MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Max Holloway Dominates Calvin Kattar | Khabib | Stipe vs. Ngannou | Ep. 107

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Luke and Brian are back with a massive episode of MK as they break down Max Holloway's masterful win over Calvin Kattar. Is it the best performance in UFC history (07:50)? Should Herb Dean or Calvin Kattar's corner stopped the fight (26:52)? Carlos Condit gets the win over Matt Brown. What does Condit have left in the tank (43:24)? Plus, how stupid was Dana White's Khabib announcement and what should we make of it (48:45). Also, the boys give an early preview of UFC 260 which will feature Stipe Miocic vs. Francis Ngannou and Alexander Volkanovski vs. Brian Ortega (1:00:12). ---------------------------- '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

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

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. screen is the Q to my Anand, the peanut butter to my jelly. He is the Hartford to my Connecticut

or something like that. He's also from CBS sports. It is Brian Campbell, Brian, happy Monday to you, which starts off a big two week run here in MMA and certainly on the show as well. Yeah. The pong to your cosmic ping. Indeed. Luke, I am fired the hell up. This ain't journalist BC talking. In fact, journalist BC doesn't really show up behind this microphone too often. This is MMA superfan. In fact, JMMA superfan, BC talking. Fired the hell up.

It's Conor McGregor fight week, dude. I mean, seriously, McGregor, Poirier 2, Chandler, Hooker. Like, where the hell do I sign up, Luke? Okay, what a time to be alive. Not even talking about that Wednesday card as well. And not even talking about the fact that, Luke, you and I, this week, proximity, brother. Okay? Proximity.

All right? We're going to go into business with each other, for each other, by each other. We think we have a big week coming up. We really should. Obviously, there's the big UFC stuff. There'll be a UFC show on Wednesday. We'll get to a preview of that, I think, probably tomorrow. I'll have something for you.

But today, we're going to review UFC on ABC1. And, of course, everything is in motion for Conor McGregor on Saturday. BC and I, by the way, will be back at Mohegan, we think, this weekend. We'll do some room service diaries, but also have some great UFC 257 coverage for you together, which should be a lot of fun and very, very interesting.

So yes, we have a lot of show to get to today. Please give the video a thumbs up. Hit the subscribe button. Thank you to everyone who is new here from the instant reaction we did on Saturday for UFC on ABC1. We appreciate you. Welcome, but still, spread the word. Give the video a thumbs up.

Always appreciate that when you do. If you want to try Showtime, who makes this show possible, you certainly can. You can go to Showtime.com and get a 30-day free trial. If you'd like some merch from MK at the same website website ish you can go to store.show.com and you can get a tumblr just like this one or a hat like bc has you can get mugs and a bunch of other stuff store.show.com i don't know why they can't get this mug this mug's fantastic luke okay it's actually it's actually better than the mug that i have yeah but you're right we can't you can't buy that one for some reason and if you don't live in the lower 48,

you'll be pounding a lot more sand than the whole Doha Desert, brother. But hopefully one day we'll fix that, Luke. We shall see. And then I think that's it. Last but not least, blah, blah, blah. That's what we have. Okay.

Luke, before you cross over, right, from fun and games to serious. Dude, as a fan, I'm rock hard with emotion, as Jake Hager once said. I got a phoner. Do you have that? Is your satchel full page at the moment? What do you got going on right now? I'm not going to talk about my genitals on air.

Can we get the show started, please? Would that be all right with you? Good, thank you. Okay, let's get to it. Five topics ready to go. First one is up. We're talking about UFC on ABC1. Max Holloway, BC, not only wins, he wins in such a way where he set record after record

after record for most significant strikes in a round, in a fight, I mean, head strikes, body strikes, I mean, you name it. This was an absolute shellacking that Calvin Cater took. It was not close. It was not close for a minute. Just how impressive, though, was Max Holloway's win on Saturday? Huge. Words like masterpiece, masterful, other words begin with master.

They don't really do full justice here, Luke, to how dominant and how fluid he was. It was virtuoso, right? I mean, it was Hendrix at Woodstock. It was, you know, as DC or whoever on the commentary team said, it was Michael Jordan shrugging after six threes. I mean, to see John Anik, who I have so much respect for, love him, old school brother of mine,

to see him blow V8 afterwards and basically say, this was the most humbling experience I've ever been in the arena for, I've ever been cage side for. And you might hear that and go, okay, you know, big Max fan there, maybe toned down to decaf JA. Luke, then you see the damn stats over five rounds. I mean, he didn't just break these records, he shattered and you know that whole moment in round five with the whole listening to the commentators turning back screaming I am the best boxer in MMA and then delivering almost a no look

combination and landing that was the cherry on top to show you that this was an outing in which it wasn't just you know what I had said build it up in the preview that, hey, look, Calvin Cater's a great fighter, but, you know, he might be tailor-made for an even greater fighter than Max Holloway. Not only did that become true, but this was also Max making it look like it was professional against amateur. And again, that's nothing to take away from the balls, the toughness, the, I mean, Calvin Cater to go through a beating like that i think we're

going to get into that more on that in a second but like shout out to the toughness of that man right there shout out to the fact that calvin cater in round four somehow was back in the fight from the standpoint of is this wounded animal gonna land something big yet max danced around him landed everything he everything and anything he wanted uh Here's what makes this great, Luke. Max Holloway already has a resume that we can debate with the greats of all time. And he's 29. And I think he just added more to his game

by bringing in the elbows and the forearms and even some spinny shit. Here's a guy who's only getting better. I thought that rematch with Alexander Volkanovsky, which was they flipped the coin on who won that fight, showed you that his ring IQ is up there with anyone in the game today. He can out-chess you if he needs to.

He can also walk you down. And, you know, 99% of the fighters that took that beating, that Cater did, would have been out of there three rounds earlier. Max Holloway's great, Luke. He might be greater than we thought he was coming in. And I'm really trying to avoid the hyperbole here, but I don't think it's wrong.

What else could you say after that, Luke? This was one of those moments where you're just like, let's just sit back and enjoy the greatness. I know there are a lot of people who believe that Max should be the champion right now, that in either the first or second, or even in some cases both, they believe he beat Volkanovski but just for the moment I don't want to relitigate that let's just accept reality for what it is whether you believe he should be or shouldn't be he is not so I want I want you to

put yourself for just a second in Calvin Cater's shoes which is to say not about taking the beating per se but just think about what it takes to win a title or even get a title shot in that featherweight division. Think about how good a non-title fighter is in the UFC in the case of Max Holloway. Now, he might be the best non-belt-holding fighter that we have for the present moment. But just sort of consider that for a moment. Look at how good they are. And he doesn't even actually have a belt to his name just to get to Volkanovski. You'd have to beat a guy like that. Boy, good luck because you're

going to need it. That was one of the most impressive things I think I've ever seen. The question is, you know, is it the best performance in UFC history? Well, you'd have to define the terms by which you mean that because, BC, I saw some folks saying like, oh, Max is showing people the new way to fight, you know, high volume, blah, blah, blah. I don't think that's the right lesson to take. Well, he's always been high volume, Luke, right? Right.

But I think he's adding more of a, and it's not that he's never been a finisher. I mean, look at the two Jose Aldo fights. But it wasn't like he got away from the volume here. I mean, this was more volume literally than ever. You're right. I mean, that turning back kick was great. And some of the leg kicks and the stomps he was trying,

those were all part of an effect. And the elbows, right? He hadn't thrown elbows like that before. I mean, all of that he's added to the pieces of the puzzle. But here's what I mean to say. I don't think that's the right lesson to take. Not that what he does doesn't work. It works in ways that is just magic.

But, you know, he also has gone 24 fights, BC, without being knocked down. I mean, let's just say it out loud. He might have one of the best chins in MMA history. I mean, that dude has a fire hydrant for a chin. And his style where he gets hit a lot. He gets hit nearly five times every minute. That's pretty high. The difference is Max can just

take it and roll right on through he's got good defense too you saw a lot of slipping I'm just saying I don't want folks to overly sell how uh scalable this style is it's a style that he can do given his gifts but there's one real point that I want to make and it was actually somebody who wrote to me um building off of something that I had said previously it It was a writer, or excuse me, a reader named Jacob. I forget his last name, but I want to make sure that I give him credit. And he made a point that... Great biblical name, Luke. Jacob, great biblical name.

I've got a biblical name. How about that? But the point is this. The point is this, BC and Jay, please stop interrupting me in my fucking ear. What I would say is I think that max holloway is the sort of strategic tactical heir to george saint pierre now max holloway is not saint pierre in many many ways they are very very different kinds of fighters with different levels of abilities different kinds of abilities different runs in the ufc i don't to make it, it's not a totalizing

comparison, but what was the key that you now see fight over fight, including in the losing efforts, but certainly between the first and second Volkanovski fight and in this one and virtually every other one that he has. He has a tailored style to each individual opponent. He doesn't dramatically change his game, but he asks asks himself what are you good at what am i good at what can i do to take the conditions under which you succeed away by virtue of my skills and he makes slight adjustments fight over fight to do that to these guys so that he has a perfectly tailored game plan for them the only other fighter that did that at a very high level fight over fight over fight was was George St. Pierre.

He is, Max Holloway, incredible with that. And let's also respect that short but powerful run Tyron Woodley had atop the welterweight division when he was basically beating each opponent at the skill that they're great at as efficient as possible. So I want to give him that credit. Sort of. I mean, he knocked down Darren Till, but then he kind of walloped him on the ground. It's not exactly the same thing. All right. Well, look, your point on GSP is interesting, and I think certainly the second Volkanovski fight really echoes what you're trying to say here.

I just want to go back to that word virtuosic, virtuosity, vitriol. That's it. That's it. Virtuoso. We usually think of a virtuoso moment as a short spurt of like otherworldly subconscious brilliance right like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk at the Motown Awards back in the early 80s you're just like oh my god Anderson Silva in front of Forrest

Griffin just dodging bullets and landing Steph Curry dribbling through eight people and hitting a fadeaway three right all the way he kind of did this over the course of like five rounds like I don't think I've seen something like that sustained over the whole thing. Now, it wasn't all magician magic, but maybe more toward your GSP comparison. It's just like he figured out the way to go,

and he just consistently stayed true and was brilliant from start to finish. The pace, the efficiency, the accuracy, the speed, the power. I mean, it's crazy, Luke, and I don't want every time somebody wins that we come back on this show and do the knee-jerk thing that we all love to do in this new age of digital journalism and say, well, after a win that great, let's look back at Max's resume now and put him in the go category. Where does he rank? I don't want to do that BS, but I do want to say at 29, his resume is already ridiculous. I don't think the Calvin Cater win will, will stand out higher than, you know, the seven or eight or nine other crazy,

amazing wins we can put higher. But it was a, I guess a good timing, a good, a timely reminder of just how great he is, how he's even getting better and how we're looking at one of the all-time greats here. I mean, just straight up and it is great to see and i think a little point you said earlier i want to expand a little more on was the path to the featherweight title right now lightweight historically deep bantamweight right now crazy deep women's strawweight always going to be fun in games featherweight's freaking insane we got We got Alexander Volkanovski.

Look for all we know, Brian Ortega is going to beat him and become the champion this year. Cause Ortega looked like a million dollars against the karate or the, the Korean zombie. I'm already out here bloviating that. I think is a beat long-term is going to be the guy. And I know everybody wants to kill my cash ass for that, but whatever.

And look, that's just, you know, three or four of the names right around here. Yair Rodriguez, the other guys that are here. I mean, it's an insane time at featherweight, yet that performance from Max on Saturday kind of recalibrates it all. I feel bad for Volkanovski.

The topic here is, will you fight Max a third time? If you beat a guy twice, I mean, should you have to? I mean, in some ways, it's the Canelo argument, only Canelo didn't beat Triple G twice. He technically beat him once, and I don't think he beat him either time. If you beat a guy twice, I mean, should you have to? I mean, in some ways, it's the Canelo argument, only Canelo didn't beat Triple G twice. He technically beat him once, and I don't think he beat him either time. But if you're Volkanovski, you're like, dude, I mean, I beat him twice, yet this really is the best fight you can probably make. And I'm not even sure Volkanovski's going to beat Ortega. I'm not even sure who's going to be fighting for the title at the end of this year. Wow. Like, thank you, Featherweight. What a time to be alive. But after

this performance, Luke Thomas, is it crazy if some guy raised his hand and said, hey, forget BC's Zabit argument. Max Holloway's the best damn featherweight in the world right now. In fact, he might be the best damn featherweight of all time. I mean, it's crazy, Luke. Well, he doesn't have, I mean, he had three title defenses versus Aldo's seven.

So it was a hard argument to make in that particular way. He had a longer road to get there, though. They strung him out, Luke. No, fair enough. There's no denying it. I mean, and it's two different eras in many ways, so it's hard to make the comparison. But I just want to go back to something I said,

and I want folks to understand something. What Max does is not automatic. These adjustments, these reads, these ways to game plan and have a particular strategy for a particular opponent. That is not a thing that hardly anyone in MMA can do. One, I know a lot of coaches and a lot of fighters who don't believe in that approach, right? That's the first. And the second one is, I know a lot who try, who just aren't very good at it. I mean, here's the thing. They go through ahead of time and say, what do we need to do? And they develop a game plan. They work on a particular set of skills, a particular set of tactics, right?

And then it just so happens that virtually every time, they're on the money with it, right? I mean, you could say, were the adjustments enough to get the win in the second Volkanovski fight? It's debatable. But they were very good adjustments. There was nothing wrong with them. They were all on point. It's amazing how good Max is. And I want to make sure this is clear.

Max's team is the most underrated team in all of MMA. These guys don't do a ton of interviews by their own choice. I have a good relationship with them. And they often are like, I don't have much to say, but they're good people. But they're just not getting the attention they deserve. They are some of the smartest, most advanced thinkers in the game. And they have a guy in Max Holloway who, you know, can he wrestle like Khabib and do jiu-jitsu like Hadra Gracie? No.

But in that striking department and, you know, standing up, so there's takedown defense involved there as well. In that particular realm, he has some of the most adaptable striking, the most adaptable game maybe I've ever seen in all of MMA. He is so gifted there. We are witnessing somebody who is so special. And I got to tell you, Ortega looked amazing, amazing against the Korean zombie. Volkanovski's got his hands full. But I got a feeling, BC, Volkanovski's going to win

and we're going to get back to this third one. And I have to tell you, both times I thought Volkanovski was... No, first one I was on the fence about it. I think I'd maybe picked Max. Second one I thought Volkanovski was going to win. I might be back on the Max train, BC. I think Max might have finally found a space for himself to get it done. And I have to say, I wonder what you think about this.

Do you think that those two Volkanovski fights, whether you thought he won or he lost them, there's just no doubt in my mind that they made him a much better fighter. Agreed? Oh, they did. And that's what happens to the greats, Luke. Like, I always love Max's attitude. I mean, I got a video on my phone, Luke.

I was cage side at UFC 236 when Max lost to Dustin Poirier, and he gave his soul into that fight, right? An absolute classic high-paced war for five rounds. He came over and I think I was sitting next to Mike Bone. You know Mike Bone, right? Mike Bond, that guy, the guy, great guy, right? Boner, yes, yes, Boner. Boner, yeah.

So I'm sitting next to Boner Stabone over here. Max comes back, his face is all mangled, and he gets in Boner Stabone's face. He's like, oh my God, the Raptors just lost, you know, 11th Island, baby. I mean, like, he's so, you can't shake him. The fact that, you know, these wins and losses, having the title, not having the title, doesn't bother him is ultimately the sign of greatness, right? And it's, his ability to bounce back and adapt, as you're saying, is insane. And I forgot the original spirit of your question there, Luke, but I will say. And his ability to bounce back and adapt, as you're saying, is insane.

And I forgot the original spirit of your question there, Luke, but I will say— How much the Volkanovski fights made him better. Yeah, oh yeah, so certainly. Because, you know, that's when you find out if the greats really are the greats. Can they game plan back? You know, it's not just having an unshakable belief to be able to come back and win big fights again. It's saying, how can I use this to help me? How can I change? How can I grow?

How can I evolve? And again, how many times have I counted Max out? And I don't even count him out. Like I just mean count him out in a big fight where I go, okay, you know, he's really good, but is he, is he great? Is he, you know? Yeah. He's fricking insanely great.

I mean, and it's enduring over a long period of time here, Luke. I don't know if we're going to see Holloway-Volkanovski 3, but I do know if there's an opening to make it, Dana's going to make it. And some of that is because of Max Star Power, company guy, great guy, all that stuff. But, Luke, I always try to play the devil's advocate on this show, right? And in this game, right? Just like, I want to get so fired up. I want to do the John Anik thing and say, you know,

what I just saw was the greatest thing I've ever seen. And it was. I want to do the John Anik thing and say, you know, what I just saw was the greatest thing I've ever seen. And it was, and I did do the John Anik thing. I got a phone or Luke from here to Hanover, right? I mean, is there a little fool's gold here in Calvin Cater? Tough as balls. One, four, five coming in. But no, no, no, no, no. You know, it's funny.

I mean, I want to be clear about this. There's no, I mean, we're heaping praise on Max. I have to tell you, I would love to talk about who tallied the numbers, no. You know, it's funny. I mean, I want to be clear about this. There's no... I mean, we're heaping praise on Max. I have to tell you, I would love to talk about who tallied the numbers, though. Because as you know, I go back and look at these things in slow motion and I count them up. There is a lot.

And when I say a lot, dude, I mean a lot of shots that did not land. That looked like they had landed or whatever. And, you know, you see Cater blocking and rolling with it. Now, the key to max was he would always find an opening through the combination so he throws four punches three might get blocked the fourth lands flush right and so just enough of those adding up i mean cater looked like he had been you know fighting for his life in there he looked terrible by the end of the

fifth round but you know cater's defense in there was it's gonna sound crazy because he got landed on like a like a bajillion times but it was pretty good man you watch in slow motion he's rolling all the time and getting out of the way of the vast majority of what uh max was throwing it's just that max will find a crack in the armor no matter how good you are i do think that his defense was solid dude he was just overmatched he's just overmatched against a guy who has a rock chin who has an adaptable skill set on the feet has one of the smartest teams around him and is in his prime and that's just what happens and he almost made max shoot his load late in round four right like you know when max was flurry into the body and had uh calvin pinned against the cage we're all waiting for it to be

stopped and uh for calvin cater to come back and land some bombs and suddenly be the guy coming on for that short little 30-second window and everyone's typing, oh my God, is this the round or fight of the year? Which was a little bit too much in the wrong direction since it was such a one-sided fight. But it was a great moment.

It's a testament to his toughness. I just wondered if he really is of that ilk. Was it the perfect opponent at the perfect time for Max to paint this masterpiece? It still could be true. All of the things we said still could be true. Either way, get Max back in the damn title fight. Okay, Luke? I don't know, dude.

I just see things in the Zabit category, Luke. I don't know if everyone's going to be able to do this with the ease against him. I think Zabit sometimes fights to the level of his competition, but I think he's the right guy to decode these elites in the end. We'll find out. We could be sleeping on Ortega being that right guy when you mix the toughness, the power, and his improved IQ and mindset from two

years away. But wow. Last thing on this was a question of best fighter ever out of Hawaii, which people I mean, Twitter is amazing because I asked it on Twitter and Twitter is a great place where people go to flex the fact that they have very poor reading comprehension skills. The argument is not is BJ as advanced at his best in a different era

as advanced as Max is today. Max is clearly of a new generation of fans. That's not the question. The question is if you're the first American to win the world championships in jiu-jitsu and you capture the lightweight title and defend it and you capture the welterweight title how does that stack up against a guy who's got three featherweight title defenses right and again they're different eras they're different accomplishments BJ went on a historic slide the worst of which you couldn't have imagined when he was on his lightweight run Max is still in the thick of things the answer

is probably going to be Max even though max doesn't have the wide breadth of accomplishments but the the spirit is not who is the best you know uh in terms of the most advanced fighting in the modern sense it's who did as much in their era that's the question that's a fair point i think bj might be at this point still a little bit more accomplished overall and he certainly has the uh you know the nostalgic heroism love that hasn't fully been erased by the tragic second half of his career but if max really wants that crown luke uh he's gonna have to see bj in the parking lot of that hawaiian strip club all right you know no it was the lava shack it was the lava to be the man you gotta beat the man as rick flair once said luke all right let's talk about the other side of this equation. So point number two here.

Obviously, Max looked, wherever he stands in Hawaiian or featherweight standings, it doesn't matter, the guy looked tremendous. But Calvin Cater took a really, really bad beating. And it looked to me like there were several points in the course of that fight that it probably should have been stopped. In fact, full disclosure, BC, I thought it should have been stopped in the fourth. And if not during that flurry at the end of the round when he went back to his corner,

even though he had showed signs of life. We'll get to that in just a second. What was your sense of things about either the corner or the referee or the lack of a stoppage altogether? What should have happened? I think it was in the gray area of you don't know what to do in that moment and i say that because okay obviously he's taking an insane beating and and you know more often than not you would stop it in that

spot but again he showed life in round four i mean look there was a window a pocket as i mentioned where it looked like he's coming on so i do want to i do support like i always i'm the guy who's telling you there's no moral victories in losing so if it's boxing and you're taking a beating and you have no chance to win on the cards and you don't really have big knockout power and you're not going to land the big shot

why is there a moral victory in fighting 4 or 5 more rounds and getting your ass kicked there is none but this is Calvin Cater's kind of biggest shot this is almost his title fight if he beat Max here he might not get a title shot next but this is Calvin Cater's kind of biggest shot. This is almost his title fight, right? If he beat Max here, I mean, he might not get a title shot next, but this is his moment. If you want to say this was his corner's chance to just say

kind of what they did in the Pennington-Nunes fight, although I thought that one was entirely a corner mishap because their fighter is saying, I can't go. You know, Rocky Pennington saying, throw in the towel, and they didn't do it. That's different. In this case, they believed in their guy, in him having a puncher's chance. They saw something.

I say it's a gray area because he's only going to take a worse beating. It's only going to take years off his career and maybe even his life. But this was really his mountaintop opportunity. I don't think Calvin Cater ever gets higher in the rankings and the title picture for his career than this moment. So I didn't see enough where I'm ready to damn them. Could it have been stopped by the ref or corner? Yes. Even Dana White afterwards was like, I was having scary moments where I didn't know why this fight was going on. I just think that while it was on, it was near the, it was in the gray bubble, but it was near the edge of being too much.

It still was in the gray territory where they took a near the edge of being too much. It still was in the gray territory where they took a chance. They let him go. Good God. Somehow he finished the fight. It is what it is, Luke. It's a bad beating, but it was his moment. It was his opportunity. And I think as safe as I want to be, and I do want to be, I want to be so safe. You do have to leave that window open that this is combat sports. You can hit a 10-run Grand Slam home run with one punch in the final inning. He showed enough life, Luke, in the biggest and most important fight of his life where I think if it was ever going to happen, it was right then and there. Let him try it.

I mean, to say that this fight should have gone the distance is to argue that the greatest accumulated beating maybe in ufc history deserves to go to a decision well i got a hard time justifying that in fact i can't i don't i don't know how you can make that claim well look was there a moment in the in the fifth round was there a single moment where because i think this is in round four he was before he came back cater was taking a bait and i don't think he took that same beating in round five. Was there a moment, a window where you're like, all right, Herb, it's time? I don't think that moment ever produced in round five.

Certainly in round four, a couple times in round four. Well, the problem is he rallied back in round four. So that's my whole point. He only rallied back after they let the beating just go on, and he just stood on his feet wobbling. And they just said, yeah, well, I mean, you're still still conscious and your organs haven't totally failed let's just keep this going i mean here is here is basically the point i mean okay to me the major issue is i whatever the rules say they they appear to give some latitude to herb dean in fact you notice there's not a lot of

criticism of dean this time most of it is about his corner. Whether or not that's fair, that's just the reality. I'm looking around, that's where most of the energy is being spent examining. And I think the reason for that is because you've got a guy like Calvin Cater who just sits there and takes an extraordinary amount of abuse. And then because he can throw a punch or act with intention, we say, well, you know, he's still kind of in it here a little bit. A couple of things. He also showed defense and he wasn't getting dropped left and right, Luke. There are, there are, there are reasons why you don't have to get dropped to get stopped. Plenty of guys get stopped. I'm just saying, even when they're conscious, you get dropped, the bat phone starts

ringing and Herb Dean's air. And he's like, okay, I got, I got to stop. But the question is, the question is, is that what it takes? that seems to me a very crude way of evaluating fighter health and safety i mean here's the point in the end there's a good probably a decent you know strict argument to make that herb was you know can make a case that he was following the rules set out in front of him right so? So their question is, should the corner have exacted more mercy? You've got to know who your guy is, and you've got to know who your guy is fighting. Max Holloway has maybe the best chin in MMA history. You've gone 20 minutes with a guy, and your fighter has taken a literal, and this is not

an exaggeration, a historic amount of abuse. You think he's going to go out there in round five and put down the guy who's got the best chin in that division by a mile and maybe the best one in the history of the fucking sport? 24 fights in a row and they can't even sit him down with a punch across two different weight classes? It's fucking fantasy. It's total fantasy.

You have to know what your guy is capable of and you have to know what you're up against. He is not going to land some wayward shot on Max and then make him rethink everything. Dustin Poirier landed over 100 strikes on Max and couldn't sit him down, and Dustin Poirier can thump. You think Calvin Cater can match that? It's just total fantasy.

Here is the problem. All they are doing is asking themselves, hey, is this lifeless husk of a man that used to be, you know, the husband and father of children. I don't know if he's got kids or not or whatever, every single, but this lifeless husk of a man who can, he still robotically throw a punch. Is he still fighting on instinct enough where, and, and, you know, mechanically efficient enough with enough balance there for us to stay. He's still in it. My answer is who gives a shit. If you've gone 20 minutes like this and you've taken that amount of damage to me you have crossed

the line where you're saying how much damage are you just going to let a guy take in a fight that's 20 minutes how much are you going to do this you notice that no one's complaining about the lack of a kill burn stoppage the opening fight on that card and that dude got wild but he was doing a lot more level changing wrestling it was only 15 minutes it wasn't nearly as much after 20 minutes how can you look at someone and say this guy still has a chance he had no chance he had no chance other than the opportunity to take more beatings so this idea that while he threw a punch with coordination that you know looked like a professional out there. I don't give a fuck.

Who cares? You have absorbed a kind of damage that can change the trajectory of your life and career. End of argument. You're making salient points. I'm certainly not arguing the spirit of your argument, which is there's a limit when enough is too much. Yes. That's why I'm saying we're in the gray area where it could have easily been stopped or not doing it. I'm not here to rail against them because again, there wasn't that. But look, if he took, if he got wobbled by anything around five, they would have stopped

the fight right then. And I think his corner would have agreed with it. His corner was basically like you almost hit a 10 run home run at the end of that round. Go out there. This is the biggest fight of your life. Go out there and try it one more time to his credit he never stopped defending himself he never stopped firing back i'm not saying these are reasons to let a man get brain damage i'm just saying we're already in that gray area this is the biggest fight of this guy's life the reason why you don't let a fight the first fight of the night on the prelims in an empty arena go to that level is because it's not the damn main event with title implications at stake so i'm not here to argue that i should tell his family 10 years from now that title implications allowed your husband to take a longer beating i'm just saying at some point luke and it's always a

hard decision to make when we're talking about boxing or mma and we're talking about deciding when a fight ends some percentage of that decision is i signed up for this i know the violence that's at stake if we start to take away too much from what this is it no longer is what it is if you know what i'm saying well you i mean the slippery slope of we're gonna get to a point where if a guy needs a band-aid we're gonna call it off i mean you gotta be kidding me after four rounds of a history we're not talking about any old beating bc well i think the difference in our argument is this luke if i'm the referee i probably would have stopped it in round four because i'm more of a compassionate nervous person in this regard if i'm his trainer i'm probably going to stop it because me personally

brian campbell more of a compassionate concerned worried person in regard. But I don't think it went over the line where I'm going to come on a microphone here on Monday morning and say that Herb Dean or the coroner or the commission or anybody screwed up. It was close to that line, but I think it was still in the strike zone of biggest fight of this guy's life. He showed you life the round before. He never had a bad, bad, bad moment in round five where you're like, that's it. Somebody's going to get killed. Stop this. No had a bad, bad, bad moment in round five where you're like,

that's it. Somebody's going to get killed. Stop this. No, he just had a historically bad moment in round four that we're just ignoring. The referee in the corner are not fed this information. Herb Dean's not sitting there going, okay. Dude, what information?

They're looking at the guy up close. Up close, they're looking at him, and they're saying, wow, you might have to get staples in your fucking skull when this is over uh gee look let's not go too extra dramatic here Herb Dean doesn't know what the record is for strikes and if we've passed it Herb Dean only knows did he visibly see enough and again if he got dropped or he wobbled or he wasn't defending himself or he wasn't throwing back the fight would have been stopped. Dude, if you're defending yourself, if you're defending yourself and you're still getting hit like that,

the fight doesn't need to continue. I don't give a shit. That's not the point. The point is, what is a medically dangerous, long-term affecting amount of damage a single fight can offer? Oh, it's dangerous as shit, Luke. This is the sport we cover. Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

But there are ways in which you can bring some mercy to it so that it doesn't have to be worse than it already is. That's what I'm saying. If you get knocked out in a single shot, hey, man, you fought Francis Ngannou. What are you supposed to do? I mean, it's one punch that sat you down. Let me ask you this. We're talking 20 minutes at that point, 20 minutes.

And what did he do to max nothing he landed a couple of nice right hands and a left check hook once but we're gonna send that guy out there five more minutes for fucking what what well because they thought their guy could have a home run chance because he showed legitimate life for a window this is what i'm saying every time i'm not the guy defending that people should be put out there to get killed. I'm saying in this one instance, I don't think anyone did anything criminally wrong. Biggest fight of this guy's life. But answer me this.

The great all-time wars, right? Two-way wars. Hendo Rua won. Ward Gotti's, you know, for the other one. Jones-Guss. Jones-Guss is another one. You know, the Bigfoot against the damn Mark Hunt one. The Corrales-Castillo one. They get to a point where collectively,

each of them are in their own Calvin Cater versus Holloway moment. But Luke, do we let that go on? Because we're in this gray area of this is an all-time great fight? What are you going to do? Stop the fight and go, no, both of you guys have taken too much damage. It's a draw. No, they let round five go on with Hendo and Rua while we're all biting our nails there. Yeah, because both guys showed a capacity to win.

If after 20 minutes you've shown zero capacity to win. You're not getting my point, Luke. I get your point. Dude, I'm shown zero capacity to win. You're not getting my point, Luke. I get your point. Dude, I'm not confused about your point. You're trying to say, well, this is a case where you have not one, but two combatants where you're getting all time. So we just go, we hope for the best, Luke. We hope for the best in that instance.

All I'm saying is they hoped for the best for Cater, but they would have stopped it if he got into serious trouble in round five at any point. He got into serious trouble into round four. He got rocked in round he got rocked around so did hendo and shogun luke but what i'm saying dude by round four what was happening in hendo shogun there were three rounds there were three rounds no no no no no no there were three rounds of shogun getting his ass whipped and in round four he came back out there and put it on Dan Henderson and then did it again in round five that is a very different scenario I'm talking about you've had a championship

round go by 20 minutes in the book and what do you have to show for yourself nothing you have nothing to show for yourself after 20 minutes this is my point I don't think Tyson Chartier is a bad person I don't think Herb Dean's a bad person. In fact, I respect both of them very, very much. I do agree with you, BC. None of these calls are easy. And when you have a back and forth between two of them where they're both taking damage, you know they're not going to be the same afterwards. This is a very difficult call as well. But my point is, to the extent you can introduce rational mercy into the game, and if it's back and forth, I don't know what the answer is this was not back and forth this was not that same call this was a guy who was let out for another five minutes of a

beating he did not need to take i mean but again entering round five in hunt bigfoot one i thought both guys were gonna die luke what i'm saying is there are times in this sport you just bite your nails and it's a gray area and you go for it. Do you think there should be an appointed doctor at ringside that his only job is to sit there and there's a giant red button, and if somebody's taking too much and it's getting dangerous, he just hits the button and the fight's over? No, I don't want a doctor intervening in that way necessarily.

But what I've said before, it's an idea that I've had where to be a cornerman, you have to have a license. And the thing that I've picked up on, this is I mean like dude Brandon Gibson has my highest respect and he has talked to me before about fights he you know he wish he would have called that he didn't you know he wish he would have thrown in the towel and he didn't and then when you talk to people like that you realize they are humane guys trying to make the best call for all the reasons you articulated that they love these people this is a big fight for them blah blah blah they need the money whatever whatever it is and but what you find out is the only metric by which they are making that call is okay is this

person utterly lifeless no they have some they have defense and they're throwing punches let's just send them back out there my only ask is there should probably be some training around at least getting to think about dude what have you done in this fight? Like, what have you done? And how much am I really willing to put this guy through for their future? To really, in that moment, get them to internalize that. Because in boxing corners, you hear them internalize that in that moment. So what I'm saying is, if you want a cornerman's license, I would like to see some training around that.

Does that solve the problem? I have no fucking idea. But my hope is it makes progress. I will say this. If this fight was stopped in round four, we wouldn't have a debate right now if it should have been stopped. And I also think because it didn't get stopped because he never got into hell

in round five, I don't also think it's a debate topic. I think he just entered into hell, Luke, and we bit our nails because it was in that gray area. He had a chance to come back and win the fight. He didn't do do it he also didn't get close to death's doorstep everybody survived luke i don't know i don't know luke you know i'm with you after those wars felt more or less fine when they were over you know maybe you had a headache or had to get stitches or whatever he didn't feel it then it was only 10 years afterwards so you know

this idea like well you know he got on he wasn't on death's door okay well that's got nothing to do with how bad it could be later on oh this is going to take away from his long-term life here luke so i guess the spirit of your question originally should his corner have done more to protect him again if i was them yes but they also know that this is this guy's one chance here to try to become a ufc champion so i'm sure they have conversations, Luke. I'm sure they knew. They gave him that chance.

I mean, you're supposed to take that beating for that paycheck for a non-title fight. That seems like we're asking Calvin Cater. I wouldn't let you take that beating, okay? At some point, there's got to be lines. But the whole point of you and I arguing is there has to be lines in this. I just don't think it went over the line. It was in this i just don't think it went over the line it was close i just don't think it went over i mean i think i think it went well past it but the question is what is the line and who should draw it um all right let's

keep this moving because somebody who had i think went to the depths of hell and has returned into something pretty spectacular or at least you know come a long way i'll give him credit point number three here carlos connor got a win over Matt Brown. Now, Matt Brown was kind of upset about the scoring. I understand his point because it was 30-27 across the board on all three judges' scorecards. I think he was probably hoping to get at least round one. He thought round three was a toss-up. I don't necessarily agree with that one.

But, you know, I can understand being as competitive as it was. And, you know, you have nothing to show for it on the scorecards. Still, just the same. Talking about Carlos Conde at BC. What did you make of this now he is not ranked Matt Brown's not ranked Court McGee was not ranked but he's got two wins in a row now showing some signs of life what's the road ahead for him I don't I don't want to push on the gas pedal too hard here he's still in his late 30s this was a better performance than certainly that I expected coming in I was the one who told you leading into this fight why the heck is Condit favorite here I mean I you know I

thought this would be a fun matchup a somewhat even one but I thought Matt Brown was going to overcome him in the end I thought it was a close fight I thought it was two rounds to one most likely Condit to win the victory could you have made it a hipster case for Brown yeah but that's a two to one Condit win it's impressive he was efficient he was technical he didn't get into trouble he did a lot good luke i thought he looked a lot better in this fight than he did you know in in a long time but i don't think we're talking uh you know god title picture or top five or even top 10 here luke uh at some point i always say this you got to protect the names who have enough in the tank to linger but they don't have enough luke to climb the ladder i think any legitimate contender here is going to beat him because i think he's

still a step behind this was a step forward in his evolution from those disastrous damaging losses and again i give this man credit his commitment to his craft that he can put forth a performance like this but he's also fighting 40 year old matt brown if you're telling me this gets him a larger money fight or or a fight we're going to care about but it's a smart one it's an old guy fight it's condit against a retiring diego sanchez or condit against nick diaz coming back damn right i'm all for it luke okay condit rematching a comebacking gsp something like that yes luke Luke. But I don't want to see, you know, this is not enough to get me into the, hey, is he one win away

from fighting, you know, Colby and Masvidal and Usman? No, stop. Stop that. Stop that, Luke. Yeah, I mean, you know, the guy is so revered that if you say things like he should be, you know, match made appropriately for someone at his age and the level of, you know, ability he has left, they're like, what? You don't think he can be a contender again? I was like, well, I'll say this.

Could I close the door on him finding a way back into the top 15? No, I could not close the door on it. I certainly wouldn't bet on it and I wouldn't really rush it either. The guy is capable of winning at the UFC level and that's not nothing. That's pretty spectacular, especially after all the wars he's been through. You know, it's kind of funny, BC. Everyone talks about the wars he had in UFC, in particular the Lawler fight, which I don't think he ever recovered from. The dude had a lot of wars before that. I mean, his fights with Campman were, if not wars, certainly hard on him.

I mean, I went back and I watched the Hiramitsu Miura fight from WEC. My God, that was an abuse fest. Those guys were absolutely butchering each other. You just lose sight of the fact that this dude's been fighting for a very long time against the very best. And sometimes they were short, like in the Dan Hardy fight, and sometimes they went very long and they had a dramatic effect on him. So the fact that he's still able to be this competitive at all is frankly pretty goddamn impressive. So if he's able to beat guys like Matt Brown and stay in the UFC and he can really put more wins together, then yes, we can slowly add,

I think, a level of difficulty to it where if he can re-enter the top 15 and we'll see how far he can go, then I'm okay with that. But I'm like you, managed expectations, he's in his late 30s, he has had a record amount of abuse. So do I think he can still win and earn his keep? Absolutely. God bless him. We're happy for it. But this idea of like rushing him back into beating or fighting, I should say, you know, hungry contenders with a modern game in their late twenties. I just think we've seen what happens when we do that and it doesn't go well for him. I don't know why we need to see it again like look what did we accomplish the last few years with shogun hua being a not a not a contender but like a quasi no he was a contender he was light heavyweight he was ranked one he won more than

he okay so if the definition of being ranked as a contender then that's fine but like you know he won more than he lost in fact he won a surprising amount of fights but yeah it was never a threat to be a top guy was always a threat to kind of take an extended beating just to hang around and you know again you want to match Shogun with Little Nog for a trilogy like they did that's great matchmaking I don't need to see Little Nog in there against Dom Reyes I don't need to see Condit in there against any of these super elites but But, look, I'm not here to crap on him. I mean, after that losing streak, Condon, you know, a lot of guys would be out of the sport. He's still got certain elements to it, all right?

There's some things he's relying heavy on his brain, on his technique. I mean, shout out to him for this win. But, please, Dana White, let's respect the name and be smart here. Right. I don't have much to add. Congratulations to him. It's a nice win. He might put three or four in a row together at this point and that would be fantastic so um let's just not

rush somebody who's had this much to go through that's my only point all right let's get to the the part of the weekend that had nothing to do with the fights per se that was just Just so stupid. Point number four. My God, BC. The decision with Habib, which they literally compared to LeBron's decision, which I could not believe. I mean, they were very different. They were not even remotely the same. But, you know, when LeBron did the decision, he was widely panned for it. There was total blowback.

It blew up in his face to the nth degree. Obviously, he went and won some titles in Miami, but that moment in time was a total disaster. They were actually making active comparisons to it on the ESPN MMA social media account, Daniel Cormier giving it lip service. Sure enough, it lived up to the hype because his answer was,

eh, maybe. I guess we'll see. Who knows? No, yes. Was that really his answer, Luke? Was it really his answer? What did you maybe. I guess we'll see. Who knows? No, yes. Was that really his answer, Luke? Was it really his answer? What did you make of that whole shit show? Okay, I wasn't as negative as you are of like,

why are we even doing this? I think there's, look, if you're going to do this, it's cheesy, right? LeBron's decision was cheesy, but you got to go all in. Again, LeBron went all in on it. I still kind of respect for him for doing it, even though it backfired. If they were really going to do this, then they should have went all in. They should have kind of respect for him for doing it even though it backfired if they were really gonna do this then they should have went all

in they should have made it a segment where Habib and Dana are sitting there talking to each other similar to the meeting they had backstage right make it an actual segment where we get what an actual answer from Habib look I'm not here to bash Dana I'm not here to retaliate for that media video but does Dan as a used car salesman he's a a promoter. Luke, he has fudged the truth at times. All promoters do. Do I 1000% believe his maybe? No, I don't. Luke, is there? I mean, there doesn't mean there's no kernel to the idea that they talked that there was a lot of money offered to Habib that Habib maybe said, all right, you know, let me look, let me see. You know, yeah, you know, maybe they said, look, if Conor comes out on top of this, Habib, we'll give you just stupid frigging money.

Go to 30, you know, impress your dad, blah, blah, blah. I guess I could believe it, Luke, but I'm only going to believe that if it comes out of the damn mouth of Habib Nurmagomedov. Because every interview since his retirement after the Gaethje fight he said he's not coming back every interview with Dana since then has said hey wait and see I think he's coming back so to see Dana come out and give us a womp womp I mean it yeah it was laughable it was a joke but it really feels like a promoter trying to sprinkle some extra buys on top of what

is already what did i tell you off the start of the show the ufc 257 is coming from my heart luke it's coming from my soul i can't wait to see this thing we're already gonna watch and tune in at stupid numbers this felt ploy-ish i also didn't like in the post-fight press conference saturday night when they somebody brought up a great question, said, Dana, is GSP still on the table for Habib? And Dana's like, no, we didn't talk about GSP at all. He doesn't want to fight him, blah, blah, blah. And then you see the Shmuel had a video out there on social media that's

getting passed around where he was interviewing Dean Thomas and Habib walked by and they're talking to him. And Habib's like, yeah, I was just in GSP's Instagram DMs, trying to talk to him about if he's going to come back. So, though, Luke, I don't believe anything Dana said, OK? Let's wait till we get a microphone in front of Habib. If he says maybe, I'll believe the maybe. From where I stand, Habib's not coming back.

But does everybody have a price for the million-dollar man? Of course. Luke, it's still not out of the realm of possibility that if Conor McGregor beats Dustin Poirier that the UFC does not throw stupid record-breaking money at Habib and that he might look at the reality of it talk to his family and go yeah I'll smash this guy one more time and we're all going to be retired you know for the rest of our lives and our grandkids will eat well I mean it was a cheap ploy to get attention for this fight this weekend, this past weekend.

It's a cheap ploy. Look, he ain't fighting Charles Oliveira next, okay? It's not happening, bro. I know, I know. It was just a cheap ploy to get attention for this one. I mean, yes, I do think that they want Nurmagomedov to come back and fight one more time. I don't think that that's false necessarily.

But, you know, the way in which it was presented, they even put out a press release being like check in at three on the ABC. It's like, okay, this is what this is about. It's just trying to get eyeballs for something that is not necessarily something that is eyeball ready. Or, you know, again, if you accept Dana's version of things and I sort of treat what he says is like a one championship pronouncement. It's like, I can't say that it's false, but i'm not really ready to accept it without further documentation um even then he wasn't ready to commit to anything his whole point was well we'll see blah blah i mean how

how ready is he to do that kind of a thing until he says it to your point bc i you know i'm not ready to listen to anything i mean for folks who may not remember this dana white uh lied on the record to media about uh matters related to the season when there was Rich Franklin and Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell on The Ultimate Fighter. And everyone kind of laughed it off like, oh, well, it's The Ultimate Fighter. Who cares about that? It's like, dude, if you're going to give an interview to the press and you're going to knowingly say something false and then be like, who cares? It's about a TV show. You know, OK, you can do that. Certainly there's nothing illegal about that. But

then your credibility as someone who wants to make further or subsequent statements, even if you hold a position of power, they deserve to be questioned. So I would like to hear Nurmagomedov's side of things on this one. And then to the point, BC, it was like, it was just so manufactured, I think is what really I hated about it. It's like, we're going to make this big doing. What could he say? What could it be? It was just a trick to get cheap attention for something that ultimately was a nothing burger. That ultimately was the thing that got me. It's like we have this great event that they did a lot of work to put on. They had a great main event ready to go.

This new arena. There were fans back there. The fans, to my knowledge what would be what i could hear didn't really woo it was good to hear them i think for the most part can we just make it about the and by the way you got connor fighting next weekend like we don't need this this is overkill and it under delivered in the biggest way imaginable so and look i think it's done look the promotions history has been to over-flood the market with interim or vacant titles.

And I get the arguments we have had in the past, where you support it only for the money it brings fighters, blah, blah, blah. I think it waters down the titles. The fact that they're not doing it for this weekend's card is just mind-blowing to me. And Connor now in two interviews, because I also listened to the one he did with Ariel, he seems to blame there not being a you know at least an interim title at stake in this one on that DM argument

him and uh Dana had in 2020 yeah it's surprising to me but it's weird that Dana comes out and the first thing he says is like Habib said he didn't want to hold up the division dude we're holding up the damn division we're going into a double header on on Saturday of must-see killer lightweight fights in the most competitive and amazing division in the sport. I mean, I don't have to tell you that Chandler Hooker is like a fight of the year waiting to happen. And oh, by the way, it's got so much at stake in it. And we don't know who the champion is or who's going to fight next to the title or is Habib going to come back. So this is really the big failure of it all, that you're kind of underselling. I mean, look, when Conor McGregor fights,

you don't even have to sell it. It's going to sell. But I think that they're kind of missing the boat here. They're underselling what Conor, Dustin, too, by at the very least not putting an interim title. And I think what they should do in the whole situation is get a freaking answer right now, Habib. You're either in or you're out, all right?

I'm not blaming this on you. I'm blaming it on Dana. I love you, habib you're either in or you're out all right i'm not blaming this on you i'm blaming it on dana i love you habib but be in or out we should be knowing saturday the second that main event ends who's fighting for the title next instead we have no idea is it gonna be charles olivera is it gonna be gsp is it gonna be habib i mean what the hell are we doing here luke i'm going to ignore that that thing even happened. If Habib is back, we'll know. It's not going to be a secret. You know what I mean? Like, if Habib decides, okay, you know what?

I'm ready to come back one more time. Whoever it's against, it's not going to be a secret. It will spill out into the information ecosystem like a volcano erupting. You couldn't miss it. So when that happens, you can sit back and just watch the eruption and then we can decide, okay, well, maybe he has an opponent, maybe he doesn't.

We can make some choices about what to say at that point. But it's like, we're going to sit here and try and pull blood from stone for a cheap titillation and it under delivers. It's like, can we not do dumb fuck-fuck games anymore and just worry about things that are actually happening? That's just my sense of things. Yeah, so Luke, real quick, and I ask you this legitimately

because Dana's job is always to put the UFC and their finances first, even if he has to sell the soul of himself or the rankings or all that. I mean, you know, we've seen it so many times, people getting title shots that don't deserve it, blah, blah, blah. Is this a fail that when Habib retired, they didn't take the belt away from him, knowing that Dustin Conner, too, this weekend could be for the full title? I mean, you could be exiting this weekend with Conor McGregor as a champion, and Habib still could come back, by the way, at any point,

and you could make Conor Habib, too, and come back and win his belt back. Shouldn't you take the short-term gain that is putting a title here at stake? Isn't this a miss? Yeah, I mean, listen, if they wanted to try and cajole Habib back, this is the thing about it. I mean, who could really be against that? I mean, yeah, okay, there's a case to be made for just leaving Habib alone, but a promoter is not going to do that, and that's just part of reality. of reality. Habib should know that too. You know, he's a grown man. He's a big boy. He can, he can

fend off these things if it's something he doesn't want to do. And so I don't mind UFC trying to do that per se. It's just, okay, what do you do with what you have left over? You got your biggest star coming back. If Habib is in, he probably is going to fight the winner of this fight no matter what. If he's out, then the winner of this fight is probably your front row or your leading contender to get the belt. Yeah, the interim belt is kind of phony, but no one would really begrudge the status that this fight has and has been conferred upon it by basically what the division has told us at this point about who's at the top. So it's like, you know, is it a huge misfire?

I don't know if it's a huge misfire, but it doesn't feel like best practices either. I mean, is Dana afraid that Poirier is going to win it and that it'll screw up all the plans? Is this like a, Hey, just in case Poirier wins it,

we'll keep the bell on Habib because if Poirier wins, then we'll put Habib in there against somebody else for the title. I don't know what he's thinking here, Luke. I mean, I think Habib really respects Dustin, but he knows he's just so much better than him as a fighter. He's not interested. He has no desire to fight Conor again because he hates his guts. And so you've got the Chandler-Hooker thing.

Is that really going to draw his attention? Maybe. All right, then how about Max? How about Max? Some people talked about this afterwards. John Anik had a good interview with Max in the tunnel afterwards where they talked about this. Would you be upset if Max Holloway got elevated into a lightweight title bout

for 30-0 against Habib? No, I think he's an interesting matchup for Habib. I really do. I think that his takedown defense is good. I think Habib will get a takedown, no doubt about it. I think Habib's going to win rounds. Habib should be favored to win that contest. But I think Max could make it exciting in parts.

I think Max would be an interesting challenge. And I wouldn't mind that at all. No. I wouldn't mind that at all. Could Max get up if Habib took him down? Oh, God, I'd want to see that. Yeah, I do too. All right, last but not least,

and we'll get to some of the rest of the pieces of the show here. Point number five, we did have some believe the ufc didn't announce but maybe confirmed some news about ufc 260 two title fights that we know are going to be on that card stipe versus francis two and volkanovski versus ortega big doings for featherway bc your early sense about how those two fights shake out uh i don't know and that's what makes it great look this is another another freaking balls out must see ufc card to open the year again dana salute 2021 the first eight cards now through the end of march they're loaded they're freaking loaded luke i don't know who's gonna win either of these title fights uh that tells you they're great freaking fights we need them both to advance the conversation

so we can get potentially john jones against the winner in the heavyweight later this year and max holloway maybe against the winner later this year they are so set up luke to freaking dominate this year i'm excited i'm a fan I'm a fan. I'm a journalist. My family eats better when the UFC does better. This is a good time here, Luke. All right? Yeah, no doubt about it. My early senses, I wonder if, I mean, Francis landed on Stipe a few times and, like, shook his head in the process.

It's like, can you get away with that a second time? You know, do I think Stipe is overall the better fighter? Yeah. Like, is he more well-rounded and blah, blah, blah. Can he do more? Yes. I certainly think that is true. Like how much has changed in Stipe's punch resistance compared to the first one?

Right. And is that, where does that match up to how much Ngannou has improved as a fighter? It's a great fricking fight. Yeah. And, and if Ngannou's cardio is better as well right I mean how much I mean maybe he gets taken down for two rounds but by the third he's still not not in terrible shape like he can come back out and still throw a decent punch we'll have to see exactly what the situation with that is so I tend to think the second one will be much more

competitive but we'll see again this is what's so interesting about Volkanovsky that I just he has got to be your least appreciated champion. Because, one, understandably, the fights that he had for the title were all very close. When he beat Aldo, it was kind of definitive but lackluster. The Mendes fight was nice because he knocked him out and he actually got dropped in that one. But in general, when he's been at the top, it's been these really close affairs. The key to Volkanovski's game, though, is he is so hard to hit. He's not a stationary target.

He is moving, fainting, faking, angle changing, up, high, low, side to side, you know, in the middle, on the out, constantly, all the time. And he's a perpetual motion machine. So when Max gets an opponent who basically stands in front of him, he's like, oh, this is target practice. I mean, I'll just tee off on this guy all day. So I tend to think that Volkanovski is going to beat Brian Ortega, and we're going to get Max versus Volkanovski 3,

which I have to tell you, I could not be more excited for. I could easily see myself or any other pundit, not that our picks ever matter, picking the underdog in both of these title fights, and that's great when you're in that spot luke tell me if my layman's summation of alexander volkanovsky is true right here you ready for this ready for this luke master chess player master right maybe some of the moves and planning we've never seen before he's bobby fisher okay jeremy shapps situation notwithstanding bad comparison um so if he can outplay you in

chess he can beat every single person he steps in the cage across right he's quick he's smart he's daring he's all that but if you can match his wits like Max did in the rematch and again I know Max didn't get the nod I know you've also watched it 49 times. I only saw it once. I still think Max won. If you can match his wits and it comes down then, meaning, you know, you can match his game planning. You can counter what he does and force him to adapt and counter to you. And if those parts are equal, then it might come down to size and speed and power. And I think Volkanovski can get outgunned by these guys if they can equal his mind Max equaled his mind now Volkanovski wasn't outgunned two or three judges still thought he beat Max fine but I thought when that fight became even meaning Max figured him out Max's length his you

know it was a different ball game Ortega's a big dude, and he showed us against Zombie that, you know, the two years off, there's next-level thinking going on here. There's speed. There's craft. You know, he used to be a jujitsu or nothing guy. He's a well-rounded guy now. If he can prove on that chessboard, I got you, then I'm going to take him, Luke. Then I'm going to take him if all things are even.

We don't know if all things are even until they get in there. And, again, I'm not trying to simplify it as that simple because as Volkanovsky showed us in that Max rematch, he does have plans B, C, D, and E. But if you can equal that one thing he does that seems next level super worldly, the way that his mind is three steps ahead and you make it more of a physical fight, he's a little bit short, Luke. I don't know if he matches up the same with these super super elite guys am i am i speaking cash bullshit from the back yes of the roller station at cumberland farms because that's where i cooked this up luke yes yeah that's a bit of a

stretched hypothesis that i don't think matches with reality but i think it's right on i think it's dead on luke okay well you also thought that also thought that Zabit was better than Max Holloway. Hey, Luke. Hey, Luke. Show me where Zabit's lost. All right. Show me where he's fought five rounds against somebody who is top five. I'm just saying, like LeVar Ball, he's undefeated until we see him lose. Okay, Luke?

So what I'm saying is what I see when I look at it, Luke, I see a guy that's going to be a lot harder to figure out than you realize. All right, let's move along here. That's our top five. Now is a chance for you to ask us questions. It is time for DMs from dongs. Bomp, bada, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp. All right, BC, we'll go first to atstrike.mx.

Was Saturday night a better version of Max or a more prime example of, quote, there are levels to this game? Both, Luke, right? Yeah, it's both. It's exactly both. All right. Thank you, Strike Max. That was easy.

That was super easy. All right. At Javy Rod 1123. Will Volkanovski ever get the respect this champ with Max going out and putting on performances like Saturday? Good question. First of all, not at Cumberland farms.

All right. Not, not in Brian Campbell's house. I love, I love Volkanovski. I'm not team CKB for life. Like you, um,

I give him a lot of respect. I do feel for him here, Luke. He's in a no win situation. Um, Max is maybe his toughest available challenge. And you know, the UFC is going to go out of their way to push it on him

after he fights Ortega, which could be sneaky, his toughest challenge. So despite the fact that he's the champion, Luke, he's kind of in a no-win spot. If he doesn't look like he wants to fight Max a third time, then he looks like a pussy, right? But in his mind, it's like I already beat him twice. So I get where he's coming from completely, Luke. But yes, the way volkanovski beats you is more with his mind max does a little bit more demonstrably it's it just happened it's

easy to be like you know what you know max max is going to win that third fight and luke i'm probably going to favor him to win listen there's a high premium placed on excitement and you know uh style and pizzazz and entertainment there just is and Volkanov my career right there Luke you explained my whole career yeah well I didn't say anonymity but uh but I'm teasing I'm teasing but that's pretty good bird Luke not well done right there right but here listen here's here's the point about it the point point is, you know, Volkanovski wins on talent, on just ridiculous. And he's got, I mean, some of the best tactics in all of MMA. But he doesn't really have, at least not of late, he doesn't have all the other stuff that Max has. Plus, people like Max as a person.

I don't think they really know Volkanovski all that well. So will he ever get the respect? I mean, we'll see. But, you know, as long as he keeps doing what Max is doing and what Volkanovski is doing, then no, he'll forever remain on the back foot. From at Dillio underscore two, DC was saying it's somewhat joking on the broadcast,

but do you think there will be an uptick in fighters who refrain from sparring during training camp, BC? I think that's the future dude i mean we've we've already sort of gotten there and what i mean by that is like let's talk boxing right part of why guys didn't have great success into their 30s in boxing back in the day was because of things called gym wars right you're in these loaded gyms and you're just i mean we see that today in these super teams of mma and you're in these loaded gyms think uh you know milotic's gym in iowa and you're just i mean you have to prove yourself luke day in and day out where these sparring matches become brawls and wars uh that's the quickest way to be to getting washed it's also a great way to to sharpen your skills and become tough as nails and have a nice run but it's not great for

longevity luke and i think we're seeing this um and i mean are we seeing that in the nfl over the sharpen your skills and become tough as nails and have a nice run, but it's not great for longevity, Luke. And I think we're seeing this. I mean, are we seeing that in the NFL over the years too, Luke? I think we're seeing that the less damage you put on yourself when it doesn't matter. When you've already reached a level of, let's say, like mastery, you know what I mean? What can you gain from the extra damage that comes? If you've already proven you're tough, you've already been through wars. Yes. You have to sharpen your skills to a certain degree, but I think we learned that

in boxing along the way that, um, you know, sustained head trauma is not going to lead to a sustained, uh, career. So why don't you have that head trauma in the fights, Luke, not in, in, you know, I know in this case, we're talking about Max. We're talking about how he trained over zoom two fights ago. We're talking about, uh, you know, I know in this case we're talking about Max. We're talking about how he trained over Zoom two fights ago. We're talking about, you know, a totally forced situation because of COVID and him being on the island and all that. But, Luke, I mean, how do quarterbacks age better these days? Part because the rule changes allows for less damage,

but, you know, they wear the red shirt in practice for a reason, right? Yeah. Also, you know, P peds um there's that as well uh the thing i would say is i'm a little bit less willing to believe this i mean yes obviously there has been a strain of barbarism in training that needs to get weeded out you know gym wars is the great example but i mean here's the thing i was like i don't know how you get better in wrestling and jiu-jitsu without incessant sparring I don't you will lose those things very quickly I don't know how you can even progress from belt to belt without it it's a key part of it now the question is probably more about striking on the feet here's the thing about Max Max started at very young right he's been he's? He's been fighting on his feet for 15 years at this point, right?

Probably more on some levels. And does he need to go out there to get his timing down, to get his rhythm down, to go do hard sparring? Probably not. Probably not because he's so far advanced into his development

that that doesn't really add much and it takes away a lot in terms of the damage but like if you're three fights into your pro career you're just going to not spar during camp you need that development you got to get to the point where you can be the max holloway where then you can then dial it back a little bit so i'm all for more humane training i'm all for no gym wars i'm all for situational sparring, you know, where you're actually in the, in the act of working on your timing, but there's less risk because you're not worried about the totality of things. You're just, you know, focused on a very particular kind of

challenge in that moment. Those things can really help you and you can avoid the most amount of gym damage, but like, we're just going to stop sparring. It's like, that seems like a bad idea. Sparring actually has real benefits. You just got to know how to limit it and minimize it to where it doesn't, you know, really have long-term effects. Luke, have you ever been knocked out cold? I've been flash KO'd. I've been flash KO'd. I've never had, like, KO'd smelling salt kind of thing. Yeah, I've been flash knocked down in boxing sparring,

but I never had that full on. I always wonder what it'd be like, Luke. Maybe one of our listeners will show that to us one day. Let's see who I can offend, Luke. Let's keep going. All right, at ZRigs. I tend to think Conor Dustin won isn't as big of a factor as people make it out to be.

Different weight class, different kinds of experience since one having a massively impressive record at 155 since the first fight. Am I on target with this thought? No. What do you think, BC? Wait, what are you saying no to? This man, Z-Riggs, what is he saying, Luke?

You read that quick. Sum it up to me what he's actually saying. He's saying, oh, well, look at the way that the first fight between these two went. It might foretell what will happen in the second you know not exactly but that there's lessons from that first fight that have implications for the second i mean that is quite clearly true yes yes i mean i wrote i wrote this on twitter which again twitter's a great place where people flex the fact that they don't have reading comprehension skills or they want to pretend

that they don't understand your point so they can argue a different one but if you look at all of the first rounds that conor mcgregor has had he's only lost two of them and the only two he lost were to chad mendez and habib namigomedov two guys who decided to wrestle so what does that tell you every time he had an opponent who stood with him on the feet in the first round they either lost outright via stoppage or they lost that round he has never lost a first round on the feet he is very good on when skills generally bc and when he starts dude he is dialed in from the word go he is ready with range right away he's very impressive that way so do you could you see poirier coming out with that in round one? Coming out with... Yes, I think he should.

I think he should clinch and wrestle him against the fence. Conor's strong, though. Conor's physically stronger in the clinch than people give him credit for. Have we seen Poirier do that in a big fight in recent years? Take someone down early and look to work that route? I think he's mixed it up a little bit, but not like that. This is why Poirier has an uphill climb the first three rounds. After that, I think it's his fight to lose.

I mean, that's why the odds are kind of large against him. I'm surprised. I mean, look, again, we've talked in the past that betting odds are inflated for certain reasons to draw betting, but to see Conor as a minus 300 favorite in a fight that, I mean, it's got to be, it's a 50. I mean, look, 50-50 is a term that can mean, you know, bigger or smaller things, but to me, Luke, however big your strike zone is on calling something a 50-50 fight, it's a freaking 50-50-50 fight, Luke.

It is. Yeah, it's just that the key weakness that Dustin Poirier has, he's not a slow starter in the way that Cerrone was, but he does get stung a little bit early, and you got a guy who does his stinging early, the way in which he got stopped in the first one Cerrone was, but he does get stung a little bit early. And you've got a guy who does his stinging early. The way in which he got stopped in the first one, it does have some implications for the second one. Is that what's going to happen? You know, I guess we'll have to see exactly what.

I mean, and to your point, I don't think Conor is going to get taken down by Poirier. I don't think his wrestling's on that. You could maybe take him down if, like, Conor was charging in with punches, and then you level changed and picked him up and then took him down that way he took gaethje down that way so yes in that sense but like against the fence connor's take down against the fence or excuse me take down defense along the fence it's pretty good it's pretty good so no but my point is it's not it's not that bc it's just to drain him it's just to make the arms heavy it's just to make him a little bit tired take him from

being like ready to go to a little bit of a heavy breath where he's not exactly the same kind of threat and then begin to open up. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Luke. Oh, yeah. I've seen a lot of interviews with Connors coaches this past two weeks and there's some names I don't recognize.

Is Owen Roddy not in the mix anymore? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I saw what you saw, which was some new dude in a bathrobe who just very very confidently does interviews in bathrobes um I don't know where Owen Roddy is it's a good question if you if you got it Luke flaunt it right hey uh I guess so all right lastly not leastly from at scott.mccrate Luke have you ever had any run-ins with the dude that always chalks up before every set if bc lifted weights that would be him he'd have gloves and then he'd put chalk

on his gloves while wearing lifting straps for uh shrugs i'm certain um no i tend to stay away from the aggro gyms where that shit happens. The most things that I have to worry about is, um, you know, just some dude using it for too long or using something incorrectly. Most people don't want to spend a ton of time squatting, deadlifting or benching. Uh, they want to spend time,

you know, quarter squatting or, you know, a curling, doing a lot of curls. They like, they don't like doing the actual hard work so the gym i don't have to worry about that what else fits this stereotype uh short

shorts right that fits the stereotype of being like the chalk guy you got to scream really loud yeah you gotta wear you gotta wear the uh you gotta wear the tank tops that are cut out you know like real close so your nipples hang out the side you know so you can see these high abs yeah you want to show off your high abs and also you got to carry the the one gallon jug of poland spring but rip the label off right you know that's exactly who it is that's exactly that's totally right there are people who just do their identity is the gym like they don't have a personality if it wasn't for that activity so where are you on notebook the notebook and the pen can that be normal or is that stereotypical uh i tend so

here's what i think i've done that at the gym it just becomes a pain in the ass to carry around if you don't work out with a program structure um you know whether it's prelapins or anybody else what's going to end up happening is you might get stronger, but it's not going to be as much as possible, and you might stall out because you really have to have a program designed for progression, and you can't do that without structure. And so making sure that you count the reps, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing I always say. You shouldn't be in the gym more than an hour,

hour and a half at the fucking most, not including your warmup. And it's not hard to memorize what you're supposed to be doing. Put it on your phone if you have to. You should know I'm going to do these five or six exercises or whatever it is, what the set's going to be

and what the rep range is supposed to be or RPE if you're into that. You don't need to have a notebook with you to do that. So to me, it's a little bit overkill, but I'm not going to be and what the rep range is supposed to be or rpe if you're into that like you don't need to have a notebook with you to do that so to me it's a little bit overkill but i'm not going to beat up somebody who's at least trying to do something the right way i think that's what about the jerks who bring the giant workout bag from bench to bench station to station you know i'm talking about the giant duffel bag you know what i mean they got well you yeah that you could put you know four showtime staffers in it yes um yeah they're they're dirt holes as well or the guys who luke since hold on there's one more there's one more there's the guy who shows up like people ask what are what are good

weightlifting shoes if the gym allows it barefoot for dead lifting certainly sometimes for squatting but you don't need it for that other than that you need you won't go on a plane barefoot but yeah let's let's lift weights and sweat around other people barefoot. That's great, Luke. Yes, you should do a barefoot. Yes, let's keep a dirty thing dirty. Let's not get a clean thing dirty, but okay.

But here's the point. If not, Chuck Taylors or just any kind of flat boat shoe, that's all you really need. You don't need all that other bullshit you don't need. How about the guys who wear sweatpants and then wrestling shoes? Those are my favorite. those fucking jerk jobs i hope every one of them tears a fucking uh you know a disc well the final stereotype for these guys is what you kind of tease the fact that they'll

spend three hours there luke and they'll they'll stop and talk to somebody for 45 minutes while their bag is laid out on a bench and just you know you can't use it because they're bigger than you i wonder if those guys graduate to the old guys with saggy balls who don't even work out. They just go to the gym to walk around nude in the locker room for three hours. I wonder if that becomes a thing, right? That's like the end. The good news about COVID, such that it exists, is that in D.C.,

you're only allowed for each individual workout, you have to log in for like contact tracing and shit. And you only have 90 minutes total. And then you got to leave. They don't let you sit around. So people are like, they're about their business when they go in there these days, which is something kind of nice to see.

Or I can just work out at home. But that's less of an issue. That's less of an issue in the year of our Lord 2021. Luke, I do have to say like, you know, what makes you great, Luke, is that you have blinders on certain levels of your own self-awareness. And that's why we can, you know, mock you in a fun way, despite the fact that you're bigger than us. But working out in your front yard is one of the most

ridiculous things I've ever heard. Look, really? Yeah. I'm like, I'm an embarrassing dad and fuck all of you. I don't care if I make you uncomfortable. I'm going to walk around with my balls hanging out of my underwear in my front yard doing incline bench I mean look there is not a place in my town that I won't show up day or night with pajama pants on sometimes even with like flip-flops and no socks in 10 degree weather like I'll be that embarrassing dad and husband because I just don't care but I won't lift in the front yard Luke I. I mean, come on, dude. You got to have something. When you come to D.C., you're lifting in the front yard with me. And who are clearly married to one another, who are now working out. It's quite a nice sight.

All right. With that in mind, B.C., two dudes working out in the front yard with their balls hanging out of their underwear. Let's go have you seen some shit. It is the perfect transition, Luke. You know what we do? We scour the globe for the highs and lows, the good, the bad, and the ugly. In combat sports and beyond, it's have you seen this shit? Jay Aron on the ones and twos here.

Let's do it. Big weekend, Luke, for perennial losers as the Buffalo Bills want a playoff game. Hey, let's celebrate by power bombing one of these jerks to a table. Hashtag Bills Mafia. I hate this fan base. Yes. Yes, Luke. Canadian journalists love this team.

All right. Brent Brookhouse of CBS Sports. Huge Bills fan. Love it. All right. I love Brent, but fuck him for this fan base. All right, Luke. You want to see a Bills Mafia guy get power bombed through next level tables?

How about we set it on fire, Luke? Watch this guy. Yeah. Wow. Got a little on him, Luke. I was so hoping they would lose. But they're like, Bills, Bills, Mafia. None of you are a Mafia.

You live in the worst part of the country. Your team has sucked forever, and all of you are losers. How about that? Wow. Wow. Wow. And I hope they'll say, they'll be like, oh, your team has sucked forever and all of you are losers how about that wow wow wow and i don't know they'll say they'll be like oh your team sucks too right but we when y'all had four chances to win the super bowl uh you didn't and we had three chances and we took all three so look you never put redskins jerseys on before a big game and like take a social media video and put it on twitter of yourself wearing it i will not buy any gear from the team until snyder is gone period matt snyder of showtime great idea

all right uh luke uh not all bills fans come out of this uh in one piece though check a shout out to this guy luke you know i mean you live in the worst part of the country and this is what yeah i mean what else you're gonna do really what else you got going on i don't know how rashad evans came out alive from that area okay john jones you know how he fucking left yeah that's a good point that's a good point all right hey luke ufc fight night speaking of carlos condit tell me about this creative takedown against matt brown because i don't this is this is like chinese to me look what is this do that i don't i'm not sure what this is called but uh that timing on that is superb. That's wizardry right there.

That's incredible. Yeah, you get in behind the first leg and then sweep out the post. So watch. I'm such a take down. I'm such a wrestling cash that I thought Matt Brown took him down at first. And then the announcers were like, great move by Condit. I didn't even understand what's going on, Luke. It's like another language to me. It is language and that was and there was a you know here

there was the head outside single but so watch he gets behind the lead and then kicks out the post it's nice it's a nice piece of work man uh luke a lot of good knockouts on this undercard uh check out this one captured by dana white when joaquin buckley got got by Dick Rico. Little Dick Rico. Yes. We didn't even talk about Dick Rico. He was so bitter at media. Remember that? Did you hear all that?

Not only did I see that, did you hear Dana White's press conference rant about it, how he went up to congratulate the team, and they angrily looked at him like, who the F are you? Get away from me. They're mad at him, too? Yeah, they no-sold the crap out of him. So let's get into Dick Rico here. What's the hell this guy's name? Alessio DiCirico.

Alessio Sicara DiCirico. Luke, he was upset both in the cage and at the post-fight press conference that MMA media does not interview the losers after fights. They only focus on the winners. Now he was coming off a three-fight losing streak. Luke, this is a little bit of buffoonery here, right? I mean, most of the time... It's maybe the dumbest criticism you can make.

I mean, listen, here's how it works at MMA. If you have an axe to grind and you need a cheap scapegoat for grandstanding, you just dump all of your frustration on the media because there's really no consequence to it. It's the reflexive choice that they all take. That's what this is. Apparently, he had thought that he had been robbed in a previous fight and no one asked to interview him and he thought that he had been done wrong.

Rather than asking, hey, gee, maybe the way in which I understand the world is not correct, he just decided that the media must have some kind of, and UFC, i guess in particular because he was mad at john annick too acts to grind the reality is if a fighter's been concussed it may not be a good idea to interview them a lot of them don't want to talk if the media sure are there more cases to talk to fighters who have lost sure there's always a case to mix things up a little bit i don't think that's the craziest thing but they don't give people seizures by running this too much jay right and the last thing i'd say is they don't do it to like oh i

don't care about the losers of fighters they do it because they want to be reverential to somebody who may have just gone through a very difficult experience not because they're like fuck them and it's a you know rather than asking about that or the fact that the ufc doesn't even allow you to talk to the losers on fight night they just bring you the winners for the most part you know he just said he just decides that the world's against them okay well you know enjoy your anonymity yeah do that kind of rant after you lose like if you lost a tough fight and you fought well and you lost a close decision be like hey you know I should get more attention yeah whatever who cares um nice win though by the way I had about four thousand000 tweets. Sick win.

Hashtag Dick Rico coming at me. All right, Luke, you love this. I know you love this. Fat heavyweights Carlos Felipe and Justin Taffa doing their own Holloway Lamas right here, Luke. Yes. For a little bit. For a little bit. It was kind of like pointing at the ground.

Old school Max Holloway, right? 199. A little bit. A little bit. They didn't do it for too, too but they you know them boys was they were getting after it oh yeah forehead to forehead right here let's advance the slide jay very reminiscent to one of the greatest things i ever saw in an arena to close their ufc 199 fight there's max and ricardo oh yeah max is such a goddamn savage. He's unbelievable.

Just give it to me. This was, Luke, the, now, this was at the Forum in L.A., you know, heavy Mexican-American crowd. Like, the reaction to this in that building, Luke, it was insane. Like, it was like somebody walked in the center of their cage, took all their clothes off, and just started, I mean, it was insane, Luke. It was great. It was great. You were there for this? Yeah, I was.

I was. Thank you. Sitting right there. Yeah. All right. Luke, let's go on here. We got a club boxing show from Chester, Pennsylvania. Check out light heavyweight Shannard Bunch.

One punch in this film. Is that the old Hagler gazelle punch? I have to see it again. It looks like it's at a, I don't know where they recorded this. Some theater. Is that Ford Theater, Luke? It's COVID Theater. Yeah, COVID Theater. punch i have to see it again it looks like it's at a i don't know where they recorded this some theater is that ford theater uh it's covid theater yeah uh let's see if we can run it back uh let's see if it comes all the way around look at this beauty of a punch oh not quite it's a leaping left hook it's not quite a gazelle punch but that was nice jay we do have a second angle here. We have an alternate angle here, Jay. There it is. Give it to me here, this guy, Shannard Bunch.

Is someone about to be knocked out in 144P? Luke, remember in the late 90s when you could buy DVDs and have alternate angles? I had that once with an NBA Finals highlights video, and I had that once with an nba finals highlights video and i had that once with a movie involving nurses this dude dl mercy and zow was 11 and 13 going into this contest i'm guessing that's the gentleman who just got you know crushed yes naughty nurses I don't care. Let's keep moving. Okay. All right.

Wow. That was awkward. All right, Luke, let's go over to Abu Dhabi. There's an MMA promotion called. Oh, no, sorry. We got a little bit of boxing here, Luke. Hey, were you down for this? This was in Dubai on Friday.

Game of Thrones and World's Strongest Man, Half-Poor Julius Bjornsson. Half-Poor. Fought three rounds at Cruiserweight against Stephen Ward. I don't think half-poor made cruiserweight, but what'd you make of this exhibition? It's not half-poor, it's half-thor, or just thor. You know what? For being 400 pounds or so,

I thought he was pretty nimble. For folks who don't realize this, that's the Mountain from Game of Thrones, who is also world's strongest man blah blah anyway uh he is going to fight eddie hall in september another guy who was a world's strongest man and they hate each other in the strongman world and this was something of a tune-up exhibition his punches didn't look great but his movement wasn't so bad i'd call out puganovsky after that if i was him luke all right uh shout out to that guy right shout out to tim boxeo for giving us this great stuff uh let's go over to efc 32 from abu dhabi on friday this is renat fuck reddinov and he sent

eric spicely to hell luke your thoughts i love eric spicely but that is a uh it's a nice punch just measures him with a jab and then it comes over the top like that oh man uh near testifying going on there near very close very close luke all right he was looking at the congregation he was considering it wow all right hey luke uh this is i found footage the The reason why Dana White did not jump off the cliff at YMI Bay was because this fella tried first and nearly killed himself. Watch the splash on this, Luke. Cannonball run gone wrong. Oh, yikes. You get out the, you know, just I just drown. I i don't know don't even save this guy i mean

doctor said he need a backiotomy indeed luke all right uh hey luke you've been very outspoken against uh weightlifters wearing gloves like i used to in high school because my dad made me check out actor mark walberg this is one of his famous 2.30 a.m. workouts. Of course. Luke, he's got to be on PEDs to be that cut in his 50s, but he's got gloves on, Luke. You into that? No?

Yeah, no, I'm not into that, although those are weird gloves. Like, was he doing cryo before this or something? I don't know what that is. Folks, you don't need gloves. Your hands will develop calluses like a real man. The gloves don't do anything. In fact, they impede you. Unless he was handling some kind of gear that he needed it for grip like he was doing deadlifts for extra grip and he didn't have straps that's fine i guess it sort of says it says does the

same thing as chalk but you don't need gloves at all and in fact they impede you i don't know how many times i can say this look could he pass a usada test right now no no i don't care about that of course but no fuck no i don't care about that of course but no I don't care about that for movies I mean it's ridiculous I don't care about that for sports Last night my son and I watched Con Air Luke Because he really enjoyed The Rock and we were flipping through the menu

And he saw Nicolas Cage like that's the guy from The Rock So we watched it Luke I realized I had not seen that since the theater Back in the 90's It was my second time watching it Loved the ish out of it in fact can we bring in jason aaron real quick jason can you take mark walberg off yeah i don't need to see mark walberg's nipples anymore thank you you told me that con air at one point

was your favorite movie of all time jay i forgot how great that movie was the cast the cast dave chappelle dave chappelle Cage was the worst actor in that movie. Luke, Dave Chappelle. His southern accent was so bad. Oh, my. Buscemi's badass. In the box. Ving Rhames.

I mean, there was like, I mean, Malkovich is badass in that. Malkovich is so good. Buscemi, amazing. The rapist guy, Trejo. Yeah, I mean, it was incredible. Dave Chappelle was in that. Dave Chappelle. Yes. Who's the FBI agent? I don't know. Luke, did you not hear yeah. Dave Chappelle was in that. Dave Chappelle. Yes.

Who's the FBI agent? Luke, did you not hear me yell Dave Chappelle's name five times in a row? Cusack, right. So my point was Cage, heavy on the PEDs for that, Luke, but you expect that for that movie, okay? Yeah, you got to get, you listen, you can't be a ranger who went to prison for fucking a guy up and then is on a plane full of other convicts without looking like you have

six-pack abs. Yeah, also the opening scene of the movie is him working out every single day in prison for nine years. That's the opening scene of the movie. So, you know, gotta sell it. Actually, the opening scene of the movie is when he's in the bar with his wife, but that's another story, Jay. The credit scene. The credit. Jay, are you, Luke, are you gonna make up

with Jay? You sent him to hell earlier, Luke. Yeah, stop talking to my fucking ear. Alright, hey luke i got the uh designate which books of the bible are important thank you jason yeah i respect you and your people uh kickboxing k of the ko of the week luke comes from this fine lady uh check out the law the loser getting prepared for the coffin. Oh, yeah. She's ready, Luke. She can fit in it. She's ready. Wow. Bob. Great stuff.

Wow. All right. Hey, let's get them gains. Luke, you ever get gains while driving? Is this Jujimufu? Yeah, it is. This dude is a trip, man. That's great. He's, man. That's great.

He's pressing that. That's 135. He's just pressing on the car like that. That's hard to balance. I'd wear gloves in this instance, Luke, just in case. You don't want to create an accident at all, right? Does your Lilith Fair vehicle, does it have a moon or sunroof? My 2020 Subaru Crosstrek?

Yeah. Yes, it does have a sunroof uh my my 2020 subaru cross trek yeah yes yes it does have a sunroof thank you there's a sunroof for you to blast uh you know indigo girls on your way to the lily fair such you're such an a-hole hey luke um what is this move called they called on instagram the zombie to squat jerk this guy just looks like a jerk is this a legitimate move what is this uh it's not legit oh god that dude is strong as fuck he is very good yes if there are times when you're trying to clean it's a zombie clean uh because see how he loses it on his arms like that there's times when you try to like rotate your elbows under and uh the bar will come out of your hands and it will land i mean when you think about it when you're up here where is the bar sitting it's sitting on the front of your delts and you're

near your clavicle right that's the shelf you're creating for it, when you're up here, where is the bar sitting? It's sitting on the front of your delts near your clavicle. That's the shelf you're creating for it. So sometimes you can flip under and your hands will come off, but you'll still catch it. So they call that a zombie clean, yeah. Look, that looks like you're just waiting to break your back forever. He is very strong. That is impressive.

And he does a squat jerk, not a split. That is some Lu Xiaojun shit. That is very impressive. He's very, and he does a squat jerk, not a split. That is, that's some Lu Xiaojun shit. That is very impressive. All right, let's close with this for Jim Mockery. How about this guy in the jeans, Luke? What do you call this move? Dude, you know, I always wonder, I mean i can i be like semi-serious for a moment he's got nearly the entire stack on there right and it's moving about an inch he's got his gloves

and jeans on he's convulsing like you know uh a cow that's being shocked in the balls or something what is going through his mind right now does he think he's out there killing the game right now? You know what I mean? I think he's just practicing for when he pops that blue chew pill later in the night, Luke. I don't know what else. I mean, this is gross, right? But I'm serious.

In his mind, does he think like – because the only reason you would do this is if you thought that everyone was looking at you and you thought you looked cool, right? Oh, look at me. I'm moving the whole stack. I mean, the fact is everyone is looking at you and you thought you look cool right oh look at me i'm moving the whole stack i mean the fact is everyone look is looking at you and thinking you're an idiot but i always wonder like what do these old bastards who show up in like clothes you'd wear to the dentist think they're doing when they do shit like this i could see this being jay aaron in about 15 years so we'll have to wait and see and ask him then uh jay jay why are you doing this no i'd have to go to the gym to actually do that yeah thank you

thank you for ko-ing your eye by the way by the way bc last thing on this this is who wears gloves this is the fucking type sadly you're right you're right about that uh luke poor poor parenting Hall of Fame inductions are back. They call this a Canadian baptism, Luke. Uh-oh. You're just leaving them in the fucking snow. Jesus, what is this, the fucking winter jungle book? I mean, what the fuck, man? It's the best way to teach them how to swim, Luke. Just throw them right in, right?

Throw them right in the deep end, you know? See ya, Mowgli. What the fuck man oh boy all right it's subway time and only the creatures come out on the subway luke uh this lady uh i don't i don't have a joke luke bro how glad are you we don't have to ride this right now that's a bag full of raw meat luke and that's this lady barehanded what is that luke dude and by the way i know this account subway creatures bc and i and you know i used to live in new york but certainly through work we had to ride the new york city subway every monday when i was doing mma hour and mma beat i had to ride it every monday and every Thursday, you cannot imagine the life forms that exist on this fucking hellscape.

And this lady is just out here butchering shit with her hands. Raw meat on the six. On the six train. Just like J-Lo. All right. Hey, Street Fight of the Week time here, Luke. Check out this kid on the bicycle just no-selling the fact that these two bums are having some ground and pound issues here.

Street kids on bikes are the best. What are these two doing? I think they're fighting over some meth. Get that guy some socks. Wow, get the guy in an airplane, Luke. That's great. Maybe the guy with no shoes was deadlifting and he took too much time in the rack. get the guy in an airplane luke that's great this maybe maybe the guy with no shoes was uh dead lifting and he waits took too much time in the in the rack now the guy with the walker is

the uh is the is coming in to break them apart luke anything can happen in new york city this is great all right let's roll on before something bad happens uh check out this open field tackle by this police officer former linebacker look at that Luke. That's how you break up a fight right there. And you know what? Because the dude why you would take your shirt off makes no sense, but okay. The dude taking his shirt off was clearly he was bowing up on the police

officer. Oh my God. Look at LT turning him into Joe Theismann right there. Yeah. I'll just say no racial implications, thank God, either. At least not from what I can tell. God damn, bro bro he got crushed but you know what he even did him a solid it looks like he put him on the grass right yeah he did he did do a solid right there yeah he was about to attack this is not this was this is how you de-escalate here i'm down for this shout out to the blue hair on this one uh luke let's go on to this one at the basketball court. Whose fault is this for this flat tire? Let's be

honest here. I mean, is it the guy who's parked under the hoop, Luke, or is it the guy coming through for the layup? I'd be like, look, man, you know that shit was stolen anyway. You can't be too mad at me, bro. You had a nice run.

That is fucking hilarious. That's great. That's great. All right, we're winding down here, Luke. Speaking of bicycles on the playground, this is why kids aren't allowed to play anymore without their parents present. What is happening here? Uh-oh.

Centrifugal force, bro. Yikes. Yikes. Does he rack himself on this yeah he just he dies on that alright Luke I got one more for you as we wind to a crawl here rednecks playing stupid games they're gonna win stupid prizes

Luke well good to see QAnon's keeping busy with healthy habits. All right. Coming soon to the Capitol steps near you, Luke. That is the ish for the week. Hope you've seen it here.

Yes. Thank you. Very good. All right, BC, before we close, odds and ends. What is your odds and ends for OI today? Look, unless I'm wrong, and you know, you and I were talking about this over text. I saw that you tweeted about it too. And I

look, what do I expect here? I expect any of the fine journalists who have gone to Abu Dhabi to cover these great three UFC cards in eight nights and have had multiple one-on-ones or open scrums with Dana White to maybe bring up that elephant in the

room, that ridiculous four-minute video that Dana White put out over Christmas slamming all of us media members, including your boy BC here. Luke, I'm not looking for Dana to be skewered or called out, but is that too much to ask? It looks like everyone's having a great time over there, but Luke, is really no one going to bring this up at all that Dana's relationship with the media has defaulted to the level that we're putting out essentially uh you know fake news to battle fake news videos and I don't think a single person has asked him about this what do you make of this listen MMA media is not real media what do you

want me to tell you there are people who are exceptions to this rule. Even people who are just not real media can sometimes put out work that is deserving of praise. But it's not real media. I know how the game is played. And you're right. What are you going to do? Are you going to argue with Dana?

It doesn't matter how many facts you have. He's not going to give in. But my thought was, why can't you just ask him why he deleted it? Right? Why did you delete it? That seems like an odd thing to do, that you were so proud that you put out this fact-free video why would you why would you get rid of it um you know just to get some kind of answer about it

but nothing there's nothing and so it's okay right i mean this is listen they don't go there because their editors want them to do that they go there because their editors demand that they get interviews with fighters they get results they get, they get results, they get pictures, they get assets for Instagram. That's how they make money. That's how they stay in business. It's the business model. You'll note that you can leave out questions like that, and it doesn't hurt the business model at all. And in fact, asking questions like that can hurt the business model, and that's why you don't get it.

But, you know, it's not real media. It's not real media. I'm shocked. Look, you know, it's not real media. It's not real media. I'm shocked. Look, and here's the deal. Like, I'm not some old school harbinger of journalism as religion. I respect journalism, obviously. I respect, you know, I'm in this game. But, Luke, I'm also in the entertainment game here.

And I know my role in the journalism space. But it's just odd to me to have all that time there and no one bring it up once. I mean, even when Dana White was sued over that prostitute situation, somebody brought it up. I mean, like, how do you – am I missing something here? No, like, this was not a big enough story to bring up one time. I mean, like, just – that's an L to me. I don't get it.

That's a big L. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, there's nothing to get. It's not real media. I. I don't get it. That's a big L. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, there's nothing to get. It's not real media. I'm not looking to get protected. I don't want somebody getting my back. But, you know, I'm also, again, not somebody who joins journalism clubs or unions or anything like that. Not that I think that that's wrong. But how did like we're all in this together at the end of the day? How does not one credible journalist out there bring this up, argue, debate anything?

Look, it's just it's a little it's a little little interesting to me yeah yeah i mean the answer is obvious once you fully accept that's not what they do they don't do this kind of thing it becomes i mean this is why it's like i don't call myself a journalist even though i would have at least asked hey man why'd you delete it like there's something to be said for that. But this is why, if you're going to call yourself a journalist, man, like that's what you're going to call yourself, you fucking have to do journalism. You know, you have to, like, do things that is the opposite of PR.

You've got to ruffle feathers. You've got to hold power to account. If you're not going to do that, just being like, hey, I've got a fight update from a press release, you know, you're a media relayer of information. That's not journalism. That's just, you know, it's something else. And that's fine.

If you're honest about what you do. Like, this is why the schmo is the most honest guy in media, to be quite honest with you. Because he doesn't pretend he's anything other than what he is. This is what I do. This is what I'm about. There's no pretension about it. Either you like it or you don't.

Boom. Okay. Two thumbs up. I got no issue with that. But everyone else being like, I want the imprimatur of the title journalism. It's like, well, then do it. Do the act of it. But they don't.

It's not what they're there for. So, you know. Okay. A lot of whispers. And I think Dana did somehow mention this. I'm not sure how he was asked about it. But that there is a documentary coming out, Luke, that so maybe this four-minute video is like the teaser to something longer where it seems like Dana's going to take multiple victory laps

and drop bombs on everybody. You got to wake up and realize, Dana, like you need the media. The media needs you. We're all in this together. Let's get the facts straight. Let's figure this out. I don't know, Luke. I just saw there was a lot more american

media covering these fights in person than i expected i was i was happy to see that you know i want to be back covering fights when things make sense and are safe but uh i also expect that we're gonna you know ask what needs to be asked but hey to each his own okay i guess not uh all right last but not least sad news here uh paul varlins who had a he had like 18 or 19 fights in mma five or six of them inside ufc including against some greats marco huas is the famous one where we had learned he lost it but we learned about the value of leg kicks he had a fight against um cal worsham he won he had a fight against tank abbott where we sort of saw the power of wrestling and ground and pound but in any case a pioneer true pioneer in the sport kind of had fallen on hard times.

I think it was Ant Evans, the guy who used to run Fight Pass in the Hall of Fame for UFC, was saying that they had brought him out to one of these expos at one point, maybe five or ten years ago, and he talked about he had lived in his car for a couple of years. I mean, the guy was 6'8", 6'9". He was the size of the mountain, not quite as heavy, but basically the same frame, and living in your car, I mean, that had to be incredibly rough. Anyway, he died due to COVID-19.

So he lived a hard, scrabble life. But there are not many people who are actually true pioneers in the sport. He was one of them. And even when he lost, you learned a lot about MMA by virtue of size difference or techniques that work. The most famous, of course, is Marco Huas and the leg kicks. But, you know, rest in peace. Rest in peace to Paul the Polar Bear Varlins, 320 and 6'8", 6'9". So quite an interesting figure.

It was so sad to see. I couldn't believe that he was so young. You know, I mean, it makes sense that he'd be 51, but I just assume because it seems so long ago, you know, the mid-90s of early UFC, that it seemed like, damn, this guy's very young, not too far removed from our age in some respects, Luke. But yeah, I mean, one of those original badasses that it's easy to clown the early barbaric run

of, you know, one glove Jimmerson and, you know, Harold Howard Foster. And I mean, there's some definitely some characters, Luke. But these guys had no idea what they were getting into. I mean, they had some balls. And certainly I think he made his debut for UFC at UFC 6. And he was always a fun out to watch at 6'8", the polar bear, and tough as nails. And sad to see that, you know, the living in the car and that type of stuff,

that this endgame doesn't always end so well. So, Luke, I can certainly understand, again, your want of Calvin Cater to just call it an L at the end of the day, Luke. But this guy's certainly one of those icons that I think back to. Dude, I will never – of course I heard of UFC when it was coming out for UFC 1. I don't think the first pay-per-view I saw live was UFC 5. I had a party at my house. But I remember after UFC 4 when Joe San got punched in the balls

about 86 times by Keith Hackney, I was at a family picnic, and I've never seen my grandfather laugh so hard, relaying to me what he had watched the week before. And I'm like, I've got to start buying these pay-per-views. I've got to start getting into this. And I i gotta start buying these pay-per-views i gotta start getting into this and you know i remember my first couple ufc pay-per-views the the freaking polar bear was a big part of that so uh i love luke i love those days because it was like one-sided ridiculous style against one-sided ridiculous style i mean that's what the the sport was was built upon so we are probably entering into this run here luke where these original

pioneers are going to kind of fall left and right like when the pro wrestlers started dying like crazy about 15 years ago from our youth. But I look at these guys as barbaric heroes, Luke. Shout out to them. They took the risk to make it what it was. I would never want

to go back to those days, but I'm glad those days happened is sort of the way I put it. Okay. Well, we have a very busy week, BC. We're going to have a lot to do. I guess I'll see you on Wednesday or Thursday if all holds. We'll see. But we, of course, have a Wednesday.

What are you going to do for Wednesday? Because I'm traveling after the fights. Are you going to do something after that for MK? What are you doing? We're in talks. Just so everybody knows, Wednesday's UFC Fight Night card prelims begin at 9 a.m. Eastern. I think the main card's at noon Eastern. So we are looking to delay the start of morning combat, potentially doing an afternoon episode. Maybe we'll get the great Sugar Rashad Evans involved.

Talk to his people, Luke. We'll figure this thing out. But you will be in the air at that time. So look out for some form of MK on Wednesday. Please check out the great interviews we did heading into this card from Chiesa to Dustin Poirier with Luke to the chat I had with Michael Chandler. If you haven't watched those yet. And later this week, though, as Luke teased and mentioned,

we got a Showtime boxing card this Saturday at the Mohegan Sun. Luke, you and I will be there. We got so much coverage coming in and out of Conor McGregor and et cetera at UFC 257 CBS Sports HQ. We're going to be all over that. And maybe people who have questions that they want answered on a little thing we call room service diaries. Luke can start sending those in now. Where should they send them? Luke, if you give us a review on apple podcasts give us a review please give us a nice one and if you leave a question there we will answer it on room service diaries very easy go out there five star review hit us up all right spread the wealth spread the word uh let's make

this mk revolution continue luke i am so excited we got a lot of business to do in person at mohegan uh we're gonna make some fun content that people will see in the future. Let's do this thing. I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm going to go right now. All right. I'll see you there. I'll see you at Mohegan. So one more reminder, store.show.com. If you want some gear like tumblers, mugs, shirts, blah, blah, blah. If you want to try Showtime, you certainly can. Showtime.com. You can get a 30-day free trial. If you like it, you can keep it. If not, you can cancel the deal at that point, or I think anytime within that frame. Details, you know, read them. If you want to email us for anything like Dead Wrong

or for just the show or for fan submissions, morningcombat at gmail.com. BC has probably had diarrhea. I don't quite know what his issue is. Last but not least, if you want to give us a follow on social, please do. It's Morning Combat everywhere, on Instagram, on Twitter, twitter on youtube youtube.com slash morning combat you guys know the deal bc and i as you can see a little bit different there between twitter and instagram for all of us so do take note of that okay all right i want to thank malca showtime cbs sports

a huge huge week ahead daily content coming to you right here on this youtube channel and everywhere else we appreciate you watching. For Brian Campbell, CBS Sports, Malka, and Showtime, I'm Luke Thomas. Until Wednesday, may all of your gains be loyal. Thank you. We'll be right back. you