MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Memorial Day Mailbag: Favorite Performance in a Loss | MMA Coaches | Top TV Shows

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Luke and Brian are back with a bonus Memorial Day Mailbag episode. In this episode the guys answer 15+ questions submitted by the fans. While down on a scorecard which fighter had your favorite performance while in the hands of defeat? What’s each of your top 5 promotions of all time? Regarding Manny Pacquiao’s insane late-career resurgence, who would you say is an apt MMA equivalent to this? The guys answer all these questions and much more. 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Memorial Day donkeys. It is well, it's Monday when you're watching this. It is the Memorial Day of 2021. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm joined as you can see by the gentleman on the other side of the screen. My MK brethren. We are the hosts of Morning Combat. We're both from CBS Sports.

Brian Campbell, King, Connecticut. And I'm Luke Thomas, BC. Happy Memorial Day to you. Thank you, Luke. And thank'm Luke Thomas, BC. Happy Memorial Day to you. Thank you, Luke. And thank you for your service as a veteran. I know this isn't Veterans Day, Luke. I know you didn't die on the battlefield. It's definitely not Veterans Day.

Okay, but thank you just the same. Look, here's the deal about holidays. We don't stop, okay? Can't stop, won't stop. Your favorite shows north of the border, they ain't doing shit today. Okay? But here you are, sitting home, sparking up the grill, sparking something else up, sparking up probably poor health decisions, and we're here with you. That's the legacy of this show.

Yes, it is. I don't know what other shows are doing or not doing but certainly here we are here today and we're here to help you with all of your regrettable life choices um okay so we'll run through this basically we asked you guys to give us some questions for today's podcast we're going to go through them we got some mma ones i'm told we have a bunch of fun ones as well so that should be kind of fun just a reminder that this is this kicks off a wild week in the in the history of mk i mean it's it's floyd mayweather logan paul sunday night showtime pay-per-view and uh you and i very shortly uh not right now but in in the future when people

are watching this so it's like back to the future part two like the space time continuum um at some point we'll be leaving this to get on a plane, and we'll be in Miami. And what a week this is going to be. So this is your appetizer, right? This is like, yeah. Yes, this is your appetizer. That's exactly what it is, very appy in that way. But yeah, we're going to be leaving this Wednesday to go to Miami

for the spectacle, bragging rights BC all those rights to brag between Mayweather and Logan Paul which should be well something it should be something I guess as always thumbs up on the video hit subscribe thank you guys so much for watching I'm not going to go through the whole spiel you know certainly I can tell you where merch 2.0 is because you know what bc it's like schrodinger's cat right if you never open the box you don't actually know if it's alive or dead it kind of just stays in limbo yeah yeah it is it is it is it's it's not we're not in a good place there okay look at some point we should start our own store really you know i already have one i already have one i can put up whatever i want anytime so bc when you're ready to go guerrilla

marketing, you let me know, player. And I'll keep 100% of the profits. It'll be great. Guerrilla radio. Very good rage song. It is a good rage song. All right, dude. Let's get to these while we have some time here. We're not going to go through the whole thing. You guys want to try Showtime. You know the deal. Let's start things off here, BC.

This ain't about Showtime. Showtime can pound sand. This is about us and you right right. This ain't about Showtime. Showtime can pound sand. This is about us and you right now, okay? Yeah, why don't you go make some more Paul Brother fights, huh? Oh, you are. Okay, never mind. Got your hat. No, got your wallet.

Sunday night, okay? That's what I got, all right? All right. From T. Katic. Katic? Katic. Apple podcast from the old grand Los Estados Unidos. You guys are my favorite MMA reporters reporters if you could call such a

thing uh after a fighter's loss which which fighter had the most impressive retooling you've seen um i got a good one rebounding from a from a bad loss who rebounded the best yeah the answer would not be ronda rousey I don't think she rebounded after a bad loss. You know who's really improved? I wouldn't say, I mean, maybe you could say the Sean Shirk fight, but Kenny Florian was very, very good about learning lessons from defeat. Now, obviously, he was never able to capture a weight class title, BC, but it'd be wrong to conclude he just took losses

and kind of just kept what he was doing and got a little bit better at it. He massively overhauled his game over time. And, you know, he was quite competitive. Who would you point to? Going in boxing, maybe? I'm trying to find that. I'm trying to find that where they had, let's say they had a big defeat in a key spot in their rise when it

when it proved that they weren't worthy yet they figured out how to still become worthy it's kind of an interesting niche question here luke that i don't maybe i should have read these questions in advance maybe i should could you say vittori you're referencing the split decision loss to adesanya less so that more as like a learning lesson like I didn't think he was the rightful winner even no matter if the judges called it splitter unanimous um that's a big one what about Brunson you could say Derek Brunson had a couple bad losses and he kind of got some shit together could you say GSP rebounding from losing to Matt Hughes for the vacant title and sort of saying okay that's where he's at oh no that's not where that french bastard's at he's the one of the best of all

time and here he comes luke okay yeah that or the sarah fight i mean i mean the sarah fight was kind of weird the first time so it was an aberration luke be honest it wasn't it was yeah i mean it was yes if they fought a hundred times sarah would probably win a few of them so you've got one of those shown to you mathematically, so to speak. But you're right. It wasn't like he dramatically changed his game. He may have changed his tactics in that, where the second fight, he went right to the takedown,

knees to the body, the whole nine yards. Those are some decent examples. Would you throw Big Red Canelo in? Because the humbling nature of the loss to Floyd Mayweather could have derailed him to a certain degree, but good God, did he get great after that, Luke. Yeah, that's a big one, too.

Again, it wasn't like the fight right after that, where he was like, oh, transformed. But definitely, that fight served as an inflection point to send him in a bit of a different direction. I do think that's true. Brian, there's one question here specifically for you. Seriously, while down on a scorecard, which fighter had your favorite performance

while in the hands of defeat? So, for example, this person says mine is Rory McDonald losing to Robbie Lawler. Which loser, so to speak, of a fight gave you the most, like, holy smokes, man, they really put it on there. That's another great question. Would you put Carlos condit in there against robbie lawler fuck that's a great one you could

also do um jesus you know like a pyrrhic victory um you know i got a specific one luke that means a lot to me as a boxing fan yeah do you remember when washed eric morales the mexican legend who by this point in like 2013 was fighting at welterweight way over his head of his best weight just an old bastard he got caught with clumbuterol i mean he's just lingering and he went in there in an hbo main event against marcos maidana and we were like yo shut this shit down our our favorite legend's gonna get killed like he shouldn't even be fighting anymore what are we doing and then Luke in like round four he got one eye completely swollen shut closed and he went on to rally and fight his balls off with one eye to the point Luke where I scored that no look I was I, Luke, where I scored that. Now, look, I was maybe emotional, but I scored that a draw.

Maidana won a close decision. But it was one of those huevos moments where you're like, you have no business being in this fight to begin with. You have no business being in this fight, like scorecard wise. And with one eye, you just relied on your technique and your balls and you gutted out a performance that will never get talked about by anybody but me but impressed the shit out of me Luke same thing with do you remember when Danny Swift Garcia was on his title rise and he fought Zab Judah on showtime at the Barclays Center and you know Judah was losing and then he just went for it late

and he cut Danny Swift down a straight line down just went for it late and he cut danny swift down a straight line down the center of his forehead and he's putting it on him late i met zab judah in a bar at cotto canelo in 2015 and look some people might look at this as the ultimate insult when you tell a fighter your favorite victory they ever had was a loss i said hey zab you know the best performance you ever had no No, not winning world titles. Gutting it out as an old guy against prime Danny Swift Garcia. You lost that fight, but you know what? You really won.

And I don't mean to get all Gloria from white man can't jump Luke. And sometimes when you win, you actually lose. And sometimes when you lose, you actually win and go down that road. But Luke, sometimes she's right. She is. I would also add you were there for this one. How about Kelvin Gastelum? Israel Adesanya.

He put up a hell of a fight. Damn right. How about you're wanting to know what? Is that his best win, Luke? I'll give you this one. You're wanting to J check against Jang Wiley. I thought she won that fight. Once again, is that her best win? Is that

Gastelum's best win when he lost to Adesanya? Luke, it might sometimes you're it's rare, but sometimes your best performance can come in a lot. Keith Thurman. I think the best performance of his career came in losing to Manny Pacquiao. Is my crazy Luke? That's that's a little much. That's his best

performance. I didn't even think that was version of him. I've ever seen, man. I don't know about that. All right. From ABC123DragonsLovesTacos. That's his fucking name. From USA. Best show from DC to CT with BC and LT.

Okay. All right. Got a little rhyming going on here. What's each of your top five promotions of all time so this person has pride uh ufc wec bellator strike force honorable mentions ifl 1fc elite xc pro elite they were kind of the same thing affliction bodog ryzen and m1 also what about yama pit fighting i mean this is kind of a stupid question because it's not really up for debate. Yeah, name every promotion.

I think that's what the question is. And also, like, dude, listen to his top five, though. UFC, Pride, WC, Bellator, and Strikeforce. Like, those are arguably the five biggest of all time. Yeah, so he really wants us just to nostalgialize our favorite. So, look, UFC is the best ever, and we all know it. My favorite non-UFC promotion, a lot of people are pride guys and I respect that. But, Luke, I was a Strikeforce freaking mark.

I don't know if I just loved the fact that they were sort of rebel rivals. They had a good backing with Showtime and then the fights on CBS. I always liked their announce crew, their production. And I remember that stretch when they kicked off the heavyweight World Grand Prix and they had the video game coming out at the same time and it was just sort of like it was the little engine that could in the great battle against the great ufc and uh even though that battle ended with a purchase and then a dissolvement i there's a reason why you and i hosted morning combat strike force classics on show extreme that time remember that show

i did i thought we did a great job i'm not sure saw it, but I know we did a good job. I'm not even sure it ever got published, but we cashed some, some very nice tea. They have a term in our industry, Luke called TV money. Do they not? That was pretty fun. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. TV money. It's like, how would I explain it? It's like money on steroids and it's usually less work right like like look we don't we don't talk money on here but remember i did that little jim gray fill-in where three times i came out on screen and was like hey nice victory you know should i tell the people that paid like seven times more than what we normally get paid for stuff you know what i mean yeah it's crazy it's crazy it's less work and it's uh money is insane. So I would just say like some,

some promotions that I liked for different reasons that were ultimately failures. You know, Sengoku was a nice kind of the Sengoku dream thing was as good as it could be. I thought post pride collapse. I never liked IFL, but they did have a good roster.

They had a solid roster of fighters. So when IFL's library got purchased or when IFL talent went elsewhere, the acquisition of Chris Horodesky, of Ryan Schultz, of Roy Nelson, of Ben Rothwell, of a lot of those guys. In fact, Jon Jones caught my attention because his UFC debut came against Andre Guzman. Guzman was one of the sort of standouts from the IFL. In fact, when I saw that fight, I was like, I don't know who this John Jones guy is, but Guzman's probably going to run over him. And then I saw the results. I was like, what the fuck? And then I saw the Bonner fight and

I was like, oh my God, this guy is totally different. So the promotions themselves, Bodog, you know, they had the fights on the beach. They were a little bit different, but it's not about the promotion itself. It's like, did they have a couple of fights? You remember, did they have some guys careers that they launched? And, you know, they all had various forms of success.

Well, Luke, Elite XC and Pro Elite was just the company behind Elite XC with Gary Shaw and Scala, his son. Elite XC always felt a little like grimy and just barely held together by glue, right? You know what I mean? Like when it became, when Scott Coker and Strikeforce,

which was doing co-promotion originally with Elite XC, once they took over, it felt professional. But did you like that Elite XC run where it was mostly about Kimbo, but you had Robbie Lawler, you had, you know, I mean, they got Eddie Alvarez at a cup of coffee there. You had some, did you like that shit luke i um felt greasy it felt a little yeah a little bit a little bit i mean you know but here's the other part too it's like i mean that's just what you get

at that level of the game you know it's like was it as greasy as advertised maybe you know but at the same time like you know all of these things about the bells and the whistles and the t's crossing and the i dotting and everything being above board and looking a certain way for presentation or whatever that only really comes at the very high end it's only even possible at the high end i got when people are like why isn't there more drug testing this is sort of a side example why isn't there more drug testing in regional mma motherfucker because there's no money for that and also people don't really give a fuck but mostly there's no money like you know at that level of if you want to make your way to the ufc where let's say for just you know uh practical purposes there is no doping obviously there is

let's just say that there wouldn't be you know just to get there you're gonna have to fight a series of dopers like this is the way it goes so um that's true all right from ill gabiano 22 again from usa all right it's one of your dude this is inspired by you i don't like questions this long but it's the only one like it so i'm gonna read it are you ready yes i am all right gentlemen i have a hypothetical question for you both. The year is 2065. The two of you have been transported through time and space to a future dystopian United States. Brian has been kidnapped by a radical fringe group, a political group, I should say,

who wages violence against all professional wrestling fans and have planned to livestream his torture and subsequent death on national broadcasts in less than one day. Boy gotta tell you 2065 sounds like a good time uh all right the actors involved are led by one hypersexual joshua fabia only in loincloth the only way brian can be rescued is if someone enters into their 20 man kumite kumite and wins luke your body has been seriously injured, however, as a result of the time travel, and you are compromised. In this future society, the world is exactly like altered carbon,

where your memories and mind can be transferred to another body. However, you can adopt the body and requisite skills of another said person. Your rescuers have informed you of the dangers that await Brian, and they offer you three potential bodies from which you can choose that you can help rescue Brian in a potential hand-to-hand altercation. One, 2013 Vitor Belfort. Okay.

Two, 2016 Rumble Johnson. Alright. Three, Prime Vanderlei Silva. Wow. Okay. Which one of these three would provide you with the best skill set to win the Kumite and rescue the one, the only, the big beige, Brian Campbell? There's one answer.

All right. So there's a whole section for you. Let me answer this part first. I would say if those are my three choices, I might go. I might. There's one answer luke i know you want me to go trt vitor i would actually go vanderley rumble's got the best best shot of ending it by accident but 2013 trt vitor is like a it's like a video game character luke it's just it's just ridiculous the spinny shit luke seriously you've seen a lot

of spinny shit in your life right go back and slow down the instant replay of those three wins that he had 2013 how tight his spinny that's the tightest spinny shit ever done on by a human it's the most precise accurate tightest like how did that leg get from here to here in a split second luke right i mean it's just ridiculous yeah it's not that good um all right brian which person would you would give luke the best chance of winning the coup d'etat and saving your life he kind of answered that or the alternative for luke is he can adopt the body of peter north and have a lifetime supply of you know you can imagine what he wrote here. We're talking Sofia Vergara, J-Lo, Vitagera, and Salma Hayek. Right.

He can retire to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with his lady friends, sipping on mojitos, listening to the soft melodic sounds of Gypsy King and Trista Pena as the water laps against the beach. What are we doing here, Luke? And he spelled it in a way that mocks Brendan Schaub. Yeah, what are we doing here? Save your friend he spelled it in a way that mocks Brendan Schaub. Yeah, what are we doing here? Save your friend or ditch him for the BBLs.

Are you kidding? You think I'm not ditching this fuck? Yeah, you ditched me in a second. And then they wrote, Brian seems like a great guy. Never met him. Keep up the good work. Well done. Well done, Gabiano22.

Hey, Luke, can I ask you a question? Please. It's a self-serving question, of course, like most of my commentary in this show. I was mentioning before Eric Morales when he fought Maidana. So, Luke, I have this thing I do. You know how I turned art into a verb?

I also turned, you know the Spanish word for champion? Campeon? I've turned campeon into a verb, particularly campeoning someone. Here's what it means, Luke. When you andon into a verb, particularly campeoning someone. And here's what it means, Luke. When you and I cover a fight, not together, but our history of going to Vegas and cover a fight,

when it's the bank hours, when it's time to be there at the press conference, you're professional, correct? You wear nice clothes. You ask questions. You're not showing up in your Brock Lesnar t-shirt, right? You're not showing up. You're not a fanboy. But, Luke, I have a thing about Vegas after hours. You know, when the work's done, you let your hair down, you go wander around the strip. I want to see fighters. And I ain't a journalist

when I see fighters, I'm not a fan boy, but I'm like, you know, let's have some fun. I see somebody crossing the street. Yo, what's up? But when I see some of my heroes luke i'll campion the shit out of them okay and what i typically do is a lot of times i see my great mexican american heroes like remember the time luke i was in vegas and i saw look at this picture right right uh here this one right there you see that look hold on back it up back it up just a little bit there we go so i'm trying to see is that morales right there that's that's morales uh with uh rave bartholomew and eric raskin we saw morales and his huge gut walking around the casino and i'm like bros there's my campion i got a campion him and i come running up and anyone who follows my boxing

podcast history knows these stories but i'd run up and be like huevos bro you have no you had no business staying in there with my Donna. And, you know, and they have an uncomfortable laugh. And then I ask for a picture, Luke, because this is my moment, right? And they usually, you saw Morales' face in that photo. He's like, eh, yeah. And then we go on and then we laugh the rest of the night. Luke, I got huevos campeon photos with me and, uh, uh, Joel Casamayor,

Eric Morales. Uh, I mean so many great fighters, Luke, and that's my shit because I love this game. Remember when you went, when you lost your shit for Pauly way on that MK doc, it's cause you love this game, Luke. Okay. You're a poor, a super fan, but you love this game do you ever do that have you ever done that it's it's 1 a.m in vegas in vanderlei silvas across from you at the slot machines you're just gonna let it go are you gonna leave him alone i'll leave him alone all right luke maybe we're different people okay no i've seen i was behind anderson silva in line after you what was it ufc i forget what fight it was but he was right in front of me in line and the guy had to stop every five seconds to take

pictures of people it's like the height of his popularity i left him alone you know i've seen i've seen like who's the biggest celebrity you've seen at the airport like regular old Joe Airport. I don't know. So on the way back from Khabib Connor, I saw Jon Voight. And that motherfucker was flying Southwest. Damn, Jon Voight, you fell on hard times, huh? Flying Southwest with the peasants. Jesus Christ. I was flying Southwest too, but I obviously had a reason for that.

I left him alone too man i didn't really bother him i will say this like if i'm out for a fight and i've not seen certain people for a while i will make a little bit more of an effort to be like hey how you doing uh if it's somebody like i've only known online and this is my chance to meet them like i met max bretos at mayweather pacquiao he was working for espn at the time he's a sports center anchor i'd only ever interacted with him online then i saw him in person and then we kind of hit it off a little bit so like i will do that but i'm not he's not on this conversation luke my point was and look if you're walking around the casino and anderson silva's got a line of 20 people trying

to get autographs i'm not saying go up there i'm saying luke when the business hours are closed and you see again someone on that level you see freaking name are closed and you see, again, someone on that level, you see freaking name the person, right? I have another one. I saw this was before he was washed. So he is not champion, but he wasn't washed. It was like around the time of the Fitch fight. I was leaving Dulles for some kind of work job. And at my gate, just sitting there by himself, no one knew who he was

or if they did, they didn't say anything, was BJ Penn penn and i think he was coming back from like a uso tour um i didn't bother him either i just let it i just let it go okay you know i don't think that's wrong look i'm not looking for an autograph i'm just looking to get i'm looking to give them their flowers i'm looking to pay respect and say bro you got a ton of balls and and thank you you know i've seen morales before and i found a spanish speaker i said tell him this gringo says he's got massive huevos thank you for your service okay luke i think that's fine i think that's you know what i mean yeah especially if you don't take your job seriously okay from law dog exclamation point exclamation point usa what is y'all's favorite aspect of being mma analysts

the travel meeting fighters uh you guys are awesome since i've gotten the train the last year listen to every episode keep up the great work one of your fans in rural north georgia mountain region shouts to other people affiliated with the state of georgia although i regret mine bc what's your favorite part about the job easy Easy. It's very easy. It's very easy. It's, it's, it's the, the energy of the fights and the access that we have. So what adds to that? It's not just, oh, I'm in this business because I get great seats to fight. It's not that, but here's what it is.

You know, when it's a big fight, you're covering it the weeks and the months ahead. Fight week, you're on the ground. You're interviewing the ground you're interviewing the fighters you're putting opinionated narratives out there you're doing a lot of things that all builds up you go to the weigh-in and there's tension that all builds up to this tension not nasakawa like the actual tension but then you you get to sit in the yes in the damn front row or the damn you know in the first five rows it is. And you get to be part of something. It's a close look. I always say, Luke, my end game in this game, and I'm not hiding it is to call fights, but not, you know, but boxing particular, because that's my, my true

passion in life. Why, why do I want to call boxing fights? Because Luke, it's the closest I could get to being in the fight without being a fighter or the referee, right? It is my closest chance to add something to it. And it's not an obsessive thing. Like I need to make this about me. It's that I love this shit so much that calling a fight, I have a chance to be part of the soundtrack, or I have a chance to elevate something I already love and make it even more exciting. Uh, you know, I don't, I don't always get to call fights, but so covering a fight and sitting in that front area, there is an energy. There is an addictive thing in the air. This is the thing I love the most. If I never got into this business,

I would still be the biggest fight fan. Why? Because there's a connection of course to life and not giving up and fighting through, but it's because this is my favorite form of theater. I respect, even though we make jokes and we make this guy should retire we do that i respect this game and these combatants so much it's ridiculous and at the fights i get to sit there and i'm also tweeting out and writing deadline stories and coming on the microphone afterwards but luke even that's separate from being right there when joanna and whaley go to they take a two-seat trip to hell i am there for the ride i get the secondhand smoke i get the feels i get the adrenaline when i stand up at wilder fury one and my my loin is soaked from sweat it's like i was a part of this luke it is drug. It is something that is so raw and visceral and not

real life, even though it's the realest of reals of what happens between those ropes or in that cage. I can't not get enough of it. And luckily there are companies that like the fact that I can't get enough of it and try to use my voice and my expression to help amplify what they're doing. Thank you to those people, Luke, because this is why I'm in this game because there's nothing like the fight. And maybe that's why in elementary school and middle school, I was almost sometimes like Don King trying to get people into fights and trying to be at the front row, watching it and being like, Oh my God,

you see that guy just punched it. I mean, like, there's just something about it, Luke. It's it's it's it's, am I wrong, Luke? I know you don't, you're always like, I don't need to go to fights. You know, I'll sit at home and be my own independent superstar and get a hundred million followers on YouTube. But Luke, don't you ever catch that feel? Don't you ever get that rub? Don't you ever sit there in the blue shirt next to John Morgan, rub it on your teeth a little bit, bro. Am I the only one who's feeling what I'm feeling? Is it me in the damn schmo? Is that it? Yeah, it might be. No, I don't think, I think most people probably feel the way you feel. And I certainly enjoyed that for a time, but candidly, that's not really why I got into the business. So I, you know, I could,

when I got into what I was ever doing in MMA, I didn't even know how media worked. I didn't know that you applied for a credential then you showed up and then there was press conferences and you either put a tape recorder in someone's face or a video camera or whatever and then you'd either wrote stories about I didn't know what that process was I just knew I liked fights and I wanted to talk about them so I've never needed that process not for validation per se but for my own satisfaction on the job like it never I never that it can be quite rewarding yes but that's not ever where my orientation is my orientation is I just always loved fights I always loved learning about fights I love the science of it and I the

best part is I can just spend hours every day indulging that in almost whatever direction that I want. Do I want to go watch some technique study? I can. Do I want to listen to an interview? I can. Do I want to go and just watch old fights for research? I can. I can do any of those things.

So, you know, I tend to have narrow interests as a consequence but like for my occupation i get to just indulge all of my interests in whatever way is available to me that day and i've been blessed like ubc to have a lot of different opportunities to do that a lot of different ways but i don't think that's self-serving or or selfish to say that you just want to be part of it in some way because you love it so much i mean like we we chase after what we love in life we're well you and i are lucky to to never work a day in our lives because we do what we love but it's true you want to get as close to that and be a part of that as you possibly can i just choose my lane in life not to get in there and mix it up and prove my toughness but you're damn right i

want to be close to that luke is that right no it's not i'm not in it for the journalism or the breaking news or the yeah i can tell all right from basman 1989 bc from ireland all the way from ireland it says a bunch of nice things does having one excuse me does having only one or two very good fighters make a coach a great coach e.g. John Kavanaugh has Connor and James Gallagher Faraz Zahabi Faraz is spelled wrong has GSP and Rory would these fighters not have been just as successful under a lot of different coaches by the way Kraus is over at uh Glory MMA over in Missouri for the most part at least in some part anyway uh he's like is Zahabi overrated first of all those are not Zahavi's only two fighters.

Those are maybe his two biggest ones. And yeah, dude, listen, St. Pierre probably would have been a very decorated champion almost anywhere he would have gone. And in fact, he did have a lot of coaching input. He had Phil Nurse, he had Greg Jackson, he had Mike Winklejohn, he had Faraz Zahavi,

he had John Danaher. He had a lot of different people giving him input into who he was. But I'll say this. Freddie Roach. But I'll say this. First of all, Faraz had a number of various successful fighters. As it relates to John Cavanaugh and SBG, I've said this before.

It's going to be a lot harder, BC. If you're a Nick Saban, why is Alabama continuously putting out championship or championship-level teams virtually every year? Dude, a big part of it, as you well know, is recruiting. Who they can get to come and walk through the door when your LSUs and your Floridas are trying to get them as well. It's going to be harder to recruit in Ireland than it is to be over in the United States. There's so many gyms here where there are high-level guys in that. SBG is going to

have some of that too, but it's going to be, you know, across the pond, it's going to be a little bit harder to get all the best guys in the world to want to go there. So I don't really hold that kind of thing against them too much. It's similar, and you're going to hate this reference, but to the WrestleMania 19 storyline build and the match between Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, Luke, where the storyline was, you know, the chicken or the egg. Did Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, Luke, where the storyline was, you know, the chicken or the egg that did, did Hulk Hogan make Vince McMahon in the WWE because he was the biggest superstar of all time at the right time. Or did Vince McMahon and company make Hulk Hogan because of the ideas that

they hadn't taken a national and all that. It's the same debate between coach and fighter. A great coach can only really be great if he's got the perfect sort of willing student with the, with the built-in blessed talent and the eagerness to grow. Sometimes Luke, like let's use Virgil Hunter and boxing as a good example. He got his name as being Andre Ward's trainer and no one else. Andre Ward is an all-time great, right? Virgil Hunter has had, because of Ward's success, become a bit of a celebrity trainer and fighters are jumping out of their way to go to him I don't really see a scenario in which Virgil Hunter has taken any

other fighter and taken them to the top or improved them significantly right does that mean he's a bad coach and it was Andre Ward's talent that helped him make his name I you know you don't really know it's always a little bit of both right it's it's hunter's perfect fatherly skills and and ideas that mixed with ward's greatness um can there be a coach like we like the spirit of that wheel of death question i asked you last time about uh trevor whitman where it's like which fighter right now who's who's really good but hasn't figured out their greatness might be the perfect candidate to mix with whitman where he can unlock their greatness. You know, yeah, that's because Trevor's a great coach.

But again, you need a fighter who's already really damn close to being great, who maybe is missing that one ingredient. So can a trainer who only really has one fighter still be a great trainer? Yes. It just doesn't necessarily mean that they can take nobody and make them somebody or that they will mesh perfectly with every style of personality or fighter right it's why freddie roach who was already a good trainer before manny pacquiao became a legend because of manny pacquiao has had such mixed results with other people besides manny pacquiao does that make sense luke totally But also you got to remember too, the other part is like a lot of fighters who have

shit going wrong might fight like, Oh, I got to go find someone who can fix all of this. So now, you know, these coaches will have fighters who they'll take them on as like reclamation projects. And maybe that's not their best student and they don't have the biggest results. And we don't talk about that kind of thing, but it had a potentially for them about as good of an impact as it could have had elsewhere. So it's not just about like what level of superstar you get. It's about what you can do for that individual person. And again, recruitment is going to be a big part of it. And for us, obviously in Montreal is going to be a little bit, you know, closed off relative to some people like in Florida or California or something, but even then North America before the pandemic, you know,

it was pretty wide open. And I did see a lot of Americans going, I mean, I've talked to Ryan Hall, you know, I've talked to Ryan Hall about a lot of people he's trained with. And, you know, he never slanders anyone that I've can recall, but he definitely emphasized to me just how impressive for Roz's knowledge of the combat sports game was, you know, I don't think that that comes lightly. I tend to think he doesn't give, he, I don't think that that comes lightly.

I tend to think he doesn't give, he doesn't hand out praise like that very easily. So, and do people really associate Ryan with Faraz? You should, because he's had a hand in that. And some people think Coach Latore is overrated because she doesn't have the technical expertise, but, you know, she provided the right motivation and support at the right time, Luke, you know? Listen, she overachieved, if anything.

All right. True. Look, I'm a little upset going back to the what do you love about most about covering this game discussion because you sort of painted me as an an addictor of the fight high who's in it for my own uh spoils which is true luke but don't try to downplay your your own love for this game i mean if i got let's say i say something tomorrow bad about dana which is possible. And let's say Dana actually hears it and goes, you know what, BC you're in Josh gross, Ariel Loretta hunt territory. You'll never appear at a fight again. It's not that my heart won't go on Luke. I could be okay covering from a distance and still get the

love, but that juice is special. I don't like when you downplay that juice, when you act like you're better than, well, I'm not in this game to talk to celebrity fighters or be at the fights. I'm in this game because I love this game. That's respectful. But don't act like there's something wrong with me, Luke, because I love being close to the action. It's not even that. It's just, you know, I never, ever had like as a vision for myself. I never had a vision that doing that kind of thing at fights was a part of it. It was a part of it. I had to either adopt or on occasion do well with or do poorly or whatever. Like it's something that's part of the job, but that was just never ever the way I positioned myself inside of the sport.

And so, you know, these get you high in the fight game, covering it when you're in your job. Right now, greatness now greatness watching watching elite fighters like yesterday on the show i want to build something great watching them do something great to me is like you know watch watching adesanya do what he did to you know whoever pick pick one uh costa or whatever your performance was saint pierre with a the jab to kostchek's face or you know whatever whatever whatever performance you're just like holy fucking shit man like i respect khabib doing what he did

to all those fighters it just it blows you away it it makes your imagination work over time you you're thinking about all day long i live for that more than like there's just the one thing i don't like is there's a certain kind of uh type, and this is in true in boxing too. It's hardly exclusive to MMA. We're like, they can't wait to get on the road. They just can't wait. And that's okay, but I've noticed that it's like a lot of people who live that way have really imbalanced lives, where if they can't get that thing on the road,

that shit falls apart for them, and I just never wanted to be that guy. And I don't want to paint myself as somebody who's willing to give away my journalistic credibility or anything just to get that gift of being so close to the action. That's not true, Luke, but I have found that's what keeps me coming back as well as the interviews. Luke, I know you don't love interviews, but would you admit when you and I do these interview specials, my favorite thing about interviews is getting someone to say something that they've never said, or that they didn't think they were going to say always because I was able to create an environment that was either fun or challenging

or freeing or whatever. Do you, do you love that same feeling? Yes yes I don't I I dislike interviews in the sense that uh what they often become not intrinsically something about talking to another person as as perhaps misanthropic as I am that's actually not my uh not my beef like you know I've had great sit-down interviews that i thought were just fucking awesome or you know when i learned something talking to a fighter who finally opened up about what they see in the fight game and they can tell me about it and it's this it's this fucking eureka moment where you know i've had certain guys explain certain things to me and i never saw the fight game the same afterwards do i live for for that? Those are great. The problem is, you know, you have to

go through a lot of really inauthentic conversations to get to those. And I've just lost a lot of the appetite for that. But like, you know, if I could reasonably entrust that there was a process by which the person sitting across from me would give me, you know, like the wheel of death, right? A good faith effort, that i would do significantly more of them what i just don't want to do is sit there for 20 minutes and be like we didn't fucking learn anything because this person doesn't want to say anything i don't like doing that but i look at that bullshit as a means to an end i look at that like it's sort of like i look at every interview as a psychological experiment not that i'm trying to trick the subject that i'm interviewing but

that i want to get past that wall of bullshit. And I know that sometimes I have to waste questions or waste bullets or even make myself look like an asshole or make short and quick or whatever, that I could feel like we got somewhere special, real, pure, you know, emotional, because as much as you are in love with the greatness of the craft and seeing it done at the highest level, I am in love with this journey of the fighter because I am in love, Luke, with the idea of somebody overcoming their own fear to maximize the greatness within them so we we both end up at the same destination we just have different ways of loving to get there yeah i also by the way you might laugh at this you know i don't know what your experience is i personally had a lot more luck with boxers opening up than i have with mma fighters i'm not sure if that's just coincidence or if there's something else to it and the other part is you know I don't want to do that please I really don't want to relitigate this I'm I just

don't even want to talk about it other than to say after hosting a national radio show for as long as I did and then the MMA hour at the same time and going through the politics to make interviews happen at the way in which they need to happen on a regular schedule that was so off-putting and frankly awful that i kind of just i kind of just walked away all the time and you're right and you and there's different ways there's the you can go the traditional way through the promotion you can go through the manager an agent you can go through the fighter directly and each has their plus and minuses in terms of time given whether somebody is listening in on the call to regulate the speed and there's a lot of different elements in it but yes either way either way you go to get it

there's bullshit you have to go through luke and it could drive a person insane but i guess it depends all right i want to get to a few more after it depends on what you're after luke you know what i mean i'm not after the fame bro i'm after the art the craft i'm after the moments i'm after getting high off this shit luke okay i did a i did a interview in 2013 i believe 2013 maybe 2012 with chael son and this is long before he had fully embarked on a exclusive sort of media role that he is in now and And we did a technique talk, which is one of these things where we don't talk about like how to apply a choke, but why, for example, why might guillotines be becoming more popular?

Why is there, let's say a move to leg locks or how, how did the jab become all of a sudden something people abandoned, whatever was happening in a larger way in technique. And he gave me this set of brilliant answers. All I did was ask questions. It was really his answers. And Deadspin named that, you know, best sports writing of 2013, among 50 other articles of all sports.

And I was like, holy shit, I didn't write anything. And again, it's all credit to Chael, not to me. But the point being is that interview stands the test of time for me. That's what I'm after. And it was so funny because that was at the time then Chael was like feeding the carrot to the bus stick and then he talks to me and he lets all of that go and then gives me insight into Chael the tactician the fighter the strategist the wrestler the guy who has thought about some of these things and the interplay it

was one of my favorite interviews I've truly truly ever done I would do those the rest of my life if I could trust it would get something like that but I just was so fucking worn down by the inauthenticity of it all for me personally I just couldn't take it anymore and maybe your point comparing the access and the openness of boxing versus MMA I feel like MMA fighters are more sensitive to potential criticism yes and maybe much more so maybe because of their connection to the ufc which is a structured environment you don't get the same access you do in boxing boxers typically come from much more broken backgrounds which tends to leave them more open to to sharing i think and and i don't know there's some interesting uh things there at play all right let's keep this mood if we can from Bazman 1989 from Ireland yeah we already did that one sorry

let's go to here we go Big Donk T2T I don't think that's his long-standing name that sounds like a name he put together pretty recently but he says Luke in BC regarding Manny Pacquiao's instant late career resurgence not quite instant who would you say is an apt MMA equivalent to this? He says Glover does not count. Okay. Is it somebody that's overachieved in their twilight? Essentially. Yeah.

I think somebody who came on strong at the end, a lot of folks didn't maybe see, you could maybe say Michael Bisping a little bit, a little bit. Yes. Yes um but here's the deal though like was he significantly better of a fighter in upsetting Rockhold than he was in the times that he came just short of like getting title opportunities I'm not sure I mean maybe the experience and the lessons learned had made him smarter or had given him more confidence or maybe more of a willingness to say, screw it. You know, you can always argue those

things, Luke, but I don't know. It's weird. Luke, if he hadn't caught foul thought Rockhold in the rematch at the exact perfect time and landed the exact perfect punch. And he, and that was something that he had looked at on film and he thought was an avenue to victory what would we be saying about bisping today even though he's still the same guy right i don't know it's weird right yeah so also to keep in mind the record of bisping 30 and 9 so he had almost 40 pro fights many pacquiao by the, 42 roughly. Yeah, they're both 42. Pacquiao will enter this Spence fight, right? I've said this before. This will be his 72nd fight. He's got almost double the amount of fights.

Isn't that fucking insane? Just crazy. And again, Pacquiao's had most of his biggest wins in the early part of his career are brutal. Look, they're all wars, dude. They're all freaking wars. Yeah, dude. I'm just looking at his resume now i mean this is just in the lap just since just since let's say 28 2008 he fought juan manuel marquez david diaz oscar de la joya ricky hatton miguel cotto

joshua claudy that fight sucked sh Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez again. Timothy Bradley, Juan Manuel Marquez again. Brandon Rios, Timothy Bradley again. Chris Algieri, Floyd Mayweather, Timothy Bradley again. Jesse Vargas, Jeff Horn, Lucas Batiste, Adrian Broner, and then Keith Thurman. Motherfucker, he did that since 2008. Jesus. And who did he do before that it's like legend legend

legend legend um luke you know what the mma equivalent might be because of the late surge randy couture because of the resurgence at heavyweight when we thought he was done right that's actually a decent point i like that i can go with that for sure you can only do it in the higher weight classes right you and i always say this you can't be an aging lightweight in this game and have monster success right no i don't think you can uh okay andy silva he i mean seriously silva lingered late he was silver didn't bloom bloom like he didn't be like silva was always silva was a little bit like, I don't want to say MVP. That's not quite right. But he was always like that striker you respected, but was kind of limited, not limited, but like hadn't broken through.

Remember, he got, you know, heel hooked by Rio Chonin in a very visible and obvious way and had some shitty fights like against Otsuka and stuff. He didn't become like even start the process of becoming Anderson Silva. So the Liebenben fight he was like 32 33 at that at that point you know um so yeah you're right he had a late push too final thing on this is uriah faber's ability to stay fairly relevant competitive in a small weight class in his late 30s underrated or is it overrated because every time he steps up to the super elite level, he loses during the stretch. I,

it is amazing to me that he can, I'll say this. It is amazing to me that he can remain as competitive as he has been. And as he, I don't know how he is these days, brand bantamweight is pretty fucking tough, but that he was, he was never good enough at the UFC level. level i should say and then partly the wc level

but obviously he was champ for a time to be the the guy he wasn't the aldo guy but you know it's the same thing with rich franklin it's like dude okay you weren't silva and you weren't whoever the top 205 or was at the time but you gave all of them the other motherfuckers tough fights super tough fights and beat a good chunk of them too it's a little bit like that like you know you have to just sort of understand that along we talked about with cyborg cyborg doesn't have a better resume in many ways than amanda nunez she just doesn't but she's been doing what she ever she's been doing for a lot longer and that is its own kind of achievement i really believe that it's a that's a different kind of thing all right from these these are just random questions so from billy big wheels usa bc this for you you're stranded on an island for the

rest of your life you have access to one book one album and, and the ability to watch one UFC event for the rest of your life. What are your choices? All right. So one book, one album, one UFC event. I'm not a huge reader, Luke, as we know, as we talk about. I can't believe it. Can I pick the Bible, Luke? I feel like that book could help me the rest of my life.

Get out of here. I don't care. You are more likely to pick Larry Flint's Hustler than you are the Bible. of here. I don't care. You are more likely to pick Larry Flynn's Hustler than you are the Bible. Be serious. I don't care what you think. I'm picking the Bible because it'll help

the rest of my life. One UFC event. One album. One album. All right. So one album when it's your only album the rest of the life,

west of your life, doesn't necessarily mean you're going to pick your favorite album. In some ways, you're almost, it goes back to that rewatchability movie question, right? Tommy Boy is not the best movie I've ever seen, but would I pick that on a desert island to be able to rewatch? Or would I pick Star Wars episode four maybe? Yeah, probably. So what album would I pick that is just like the rest of my life? I can't get tired of it. I could constantly reinvent it and find new things about it.

I'm going to pick Abbey road by the Beatles, Luke. I mean, that second half Luke that where they have the medley, you obviously, we haven't had a detailed Beatles discussion on air. I'm still very much looking forward to it, but you know what I'm talking about, Luke, that 16 minutes and 44 seconds from you never give me your money all the way to the end to the end. And then Her Majesty on the back end of that. It's the most brilliant stretch in rock and roll history, Luke.

It's it's the genius of McCartney being able to. And you saw this later in his career with Wings, like the song Band on the Run, which is like a mini suite of like four different pop songs melded together that second half of that abbey road album is the it's the drugs i mean it's everything luke and the first half is also fantastic too i'm gonna pick that album and uh which ufc card which is another fantastic question i don't know there's one ufc event holding like high esteem like that i'm gonna go ufc 217 madison square garden luke i'm gonna call that up really quick yeah it's a pretty good one okay here's what here's what i'm talking about november 4th 2017 i was there i think you were too luke i was there i saw you in line i I was there. I think I saw that one.

Your big ass and your, I mean, GSP Bisping, TJ Cody 2, Rose Ioana 1, Steven Thompson, Jorge Masvidal, and Paulo Costa, Johnny Hendricks is the damn main card. Now, in fairness, the prelim and the early prelim are not spectacular where you could definitely find other cards that top to bottom are deeper on on the full but in terms of that I mean that main card is fantastic Luke it's fan freaking tastic yeah it's pretty good I go that one maybe 205 some of the old pride stuff some of it holds up some of it doesn't you know um hey that that 205 main card Luke you know 205 is actually a better card overall

okay main card connor eddie woodley thompson won yoana carolina yoel weidman pennington retires misha tate but then that fs1 prelim card frankie edgar jeremy stevens habib versus michael johnson luke balal muhammad which was a you know a war for about 70 seconds uh yeah that's that's a that's a good card good one that's a good one for uh for album easy pantera vulgar display of power that's an easy call and then book that's the tough one fuck man that's a really tough one i don't i really don't know about book i don't know if i could pick just one pick it in you could pick a a reference type book luke yeah if i did reference i would do dictionary of cultural literacy but by ed hirsch but other than that i wouldn't know there's just

not one book that speaks to me in that kind of a way all right from doc jono from great britain which 80s 90s action movie do you think needs a reboot? So, for example, this person says, I'm going to go with Highlander. What do you think, BC? Which action movie do I want seen done over in a new way with new casts and new twists and turns? Like a new way to approach it.

I don't even like that. I don't like when they do that, Luke. Has it ever out it's like that's like all they do anymore i know it sucks all they do is superhero movies or retreads it's like so let me let me ask you this way has there been a reboot that you liked more than the original well it's it's a tough question because if you've seen the reboot first before the original that can inform your opinion but if you're asking me off the top of my head a reboot that i was like damn that was well done i can't even think of one luke yeah me neither you know like that rebooted ghostbusters thing where they have the all-female cast it's one of the worst movies ever made no i don't i don't like any of that shit um

what would i like done again uh i don't you know i mean i don't know it's not it's not a bad question in the sense of like hey what's something that maybe could be reinvigorated there might be some kind of brand that i'm not really thinking you know what they don't make anymore they don't make any like ninja movies you know like the ninjas were a big thing in 80s and 90s martial arts movies about how sinister and menacing they were and now ninjas are just kind of like john wick just blows their brains out you know and i think the better question on here in light of how great the cobra kai franchise is which is just taking the three or four karate kid movies and adding to

them that's also a big you know trope in hollywood right now is there a specific franchise i think you know creed one and two did a great job of taking the rocky franchise and keeping the spirit alive but opening up new boundaries is there any sort of franchise that from our youth that you think could really you know bringing these guys in as old people now and in the next generation no i don't like i gotta say i don't like seeing old action heroes yeah it doesn't get me sized at all. Yeah. I mean, I, so I did a thing with Rafe Bartholomew when he worked at Grantland in 2014, Luke, where we watched, there was a Steven Seagal

like movie festival in LA. So he went to it and him and I broke down those movies in detail. And the thing, what I did ahead of that was I watched every single Steven Seagal movie. So Luke, that's like 25 different direct to videos, right? And dude, by like 2000. So remember when Seagal had that mini comeback around Oh three,

when he did exit wounds with DMX and he had a couple others with famous rap stars and he was kind of back for a minute. Well, he dipped right back into direct to video after that and his fat movies, Luke, I mean, they are so tightly zoomed in and the fight scenes are in like slow motion and it's just sad it's really sad uh all right this is just to me but i'm going to flip it to you in a different way from young gun nc so i guess he's from north carolina he asked me how many cannibal corpse shirts do you own so the answer is i have two long sleeve

one short sleeve of the band and then one short sleeve of just the lead singer so i have four so bc is there one band where you have more apparel for that band than like any other so i did so look i was a a beatles fan of like disgusting addiction in high school and college i had at one point probably i mean so my high school real real real quick my parents were divorced so we me and my brother he went to uva for two years while i went to william and mary so there was a two i mean he went all four years but there was a two-year period where we overlapped so i would go pick him up or he would go pick me up and then we would drive down to see my mom in georgia and the entire 9 to 11 hour trip would

just be beatles just fucking beatles the whole way i mean there was a point you know senior year high school first couple years of college where it was literally the only music i listened to every inch of my walls had some kind of beetle thing on it i grew my hair out to try to look like george harrison and luke i probably had 22 or 23 beatles t-shirts i mean that's just like almost a gross level of like, yeah. So I don't have, I somehow got rid of all those. I'm not sure at what point in my life I did that, but today I don't have like probably more than two of any bands. So I'm really not a perfect answer to this question. I'd like to rebuild the music t-shirt collection though,

Luke. I have way too many WWE t--shirts i have a lot of great ufc t-shirts because i only buy them when they're super 90 off luke so i'm really building a nice library of like uh vulcan osdemir um henan barau you know i got some weird ones luke bro i bought a sean price t-shirt because obviously he's my favorite mc and i didn't know this but on the back it's got his lyrics one of his uh you know some of his bars and they it's all written out in english like it's not like 16 bars it's like two and they put the n word on it so now i can't wear the fucking shirt man like i got it out of the mail that has the n word just just the front is sean

price's face and nothing else. And I guess I'd never checked the back. I didn't look when I bought it like an idiot. So then the T-shirt comes. I take it out of the mail. I'm like, fuck yeah, this shirt's great. And then I flip it around. It's got the bars.

I'm like, oh, that's cool. And I'm reading. I'm like, oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me. Now I can't wear this goddamn shirt anywhere. So you could wear like a open hoodie zipper up over it the problem is what if you're in like the tsa line and they're like you got to take that that thing off and then you know you're you just got the n-word blaring on your shirt as a white guy i did that's not a good look that's not good that's not good all right bc this is a

great question for you from sam baka from great britain What is your top tier condiment? Top seed. Number one go-to. It would have been ketchup my entire life. And I'm like, it's like boring or, you know. That was my answer for 30 years. I mean, it was. I mean, look, I'm one of the bigger ketchup abusers of all time, Luke.

But, dude, and now you can buy it in bottle form form i'm late to the party on chick-fil-a being grown up in the northeast i didn't you know i didn't have it until i was 35 chick-fil-a sauce is is the best thing that's ever happened to me it's pretty good it's i don't even want to know what mix it is but you know um would you say that ketchup so they have. It's like a it's like a mayo honey mustard, something like that. Some that's a great way to say it. And I was going to say that they now make ketchup and mayonnaise together. But it's gross. It comes out in a gross, almost like pink.

Yeah, I like actually just taking ketchup and mayonnaise and mixing them the traditional way because it's more like it's loose and tangy and tasty. I don't like the thick paste version they have now. yes ketchup and mayonnaise together is incredible and look just honey i know you don't like honey mustard you say you have to be in the mood for it anything dipped in honey mustard is also where we're that's where we're at luke okay i feel like you have to get for me personally for me to enjoy honey mustard and i do i need something like really starchy like like if i went to a ball game and i got chicken tenders you know big fucking fried chunks of chicken meat that to me works but just like putting it on a burger i don't know that i could do that i feel like it'd be overwhelming to a degree um so my number one

is actually not gonna be that i'm a hot sauce guy as you know i love hot sauces all different all different kinds i don't have like one that I like more than others. Although Pauly Ways is very, very, very good. But everything that Heartbeat also makes it good. Did you see our guy Gaff had a live Instagram? You probably don't follow Gaff because you don't really patronize any of our staff members. But Gaff posted it that he bought it and he was trying it. Did he like it? Do you know? I got a follow up on Instagram. I don't know.

All right. BC from Martin Christopher, USA. follow up on instagram i don't know all right uh bc from martin christopher usa do you have a favorite tv show of all time or at least do you have a show that you can always go back to and watch for me it would be game of thrones and boardwalk empire in terms of what do you say in terms of the rewatch ability element i will say the wire is my favorite show of all time in that regard. I was very late to the party. I've rewatched. I've watched it now a total of, I think, three and a half times.

And it's I mean, I don't have to sell you on it. It's absolutely incredible. But my actual favorite show of all time is The Wonder Years. And I am excited that they just they have a reboot coming out where Fred Savage is one of the executive producers. And it's about an African-American child, I think growing up in the sixties as well. But I always stand by the wonder years, Luke, because every single episode I found a way to cry during it. And I don't mean that in some stupid, sappy, lame way.

I just mean that show touched so to the heart of that period of middle school and high school and the angst and the dynamics of family, the father son connection, all that stuff. And what's great about it is, I don't know if you remember that Wonder Years, the first episode debuted after the Broncos and 49ers Super Bowl when we were kids. And I remember I watched it with my dad.

Sometimes he'd sit in with me and watch a Super Bowl, even though he wasn't a sports guy. And I remember him, you know, the Joe Cocker theme song comes on. And it's just like, he said to me, he goes, he was adding up the math. He goes, who Fred Savage's character was. He goes, I was the same age as him that same year. So it was like something I could watch with my dad in which I'm taking a snapshot into his life to a certain degree with the Vietnam and the Woodstock and all that.

But also seeing yourself in it. Look, I still can watch reruns of that to this day and tear up. I don't know what they did, but they got it. agree with the vietnam and the woodstock and all that but also seeing yourself in it look i i still can watch reruns of that to this day and tear up i don't know what they did but they got it that's the part that shows perfect luke all right i can't really go back and i've never gone back and watched breaking bad but i fucking loved it at the time i would agree for rewatch ability the one show i did do that frankly i think might be the only show i've ever done that is the wire honestly for re-watchability bc you might laugh at me a little bit i you know i'll watch family guy or american dad you can put those on and you know you can watch four or five of them

it's not that hard and there's going to be obviously some decent laughs halfway through i'll also say like early family guy writing is not nearly as good as like the most modern version their writing has gotten way better as a show south park to me i can watch kind of like that as well you know so i'd say something like that where does and i like with um what app is it disney disney plus that they now have the entire simpsons library what is the season where you feel like the Simpsons stopped being all-time great? Is it like season six for you or is it like season 12?

I quit watching it basically. I quit, but I didn't really watch it all that much once I got to college. So anything after 99, I didn't really pay all that much attention to. So I couldn't tell you. There is something. My kids got hooked on it lately. there's something about watching seasons two or three through seven that is just

amazing it's amazing i mean you don't get down you don't get down like that okay this is something i have you should tell the audience the truth that i told you where this comes from but hms me be from the usa says what are y'all's thoughts on chicken and waffles? BC, have I not explained to you where chicken and waffles come from? Did we not have a long conversation about this? You might have. Can you refresh me?

So for folks who don't know, I believe it came out of New Orleans, but if that part's not true, I'm happy to retract it. But my understanding was jazz musicians in places where jazz perhaps was prominent, what they would end up doing is they would end up playing so late into the night that they couldn't decide if they wanted dinner, chicken, or if they wanted breakfast, waffles. And so they began to combine the two at the time.

So you have this sort of savory kind of evening dish with a sweeter kind of breakfast dish. And it turns out that a lot of people like the combo of the two. I like it. I don't exalt it like it's some kind of genius moment of culinary work. Well, it is a genius in the comfort food category. It's next level pairing. I mean, it's genius.

But the key is what you put with it. If I gave you a dish of chicken and waffles and I said you could put one side, what's your side? See, that's where it gets dicey. I never even thought of that. What are my options? I usually go with mashed potatoes. I like something a little bit more that leans on the savory side.

Because I feel like the waffles and then the syrup, if you don't do it right, is so overpowering. And I like a little bit more. Maybe, you know what? How about this? Something that overpowering. And I like a little bit more. Maybe you know what? How about this? Something that cuts both ways. Cheese grits. Cheese grits you can have almost at any time. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm with you on that. Luke. So you see, are you repairing a fucking Camaro in your garage? What are you doing? I don't need to tell you what I'm doing. What I will say is that you and I, are you and I going to Atlanta for Gervonta Davis?

June 26th. Everyone said shit to us. I guess we'll find out next week when we go. Okay, I want to go with you because chicken and waffles for me, so here's the deal. If I go to a restaurant, my wife hates me for this. Well, for many things, but this particularly. If I have lasagna or meatloaf on any menu, particularly a nice restaurant,

I don't care what else they offer. I have to try their version of it. And gourmet versions of lasagna or meatloaf, for as non-gourmet in general as those meals are, they blow me away. Gourmet versions of chicken and waffles, because it's become such a thing, Luke, are incredible. The best chicken and waffles I've ever had are in Atlanta.

Luke, Atlanta has the best breakfast in the world outside of it kind of i did grow up it doesn't have the best breakfast in the world that's absolutely not true okay i haven't seen much of the world i'm very closed in in my culture luke i'm sure maybe in doha you had some incredible uh you know lamb for breakfast or something but luke i'm telling you you and i need to hit that scene we need to hit that circuit i would do that have you ever been to the varsity no so the varsity is famous in atlanta it's they they made it into a chain by the time i had gone to college so when i came back there was actually there was actually several locations of them but for the longest time there was only one it's across the street from the Georgia State and Georgia Tech campuses.

Or not across the street, I should say across the highway. In fact, for folks who don't know, Georgia State and then Georgia Tech are almost right next to each other. So it's on the other side of the highway. And it's this place at the time. You understand at the time, it was like a drive-through. It was a place where you could pull in and they would come out on roller skates to feed you in your car. And it was the absolute greasiest spoon where you could pull in and they would come out on roller skates to feed you in your car. And it was the absolute greasiest spoon stuff you could imagine.

Burgers with chili on them, hot dogs and cheese. They were famous for their orange-sicle, almost like slushy, almost like a yogurt-y drink. They were famous for that. And they made many other franchises of them there was one in Kennesaw they put up by the time I had been back but the Vart the original varsity in downtown was one of those sort of things you had to try at least once it was like before there were all these five guys and Shake Shacks it was kind of like the original southern version of that something like that I'm into that let's do that and I want I want to prove you wrong about Atlanta's breakfast scene all right Atlanta's got good breakfast but hardly the best in the world all right

from jj frias 17 this is interesting i remember listening to 106 7 the fan randomly to the lavar errington and duke show years ago and heard luke thomas talk mma followed him ever since there you go appreciate that the question is two best books you have read since the pandemic uh bc last book you read or maybe just a tweet when i do read it is i i mean i love uh biographies or you know or autobiographies particularly within the combat sports or nba game so um look i i've said this before man it's not a new book I've read. I didn't really read during the pandemic. I painted. Okay. I bought vinyl records. But let me say this, Luke, have you ever read? All right. So one of the best books ever. Have you ever read that Vince

Lombardi? I know it's not NBA, but that Vince Lombardi biography? No, it's, it's very famous. Hold on. I'm looking it up. It's it's called when pride still mattered a life of Vince Lombardi. It's the most detailed biography I think ever written on someone in terms of like researching the history of the family, going back generations and why Vince was, I mean, I was enamored reading this book it it was incredible so these are the only type of books outside of like self-help motivation type stuff that you hate that i get into that was incredible incredible and there's a book on michael jordan's two years with the wizards when it's called uh it's written by somebody from the Washington post, Luke Sally Jenkins. No, it's called, uh,

I can't find the name of it. And it's, it's called, Oh, I got it right here. It's called when nothing else matters. And it's a book about how, I'll tell you shortly, uh, Michael Leahy. It's a book about how Jordan's run with the Wizards was Ted Leon. Is it Leonosis that bastard Luke? Yeah. Him using Jordan's name for ticket sales and Jordan using their willingness to use him in order to get his competitiveness out.

And it's such a detailed inside look game by game, day by day about why that experiment failed and they never made the playoffs. It is so incredible. I read it right after reading the Jordan rules. You know, that famous book from Sam Smith in the early nineties about the 91 title season and how much Jordan's a prick to deal with. It's very, it's a very interesting look at somebody, which the last dance showed us right about somebody so obsessive as MJ. how much Jordan's a prick to deal with. It's a very interesting look at somebody,

which The Last Dance showed us, right? About somebody so obsessive as MJ. Psychotically competitive, yeah. Yes. I won't go into all the details. They asked for two books I read. I'll just give you the best one that I read. I actually finished it last week.

I put it away and just never picked it up. And finally, I said, let me go and read it. Actually, Ezra Klein's new book, Why We're Polarized, is pretty good, pretty informative. In particular, BC, there's, it's not great, man, like some of the conclusions that he comes to, and part of it is how much the various layers of our identity now fall along partisan political lines, to the point where they can reasonably assess what your political positions or at least your orientations might be by virtue of your proximity to Whole Foods, by which states you live in, by what kind of music you listen to, by what kind of ways in which there's both polarization as well as something called sorting and how the two have overlapped into a pretty significant problem uh it's actually very good easy to read well explained and um yeah i recommend it it's good read really good read right i have biz ping's book right now i just started that i'm interested in that luke i'm interested he doesn't like doping too much

i've heard okay like me and him get along, like, actually really well, except when it comes to doping. He just hates my opinions on that, which is fine. You know, we'll be the only one. All right, from Dacky Smacky. Gentlemen, question. No one's going to answer this. What is the most embarrassing thing to have happened to you?

Also, how long would BC have lasted had he decided to leave his factory town and go into the marine corps well bc how long would you have made it boot camps 13 weeks um riddick bow made it what six days luke yes uh no i you know why did he wash out like a hoe it's one of the most unbelievable things i've ever seen it was such a weird time for him to do it right his career was falling apart his family was falling apart so he's like i need the discipline i'm going into the marines it was just weird um you know in hindsight luke i almost entered the army national guard in mid-college to be able to have college pay yeah uh i wish in hindsight that i had done that because i really you know i you know i look back

at my my run as a adult quote unquote from 18 to 25 i mean it's just a shit show luke i mean it's just a it's just uh i mean i was just anyone who like was it a co-employee with me back then probably thought i was gonna end up you know working in a factory um i really wish i got this guy who works for us brian campbell he loves crazy town he won't stop talking about it i really wish i had done that at that time luke i I really wish I had not, you know, had done a national guard or something like that, or even entered, you know, what you did. How much would I have lasted? It would have been bad early. And Luke, I'm sure it's bad early, no matter how tough you are. That's a,

you know, that's a test of, of everything you're made of. Right. You know, it's, it's a reprogramming, right. It's a strip you down to build you back up. I could have lasted because Luke, I am jokes decide I am factory tough there's a reason i am where i am now luke it's not always because of my greatness but i do have that thing right that perseverance perseverance that that willingness look i get knocked down a lot but i get up again luke's and so far, you know, you're so far, you're never going to keep me down. Right. I'd like to believe Luke that I would have, that I would have, I would have no, in fact, I know it, Luke, I know what's in here.

I know what's under this kind of, kind of like you can already just count it. You know, you don't have to think about it. I mean, it would have been gross. I would have cried a lot, Luke, probably, you know, I would have, I didn't cry until I graduated. I didn't cry. I'll say this most embarrassing thing i don't know if it's the most embarrassing but i've got one that's insanely embarrassing that i should say whatever comes first at this point 200k subs on my personal channel or a million on on um on mk might be mk before i fire that fucking channel back up but uh there is one i've got in the Chamber BC that you are absolutely going to love.

It's very, very good. It's really good. Do you want a quick one from me, Luke? Yes, but I want to get to some of these questions, so make it fast. I'll save it for something for a good time then. Okay, good. There's one here about Real Madrid, but there's really no way for you to answer it any kind of interesting

way, but for folks who may not realize the Euros're the euros are coming up they have to replay the old 2020 tournament and the current coach of the Spanish national team for the first time in the history of the country the teams anyway didn't select a single player from Real Madrid now that's not quite true they would have picked Sergio Ramos but he was injured but there's a whole bigger explanation for that I'll skip it was the coach of that didn't he didn't he just get like over something Zinedine Zidane left

he left for the second time he was a badass player Luke I don't know a lot headbutton motherfuckers in the French and then the World Cup you know game on PlayStation 1 FIFA 98 with the with the song song to by Blur as the theme song of that game.

Do you remember that game? I used the shit out of France that year because they won it that year, Luke. France is maybe the best team in the world. Who was on that team? Who was on 98 France? Henri and Zidane and who else? Zidane. Yeah, money Zidane.

Not the guy with the scar on his face. Who's that guy? Who's the Dr. Evil French guy? You know what I'm talking about? The France player with the scar on his face everybody i can pull up the roster hold on i can pull it up let's see 1998 french ribbery you know ribber oh yeah he plays for he played for a long time for bayern ribbery yeah yeah he wasn't on the 98 team, but okay. Here we go. Let's see.

1998 FIFA World Cup squads. Let's go to France. Here we go. They had Lama, Candela, Liz Zorazu, Patrick Vieira, Blanc, Jorkap, Deschamps. Who's the, you know, Deschamps. Desali, Guy Varch, Zidane,erez tiara henry tiara henry excuse me dio mede bogosian thorum bartez pettit labuff crembu trezeguet dugary charbonnier my french

is fucking good bro no no look i just opened this for the first time my wife put it in my christmas stocking but i don't open it because it's very helwani boxing like but doesn't this look like pulp fiction a little bit yeah they're gonna they're gonna meme you like a mother that's awkward shit yeah let's do like one maybe one more of these let me see if i can pick a good one someone's asking about tupac and biggie I might uh I like them Luke hold on there's some good ones here all right here we go BC last one from we'll do the other ones that we didn't get to we'll do for um room service diaries all All right. BC. What is your favorite broadcaster or sports personality? Catch phrase.

I always loved hearing Stuart, Stuart Scott, excuse me, talk about the cool side of the pillow or Teddy Atlas talking about water in the basement when referring to body shots. Also, I find myself telling my girlfriend to seek psychological counseling. So thanks for that one,

Luke. All right, BC.c i gotta tell you my favorite commentators they don't have catchphrases but like doc emmerich who i always bring up he doesn't have a catchphrase that i can recall bc not not a super special one but it's just the way he intonates words where if you see like it's two on one and they're screaming down the ice, he's got a certain way of describing what's happening, and it just gets you dialed in. So it's not a catchphrase, but a certain way, a comfortability in the way he speaks.

Like that horse racing guy, Dave Johnson, who used to do down the stretch they come. If you only watch one horse race a year, Luke, and you heard that, you get fired up, right? I'm not into horse racing well i got it i used to like the kentucky derby a lot um luke i i always thought hubie brown was the i still think he's the greatest analyst that i've ever seen in sports you know great nba ex-coach and analyst and he would always have such a cool way of breaking down what he's seeing

in a technical way that we're not and i always love that he'd be like this is one of the best guys that we have in this league and he always made it seem like we're all in this together luke i always appreciated that okay that's pretty cool um i mean is yeah is yes by marv albert like that's i mean it's so iconic and addictive you know dude does anyone remember how marv albert bit that chick on the ass and everything and like his whole career almost went tits up and dennis leary mocked him i had a talk recently with somebody who knew more knows marv or worked with him for years and i was like it's is is like all that stuff true and is it like is he really like and he's like yeah he's just like yeah yeah uh yeah i gotta work with that guy too bad he's retiring he sounds perfect for mk

uh all right dude but look the spirit of that question bringing up stewart scott i mean how Yeah, I got to work with that guy. Too bad he's retiring. He sounds perfect for MK. All right. But look, the spirit of that question, bring up Stuart Scott. I mean, how great Luke was 90s SportsCenter, not just Olbermann and Patrick, but like Craig Kilbourne was amazing and prime early 90s SportsCenter. Luke, it changed the way sports were programmed and delivered to the masses here in the united states i mean it was like dude you had i mean it's like it's a cliche to say but you could not freaking wait because there was no you know plethora of internet for that show to come on and your favorite sports center guy to come on and call those highlights with the jokes in there i mean look even chris berman who became such a character of himself the the rest of his career, you cannot discount late 80s, 90, 91, 92.

What seeing that guy do the NFL highlights was like, you know, I mean, it's just there's no real equivalent. There's nothing that held the preeminence. And it just felt modern and cool and different. The original SportsCenter, at least the first like couple of iterations of it were pretty fucking i'm not here to trash our competitors or my former employer but you know sports center now and espn in general is so sterile luke it is so just not with it it is so just not cool it's it's purposely appealing trying to appeal to everybody in an effort that appeals at least for my taste to no one do you remember how

hip and edgy sports center once was do you remember when espn2 launched and it was like it was you were cheering for them all to succeed almost like they were like your hometown team it was like these guys get it they're not lame they're lame now luke it's a little lame it's a little lame but they still have a giant audience and you know you can't take away what they did what they did was pretty impressive but that's where people like us we are the descendants of that generation i'm not saying we're edgy or cool we're washed as fuck and our doctors keep telling us we're washed as fucked but yeah my doctor this morning luke he put me on uh but you know what i mean like we lived through that that that informed our judgment about what kind of thing we wanted to be and what we wanted to do and i think we took that and made

it our own so there you have it okay if we didn't get to your questions we will for the next uh room service diaries which will be in miami and um we're going to record that earlier in the week so we're not so washed by the time we watch it or by the time it airs uh and you know we can we can you know look halfway uh decent at the time um so please keep leaving questions if you can thumbs up on the video hit subscribe let's cbc big week in front of us traveling the whole nine yards anything you want to say no i mean you know loyal gains or some shit like that and you know thank you to our viewer i love rfp i love yes thank you to everyone who left the question again, if we didn't get to it, we will. So you're going to get your answer in one way or the other.

And that's it. That's it. We're good. Happy Memorial day. Please don't drink and drive. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other. We've got a big week in front of us. So thanks for watching now. Hope to catch you later. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas until next time. All of your gains be loyal.