC 194?

They were never the same. In the Conor Aldo? Certainly Weidman was never the same. It's not that that fight was some brutal beating. Well, it was for Chris Weidman. Weidman made an error, but they have both not been the same. Well, the Weidman part is explainable. Herb Dean let that fight go way too long. That's fair.

But you're right. Chris is still his son, just so you know, though. Either way. He's still my boy? He's still my boy, yeah. Can you imagine? Under what circumstance would my dad ever say that? Wow.

So Mr. Weidman and mr um he boss are really the the mvp dads your father yeah your father is the the warm machine of mvp well that's a little mean my dad's a little bit better than that thank you okay the the mr and mrs ramsey of mma. I don't think they murdered me or covered up a murder of me at a young age. I mean, what's worse? What's worse, Luke? Apathy? You know, like, what's worse?

The rapper? No, what's worse? Them actually hurting you or them not? Just being indifferent. Just being like, oh, that's my son. I gotta tell you,

the indifference is strong. It's hard to deal with. At least they would've showed you that they cared a little by inflicting that. Like, when I stab you in your sleep one day, Luke, it will be mostly out of rage, but there's a little bit of sick love in that, Luke, okay? I don't think my dad's the issue with my life.

Maybe it'd just be you. All right, next fight. Taito Iwasa. Let's bang. Let's bang. Ticket on Augusto Sakai. This will be set for November 20th. Okay, it's the right fight in his rise.

It's not that the win over Greg Hardy stamps that this guy is legit, but it's the accumulation of the good steps in the right direction. That means I want to find out now if Tui Vassa is legit. So I would have liked a bigger name to learn that, but you do have to learn it the hard way against the tough matchups, and Augusto Sakai is not a sexy one, Luke, but it might be an important one to find out. And if you beat some dude forget uh drinking out of a shoe Luke get the whole get the whole you know get a pair of underpants get something different here Sakai since his Bellator

days has vastly improved I agree with you it's not a very like interesting fight per se but uh an important one I agree with that now this one is an absolute fucking barn burner Brad Riddell out of city kickboxing taking on Rafael Fazaev. Oh, wow. Yeah, you hadn't heard about this one? December 4th? Dude, you're talking about two great strikers going after it. I think both, by the way, at times, with a striking coach at Tiger Muay Thai at separate

eras, anyway, this is a hell of a fight. This is John Jones-Ryan Bader level matchmaking, where you've got two guys that look like they could be faces of where the division is going, so why don't we have them fight each other totally uh jeff neal is back in action against the argentine santiago panzanibio this will be on december 11th okay because jeff neal was going in a direction where you're like top 10 legit badass maybe future contender and then the wonder boy thing happened and yeah and the time off and wasn't he working like a regular job to try to

make it to me and it just wasn't the same guy. And Ponzinibbio coming off of multiple injuries and time off, right? Yes. Now, he did come. Two years. But has he made an official comeback? He made a comeback, and he lost. He lost.

That's right. That's right. It's all coming back to me now. Celine Dion. I think the leech beat him, if memory serves. 90s reference. What happened? Miguel Baeza.

Sorry. Gaff jumping in with a, Hey, Gaff, great guy. Great guy. I have met him. Never heard of him. Sam Alvey will take on Ian Hynish for February 5th. Smiling Sam, wow. He has nine lives right now.

He hangs on, man. He has nine lives, yeah. I'm surprised. He's still there just doing the do. Is there another run in Jurassic back Ian Hynish to try to like, will he ever be in true title contention? What is his ceiling beyond one day then making a movie about his personal life?

I don't know. He's had some real setbacks. Would you like to work out with MK cameras present where you can learn a little bit about how to? No, because he'll fucking murder me. No, he could teach you a lot, Luke. I know you like being the teacher. I've been in the weight room with you. But it's like I can't I really can't put you down for it

because you care. You want to teach. You want to nurture. You know what I mean? You overbearing piece of shit. You can't help yourself. Here's why we're having those dreams. Meanwhile, we've got, what's her face over there?

COVID playing Sudoku or whatever. We're calling her COVID now. Yes, somebody will catch a case here. Okay, and that's it. And then last but not least, BC, we have Bellator this weekend. So Bellator is back. We have the semifinals of the light heavyweight Grand Prix. We have Vadim Nemkov in your main event.

Then we take it on Julius Angliscus. And then in your co-main, Ryan Bader taking on Corey Anderson. Of course, Julius, as you know, BC, is the fill-in, because it was supposed to be Rumble Johnson, but he is out due to what appears to be a rather severe situation. This doesn't have the blinking light of, like, sex. You know, live girls, come see that a Rumble fight for the title would have had Luke. Okay? We've got to put that out there.

That is what it is. That's a weird way to describe it. But once you get over that... That's how you would describe, like, one of those one of those porn video stores on the side of the road when you're driving. Yeah. Oh, by the way, somebody reached out to me about that. Have you seen this shit picture with the midget is back?

Yeah. They said, I think it's Fort Wayne, Indiana. And they say they have the most adult clubs per capita in their downtown. What the fuck else are you going to do in Fort Wayne, Indiana? Yeah, I'm not going there at all. Go to Arby's, murder each other, do meth, and go see the midget at the strip club. But look, this fight card, this doubleheader, when you look at it, when you get down to it, these are two very good matchups.

Look, Angliskis, and by the way, shout out to the folks who did the Bellator countdown show that you can catch on YouTube. We had a little cameo in that. Did we? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. Voiced by Big John. These are very good fights, Luke.

So, you know, look, you want to see if Angliscus, who has done some things, you know, won on the Dana White Contender Series but didn't get the call-up, has put together a nice run here in Bellator and is now getting that accidental chance. Will it be a Daniel Cormier-like stealing of the show? I don't know, Luke. We had our doubts about Cormier in that spot, and he went full bloom in front of it, like Andre Ward did before him in the Super 6 on Showtime. Like, anytime people have these breakout runs,

like Ryan Bader in the damn heavyweight bracket. This is going to be a good test, though, for Vadim Nemkov, because we've seen him beat the guys that'll make you impressive in this division and that we start to take him very seriously. Now beat a guy on short notice without the same type of planning who's got nothing to lose. And Luke, he's coming in ripped. And Gliscus is ripped.

You can't win fights with abs, but he's coming in ripped. And then Luke, the better matchup that I'm a little bit more focused in on because I'm not really sure is Bader-Corey Anderson because Corey Anderson feels like he's seen something, Luke, when they've sparred in the past. Okay, we'll talk about that in just a second. But about on Gliscus, is it terrible for Bellator if he wins? No. Because Vadim

Nemkov is a name that we're trying to build up. He's got the Fedor Association. He has the wins over Phil Davis now. He's got the wins over Ryan Bader. He's like a guy you can now begin to build. And here comes Angliskas out of nowhere, who by the way, the guy won and finished his opponent on Contender Series and has won

every fight in Bellator since. Granted, all three of those have been decision. But he beat Jordan Young, who's a name that folks don't know. He's a very good fighter. Dude, like here's the thing. Angliscus is like a good fighter. He's coming in short notice. But Nemkov is finally putting the pieces together.

Unless you felt like Nemkov was somebody you're going to put on a T-shirt and really become a marketing gem, which I get positioning him as legit and people are going to watch for that reason. But I don't think it would be horrible or backbreaking, because what this would show is that you really do have a competitive heavyweight division, and that guy that wasn't even scheduled for this star-studded tournament, if he can come in and win the damn title, and then set

up to fight the winner against either a Corey Anderson, who's on fire and looks so good with Bellator, or your former champion in Ryan Bader, should he come out of that, who's also your current heavyweight champion, then this is what you want, Luke. And then if Rumble, hopefully he can come back, if Romero can work his way back now that he's debuted here at light heavyweight, there are some big matchups you can make down the road. Now, when you say short notice, that's true. The original opponent, again, was Anthony Rumble Johnson.

But there's short notice and then there's short notice. What I mean to say is you can get an opponent change on a week or two weeks notice. This one's had me closer to like a month or six weeks almost, which is not an ideal training camp, but it's not a short amount of time. What I mean to say is we have seen fighters who are very, very good, who when they get a really late switch, they still win the fight, but it's kind of boring because they don't know what they're up against and they're feeling everything out for the entirety of it are you worried we're going to get to one of those situations or do you think nimkov lets it fly i'm not worried we're going to talk to julius angliscus this week you

and i yeah at this set yeah i'm going to tell him to his face bro this is your chance you only get one shot sometimes in life okay do not miss your chance to blow um come out swinging dude you telegraph that joke i mean just come out i mean you're you telegraphed that joke. I mean, just come out swinging. I mean, you're a Deontay Wilder telegrapher. I don't mean to sound like an ex-Canadian MMA star, but if you're going to come on, Julius, come on, brother. This is your chance, okay? Don't backdoor into that belt.

Don't accidentally win that belt. Seize that belt. All right. Seize the day. Your thought about the co-main event. Carpe diem. Carpe diem. Your thought about Ryan Bader and Corey Anderson.

You think this is the sneaky fight. Why? This is very sneaky because I think it's going to be very close. I'm very interested to see which strategic flow the fight plays out in. It's two wrestlers, so you're naturally telling yourself, oh, the wrestling's going to cancel itself out and let's see how they do boxing each other. I don't know.

I know you've said this in the past, and I kind of agree. I wonder if Corey Anderson can take him down. I wonder if all the stuff Corey Anderson's talking, that these guys I know you've said this in the past, and I kind of agree. I wonder if Corey Anderson can take him down. I wonder if all the stuff Corey Anderson's talking, that these guys have sparred and worked together in the past, but you know, Bader's team, they know. They know. What do they know? Is that just sparring stuff that happens, or did he show that he is the dominant

force there? Luke, Anderson is on such a good momentum. We talk about Moscow. The momentum seems real. He's recovered from that, you know, in the transition from UFC to Bellator, he had that physical setback

where he fell. He seems to be in a perfect spot mentally and physically. Bader's not going to be easy, but if he's going to come in this confident, if he gets this win,

he may end up being the favorite in the final. Look, I'm telling you, Corey Erickson's the sneaky live dog in this tournament. All right? He might be. I can't tell if this fight is going to be wrestle heavy or strike heavy

or kind of not a wild brawl, but like a little bit all over the place because I think it could go a number of different directions. The only thing I'm up against is I still, I'm not saying Corey Anderson is small for the weight class, but I am saying Bader is big for it. Yes. And so I do wonder over time, does Bader's, again, they're going to weigh in at 205,

but is Bader's relative bulk here, is that going to carry the day? I tend to wonder it. I tend to think it might, but I don't know. As long as it doesn't look like either of the Phil Davis, Ryan Bader fights, we'll be better off. Yeah, those are not the best ones. Do you respect, okay, we respect Ryan Bader, by the way. Yeah, he's awesome.

He's a great fighter. He's a fantastic guy. But I've asked him many times about the nickname, Darth Ber and so he must be a big star wars guy i'm totally ready to bro out and nerd out with him and be like no han shot first bro and the you know not green oh gosh all that shit grito and then he's always like hey bro i don't really like star wars i just thought it was a cool nickname should we like should we not clown that but should we lose a little respect why that? Why would you clown him for that? Wouldn't you have a long look in the mirror about what a fucking loser you are? Should we offer that he missed the boat on giving himself the nickname Master,

and it could have been something that elevated his brand to different levels? You know what I mean? How would you introduce it? Would you say, Master Ryan Bader? No, no, I wouldn't do it in that way. Or would you do it in that way? Ryan Master Bader. You're damn right. Sorry, wrong again. You're damn it. What would you do? Ryan Master Bader. He'd be like, you're damn right.

Sorry, wrong again. You're damn right. You know what I mean? I love how BC's thought line is, if I was a pro fighter and my last name was Bader, I'm telling everyone I'd jerk off. Yeah, right? Because it's all about that B-D-E loop. I love masturbating.

Hey, you know what I'm saying? It is a... Dude, the guys who publicly brag about masturbating do not have B-D-E. I got bad news for you. I'm not saying that it's not an apples for apples thing where it's like, because my nickname's Masturbator, I support jerking off. It's more just like, I'm the Master Bator. You know what I mean?

There's a little bit of a subtlety in that. I don't think there's any subtlety whatsoever. I think it's you being like, I'm like Masturbator. Wow, okay. All right. I'm waiting for Matt, the producer, to come running and be like, that's it, guys. We gotta shut it down. Listen, I am happy to tell you that this is...

You think Bellator's gonna like this preview? Yeah. We were gonna put him in the countdown show, but then they started... So let me get this straight. They talked about what? Yeah. Hey, you know what? It could be a boost for ratings. I'd be into it if I were them, right?

You want, I don't even know if I could say this on air. Don't do it. You want Bellator to do what during your broadcast? Okay, that's it for. I'm a big fan of their analyst, by the way. You know I love Morrow. Also, Josh Thompson. I used to work with that guy at a special little round table we did in Mojito.

Yeah, you're not scarred by it at all. Wow, I love that guy. Yeah. All right. That's it for the top five topics. Now we get to the other crazy parts of the show. All right. We do not have the wheel today because apparently it's shipping.

It's in the air right now. It's on the way here, Luke. We're going to revisit this later this week. We used to do a segment, though, that has had fairly contrasting opinions from people. It's either hit pretty good or horrible call me crazy but this segment's on life support right now but we'll try it one more time let's try it one more time all right so here's the premise here bc can be a little ridiculous at times sometimes i have opinions that are that are just you know they're just

they're a little bit wet in the corners with conspiracy, ridiculousness, insanity. I want to see if you think I'm on to something here, Luke, or if you think I'm, in fact, bat shit crazy. We call this. Call me crazy. All right, Luke, I got eight of these. Are you ready? Okay, let's hear it. Okay.

The first one's the only long one. I know you hate long intros, but here we go. Benson Henderson was on the Shock Majoree show. You know, our guy, right? Shaq? Shaq's my guy from MMA Mania. And he was asked about who he thinks the MMA GOAT is. You ready for his quote? Okay. Who cares about my opinion, Bendo said, but I'm not going to put Habib up there for the greatest ever of all time. You can maybe consider him one of the greats at 55, but as far as one of the greatest of all time in all weight classes, nah, you might have to miss me on that one. That's as one of the greatest of all time in all weight classes, nah, you might

have to miss me on that one. That's saying something. Greatest of all time? I think there are a good 10 or 15 fighters above him. I'm one of those purists who is all about longevity as well. Somebody who has been there and competed at the top level, not somebody who is 35 and 0, but only really has 10 fights against top level guys,, quote, he would go on to name BJ Penn as his GOAT. Luke, call me crazy, but good old Bendo didn't actually sound all that crazy in that rant until he did the 10 or 15 fighters above Habib. That part was fucking crazy.

I don't understand what you're asking me. You didn't ask me anything. You just stated it. That was good performance art at the very least. Luke, is Bendo onto something? Is it wrong to make that leap? Is there enough of a case against Habib being the GOAT that it's a very fair space to say,

look, he's great, but he's not actually in the GOAT, that it's a very fair space to say, look, he's great, but he's not actually in the GOAT conversation. Because I think you can make a sneaky side case for Habib being the GOAT, just on the domination level that we've seen and the big names he at least closed his career against, even though, yes, with injury and with only fighting once a year during some stretches with the Ramadan scheduling, with a lot of things that went on, we didn't get him against the guys we wanted, let alone Tony Ferguson. We didn't get him against the guys we wanted, let alone Tony Ferguson. We didn't get it consistent across the board.

But Bendo's saying 10 to 15 guys better. That's where you're getting a little crazy here. 10 to 15 guys better is a little strong. I don't know how you want to handle this because, dude, you have different weight classes, different eras. The eras part I don't think is the biggest impediment. But it's like, dude, do you

want to count John Jones' record? Because a lot of people don't because they want to say how much of that was under the auspices of PED. It was, again, suspected, never proven, but there is certainly that out there. Well, they proved some picograms, at least. Yes, yes. I mean, I'm not saying he's had no infractions. I'm just saying, like,

there's debate about it, certainly. Where's our lower thirds? I wrote up lower thirds for you guys. Yeah, I'm willing to concede that there might be, you can name up to five, depending on what criteria you used. I'll just say 10 to 15 sounds way too high. Those are not the lower thirds. Those are not the droids that you sent for right there.

Those are not the ones I sent. Thank you, Luke, for your answer, though. Okay, so you would be against somebody if they came out and said, look, I've seen them all. Jon Jones is great, GSP great, Silva great. Habib's the go. You would counter that.

I will... To me, it's neck and neck between them. To me, Jones has a bigger and better body of work. Habib has, for the body of work, I just think he was better against his peers in terms of keeping the distance on them for longer. Okay. You kind of answered without answering,

but I appreciate you hearing that. It's a hard question to answer, dude. I appreciate you hearing that. I don't think it's 10 to 15. All right, number two. Luke, call me crazy, but he may be a lovable coach now that Ioana regularly calls him Mikey in public

as if he was the nerd neighbor in an 80s sitcom, but people forget really fucking fast how much of a badass Mike Thomas Brown in the WEC actually was. That's a fact. Call me freaking crazy, Luke. His reputation and legacy because of how good of a coach he is and a nice guy he is, is somewhat making people forget the damn badass that MTB was.

I know. I don't think it's, here's what happened. The people who are into the sport when Mike Brown was kicking everyone's ass, they're not really around for the most part anymore. So people have just forgotten it. And then once he made his run in the UFC, there was no real run to speak of. He did not have a very distinguished run because he was run down at that point. That was the end of his career. And he has completely changed the way people perceive him by virtue of how,

just how great of a coach he is. But if you knew Mike Brown at the time, yes, Jose Aldo took his belt from him. I remember exactly where I was when he did. But, dude, he, I mean, he beat Uriah cleanly twice. Twice, yes. And then there's a punch where he hit Leonard Garcia so hard, you can watch Garcia leave his feet as he does it.

It's one of the most, like, badass things ever. When he was in form, he was a hard fighter to beat. Maybe because he's just a humble dude. Because when I've seen him at fights or when you interview Ioana and he's lingering, you're like, yo, like, bro. I'm like, you were badass. And you want him to be like, you're damn right. And instead he's just like, oh, you know, like, oh, thank you, but no.

You know what I mean? But maybe he's just a really nice guy. Maybe so. Maybe he's watching this and he'll close off the set and stand in front of the mirror Dirk Diggler style and just be like, Campbell was right. Yeah, Campbell was not right. Okay.

Hey, Luke, call me crazy, but the UFC should consolidate the women's 135 and 145-pound divisions into one open superweight division between the weights of 135 and 155 with one title. And, oh, wait for it. They should call it women's heavyweight. Call me crazy, bro. And it would span, like, seven weight classes. it would span like seven weight classes. It would span 135 to 155. It would span three weight classes.

Oh, I see. I see. Because you can't even... Look, 115 is loaded. 125 is finally starting to have like a legitimate top 10. 35, 45, and 55 are dead on arrival. Why not make it one open weight and call it heavyweight? I like it. I like it. I like that. So that means, look, if you're Amanda Nunes and you can make 35, you also are the best in the world at 45. You may have to fight somebody like Kayla Harrison at 55 for the

UFC women's heavyweight title. I like it. Okay. All right. We're on a good run here. Let's see if this keeps up. Luke, call me crazy, number four, but putting ketchup on your scrambled eggs is about as low class as willingly looking at nudes of your first cousins. Can we have the right lower thirds that I sent in? These are the, no, the other ones. Is looking at nudes of your cousins low class

or incest? It's, it's, it's a low class is one of the first exits on the road there, Luke. Okay. Uh, I'm going to say that looking at nudes of your cousins is a little bit worse. But this question isn't really condiment. This question isn't really about the nudes. That was, that was, you know, I'm not, I don't, I'm not a-up on these guys, but I don't condemn it part the way you do. Okay, okay. You guys got the right lower thirds? Okay, thank you. Yeah, I see that.

They had all jokes. They were like, you know, it was a mind game, really. Okay. All right, number five. Luke, call me crazy, but the way you pronounce the S in Ronda Rousey's last name is fucking weird. It's pronounced as if it was an S, but it really should be pronounced as if it was a Z, bro. Don't be that guy. What do I say? Ronda Rousey every single time. What is it? Ronda Rousey. Everybody knows that. Hoppa knows that shit. Do we know that? Brendan knows that.

Since when is that true? It's always been that way. Luke, you just missed it, and I don't want you to miss it anymore. Hey, Mark the cameraman, how do you say Rhonda's last name? Rousey with a Z. Thank you. Jake, listen, Jake. Jake doesn't even know how to pronounce his own fucking name. How do you say Rhonda's last name? Rousey with a Z. Thank you. I tell you what, I think you're all wrong, and I'd like to hear some clarification from her.

We need a deciding vote. Chris, our... It's not a deciding vote. We're not voting on this. Chris, Rhonda what? Rousey with a Z. Thank you. Thank you, Luke. Yes, everyone who doesn't know how to pronounce letters.

Okay, here we go. Next, number six. Luke, call me crazy. We don't tend to show a lot of forward love to these specific 90s bands I'm talking about. When we talk 90s rock and the good shit, we're usually talking grunge, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden,

Alice in Chains, right? Radiohead, if you want to go a little different direction. Call me crazy, but the first Matchbox 20 record was fucking awesome, Luke. Don't get the fuck out of my face. So was the first Third Eye Blind and the first two Bush records and even the first live record and those back-to-back records from Goo Goo Dolls and Oasis. My point, Luke, 90s pop grunge might be guilty pleasure listening, but 90s pop grunge at its very peak was fucking awesome.

And I may not tell a lot of people that I still love it. I love that shit, Luke. Okay, is there a question here? Yeah, am I crazy? Yeah, you're a fucking idiot. That's the worst fucking album ever. I don't know. On the drive down here last night,

I had Yourself or something, someone like me by Matchbox on. And I, you know, it's... Again, it's not something I'm going to put out there to everyone, like, now listening to this. But at the same time, look, you gotta have some of those, you know what I mean? I bet you were a masturbator during the...

It's part of what made the 90s awesome. That run of pop rock with grunge, tint, and a little bit of other genres sprinkled over it, it's so much better than the commercial one that came after it with Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit and all those bands that J.R. likes.

You can't support me at all on this. 90s pop grunge to you sucks the horn. The first Third Eye Blind album, no. You're not even willing to say that Bush... I wish you would step back from that... Okay, I'm not here to say that Bush is the manliest band ever, but they have four A-plus hits. I don't think we listen to music the same way.

Four A-plus hits. The rest of the... Everything else they wrote is a C. Yep, and when I was 15, they were money. Upon replay, they don't quite stand the test of time, do they? All right, maybe I'll call you crazy. Maybe that's the new segment here. All right, Luke, number seven.

I got two more for you. It's been pretty good. We're keeping this segment alive, okay? Number seven. Call me crazy, Luke, but people would respect and appreciate whoever is the holder of UFC records for most wins and most total fights a lot more if it wasn't Jim Miller, Donald Cerrone, and Andrei Orlovsky that keep swapping the number one spot back to each other.

No. It doesn't matter what names you put in there. People have a hard time understanding the significance of those accomplishments. I'm not trying to say that, oh, because these guys are journeymen, people look down on it. But if these records were held by GSP or Anderson Silva instead, I think it's something you would hear on the broadcast all the time. People would be talking about it as if it's a badge, where now we talk about it as your compiler. The reason why GSP and Silva don't is because it's hard to compete

on that kind of schedule and win. So I'm crazy here. A little, yeah. All right. We'll see if this segment comes back. Last one, Luke. I got one more for you. Hopefully this one's good.

Call Me Crazy. Well, O.J. Simpson was the fucking worst, right? This guy's like the worst. He just murdered people. I love watching highlights of him running the ball. They were really good and ahead of their time. Juice was a good athlete. He wore low-level pads, and he swiveled very good, but he fucking gutted those people.

Nicole Brown Simpson? Yeah, and the waiter. Yeah. Like, I don't like him. He did that. Probably. I'm telling you. Yeah, I mean, I believe he did. Is there a question there? Because it's the worst. He's like the worst, bro. Do you follow him on Twitter?

No, I don't. Oh, you should see that little show. Yeah, I'm not into that. He likes to do some betting, sports betting analysis. And a lot of I told you so's along the way. Sports betting. He's not much of a gambler. He does like big lines, though, Luke, if you know what I mean. I bet he does.

I bet you do, too. All right, that segment fell on its face. Let's do some fan sucks. Hey, call me crazy, but if it ain't the wheel, it sucks in this show, Luke, apparently. All right, let's see what you got. All right, Luke, we got one more segment for the people here. Let me regain my composure.

MorningCombat at gmail.com is your home to send in your dead wrongs on Friday, but every Wednesday, it's for you to send in yourself wearing our clothing or a meme that you created that Luke was about to shit on. It's called fan submissions.

Fan subs. We've got mail. All right, Jordan with an E signing in says, my girlfriend Mia, Maya, Maya was pretty hot in the 90s, right? A little sneaky? She went to Georgetown. Maya from Ghetto Superstar fame.

Mm-hmm. Wow. Ghetto Superstar, that is what you are. That is what we're not. Some got hopes and dreams, right? She surprised him with a morning combat mug this week. He has watched, Jordan with an E, has watched most of the episodes of this podcast since it started.

He loves BC's sense of humor. He hates Luke's politics. Yeah. But he still watches anyway for the MMA news coverage. Keep up the good work. P.S., Cannibal Corpse is boomer death metal. Wow. Yeah, you know what's amazing about that?

I've heard modern death metal, it's the least creative shit ever. Okay, but how good is Jordan's lady, Maya, I think it's Maya, that she surprised him with this? She surprised him with this, Luke. Yeah think it's Maya, that she surprised him with this. She surprised him with this. That's good. I mean, I'm glad to see he has since posted bail after

the January 6th incident. Oh, wow. Come on. You think he was the one who shit in Pelosi's drawers? He rubbed his balls on the escape key a couple times. Thank you. Thank you, Jordan, for sending in your love of us and your hatred of the things Luke stands for. All right, we have a second.

I always love these fucking stupid... Okay. Jordan with an A is our second slider. Hey, Luke, rate my cable management, but keep in mind, the setup includes cables

for PS4 laptop, LED backlighting, and screen-facing camera that syncs LEDs to video in real time. And B, I'm renting and I can't drill anything into the wall.

Zoom in in rate his cable management luke yeah uh zero uh why am i looking at 50 000 cables and why do we have one that i could if i was tarzan i could swing to go get jane could you have more cable was that a zip line to get from the living room to the kitchen what the fuck is that he's like right this is like this is like if someone took a shit in their hand and like, rate my art. Yeah, it's a fucking zero. We did that in five documentaries.

Luke, thank you, though, to Jordan with an A for watching. Do you watch this on TV? Hold on, hold on. Corey, what are you saying? The same... Oh, my God, you're right. So the TV and holder, they're calling it a, what is it, a confidence monitor? It's a TV.

Some shit. It's the same exact setup we have right here next to the camera, right here, that Luke and I watch our cell phone. Wow. All right. Hey, I always take it for granted that people would just watch us on their phone while they're whatever. People actually put us on TV. I'm always surprised by that. Do you watch podcasts that way?

No, never. I've never watched podcasts that way. I'm always surprised by that. Do you watch podcasts that way? No, never. I never watch podcasts that way. Granted, we're washed, so there is that. Yeah, please don't put us in 4K. Please, all right. I barely shower. Nestor slides and says, the missus and I were ready to head out

as I always represent and spread the gospel of MK throughout the Tampa Bay area. You guys fill my ear hole every week as I work with Luke's intellect and BC's art. Your number one Cuban listener, Nestor. Nestor. And most Cuban guys will tell you, Luke, they've got an eye for the women. Let's blow up and see this guy. Yes.

Look at the way he wears our shirt, Luke. Normally? Yes. He's seen a gym before, Nestor, right? Yep, yep. Takes good care of himself. He has the kind of facial hair that suggests I might be able to fight. Like, if you cross me, I'm...

Is that what facial hair means? I might shiv you. That's what he... That's what that... It's a little more... It's a little more exotic than what you got going on. Normally, yours is very mismanaged, like cables, but... I trimmed it up before today.

You are trimmed up. You are trimmed up. I didn't get the goatee, though. Only one of us uses ball trimmers for that. Wow, shout out to Nestor. Luke, I like the art behind him, right? He's well-read. He's into, like, psychic readings.

Not really my shit, Nestor, but he likes women, you know? I like it when people send their fan subs, and then we can judge them based on what's in their house. I'm not even saying judge them fairly or accurately. Just judge them. Thank you, Nestor, for wearing and buying our shit. Hopefully you got 20% off on Monday for $100K. Thank you. The shirt looks good. Looks Just judge him. Thank you, Nestor, for wearing and buying our shit. Hopefully you got 20% off on Monday for 100K.

Thank you. The shirt looks good. Looks great on him. And, yeah. There you go. David slides in. Hi, guys. As part of my anti-fatty liver campaign,

gas stations, the silent killers, I decided to walk from the station to my new job in Luke's favorite European capital. Here I am spreading the MK message in front of Cleopatra's needle and the Eiffel Tower.

Speaking of erect moments, can you please start advertising Get Roman again? Wow. Does your dick not work? Manscaped ball perfume. Shave your gross balls. Turned my big DE into bad ED.

Wow. Oh, and I could do with a predatory loan to pay for that ish yours the artist formerly known as french uncle pepe and alarmingly now for referred to brian by brian as that rapey french guy dave a he's no longer putting his last name in the things probably because you you called him a french rape artist this is our expat friend who works in France. He's a teacher. He molds young minds.

And Luke, look at him wear our shirt next to the fallacy of that ark right there. Sweet. That's great. Yep. That statue. Look at those eyes, Luke. Yeah, that's the eyes of a murderer. All right, Scott's sliding in with a live chat meme. Let's see it.

Oh, here we go. Can you zoom in? I used to be a... Okay. Is this funny, Luke? To some, he spells... Look how he spelled alcoholic. He didn't spell it right. Alcaholic. Alcohalic. Alcaholic, alcoholic.

I'm an alcoholic. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Scott. Alright. Luke Adams says, BC decision making every episode of MK. Here's his meme. Yeah. Squid Game.

I don't, but I've taken the red pill a few times. It's the Squid Game. I know that dilemma. All right. Rob has two photos. Hey, MK team, the season of screams and scares is officially here. As Halloween is right around the corner, I've picked out some costumes for the boys. Luke as the classic cult icon, Ash Williams from Evil Dead,

and Brian as Pennywise from Stephen King's It. Luke and Brian, could you tell us about your most memorable Halloween experiences, like favorite costumes, parties, and horror films? I don't think I have a good one. Rob, that is scary. That is scary as shit right there. Wow. Yeah.

By the way, Pennywise scares the frick out of me. I watched that movie in this version of it. I watched it actually in Columbia. The movie was called Eso. Like, Killer Clowns from Outer Space is fun. That's like, you know, it's like goofy fun. This is sick shit. I haven't even seen the movie,

but just this guy's face in like the... It's a little scary. A little scary for you? I don't have any great... I never had a really good costume. Yeah, I didn't have great. I didn't really... I've not had bad Halloweens,

but I don't have one that was like a grand Halloween. I'll tell you what. Remember, you know how there's an unofficial age like where you would stop buying like the $3 costume that you can get at like your cheap Walmart

equivalent department store and you actually like make your own. There's that age crossover where it's like okay to buy like the shitty one with the plastic mask and where you actually have to like try, right?

I missed the memo on that. So I got invited, I think it was second or third grade, to an actual Halloween party. And I showed up in a GoBots costume. Remember GoBots, right? They were like the homeless alternative to Transformers. So not only did I have GoBots, which is second grade, it's like beta compared to VHS, right?

Beta max. Yeah, or like beta compared to... I actually got the wrong direction. Maybe a little Freudian there. A little Freudian slip there. But what I'm saying, Luke, is that I showed up in GoBots with the plastic mask and the shirt that you slip into that's really like a rain tarp,

and I just looked like a piece of shit. And everyone there, Luke, had good ass costumes that their parents made with like the mark, with like the colors on the face. And they had the Thriller record. I'm so old that I went to Halloween party

with the Thriller record. And they just played the record over and over again. And I stood in the corner while everybody else like hung out and laughed because I felt so self-conscious about my GoBots costume. I have had some, I would like to make

fun of you, but I've had some real what the fuck were you thinking kind of moments. I've done a lot of the I'm just not going to do the whole costume bit too, which is also a lame bit. I'm going to be a college defensive coordinator. Mom's like, that's great. Which one? You're like, Sandusky.

Jesus Christ. Now that's scary, Luke, okay? Should I just call HR now? All right, Jose A. is here. Hey, Donks, it's Jose Afonso here. This guy's becoming a regular here. Your number one fan from Brazil and certified BDE, Brian's Doink Every Day.

Donk Every Day. First of all, thank you so much for recognizing me as a regular of this show. I've been here since day one and haven't missed an episode. And for that, I have two memes this week for you guys. First time, I have a request. Please do another year-end wrap-up show this year so newcomers are aware of how crazy and weird this show is.

That's not a bad idea. The other meme is it's... Oh, so first, this is the wrap-up show. Can we meme it? That's fair. That's fair. That's not wrong. Also, your haircut there is a little drill instructor.

Yeah, it's very... It's very... What's that guy's name from the OKC bombing? Tim, Timothy McVeigh. I was going to say more Rosie O'Donnell. No, it's very McVeigh. That's when they don't listen. You want the mid fade and then by the end

of the haircut, you've enlisted. You got the high end type. The second one is a knock on our favorite quasi-Katari bench presser. Luke, you're truly a gem to the MMA world and we love you. Not an artist like BC, but still pretty good. Keep up with the practices, and congratulations on the 100K.

Everyone at the MK team, you truly deserve it. Jose, thank you for being our friend, okay? Luke, what do you think about this meme? It's fair. So really, you're saying Jose Alfonso should step his meme game up, but thank you for the support. I mean, you know, listen, if we're going to insult the donks with cable management they have a right to fire back so yeah I can't I also cannot remember a time I was I can remember it but I don't know

what it's I can't I can't those days are long gone. I wasn't always a Dodge Neon I'm not saying I was a Corvette. You know I drove a Dodge Neon from age 21 to until I got married. You are a Dodge Neon. Yeah, but I had the Salsa Red Dodge Neon, so it looked a little sexy. Where were you on if people unironically had the Volkswagen Beetles? Oh, that was big where I'm from. When we were kids, weren't Beetles like the Rage, you know? Punch Buggies, you're talking about? Punch Buggies.

You're talking about the new ones or the old ones? Either. Yeah, they were big, but whatever. If you were a drug rug, you probably drove a punch buggy in my high school. Okay. You were cool. You slayed.

Okay. Armando is here. Hello, Donk Commanders. I thought you might appreciate the references, but I love the show and have been watching since episode one. Let's see what this guy's got. Donk, this isn't 2000. It's time for some dad rock.

Limp Bizkit, Foo Fighters, Dying Fetus, and then there's Candle in the Corpse in my hands. I like the Beavis and Butthead thing. I don't quite get the red eyes, but... Oh, are we high? I guess we're high, Luke, okay? That would explain it. Jason's here.

He says, what's going on, fellas? Jay from Boston, back for the fifth time. To begin, we all must testify and pay our respects to the new BC. Much respect to you, BC, for ridding your life of the sloppiness of the old guy slugfest and gas station food. We baptize you, my brother Brian, in the name of Father, Son, and Street Jesus. Amen. That sounds a little sacrilege, but Luke, do you appreciate this meme just the same? They're washing me of my sins for liking BKFC 7-Eleven.

Someone put some effort into it. Okay. Put some effort into it. Next, I have to reignite the artistic fire that BC suggested a few weeks ago. That's funny. After filling in for Luke's live chat. The Thursday night live chat wars. It's time that BC gets in on the live chat game.

And maybe it doesn't have to be every week, but a friendly competition every now and then would be a great addition to the MK content. Luke, I did petition to the show to have my own live chat and go head to head with you. I thought it would be great for really putting a line in the sand and our fans. Are you here for Luke? Are you here for beast? Like, are you,

are you, are you Francesa or are you, are you Russo? You know what I'm saying? And they, they turned me down. I mean, if you want to take that Pepsi challenge,

we can do that. If you want, I think you'd be very disappointed. Over time. I think I would show you what time it is. At least critically, at least critically. I don't think you would.

I think you'd be very disappointed with what the world shows you back. I looked up all the search terms that people use to find our channel. Yeah. Your name doesn't fit in the top 150. That's because they know me by various names. Just so you know, I think mine is fourth or fifth. So just put that out there. We want to play that game.

We can play it. As Jason just told us here, Luke, I'm not against it, okay? You know what I'm saying? It's a good logo. I'll say that. Some people, Luke, look at their dreams as inspiration. And you look at it as? Inspiration.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I dreamed about slicing you last night. Yeah, okay. Luke, lastly, just like you have said many times, BC. That's a good one. There really are Team Luke donks and Team Brian donks throughout the MK universe, and I made some merch for each team.

Thank you both. MK all day. Every motherfucking day. Luke, this is pretty good. Do you need a hug, Brian? What's up? The voice of the voice of the voiceless. Yes, this is actually a pretty good t-shirt.

We should, RJ, if you're watching, get on the MK site, get us something similar to this. It's not a bad shirt. Yeah. Not bad. I agree. All right, two more for you. Tanner says, hey, not sure. Wait, wait, wait.

What's the one on the back of mine? Show me. Actually, we should straight up steal this idea. Go straight with these two right on the end. Yeah, that's pretty good. You know what? Whichever sells more, Beastie shirts or Luke Thomas shirts, we can donate

some of the proceeds to domestic violence. Yeah, we certainly could. Anyway, Luke, here's Tanner. Hey, not sure if this fits more into DMs or fan submissions, but here it is regardless. Because of what he's told us, here's how I envision Luke telling his wife

and the rest of his family that MK has reached 100. No, in fact, I do exactly the opposite. I have learned the hard way not to tell them because the reaction is just routinely disappointing. So I just keep it to myself. True story. I don't tell them. Oh, you know what?

I put it on social media so they saw it that way. Luke, we love you and we thank you. By the way, you sent me a very i know you said back genuine a very genuine text about like you know bro like you know fuck all the hand clapping hands on the backs the bullshit you know we made 100k and that's because you're not easy and i love you and i was just like you know it's a little and then he's like i had a dream about stabbing you yeah that didn't go out like that finally dylan says hey guys big fan down here in little old New Zealand. Bringing the best show in MMA to the donks of the MK universe requires a real superhero effort.

A superhero effort requires a superhero, or in this case, two washed 40-something superheroes. This looks like a job for Fact Man and Nobbin. Thanks for all your hard work. Love this show. Holy shit. Wow. Quite candidly, Nobbin. Thanks for all your hard work. Love this show. Holy shit. Wow. Quite candidly, Nobbin. I'd like to offer some facts, if I may.

First, holy interrupting dick joke, Fact Man. Yeah, wow, I interrupted you before you even finished. And the best part is they get, go back to the full screen if you can, please. They gave us, oh, they gave you the Joel Schumacher suit that has nipples. Look. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, Luke. I don't have that. You know, that's not very functional on a man, though. Call me crazy. No, I don't think it is. I think Joel Schumacher just was having a little fun. Yeah. That's a good one.

Frackman and Nobbin is a good one. You want to join this cavalcade of circus stars, morningcombat at gmail.com is the place to come and slide right in. Luke, I can't tell if us being in the studio today raised our game, if we gave a better show than normal, or if we... Yes, we did. Okay. Yes, we did.

It was a good show today. Then my work here is done. As a reminder, if you want to get some merch, which we don't quite have the I'm Luke Thomas or B. Campbell thing. That's a good-looking shirt, though, right there. Yes, but you can get this one, Morning Combat Fight Club. Right now, you can go to morningcombat.store, and you can pick one up. Actually, this is my favorite piece of merch that we have.

It's comfortable. It's nice. I like the message. The message is simple. You know what one I tend to wear? The word dog is not on it. I wear the white one that says, MK, have a nice day. You know that one?

I wear that one the most. I like that one. That's a good one, too. Also, the one with, it's not in the story yet, but we have the markups. The one where it's just your glasses and it says morning combat and the shit. I don't think that one's available yet. I don't think it's available yet either, but we'll get it there soon enough, but there's plenty of good stuff. So go check that out. By the way, we'll have a big preview for the Bellator fights this weekend. Only one place to watch them. Showtime, go to showtime.com, get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you may go somewhere else. We will be putting Daniel inside of the lion's den when we do this resume review tomorrow. Let's see if the curses can end this guy

or maybe Shadrach, Meshach, and Unbegna go can come in there and get saved, saved by the fire, Luke. There's a lot of biblical cross-references there. I think you're just saying gibberish. Yeah, that's probably as well. What I'm trying to say, though, is let's see if the resume review curse can go to 8-0. We're going to find out when we record tomorrow ahead of this fight. When do you want to announce who it is? Not now.

Yeah. Not now. So let's see. What else? We've got the store. We've got Showtime. We've got Showtime. We've got the email. Oh, if you want a $50 gift card, do us a solid.

Go to Apple Podcasts. Help us interfere with the algorithm. Basically, just hack the whole thing by leaving us a nice five-star review. If they're funny, we'll give you a $50 gift card. I've got one more thing, Luke. It's not just the viewers that I always want to thank, the 100K, all that stuff.

It's not just Showtime and CBS and Malka, the labels that pay us. It's not just you I want to thank for all of our success. One of our brethren, one of our teammates. It's not only his birthday today, but they told him he could stay home, but he wanted to come in anyway. It's our guy, Gaff.

Gaffney Pierre. I'm sorry, I don't know who that is. Yes, a producer, Extreme Gaff. Come on out here, and we, with our huge budget, wanted to pay tribute the only way we know how. Taking a stale donut and putting a... Gaff, what year is this for you on this earth? This is my 30th birthday.

Happy 30th birthday, Gaff. Former high school defensive end. Do you have COVID? No. Okay. Gaff, you do a little music on the side. Do you want to share your artist name with the people? It's Often Spaced.

Often Spaced. Often Spaced.com. Okay. Okay. He's got the MK hoodie on. Yo, plug that shit, okay? By the way, I'm told that he had the day off but insisted on coming in because BC and I were here

or for other reasons that I'm just making up. This is where you would make a wish, hopefully involving Luke's downfall, but we'll see what happens here, you know? Go for it, Gaff. This one's to you. Happy birthday to Gaff, everybody. I won't sing the whole thing, but please

blow us. Very nice job. Very nice job. My wish is for you guys to get more in combat. Wow. That'll be hard for him, not so difficult for me. Alright, so there you have it. Happy birthday, Gaff. Feliz cumpleaños.

Hey, Gaff is, you know, of all the people who deals with shit, that's the guy I sent Have You Seen This Shit to, and that guy just cleans that up beautifully. Yep. Okay. All right. Well, with that out of the way, I want to thank Showtime. I want to thank CBS Sports and Malka, and happy birthday, Gaff.

And to everyone out there, like the video, subscribe. That's Brian Campbell. We've got a lot to do here for the next three days while we're here in Jersey City. So stay tuned. Ladies and gentlemen, best place to do it, of course, will be all over social media and youtube.com slash morning combat. BC, any final thoughts before we go? Chuck Mendenhall. See you soon, boy. See you soon. I back, Chuck. I back. All right. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. Until next time, may all your gains be loyal.