MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Khabib Staying Retired | Pettis vs. Collard | TJ Dillashaw | Ep. 122

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

MK is back for episode 122. Luke and Brian react to Khabib Nurmagomedov saying he will stay retired forever and that he doesn't believe fighters can have their second prime. Is this saga finally over? PLus, Anthony Pettis vs. Clay Collard set for PFL and TJ Dillashaw wants UFC bantamweight title fight next. Should he get it? Also, Holly Holm vs. Juliana Pena has been booked for May 8th. ---------------------------- '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: store.sho.com   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

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

This is Morning Combat. It is Wednesday, February 24th, 2021. Yes, that's correct. And it is time, everybody, for Morning Combat. Hello there, my name is Luke Thomas. I am one half of your hosting duo. I'm from CBS Sports and Showtime and Washington, D.C., I guess. He is the Q to my Anon. He is the conspiracy to my theory. He is the Roth to my child or something like that. I don't even know what he would be.

He is the king of Connecticut, the apathy to myself titled. It's Brian Campbell. Hi, Brian. How are you? Also from CBS Sports. How are you, sir? Thank you, Luke. Hi, Luke.

We've got this afternoon and we've got this show for two. So there's only one thing left to do, Luke. Discover me discovering you. 48 degrees today in the frozen tundra of Connecticut. I'm very excited to be here. Hump Day, No Jay Wednesday. Spinning the wheel of death today. Talking fights with you.

We're back. A lot of great wellness checks done in my dms from our fine listeners around the world so thank you folks uh it's we're going day by day hour by hour here but today's a good day luke didn't even have to use the ak one time very good i'm glad to see that i watched uh what was the movie that they made with about nwa um where ice cube's son played himself yeah yeah what was that? Straight out of Compton, maybe? Straight out of Compton, yeah.

I saw that the other day. It's okay. A little overrated, but it's fine. All right. Well, today we have a lot to get to. There's actually tons of boxing and MMA headlines from Nurmagomedov being pretty definitive about his future. We are now just three or so days away from the return of Canelo Alvarez,

but should we be? We're going to get to some of that as well. Plus, we're going to spin the wheel. We've got some SJ Dubs, and we have fan submissions. I've not seen any of this stuff, so very curious to see how that goes. Hopefully we have less. I need less fan submissions, please. I should point

out that we are less than 100 subs away from 80K, so we're very very close to the next milestone obviously we have you know bigger dreams than just 80k but that's the next piece you got to celebrate all the small victories so please help us get there like the video uh or give it a thumbs up and then hit that subscribe button notification bell and if you're watching this right now and you know a friend who likes mma content and they don't know about this show send this to them please because

this is the best show in combat sports. Great. Great. No sell on the sport of boxing right there, Luke. You know, I mean, there are boxing fans out there, too. Yeah, there's some. There's some. That's true.

It's like 5% of our audience, but there's some. All right. But with that in mind, we do have a lot of boxing to get to today. So by all means, if you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. Showtime.com for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, go fuck yourself. If you sign up for Showtime after your 30-day free trial,

I think you're going to get $4.99 for the first six months so you can watch Bellator for $5 a month, plus everything else Showtime has to offer. If you want some merch like this cup, this glass, you can go to store.show.com. You can get this. You see the hat BC's got there. I think he's got the beanie there.

Shirts, hats, beanies, mugs, tumblers, the whole nine yards. You can go and get stuff from there. By the way, we have a meeting about another round of this this week. So for folks who live in Nebraska or Canadaaska or canada or other places you might be able to get some mk merch well you know once in a while we do remove the fourth wall and actually tell the truth on this show we have a tentative meeting scheduled where not only will luke and i approve and dis and deny uh certain merch 2.0 designs but luke i believe the structure is in place for international MK shipping.

Am I right? Am I right? You are correct. That's basically correct. I cannot wait to see what our weird, aggressive fan base from Australia to the Middle East, Luke, from Danbury, Connecticut to Doha, what they can do with their hard-earned money to support us internationally. Because I can't tell you how many DMs I get that say, bro, I live in Wales, the land of Joe Calzaghe. I want to wear the green hoodie that Luke and BC's wife wear every day.

I want to wear it. So it's their time, Luke, okay? It's their time coming up. It certainly is. So that looks like it's coming around the corner. And, yeah, I think that's it for right now, BC. You ready to get this started? Oh, yeah. coming up it certainly is uh so that is looks like it's coming around the corner and uh yeah I think that's it for right now BC you ready to get this started oh yeah I'm I'm uh yeah uh yes Luke yes yes all right so first things first yes good first things first let's go to Habib

Nurmagomedov so he did an interview um with a was it another fighter, Meghamed Ismailov? I don't know how you pronounce this. But he was asked about the kinds of things that you would ask about. Now, I don't know if we're going to put these quotes on the screen, but I'll read them just the same for folks who might be listening to the audio version of the show. Quote, when talking about whether he's coming back, never. There is no way that a man, sorry, I'm talking about McGregor, sorry, never. There is no way that a man can be at the peak for two times, Habib said. I'm not talking just about McGregor. What I mean is a man can't have two primes.

A team could do it, for example. Real Madrid did this a few times in a row. Teams may have this, but we're talking about us and one man, and on his own he cannot have this he goes on to talk about Ferguson by the way well I swear I never do that those comments were also about the idea when he was asked if he would ever come back post-retirement right so it's under the auspices of you're going away would you ever come back and he's saying no a man can't have two primes you know straight up right. So we got that there.

I want to read this out and then we'll get to all of it. There's lots to unpack, but let me just run through it. Talking about Tony Ferguson, quote, I swear I never considered him an elite lightweight. He was very good, but I never counted him so because it is impossible to be elite at 37 years old. It's never been before and I cannot do this. At 37 years in the lightweight division, no way. Heavyweights can. In my opinion, you cannot change it. Secondly, since 2016, he fought Kevin Lee, Barboza, Pettis, and Cerrone. These fighters have 20 losses for these four years.

It means that since 2016, he didn't fight good fighters, but now he faced young and top fighters, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje. They outclassed him. You saw this. Both fighters just dominated Tony. BC, let me get this last quote out and we'll go piece by piece here. Then he talks about St. Pierre. Quote, when you say George St. Pierre, that name really motivates me, Habib concluded. GSP really makes me excited and so on, but it's all over, brother's 40 years old let's just leave it for sure we like him as a human being he is the legend he is the decent representation of mma let it be like this there's gsp and habib okay a lot to get to there bc but the basic

takeaway that i have from this is, this fucking guy is not coming back. Period. He never was. He never freaking was. Okay? Luke, how freaking shameless right now. Forget that early round, because maybe in that early round of Dana saying,

we're going to meet, we're going to talk, there was still some real hopeful, hey, if Conor goes out there and knocks out Dustin at 257, you know, we could, I could just say, hey, Habibor goes out there and knocks out Dustin at 257, you know, we could, I could just say, hey, Habib, what's your freaking number? And maybe we can do it. And maybe there was a little hope if GSP was willing to cut to 155 that, you know, Habib would say, okay, let's do it. That's my dream fight. None of that shit's happening anymore, okay? There's another quote he gave Luke in a in a scrum with some Russian media the week before where they asked to be would you ever fight at 170

now that GSP said he can't cut down to lightweight it's too much of a risk at 40 and Habib said no I'm not gonna fight above my best in prime weight no Luke there is no drops of hope left in that jar. So the fact that Dana White right now, after Conor McGregor just lost at 257, would continue to delay this under the long shot hope. Okay, maybe not long shot, but under the hope that he can give the public a non-title Dustin versus Conor three this spring. And under the hope that Conor could win that. And then under the hope above on hope that he could then go to Habib and still try to convince him to come back to cash in that rematch check. What the frick are we doing?

Strip the title from this guy. He's already retired. How many more times can he say publicly that Dustin Poirier should be the lightweight champion right now? Hey, Dana, what the frick are we doing I'm about to make a four minute video uh calling you out for this okay all right this has nothing to do with why am I bae all right I'm not here to call you an old bitch I'm just here to say stop it already this legend's freaking done dude this is the curse and the blessing to an extent of Dana White this is a guy who just doesn't believe in the in the word no or the limits of possibility or any kind of way that might limit your growth or your ability to take advantage of an opportunity and for many reasons

that has done him a lot of good right he? He has pushed through when everyone else was like, these obstacles are too great. He took a sport into the mainstream. And we all know the many ways in which he has just forced his will to make MMA and UFC as popular as it is. And I think that's definitely one of the good sides to what he does. But this is clearly where there's a downside. He ran into this against Fedor. They wanted to do co-promotion. He wouldn't do it, and he assured the public if he wanted to get someone, he could do it. Well, you couldn't sign a deal with Fedor,

and Scott Coker could, right? So just keep that in mind. Granted, he had to do things that Dana wasn't willing to do, but he did get the deal done with Fedor Emelianenko. More to the point, you look at what happened early in COVID, where he's like, we're just going to go and make a show happen when no one really knows what's safe. There was no commission protocol.

They were going to go around commissions. I know he said they weren't going to do that, but California was shut down. They were putting a show in California. Whatever the state commission was that they were planning to use, they never named. So to that point, then the Senate and basically the governor and Disney have to step in and stop him.

Here he is a case where he is telling the public, and maybe he believes truly in his heart of hearts, maybe he believes, BC, that he can turn this ship around. But dude, if this is the best he can do around Khabib and this issue, he ain't doing very well. These messages are unequivocal. And this is not the only interview he's given, dude. Every time he's asked about this since beating Justin Gaethje, it's the same thing over and over. The only time it deviates, as you well know, is when Dana's like, well, I talked to Habib and he gave me this and he gave me that. Well, whenever Habib gives his own words words they don't sound anything nearly like this

this fucking guy is not coming back there's no doubt in these quotes time after time so here's the deal luke there's been a very liberal decision making process in modern day ufc as to who gets stripped of belts when and why like look nobody really cares historically but Nico Montano got a raw deal and getting stripped uh Jermaine Durand to me to a lesser degree kind of got a raw deal I know she said she didn't want to fight she did not get a raw deal but all right well still straight up they're like you're stripped tomorrow right I mean we've seen DC Connor gets stripped when Dana just decided you can't hold two titles anymore we need to to open that one back up. And now we're just going to completely, completely hijack this division, keep a title on a guy who's telling you I'm not coming back.

What the hell do you think about your status and value in the company if you're Dustin Poirier, a guy who is as lunch pail and as model of a citizen in representation in 2021 of what a fighter can be, could be, and should be, and as a philanthropist, what a human being as a fighter could be, you just went out there and save for the loss to Habib, which was straight up and fair, you're on this kind of historic run

where you're beating top-ranked guy after top-ranked guy in a historically deep division, and you just beat the company's ultimate golden child in a rematch of maybe your worst loss as a pro. And instead of crowning you, we're talking about an unofficial tournament that is so see-through in its intentions to try to get Conor McGregor another win

so we can put Conor in there against Habib and cash the UFC's biggest lottery ticket in history. What the hell do you tell yourself at night if you're Dustin Poirier about your value in this company? I'm not giving this rant to try to stir up shit. This is straight up shocking, Luke, okay? Maybe doing it around 257, kind of fooling the public, hope against hope. Maybe I could talk Khabib into it. Okay, I get it. That's why Dana's relentless. That's why he's a champion in so many ways when it comes to business and success.

Dana, you kept my job afloat during 2020. Thank you. How many more times can I say that and yet still end up as the centerpiece of a four minutes video calling out the media? Notwithstanding, what the hell are we doing right now all right look that ran over with for a second and i don't know seriously if you're dustin poirier again how you can swallow this and just be like yeah the company loves me nah bro nah nah they don't um he just sent uh tony ferguson to the woodshed in ways we don't typically see habib to

do what do you think about these comments? I get the comments from like, at 37, you can no longer be elite, but he's basically like, look at everybody he fought since 2016. They have 20 losses combined. He hasn't beaten elite fighter in five years. You know, he never would have had a chance against me. That's interesting, Luke. Yeah. Well, I mean, is there some merit to it? I mean, yes and no. Partly it's like, what does he mean by elite? Does he mean top three? Does he mean top five? Is that sort of what he's saying? I would need him to clarify that just a little bit because when he says elite and when we say elite, we might mean two different things. So

there's a bit of, I think, a confusion there. Also, I think there is some ways to look at his resume and as good as it is, and I want to talk about that in just a second, to maybe to Habib's point to say, yes, there are some things he did really well, but if you really pay attention to the finer details, it comes up short along the way. Fine, there's probably something to be said for that. dude the win streak the guy went on for as many years as he went on you know Matt Brown made a point to me one time before he fought Wonderboy this was in Atlanta this was the first time I ever covered a fight at the time

in person for MMA fighting and Matt Brown made a great point to me he was like look man I don't know what to make of his undefeated kickboxing career 59-0 whatever it was he's like do I think all 59 guys were that good probably not but he's like do do I think all 59 guys were that good? Probably not. But he's like, do you mean to tell me that 59 times, you know, Stephen Thompson showed up and felt great and had a good night of sleep

and wasn't sick and wasn't dealing with injuries or some other kind of issue? No, this guy had many times probably where he didn't feel great and didn't want to fight and wasn't motivated or was injured and he still got the job done every single time dude he was doing that Tony Ferguson was for years at a bare minimum bare minimum BC against very good lightweights and he did it most of the time by fucking him up it wasn't a lot of time where I went to decision you were like you know he may have eked it out if it went to a decision he usually pummeled the guy or he stopped him outright.

And more to that point, this is sort of what undercuts his argument a little bit. Maybe by the time that Habib had fought, if you would have fought him in that May card or April card in New York, if there has been no COVID, maybe Habib would have thrashed him by that point. And maybe it is true that at age 37, nearly 38, it's too late for Tony to do his best work. Okay, that might be true. But at the time in which he was doing it, if he was already kind of old, 35, 36, and he was beating the guys that he was, that's even more impressive to me. So I do think Tony's elite.

I don't think he would have beaten Habib. I don't think there's a lightweight on earth who can beat Habib. And I do think there might be something to what Habib is saying, but I'd be curious to get your sense of what he said about Tony. Yeah, it's just weird because while Habib's always brutally honest, he doesn't typically try to take shots at guys unless it's like a Conor situation where we're already in the midst of a war. This was interesting for him basically to say,

these fights against Kevin Lee, Anthony Pettis, Donald Cerronerone they don't really count as great wins because of the losses those guys have and once tony finally got back to fighting young prime guys meaning olivera and gaethje look what happened i mean i don't know you stick to the point habib of saying it's really really hard if not impossible as a lightweight not a heavyweight which he said heavyweights you can reinvent yourself you can stay great late it's really hard as a lightweight sure to be truly elite at 37 so i'll stand by that luke i think some of the other stuff a little bit of a stretch maybe it's lost in translation i'm not really sure but uh interesting that he thinks this whole time he would have dominated tony and what's also interesting, Luke, is, you know, the last couple of years,

I was one of those guys saying, if anyone does have a chance to beat this unbeatable machine that is Habib Nurmagomedov, it's probably Tony Ferguson. And that was due to the awkward and voluminous striking style, the willingness to endure pain and put himself close to peril in order to try to get a win the combination of the good ground game i do wonder luke you know out of the you know 15 times they were scheduled to fight which you know would habib have dominated all those times i mean it's one of those things we

will never know but habib walking away now and being this strong on those comments of i'd never come back because i couldn't be as great as I am now, and I would never move up in weight because I couldn't be as great as I am now. Luke, it does take a special and rare athlete, whether we're talking Jim Brown, Rocky Marciano, whoever, to walk away at the, when you, Barry Sanders, to walk away when you still have, you know, the jug full or near full or 75% full of who you can be as an athlete.

That is so rare. That takes conviction. And you know what it does historically? It adds, dude, it straight up adds to you. You know what I'm saying? I always make that joking Kurt Cobain argument that I love those three Nirvana albums or those four or whatever, but would we be talking about his, you know, Beatles songwriting and his game changing ways if he hadn't died when he died?

Would he have put out a run of really shitty albums and had some co-albums with Courtney Love that would have been John and Yoko-esque and we would have hated him? Maybe, Luke. We'll never know though. Habib will, Legacy he never fights again is going to stay so close to being the damn GOAT if not eventually being considered the GOAT. Talk about control. He's controlled nearly every second of every fight

and he's controlling the way he's remembered. I mean, this is a special athlete and a special career, but let me just read for you one more time these GSP quotes in case you didn't get the message uh he's 40 years old it's all over brother let's just leave it habib ain't coming back so luke let me put it on you how does this end when does dana finally take the knee what's the future bring are we going to go into Dustin Conner three this year with that with

Habib still the champion and you know who's going to be crowned the next lightweight champion how how does this shit end I will say one thing just to end on Tony very quickly if I can he became something of a media darling and he wasn't at first it took a long time for him to become that probably because he had an exciting style and his fights were action-packed. And also what sort of happened with Tony was that you kind of felt like he'd been done wrong, that there were things that either through injury

or promotional lack of favoritism, he should have been further along given his abilities or given what he had done than he was. And so he kind of became a cause celeb for the media. And then by the time that he was given And so he kind of became a cause celeb for the media. And then by the time that he was given opportunities to advance this last stage, obviously it didn't go so well. So you could maybe say there was a bit of an overhype with media, but it was also just a very weird circumstances of Tony's career that helped create that. As it relates to St. Pierre,

I don't know what you want, man. I don't know what everyone wants out there. I don't know what you want, man. I don't know what everyone wants out there. I don't know what Dana wants, which is the essence of your question. At some point, he is going to have to say uncle to the situation, take the belt, and then figure out what to do. Here's the problem that I feel like Dana is in, which is that he is so pot committed to the idea of rescuing victory from the jaws of defeat here, that he's going to go to the very last moment

well past the time that he should have to see if he can rescue this operation and then once that inevitably fails you are so far down the line that getting back to something is going to feel weird and long overdue and there might be like dude here's the thing to think about would UFC stage another fight between Conor and Dustin yeah and let's say May or June or something yes and not put it and not put a title on the line because they're still waiting for Habib I find that unlikely BC but not impossible this is it's it's freaking crazy Luke look if here's one thing I will hold against Dana for the rest of my life, okay? I don't hold grudges. Who cares?

That four-minute video was hilarious. If Dustin Poirier retires, having only been an interim champion, and somehow either loses his next fight or doesn't get to hold the full championship, I will hold that against Dana for the rest of my life. I mean, you're screwing with a man's livelihood and career here. I don't know, Luke. All I know is from a business standpoint and the history we know of what you said, Dana White

not saying uncle, right? Him and the Fertittas went until they had very little left in the bank before Bonner and Griffin rescued them and they turned that corner financially. What the hell am I trying to say? Oh, I know what I'm trying to say here. Luke.

This is a good soliloquy by you. Yeah, this is great. I think I just had an in-show lobotomy there, Luke. I mean, where do I go next? Should I start foaming at the mouth? I was going to say, Luke, that this is an extreme level, and what it shows me is that Dana hasn't used his Trump card yet, and I'm not talking about Donald

what I'm talking about is there is some offer that he has in the back of his mind that he thinks will be the thing that makes Habib give in you know you can guess and say well it's Connor and a chance to break the record but I think Luke and I said before on the show and you laughed at me

I do think there is a price for the million-dollar man and there is some dollar value that Dana would be willing to go to if he has to. And I think he's going to wait and see if Conor beats Dustin and then try to present that number to Habib and say, you are a man of conviction, but are you a $50 million man of conviction? Yeah, dude, they don't overpay ufc can be accused of many

things overpaying they might have paid for like overpaid for like hector lombard i know that when he came over someone told me that you know again this is what someone in the know you can stop that please thank you that's incredibly annoying um bc will you stop please thank you uh hector lombard i know was making like 500k a fight almost but he came over from bellator i don't think he quite got uh the ufc quite got out of him what they were looking for but dude this idea that like oh they're gonna go to the bank and really make it happen dude when have they ever done that like when have they ever you know just totally paid deontay wilder money for a fight? Okay, but that's an easy thing to say.

In all the court filings, in all the court filings in those years, the seven years or whatever it is, there's not one instance of them overpaying. Okay, well, let me counter that. Can I counter that to you? Please. When have they ever been presented with the potential of booking a fight that could do 3 million pay-per-view buys? Okay, but two 1.5s they've never done i mean to your point yes this fight is unique but i'm just saying as a rule they don't they don't

do this they don't go out and let the fighter get some kind of incredible dude if if if he got paid an actual 15 million and word got around that's to now be the benchmark every time for everyone else who is a big-time, let me get this right, a big-time million-plus pay-per-view headliner. They're going to say, I want that money. Okay, first of all, there's very little fights in UFC history, to your point, that have ever done a million-plus. We're talking about a rematch that has the potential to do three million because it's already shattered the record.

And also, hold on, after Conor lost to Dustin last time, I'm not so sure $3 million is the ceiling. Closer to $2 million might be, I think, which is still huge. But still, $3 million I think is very much out of range. All right, don't deceive yourself. If Conor knocks out Dustin in a trilogy fight, that changes the financials again, Luke. So don't deceive yourself on that. But to your point of other fighters saying, I want Habib money, it will be very easy for Dana to say, okay, go 30-0, bro.

Okay, seriously. Yeah, but then they could say, okay, I didn't go 30-0. I went 28-2. I don't want Habib money. I don't want 15. I want 10. Dude, 10 is still well above. That's, you know, when I talk about a one-third off, you know,

that's still well above what they would normally pay. The court documents show that the Diaz fights that were paid for by UFC Conor got after the fact folks don't seem to realize this seven and a half million seven and he got 15 million for two fights okay for two fights and that's Conor in 2016 when he was red fucking hot uh I don't know what people think if you just begin to raise the prices people are going to take notice of that they don't want to do that if they can avoid it all right well then why did why did connor in an interview with ariel after the cowboy fight allude to the idea that his goal was to make start to finish after all the receipts and bonuses are

counted and all the back room dana here's your your cheese uh he would he had hoped to make a hundred and he inferred to ariel that he cleared around 80 million instead i i think you're off luke i think you're not understanding at the one percent level for ufc draws the one percent level that there are that there is millions they're getting that we never know about okay so that's one thing no there no there isn't no there isn't bc have you reviewed the documents that that zufa under penalty of law returned in and by the way not just penalty of law they have an incentive to show as much as possible and the reason why is because the more you show the more it undercuts the argument that you are underpaying it actually

would serve you in the lawsuit to show more. Have you reviewed even one year of those documents? I've reviewed all of them. Okay, if you want to make an argument that 2016 Conor made less than we thought. There is clear instruction in those documents that they are going to keep pay at 20% a year. I don't give a fuck what one fighter tells any member of the media. It means zero to me.

Does this argument change because that media member is Canadian? What matters is evidence, and there is absolutely no evidence, public or otherwise, that says that they would pay something like that. Now, maybe if he cleared 15 mil and he can keep going long enough, maybe he could get 80 mil, but that is what he got in 2016. Two fights, seven and a half million each total. There is no secret bonus. It does not exist. I don't know. I don't know, Luke. I don't know, but let me just close with this. Wait, wait, stop, stop. When you say you don't know,

what do you mean? Do you mean to say that Zufa lied to courts? Is that what you mean to say? Well, look, I'm willing to say that both the Habib fight and the Cowboy fight. No, no, no. Answer the question. Dude, when they turned those documents in, did they turn in every red cent that they were aware of? Yes or no? I'm saying that it's very possible that they didn't put down.

Even though your argument says it would benefit them, I don't think they put down every bonus. It's not my argument. It's the truth, BC. BC, why would Zufa, who is being sued in a way where if they lose, if they lose, if they lose, it will fundamentally change their business to the point where it would be unrecognizable, okay?

Massive implications. Why on earth, if you are being sued for not paying enough, would you hide millions of dollars in sum to prove that you don't actually underpay? Because this was a 1% situation with whoever the, the, the Lesnar Rousey McGregor level draw of the moment is that there's a certain... Look, all I'm saying is, did he clear $80 million for the cowboy fight? I don't know. But I'm telling you, he made more than $7.5 million when all said and done, Luke. That's what I'm saying there.

So I've got to ask you, is Dana... I know you want to keep arguing this, Luke. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I don't want to keep arguing this, Luke. I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't want to keep arguing. I don't understand this argument that when you present evidence to people and you show them what the truth is, they still go, oh, no, there must be secret money. It's not real. Now, did he make more to fight Habib because it sold a lot more?

Yeah, maybe he made $10, $12, $ 12 15 million for 20 million even for something like that although i even that i find kind of crazy but yes maybe maybe uh it escalated up but dude 20 20 is what they're always going to pay i don't have evidence that there was more than one shooter in the jfk assassination luke but uh got a pretty good belief system that there was okay luke all right that there was you know what i'm saying right. You know what I'm saying? So great. You know, you can tell your court presented facts to go fuck themselves. Thank you. And your William and Mary education.

Luke, let me just close by saying this. Do you think it's more likely that Dana is underestimating the conviction of Habib and kind of making him look bad in doing that? Or that he does have this trump card and we've speculated in the past is it a common is it just money or is it money with i'll help your promotion that you are now the head of and i'll help your fighters down the road i mean is there is there something that he hasn't got do you do you subscribe to that theory which one is it i do think i do think that they're he's got that new promotion i'm sure he would like that promotion to be a feeder league to UFC.

I'm sure that they have offered to pay as much as they're willing to, given the larger factors here. Listen, I'm sure that he is trying to do everything he can reasonably think of. And, you know, is he insulting Habib by keeping going? I mean, I guess on some level, if you really want to argue that, you could. But he's a promoter. He's a promoter. And He's a good promoter. He's a very successful promoter. He's going to do this kind of thing. It's just inevitable. It's really up to Khabib. And so far, he has done it to say no. And it's up to impartial-ish or disconnected observers to say

what the facts are, the situation is best they can ascertain so i don't i don't consider it something like insulting um you know oh he's going after his identity by not uh you know acknowledging his principles the guy is trying to put on a historically important fight but at some point even that guy has to recognize that this is just a hill that can't be climbed and back to your point on the $7.5 million per Conor fight in 2016, both the Mayweather fight and the Habib fight changed that pay structure and flipped it upside down, Luke, okay? Okay, well, 20% guy, just remember that. All right, with that in mind, let's talk about the next topic here,

which is not as sexy as Habib and GSP and blah, blah, blah, but it is actually kind of sneakily important so PFL put out some of their announced fights for their 23rd April 23rd return BC I'll go through them in a second but the main event for their lightweight tourney

is interesting it's Anthony Pettis taking on Clay Collard now for folks who may not know Clay Collard used to be a featherweight. He actually lost, I think, to Max Holloway. He had an okay, very mediocre run in UFC. He was a decent fighter, but just couldn't really get over the hump. And the last year, BC, correct me if I'm wrong, because I saw a couple of the fights,

has been fighting like six rounders on ESPN in boxing and winning against several top prospects along the way. Is that true or false? He had a five-fight winning streak in 2020 alone. He was the star of top ranks MGM bubble there in Las Vegas. Yes, he started to beat guys who were 8-0, 10-0, who looked like they had bright futures. And just on straight aggression and guile, he was stopping them or winning split decisions. It finally came to a head in December when he stepped up to another level

and he lost the decision to a man named Quincy Lavalais. I don't know a ton about him or the other guys he fought, but I'll tell you this, Luke. He's only 27, Clay Collard, and this is very interesting matchmaking. I mean, it's been a long time. He hasn't fought in the USC since 2015. To your point, he went one and three. His only win against Alex White.

And then he lost to Holloway, Gabe Benitez, and Tiago Trader. But, I mean, is this a setup to give Anthony Pettis a name-ish opponent that he can figure out a way to do some spinny Showtime shit again? Is this what it is? Because either way, this is sneaky matchmaking. I couldn't tell you offhand how good Clay Collard is as a mixed martial artist, though. Well, a couple of things about Clay Collard that you've got to note, right?

These photos we're showing here, this was the Brooklyn Israeli kid. Am I getting that right? I forget his name. getting that right i forget his name is that right uh no not this guy with the tattoos he's a little bit different but the one they were showing before with the shaved head he was considered to be like a very top prospect collar has been beating the people he was not supposed to beat on this run which sort of makes what happens the israeli david kaminsky yeah it was a, David Kaminsky, who's a top prospect and still is.

He performed pretty well in the end there, but Collar just had the better night. So here's my point. He's been beating the guys he's not supposed to beat. He's tough as hell. He's got decent hands. I mean, you know, he's never going to be a high-level professional boxer, but he's okay.

He can hold his own. And Pettis has a lot of miles on him, plus fades later in fights, BC. So to me, do I favor Pettis to win? Yes. But that dude, there's a lot of tread on those tires. And while he is the flashier, the more skilled, maybe the better athlete too in every way, we have seen over the course of a fight,

especially if it's five rounds, I don't know that it is, but let's say that it is, the fact that it goes five rounds is in, I should say, it doesn't favor Clay Collard, but that particular aspect, not overall per se, favors Clay Collard. That's an interesting fight. That's a very interesting fight. By the way, also on that card, Nathan Schulte, who was a previous champion for them, taken on Marcin Held, previously of UFC and Bellator fame.

Movalid Khabalayayev taking on Jason Soares. And then the guy who has made more money basically anonymously in MMA than anyone else, Lance Palmer, is taking on Bubba Jenkins. Your thoughts on the card? Yeah, look, in the main card that you mentioned is on ESPN2. And even on the prelims, you're getting Johnny Case. You're getting Obin Mercier. You're getting some interesting names.

We gave PFL credit when this lot of names for their tournament was announced that it's a really intriguing mix of names we know, names we kind of have heard of, and some legit guys. So I think this is really cool matchmaking with Pettis and Collard.

And Collard had won over a lot of people's hearts with this blue collar mentality, this upset mindedness, the fact that he can switch between both sports. Just to catch you up on his MMA career, I just checked it up. After he got cut from the UFC, Luke, he took three years off of MMA, but he's come back. He's won four of five cents, although in lower regional organizations. But this is a big spot for him to try to carve out another huge upstate and make a name for himself.

And I think even if he gets demolished, it's a good name to give you a reason to check out Showtime Pettis' continuation of his career. So, Luke, I've been negative at one or PFL at times. Look, I'm kind of pro-PFL right now, so thank you guys, all right? You can chill out on the PR aggressiveness in trying to get me to interview these guys, but let me come around at my own speed, all right? And also on that card, we didn't mention it, but it deserved to be mentioned,

the guy who won on Contender Series and Dana White wouldn't sign because he went for a takedown last minute. Brendan, I think it's Lachnan, taking on UFC vet Shaman Marais, so that should be fun as well. Decent card, April 23rd. Prelims on ESPN.

Main card on ESPN2. BC, TJ Dillashaw recently did an interview with Mike Swick of Tough One fame. Real quick with Mike Swick on the podcast. And Dillashaw spoke about returning from his long layoff, which is now over, by the way. He is officially, to my knowledge, eligible to compete again. I think that ended in January. And what he said, talking about the 259 upcoming clash, there's three title fights on that card,

one of which, of course, is Peter Yan taking on Aljamain Sterling. He suggested potentially facing the winner. Now, there's an argument to be made about part of the reason why, you know, they wanted to make the Cejudo fight at 35 and, well, more so at 25. But the point being is, there's an argument to be made that what the UFC might be looking for a little bit at 135 is introducing any known celebrity factor that is possible. TJ Dillashaw does, whether you like him or dislike him, whether you thought the punishment was fair long enough or not, wherever you stand, I believe has more known star power in that division

than a lot of other deserving contenders. What do you do with him in terms of this? Do you agree to his, not demand, but his suggestion or something else? It's a very interesting debate that almost touches on morality to a certain degree. Look, Jose Aldo got the first shot at Peyote. Are we going with Peyotre, Peyote, Pewter? Dude, I'm saying, listen, I don't know how it's pronounced. I'm going to go Peter until I'm not supposed to anymore.

I think, John, it goes Pewter. So, look, Jose Aldo coming off two losses, got the first title defense against Piotr Jan. And Dominic Cruz coming off of layoffs, got a recent title opportunity there too. So, this tells you that it's very likely Dillashaw would. And to your point on whoever wins Sterling against Jan, we kind of should believe that Sanhagen would be next.

But is it better for business to make whoever wins that fight a star by, to what you said, feeding him a very, very well-known B-side to potentially beat? Yeah, that's just good business. My question is, Luke, even with your stance on USADA and PEDs in the sport and all that, and even with the things we've seen in the past, like moving a card for Jon Jones on just a couple days' notice to another city and state over Christmas break because he popped dirty for another drug test,

should morally this be okay? I mean, shouldn't Dillashaw have some kind of penalty? I mean, okay, he sat out two years of his remaining left prime, and he's 35 right now. Is that enough of a penalty? You can debate that what you want. But to reward him with a title fight, Luke? I mean, I could just as easily make the argument

that he might be the greatest Bantamweight we've ever seen, but I don't know if I feel great about that at the end of the day. I mean, listen, I do think Dana White is instructive here I forget who he was saying about it before um it was some athlete who had spent a very minor amount of time in prison six months a year or something like that and they were now looking to you know restart their life and should they be able to and And Dan White once made a point. Again, I need to remember who it was. But he had said, look, the guy went to trial, was found guilty, went to prison, did every day that they told him to do. And now he's out.

The penalty that he had to serve for the wrongdoing is over. He did it. We told him what it was. And he did it. Now is his chance to no longer be penalized for that. And to your point, BC, I do think that if you want to do just good business, putting Dillashaw in there is good business, and we all know how that can be a driving factor in decision-making. Still, here's what I would say against it. Not that we need to re-penalize TJ Dillashaw,

but if the offense you had was that you were deriving some performance enhancement, he swears it was for one fight, but let's see what the reality of that is, and, BC, and I think this is the critical difference, and the division has changed dramatically in your absence, I would not say that giving him a title shot would be the worst thing I've ever seen, but I don't think it's the best call. The best call is, let's see where you are, because he did lose at 125 BC. He did not lose at 135. Nobody snatched that from his waist at that weight class. I think that needs to be remembered. So the way I feel like it should go is

you give him a top contender you want a five round main event right into the fire and dude you know as well as i do you fight anyone in that top five you're gonna have a very difficult night ahead of you even if you win and that will tell us where we have to go after that i would have been even happy if they had given him dominant cruz because that's a a very sexy main event or even co-main on a giant pay-per-view. And there's a storyline, there's history, rematch, questionable decision the first time. But I get from a promotional standpoint, even the UFC doesn't know what they're going to get

with a 35-year-old Bantamweight, right, who's been off two years. To Habib's point, Luke, it's even harder to be a super elite, you know, to be in the small weight classes where speed and explosiveness are so uh so in need at that moment if tj's not going to be the same fighter from a promotional standpoint you'd want to find that out in a title fight where he could potentially get stopped by the guy you're trying to build up whether that's jan or sterling coming off that fight so it's not lost on me at all that mixed with your comments about look he

sat out two years what other prices you have to pay well you know dana also said uh connor shouldn't have been penalized for injuring co-workers because do you know how expensive those legal fees were it cost that guy millions you know okay great that's great that's great uh being great job there boss uh i i don't know luke um he's probably saying like at some point at some point two years was a long time right you can agree that to your i mean listen 33 champion okay you got some good fights in front of you 35 you know that's a long two years that he lost there i won't have to see what his level is to me that's a pretty long punishment i do think it'd be just a weird move to jump him right to the front line but the the fight we talked about on the show before, sorry.

They will, because even though the hardcore fans like us believe Sanhagen should get the winner of that fight, it's seemingly better business when you have all these old brands around to keep doing it this way. Well, I mean, the fight that got suggested previously, which we haven't, at least I think I endorsed, I think you endorsed it as well. Clarify for me.

I thought it was the right fight for every reason. TJ Dillashaw versus Jose Aldo. Jose Aldo coming off of that win. Frankie Edgar now out of the top five. Man, you got to love that fight because if you can beat Aldo, you are definitely a title contender in that division. And if you can't, you still might be very good, but you're not ready for that prime time yet. And two big-ish kind of names. Luke, you may remember that we all have hills we're willing to die on. Future champion Kevin Lee is one of those that I am. I had been a big, hey, Woodley-esque champion is underrated guy.

I had been a big TJ Dillashaw is we're watching some level of greatness here that no one's giving him credit for and i used to say hey look that lost to asuncio i thought he won that lost to dominant cruz yeah i thought he won and he had to take two years and go through you know all killer run of coming through asuncio a second time beating lineker to finally get back there but now he's had the drug issue in which he's, you know, there's no defense here. There's no picograms. You know, he took the L, Luke.

Should that change how we remember him? Is it, I know you're the wrong guy to ask because of your stance, but is it okay for me to still look at his run and go, it's the best Bantamweight I've ever seen. He's the best. I mean, is that okay? Why am I the wrong guy to ask rather than hey, here's an alternate perspective on things

that is evidence-based? Yes, I don't go with the consensus. I don't know what the truth is of his use. I don't know how much of a benefit he got, and I don't know how long he used, which is why this next chapter, even though it's two years later, still carries a degree of importance. But my rule remains the same, basically, that

the glory days of MMA were built on this stuff. Many of your favorite fighters either have used at some point or are currently using now. Use is much more widespread. So trying to separate Dillashaw from some of the peers who are drug tested, but never, people are like, oh, if you get tested, you don't pop, you're clean. It's not what that means. It means you have a good, you have a drug testing program. You don't know if you have a cleanliness program. That's actually quite different. So to that end, I don't, I don't look at his bantamweight run as any different than I would ordinarily. And I think it's pretty spectacular to this point, but that other part, the division has moved on, it feels like,

and rapidly changed. I think that is incontestable. Corey Sanhagen was in the back of the pack two years ago. Well, now he's at the front of it, and he's brought some young guys along with him. That's a hell of a division now that it wasn't in that shape when he left two years ago. Luke, will we see TJ fight Dominic in a rematch, as I mentioned?

Cody Garbrandt? You're high on that fight. I mean, I thought TJ won the, well, I thought it was close enough to say TJ won the first time. Why do you want to see that fight again? I'm just saying it's good matchmaking between names that we would care about. And do you also think we would see him against Mr. Faber? There's some storyline there, right?

Yes. I didn't, uh, didn't uh didn't ariel report that they were considering that for the return i think that would have been a great comeback fight just the same i understand why you wouldn't do garbrandt right away you could do that fight a little bit further down the road but any of those fights have great storyline in them so that's interesting hey look there are two giant pieces of breaking news which just slid in in the past 10 minutes do you want to address these or no? Go.

Hit it. What you got? Okay. According to really one of the best journalists in all of MMA, if not the best looking per Ioana, Brett Okamoto of ESPN saying UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, Luke, will be back at UFC 261 against Jessica Andrade. Yeah. Bill, Luke, inject that shit right here.

Right, bro? Wait, wait. Shevchenko 261. Who's it against? Jessica Andrade, former strawweight champion. Oh, sick. Super sick. I mean, that's the best fight you can make a flyweight.

Dude, that's the best flyweight fight you can make. That's great. Yeah, can make, a flyweight. Dude, that's the best flyweight fight you can make. That's great. Yeah, love it. Love that contest. And what's the other big piece? You said there was two. Yeah, big news out of pro wrestling. Paul White, a.k.a. The Big Show, leaves WWE to sign with AEW.

How about Tony Khan and company? Luke, you moved by that? I don't even know what that is. The Big Show? You know, the big tall you know the big the big tall fat guy yeah all right okay uh all right topic number four speaking of women's mma you love this fight and you love the bigger story behind it bc wanted to put this topic in today i could take it or leave it but um he really likes it so i want to throw this to him as quickly as i

can holly holm is going to fight Juliana Pena. This is booked for May 8th. This will be a bantamweight contest. BC, why do you like the fight so much? And more to the point, tell the viewers, rather, the point you made about what it would do to Holly Holm's career to get this win and how it would shape it relative to another legend that we know. Yeah, absolutely.

Look, Holly Holm, I thought it was done, Luke. I thought when she lost Amanda Nunes at UFC 239 and got kicked in the face and it was in the first round, you know, and remember that fight narrative wise, we're all right in the same columns. You know, if Holm beats the goat here, what do we do with Holm historically? You know, could she be the combat uh female of all time giving her boxing history well it didn't happen luke so that looked like the end and i think at that point i think her record in the ufc at that point was like five and five and it was just sort of like

you know what is she is she a one night wonder having beat ronda rousey and you know one of the biggest upsets and most spectacular performances and then having lost every other time she fought for a title. But here's where you got to give Holly Holm just a ton of credit. Look, she's not getting worse. And she went back to the drawing board. And look, I didn't love the victory over Raquel Pennington that followed. It was boring and safe. But when she went out there in that five-round win last October

against Irene Aldana or Irene, or, how are we pronouncing that? Luke? Irene, Irene, whatever. Yeah, whatever. Good night,

Irene. Luke, she's showing you that at age 39, she has a unique resume. That's heavy on name value. I mean, has one person ever, you know,

squeezed all the juice out of the rousy wind like home? No, but at the same, you know, squeezed all the juice out of the Rousey win like Holm? No. But at the same time, look, she refuses to fall out of the rankings at both 135 and 145. And in a division right now at Bantamweight where there's just no storylines, the cupboard's empty, right? Aspen Ladd's good, but she's coming off injury. Juliana Pena's fresh off a big win that she needed against Sarah McMahon to kind of remind us that she's still around and still young. And now Holly Holm goes in there again looking for a third fight in a row,

and she did a pretty good interview with Mike Bone. You know that guy? Boner. Yes, Boner. Old Boner. Love that guy. Great guy. Great guy, right? In which she says, look, I'm coming back for another shot at Amanda Nunes.

And, Luke, when you hear that at first, you're like, oh, great. Okay. But, Luke, there's nobody else. One, because the division's empty. But two, because she refuses to go away. And I say that positively. She's 39 freaking years old. And she's probably going to be favored to beat Pena.

And, Luke, if she wins, she's almost, she's kind of having a Randy Couture type career. And I say that in a great way because, you know, Couture, I never saw his bloodstream, Luke. I don't know where he was at age 47. But I will say this, for him to constantly reinvent himself and switch divisions and then go up and beat Tim Sylvia and be Captain America and do all this stuff. I mean, he had such a special and unique career. Do you know what we haven't seen yet in the women's game? Somebody be really, really good and relevant at this age.

Holly Holm's not going away. She's at worst, what, the third best bantamweight in the world and maybe the second best or third best featherweight. She's probably going to get herself into another title fight. And Luke, am I ever going to get herself into another title fight and luke uh am i ever going to love her chances against amanda again you know it's hard to say that i would especially after getting kicked in the face the first time around but if she works her way back into another title shot and who knows what could happen there i mean she could have a complete captain america

type run here and i don't think we give her enough credit because after beating Rousey, she had lost all those consecutive title fights. Tamisha Tate, which was a thriller, and the bad GDR loss and blah, blah, blah. I'm really kind of interested to see because she's found a way to become more efficient to round out her game.

She showed against Megan Anderson, a very top contender a few years back, who's going to get the next title shot at Nunes, that she can dominate on the ground and do what she has to do. Luke, I don't think we tipped the cap enough in her direction. And I'm wondering if she has a chance, whether it's going through Amanda and pulling an upset, or maybe Nunes giving up one of the belts one day of winning UFC gold again. I don't see an end date for her age where she's still not going to be one of the elite in this game. So this is a very integral fight that she would have to win to get there maybe you look at that and say i don't care this is a retread the divisions are empty but uh i got

a lot of respect for what home's still doing the hunger that she still has the way she prepares luke i said nothing about the sneaky ig account i'm just talking just about the game i got a lot of respect luke i bet you do yeah it's an interesting comparison it's hard for me to i i know what you're doing it's not a again no no comparison is totalizing like randy couture was beloved in ways that i think hollyholm was popular but not as um she's not quite like the fond you know uh representative that we have out there in the ways that couture kind of was um he was much more noted for his age now granted he was fighting well into his 40s that's not quite what we have here but still to your point at the age she's doing it it's just quite

as remarkable um but i do feel like i do feel like uh it misses a little bit in the following sense and maybe correct me if i'm wrong here we seeCR, if you think I'm off. Careers Couture was up and down. Like, he had, his final record was 19 and 11, but that's maybe the best 19 and 11 record I've ever seen, which is to say, he had big losses. Like, the second fight with Chuck Liddell was a big loss. The third one was a really big loss, but he had wins in a row over, at the time when 205 was the peak division over Belfort, over Ortiz, at first over Liddell. And then when he came back to heavyweight and no one expected him to beat Tim Sylvia and then he beat the fuck out of him. And then it went to, he fought Gabriel Gonzaga and that was an incredible night and blah, blah, blah. He just had these hugely punctuated moments.

He never had one as big as when Holm beat Rousey. When you think of MMA upsets, you think of that. But he had more slightly lesser thans. In other words, he hasn't sold 3 million pay-per-views, just to give an example, but he sold like 5 one-millions in that way. And so to me, there's a little bit of a difference. You had a lot of really memorable moments with Couture versus with Holm.

What do you think? Uh-oh, did we lose him? No, I'm good. I'm good. But I missed the end of your question. My volume dipped out. I'm back, Luke. I'm here. It's okay. I was just saying you had a lot more punctuated moments with Couture than you did with Holm. That's fair. That's certainly fair. And I think to make this comparison really work, she's going to need that big moment that I mentioned.

And, you know, it would be more likely to happen if the UFC ever forced Nunes to give up one of the belts. Let's say she gave up Bantamweight and she just stayed at 145, defended it once per year and kept going, cashing checks. Could I see Holly as the Bantamweight champion again? I mean, look, that's the problem is that she's better. She hasn't fought Ladd yet, but she's better than everyone else in that division up to this point.

And I don't see her getting worse. How much depreciation in her game, despite how damning that loss to Nunes was, are you seeing any? I mean, could she still be doing this at 43 at this level, Luke? I don't know. I don't know. I see somebody who's getting better. Yeah.

I do think 135 is her best weight class here for all intents and purposes. Peña is an interesting case, though, because because pena still has a lot of youth on her side and it's clearly finally getting back to form it'll be a very interesting this is the kind of fight that couture maybe would have won that home to this point the sort of middle of the road but highly important one she hasn't won yet i would like to see i'd like to see what she can do going forward it's a big big test and you're right about favoring it, by the way. Alright, let's get to our last point here so we can get to some

of the stuff on the show here very quickly, BC. One more point. Do you give Holly credit for the way she fought Cyborg in that decision loss? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Cyborg's really tough. You're going to go to what you have and, you know, it wasn't the best, but it wasn't far from the worst. Yeah, it's okay all right last

but certainly not least bc this weekend we get back to the sweet science the number one pound for pound fighter by most people's account canelo alvarez back in action against turkey's ovni yildirim now what is interesting about this bc is twofold one canelo has opened and I am not joking around about this, as a, get this, 50-1 favorite. Not 1-5-1, 5-0-1. 50-1 and doesn't have any apologies for it. Quote BC, I don't have to give any explanation for fighting Yildirim, Alvarez told Boxing Scene. Quote, I really don't have to give any explanation because they're never going to be happy with anything. I just fought number

one on 168, which was Callum Smith, and they're not happy with that either. So I have nothing to say and nothing to explain. I don't care. Should he have to apologize for fighting a guy he basically should not be fighting? All right, this is really damning that it's 50 to 1 now look straight up luke he's the best fighter in the world i've seen some mma uh fans or journalists tweet out like this is the equivalent of like you know a ufc champion fighting a guy who's not even in the organization and not even ranked right i mean like it's it's bad there's been part of me this whole time that says look look, that's boxing. What I meant by is they have that mandatory system. This is Canelo saying, I don't want to lose the WBC title.

So I'll do this fight, but I'll make it a spectacle. I'll put it in the Miami Dolphins Hard Rock Stadium. I'll let you know they're going to have what, like 15,000, 20,000 fans there, you know, spread apart. I'll have a big event in Florida. Luke, he's already come out and said, which I wanted to ask you whether you're whether you think this is fine. He said that, you know, he believes he represents all Latinos in this fight, you know, not just Mexicans. That's why he's bringing the fight to South Florida where we really don't ever see any big fights of no, especially in boxing.

But then I'll be back in May to unify against Saunders. And as we talked about last week, I want to fight two more times after that. So I've already been on record saying, look, Canelo's just trying to keep his belt. He's playing the system here and bowing to it and saying, you know, this is your system, fine, I'll do it, but I'll also do what's good for my legacy and give the people what I want. But then you look at 50-1, Luke, and you really start to ask yourself, what the frick are we doing? And one thing, when we argued when this fight was announced, right, you were like, dude the frick are we doing? And one thing when we argued when this fight was announced, right?

You were like, dude, why are we doing this bullshit? And I did. I'll admit, I took the boxing stance of, don't worry. It has to be done. But he's coming back two months later. He's a man of his word. Go, you know, yay Canelo. Luke, I even failed in that moment to look at the facts.

First of all, Avni Yildirim's not that good to begin with. He's a rugged, raw brawler. I know he's got Joel Diaz as his trainer now. They're talking about adding things to him. He's a rugged brawler. The only other time he stepped up big, he got knocked and sent to hell by Chris Eubank Jr. Then he won five in a row. Then he fought for the title against Anthony Durrell.

And you know what? He fought okay, but he lost that fight on cuts. He has not fought since that fight. So here's Yildirim on a two-year layoff coming off a loss. And the WBC is making him the number one mandatory contender. Oh, and Canelo and the WBC had to pay Yildirim to step aside so Canelo could unify against Callum Smith in his last fight. Yes, this is what is freaking wrong with boxing.

If Yildirim had bounced back from that Durrell fight, Luke, and had beaten a credible ranked contender, right? Somebody with a pulse, a Jose Uzcategui, right? Somebody like, you're like, okay, that's a tough out, a regular guy. Yes, he didn't do that, Luke. Yes, boxing sucks. This is ridiculous. Now now i'm not here to damn canelo and those comments come off very arrogant but he's right i mean what else am i

gonna do i'm trying to play boxing system and keep my belts luke would you prefer that he gives up the wbc title to avoid this bullshit well no his stated goal is i want to unify. Look, we want fighters to unify, right? We want guys to have one division, one champion, all four major belts. But this is a crock of shit. This is bullshit. In the very best case scenario, you don't even give Yildirim a puncher's chance. You know what he's going to do? He's going

to brawl and make it fun for as long as it lasts. And it's probably going to last three to four rounds. And he's going to get knocked the hell out like James Kirkland did when he fought Canelo at Minute Maid Park or whatever it's called in Houston a couple years ago right Kirkland's a fun brawler he came to brawl he got sent to hell that's what's going to happen here but I think the odds makers putting the 50 to 1 stamp on there yeah we should all even hardcoreector BC, step up and say this is a crock of shit. Thank you, Canelo, for coming back quickly afterwards,

for giving the fans in South Florida an event, for saying I represent all Latinos, Luke, including the Colombians in your house. Does he? Does he really, Luke? Sort of. Yes. Yes.

But this is bullshit. This is absolute bullshit luke yeah um i don't have much to add to what you said you did it better than i could the only thing i would contribute to the conversation bc is i understand why the notion of a top contender getting an opportunity against canelo, even if he doesn't have a big name, makes sense. A mandatory challenger. Because you want the challenger. If you are the champion, you have a responsibility to defend that weight, that belt, excuse me, in that weight against the person who has done the best work up to that moment. It is your

responsibility whether or not that person is famous or popular or in other ways an attractive opponent or not. And so you have to like that there is a little bit of fairness baked in. But what has happened is that fairness has been inverted into now a tax on the fans. By combination of adding titles, so for example in the WBA, Canelo is the champion, and then David Morel is, I guess, co-champion, and then WBA gold is Fedor Chudinov. Then you get to the number one contenders, Eidos Yerbosnili, two, David Benavidez, three, David Lemieux, and four goes on from there. That's just one of the sanctioning bodies. There are three other ones. With all the weight classes, with all the belts, and now with all the sanctioning bodies, you are now having a case where a fighter of Canelo's stature,

he was going to be favored to win against any number one mandatory who wasn't famous in a major way anyway. But what it has done is it has made things that before being mandatory and kind of important for the weight class, they are now utterly meaningless. Too many belts, too many sanctioning bodies takes a thing from being mandatory and kind of important for the weight class, they are now utterly meaningless. Too many belts, too many sanctioning bodies takes a thing from being mandatory and turns it into a tax. Alvarez can't make the right decision here. Either he stays and does what he's supposed to to keep the belts, because that's the thing we want him to do, or he gives it up and then goes and finds all the fights that are most important for him and we say, oh, he doesn't have any belts. This fucking guy can't win.

He's only playing with the hand he was dealt. I'm just saying, this is why I really worry about the Ali Act. If you wanted to make that a rule in this country at a federal level, there would need to be some kind of supervision of that rule and some kind of articulation that there could only be one or two sanctioning bodies one or two rankings because more than that it will fuck your sport up yeah can we get the bama rankings in here please i want to close by saying this on this topic if you're an mma fan and you haven't skipped over this portion yet you're saying okay bc i'm trying

to like this i'm trying to watch this fight on DAZN on Saturday. But, like, why would this guy get the mandatory? It's got to be corruption, right? I'm not here to tell you I have facts or proof to tell you that Avni Yildirim is here only by corruption. But there's a working theory, yes, that in many cases, why do guys get ranked number one when they've beaten no one or they're coming in off a loss? Yeah, because the sanctioning bodies accept uh

dirty money behind the scenes i don't have proof of it but it's got to be the only thing it's got to be the only thing you can even believe at this point right and there has been proof of it by the way in the past this is a gross sport in that regard i hate that that that's part of it luke it's bullshit um that it is but can we at least close this segment with some levity, Luke? With some laughter? Because there's one thing that Turkey's Avni Yildirim does bring to the table in this

fight, Luke. I don't know if you're aware of his manager. His name is Ahmet Oner. And Ahmet Oner became a... Hold on. Is he more or less insane than angel garcia uh more well well more insane so let me set the stage here he fell into our labs as hardcore boxing fans as a super villain slash hero a few years back they did the world boxing super series

tournament at super middleweight yildirim was fighting chris eubank jr biggest fight of his career he ends up getting knocked out but in the pre-fight press conference luke okay all the players are sitting at the table i met oner is sitting next to yildirim and somebody in the corner of the room on eubank's team laughs at something oner says and he proceeds to lose his shit like five times to the point that every time he went to sit down again to restart the press conference, two seconds later he'd get up and dart across

the room. We've got footage to play the best moment of it. Let's give this guy his moment. Don't laugh at me. Please don't laugh. Don't laugh at me, please don't laugh. Don't laugh at me. When you laugh again, don't laugh at me. When you laugh, you son of a bitch, I fucked your... I fucked your wife in your bed. I'm going to go to the hospital. I'm going to go to the hotel.

I'm going to go to the security. Don't fight with me. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. sir, this is a Wendy's. Sir, this is a professional environment here.

So he sat down after that, like I mentioned. He's like, no, no, I'm good, I'm good, I'll be professional. And then two seconds later, darted and tried to attack the guy. Post-script, Luke, I used to host that Fox show, PBC Face-to-Face, where we would sit on the set in LA and interview two fighters who were about to fight. Yildirim was scheduled to fight Anthony Durrell in the about an hour before filming. I showed this video to the producers. I was like, you know, Yildirim's got a plus one coming with him. And they were like, who is it? I'm like, it's I'm at Oner. You know who this guy is?

And they hired a security guard, Luke, on set within an hour's notice just after watching this video. Luckily, nothing happened. But this guy is a celebrity. I would love to see him get into Big Red Canelo's face here during this press conference and make some magic happen, Luke. You know what I'm saying? Canelo, I will F your wife with the eyeball tattoos on your forearm while your arm watches me. You know, something like that could be fantastic. Yes, great joke, BC.

Very funny. All right. Hey, Morning Combat listeners, I want to let you know about Paramount+. You've probably seen the journey to Paramount, spots featuring Bill Cowher, James Corden, Patrick Stewart, Beavis and Butthead. Yes, quite the squad,

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March 4th, Paramount Plus, live sports. There you have it. All right, BC. Are you back with us? I'm here, Luke. Okay, buddy. It's time for SJ Dubs. Take over, good sir.

All right. Some Wednesdays, Luke, you know what we do in these parts. We bring on the dishonorable Judge Luke Bader Ginsburg to submit a ruling on the latest beefs on social media from fighter to fighter. We call it Social Justice Wednesdays. Bum-ba-da-bum-bum-bum-bum. All right, Judge, we got three cases to rule on here. Luke, let's begin here in the UFC's women's.

Oh, I guess we won't. Let's begin here with your good buddy, Jake Paul. He's back to Twitter, Luke. And this time he's back with part two of the MMA Chronicles as he puts on his impersonation hat and does some slander to some of the biggest names in combat sports. Luke, sit back and enjoy here. Dana, I'm sorry I fucking lost, mate. I bought this spooky Lamborghini yacht though. Khabib, what do you think about Conor McGregor getting knocked out? This is what happens when

you spot little kids, okay? I spot a bear. A lot of people are asking about what happened in the Khabib meeting. I told them he comes back, I'll give him a dry handjob job they call me funky in college because I take shit standing up what do you think my mic Chandler knocking on Den hooker someone said hookers what is Nate Diaz think he is in his fucking gamer chat room room bitch I'm talking about my chair look it's got the Conor McGregor feature. Oh, I'm knocked out. Ben! Ha! You! Sausage boy. You must respect Jim.

Conor McGregor, no respect Jim. Me and Nate are super happy because they made weed legal for the USC. You can now smoke weed and pass the drug test. Just got back from my hip surgery. Now I'm going to fight Jake Paul for a bunch of money. I'm going to invest all of it in a sea of coins. Come and do something, Conor. Fuck you. You heard do something, Connor. Who the fuck?

Dana. Alright, Luke. This is a bit of a setup because I know that you love this shit, Stain, and you can't wait for his April 17th boxing match with Ben Askren. Pins and needles, BC. Pins and needles. Judge Luke Bader Ginsburg,

will you at least rule that this was kind of well-written and hilarious and well-performed? Okay, I would be doing a disservice to this audience and frankly lying if I said I didn't laugh at the Soulja Boy reference where when Askren was knocked out

and he was doing this and they played the Soul Soldier Boy song. Okay. Alright. That was funny. I'll give him that. The rest of it you know, mildly brain damaged but that was a good thing. Alright. I think it's the best moment of Jake Paul's career, Luke. So

shout out to that. Hopefully we get him on this show. Did you see he did an interview? Did you see he did an interview this week? I forget. It was like an athlete podcast and he said that YouTube was harder than boxing Did you see he did an interview? Where, Hussey, did you see he did an interview this week? I forget. It was like an athlete podcast. And he said that YouTube was harder than boxing. Which, when he explained it, it actually made sense. In the sense that, like, YouTube is, you know, he said he put up 800 videos in 800 days. One time, you know.

Like, without a break. Just straight. And it's like, yes, it's this unceasing kind of, you know, every day is Groundhog Day kind of thing, and that can wear on you. But I'm like, YouTube, he's very successful at it, obviously. But it's like, dude, yes, of course YouTube is harder than boxing because the level at which you do YouTube is much higher than the level at which you do boxing. Maybe take that into account. Luke, true or false, there's more similarities between you and Jake Paul than there are differences.

You're both males. You're both white. You both made your money on YouTube in your name. That's not quite true, but okay. You both like combat sports. You're both outwardly disliked and have no care for that fact. Yeah. You know what?

Maybe he's my secret twin, and the reason I dislike him is he's really just like me. Yeah, okay. There it is. All right. It's SJW number two here, Luke. Women's strawweight division, my favorite division in all of UFC. Tisha Torres versus Angela Hill. Let's go to the Twitters here, Luke.

It starts out with Tisha sending this. Here's the facts at Angie Overkill. Fact number one, I beat you already. That was 2015, Luke, when they fought early in their UFC run. Fact number two, I also beat Michelle and Rose who beat both of you. Three, I signed a contract to fight you in December.

You unfortunately got COVID. Four, I won my last two fights and you lost yours. And you say you're on a seven-fight win streak. I beg to differ. Number five, I've fought all of the champions at 115. I'm definitely not scared of you. Six, like you, I wish to fight someone ranked above me and advance my career.

And seven, beat some ranked ranked opponents and then if it makes sense i'll fight you good luck with the last one okay that's tisha's opening statement here's the response from angie you're still sitting out for over half a year instead of of fighting a fight you already signed the contract for despite my last two losses instead of writing this essay you could have signed the contract to fight me you beat me six years ago pre usada you sound scared homie wow do we have any other retorts in the back here is that where the argument ends luke um tisha torres did win their 2015 fight at UFC 188 by three-round unanimous decision in Mexico City. Who wins this argument, and should Tisha accept the fight? Well, that's a good one.

I've got to say, both got their blows in there. In the end, I feel like maybe Tisha, although I'm a little bit, I don't know how to, maybe you can help me with this one, because what matters more, the fact that Tisha does have the win and all that kind of stuff and beat people that beat her, or the fact that like, I'm ready to fight right now. All of this is because you don't want to fight right now, right now. Sign the contract right now. There is something about that I'll sign right now thing that ends up being a trump card, right? True, true. I think it's an interesting debate from this standpoint. Although Tisha, you would think, has the leverage because, one, she beat her already,

and, two, she's on a two-fight win streak. Luke, they are against lower-level names, and she lost, what, five in a row before that? Angie's two losses are both split decision to ranked elite fighters in Klaja. And I forgot who the other one was against Luke. Also against Michelle Watterson. So, yeah, I think,

I think T-shirt should take the fight. Luke. Okay. She will. They'll fight. And it's a hell of a matchup. I actually love the contest. Second time around,

you know, I don't know how relevant the USADA part is, but six but six years we always talk about it that's the best time to do rematches the best time let a few years pass six not per se but let it happen years should pass before you do it again and then figure it out and see where these guys are ladies are in this particular case it'll be awesome to see all right judge uh luke gator bader ginsburg here i'd like you to weigh in on our final SJW. It's not a back and forth, but there needs to be a ruling here. The great, lightweight Dan Hangman Hooker tweeted out a very sobering update on his life.

Can we throw that up on the screen here, fellas? He typed 44 days down, 12 to go. And it's a picture of him. And over his shoulder, there's the fence with his wife and daughter behind it. And just to update people, the COVID protocol for him to be able to fly to Las Vegas. And Luke, who did he lose to? Oh, Michael Chandler. Chandler.

Yeah. The COVID was so intense pre and post to be able to return to New Zealand. That what? He's been living in a hotel, only able to talk to his wife and daughter through a fence. Luke, 44 days down, brother. Have you been in South Florida lately? Forget fathers and sons that are French Canadian. You can kiss any stranger on the mouth. I mean, they don't even wear masks.

Can we let this guy hug his family already? I know it's like he hasn't been in quarantine for 44 days. He's been away from his family for 44 days. But Jesus, man, you want to talk about this? This dude's not going to see his family until March, and he fought in January. I mean, that is fucking crazy. That is. 12 more days at a hotel, Luke?

Ugh. Well, my understanding is they're putting them in really nice hotels. If you've ever followed any of the people who have gone to New Zealand to corner or to fight Adesanya or anybody in his crew, you can see the hotels that they're in when they come back. New Zealand puts them in really nice places, so it's a gilded cage in ways. But to your point, it doesn't matter.

That long away from your family, that's got to be a fucking nightmare. I feel bad for the guy. Yeah, nightmare. I feel bad for the guy. Yeah, I 100% feel bad for the guy. But Luke, we made it through another SJW. I don't know if that segment is going to survive, Luke. All right. We had some highs and lows. Okay.

It had. Yeah. I don't know if it is either, but we're giving it its college try. All right, Luke. We got another segment that's been killing it on Wednesdays. Okay. Let's hope that this Viva forever here. What we do is every Wednesday

your boy BC thinks of all the great questions he'd love to ask Luke on the air here, except for the fact that Luke is such a stringent producer credit owning bastard that he doesn't let me work them into the rundown. So we've created this segment. Spin the Black Circle every Wednesday. It's time

for the Wheel of Death. So here's the deal. If you're new to this part, we have 10 categories. Luke will spin the wheel five times. He gets what he gets. He has not read these in advance. And under good faith, he will give you a good faith

answer. Luke, your categories for today are... Please run the graphic. Friendly fellatio. Adyle rules leave gina alone my other job a case for crosby a hard-on for alderon must love dogs shitty cuck boxing the district of deportation and matchup monday so freddy versus the Strawweights. Luke, dealers... I got to say, these categories are usually better than the questions. These are amazing categories.

Thank you very much, Luke. Time to spin the wheel of death. Yes, let's do it, Luke. You get what you get. Yes. O'Doyle rules. yes doyle rules doyle i got a feeling your family is going down luke it's no secret if you go back and re-watch any of the first 10 or so ufc cards that what you see looks a whole hell of a lot different from what we see today in modern MMA. But looking back on those early SEG days, which single rule change, above all others, has been the most important in helping the sport of mixed martial arts evolve

from those prehistoric days to the national television airing UFC of today? You mean just through the first 10? From the prehistoric days, I said 10 or so, but you know what I'm saying here. From the old school days of where we were at UFC 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

what is the single rule that is most responsible for the modern product we see today? I'm not sure I understand that. In terms of its beauty or its safety? In terms of its change from the way the sport was originally competed and contested. Okay, so a couple of things. It's not as big in terms of its meaningfulness other than as a wider representation of something

rather than the thing itself. But gloves, getting the hands wrapped in gloves and making that part mandatory. Obviously, state sanctioning is the big one, really. State sanctioning more than any other one is the big one because with the state sanctioning comes the weight classes, which I was also going to mention, the gloves, the rules, the mouthpieces, the corner. It gave the sport architecture and oversight. And for those reasons, going the commissions um is really the

game changer and it was you know the only part about it that folks sometimes tend to not realize is that was also a bit of a disaster it was the short term maybe the only call to make i'm not really criticizing ufc for because i don't even know if there was a better answer at the time but the one real problem with that we're we're seeing it now, is one, it's not federal. It's a federation at this point, right? Because all the states have different rules. But more to that point, you have now handed over the rules of innovation to the state. And so getting things updated. The NFL has its own internal mechanisms each season to tweak that, and tweak that, and tweak that, see what works, go back to it, keep changing it, whatever they want.

They have real flexibility to make sure the product catches up with the modern game. Because we've handed everything back to the state, we have oversight and social acceptance, but we have massively reduced the capacity for rule and best practice innovation. And I think that's a real tragedy. Saying state sanctioning is probably the best answer. It's a very macro that one though, on a micro level, Luke, I liked what you said about the gloves. I mean, look, one thing about BKFC when we see that is, you know,

there's a different strategy. You can't load up. It's a different style of, of, of, of doing it. The gloves have certainly done it, but do you think even more than weight divisions that, that the round structure is what... Because I went back and watched, I think it was... What was Brawl in Buffalo? UFC 9 or 10? And, you know, when you...

By that point, you had a little bit of an evolution going on where it wasn't so much jiu-jitsu expert against fat, tall guy, but when you had guys that were relatively evenly matched on the ground, you still saw long 15-, 20 20 minute fights with no round breaks that typically involved a battle of a war of attrition and endurance with one guy sitting on the other's chest and trying to rotate out of that i kind of feel like rounds is more important than anything to give that that structure and remove that feeling of like we're gonna fight till one guy can't do it anymore you know yeah i think that's fair that's right up there with one of

the most there's no denying that's one of the most important ones as well for the reasons plus it made it feel a little bit more like boxing which at that time was you know a way to help people understand it on some level so yeah there's in terms of audience education and just presenting a palatable product that's absolutely a major and important factor because think about it before the structure of rounds and the idea that it could go the to a judge's score um you weren't necessarily like you were almost in some ways out outweighing your opponent and trying to in trying to you know win an endurance battle more than anything and you can argue in a five-round championship fight sometimes you're still trying to win an endurance battle more than anything. And you can argue in a five-round championship fight, sometimes you're still trying to win an endurance battle,

but it's interesting. It's much more of a function of the overall game and everything else. Now it's an endurance battle in the sense that you very much need to be in good shape. A handful of people can weaponize cardio, but it was much more weaponizable back then to the extent that anyone took that path. Do you see any potential rule change that we've either like you know talked about in the past like maybe this could happen that could have a giant impact 10 years from now i mean is there anything still prehistoric when

you look at the modern ufc ufc game of 2021 that you think shouldn't be there i mean you know soccer kicks 12 12 6 elbows but is there anything more functional that like could change the game in the same method that we're talking about where it was it looks no one has brought yeah no one has brought it up but it's become something that's really taken over the game and the again i don't know if this will lead to anything but to the thing you're pointing out there's obvious ones stomps soccer kicks knees to the head of a downed opponent not necessarily on his back but like on his knees for a wrestling shot. Should you be able to knee that person?

Blah, blah, blah. Those are all low-hanging fruit. But the one thing I have noticed that I think does stall the game out and is very helpful to the person who does it, but maybe there might over time develop a backlash, is locked hands. So in wrestling, if you've ever seen someone start from college wrestling, for example, they call it referee's position. One person will get down on their hands and knees like this, and the other person will wrap their waist and their elbow.

And as soon as they do, they wrestle. Now, if you can escape, you get a point, blah, blah, blah. But the key is, in that moment, if you are the wrestler from the outside, you cannot lock your hands to hold them there. It's a penalty. Why? Because once you do that, it's very, very, very, very, very hard to break. The very best ones can do it. They might let it go on purpose in certain situations,

but it's extremely difficult to break. As you've seen in MMA, guys will get locked hands and then hold it for a round, walk the person around, trip them, pull them back up, that kind of a thing, but they don't ever let their hands break. You'll see the other person fighting it. Now, Jose Aldo has been an incredible handbreaker, and he can escape that kind of a thing but they don't ever let their hands break any other you'll see the other person fighting it now Jose Aldo has been an incredible handbreaker and he can escape that kind of a thing I'm just pointing out many many fighters who do not have a well-rounded skill set but have a little bit of a wrestling base they will win rounds this way by just kind of getting

the the hands locked I wonder if over time people might start asking for separations from that like they do someone being pressed into the fence yeah that's a good call I wonder if over time people might start asking for separations from that like they do someone being pressed into the fence. Yeah, that's a good call. I wonder if we ever see a dramatic change to the scoring system, which we've had this debate a million times, you know, is it worked using the 10-9 boxing scoring? I wonder if you see some kind of dramatic change in which judges are instructed to favor one thing over another,

if that changes the type of style of fights we see. It's interesting, Luke, you know? Yep. All right. Let's spin it a second time, Luke. Let's see what you get, okay? You get what you get. Let's see if I've got one that has an illicit title on it.

My other job. No, Luke, this is not about your old serious XM job. Luke, let's not about your old serious XM job. Luke, let's just imagine a scenario. Let's say MK continues to be a relaxing success, and you and I both achieve all of our financial and critical goals over the next couple of years, right? And let's say because of that, Showtime approaches you and says, Luke, we've really got something special here with you, and we know this.

And no offense to BC, but we think there's room if you're interested for a solo spinoff. Maybe we'll start off one day per week. But on something separate as a topic from combat sports. And the topic could be of your choice. And the good news is we'll pay you more, and we'll even give you a producer credit luke the only catch in this situation is you need to tell them the topic and the name of the show anything other than boxing mm or mma within the next 60 seconds to accept this offer so luke which subject matter other than combat sports would you feel most comfortable launching a spin-ff solo podcast about jesus uh one of two directions i would do one on strength sports it's just a thing that i love i don't not that i know i do not consider you know

definitely not an expert in that at all but um certainly would be willing to get into that and then if it wasn't that one i would do some kind of political podcast we're focusing on understanding the sort of the technocratic side of policy a little bit, which would be boring. No, I had mentioned solo. Sorry to interrupt you. I'd mentioned solo, but it doesn't have to be solo. Let's say they gave you the option to get a co-host than me, uh, would be, that is something you could excel in, create traffic, enjoy. Yeah. All those things. I don't know that I really want to, but you're asking me, could I do it? Yeah. I feel like I could do it.

Okay. All right. All right. You don't have any name ideas, Luke. Dude, I, I tried to, this is a true story. When we were trying to think of the name of this show uh i sat down for like a fucking day coming up with names they were all terrible and then uh the only one i could think of that was like halfway decent was headliners right because i thought that's the show was slightly different in my mind at the time but you know basically what you see and i went to my wife and I was like, what do you think about these choices? She's like, they're all bad.

And Headliner sounds like a 1980s cover band. And I was like, fuck, she's right. Sounds like a strip club name. It's the worst fucking name ever. So I would not leave that decision to me. I'm terrible at shit like that. Well, I'm going to be honest. I love MK and the whole

what the brand means but you know the first time i heard morning combat i was like yikes yikes yeah i didn't love it either but you know it's it's okay now it is us yeah look i'd like to do uh well you know pro wrestling if i got back into it i i already know i can do that but i'd like to do either a 90s nba show or a uh like vinyl record 70s music show something like that you know where we where you kind of like review a new a new record each week and kind of nerd out in that area i think yeah dude we'd be very poor if we made those choices yeah yeah we would not we would not be doing okay okay well Well, let's keep this thing going then. Let's spin it a third time, Luke.

You get what you get, all right? All right. All right. I mean, there's good questions. There's bad questions. You get what you get. A hard-on for Alderaan. All right.

Is this a Star Wars thing? A hard-on for Alderaan. Luke, it's no secret. You're a big old Star Wars nerd like myself, even if you hate the friggin shit out of fan service. OK, I'm sure you've spent much of your adult life secretly wondering which character in the Star Wars universe you most emulate today as an adult. Right. And as much as I'd love to stick it in your face and say the answer should be Chewbacca, given how unkept and generally angry you are. I admit, and this is a compliment, that Luke Thomas very much has a Han Solo vibe in today's MMA media world.

What do I mean by that? You're a self-made marauder who can't be properly classified as a true hero or villain and someone who prefers to work alone, trust no one. Yet like Han Solo, Luke, you were eventually willed into joining a cause to play on the winning team after finding the love of your life. Now for Han Solo, that was Princess Leia. He joined the rebellion for you. It's your love of mixed martial arts and cashing checks. So that why we're doing mk today okay so let's establish here luke all right you're han solo i'm more of like the badass episode six version of luke skywalker dressed in all black full-on jedi and jay well jay's kind of like one of those annoying trade federation viceroys from the phantom menace you're luke

skywalker is that who you yeah Yeah, full-on Jedi Luke. That's how you imagine yourself? Okay. Jay is, you know, he's like Nuke Gunray or Rune Hako, you know, those viceroys of the Trade Federation that nobody respects that are annoying. But let me ask you this, Luke. What about the rest of prominent MMA media?

Which of our journalistic brethren, both loved or hated, best represent different members of the Star Wars universe? I'll just say this. A lot of contenders for Jabba the Hutt. A lot of contenders. That's terrible. That's a mean thing to say. Jesus.

And here's my daughter, who's rampaging through the house like Godzilla through Tokyo. Okay, let's think about this. So who is Chewbacca, if it's not me? But Chewbacca is loyal. He's there for his friends. He's a little bit angry, a little bit tall, a little bit weird looking. But you could accuse him of not...

Dude, when people are like, hey, I need you to help me fight these local weirdos. Chewbacca is ready to roll every time. He's like an ace in the hole. So who is that? Danny Segura? He's good with kids and women. He's a nice guy at the end of the day right I mean he's you know yeah Chewbacca's not a bad person

so I might say Danny Segura's Chewbacca he's been super loyal this whole time who's Darth Vader well Darth Vader don't forget also came around to be good again who's Palpatine look right

yeah that's a great question i i don't know i don't know i don't know about the situation to say but it's there is the schmo uh jar jar binks where are we going with this look shout out to the schmo fully joking obviously um yes i know people we're having a good time lighten up out there okay all right i mean who's chuck right i couldn't figure it out who the hell is chuck chuck mendenhall yeah he's got an obi-wan like like veteran vibe and coolness to him right yeah dude he's definitely a little he's on the jedi council for sure yes yes yes and i feel like i feel like here's the big key question who was mace windu because mace was a beast and had and had palpatine beat until fucking anakin fucked it all up um fair

point that's a fair point. That's a good... These are good. We should fill this out. Actually, I'm a bit stumped at the moment. Okay, okay. We should fill some of this out. It'd be funny as shit. We could shelf this.

We can revisit this. Get the people to chime in, too. Maybe my buddy, Andre. How about this? How about this? Hold on, hold on. How about this? Call an audible here.

Put up the graphic, morningcombat at gmail.com. morningcombat at gmail.com, if you have have it fill it out for us so you got to fill out all the ones episodes four five and six lando calrissian but we also want the prequels so you got to tell me who mace windu is and then you even got to tell me who the kylo ren's are as well uh from the from the last three but the central three four five and six most important fill that out for us that'd be fucking hilarious i think chuck's more qui-gon gin in a lot of ways as well you know shout out to chuck all right thank you let's go to the next question from the mma media let's go over to job of the hut uh one One more from me, please. Okay, all right.

Luke, you want to spin this wheel again? Solo. Did I tell you we used to torture a guy in the Marine Corps like that? No, no, no. I've told this story before. We had this dude in the Marine Corps. He was in my unit. He was a good Marine, but his last name was Solo,

and it was spelled S-O-L-O-E. And, of course, you don't know people by their first names. You just know what's on their name tape. And we used to fuck with this guy repeatedly. You know, we would walk in the rooms and we would give him orders, like talking like Jabba the Hutt, like,

and just screaming him in to get him to do shit. And he didn't like it too much. He got really fucking annoyed by it, but we thought it was funny. I don't think Danny Segura can be Chewbacca because the size difference is troubling, Luke. You know, I think of Danny Segura more as like salacious crumb.

You know, that little dude that was Jabba's sidekick, the little, like, the creature guy? Yeah. That guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that guy, yeah. Princess Leia choked that guy to death Luke let's spin it a fourth time Let's go it's already a shit show Let's do it

Must love dogs Alright I'm down for that I like the doggies This is not a question if you're asking about the 2005 Romcom of the same name starring john cusack and diane lane we're talking about a different breed of old bitches luke underdogs despite being the ufc's light heavyweight champion jan blahowitz who by the way turns 38 years old today happy birthday to the polish thunderdome himself luke he currently sits on william hill's sportsbook as a plus 190 underdog for next weekend's bout against uh israel adesanya luke that's obviously

rare for a reigning title holder to be you know fairly two to one big dog here but it's far from the ufc record trivia time luke which ufc champion entered a title bout as the biggest underdog in the promotion's history? And the answer is plus 400. So which UFC champion was plus 400 entering a title defense? Okay, so let's think about this. This was somebody who had to be badly outmatched, meaning if they were a champion, they were probably going up against someone who not only beat them,

but did so mightily. So I'm going to guess, and I could be wrong here, is it when... Two guesses here. Either the second St. Pierre-Hughes or Couture and Lesnar. Is it one of the two?

You hit it right off the top. Matt Serra, a UFC Hall of Famer with an 11-7 pro record. I said GSB and Hughes. I got it wrong. So you're talking about the rematch and seven pro record look no no no i said i said i said i said uh i said gsp and hughes i fucked i got it wrong so you're talking about the rematch with saint pierre oh yeah you got it wrong so you it was so you got it wrong and i and i ruined the segment all right it was matt sarah plus 400 in montreal against gsp in the rematch look that's wild fair enough yeah that makes sense

now you there was a uh when it was announced that Nico Montano was going to make her first title defense against Valentina Shevchenko a couple years back, do you remember that Montano was plus 800 as a champion, Luke? Yeah, which seems generous, but the fight was never made. The fight was never made. I mean, 50-1 Canelo over Yildirim, that's pretty insane here. Plus 400, plus 800.

All right. Luke, who knows if this segment will survive next week, but you got one more spin, brother. Let's do it. Let's do it. I feel like this thing spins too long. The District of Deportation. Well, this will be insensitive, but go ahead.

Luke, no one loves D.C., our capital city, more than you. Your right forearm tattoo says it all. Can we show it to the people, Luke, one more time, please? Yeah? No? Okay, there it is. Luke, let's imagine a world, though, in which tomorrow D.C., not Cormier, stopped loving you back. And after a messy public scandal, you needed to get the hell out of our nation's capital and never show your face again. I'm talking pack your shit up today and be gone.

Full family. Put the have that bum who lifts weights in your front yard to put the for sale sign out okay so based on everything luke from housing costs to crime culture food local sports teams education and even the requirements of your current job which city or region within these united states would make the most sense for you to move to not just for you but for wife daughter abuela uncle pepe mocha and all those other animals under your roof and by animals i mean your dogs who i forgot the name of not necessarily any other latinos so do not pin this on me luke um which city would make the most sense where would you go tomorrow luke yeah easy call i mean I don't know if the job isn't on the line you know and it doesn't have any implications for that then the the answers vary a little bit but if it's for the reasons you cited which is life change and you know it has to be good for me

but good for my job and blah blah it's New York City New York City is easy I almost moved there several times in the last 10 years never really pulled the trigger just didn't quite have it in me, but it is where I would go. I think New York City is one of the great cities of the world. I've seen a few of them myself. I think it competes with all of them and beats most of them for that matter. A lot of people are upset with city living. I'm not. I think there's an incredible energy and excitement. The best of everything has a life in New York City. It's just an incredible place, whether you're in Manhattan or any of the other outer boroughs. Maybe not Staten Island, but certainly the other three.

Yeah, fuck Staten Island. Which borough would you pick if you had to pick one? I would prefer to live in Manhattan, but given the cost, I'd probably end up in Brooklyn. Okay. And like a gentrified hipster? Yeah, I don't know. I don't need to live next to a guyrified hipster? Yeah, I don't know if I'm, you know,

I don't need to live next to a guy who makes his own ketamine, but, you know, small batch ketamine. But, yeah, I mean, my wife, I mean, you got to understand, like, I would want to be in a place that's a little neighborhood-y, but also not a huge commute from the city. You know, a place that's got a mixed culture. So, yeah. All right. All right.

I'm just interested to know what that how big that scandal is, what actually happened to get you to move out of there, Luke. But maybe one day we'll find that out. All right, Luke, we're running late Wednesdays. You know, we make chicken shit salad out of a lot of chicken shit. But let's close with a segment that broke our heart last week luke let's see if how it works today it's called fan submissions yes you've got mail all right luke uh morning combat at gmail.com is the address for all of your wishes needs and

artwork let's start out here luke our favorite people on the old ig bill and jen's rv adventures they're still in California, Luke. And last week, good old Jen celebrated her birthday. It was a workday inside the RV, but she had the MK mug up there and elevated. So happy birthday out there to Jen from Bill and Jen. Luke, I touched base

with Bill. I said, you know, how long do you have to map out the plans? They got a couple month plan. They're going to hit the five national parks in Utah. They're just going to continue to live the dream, Luke. All right? I mean, it's amazing. It's the best life any human can have is what they're having right here.

It doesn't matter how rich you are or whatever. What do you think about you and I? Now, we couldn't do this full-time, but maybe for like a month, we get an MKRV, and it's like you, me, Gaff and Maniche and Mikey. And we hop in there and we just tour the country. We do episodes from national parks. We do live shows. You know,

we just, we just get on out there and record the whole thing. Luke. I think, I think that's one of the best ideas ever. And I would absolutely do it. I would absolutely do it. Thank you very much.

I think it was Maniche who just slid into our chat dms there and said he's down for it all right uh number two here luke from kareem t dare brian and luke given showtime does not ship to anywhere else in the u.s i had to find an alternative solution to show my support this is where i need to shout out my friend tracy who lives in denver and she kindly agreed to get this merch delivered to her door when she does not know what this show is about before sending it across to Geneva, Switzerland. Thanks, MK, for being there for us all day, nearly every day. Working from home is just that much better in my case.

May all your gains be loyal. Kareem Trigg in the house. Luke, looking great. Yeah, I've heard good things about Geneva. My buddy moved from D.C. to Basel, and he fucking hates it, but he told me Geneva's the shit, so I'd love to see it. Is that pronounced Basel? I would have guessed Basil.

Basil? Yeah, I thought so too, but he says Basel, so I'll follow his lead. All right. Dennis F. sliding in. Hey, Brian and Luke, just delivering some mail in this dump known as Bridgeport, Connecticut. Yes, it is, brother. I really enjoy all your content and looking forward to the future. Hey, Brian, what is your opinion of Frank Pepe's Pizzeria in New Haven being voted the best pizza in America from Dennis PS Go Yankees?

Luke, this man going postal on our behalf. Shout out to this fine American, right? Yep, stay safe out there. Thanks for doing what you do. And thanks for watching the show. By the way, I told you this. I've never been a perennial skeptic that Connecticut doesn't have the best pizza. Everyone I know who has good taste in pizza tells me it's true.

The problem, BC, is I've never really sampled it. I don't think I've ever been to a famous Connecticut eatery. So we always talk about you coming here and BC does DC, but there's got to be an LT does CT at some point because I've got to taste some of that Connecticut pizza. Well, I was going to ask you. So, look, in New Haven there's many good spots, but the two big ones are across

the street or next door to each other. Excuse me. It's Frank Pepe's and it's Sally's Luke Pepe's has become a chain in Connecticut. And I think parts of New York, they had it at the Mohegan sun. Did you try it when you were there? No, I did not. All right. I've never had the chain, but I like a lot of Connecticut people and people in the Northeast, have waited out in line for two hours in the cold to get a chair right by the door and get the famous clam pie. Look, Pepe's is great, specifically if you come from an area that does not have great pizza and you're finally getting the thin New Haven style. You know, yeah, Pepe's is great. But when I go to New Haven, I don't go there. My favorite is Bar, which is typically about fourth or fifth on the list

modern is modern pizza is like the new up-and-comer that has taken over the number one on the on the younger people's list there's a couple others that are there but uh shout out to New Haven and look the runoff I grew up 18 miles from New Haven uh I've been eating greasy Greek pizza for my whole life that's another style that's popular in the northeast so uh yes New Haven pizza Connecticut New York pizza it's it's the best in the world is Frank Pepe's's popular in the Northeast. So yes, New Haven pizza, Connecticut, New York pizza. It's the best in the world. Is Frank Pepe's the best in the world? It would depend on your pizza history and what you like.

I'm not a huge thin crust New Haven style guy, but obviously it's top shelf stuff. So thank you, Dennis. Continue to do what you do. All right, Luke, let's speed it up here. Scott D sending us something about the cost of international shipping. That's not right.

You and I on the beach discussing whether it was worth it, Luke. Wait, wait. This is the beach from uh rogue one yes this is a the the scare this is scarif this is the this is the dunes on scarif great call great call great call well well done on this meme scotty it even went over my head so well done right there you go s a d uh jonah g says we all all know BC was shook when Luke asked Valerie Laredo about her DMs Very true

Luke I'm gonna be honest I did not know where that was gonna go Okay because I felt her energy Why were you so freaked out about it I wasn't asking her to show me I was asking her how many creeps there probably were harassing her because her photos have been a subject of controversy. It's a very normal question.

When you ask a good-looking lady, especially one who herself posts very thirsty pictures, a comment about that category, whether you're being positive or negative, Luke, it's going to be a little dicey. I was very nervous when I looked over at her initial reaction that was like, who, who that, where is this coming from? Where are you going with this?

All right. Nah, she was fine. But all you like is booty. Hot Latino booty. We know that Luke. Okay. Uh, Scott D. Guilty as charged, sir.

Scott D's got some Luke poetry for us in the next one. I promise we don't have 40 of these today. Like a train hitting a bug and being disturbed by the sound. Luke, what is this? I don't get the reference. What is going on here? Neither do I. It might be over my head as well.

But you're a poet. There's a jazz band behind you. Is that the roots behind you? It looks like Samuel L. Jackson. And it does look like Questlove on the left of the screen there. All right. All right. I'm sure there's an explanation to why this was great.

Thank you. All right. Richard A. is back with a creepy one. Happy Valentine's Day. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no. No. Nobody puts BC in the corner. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no.

No. Nobody puts BC in the corner. Please. No. No, Luke. Well, you know what? It looks like we lost weight, BC. That's good.

Oh, boy. Yeah, we stopped buying $100 of Taco Bell for each other. That's great. Okay. Thank you. Steve B is back with another meme meme let's see where this one's going when my wife asked me if i'm watching fights again this weekend that's pretty good that's pretty good all right all right uh by the way people think we need a better quality

control on these luke i don't know sometimes i. Alan W. says, big trouble in morning combat. On the next one. Oh, yes, bitch. Yes. That is well done. That is well done. Luke, you know, I've never, I don't want to say I've never seen that movie because it was on HBO every day when we were kids.

I've seen parts of it. I don't remember. I need to read. I need to catch up on this, Luke. Dude, you know what you know we should do that we should do a watch along together with the audience big trouble little china is just an endlessly great movie um but i'll candidly admit one movie i've seen i've never like to your point i've never sat down beginning to end and watched it but i've seen a million parts i've never sat down beginning to end on fight club can you believe that wow i know i did i did shrooms the first time i watched fight club that that movie screwed me up big time luke i

thought i thought on the drive home that i was in the movies you know i was one of those nights luke that was great okay uh fernando c says he has a two about bc and and Luke's upbringing. Here's Luke. Luke's pampered upbringing in a historic antebellum mansion built on a plantation in Old Marietta. I wish. I lived in an apartment with a single mom, motherfuckers, and I dated a girl who went to a rich private school. I rode the bus to school through my junior year. Only after I got a job did i get a beater for two

thousand dollars for a gut from a government auction bc that was my first car i got a car i got a i got a white corsica i think chevy and it was so fucking shitty if you rolled down the right window it fell through the door it was the fucking worst i wish I had this kind of upbringing, bitch. I wish. Luke, do you see how brilliant this is on Donald Trump's body is your father, Rob Thomas, and instead of your father's picture, it's Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. That's great. But is that actually you, that kid,

that chubby-looking kid? No. What they might have done is taken my photo and then run it through one of those apps that makes you look younger or older yes you know and then just pasted it on there because it does kind of look like you you kind of look like a little bit a little bit yeah all right here's fernando's second one uh bbc's humble upbringing having been found in a canvas bag on the fourth floor of a sawmill

in an impoverished town somewhere in the middle of Appalachia. Just where they found my savior, Luke. Exactly. Thank you. You're pretty close there to that fucking buzzsaw. Jesus Christ. Not very safe for you, buddy. What's those bottom pictures?

Meech, can we blow that up, please? Is there a tip on tip? I can't tell what else is going on there. Or is that part of just the one? I don't know, but that's great. Yeah, dirty industrial town people. Yeah, they're just, look, BC, they're poor people. Who cares?

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, who cares? All right. I think we got one more from Alan W. Luke, and this is Luke in Pulp Fiction. Say what? I can't read that. The bubble says...

I double dare you, motherfucker. Say, Ronaldo, one more goddamn time. Y'all had me to that point. Y'all had me to... I was about to make a bad choice about my life. That's how much y'all had pushed me to that point. But I'm glad we were able to come to a common sense solution. Yep.

Do you know what they call a Big Mac in Doha luke a royale with cheese exactly bitch uh thank you folks for the fine fan submissions this week i know we kind of screwed the pooch last week by running 4 000 of them but uh you know wednesdays uh we don't expect to go two hours but we did luke so that's the show for you this week it is is. It is. Let me remind folks how they can get more of this and then participate because we still have a Friday show. We have tomorrow's live chat at three that I will do, and we need your submissions for Dead Wrong.

Best place to do that, of course, is going to be at MorningCombat at gmail.com. MorningCombat at gmail.com is the show email. Send all your inquiries and dead wrong submissions there. If you want to follow us on social media, you certainly can. It's Morning Combat consistently, same name everywhere. Of course, Morning Combat with a K. But BC and I have a slightly different name between Twitter

and Instagram. You can see there. But please give us a follow just the same. If you want to try Showtime, you can go to Showtime.com, 30-day free trial. And of course, if you want to check out Bellator, I think they have a $4.99 for the first six months deal there as well. And, of course, you see that merch that BC has on his head. You can get more of that store.show.com.

BC, any final thoughts before we get out of here? Thank you for all of our viewers for the love for the great Reggie Jackson, who did, if you didn't notice that, did bite me as we were about to go to off air there. But love that critter. He's around here somewhere. Luke, what are your animals' names again? I keep forgetting. What do we got?

So the cat is Moco, which means booger in Spanish. And then the dog, the black dog, is Barbas. And then the yellow white dog is Lola. You can just call him Barbas. You don't have to do the whole, like, kind of Caribbean thing. Yeah, he's Barbas. Whatever. He's Barbas, and then the yellow white dog is Lola. You can just call him Barbas. You don't have to do the whole, like, kind of thing. Yeah, he's Barbas. Barbas, whatever. He's Barbas, yes. Okay, all right.

Tell Barbas that Canelo will be representing him this Saturday at Hard Rock Stadium. I will let him know. All right. Thanks to Malka, Showtime, and CBS Sports who make this show possible. For Brian Campbell, I am Luke Thomas. I'll talk to you tomorrow for the live chat at 3. We'll be back together at 11 a.m. in the East on Friday.

And until then, may all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be right back. We'll see you next time.