MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Khabib vs. Usman, Rematch Fatigue, Dana White | Luke Thomas' Live Chat, ep. 74

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Today on the podcast, we'll explore what a Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Kamaru Usman fight might look like, whether there's rematch fatigue around fights like Zhang Weili vs. Rose Namajunas 2, what it means to interview UFC President Dana White, the next season of The Ultimate Fighter, Morning Kombat being cancelled, the fan appeal of Nick Diaz and Nate Diaz, Paradigm vs. Dominance MMA, Trevor Wittman's coaching expertise, Jon Jones's future at heavyweight and much more. --------------------------- '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

Hey everybody, it is the 29th of April 2021. My name is Luke Thomas, I'm from Showtime and CBS Sports and this is my live chat. We'll go for about an hour and 15 minutes and we will answer and or discuss the topics of the day. Endeavor is, well, they went public or tried to go public anyway today. We have fights this weekend. We have, I'm going to imagine someone's going to be asking about Joe Rogan and vaccines considering that was all over Twitter yesterday. Whatever you want to get into. It doesn't have to be any of those things. It can be a bunch of other things. Really, it's your chat. I might host it, but it's your chat, okay? As always, you want to hit the thumbs

up button on your video. You want to hit the subscribe button on your video. I was just outside taking, I bought, so I can't really run and I had to go to a doctor yesterday because my right knee is acting up. I mean, I had planned to get this in advance. I didn't just get it overnight, but it was sort of like, oh gee, yeah, it's a good idea to get this. I went to a doctor yesterday because I was having pain above my right knee and not when I normally squatted where you have the hip hinge and then the ankle flexion but let's say you had vertical shins like you would for like a landmine squat or a sumo deadlift and it hurt like a motherfucker my right knee and the

doctor basically said I got all kinds of issues in my right knee but um so I need like leg exercises I can do that you know can put strain on them but not the kind that hurts and uh so I need like leg exercises I can do that, you know, can put strain on them, but not the kind that hurts. And, uh, so I, I, I was going to buy it for other reasons for cardio reasons and a bunch of other things, but, and I know it sucks that like an out of shape asshole like me is discussing this. And some of you are probably like, we don't give a fuck. I understand. I'm just telling you, I just came literally straight from outside. I'm kind of like still trying to catch my breath, but I took the new, my new, uh, torque tank and one sled for a push. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That was tough. Really tough. I don't know how to program sled work all that well. I've only ever used them quite minimally. And usually there were

like, um, they were, um, they're the kind of like rogue sleds that just have the legs on the bottom. And then you pull, they make a shitload of noise. The, the torque M one has wheels. Um, but it's magnetized. So anyway, uh, so I was doing minute on minute off on stage two uphill thought I was going to vomit thought thought, didn't vomit, didn't vomit, got close. That thing is a beast, a beast. The Torque Tank M1. They have an M4, which is for like CrossFit gyms.

This is like a home gym. That thing fucked me up. So without further ado, let's get this party started because I am still trying to catch my breath. All right. And we can turn that off. Okay, so as you guys know, I post a link usually the day before. I post it on the community tab of this here YouTube page. So if you go to morning, excuse me, if you go to youtube.com slash morning combat,

there's a community tab. So it's home, I'm looking at it now, home, videos, playlists, community channels, about. If you go to the community part of that channel, I always solicit questions there with like a picture or something. We got 255 today. So, uh, it's a lot. All right. Whew. That was hard. Uh, that was hard. That was fucking hard, man. Um, so you might, if, by the way, if you've programmed sled work before and you're like, Luke, you shouldn't do a minute on a minute off. I don't know how to program. So email me Luke Thomas news at gmail.com. I mean, I know how to program like lifts and stuff. I don't know how to program. So email me LukeThomasNews at gmail.com. I mean, I know how to program like lifts and stuff. I don't know how to program that kind of thing. Um, so I'm looking

for any help actually, but that was hard. First, like half of the lap, I'm like, it was like one of those edible things. You ever seen those edible memes? Where they're like this edible ain't shit, and then 30 minutes later they're all, you know, zonked out, first half of the first lap I was like, this ain't shit man, I wasted my money on this thing, and then the second half I didn't know if I was

going to have to call a fucking Uber to get home and I was around the corner I was dunzo, alright but fuck all that right, who cares are you going to put And I was around the corner. I was dunzo. All right. But fuck all that, right? Who cares? Are you going to put your daughter in jiu-jitsu or any other martial art? If so, what age?

I am going to try. I'm going to try. Probably I will get her into a kid's program pretty early. But, you know, I want to be very clear about this. If she doesn't take to it or she doesn't like it, I'm not going to make her. I'm not going to make her do miserable shit she doesn't like. Except the only thing miserable that I'm going to... Two things that I'm going to make her do are, one, household chores. No kid likes them, but, you know, we all know you have to do them.

And two is homework. Two is homework. She will get good grades, period. I mean, if I have to fucking hire a tutor to live with her, I will. Hopefully it won't come to that. But for most other things, recreational, I would like for her to choose her own path. I think my job is to encourage her to find what that is. And then certainly when things get hard, not to quit.

You know, it's a balancing act about when you let someone stop doing something that they just won't enjoy and it's not for them versus, you know, what could be beneficial for them versus things that they really like, which might not have a wider application, but they get a ton of joy from. I'm hoping she gets joy from it. But, you know, if she ends up playing soccer, if she ends up doing dance, if she ends up doing, you know, wrestling. There's girls wrestling programs around here. Then that's great, you know. But if she really tries it and then it's just not for her, I'm not going to make her. So I would say I'm probably going to get her into a program here pretty soon. The next couple of years, certainly before five.

And then we'll see how it goes. If you had the chance to have an interview with Dana, would you take it? Sure. Sure. I don't know. I couldn't promise you how good it could be. But would I take the opportunity? Yeah, I've been trying for years.

I've been trying for years. Because here been trying for years because here's the problem, and this is one thing people get wrong a lot. Whether you agree with him or not, you ever notice that people, when they call into Rush Limbaugh, they rarely get the better of him? In part because he's a very gifted broadcaster, or certainly he passed, but he was a gifted broadcaster. And the other part is he's got you know probably a lot of these arguments for the various issues whatever it may be gun control taxes blah blah blah he's got a lot of the talking points down

you know so he can whip them out pretty quickly but the the other part is that you don't understand if you've never done that job that you think you can call in and be like, oh, I can show him he's wrong, but you're not on an even playing field. He's up there and you're down there. It's sort of the easiest way to explain it. They can cut you off. They can mute you. With rhetorical tricks, they can sort of change the nature and the tenor of the conversation.

They can guide it towards paths where they're more in control. It's really that they have a ton of control over what gets discussed and how it gets discussed. And that was true when I hosted my show. It'd be true if you hosted your show. It's true when Rush hosted his or Howard or anybody, anybody. It's just how it goes, right? I bring that up say um it'd be much better to have a situation where he was forced to debate now i'm not one of these guys who's like ben shapiro debate me i think that kind of shit's kind of silly i bring up the debate only because you would have ostensibly a degree of neutrality between the parties and then rules about how the conversation

is set to take place. Because if I'm just going to ask him stuff and he's going to obfuscate or change the subject or not really come clean or whatever, just not participate in it, which would be his right. You can't make someone do it. What would be the point of that? Just to see two people bicker? There would be no point.

But if you could find some kind of arrangement where there was a third party who could guide and then control this ostensibly on equal terms, it doesn't have to be a debate per se. It could be kind of a discussion, a roundtable. But someone was in control outside of the two parties, I think that would be better. You know, getting someone to answer for these things, you know, for example, they announced today the UFC is going to be selling NFTs and, you know, NBA is sort of already ahead of the curve on this with Top Shots. Peter Kafka did an interview with the guy who is basically in charge of that On the tech side

The company that does that for the NBA Top Shots And you know there's a ton of money that they've already Made on this shit like you know hundreds I think they've done over 200 million in sales already Just on NBA NFTs You know

And so the question is like How much money would the fighters get like if i asked him that you know there's no real way to pin him down unless there is someone else who can force the conversation in that direction you're like oh a careful interviewer can do that right but a careful lease and dana's quite skilled at this about answering in ways that are favorable to him or reframing it in a way that changes the subject or something like that he's quite he's actually quite gifted at that um so if it's just that I don't see what the point is but if you could have something where you know you could have an honest discussion back and forth because I'm sure I would learn things that I didn't know before. That'd be great.

That's a good question. If you could put together an eight-man tournament in any weight class co-promoted by UFC and Bellator, four fighters from each promotion, which would be the most competitive? Include dream matchups in the first round. You could do light heavyweight. So I would do Nemkov, Rumble, Romero, and Bader. And then on the other side, I would do Reyes, Prochocka, Blachowicz, and Teixeira. That'd be a good-ass tournament, right? You could do Featherweight. You could do McKee, Pitbull, Sanchez. You could do Caldwell.

On the other side, you could do Volkanovski, Max, Ortega, and whoever else would be the fourth. I don't know who else is ranked fourth, but you could do that. You could do one at Welterweight too. Amosov, Storley, Lima. Who else could you do? I have to think about that one for the fourth. But there's a few divisions where you could do it.

I'm a regular listener to the MK podcast. Is this the best way to support the channel? Or is the channel only measured by YouTube views, likes, and subs? No, they definitely take a look at download numbers. It's kind of funny. That's not a number I've ever really put a lot of effort into or cared about a whole lot. I really cared about YouTube views,

and I frankly understand YouTube metrics a lot better than pure downloading metrics, but no, CBS does pay attention. So for whatever reason, if you end up missing an MK episode and you wanna not watch it live, you wanna just throw it on your phone or your browser on your computer or whatever you're listening on, that helps us. 100% that helps us.

If you click us in any way, they notice. And I got to tell you, the numbers, the last four months for us in totality, CBS is extremely happy with. Extremely happy with. Not just YouTube, not just download, but there's a lot of different things that they measure. I know that they've set a series of benchmarks for us the last four months, and the last four months, we've exceeded all of them each month so we're we're everything's you know the ship is going in the right direction seas look like they're you know uh saleable but we definitely got to make sure that we're reminding our p's and q's so we love it for me i personally i care most about the youtube metrics but i want to be clear for whatever reason you either miss it or you even prefer it in audio, that is big for us too.

Really big. Did Endeavor really go public? Yes. Kind of went under the radar a little bit. How much more information about UFC's business will we be able to obtain now? That part I'm not entirely certain about. There will be some information relative to revenue generation, contracted revenue, certain forms of costs, but exactly itemized receipts is where I don't think that they're going to necessarily have to divulge that. So that part is going to

get a little bit crazy. But I mean, here's the thing. It's not that you can't make an argument for wanting and needing more current information to have a current understanding of pay. Because at some point, someone might say, well, all of your pay is from, at this point, in 2021 or 2022, you don't have data from 2021. You don't have data from 2022 because the court case stops at around whatever it was,

2016 or 2017. I have to go back and look at the actual information about what the date is that concludes. But it's a finite amount of time. And the more the time passes, the more there is a yawning gap between that and this. What you have to understand is it's not just what it shows, 18 to 20%.

It's that there are explicit forms of documentation from the treasure trove of documents that were put out by the lawsuit but which by the way there might be more documents coming out that are unsealed i'm told that are going to make mma certain mma managers look quite bad although you know i'll believe that shit when I see it. I think you could show serious mendacity and managers absolutely rejecting their fiduciary responsibility. And I don't know that anyone in this industry would really care, candidly. But the point being is you see plans explicitly stated in those documents. The plan is to keep labor costs constant. Which is to say, if you go from making $100 million to $200 million,

and your percentage stays the same, the money will go up. You will pay out more money. But that 20%, in those documents, they explicitly state that they want to keep those as close to fixed as absolutely possible for a lot of reasons, not least of which is if you can understand, I mean, listen, dude, the UFC is not doing anything illegal. Now you might say that the law might intervene in the case that they decided they might become a monopoly, but as it stands today, the feds ain't going to raid Zufa offices or UFC offices and say, we're going to seize all your shit because we think you're doing...

They're taking advantage of the business climate that is in front of them. I said this exactly on Rogan's podcast. They're going to do what they're going to do, man. And if the laws enable them this kind of freedom to plan their business accordingly. And if you want to go public and if you want to show some kind of stability, not just with your labor costs as a function of what your overall business costs might be, but now you also have, remember, fixed revenue generation on the other end, contracted. Overseas contracted revenue.

Overseas ESPN contracted revenue, money that if you meet a certain amount of benchmarks in terms of just staging events, you are guaranteed to get. The business used to be significantly more volatile. It certainly isn't. So to the extent you can bring not merely high revenue generation, but if you want to invest in Endeavor, don't you want to know that the company is going to be stable for some time to come? Don't you want to know that they have a good business plan about what their costs are and they understand where they're coming from and they understand how to keep them relatively consistent?

You want to know that they know how to generate a profit. And that involves balancing a lot of different competing interests and challenges. But part of that is making things as stable, predictable, understandable as possible. Now, of course, we know that there will always be fluctuations, but that's certainly the goal. So it'd be nice to have updated information, but you guys have to know the reality. It's been 20%. They say explicitly in these documents they're going to keep it 20%. And if there's no mechanism to force them to change, why would they? They're not breaking any laws. The fighters aren't forcing them to do anything different.

Media has raised all the attention they could possibly raise about this. UFC is just going to do what they're going to do. You know what I mean? And they're totally in compliance. Totally in compliance. So, there you go. If you and Brian had a sports Olympics, MMA, American football,

real football, I think you mean soccer, basketball, track, etc., who would win? I'm feeling Brian. You motherfuckers. MMA? I mean, please. I would do terrible things to Brian.

American football, I would do terrible things to him. Soccer? I think we'd probably both suck. Maybe he'd win. Basketball? I'll even... I'll give him the nod there, even though I don't think that's true. But I'll just...

Okay, I'll give him the nod. And then track. Yeah, that's true but I'll just okay I'll give him the nod and then track yeah he's smaller than me he'd win there okay but he gets so fucked up from the MMA that you know the rest of that shit I mean if MMA and American football came first oh I'm doing terrible things to that motherfucker how worried are you about BC saying something

that will get MK cancelled not very not very it's a it's a fun bit to make fun of there's been a couple times where it was like How worried are you about BC saying something that will get MK cancelled? Not very. Not very. It's a fun bit to make fun of. There's been a couple times where it was like... But like, you know, the whole thing about the Ryzen stuff, like what he did, I thought, what he said was, you know, we've been over it. He made a mistake and he apologized. And I think, I've said this before, man. four man if you're gonna have a world where you're trying to police people's behavior whatever that policing might be you also have to have a world where there's forms of amnesty and forgiveness and understanding and you know how you hand those out and when you hand those out is a matter of

debate but i like to think that like i don't think rehabilitation is possible without forgiveness and again this is he didn't fucking murder a guy i'm just saying as a general rule um but like inside Showtime, they weren't losing sleep over it. Not that they thought it was great, but he wasn't in danger of losing his job. And that's about as bad as I think he's ever really going to get. He understands. It's all about pushing the boundary, but not really getting past. We're not line steppers. We're line teasers,

I think is the difference there. By the way, when BC comes down to DC and we film that, I'm going to put that fucker through the gauntlet. Chisel wrote this question. You think Brian would win? I'm going to put that motherfucker through through the gauntlet. Chisel wrote this question. You think Brian would win? I'm going to put that motherfucker through the gauntlet. You're going to see real fast how foolish your question is. All right, top three smartest MMA fighters you've ever met. Past or present. Dominic Cruz.

Probably Israel Adesanya. Um, who was the guy who was the energy trader who talked about UFC pay? And then, uh, was it, no, Mitch Chilson is the, um, is the guy who is the commentator for one. There was a guy who I was at a Henzo's, I forget his name, he was an energy trader. And he went to Ivy League school. He was very bright. He wasn't the best fighter you ever saw.

He made it to UFC, but he was quite bright. Cormier's bright. St. Pierre's bright. There's a lot that are bright. Saint Pierre's bright. There's a lot that are bright. There's another one I thought that was pretty bright. Conor's pretty bright. Just because I don't mention them doesn't mean they're not on the list. It just means I haven't had that kind of experience with them. I think Robert Whitaker's pretty bright. I think...

You mean to talk about the past. Who was that guy, the Ninja of Love? I think he ended up studying biology in some academic way. There's been a few. There's been a few. There's been a few. There's been a few. If you were on this season's tough, which team would you prefer to be on, Volk or Brian?

Who would be more beneficial to learn from? It depends on what you need to learn. Now, I will say that I didn't see the entire coaching staff. I saw a little bit of who Ortega put together. Ortega, see, this is the thing. It's like, what do you really need to work on? You couldn't go wrong either way, to be candid with you. I mean, Ortega brought in the striking coach. It was the guy who got Henry Cejudo ready for the cruise fight. I interviewed him. His name escapes me now, the Asian gentleman. He's brilliant. He is

a truly brilliant guy. He's on that team. So like if you're looking for real advancements in your striking, I mean, how could you go wrong? Obviously Ortega probably has some good MMA metagame stuff he can teach. But on the other side, you've got Volkanovsky, who I think understands feinting and rhythm change and angling better than just about anybody. And plus he brought in Craig Jones on his team. I mean, you know, hard to go wrong. Hard to go wrong. You just have to figure out what you need to work on, who's going to give you the most attention, who understands how to run a practice, that kind of a thing.

But, you know, you're talking about two world-class fighters with world-class coaching staffs around them. You know, at that stage in your career, it would have to be some kind of dereliction of duty for there to be a massive difference from one to the other. It was cool to hear you on the radio today at work talking with Lawrence Holmes on 670 The Score in Chicago. That was yesterday.

Just curious, how did you develop a relationship with Lawrence? He's great. And do you do radio hits in other cities as well? I do radio hits all the time. I don't usually retweet them or share them. But yeah, all the time. All the time. Lawrence used to work at a place called Stadium.

And before Stadium, it was called 120 Sports. Which is based out of Chicago, which is where Lawrence is based. For folks who don't know, he covers Chicago sports, so like White Sox, I don't know if he covers the Cubs or not, but Bears, that kind of a thing. He's a big sports personality in Chicago, and he's great. He was just looking for, he moved on from that job, from 120 Sports. And he moved into... Or at least, I think, went further down this path in radio.

And you develop relationships with these guys at different places. Then they go to other ones and they bring you along with them. So that's it. But yeah, I've done radio. The only show... I've never done Jim Rome or anything like that. They usually have terrible fucking MMA guests or fighters. I've done Colin Coward.

I've done, yeah, obviously I've done all the local shows here. Steve Saban, the Junkies when he was on, Chad Dukes, Grant and Danny. Yeah, I mean, they hit you up all the time I'll go on Toronto radio all the time 590 the fan I think it's called do you think Cyril gone will be a tough fight for Francis with his distance control quickness and athleticism

especially if that fight takes place in a big cage. Yes. Yes. Fighting fire with fire against Francis doesn't seem like a very, doesn't seem like a very great idea or just, you know, what's the best way to get your hand raised against Francis? Fighting fire with fire with him. That doesn't seem like it's it, chief. But slowing the fight down, keeping it at range, changing angles, rhythm changing,

kind of like what Volkanovski does a little bit. Obviously Cyril's quite different than Volkanovski, but similar kinds of ideas about what matters in a fight with very different applications of it. Yes, I think that is exactly a tough fight for him. If you can stay out of his range, make him miss, he's going to be wide open for shots. Now, it turns out that he's going to have a good chin too, but I like that approach versus head-on.

It's like trying to slow down by... Have you ever seen those football hits where two guys run at each other? Have you ever played American football? They'll do these drills where two guys, I mean, I don't know how it works now with CTE and shit, but back when I was in eighth grade and then ninth grade and tenth grade, they just made you run at each other in hitting practice to see who could win the drill. You know, trying to do that in an MMA style with Francis, just meet him head on, that seems like a fucking terrible idea.

And if you try to take him down, his takedown defense is really good. He's strong. He's got good separation. You can do that if you can stay safe on the entries and the exits. But that's also, there's just very little margin for error. So to me, staying away from him is probably going to be the best approach. Until we learn more about perhaps some other weakness that he has. But as it stands today, based on the information that we have today,

that seems like the best approach. All right, name three things you love about MMA and three things you hate. Okay. Do you ever plan on retiring from covering MMA? All right, let's start with the first thing. Three things I love about MMA. I love how weird it is. It's got an unusual community of people.

It's an unusual sport. It results in unusual but noteworthy and interesting human behavior. It's weird. It's weird in a good way, though. It's weird in a bad way also, but you're asking about the's weird. It's weird in a good way, though. It's weird in a bad way also, but you're asking about the good part. It's weird in a good way. I like the violence of it.

I enjoy violent things, you know, to a point with limits, but I enjoy them. Things you love. I feel like I've learned a lot from watching MMA athletes train or compete or deal with setback or even handling the challenges of success. I've learned a lot about myself. I've learned a lot about human nature. I've learned a lot about the limits of it. I've learned about what's special and what's not as it relates to activities that elicit that,

you know? I feel like I learned a lot about life in many ways watching MMA, as crazy as that might sound. Because it sounds like it's so divorced. It's a carnival circus on the other side of things. And in many ways it is that, right? It is some of the sort of like taking I've never done psychedelics. I certainly have nothing against them, but I've never done it. But it reminds me a little bit about psychedelics, which is that you see

all these weird things and you might experience a little bit of terror and whatever along the way, but the people who have done it correctly, you know, with the right dosage and under the right circumstances and whatnot, they all sort of universally say it was a gratifying experience and a profound and life-changing one. I feel like the people who harass fighters on social media, when they lose, are the scum of the earth. I really mean that.

I think they're terrible people. And they do that in other sports, but again, going back to what I like about MMA, some of the lessons that you learn, you just learn how profoundly, intensively alone you are at times as a fighter in a sport. And I say that as an observer,

not a competitor, but having seen it and watched the depth of despair that some of these guys go through, and ladies, go through as a consequence, I think the people who go after them in those moments, they are really vile, awful creatures, and I wish nothing but bad things for every one of them.

But not just the fans. When I say the bad people I mean shitbag managers Thieving promoters Charlatan trainers I can't stand them at all I can't stand People might say Based on yesterday's MK episode

Or you guys know my politics That I might say that because the sport leans right wing In many ways That's what I hate But really it's not I don't care about I don't honestly I'm being as honest with you on my mother as I can be like do I love that no I don't necessarily love that but I don't really that doesn't keep me up at night I don't hate that kind of thing it's just you know it's disagreement whatever um but like I to tell you during this whole pandemic thing, just the anti-science bullshit that got paraded over and over. It just blows my fucking mind that if you ask a fighter or a manager or a promoter or anyone else in that chain of custody, how much respect is owed to them by virtue of the expertise that they have developed, being in the trenches and working their way to the position that they have acquired, which by the way is the right

that they are deserving in many cases, in most cases, nearly all of them, of the respect that they feel like they are due and they can't turn around and afford it to somebody else. I realize that we're living in an era of totally failed institutions or at least failure and trust in institutions. I get that. I get that. I understand that. But I got to tell you, that was so off-putting for me that I wasn't sure I wanted to keep

doing this job during the pandemic. I felt utterly disconnected. I still do in many ways from the community for it. In the words of Carl Sagan, what a demon-haunted world MMA is. The pseudoscience, the absolute astrological bullshit that people peddle, the belief in things that are backed without the slightest degree of evidentiary basis whatsoever, the unnecessary risks that people take. I'm not talking about risks in a fight where you're understanding what you might have to do and what you might not have to do. I'm talking outside of all of that.

All of that. No one wants to relitigate the pandemic. I'm not here to. It was present before that and it's been present in other situations. That brought it into stark relief. But the amount of just not even scientific illiteracy, just cultural illiteracy. No desire to ever get to the facts of things, no desire whatsoever

to really listen to however evolving it may have been at any version of the expert consent. If you've never read, here is a book for you motherfuckers. Where did I put it? Is it still up? I have a whole other bookshelf. Are you crushing your bills? Defeating your monthly payments? Sounds like you're at the top of your financial game. Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits.

Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. Where do I put that? Where the fuck do I put this? I don't know where I put it. I think it's upstairs. I have a copy of it.

I've read it twice. Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World. Just these people who traffic in absolute fantasy. And they always set it up like something you've never really encountered. Like, I remember one of the chapters, they were talking about the idea of proving a negative, right? Where if someone came to you and they said, hey, this room is full of gremlins. You just can't see them. They don't leave fingerprints and they're not touching you. And you would say, but you need proof for that.

And they would say, how do you know it's not true? It's called proving a negative, which you can never do because they could always just come up with a series of claims to never have to answer for it. So that's why I always tell Brian, if you're going to believe in something, you have to start with evidence-based account of it first and then build your worldview from there.

Because if you just say, well, how do you know it's not true? You can never get anywhere where that's actually not a way to prove anything. It's just a way to play a rhetorical game. The amount of fucking rhetorical proving a negative games inside this sport is astounding. Nobody who gives a shit about the history of labor organizing, you would think that'd be relevant. No one gives a fuck about what epidemiologists and virologists and public health that'd be relevant. No one gives a fuck about what epidemiologists and virologists and public health officials have to say. No one gives a fuck. Who are these people?

They don't know anything. I mean, it's just to me, it is nothing is more of an indictment on MMA than nothing makes me prouder to be a part of this community than the heroics that people show in this sport in terms of the trainers that sacrifice and the fighters that they sacrifice

on the altar of athletic glory. Nothing makes me prouder to be a part of the community. Nothing makes me more ashamed than its demon hauntedness, to borrow from Carl Sagan. It is pathetic. It is embarrassing. It is lazy. It is harmful. It is dangerous. And it's not even fucking true half to half. 90% of these things that you hear, you know, whoever the fuck from a UFC prelim card

or their manager or their trainer bring up on social media, just the, every time I go and see someone who's some kind of skeptic about institutional medicine, by the way, if they need, you know, they're hypoglycemic and they need insulin medicine, all of a sudden Big Pharma's their number one friend. Just point that out. But, you know, more to the point, every time, it's never a link or a study to anything reputable. It's some fucking reheated meme that they grabbed off of Aunt Betty on Facebook and put there because it sounded full of wisdom.

What fucking lazy, intellectually nothing people. I can't stand it. It's not a question of how smart you are That's never the issue The issue is To what extent do you adhere to Rigorous standards of evidence That's the question

And most people it turns out Don't even know which way to look When they're crossing the fucking street In this business They wouldn't know what to do If their lives, and I'm using it as a metaphor, if their lives fucking depended on it. And if an expert told them, maybe you should look both ways when you cross the street, they wouldn't do it. I can't stand that. Can't fucking stand it even a little bit. I find it pathetic. I find it fucking pathetic.

This shit makes me angry, man. It's just so embarrassing. Last thing I hate. That's the last thing I hate. I hate that the fighters don't have representation. I hate it. Because it forces the media to take this... The media's job... Maybe you don't know this. I'm not saying this sarcastically.

I'm saying it's like a real thing. You are expected, if you are media in this business, to be friendly to the things that fans like, which is understandable, right? Because they're going to you, for someone who covers the sport, they want to get that fan fulfillment through what you're telling them or showing them or what they're reading. So partly you understand that, but that's really not your job. Your job might be to tell the truth about that to the extent that that story needs to be

told, but to the extent that negative ones or stories about figures that you would otherwise find worthy of flattery, that's actually your job. It's to hold power to account. It's not to say things that make fans or media or other forms of media or promoters or whoever happy. That's actually not your job at all. And part of that expectation to do that, I fucking hate that too.

So there you go. Do you plan on retiring from covering MMA? I'm sure eventually, right? Or, you know, I'll get drummed out one way or the other. That's dumb. Leading up to last weekend's pay-per-view fans as well as personalities such as jack slack brought up that rose was probably oh boy you better be careful with these this is what this

person is writing was brought up that rose was probably groomed by pat barry due to the output the claim that they met when namunas was 14 and Barry 27. He described his first time meeting... He described the first time he saw her as love at first sight and went on to begin dating officially when she was about 17. Considering the fact that similar allegations are made about Antonina Shevchenko and Pavel Fedotov, is this... If true, is this some weird-ass shit?

Why isn't it so brought up more often in the media? And do you think it's more common than people think amongst female fighters and male coaches the last part i don't know although i will say when i got out of the military i had um a couple of the women i served with who never they got promoted ahead of me you know i mean like these were not bad marines at all they were they were good marines and it you know did their jobs, and then they got out, and that was it. I remember when we got out, they all told me how many times they were sexually harassed. And then when they told me who did it, I couldn't believe it.

You know, commanding officers, you know, top enlisted officials, platoon sergeants, all the way down. You just couldn't fucking believe, you know, who would do it. So, you know, do I think that there's probably untold amounts of male coaches, you know, absent this discussion here, taking advantage of women? Yeah, like I don't think there's any. I bet it's rampant quite candidly now this one uh i've actually never heard that with fedotov and shevchenko which is to say that i don't know what to make of it i've never heard of it i have heard the ones about rose and berry but i've never i thought they were i'll be serious with you i thought they were jokes and so i didn't look into it um but what you're

telling me is that they're not jokes? I'll admit ignorance on this one and say I've never taken it seriously because I didn't know. I thought it was just like a joke people were making. I'll tell you this, though. Again, if someone brought it up, again, let's assume for a second that it was true, that something like that happened, which I don't know that it is. Let's assume for the sake of argument that it's true.

If it were true, I don't think anyone in the business would care. I have to warn everyone. Everyone thinks that there's this trump card you can show the community about someone else's, again, in this case, alleged, but let's say whatever. Whatever you had, theft, robbery, rape, murder, whatever. Well, murder, I don't know, but up to rape. You could try to present evidence for that in MMA, and I don't think there's just giant swaths of the community

that would either reject it or not care. It's not normal in that sense. Part of the media is made impotent because if your role is to raise awareness for some of these issues, such that they are true and verifiable, some are not. But to the extent that they are true and verifiable, they don't really care. Like, you know, Lloyd Irvin never faced any, any, to my knowledge, did not face any law enforcement issues,

but, and I think he did reputationally suffer some from some of the allegations that were reported on through Bloody Elbow, but like, did the community, did Jiu Jitsu really care? No. Did MMA really care? No. Did any promotion really care? No. People just don't care.

They don't care about malfeasance really all that much. Unless it's like, they cared a lot about the dude, who was the guy over at Bloody Elbow who ended up being the pedo. What the fuck was his name? I can't remember. But they cared a lot about that. Which is fine, you should. I mean, that was fucking terrible.

Part of this whole thing, like, gotcha, it doesn't exist in a world where people have no ability to morally reason. What do you think of the latest UFO videos released by the Navy? I've not seen the most recent recent ones. Do you have thoughts on Commander Fravor's encounter with the tic-tac-shaped UFO in 2004 that jammed radar and flew at incredible speeds with no visual propulsion system? I think I may have seen that one.

Official documents will be released by the Pentagon in June this year about the phenomenon. MK all day. Boy, I got to tell you, this is one area where I've had to really dial back. Not criticisms. I never criticize anybody in this way. But, like, my skepticism. How about that? All my life, I've been very skeptical,

not about the idea of life somewhere else. It seems almost mathematically impossible that we would not have various forms of other, and I don't mean just like, oh, we found bacteria on a meteor that was floating in space. I don't mean that. I mean like, you know, intelligent life in some kind of way. Sentient life. I've always

believed that mathematically it simply has to be out there somewhere. I don't think that we are alone in that sense. But to the extent someone could provide evidence for that, that was where you kind of lost me. And I don't know, like many of you, exactly what those videos show. But I got to tell you, I am on the UFO business. I'm going to keep my mouth shut and just watch and see. Because when the Pentagon is happily releasing these videos,

and scientists, in many cases, I know there are some scientists that have come forward with a variety of explanations for what we've seen and they seem to, they also are of the variety usually that again mathematically there must be intelligent sentient life elsewhere in the galaxy or universe but that this is not evidence for it

so there is some debate to be had but I will tell you I have had to very much dial back my skepticism on UFO encounters based on everything we've seen in the last, I think, 10 years or so. Even the last five in particular. It's been... Overwhelming is not the word.

But to me, I think there's enough to very... It should eradicate dismissive skepticism. I think there's plenty of very, like, it should eradicate dismissive skepticism. I think there's plenty of rational skepticism room left. But the kind where you're just like, ah, these are, you know, astrologers? Mm-mm. No, they're not. Hello, Dana has mentioned several times in post-fight interviews that we won't believe the changes coming to UFC and that they will blow our minds. What do you predict these massive things to be?

Probably nothing that would directly affect your fandom. In the sense that like, would it radically change how you enjoy the sport event to event? Not really. I don't imagine that that's what he means. But like, what I think that they're trying to do, and in many ways quite successfully, is they're trying to prime the pump, for example, in other countries. So one thing that might be massive that they're working on is that you mentioned, he has mentioned performance institutes, not really in Las Vegas, but in Shanghai

and I think Mexico City or in Mexico. And what they're going to try and do there is they're going to try and prime the pump, which is that they, without really getting involved in that market in a recruitment training, to borrow the word, but from a different application, grooming, to get these people in a process ready for high level MMA, if you don't go in there and actually establish some kind of presence, you're just not going to have the same market presence after that economy matures. And you may not just get the same level of talent. You have to go in there and really plant some seeds.

I think that's probably a big part of it. But you have to understand what he means when he says stuff like this. Sometimes it's quite big, and sometimes it's not, but it's big for UFC. So I'll give you an example. Back in the day when they were on Spike, I remember one time they announced massive press conference. Biggest news in UFC history. We're like, damn, what the fuck could that even be? You couldn't even imagine what it could be. You're like, well, did they sell to somebody? Are they moving to ESPN? Like, what's happening? This is 2006 or 7 or something.

Or 8 maybe. Something like that. Somewhere in that space. And all they were announcing was that they had re-signed with Spike. For like 100 mil. And the MMA fan and media take was like, Okay. It's great. You know, like, okay, I guess this is a big deal if you say so.

But there was, you know, people being like, eh, this is not that big a deal. But it was a big deal if you were UFC, right? You stayed on national television on a network where you were doing killer ratings. There's a guy mowing my lawn outside. I guess my wife hired him, which, okay, television on a network where you were doing killer ratings. There's a guy mowing my lawn outside. I guess my wife hired him, which, okay, we didn't really discuss that ahead of time,

but there we go. I guess I'm going to have to pay for that later. So, you know, for them, that was like, well, that's continuity, because remember, the first deal they had was only off the Ultimate Fighter, then they did the deal on the back. This was the renewal of that back of the alley deal. So you'll see things like that. You'll see things like that that are like, oh, this is really big. Or like, you know, they're going to have,

make something up. Paper views will stay on ESPN+, but all the rest of it will move to Fight Pass, and they're going to reinvest in Fight Pass, and it'll just be this thing that's like this amazing experience for fans, and blah, blah, blah. And you know, event to event, to reinvest in Fight Pass, and it'll just be this thing that's like this amazing experience for fans, and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, event to event, you're still just watching fights,

but for them, and the way things work out there, it's a big deal. So, you know, until we actually see what they're saying, I wouldn't expect something earth-shattering, although that's certainly possible. But what they are certainly doing is, in many cases, investing for the future so they can maintain market supremacy. And then, of course, they can grow it and grow the sport. It's not just they don't they're not the only ones who benefit from that. Should be noted, in fairness to UFC, when they go and establish these institutes in China and Mexico, if they pan out in the way that UFC hopes, they will certainly be the predominant,

if not the primary beneficiary, but it will be good for MMA in those countries generally. So there will be other actors who benefit over time as well. Did you like the new Mortal Kombat movie? No, it fucking sucked and I hated it. It was terrible. Okay, here's the thing. The opening scene, which took place in like like, what, 17th century Japan? Spoilers if you don't want one.

I mean, it's Mortal Kombat. What are you missing, you know? I thought that scene was promising. I thought if the movie could be like this, man, that'd be so bad. And the fatalities were better, but the plot was just idiotic and convoluted and weird and not satisfying there's no fucking character development and what character development exists is not that interesting you know so like no no i didn't like it i didn't like it at all i liked the opening scene i thought that was cool i thought some of the fatalities were well done

i like that they tried to make it in our movie but listen here's the deal here's what i figured out I liked the opening scene. I thought that was cool. I thought some of the fatalities were well done. I liked that they tried to make it an R movie. But listen, here's the deal. Here's what I figured out. I don't think you can make a good Mortal Kombat movie. It's just too convoluted. You can't do it at this point. You can make a killer video game.

And again, you can make killer fatalities or have interesting scenes here and there. But you can't make a good coherent movie. And by the way, let me just say this for you fucking yellow mustard eating mouth breathers out there. Love y'all. Every time I say something like, yo, Godzilla versus Kong sucked. I get the exact same fucking response every time. Would you expect fucking Sir Lawrence Olivier? You guys are aware that you can go into a movie with a kind of a ridiculous plot, you know, and a silly juvenile one at that.

Kong versus fucking Godzilla, Mortal Kombat. What's another one that was recently that was kind of like that? That I've seen. The Meg. Although The Meg was actually pretty fun. Stupid, but fun.

And you can understand that you have to grant a lot of license for this to have a thin plot, not a ton of character development, blah, blah, blah. But that it doesn't have to be that way in every case. Like, you can have a weird movie about King Kong, but you can still do enough with the other parts of it where you're not solely reliant on CGI or big gorilla smash shit to get entertainment like you can actually build some things around it so that hey you know well yeah it's a silly movie

and it's about a giant ape how good could it be but you know they did a good job with x y and z and that actually kind of added to the experience what i've seen people doing is oh if it's mortal combat you're allowed as a director and as a studio to turn into the public any old piece of shit movie and everyone else just like has to like it and if you have the temerity to be like yo this fucking movie's not that good you get the same response well i'm sorry that you didn't get James Earl Jones. I don't need James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman to narrate this. I just need a plot that wasn't written by someone who's been in 15 terrible car accidents and had a lobotomy.

I just need that. Again, for Mortal Kombat, not that doable. I don't know how you're going to do it. But, you know, I get that if I'm going to watch Transformers, I have managed expectations about what they can do. But, like, it's the difference. Like, if you believe what you said, well, you shouldn't expect Sir Lawrence Olivier,

then why are any of you assholes complaining about the difference between the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe. There's just total refutation of that argument. You can have a movie about costumed superhumans fighting each other for Earth, which, by the way, when you peel back the layers makes no fucking sense, but you can do it in a way where it's like, hey, it's coherent. They worked on these things.

The action is paced well. The story continues from movie to movie. From Infinity War to Endgame, blah, blah, blah. You can do all that shit. Or you can do what DC does and just turn in shit and then apparently you'll have an army of defenders being like, well, what'd you expect? You expect fucking, fucking Tom Cruz and fucking Dennis Hoffman, was it Dustin Hoffman and Rain Man? No. I am not expecting Dustin Hoffman and Rain Man, but I'm also not expecting a movie that was written by Rain Man. Is that, you know, is that so hard?

What do you think is the draw of the Diaz brothers? I can't think of any other MMA fighter, save maybe Conor, Conor spelled wrong, who can have as much time away from the octagon and come back with the same kind of buzz. What is the secret sauce there? Part of it is the absence

that they left before the fighter and the fan base had sort of mutually decided that they had given everything. So there's a feeling that both have a lot to give. That's part of it. But the other part is, dude, this will sound funny to some of you. But it's very true. The Diaz brothers used to be hated. I've said this before. If you have Fight Pass, go back and watch Nick Diaz fights, not from Pride, but like from Strikeforce,

and listen to him get booed in the room. Happens more than once. Nate Diaz, when he fought Dos Anjos, the community was ready to throw him away. Because he was beefing with UFC about not making any money. And now, it's this. So, understand something. Number one, they were not always liked.

There was a big, long portion of their career where they were liked, but it wasn't a thing. It wasn't a massive thing, or they were just straight up hated. This idea that there are these iconic figures that they are today, they had to earn that over time. So again, that's one. Two, partly it's the absence. Three, they're not the class clown.

They're the class badass. They're the one who drives the motorcycle to high school and flicks the cigarette and looks cool doing it. They're the ones that flip off the teacher. I mean, that's who they are, man. They're the ones who are just, they scream anti-authority, anti-hero in every way. And people, rightly, love and people rightly love that they love that and you know it's not just that they had to like try to work at that label that label was pushed upon them you know it's like a nickname if you give yourself a nickname it's kind of fucking lame but if a nickname was given to you there probably is a

little bit of truth to it it sticks for a reason and then you just become it just becomes part of your identity and for some of them it does that's what the Diaz brothers have at this point the community collectively decided not only do we not hate these guys even though for a time they did we like them and we think of them in this particular way. And obviously they're very talented fighters, right? These guys were triathletes and black belts before other fighters. I'm telling you, every time you see a guy now, it's like, oh, so-and-so's a black belt

and training for this fight by swimming and running or whatever. The Diaz's, certainly Nick in particular, was the first to popularize all that shit. So they've been kind of like industry leaders in a way. They've had incredibly exciting fights. They've had incredibly exciting rivalries. But they've got this genuine sense about them as anti-establishment, anti-hero,

that they didn't ask anyone to call them. Everybody did, over time anyway. And by the time they did, it just stuck. And so now they're living with all of that equity that has built up over time. How do you think a Luque versus Masvidal fight would go? That is a fucking great question. I certainly do not expect Jorge to take that fight, but wow, what a barn burner. That's a great fight. That's a tough fight for both guys. I think Masvidal would take it. I know he just got knocked out, so everyone wants to be down on Masvidal, but I do think he would win that one. I think he's got a few more tricks

at range. But I'll tell you this much. Luque could beat him in a three-round fight. I think Masvidal would win most of those if they fought in a five-round. I think over time, Masvidal would do the better work. But that's a very competitive, super action fight. I love that. I love that question. Love that idea. I don't think Massive at all will take it because Lukey doesn't have that name yet, you know, but that's a sick fight. Okay. I'm fucking old and I don't know who any of these people are. So they're doing the fuck, marry, kill game. So I don't know who. I'm out of the loop, bro.

Are these all porn stars or something? Yeah, they are. Okay, all right. Well, wouldn't you just bang all three? I mean. That's a tough question, and I'm not sure that I'm well-situated to answer it. What's your advice, and they put that in bold, on staying disciplined in one's proactive progress of improvement and success and balancing the rest hobbies, daily tasks, addictions

i.e. the internet. I don't think they mean vices per se like smoking or drinking. While mastering the disregard of negativity and not being hateful and judgmental to others things or ungrateful of how spoiled it can be. Well I gotta tell you I spent a long portion of my career

I should I've never said this before I should just tell you, I spent a long portion of my career. I should, I've never said this before. I should just tell you guys this, you know, and I'm not asking one to feel sorry for me or that, um, that I was right the whole time. Cause I don't think I was right the whole time. I think I, I think I was right for most of the time, but there was definitely some times where, uh, I let my own negativity, uh, really impacted my judgment about my plot, my station in life. But I would say for the near entirety of my time, no, that's not true. I'll say this. For a long portion of the early stage of my career, pre-Serious XM, and even then to a degree,

I spent a lot of that angry at my bosses, angry at some of my colleagues, angry at a lot of things that I wasn't, you know, I think, in my mind, angry at a lot of things that I wasn't, you know, I think in my mind, getting the opportunities that I deserved or recognition for the work or whatever. And what you just begin to realize over time is that it's not that you may, it's not that you don't have a point internally about maybe you were mistreated whatever your situation is but the question is what are you going to do about it what are you going to do about it

what are you going to do about how to fix it you can leave that's one thing you can do you can try to repair things internally that's another thing you can do you're asking about something a little bit different about how do you balance the you're working on the things that you're good at to get better at them while managing the rest. But I guess the answer to, to is I'm going to get there through my experience,

which is that at some point, um, for some people, I think it feels good to feel sorry for yourself because you get, you know, uh, uh, if you know, if you're genuinely sad about something, it's actually quite natural to want the sympathy of others. Like imagine, God forbid, somebody really close to you passed away unexpectedly. If your friends came to you for comfort and helped you, granted, you're still going to be probably in tremendous pain, but having family around you, having friends around you who are trying to care for you, granted, you're still going to be probably in tremendous pain, but having family around you, having friends around you who are trying to care for you, that's real. That actually matters pretty considerably, right? But in the end, none of that will get you to where you need to go.

It just doesn't work. It's a path to make yourself feel better in the meantime and to maybe reinforce the validity of your worldview, but it doesn't actually change your world. A lot of people will spend a lot of effort not really affirming their worldview, but the comfort that that worldview brings and the routine and the righteousness of it, I'm treated unfairly, or whatever, without really addressing how to get better about it. Here's the answer to this, and I'll start with the, it's really the both, in both ways.

To be clear about this, I have failed in any number of ways in both directions. Right? So understand that. To the extent I have ever had any success about proactive involvement in my own success or whatever, it's because I was very, very focused on two things. One, it's cliche to say, but it's true, the things you can control. And two, the very small details. Small details.

What do I need to do today? Let me make a list. And then you go through those steps each day. And I'm really not going to focus on where that end goal takes me. Yes, the end goal is in my mind. I can't lose sight of it. I can't forget about it, but I'm not really going to get there if I just focus on that. It's too far away. But if I do focus on the little, little, and I do mean little things,

each day, the accumulative weight of that success will eventually overwhelm you. That's really how progress is made. It's the Jiro dreams of sushi path. How good can you get at doing something just by doing it over and over and over? Success and achievement in life comes through repetition and mastery. And that repetition and mastery is only possible over time with a clear and direct intent on the little details. I think also having a path about how those little details should add up and what the process should look like. Like you should have an end goal, a vision, right? You can't just be only focused on the small things. But of that has to be your your guiding day-to-day actions and you're

asking about the negativity and things you know it's not like exactly some kind of revelation for me to tell you that i get a lot of pushback on twitter although the overwhelming majority of it is just totally ignorant fucking bullshit like yesterday do you guys see the eddie alvarez fight where he loses and he deserved to lose uh not that like we're anti eddie but i'm saying like if we're being fair about the process he was not the rightful winner he got dropped in the first round barely survived but he did he survived and then the second and third round he was like slightly better than his opponent uh who he could not really take down.

And so people were like, oh, he won rounds two and three. Well, it's like, well, one doesn't score by rounds. They score as a whole. So there's no such thing as winning rounds. And he only got finished in the first. And so then people came up with, oh, but he won, let's say, 10 minutes of the fight and lost the other five. 10 versus five is more. But now you're just making, you're committing the same error.

You're just doing it by substituting minutes for rounds. You understand that, right? Like that's not how it works either. We don't count up how many minutes they won and then, oh, well he had seven, he had eight. There you go. We'll go with the eight. That's not how that works. The way it works is that as a whole, you collectively ask yourself who was the one that did the best work, who took their opponent closer to the brink? Who did more damage? And the answer is pretty fucking clearly his opponent. His last name was O.K. or I forgot how to pronounce it. It was a Korean gentleman.

Please forgive me. He was a good fighter, by the way. Huge. And so you look at the responses, and it's just all these people who have no understanding about how to work one scoring. I primarily don't see myself as the guy who will convince a lot of people about my ideas. Some, of course I will. Some of you, I'll be lucky enough to do that. I primarily see myself as somebody who's going to introduce ideas into this community, a very insular community, a community that loves to hear praise about itself, that doesn't want a lot of outsiders. They're

very hermetically sealed in many ways. Somebody needs to be the person who is introducing ideas from the outside, questioning some of those base assumptions. That's sort of how I see myself, not as the galvanizer of ideas. Anyway, to point it out, it's like, dude, if I go through and just pay attention to everything, listen, man, let me just tell you how the world works. No one expects you to become shit. No one expects you to be rich. No one expects you to be good looking. No one expects you to be successful at work. No one expects you to do well in school. Your boss will be fucking moderately pleased if you just show up on time tomorrow. Nobody expects anything from you, man. There's a couple of exceptions. You know, Bo Jackson probably had a few athletic coaches along the way expecting things from him.

Nobody expects shit from you. And they're going to say that. And they're going to say that behind your back. And they're going to say it to your face in certain cases. And it's going to be people who might care about you too. Your family might really care about you, but they don't think you're going to be fucking anything. Your friends might really care about you, but they don't think that you're actually going to do well in school or whatever. It is up to you. It is up to you. And nobody is going to hold your hand. You are alone. Now, some of you might be lucky, and you might have a rich friend or relative. Dana White had some billionaire friends.

That's nice, but not everyone is like that. Most of us don't have those kinds of enormous advantages to get ahead in life. Most of us have to start from day one and just build. So understand that if you want to spend your time and your bandwidth focusing on everyone's low expectations of you, you will meet them. You will fulfill all of their prophecies about you. But if each day you block that out as best you can, you make a note about what you have to do, and that note is in conjunction with and in service to your larger goals,

and you don't worry about anything else that day except what you need to do that day, and each day you provide that level of consistency. And I've said this before, you don't provide that consistency because you are motivated to do it, although motivation is nice. You provide it because you are disciplined to do it. If you just rely on what you feel to get you there, you will, look at me, look at me. If you just rely on what you feel like to get somewhere, stop.

You're never going to get there. It's never going to happen. Doesn't work that way. You must have a path, a plan, and a day-to-day consistent application of what matters to you. And you don't have to prove those people wrong in a sense like, I've got to prove them wrong. But they're not going to believe it until the work is there, until you show them.

No one in my family, they don't care anymore now, but you think they ever were like, wow, Luke, you can really do something with this. Nobody ever encouraged me. Nobody. No fucking buddy. Dude, when I went to boot camp, my friends took fucking bets on how fast I'd be home. You know what I mean? They took bets on how quickly I would come home. Failing, washing out of the Marine Corps. You You gotta ignore all that

You have to be mentally disciplined and strong And committed to the idea Right Each day Small And I'm gonna make that repetition of that consistency That will be You will get over time

You will get good at it When you get good Then things start to get easy And when they get easy You can begin to build on them And then, you can begin to build on them. And then when you can begin to build on them, now you can put together a little bit of a kingdom. And when you have that kingdom,

well now, ladies and gentlemen, now you have the keys to do things with. Did you see the podcast with Dan Hardy? And do you think UFC will keep him outlawed? I don't know. Probably. If past is prologue. Probably.

Will we see Chuck Mendenhall, guest host MK, in the event of BC and yourself being absent from the show again? Yes. I talked with Chuck a couple of weeks ago. He was going to be on the show but couldn't last last minute i asked last minute um because we had some kind of scheduling issue and uh he was willing to do it he just couldn't at the time so chuck i feel bad because chuck was the third mk guy in the studio when we were doing the studio shows every monday which by the way like I'm vaccinated fully. BC's vaccinated fully. I think the whole staff is vaccinated.

I have not heard anything. I'm not predicting to you anything. But BC and I talked, and we want to go back to the studio. We want to go back. I don't know if every Monday we can. I don't know how that's going to work. But we want to go back to the studio as often as possible because you guys know as well as I do, the show is just so much better there. Anyway, we tried to get Chuck on. He was the third guy there, but then the pandemic hit. He got kind of pushed out, unfortunately, which really sucks. But yes, to answer the

question, I would very much expect Chuck to be a part of what we're doing. Very much. When and exactly how, I don't know. But yes. While you were in the Marine Corps with Artie, did you ever get the chance to pop your cherry? Ha ha ha. Yes. If you guys don't know what that means, unless the definitions change,

the definition of popping your cherry is those big cannons, they're called howitzers, right? And they fire up to, you know, you put seven charge red bag in there, you're going to get them pretty far, let's say 30 miles or so. So obviously the guys on the gun line, they cannot see what they're firing. It's not a firearm where I can look down range

through my sights and I can make a call. They can't. It's a lot of math that's involved about someone's reading a map, they're called a forward observer. They call for fire. That's what I did. I was a forward observer and I called for fire.

So I would look and see what's out in the open and i'm like let's see who wants to die and how do i want to kill them so then you decide what weapon you want to what charge you want to hit them with and um you know there's white bag there's red bag there's all kinds of green bag the biggest one is seven charge red bag at least that was the one at the time that was one where they would dig the trails into the ground and if you pulled the lanyard on the seven-charge redback, it would just drive a giant ditch into the ground. Because the trails would be like several feet below. And it would just push them back. I've never seen some shit like that.

Anyway. So I was the guy who would like, Oh, we have a platoon of tanks in the open. And then you decide what you want to kill them with, and then you call the coordinates in on that. So I was never on the gun line. But yes, there was one time where I got to be on the gun line, and you get to pull the lanyard.

And when that fucking thing comes back, dude, your heart will skip a beat. You know, it's it's quite the experience. This is why everyone's like, oh, I went to the range and I fired my Glock 17. I'm like, did you? Is that what you did? That's fun. Do you like Tarantino? I do.

If so, what's your favorite movie? Reservoir Dogs. With Connor and his two boys getting paid for his whiskey, do you see this throwing off the rest of his fight career? I don't think that's a bad question. Conor, by the way, spelled totally wrong. C-O-N-N-E-R. You guys know it's two O's, one N.

C-O-N-O-R. Anyway. 600 mil. Did you all. Anyway. 600 mil. Did you all see that? 600 mil. God bless him that he still wants to fight Poirier. But if I had 600 mil, you would never see me again. You would never see me again.

I would move to Barbados or something. And I would just live out my days in peace and quiet. Yeah. Yeah. God bless him. He wants to keep going. You know, he's a competitor. I will do one or two more. Good question. I love this.

What's more impressive? Arlovsky winning and defending the title in his youth or being a top 20 heavyweight in the world in 2021? Boy, that is such a great question. I'm going to say the level of ability required to win the title is more than the ability he needs to do what he's doing now. Right? You don't have to be as good of a fighter to do what he's doing now as right? You don't have to be as good of a fighter to do what he's doing now

as you do to win that belt. But I will also say, and you guys know I've said this a million times, like of fighters I've been wrong about, probably Orlovsky's the one I've been more wrong than any other. To see what he's doing today, even if he had never become champion, was insanely remarkable.

And then to be a champion and then to redefine yourself late. To redefine yourself late in your career like that and to beat all these up-and-comers, dude, that is extremely impressive. He redefined himself in his late 30s, early 40s, and has sort of a new style. No, definitely a new style. If you've never seen Arlovsky back in some fucking wars, go back and watch. He loses, but it's a hell of a fight. Go back and watch Arlovsky versus Pedro Hizzo.

Whoo, boy! Them two, them two, they went to work on each other. Pedro Hizzo got the best of it in the end, but go watch that and then compare that to the Arlovsky today. It's just not even remotely the same guy.

To make that kind of adjustment late in your career is extraordinarily difficult. And so for him to have been a champion and then to remain relevant through redefining one, I cannot say how impressive. I've never been happier to be more wrong. Never, never. Because he taught me something I didn't know was true about longevity, about possibility, about what reinvention late looks like. About its upsides, about its limits too. No one's thinking he's going to win a title anytime soon. But remember when I said you guys asked me what I liked about anime and how I learned things about human character and possibility and uh all the different contours about what it looks like that's what I'm

talking about Arlovsky being relevant and and formidable as a redefined fighter late in his career that's what I'm talking about and you gotta love it man you gotta love it you gotta love being wrong but being wrong in a way where you learn something new about the world. I actually love that. I really enjoy that because it sticks with you. Those are the lessons you don't forget. Those are the ones that you remember as long as you're supposed to. I really believe that.

Okay? All right. If I missed anything you really want me to get to, just email me, lukethomasnews at gmail.com. Thumbs up on the vid. Hit subscribe. Morning Combat back tomorrow. Excuse me, 11 a.m. What am I saying? 11 a.m. East in the time zone, and we'll get you ready for all the weekend's fights. There will be some post-fight stuff on Saturday or Sunday, so be on the lookout for that. All right. Thank you,