MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Merab vs. O'Malley 2 announced for UFC 316, Ian Garry vs. Prates, UFC Apex Preview

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

On today’s show, the guys react to the UFC 316 announcement, including the controversial Merab-OMalley rematch, Ian Garry accepting UFC KC main event on late notice vs Carlos Prates, UFC Apex Preview and the kickoff of the 2025 PFL season.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season 1. Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season 2 starting April 9th on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. of a killer. It's him! Oh Jesus! Start the morning combat! Do you want a margarita? My God! It's us doing what we love!

You, me, you, me! It's time to bang! It's time to bang. Oh yeah, get fired up. It's Friday. You're unemployed. You ain't got nothing else to do. You might as well give head over heels excited for the combat week in the calm. It's Friday, April 4th, 2025 and you've stumbled into morning combat, the best damn combat

sports show they ever put together. It won't die. It's amazing. I love being employed. Hey, it's Brad Campbell, the BBC with that BDE. The suburbs of Connecticut is where I call home and fresh off the set of CNN, it's your favorite DC resident. Shout them out.

It's Luke Thomas and Luke. We got a great show today. I'm happy to see you. How you feeling on this Friday morning? Good. Good. and shout them out. It's Luke Thomas and Luke. We got a great show today. I'm happy to see you. How you feeling on this Friday morning? Good, good. Oh, by the way, I was only on set for four minutes and 50 seconds.

I mean, the shortest turnaround ever, but. It's still awesome. Yeah, yeah. I will say, you know how this is, when you go to like a real, like a fully funded, let's put it that way, television studio, they got nice shit there. You know what I mean? You're like, whoa, they got nice shit here. But anyway, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm

feeling pretty I got I slept to the alarm BC. How about that slept to the freaking alarm. So I feel I feel pretty good. I'm ready for today. And and I did watch PFL. And I have to say, I feel pretty good about it. Like that's what they turn in. Recapping PFL one as they kick off their tournament season. Not bad. We're going to get into that today as well as set the stage for UFC Apex, some boxing to come this weekend and also hit

the latest headlines involving UFC matchmaking. So get fired up. If you don't mind, like this video on YouTube. If that's how you're consuming it. Subscribe to the podcast. Get us off that 176K bubble so we can continue to grow. If you're listening on audio, tell a friend about it as well. Shout out to the Draft Kings Network. If you are watching us right there and you can follow us on our YouTube channels. We do have a third

member of our team who is live and direct from LA today and who may or may not have pulled an all-nighter Hey, it's the son of an Australian ball bag main card minutes Luke no Sita Luke you are live and direct from all the smoke studios at the moment Are you not I am guys beautiful all the smoke set right behind me there I would I would be on set if I could reach over there, but it's all right You know just reach around a little bit. I knew I knew you were gonna say that I knew I need more. I need better material. Don't go anywhere. No, Sita LT I woke up at at 3 a.m. To a text message from the West Coast

That was a video of Luke no Sita Gaffney Jim Pierre and the artist formerly known as Manich, singing, singing, home and now, at like a karaoke restaurant, getting all kinds of Creed on that ass. Tell me about that, Lo Cita. We were just wasted, there was karaoke going on,

Creed was playing, and we were all like, we gotta send BC a video of this. We sent it to BC. He texted me back at like 3 AM. We were still up. I know it was 6 AM, I guess on the East, but yeah, it was a late night, but you know, we're here guys. We're ready for the show. That's all. This young fella in OCEA still can get after it in the middle of the night. So shout out to that. Unfortunately, uh, we start the show on a somber tone. Our friend and yours,

the great Average Joe art Joe Romero who we have so much love for Nobody has a heart for animals like this guy his beloved princess bagel did pass away And we want to shout out look at that smile right there We didn't want to shout out our Sincere condolences if you know Joe if you follow him on IG, you know the heart he has for animals Look, you recently went through this. It's it's it's there's no words that fix it.

It's never easy, but we love you, Joe. Yeah, I had, yeah, you're right. I mean, I brings back memories of, uh, you know, he's been gone, I think a month or month and a half, maybe a month or two, so it's still kind of fresh. I'm sorry, Joe. I sent Joe a note or a tweet anyway, but I'm glad we could start the show this way. It just sucks, man. It's just painful. It's never easy. And for folks who've never had a pet, they're always like, how much could it be to lose a dog or a cat? You would be surprised. It's tough.

Yeah, I've got I've got two cats right now begging for my attention here. It's my life. All right. It's my passion. It's the spirit I bring to this. But we will have a great show for you today. Luke, anything else you want to tell the audience? I don't know if I was supposed to do it, but yesterday I was on submission radio with a pair of great dirtbags in the host, Dennis, of course, and Jed Michoud II of Atlanta and disbarred lawyer fame. And we did, you know, spill the beans a little this Wednesday, April 9th, New York City 11 AM Eastern at morning combat on the YouTubes UFC 314 pregame preview. Get some Cuervo in your shots. It'll be you, me and that man Jed Meshew. Your thoughts, Luke. It's going to be awesome. So Wednesday, as you said, not a Monday, not a Friday. Now we're not doing a Monday and a Friday.

We're just doing a Monday and a Wednesday this year, or this next week. But should be a lot of fun as we indicated. And BC, we have to tell them we're gonna do, I think, a mailbag episode, are we not? So I think, go ahead. So yeah, so we are going to record in advance a mailbag for Friday, April 18th when Luke and I will both be with our families enjoying the school break. So we would let we would encourage you now for that special mailbag episode that will air April 18th. Can you send in your questions to morning combat at gmail.com? If you send a piece of your private parts, we will not read the question on air. Mikey made us swear to that rule, so shout out to him. I'm kidding all the way. But send us your questions, we'll do that.

Luke and I have vacations that'll kind of cross over each other, but we will have Chuck Mindenhall replacing me in studio the day, two days after UFC 314. So you're still gonna get your MK fix. And as Luke mentioned, no show next Friday, but we will hit you with that pregame preview on Wednesday. We got to take vacation somehow, Luke. So, you know, at least we're still on the air. Folks who don't have kids don't understand this, but like if you have a child, you can only take a proper or even any kind of vacation when they are off from school. Like there's there's just no other way to do it. So you're at the mercy of the school system and well in the

80s my parents would just pull me out of school for a week. People didn't care but nowadays I feel like you can do that for like a long weekend. You know, hey, let's pull him out of school on Friday. We'll have a long weekend camping or whatever. Something like that. That's fine, but I can't take her out of school for a week. You know what I mean? I can't do that. My kids are juniors in high school. You know, getting ready for college. They can't. They can't miss that ish, but it is what it is

Tookie's got to get her her time in the Sun. She deserves it. So that's what's gonna happen We'll still be giving you the great content and without any further ado. We might as well just bang to it It's time to get into it. Let's hit it topic number one Hey, let's react to some big news Dana White came out on April Fool's Day after the UFC Twitter account teased a huge announcement. Is it going to be Jones Aspital? Is it going to be the UFC meta deal? Is it going to be the new movie with Turkey and Zex? Alright, enough of that BS. No, but it is UFC 316, June 7th Prudential Center in New Jersey, and it wasn't as if we didn't know about the two title fights that

had the potential to top this card. But now it is official. In the main event, Marav Devalesvili will make the second defense of his Bandomweight title against former champion Sean O'Malley in a rematch of their fight at the Sphere last fall. And in that co-main event, Juliana Pena, the two-time champion at 135, will defend the women's Bandomweight title against Kayla Harrison in a fight that maybe this division's dead. But we wanna see Kayla have the opportunity to inject some life in it. We know they're spicy, they don't like each other.

So Luke Thomas, let's talk about this announcement because since it happened, it has been a little overwhelming how much fans have balked against the idea of Marab Suga 2. There's been a similar vitriol to when UFC 312 announced DDP Strickland 2. A lot of people feeling it's unnecessary, but you do have to consider when you look at the top 10 of the Band of Weight rankings. I'm not sure I see another overarching, obvious, deserving challenger in that top 10. I mean, there is Peyotr Yan, we'll talk about it, but do you think the fan backlash to Marab, Sugar 2, is justified? I want to make sure we're not, you know, being cranky for the sake of it.

Are the fans right that we don't need this rematch? That's a tough one. So what I'll say is this, to the point that you raise, it is clearly detectable that the fans, or at least all of them obviously, but either a vocal minority or at least a visible portion of them, whatever the number ends up being, don't want this. And not only do they not want this, they don't even understand it. They, and to the point that they raise, it's like, Oh, Mally lost, took time off and is just getting a rematch. How does that even make sense? The first fight wasn't competitive. Like the reasons why they don't want it to my mind actually all kind of makes

sense, right? They, as I indicated, the guy's been off, he didn't get another win. The first one was a wipeout, why they don't want it to my mind actually all kind of makes sense. Right. They, as I indicated, the guy's been off, he didn't get another win. The first one was a wipeout, blah, blah, blah. Like there's just any, all the things that would normally happen to merit a rematch organically, uh, they didn't happen here, but here's the problem. They need title fights to stay in rotation. This is reasonably close to Merab's adopted home of Long Island. I mean, I realize that he's now in Vegas, but you know, he still has a strong association to that place.

I don't think that's the chief motivating factor, but it probably doesn't hurt that they're, they can count on that to a degree. But more to the point, they just have to keep the titles in rotation. Islam is sitting out and figuring out what's going to happen. Heavyweight is not really in rotation. Islam is sitting out and figuring out what's going to happen. Heavyweight is not really in rotation. I guess, you know, obviously there is one for light heavyweight, but they haven't booked it yet. And you already know what that is. They got to get some of this stuff moving. So you have to keep these divisions churning. And to the point that you raised BC, I actually was a little bit surprised at the reaction, not necessarily that people weren't super enthused with it, but they were like, Oh, this is the wrong call to which I would respond. Well, what is the right call? Yeah. BC to your point, let's just go

through. Let's just go through. Ready? Number one contender is Sean O'Malley. Okay. And then, you know, again, I'm not saying that like the position at one, Oh, that therefore means he should get it, but I'm just saying here's who's available at the top. Don't worry. Meta IA will fix those rankings. Can't wait. Can't wait. Sean O'Malley is number one. Peter Bioterian is number two, which of course is another one. We'll talk about just a second. I'm sure three is Umar. He literally just lost. Four is Sandhagen

who's got to fight with number five. Deveson Figaro at UFC. And Sandhagen just lost too. Yeah and Sandhagen just lost but he's already booked. He's got a main event for UFC Iowa already and then of course after that's just Song Yedong and Chido Vera and people who just are not really in the title, good fighters, but not in the title conversation. So those are your choices. So now you can't use four and five or three. You can literally only use one or two. So then you have to ask, okay, well, why didn't Jan get it? After all, he did get a win recently. He did beat Devinson Figueredo. So the point I would raise is, yeah, you could do that,

but now you're gonna have someone in a pay-per-view market in the United States that, you know, Marab obviously speaks English, but the challenger does not. So that is gonna limit what kind of media you can really get. And also if you have to think like a promoter, the promoter's probably gonna wanna give preference to an American person, I'm sorry to say that when the chief audience that buys

pay-per-views is North America and in particular the United States, like having an English speaking American person is what a promoter is at least going to favor. And then I would just simply say, BC, I'm sorry to say this, I wouldn't hate it if they've given it to yawn that would not have upset me at all But yawn got wiped out by marab and I know that marab beat Shawn convincingly, but he beat yawn Pillar to post pillar to post it was not close. It was 50 45 Yeah, O'Malley wanted least one or if not two of those rounds and then the fifth round he kind of put it on marab A little bit so it's not like it's the best scenario you could ever imagine but of the available names, that's the guy given the considerations in

play. Yeah, I gotta agree with that. Log on Luke. Can we show that meme that that that was put out on Twitter and it originally echoed my belief of Peter Yan deserve that title shot but like I would have preferred the Peter Piotr Yan rematch. But if we're going to complain about star power in this era and want pay per views that get people's attention, I don't hate it in this spot. We're going to show some video in a second of O'Malley talking about injuries and where he was in that first fight. And I'm not saying this to excuse it, but I do believe this rematch

will be a better fight. So I'm not saying this to excuse it, but I do believe this rematch will be a better fight. So I'm not ultimately against this right now. For anybody wanting Song Yedong, it's like, hey, he poked Henry Cejudo in the eye and didn't get in trouble for it. That's not a real win for me. And the fight before that, he lost to Peyo Rian. So could it have been Rian?

Yes, but to your point, an injured O'Malley was more competitive most recently against Marab. And having O'Malley in there should in Theory sell more tickets, so I don't hate this at all O'Malley reacted on his podcast on YouTube with coach Tim Welch Here's O'Malley saying that this rematch will be different dude I'm so excited for this fight sugar Shane verse Merab to is happening And I don't think people are gonna be too happy about it

My life has completely changed over the last year last time I fought him was 29 I'm 30 now. I'm a growing man. I have chair hair my chest now. I quit smoking weed too. I haven't gamed either quit gaming Yeah, I also haven't you who'd Once this beer Jade the peen haven't jade the peen once this year. Jade the Pean. Haven't Jade the Pean once this year. Not once. Not once this whole year. Last camp we had some shit going on. My body hasn't felt this good since 2022.

Gonna fight at my full potential. I know I'm gonna be a huge underdog. Everyone's gonna count me out, just like the Aljo fight. I know I wanna jinx it, but dude, if I can just keep this pace up, how we've been able to train these last few weeks, all the way up into the fight I'm going to be

70% better than I was in that first fight So look, I'm gonna tee you up in a second He would go on in that interview on podcast to say I don't want to sit here and make excuses We had a great camp the first fight. I showed up I was in shape But every single journey entry for me was like my groin kept me up at night Because I tore my labrum 10 weeks before the fight. I have serious groin. I had serious groin pain. I'm going to be significantly more agile, mobile, and in better shape for the rematch.

So Luke, we're not going to sit here and make injuries. O'Malley took the fight even though he was injured. There's pressure to stay on top and stay active as a star. But do you believe now that the fight is secure that we will see a better O'Malley that we will see a better matchup and that in hindsight, yes, he was compromised in that first fight. I've suspected will be better. I don't know exactly how much better it's going to be. Like I can absolutely see a scenario where it's better at the margins, but. You know.

Effectively, what happened in the first fight was more or less repeated like that's that's something we could see two where it's like OK cleaned up, you know something around this scenario. I mean, just think about realistically like what do you have to work on if you're Sean and the tactical answer is many things, but the big picture is you have to stop the takedown. You have to create separation and you have to hurt him. Like everyone does this game with Marab where they just try and neutralize him. And that does nothing because he's got an endless gas tank to just keep trying.

And he does, he gets stronger as time goes on, not weaker, unless you can actually hurt him, you have to legitimately hurt the guy. Um, so easier said than done and how you do that is really the answer. So I can see some improvements on that. And again, I don't think it's out of the question by any stretch of the imagination that he could win. But part of the lack of enthusiasm, BC, for this is also, we should be honest, is also rooted in the fact that, like, okay, he definitely was injured

and there could be a real big difference next time around, but it may not be that much of a difference since it was just through your UFC 306, UFC 316. This is not a huge expanse of time in which to get better. You would have had to have been really compromised for there to be like a major change potentially in performance. And the other one is to BC is if he loses, he's in a bad place at age 30. It's a gamble, yeah. It's a huge, the UFC, I'm not saying they're cashing him up because they're giving him an opportunity here,

but like we just saw what happened with Steve Erceg. If you don't manage when you take these opportunities, and I recognize fully it's a difficult call when you've got a short career. However, it should also be noted, we have many documented examples of guys getting offers for things potentially too early and it having a backfiring effect long-term. Will this be the case at UFC 316? We shall see. Yeah, I think the pressure of just that, that his star top power would take an additional

large hit if he lost consecutive fights and And if he got, you know, lost in a humbling way where he was taken down controlled. But do you think there's something to what he said? I know we can make jokes about the, uh, however he described, uh, that Luke. Yeah. It's bad for your prostate to not ejaculate guys. Just so you know, that's neither here nor there. I mean, try telling that to yourself in a hotel. Oh, you do tell yourself that the hotel room. Oh, what I'm trying to say is I'm working out

my prostate. Like I never guessed that Sean was somebody who didn't take training seriously. He always seems to be in great shape. He seems to like live his life about this life. But do you think there could be something to the idea that back is against the wall. So he's not what not gaming, not jerking, not smoking weed. Like this has to be a positive change in totality, right? For I would say this again, not not busting a nut is not good for you. But however, you know, he's got a very unusual occupation, right? I mean, how many people do you know that fist fight for a living?

That's a pretty rare business. And the other components we see are the ones that are to me a little bit more interesting, including getting off social media. I think that is maybe the most important one of them all. The gaming I don't have an opinion on because I don't really, I don't, I don't game enough to know exactly what it does or doesn't do to you. The weed smoking probably, uh, again, if, if I'll say this, if he feels like that helps him, it almost certainly will. But getting off social media,

there's no doubt in my mind that will boost, you know, not merely cognitive performance more broadly, but potentially his ability to focus, stay calm. We know that when people are too online, they become agitated, irritable, to say nothing of what it affects in terms of memory and recall and the like. So I think in general this kind of what would you call it BC? Semi monastic turn, right? I feel like that probably is a good thing in general. I do there will be no excuses left. So I want to see him Well, so did you did your ceiling leak Luke or is right? noise on my roof.

Oh, it could be a raccoon. You gotta be, you know, you gotta be careful. Just keep that. Yeah. What do you have a pull down attic or like a stairway or what? No, no, I have a fully, uh, fully finished. Keep Tukey out of there. We don't, we don't need any of that. Yeah. Uh, so I think there's going to be no, you know, no excuses here. I do want to see him. If he's down risk losing by knockout by really going for it. I think he will. I think he realizes maturity time. He's 30. He has been a star, but he needs that belt in a lot of ways to be considered one of the faces of this operation. There are some people on social media though,

saying, look, how is this fair? A champion who never really got the respect in Al Jermain Sterling was not allowed an immediate rematch, even though he had four title defenses. Fans even tweeted at Al Joe, but here's Sterling's response, and I want to get your take on it. He says, look, honest answer, the UFC is going to do what's best for the business and for the brand.

What I've liked immediate rematch due to the circumstances going into the first fight. Absolutely. But I understand the business model better than most. And O'Malley is a really exciting guy that has beaten many top five contenders. So I think he rightfully deserves it after all the ranked names he has beaten. And look, if you remember, Sterling was rushed by the promotion to take that defense against O'Malley.

What do you make of his reaction? I don't agree that it's, um, put, put, put the quote up one more time if you can, where he says, Oh, my, he's a really exciting guy that has beaten many top five contenders. So I think he rightfully deserves it after all the ranked names he has beaten. See, I disagree with that part. I think that it's understandable that he got it given what the promoter is valuing which is to an extent your resume but to an extent your sellability. Also understand something right they're negotiating a new television rights deal like what prominent American fighters you can have

for an American broadcaster is probably pretty important you know what I mean? So getting them out of there out there in front of the public and active and potentially even winning. This is this is something that's quite important. But what I would say is it. I don't actually think he deserves it in the traditional sense. I actually don't think that's the argument at all. My argument is like, oh, this is unfair. This is you know, they're playing favorites. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the matchmaker model. The alternative everybody is you can do the tournament model where you win and you advance, but we have seen how that works and that's even worse. So the matchmaker model absolutely by definition BC plays favorites. They get to pick and choose, but as flawed as the system might be, I'd

rather have that than, you know, the tournament one where you just get locked into this shit all the time and then, you know, things go haywire way too often. And spoiler alert, and I didn't think I'd come in here and defend the UFC consistently after ripping them for two years, but I mean, I've been at many jobs where certain skills give you privileges, you know, and fighting when you sell, that'll give you a privilege. Look, I once got fired out of factory for doing a no call, no show one time, when there were guys there that would like not show up for weeks,

but they had more talent. So they kept that job. You know what I'm saying? Damn that factory life. Final point on O'Malley is maybe because it's a time when he's down, meaning he just lost the title and people, he didn't take a follow-up fight and people don't seem to want him in this. People are now revisiting just the opposite of what Aljo said. Does he actually have an impressive resume? They're saying, you know, outside of the knockout of Thomas Almeida when he was on that rise, since then, you know, he beat that, that, that Moutinho guy. He beat Paiva. He was losing to Munoz when the

Ipoke made it to the no contest. People think he got a gift against Yon. Then he fought Aljo who wasn't 100%. Then he got a title defense against Cheeto because of their history even though Cheeto wasn't on that level. Would you agree that it is fair to critique O'Malley's ride up to this point and actually question whether he ever really was a true pound for pound? Great. Yeah.

Yeah, sure. He has clearly been the beneficiary of matchmakers in a company that wanted to promote him in ways that means giving him opportunities that his peers simply didn't get. It's not very complicated. That's 1 billion percent true. It's not up for argument. That is exactly what happened. What's interesting to me, BC, is I can understand this call as we've indicated here. Where, you know, they have to keep this title in rotation. You got to figure this out.

Given the circumstances, we understand why they pick Sean, even if we wouldn't have mind at all if they picked beyond. But I will say this, the point you raise and all those different items in the journey, if Sean goes out here and let's say because here's something we didn't talk about. What if he goes out there and loses even worse the second time? Dude, I have to tell you, the backlash against him is going to be I'm not going to say biblical. It's not going

to be the same as you know, the toporia backlash after changing his nickname, if he loses that that would be worse. It would it would it would be worse. However, however, there is a little bit of underlying kind of seething resentment about O'Malley getting pushed to the front of the line. And I think they'll let it go. If he wins, because you you can go there you can be anybody who can beat Marab is legit right I think I think people understand it but if Marab goes in there and just roughs him up worse than the first time I feel like

there's gonna be a massive backlash against him that's so yet another risk that they're running here in this fight I feel bad for Sanhagen because if he had been coming off a win this would have been the perfect time for him to get that title shot but he's gonna have to continue to grind. Can I add one little detail here? I would love it. So people pitched this one to me and I'm okay let me just see what you think. Let me see what you think and I would love to see what Noseda thinks as well. Namely, okay you can't give it to Jan. We don't want to see O'Malley. Why couldn't you do Pantoja versus Marab? To which you would say, I would say that there's already a bottleneck atop that flyweight division.

I know my argument can be countered by the idea that Pantoja has, except for even for cop, he's fought everybody that's in the title picture. I mean, I guess outside of KKF, that's why they're probably going to do that next. But I would, I would say because there's a bottleneck upon a top there and because Pantoja is on an arc of actually creating a meaningful run that you can make the argument that he's the second greatest flyaway of all time. I don't know if you would want to hurt that division. I mean, you wouldn't necessarily need to strip him. You could give him the opportunity to become a two division champion. But I don't know, Luke, I'm actually happy they didn't in this case. I would love to see that fight. To be perfectly honest with you, I would love to see that

fight. But I think the only way you can do that is if you introduce an interim title at flyweight, because I'm assuming obviously Pantoja is going up, right? So it's going to be a bantamweight fight. You could only do that if you introduce an interim title, which is not fair because Pantoja has been as active as possible. But like to the point you raise, dude, there's a bottleneck already. And, you know, Bansomweight, there is a little bit of playing repeat, but there's still a bunch of other viable contenders that we still haven't had a chance to, for Morav to beat yet your San Hagans, your Figaro's that kind of a thing. So to me, it's like, I think that fight would actually be the best of all the choices that I've heard on pure fight terms. But you also have to manage divisions. And this is why some of these fights Islam to me, BC is the is the exception approves the rule because he's the number one pound for pound fighter in the sport.

And just doesn't have a whole lot of time left. I think you just create some bottlenecks in his particular case if you had to, you know, I just hope the UFC doesn't close this calendar year without giving us both Jones Aspinol and Islam versus Laleh and a Luke. Okay. Like, come on, imagine you get, imagine you get neither of them this year. Imagine that they're going to have a lot of splaining to do like they care, Like they care. They'll get another government contract. All right.

Let's talk quickly about this co-main event. Kayla Harrison, as we stand now, according to draft Kings is more or as nearly, sorry, just shy of a six to one favorite against two time champion. Julianna Pena, who I've said a lot of things, bad things about her and her resume, but she did win the title second time. She did outlast Rocky Pennington in a horrific title fight. Is the bigger battle for Kayla making the weight and being able to go five rounds than actually

defeating Pena here? Wait, say that again. Is Kayla's challenge bigger to make 135 35 and have the stamina for five rounds actually winning against this opponent? Um, probably, probably. It should be noted that I think Harrison has not necessarily taken to the striking all that well. Obviously she's cleaned up a lot, but it's not on the feet a potent part of her game, you know? I think that's pretty fair. And there are

some real defensive liabilities and somebody like Pena just takes risks, you know, she'll come forward doing this number, you know what I mean? And so like, you know, it's like, Rod's me that Ronda Rousey highlight. Yeah. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Do you we sleep on Pena but it's like Okay, it wasn't the very best Amanda Nunes I'd ever seen but she did beat Amanda Nunes like dude in hindsight though That was an injured under trained Nunez who had pressure on her to keep okay fair enough But Kayla's gonna be drained like to your point. She's gonna drain like a motherfucker at 135 Well, that's where pain your strengths are she can go five your point. She's gonna be drained like a motherfucker at 135. Well, that's where pain your strengths are. She can go five hard rounds.

She could take a beating. She's willing to brawl. I'll give her that credit. Yes. I just don't even think she beat Rocky in a horrible fight. Yeah, I don't think she did either. And so again, it's not like who's more skilled. I mean, what the fuck are we talking about?

We know who's more skilled. Like obviously the two time gold medal winning Olympian for fuck's sake. That's not really the question. The question is, is she so drained versus a risk taker to your point you raise got good cardio and just throws caution to the wind. Is that a combustible mix? It certainly can be I just feel like, you know, in all likelihood, this is Harrison's fight to lose but she has struggled a little bit with

some of the takedowns. And then a little bit obviously on the feet as well. Once it gets to the mat, it's a done deal, I feel like, but it's getting there as proved a little tougher than I think some of us might have imagined. If Kayla wins, I know I'm projecting much forward, but let's be honest. The odds are nearly 6 to 1 here. People aren't expecting this to be a classic. It could be dramatic. We'll find out. But if Kayla wins, is getting Amanda Nunes out of retirement the only thing that can save this division? And maybe by proxy, the current state of women's MMA? Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm not even going to bullshit at all.

Another great thing would be if Dakota Ditcheville went to UFC. I don't know if that would save who wins MMA, but that would be awesome and exciting. And hey, we can't wait for any of those matchups. But certainly as it pertains to women's 35 and more importantly, to the question you raised, which is just putting women's MMA in a very important spotlighting role. And I don't mean like, oh, they're going to headline this card or come in and vet this card. I mean,

capturing the imagination of the fan base, getting the fan base riled up in a good way about an important women's fight. When was the last time that happened? I guess the rubber match between Shivchenko and Grasso on the sphere card and before that, I'm not really sure and even that is somewhat debatable. And also that fight as I fight shit the bet it was you know, just take downs and top control wasn't very good. shit the bed. It was, you know, just takedowns and top control. It wasn't very good. Like, there is a gigantic yawning gap that has emerged in terms of, you know, what the game used to be and what it is now. So, on the women's side, so getting a big name out of retirement, which carries its own kind

of storyline, former teammates, as we all know, for, again, Kayla Harrison, the best American judoka ever against this best female fighter essentially are certainly the best women's UFC fighter ever. That is you can sell the shit out of that if you play that right. I think the game needs it. This division certainly needs it. And here's my question back BC, which is, if not this one, what what is even the biggest fight you could make if Amanda Nunes is not in play? The answer is nothing even remotely as interesting. Nothing even on- I think you're right. Like you have to make

this fight. So the problem we've been talking about women's MMA of late usually surrounds the lack of depth in all divisions, maybe except for the top end of 125 and obviously 151. I'm sorry, well 115 is glaringly narrow, you knowly shallow at this moment, which is we're not used to that in the history of that. And also the lack of quality evolution. It feels like it's going backwards in terms of skill, but you bring up a great point. Like there was a couple of years stretch

where we had big women's fights that people cared about. Let me remind people, Nunes versus Cyborg, Nunes, Shevchenko too, Rose, Joanna one and two, and to maybe a smaller degree, the Rose, Waley one and two. Like there were matchups where you're like, okay, these are two of the greatest in the history facing off and they're having a form of a rivalry. I mean, maybe has it has it not been the same since Rose shit the bed against Carla in that rematch? Do we

blame Rose for that? Luke? I don't know, but it's a- No, I don't know if that's the line, but it definitely feels like it's been a while since we had like a really awesome, hotly anticipated women's fight. Hotly, yes. Let's go. Wait, that's disgusting.

Pants, pants, pants, around my ankles, ankles, ankles. Hey, let's transition to topic number two. It's also some UFC matchmaking, and this one has me excited. In fact, color me bad with two Ds because I wanna sex you up. Tick tock, you don't stop. Hey, here's the deal, April 26th at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City,

Missouri is a UFC fight night card. And remember, it's part of that TKO takeover weekend where they're selling ticket bundles with WWE and professional bull riding. We were supposed to have a banger of a light heavyweight main event with Jamal Hill and Khalil Rowntree. Jamal Hill is injured and that matchup is rumored to get rescheduled at UFC Azerbaijan. Wow, wow. But what we do have as a replacement in just 22 days is a must see welterweight till as Ian Machado Gary once again will take a big fight on short notice when he welcomes the red hot knockout machine from the Fighting Nerds and the cigarette smoking loving Carlos Pratesh.

And now given the recent comments by Gary would be a good time to reintroduce Shots Fired brought to you by Cuervo. To quote Chi Chin Chong what balls Ian Gary has and here is Ian Gary taking to social media to react to why he took this fight on short notice. fight the best in the world. I'm going to show everybody how good I am. Carlos Pratches is awesome, but this is my world. I love to fight. There's nothing more I love in this world than fighting. Missouri, Kansas City, let's go. Ireland, get your tickets, get your flights. Brazil, get your tickets, get your flights. And Brazil just scoop. You have two Brazilians in this fight. Let's go. Pratis, live until April 26th. text BC and I'm happy to say here. There's a lot of things you can say about Ian Gary good, bad and in between. But whatever else you say about him, you better make sure that you add at

the end of it that that dude ducks zero smoke. None doesn't happen, not in his DNA. Took on Shavkat Rachmanov and gave him all he could handle on short notice. And here he is again taking on a guy who not undefeated but certainly has had an amazing run with 4-0 last year did unbelievable out of this undefeated team in the UFC that is in fighting nerds taking him on short notice that dude speaking of

our our parent company here wants all the freaking smoke and you just have to have a lot of respect for it but I'm I'm of two different minds about it I want to say largely that I absolutely fucking love this fight I love this fight so much I I was actually pretty interested in a Jamal Hill Khalil roundtree fight I still hope that they I think their plan is to make it a little bit later in the year I was excited about that main event but if excuse, if I could just be honest, BC, I like this fight much more. Me too. Now, let me say a couple things

that do give me some pause, okay? First, it's short notice, not so much for Protchess who was expecting an opponent, and he just has to extend it by, what, a couple of weeks or whatever. So that's no big deal for him, just has to kind of monitor his weight. But for Ian Gary, I don't know how well he's been preparing or training or how

ready he's gonna be. And so you're not getting these guys with like, you know, 10 weeks for each other where you really can get a sense of things. There's just a lot of questions about what kind of Ian Gary or you know exactly how ready projects will be. It is a five round main event as I understand it though so some interesting questions for his cardio as the cigarette smoker that I think we're gonna get some answers to. The other thing that kind of is interesting is BC is like okay I mean there's simply no questioning Ian Gary does not duck smoke at all. What I wonder is is he ducking no smoke a little too much right so he took on Rachmanov and he gave him all he could handle, but he didn't lose.

I'm sorry, he didn't lose badly, he did lose. But it was an eye opening performance, I think you can say that. But here he is taking on Protchess again on short notice. And it's like, does this guy have this trigger where he's willing to take risks in terms of matchmaking that we enjoy as fans because here he comes to rescue us and again, in like totally unenviable circumstances. Is that something that if he keeps doing, if he keeps that instinct up, it will actually end up hurting his development because he's still just 27 years of age.

I do have some concerns about that, but I just want to say fight to fight this or fighter to fighter. I should say, excuse me. I fucking love this fight and I cannot wait for this main event. And that was, of course, was shots fired brought to you by Cuervo. Don't forget next Wednesday, April 9th, Cuervo UFC 314 pregame preview. Luke, me, Jed, Micheux. Check it out. Luke, I want to count kind of counter the concerns that you had, which are certainly fair. First Long Island, Luke, can we throw up the graphic showing the time off in between in terms of the short notice takes here from Fighters Only.

It was a 21 day turnaround for Gary, for Shavkat Rachmanov and a 25 day. And if it's under the for a protest, if it's under the working idea that Gary stays ready So he doesn't have to get ready then I'm not that concerned about it I know 25 days is not a full camp But it's you know, it's not six days and also the idea about chasing smoke look He's the number seven ranked welterweight right now But I I think that performance against Shavkat, which obviously was a clear loss, but it was also a huge moral victory and obviously arguably the biggest win of his career, although people hate when I say shit like that. He is reaching back to fight the number 13 protest.

I know protest is dangerous as hell, but if you believe like I do that Gary is maybe even the second best welterweight right now in the UFC and he's gonna prove it to you and prove BC to be a profit, then I'm not that concerned because he's still climbing, meaning when you're climbing, you gotta take chances. And I think he proved to himself in taking that chance against Shavkat that he really, really is of this level. Does he have things to work on? Of course. Does he have to be a little offensive and, and have the opportunity to hurt people and knock them out. All that is true. Of course. But you also brought up a good point about the smoking. So let's go to Carlos protest talking about exactly how much nicotine he regularly ingests. It just depends bro, if I go party, maybe two or three packs, like normal day, not really, maybe 10, 15 cigarettes. It's okay. If you're worrying about something, maybe one pack, two packs per day.

So Luke, like, this is a five round main event, and what Gary has proven is that you're not gonna walk through him. He's got sound defense, he's big. He knows how to handle distance. He knows how to counter in there. Do you think that when Noseeda talked about this matchup on Monday in our studio, and he said, I think Gary runs through him, and all these fans got up in arms, that, hey, Protesh, you might wanna follow O'Malley, put away the gaming, the social media, the jerkin, and the smokes ahead of this because Gary is coming to win. Luke, I'm not afraid of the short turnaround or taking the chance here.

Cause he's actually reaching back in the rankings because you're not going to get a title shot off of a loss unless your name is Jose Aldo or Holly Holm. You're going to have to get a win. And if he gets a win against this red hot dude, he's going to be right there knocking on the title door. Yeah. But it's like, okay, so let me tell you what my problem with this is that I the more I think about it. He had in Gary Rachmanov's back and

was looking for a choke and his application of the choke was a little I'm not trying to be insulting, but you know if we're nitpicking high level fighters in bouts of consequence, we have to nitpick in that sense it was a little amateurish the nature of that thing you don't wipe out for the white guy here no no no no no not wipe out I mean you're going against a good grappler it's not so easy but what I mean is like and not everybody can be Charles Olivera but there's a certain degree of muscle memory that Charles Olivera shows where he doesn't have to like

calculate the decision, he can just kind of go with it, right? Whereas you could see Gary kind of trying to force something that wasn't really there and it didn't work. And I'm like a little bit more polished and we might be having a very different conversation both about Ian and Gary as well as Shafkat Rachmanov, right? We're could be in a totally different position. And so to me, it's like to clean that up,

you need time in the gym. And then just, you know, I understand that Proches is not Rachmanov. They're very different fighters. This is probably gonna be more of a striking contest. And maybe he feels for that reason, he could have taken it on short notice. I'm simply saying, you know,

to me a little bit of reinvestment in his game, given that he's still quite young, know, to me a little bit of reinvestment in his game, given that he's still quite young, I think will produce much better long term results, rather than if he beats projects, you know, but let's say he does a stick and move game plan, which we know he can do right a lot of lateral movement, touch and go. He could win this and then that could help propel him a little bit forward, but you still wouldn't be ready for the top

guys. Because you had you wouldn't have ironed out the other issues. There just simply hasn't been enough time. I think that's kind of my point. So I love this fight. There's many things I love about it, but what I am not going to do is even if he goes in there and smokes projects, I don't think it's the kind of fight that you should be talking title win, title opportunities afterwards. I think we need to give this dude some time to get better. See, I think he's building a case for being a star on the rise that I think he's going to get those opportunities to cut the line. And I think especially if he wins convincingly here, Hey, let's bring our third member of the team who is well hung. I'm sorry. Well hung over. Uh, Luke, no seat. Uh, yeah, there he is. Uh, Luke, you said he's going to run

through protest. You still believe it now that the fight is true. Yeah. I just feel like Ian Gary's super calculated in the fights he takes. So like there's a reason he's taking this fight. Also like Carlos protest. We've never really seen tested on the ground. I just feel like Ian Gary's gonna be able to have his way with him. Have his way. Wow. Dude, it might, yo, he might just wrestle **** him for five rounds but whatever. That's having his way with him, you know? Like. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a good matchup for him. Honestly, Luke Thomas

Do you at least applaud that a year ago? All this talk was about cock and ex-husbands and in BS and now we're talking about you know How badly this guy wants to win and show us what he's made of I wasn't talking about that dumb shit Oh, then it's the extent you brought it up on the show because I'm not a fucking loser ass bitch. That's okay. Well, well you say and I am well, yeah, I guess a little bit. I mean, talking about that, who I mean, it's the ultimate who gives a fuck conversation. We're just talking about a dude's personal life. I didn't have half the details are completely invented out of thin air. What the fuck are we doing? This is a total waste of time. Like, do people not reflect on their behavior at all? And look at this and say, holy shit, you got to be an under sexed fucking loser

to even engage in this conversation to fucking begin with. Well, I have been married for almost 18 years, Luke. So it kind of fits into that equation. You know what I mean? OK, all right, your honor, the defense arrest. Okay. Alright. Your honor, the the defense rests. So, three weeks from now, we will be seeing that

fight in KC and it is a hell of a good fight. We'll have a lot more answers about where Gary's going and obviously, the top of this division will see JDM against Bilal. Shavkat's gotta get back from injury. This this division rules. I can't wait.

Uh poor Jeff Neil Luke. He's out but this is a better match up here. So I'm fired up. This is definitely a better fight than the I mean I don't get me wrong. I like the Jeff Neil fight. It was a good fight but dude this one has heat. I'm all about it. I applaud the UFC for upgrading the matchup and again I think they kind of had to do it given that that's a big TKO weekend but I'm glad they did it. They didn't just roll Derek Lewis against, you know, uh, marching tie, Bora for whatever. I know. Like, come on. Like, like, and that's what people were thinking that they were going to do by the way.

All right. Let's go to topic number three and it's looking to head to this weekend on Saturday night. The UFC apex will be populated again with another fight night card. Is it deep? Well, it's got a couple things worth looking at and one of those things is of course this main event in the featherweight division hard hitting Josh Emmett is back. He's he's he's a man. He's pushing 40 but he is welcoming the number 10, Lerone Murphy who is looking for his moment.

Josh Emmett coming in at number eight and Luke considering Lerone Murphy is 1501 as a, unbeaten in eight UFC fights, a three to one betting favorite against Emmett and coming off of wins against Edson Barbosa and Dan Ege. Why have we not, and why are we not talking about Murphy more seriously as a legitimate contender for the featherweight title a lot of his fights have been in the apex a lot of his opponents have been

Good, but not the kind that made it all that interesting he To my knowledge at least on this side of the pond doesn't do what appears to be any media whatsoever. And so he's just a very quiet figure. But to the point that you raise, he's fucking good. Like he's real good. And was it the EGAY fight? I believe that's right, where he got rocked several times and was able to kind of persevere and then get the W. Like, so he's not just well rounded in the stats speak to that BC here and that we can go through them here in a minute

but he is I would argue at this point pretty battle tested and Surging and you know, we don't we don't there's it's really interesting like when we talk about like who are the surging UK fighters For some reason Murphy is not always or you know, typically I should say is not at the front of that list he fucking should be. He's real, real, real skilled and Josh Emmett has been off since this is his first fight since the Bryce Mitchell fight. He's been off for quite some time. This is a tough ass assignment for him and as you indicated getting close to 40 a super

tough fight. Lerone Murphy is a dangerous opponent. The odds as I as I teased earlier from draft Kings Murphy is a minus 325 favorite in this five round bout plus 260 for Emmett Luke. If people know the name LaRone Murphy, but don't know the game. What do you what would you say? He does bring to the table super completely utterly well rounded and not just well rounded like, oh, I can do this well, I can do this well, but the blend of everything is you can tell thought has been put into this. When you look at the game plan, you can do his game plans. You can tell are very precisely ironed out. I'm not saying they have a, you know, a memorized for every single situation, but there's direction, there's purpose, there's intentionality.

There's by the way, and I know this is like a thing that you know I should I don't know how people are interpreted when I say something like this, but MMA is so offensively based that people's defense is typically pretty bad. His defense is actually quite good. His cardio is good. He's big for the weight class, by the way. Consider this, he has a three inch reach advantage on Emmett and his three inches taller as well. He's just a bigger physical presence. Now, Emmett's a little bit of a short stack for this weight class, relatively speaking,

but I'm just saying he's got the physical tools, he's got the brain power, he's got the overall skill development, and we've just been kind of waiting to see him get the experience and see exactly who he could beat. But he keeps answering these challenges quite effectively. He is a well-rounded fighter. BC, if I may, lands 4.8 significant strikes per minute.

That's high, only absorbs 2.67. So he's got a very positive differential. Averages per 15 minutes. This is a five round fight, but per 15 minutes, 1.78 takedown. So nearly two per 15 minutes. This is a five round fight, but per 15 minutes, 1.78 takedown. So nearly two per 15 minutes, almost. Take down accuracy and take down defense are roughly in the 50% range, but that's not the biggest part of his game. He just uses that to mix it up. He can do anything. He can do absolutely anything. He can fight absolutely anywhere,

not a specialist necessarily anywhere other than that blend BC. That's where he really shines. Well done. Well done. Murphy took to media day and talked about his new contract with the UFC and his belief that despite entering this fight ranked 10th at the 145, he believes this is the number one contender fight. Let's listen in. First fight on your new contract. I know when you announced it, man, it seemed, I don't know, like a special moment. Were there discussions around it or was it simply the the figures that were on that contract? It seemed like it was like a milestone for you even though you've

been around for a while. For me, the contract's a contract. I'm here to fight in it, but I've got a six-fight contract which is good and just the wording in the contract for me is like the UFC are behind me and that's what I see and I believe I'm going to go on to do big things. I think I like the way you announced it because you were like the road to the title starts now. So I mean obviously you've always been building that right? You have this amazing record all you've accomplished but does it feel like this signifies like a very important

milestone or you know part in that journey? This fight, particularly all the contract. The fight itself. Yeah. Just this moment in your career. Yeah for sure for sure. I'm fighting number eight in the world. Josh Emmett's been around. Eli Topori went on to fight for the title after Josh Emmett. So for me this is the number one contender fight. I feel like behind Lopez and Volkonoski were fighting the week after. I think this is the best fight in the division for me. This is the number one contender fight.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to it, man. Look, with all due respect, that can't be true. Unlikely, unlikely, but I mean, I can understand why, like, you know, again, quietly building a very quality resume, not a lot of pomp and circumstance. Again, you don't see a lot of interviews. You don't see them out there, you know, jacking off or doing TikTok dances on social media. But when it comes time to lock the cage door,

he goes to work, make no mistake about that. Kind of has a Leon Edwards, you know, understated presence there coming from, with that accent from that area of the world. All right, Josh Emmett is 40 years old officially, but he has not fought in 15 months. We mentioned that viral first round devastating knockout of Bryce Mitchell, but the two fights before that he lost a five round decision to Ilya Toporya and was submitted in round two fighting for the interim featherweight title

back in February of 2023 against Yaya Rodriguez. And that fight snapped a five fight winning streak for him. Emmett says that Murphy here is in for a rude awakening. Let's listen. I know he's been working on his weaknesses, hence be his grappling and his wrestling over the years. I've seen a lot of improvement in his later fights. I know he says he's still learning on the job.

There's no learning on the job when you're in there with me. Yeah, we'll see, but yeah, he's good. But he's never fought anybody like me. I know he thinks he's fought someone similar to me, but knowing that he's fought, he's even close to me. And he's gonna be in for a rude awakening on Saturday night. Yeah, at the end of the day I just have to go out there and win.

I've never been in a boring fight. I know what the UFC wants to see. I know what the fans want to see. They're excited when I'm on a card because every strike I throw I'm trying to finish the fight and I don't feel like I have to go out there and make a statement But I'm going to and The goal is to be a world champion. That's always been my goal Murphy wasn't the original opponent I wanted because he's behind me. It's a high risk for really no reward

But at the end of the day, I've never turned down a fight. I've always fought these fights I fought the best in the world. So I should be able to go out there, handle business, and then we'll see what's next. Luke, he would go on to say in that same sit down that in the time off, he's worked on his power. And he says his power is way more potent and brutal. I'm in the meeting, even questioned him and said, how is that even possible?

And he says, you know, he's going to bring it. So Luke, those recent losses, right? Two losses in his last, what eight fights only they were against super elites. It's Ilya Tupori and Yaya Rodriguez. Do you think even at age 40, uh, let's say he gets a win here. Like, is there still time for him to make noise atop this division? Okay. So, I mean, Ilya leaving actually makes it a little bit

easier because he obviously lost to the guy and it also is just one less top ranked guy. The fact that Pitbull was subbed in though makes it a little bit harder. You know what I mean? And so I do think there is time he's not the most charismatic guy on the mic. We interviewed him on Room Service Diaries. I want to be clear, I actually really enjoyed our conversation but I'm just saying when I observe how the fan base receives him it doesn't they do like him and they love his fighting style but they don't necessarily respond to his personality

exactly I don't think that's unfair and you know that is probably gonna limit him to a degree however you know that knockout of Bryce Mitchell was it's literally one of the most vicious knockouts in UFC history. That is especially, especially via punch. So like if you eliminated like the most vicious knockouts with kicks and it was only with punches, that's either going to be at or near the top of that list to be, to be quite clear. And then on the other side, the sense out of Bryce, you could say. Yeah. I mean, he gave him a he gave him a brain injury in all likelihood, right? I mean, that was really bad. So I think that

those things could definitely buoy him. But the problem is this, like if you're a pit bull, and you beat your ear, hello, you're the best fighter in Bellator history. And you just beat a top ranked super exciting fighter, that's great. Or conversely, you're a top ranked guy. Plus, they want to go back to Mexico for Noche UFC, like you're just going to move to the front of the line. If you're Lerone Murphy, you get a big name on your resume for

short, but not necessarily like a fan darling. And by contrast, if you're Josh Emmett, you beat Lerone Murphy, it's quality in either direction. But it's a couple of quiet guys, you know what I mean? And for that reason, you know, it's hard to say exactly like they're going to get thrust to the front of this division if they win it's it's quality all the way around. But as we just saw with one 35 quality is only part of the conversation. All right.

Let's talk about who wins and how they win. And before I get that from you, I want to bring in our bedding expert cohost of the main card minute, Luke, no seat. A Luke, I gotta believe you're itching at the idea even with the 15 month layoff of Emmett at plus 260. Do you agree with what he said that Murphy may be great, but he never fought anybody like him 100% uh Lerone Murphy, the only person he's fought in the top 15 was Danny. Danny's number 15. I mean he

hasn't fought anyone in the top 14 Josh Emmett. I believe his last five fights against top 15 guys. mean, he hasn't fought anyone in the top 14. Josh Emmett, I believe his last five fights against top 15 guys. You mentioned he went five rounds with Ilya, dude. I just feel like this is like 40 years old or not. The vet's going to get the win here. Also, Lerone Murphy, his path to victory usually is implementing the wrestling. Josh Emmett comes from team Alpha Male. They got great takedown defense. They always got that guillotine. You know, like I like Josh Emmett in this fight a lot. I gotta say, took him down three times in one round.

All right. That's to poor you. That's la leyenda. Say it, that's to poor you, the magician. LT, you heard our betting expert loving the plus money, but he loves plus money on almost anyone. Do you like the veteran in this matchup? I'm going to take Lerone Murphy.

Now I say that with some degree of trepidation because here's the thing. Like how would you classify Emmett's style? You could say boxer puncher, but he's not really a boxer. Sorry, a boxer wrestler. I apologize. But he's not exactly a boxer. He's more a puncher wrestler.

I mean, to interrupt you, do you remember he told us at RSD on the couch in Vegas and we couldn't believe it. He doesn't have game plans. He doesn't have game plans. He doesn't make adjustments. He fights. He fights. Yeah. And Lerone Murphy is the exact opposite. So, here's the thing. Like if Lerone Murphy makes the same kinds of mistakes against Emmett that he did against EGA, he's gonna wake up looking at the **** lights. I mean, there's really just no

two. You know, Josh Emmett has nuclear power. It's just next level Armageddon when he balls up the fist to quote the great Vinny Paz. But I think a guy like Murphy should be able to neutralize that. He's skilled enough at this point should be experienced enough. And I take the plus money might be a good bet. You know, it's one of those things where you can kind of hedge but head to head, I'll take Murphy. Yeah, I'm leaning Murphy here. I love the matchmaking. I love the opportunity really for both fighters because if this would be an impressive two wins in a row even with the time off should Emmett get it and like we said the two recent losses were against super elites, even though it did seem like he not folded, but he got handled by Yair in less than two rounds.

But it was a long time ago. We have one more piece of sound to throw to. I don't think a loss puts Emmett, you know, even at 40 in territory of needing a new job, but he's been taking notice of what's going on in the GFL, particularly the pay scale. Let's see. I mean, if they ever have their first card, Luke, but let's hear Josh Emmett talk about that. All right, for me, are you stoked that the team leader, Uriah Faber, is coming back to fight again? Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, a lot of guys, you know, they're coming back

and, yeah, I mean, I want to go down there and watch that fight. I'm curious to see how the how that organization kind of pans out and plays out. But yeah, it seems like a lot of veterans for sure are fighting each other and people that were in this organization. So yeah, more power to them because they're making a, I know some of the pay that these guys are making

and it's it's Ridiculous. I wish I could go hop over and do one fight then i'll come back Yeah, is it pretty wild to see those numbers? Oh insane Do you think they last more than uh, two events? Who knows? We'll find out Luke is that an indictment on the ufc or are we doing this? look, is that an indictment on the UFC or are we doing this? There's just a money laundering operation that will not be there after the first gold boy. The trick to being an MMA fighter and I've seen this so long that

like that you just can't even deny it is that like, okay, there's a few different ways. Okay, very basic question. How do you make a lot of money fighting an MMA? All right, so the first answer is obvious, become a UFC champion and get pay-per-view points or become some kind of celebrated figure. I realize that pay-per-view buys are down, but historically speaking, that's been one. Okay, that's one.

Two, you can be somebody who gets a lot of bonuses. You know what I mean? Like Chris Lytle ended up getting like another million dollars added to his career earnings from just from five bonuses. Joel Lozan told me all the five bonuses are what enabled him to pay for his gym to open it up. And, you know, again, it's not like striking it rich, but definitely being able to like change your life

in pretty fundamental ways with that money. That's another one. The other way to do it, if you can get it, is to take advantage of the very limited window of scam operations that pay more money than they ever should. They don't last, but to the extent you can just surf that little wave, you can get a serious financial windfall. I have seen it over and over again. So that's one way you can absolutely make money in this business. I think that's how

Haley Welch turned that shit coin into a hawk to a I'm telling you we need to launch an MK shit coin and then rug pull the listeners and then just move somewhere quietly and never and never talk to them again. Yeah. Yeah. We'll be on the beach with Andy from Shawshank just living our best life. Luke, let's look up and down this card here. Uh Pat Sabatini of Philadelphia fame back in the co-main event in a featherweight bout against Joe Anderson Breito. Do you care about that one at all?

Yeah, that's one should be an interesting grappling battle. That should be a very interesting grappling battle. So, you know, Pat Sabatini is kind of like move forward and then kind of taking a step back and move forward and taking a step back. Uh, but this is an interesting, interesting one. Also the UFC fighter with the most college football name ever is competing BC. Cortevious, Romeus. Yes. That's a, that's a college football name, dude. I saw a college football name the other day. I'm not kidding. You can look this up. Please double check this booby feast or yep. Booby feast or it's crazy that that key impel skit, which was Yeah. Ruby Feaster. Yep. Yep. Ruby Feaster. It's crazy that that Key and Pell skit, which was hilarious, is real life now across college sports.

It's wild. It really is wild, man. I mean, there's a few matchups to care about. GM3 back against Brad Tavares at Middleweight. You can smell what Torres is cooking as the three-time DWCS alumnierese Finney, will open this six fight main card at middleweight against Robert Valentin. I don't think you really care about that, Luke, do you? Not much, but I will say Davey Grant taking on Daniel Santos is pretty interesting as far as I'm concerned. For me personally, Loma Lugbunmi against Estella Nunes actually has a fair amount of

value. Victor Henry, Josh Barnettett train fighters very good against Pedro Falcon And then you know for opening two fights by the way this dude would on Sati Baldy of the I believe he's I think he's Kazakh or Uyghur. What is he? He is Kyrgyzstan. He's from Kyrgyzstan He's real good and kind of interesting taking on Martin Buday and then your favorite BC Vanessa Demopoulos is back against Talita Alan Kari very very very good jujitsu black belt. Would you agree outside of the the jokes we can make and the the stripper pole training that she Vanessa is one of the best UFC fight night TV fighters they have. They always put her on the first fight night and it's always exciting and she comes from behind and

then jumps in somebody's arms like it's good TV right. She is memorable she has a fun personality and she delivers for the most part action fights yes for a tv fighter she delivers absolutely uh luke noceta what should our degenerate fans be betting on when it comes to this card this weekend i mean besides josh emmett and the main event i do like gm3 against brad tavarez they're both they're both like three days apart in age. They're both 37 years old, roughly the same UFC experience. I mean, did you got to take GM three here? Thirty five of his 37 wins by finish. Brad Devar has been finished five times before.

I do like Brad Devar's and he normally goes long, but I got a ride with GM three here. As far as fights to watch, you were mentioned that to rest. Finney fight, dude. Robert Valentine coming off a tough he's in the tough finale, gets controlled for five of the seven minutes that fight went on the ground Therese Finney averages Luke how about this ten takedowns per 15 minutes that's insane I've never even seen absolutely fucking shit yeah I think he's just gonna wrestle like probably finish him in like the second round or

something but he's definitely just gonna wrestle you know what that means though if you have ten takedowns in 15 minutes that means you can't hold them down for shit that's what that means. Alright but you can get him down and that's all that matters here you know. Luke Diana Belbita is also back in this but she has lost five of her last seven so that's not good. I wish her well but it's not exactly appointment viewing. Ode Osborne will be in the preliminary feature bout at flyway he's lost three of his four of his last five, including his last three. He'll welcome a non Wikipedia page

entry Luis Garul. Maybe he'll be end up in GFL. I don't know whatever. We'll see. He's undefeated. Luis is undefeated. Alright, then this is that type of matchmaking to find out if he's ready. Anything else you want to say about UFC Apex? No, main event is real good. There it is, there it is, I like it, let's keep it going. Topic number four, PFL1, last night, 10 p.m. Eastern start on that main card, but I watched it live, main card, and I enjoyed it.

It was from Universal Studios in Florida, in their new residency there in Orlando. It was the first night of the tournament season, welterweights and featherweights. And in that main event, former Bellator welterweight champion Jason, the ass kicking machine champ, Jackson, took on another former champion in Spartan Koreshkov and Andre got elbowed on the top of the dome, was bleeding. And shortly after he got submitted. So Luke Thomas, I do want your thoughts on the main event, but first on an overarching

look, there's been so much criticism against PFL. What did you make of the changes that they made to the broadcast, the format and the presentation on Thursday night? I liked it. I thought PFL, generally speaking, did really well. I think generally speaking that was a very good effort by them. That was evidence that they are listening. It was evidence that they have people internally in the organization giving them good advice and that they took it. And I thought a lot not everything not everything but I thought a

lot of it worked. I I enjoyed that broadcast. Let me say a couple things. I spoke to some folks who work at PFL. I have I had questions why the fuck did they have a 10pm East Coast start time for the main card. So the way it was explained to me is that's a call from ESPN. And there's just not much PFL can do about it. And BC, I have some good news and I have some bad news about some future start times. Are you ready? All right. I think it's either two or three weeks from now that this one I have to double check. But in one of those, the main card start time will be 7pm. Primo. Can't wait. Perfect.

I can eat dinner during the undercard. That's great. Exactly. My understanding, however, is, and again, this is not PFL's call, it's ESPN's call. My understanding is that next week's main card starts at 11pm, which is a fucking backbreaker if ever there was one. I can't stand that. But that's what I've been told. That is what I've been told. Now, that aside, let's just talk about last night, BC. What did I like about it? First of all, it looked like they were in the I can't stand that, but that's what I've been told. That is what I've been told. Now that aside, let's just talk about last night BC. What did I like about it?

First of all, it looked like they were in a much nicer apex. And it turns out you can do a studio fight if you put a little effort into it. Then they had that big wall, that big screen wall behind them where the fighters come out, they had the ramp. BC, did you like those like video stanchions all throughout the cage on the outside?

I did. I did. And the thing I also liked is when it was time to go to the fight when the both fighters had entered the cage, they had the the lighting truss above could force all the lights down and make it look like real nice. As a consequence, I thought that was awesome. I thought overall the look was great. Dude, the graphics package looks sweet. Graphics rule. How, was it me or did the screen in general from the colorization to the quality of the cameras,

it just looked top shelf. It really looked awesome. In tattooing, what they say is two things. The colors looked saturated. And then when you look at it, it popped. All the colors popped right in your face that way. And they did a lot of like doing the human stories of Jason Jackson, which by the way, I thought they were good. That to me slowed down the broadcast a little bit,

if I may. So I didn't love that part. I also thought poor Dan Hardy, I mean, he was doing, there's nothing he could do, but his voice was going, that was kind of weird. I do think we have to have a conversation about like, to what extent Kator is adding a lot to these broadcasts. I obviously, he's a legend in the game. And you know, I think he's been- Well, look, he'll be on our show in another 15 minutes. Yeah.

No, I don't have anything bad to say about him. I just don't know, like, do they need a three-man booth? It's not exactly clear to me that they do. I love Randy though, still. I just enjoy his presence. I know what you're saying is, is he after, is he washed? Now isn't an author? I don't think he's washed.

I know he's not out there just saying bullshit. You know, it's not that, but the last thing I want to say is, and this is like, you know, clear proof that they listen to people. Obviously the simplified format helped, you know, all the, all the bigger decisions helped in terms of the television execution BC, But how about getting rid of those dumb fuck stats? Here's how fast my shin was traveling bitch. Nobody cares Nobody ever gave a fuck and you're taking up all this dumbass real estate on the screen They bite bite dude less is more less is more they streamlined they simplified

They took the existing things that they do Well, they made them pop from the graphics to the presentation to the whole bit. I enjoyed this show quite a bit. I agree. It looks so professional and that matters. It made me want to sit and watch it. It made fights with guys that I knew already and maybe weren't overly excited for, but I was like, it just looks so good. I mean, how much they zoomed

in with the cameras when they're fighting against the cage, like it was well shot, well presented, not having a busy screen played a big part. The graphics pop, they were perfect. And also I got to say like in the past, they would integrate Jonathan Coachman and Ian Parker, but bring them in on like fuzzy Skype feeds. I like when they brought Parker down between fights to the announced team and talked about the odds. I liked having Jonathan Coachman walk around the arena and talk about the fan base chairing for fighters or doing the sit down interviews.

And did they do too much of essentially the same personality preview packages? Yes, but think about this. We complained often that they don't utilize what they have. They don't push the stars forward, that the smart cage is the most famous member of their fight roster. At least they're trying to show you that these guys can be stars. I mean, I wanna ask you about that main event in a second in terms of the fight

itself. But Jason Jackson is 34 years old from Jamaica. Look, he's won nine of his last 10 overall. And if you look at the names he beat, he may have lost the Bellator title in his last fight in Ireland in June of last year, but outside of that, he beat Jordan Meehan, Benson Henderson, Neiman Gracie, Paul Daly, Douglas Lima,

knocked out Yaroslav Amasov when he was unbeaten to win the title, stopped Ray Cooper III, and now goes in there and dominates and puts away a strong former champion in Koreshkov. That is the type of guy they should be pushing, and they did that. So I'm going to sit here and do this. I mean, I do still have a larger problem, even though they took this convoluted regular season playoff thing and made, I guess, the right decision in making it single elimination, easier to understand. You know who fights who. I like that they brought in the next fighter to do the face off.

That's all good. I guess my only issue connected to that is really like, where does it lead? The winner kind of maybe gets a title shot, maybe, in a champion series. What is a champion? We still have too many belts and I still feel like I'm not sure where it leads. But for an opening statement after they've taken nothing but a PR beating in recent months and a lot of it was deserved. Yeah, they kind of made me want to tune in next time and see what other fighters that I would normally would dismiss might actually have both good stories and have good fights on this level. So Luke, let's hit that main event. One final point if I may though to

challenge that like don't get me wrong. I fully cosign having Ian Parker there was great coachman with the mic and moving around was great. They had a backstage reporter a woman. I don't know her name, but she she's like the reporter for the Washington Nationals. So I've seen her a million times in the local market. I forget her name whatever, but know, they all of those pieces I enjoyed my point. My challenge to PFL would be this. I absolutely think that telling these guys stories is important, but I'm a little bit like gonna call bullshit on it because I'm sorry to tell you this,

but the PFL media, like the PFL PR people,'re nice people but like as a posture PFL is disdainful of media Yeah, like the only person that they had doing media was Sean O'Connell on Aerial show and that was fucking it. They don't pitch people when they do. It's a bullshit pitch I'm sorry to say I brought us up a million times. They had Francis here They had Jake Paul here. Nobody could talk to them. When you ask why they don't ever have an answer, they're not good about getting their fighters in front of people who can tell their story. So then by the time the fights come around, they have to shove it all in there. And you know, some of that is great, but it becomes a little bit much.

So I think having a different media strategy can alleviate some of that pressure a little bit to just stuff so much into the broadcast. That's it. I agree. Also, what can help them is taking their actual best fighters and and put them in featured in this tournament but that's my opinion. It's neither here nor there. Let's talk about Jason Jackson. I mentioned the larger run he has been on even though he did

technically lose the Bellator title last year against a guy's name who I can't pronounce. Uh what's that fella Ramazan Kura Magomedov. So, I guess I can't pronounce it. Luke, he? Ramazan Kura Magomedov. So I guess I can't pronounce it. Luke, he's beating a lot of people and he looked like the better fighter against the guy who I've always loved to watch in Koreshkov. And now, and we're going to talk about the guy he's going to face in the next round, they've actually created an even better fight coming up. How impressed were you with Jason Jackson in that main event? So how do I say this? It's not like I didn't see anything... okay the only stuff I saw from Jason Jackson in terms of

what he was trying and blah blah blah none of it was bad I mean he pressed the Koreshkov up against the fence for a long time in the first round and that was a little annoying but he didn't look bad at all he looked good for as much as we saw it. But BC, like we just have to say it, man, and I know this fucking sounds like a broken record. To be clear, it's definitely not a UFC problem. It's an MMA problem. Jason Jackson is up against the fence with Koreshkov, uses I think a Kusoto hook to pull him off and then take him down and he has an arm over him and Koreshkov is in turtle and he L's excuse me else He lands an elbow on him that cuts him in the back of the head

He gets the full five minutes to recover, but he doesn't really actually recover because basically right after that or not long after that Anyway, he takes him down passes to mount and then closes Closes the freaking show and my point is like Keith Peterson didn't take a point called an accidental foul which like I don't even I mean who could give a shit less if it's accidental when it's that impactful a clear unequivocal shot to the back of the head I don't think Jason Jackson is a dirty fighter that's absolutely not my point but that was that was a negligent shot. He shouldn't have thrown it. It was too heavy.

It had an obvious impact on the fight. And I'm sorry to say this, but Koreshkov was done wrong by Keith Peterson. Koreshkov, we have yet another main event, BC, where a foul of consequence happens and the referees just sit there and look at it like, you know, like like a people on the New York City subway when a homeless person is going crazy And they just don't want any part of it. They just pretend it's not even happening like I'm so fucking tired of it It is an epidemic at this point and it affected the results of this fight. There's simply no other way to say it That's a very fair point. I didn't emphasize that be because he they gave him so much time, but you're right

It was you know And it's possible that Dom Cruz was right about Keith Peterson smelling like cold cuts and cheap women, but that was a big time fail. But Luke, were you not entertained on the idea of who this guy will fight next? Because in the featured prelim bow before that on ESPN plus, how do we say it? Thad or Tad? No, my understanding is it's Thad, Thad Gene. Thad Gene in one round against Mukhamad Berkemov,

who's good by the way, and had a big fan base there. And dude, that combination that he landed to knock him down and then finish him with strikes. Nine and oh is Thad Gene. Holy crap, is he fighting out of Haiti too? Like that's Gaff Piers guy right there. I think he's fighting out of South Florida, but do he, I saw him on the mic. He, he talked to the, uh, the other, the roving reporter, the one who was from the Washington Nats again, forgive me. I don't remember her name. He's interesting on the mic dynamic fun. That was such a huge win. Burcomov is a, excuse me. I always fuck up

his name. Uh, where is it here on this thing? Oh yeah. Uh, Burcomov is a, a me, I always fuck up his name. Where is it here on this thing? Oh yeah, Burkhamov is a, or was anyway, an ACB champ, which is like perhaps the most prestigious kind of semi-regional-ish internationalist title you can get out of Russia. It's a very, very legitimate promotion in terms of like the kind of talent they recruit and then develop.

Dude, Burkhamov is a good fighter and Gene, it's just kind of talent they recruit and then develop. Do he, Burkhanov is a good fighter and Gene, it's just kind of funny. Both Gene and Jesus Pinedo got good stoppages based off of straights and then those check hooks or the, I should say the hook that comes behind it, both of them did it off the exact same kind of, not full setup, but execution anyway, and great finishing instincts, great shot that he landed.

Uh, and then, you know, they had that awesome face off between them. I'm pumped for that fight. And when they, when they locked horns, Gene after the KO just kind of stood over the guy and screamed. I was like, yeah, well, dude, he filled in on short notice. Like he was not supposed to be in this tournament to begin with. And now he's fucking in the semis against Jason Jackson. Like this is working out perfectly for him.

It's a good development. Now they did have, they were supposed to have 2024 welterweight tournament finalist, Magomed Yuma Latov in this, but he missed weight by 2.6 pounds on Wednesday. They pulled him from the tournament. Joseph Luciano got the replacement spot. Adam Storley kind of wrestle F'd him over three rounds to advance.

But look, in that co-main event, the 2023 PFL featherweight champion, Jesus Pinedo came in there against a guy we know very well from Bellator and respect, Adam Borich. Dude, he put it on him and this was Pinedo coming back after a year and a half off and he needed less than four minutes to brutalize Boric. I was impressed with that performance. Oh, I was absolutely impressed with that performance. Adam Boric is a very, very good fighter and he got, he got kind of worked by Hazes. Dude, Hazes Pinedo fights with fucking attitude.

He marches down guys and not, not in like a super reckless way but certainly in aggressive way and he also was going for that straight hook straight hook and he he would actually go hook straight hook and they actually was the third of those that ended up landing in those combinations and do what I love about this. What I freaking love about this is this is gonna be the rubber match with uh Gabriel Braga. So Braga beat him by split the first time then they rematched and then he wiped the floor with Braga. I think he stopped him in the second or the third.

That was the 2023 final by the way. Yes. Exactly. And so now they're going to meet again in the rubber match and do they also had a super fiery awesome face off. Dude, these guys that won in Jean and Braga to an extent too, but certainly in this case of Hazel's Panadeau, dude, these guys fight with attitude, they fight with personality, like, what they would, this is kind of what PFL needs, they need rivalries, they need bigger, you know, they need they need guys who have memorable action friendly styles. And, you know, they need memorable personalities and identities, too. That's, I think the part of the media strategy that's missing but

in terms of like getting I'll say this in terms of getting favorable results to set up interesting semis and finals if you're the PFL this morning you have to be very happy with how all of that turned out especially since some of this was on last-minute notice for guys John. Yeah please don't remove parts of your rib cage and start blowing yourself but you did well right there and Gabriel Braga on that preliminary card had a first round submission neck crank of Federik Dupras. So also on that fight Braga nearly got submitted with a guillotine choke and had to like gut that one out and then as soon as he did he was able to reverse position get the back and then close the show so a good gut check

performance by him too if I do say so myself. And in the opener of that main card, Luke, that was a pretty gnarly fight. Jeremy Kennedy, the Bellator veteran against Mavlid Kibulyev. And it would become a split decision, 29-28 in either way. Kennedy looked like they had stolen his best girl afterwards. He was incredulous after that decision. Do you think the judges got it right? I kind of liked the elbows and the striking of Kennedy better,

but it was a good back and forth. I thought Havelayev was... I'll say this. When the fight was over, I was like, I think Havelayev is likely to take it based on what the judges prefer, but I don't think Kennedy is crazy to say that the, he did more meaningful work between them. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Damn dude, I know I keep hitting this point, but I just wish they combine the rosters and put everybody in the tournament and created champions at the end of it. Because I want to see Pitbull in here. I want to see Yaroslav Amasov, who's now a free agent and trying to get to the UFC. I know there's financial considerations based on how Coker was paying them more,

but like with this structure with this presentation now, it's better. Put your best fighters in there. Corey Anderson should be in there in my opinion more and more blah, blah, blah. Luke, any other matchups you cared about on here or no? I'm trying to look up and down this one that we saw here. The Kiku Iri fight against Bachara was not very good. you cared about on here or no? I'm trying to look up and down this one that we saw here. The Kiku Iri fight against Bachara was not very good and then the Taehyung Kim against Nathan Kelly, he dropped him with a good shot then choked him out. That was actually pretty good. Little again, dude, nice little card by PFL. No question about it. They they're listening.

Let's see more. I got to do. I do have to play a piece of sound. Sean O'Connell yesterday before the card was on the area. Hawani show to preview it and did kind of call out fans and media for being negative. Now this was before they had the card and the card seemed to raise PFL's a goodwill and profile in the MMA space, but I want to play this sound and get your reaction to it because I like Sean O'Connell a lot, but here's him standing up for the brand. The source of frustration for me, Ariel, when it comes to the way the PFL is treated in the MMA space is I know how hard people are working to try to do it right in the PFL.

I see the behind the scenes stuff. I know the individuals personally who are trying to make things happen and trying to jump through the right hoops and things like that. I also know that I can go find as many loud complaints about boxing, about the UFC, about rule changes in the NFL whatever from fans and they get so disproportionately amplified those complaints when you're talking about the PFL because you know, we're right now we're the little brother that's trying to make a space for itself and himself herself and We're trying to carve out this niche and it's like people don't want it to happen and It's crazy because if you love the sport of mixed martial arts

you should want there to be more mixed martial arts and more places for fighters to go get paid and I don't know why the fan base and the media are not championing alternative causes more Criticize us when we need to be criticized criticize me if you think I'm calling fights wrong or I say something I shouldn't have said please do because you know I want us to be held accountable and at a very high I want us to be you know At a very high level and hopefully someday on par and past Um the the industry standard that's set by the ufc But man, it doesn't feel like in a lot of cases people are rooting for success here. And I know that I am.

Now, look, if he's talking specifically at UFC fans, and this is somewhat similar to like in pro wrestling, when people are like WWE only, we hate everything else we want it, we chair for it to lose, then is there some of that in the fan base? I'm sure. But as much as I really like Sean O'Connell and actually think he does a great job, I don't know if the media has been extra harsh. Like Don Davis has given us plenty of reason to be there.

They're they're convoluted format, you know, and, and, and their resistance to change until now has, has been justified to criticize in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, I like Sean O'Connell too. I think he does a great job at PFL, but it's like, also you're paid to like them. It's not like you're, you know what I mean, I like Sean O'Connell too. I think he does a great job at PFL, but it's like also you're paid to like them. It's not like you're, you know what I mean? Like I'm not mad at him for it, but let's not act like, Oh, I'm in partially cheering for PFL.

You get a paycheck from him, bro. Like, come on. Okay. Uh, but that aside, I do think he does a fantastic job and I, you know, I think the PFL is better for having him, but you know, PFL, like like listen for anyone from PFL watching like see how far blaming media and the fans gets you like what are we fucking talking about here you know I mean like like one of the big challenges that even with last night and which has been a problem with their product is like Don Davis cares more about his audience on

LinkedIn that he does building a bond and a bridge to MMA fans. I mean, part of the reason why they're in a studio is because they can't sell fucking tickets to any kind of reasonable degree. I mean, you can get, you know, 2000 or if you're lucky in DC, which is where PFL is technically where the guys are from, the leadership, you know what I mean? Like if you're, if you you're his relationships are to investors, his relationships are the people who are raising money for him, he doesn't have a relationship to the fan base. And then you

wonder why the fan base is like super aggressively against you don't have a relationship to them. What the fuck are you talking about? So like this is a silly ass argument to me. And more to the point, there was a lot of problems with the product. Now again, we just said today was, or last night anyway, was a great turnaround. I thought this was, okay, this is a very auspicious beginning of something that they could do well. But at the same time, like, you know, you guys can lecture media all you want about how mean they are. you can lecture fans all you want about, that's

not gonna save you. If you want to survive to the extent possible, you have to convince fans to like you. And if you want media to cover you in a favorable way, you have to make it worth their while. And right now, for all of the very good things that PFL is starting to do, they don't do any of that shit. So a nice long look in the mirror has already helped them. I would recommend doing a little bit more. I know, because the point goes back to what I keep harping on, the convoluted nature.

It's like, you've got Paul Hughes, AJ McKee, these type of guys, I feel like they should be featured in everything that you do. If you're gonna do tournaments, if that's what you feel is your best way, then put your best talent there. So Luke, we have one more piece from Sean, and I think it's important to hear it

because I'm still not really sure what the winners of these tournaments get. What is their champion series? They have too many series, too many titles, this whole English Premier League of MMA type of idea. Let's hear from Sean and see if we can make sense of it. We know that it used to be like a season thing. You win the tournament, you become the champion.

Now with PFL absorbing Bellator, I thought Dakota Deceva would just be the flyway champion. Usman Armagomedov would just be the lightweight champion. The biggest name available would then become the champion if they're already holding some kind of title. It's a very easy transition. That doesn't seem to have happened. Can you clear this up for us? Here's the way that I see it working out. Here's the way that it's been described for me.

We have the World Tournament. You bring in a bunch of great fighters from all over the globe. You put them in an Olympic format. You say, win, and you move on to the next thing. And if you win the tournament, you're going to be the PFL World Tournament champion. There's going to be a belt associated with that. And ostensibly, if you've proven enough through that process, you're going to move on to the

PFL Champion Series fights, which is where you will find Dakota Ditch of a Living Now, which is where you're going to find Us of a living now, which is where you're gonna find Usman Ramagamedov living now. And so if you win the 2025 Lightweight World Tournament, the dubious honor that you get after that is you gotta go and you gotta fight somebody like Usman Ramagamedov, or maybe Paul Hughes can wrest that belt away from him when they rematch one another.

But this is going to be the world tournament. And my understanding is going to be something that builds you into being the number one contender for the champion series belt. Look, it felt like he, he didn't really fully get it either. And I went on their website, trying not to be a hater. There's no champions listed. Like I feel like that's a big fail. We should know right away because I want them like I'm not cheering against them. Am I cheering against Don Davis after he claims that they're already you know, 1A competing with UFC? Yeah, you can't say stuff like that. I'm cheering against the format, but I want to know who their best fighters are know when they're fighting next. And you know, I guess this tournament will inevitably produce that but

we don't even know is Usman the Bellator champion or the PFL champion? And the fact that fans and media don't know this, that's holding them back more than anything in my opinion. I don't have much to add. I think that's a great, great point that you're making. I completely co-sign. Once again, they're learning this lesson slowly, but less is more. Less is more. I know that they feel like they need to differentiate. There are ways to differentiate where you can add a little bit of spice, a little bit of heat, a little bit of a twist. But to your point, if I don't even know who your best fighters are

and I don't even know which designation that they hold, what the fuck are we doing, guys? You know, all right. And we got a tweet here from Patchy Mix yesterday, which says, and you can argue he might be, you know, one of the three best fighters in their organization coming off the longest layoff of my career, been working harder than ever to perform when given the chance. I just want to compete exclamation point. It shouldn't be unknown to him when he's coming back, who he's fighting and what the stakes and circumstance and you could say, oh, well, you could have had,

you know, Pachy Mix fighting the main event last night, right, spice it up a little bit. But then they have, they're doing a Bellator, or sorry, Bellator, they're doing a Bantamweight tourney, and they don't have the available guys. So now he's unavailable, and now we're back to the same, or the contenders are unavailable, so you're back to the same problem.

This is what I mean, guys, less is more, focus, streamline, promote. Less is more. Focus, streamline, promote and create stars. That's what the UFC is not hardly trying that much. It's a big opportunity for you. I know. The time is now. UFC is making us dislike them on so many levels lately. The opening is there to do something easy, simple, cool, and you'll get our attention. Dude, like, the fans are complaining that they're not prioritized by the UFC. If you're PFL, I know you guys love investors. I know you love Excel spreadsheets.

I know you love PowerPoint, probably a lot of canvas subscriptions in that PFL office, but I've got news for you. The path to sustainability is creating a relationship to the fans. You got to fix that first. There it is. We'll go to vice right there there but congratulations PFL just the same on a good night. By the way, Cortavius Romeus missed weight. So, I was just gonna bring that up. I'm breaking

news. Uh he missed weight for that Bantam weight bout against Chang Ho Lee who has not weighed in yet. Romeo's came in at 139.5. So, that's a substantial miss right there. We'll see. Fantastic. There it is. All right, Luke. I'm wondering though, given that we're, you know, it's not March anymore. It's early April, but the whole idea that March mania is on fire right now is a true

fact. Page buckets and the Yukon women are back tonight. Luke, that matters in my state. I don't know about yours, but if our fans are ready to win real money during this March mania tourney Then I got something for them if you're struggling to choose which team will pull off the big upset here Forget about the teams all you need to focus on our player stats to rack up big cash prizes with DraftKings pick six And when it comes to massive payouts DraftKings dunks all over the competition

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You can turn your March mania knowledge into cash right now today. And here's the kicker new players can get $50 and pick six credits Instantly with only a five dollar entry Luke Thomas tell him about it. All right Here's what you guys are gonna do everything BC said is accurate. This is your next step This is your call to action ready? Here we go What you guys are gonna do is you're gonna download the DraftKings Pick6 app now and use the code COMBAT. Of course, that's going to be COMBAT

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Bonus awarded as non-withdrawable Pick Six credits that expire in 14 days limited time offer. See terms at pick six dot draft kings dot com slash promos. Look before we get to topic five, I just wanted to pick your brain very quickly on two things one that's CGI to bout that was announced between Craig Jones and Gable Stevenson. I wasn't sure if that was a joke. That's real, right? Let's really happen. I am told that is real. Do you like that? That's kind of interesting to me

um Gable steves is a complicated figure because like as an athletic prospect you just can't be anything but excited But he also appears to be a terrible person. So I don't really know how to answer that question. You know what I mean? You don't think hanging out with john jones and training with him makes him. All right. Enough of that BS. I'll also, you know, I dunked on the UFC meta deal because it just means more suck in our life, but I did get a lot of fans pushing back and being like, you don't want the sport to advance across very popular, you know, social media channels.

Is there a potential plus here, even outside of the stupid ratings debate? And now meta AI is going to fix our ratings issues. Even though no one actually knows the journalists that they're all no-name guys who aren't really employed who actually do these rankings and seem to be forced to do them under the UFC's rules, which keeps Kamara Usman in the top five at welterweight. Is there any pluses that you see coming out of this or is

this just another way that Ari Emanuel will get rich? Yeah. I mean, I just can't believe how gullible people are like they think this is like a real serious genuine thing rather than a business entanglement to receive favorable treatment from our government. I know I know people don't want to hear this but it really I mean like you just have to be naive to think that this is like they they were sitting around and they were thinking of ways in which they wanted to

enhance the fan experience. And they thought, you know what, let's get a company that is facing antitrust pressures that we just put Dana White, or Dana White was just put on the board of it for like, really no one for reasons like really no one even understands, because that itself doesn't make sense but like clearly it is a play to entangle their business as a long-term protection effort against you know various or I should say to you know you can't stop obviously some of these efforts but to hedge their bets is probably the best way to put it about government interference I mean it's not to say that there's like nothing that was proposed you know those Ray-Ban glasses and seeing that kind of stuff as like fighters walk out, that's kind of cool, I suppose. There's some different technology

that's available in terms of like getting a 360 view of the cage if they end up going that direction. The AI rankings part, I don't even know what to say, that's a real change. It remains to be seen if that's any good, but I would just caution everyone, like what does Meta produce that's very good? They bought Instagram. That's not a thing that they ever developed on their own. They bought WhatsApp. That's not a thing that they developed on their own. The metaverse is a complete and total flop in every possible way. Those Ray-Ban glasses are kind of cool, but a limited

technological influence over everything. It's a very, very big company in part because they've been able to avoid regulatory scrutiny. This is just a way to enmesh their businesses as a protection scheme. Like, oh, they're gonna have an fan activation on threads. Well, shiver me fucking timbers. Wow, what a vast improvement to the fan experience. You want to improve the fan experience, pay the fighters enough that you can make the big fights and you can recruit high level athletes to want to come participate.

And, uh, to make the, I mean, there's ways to make the fan experience better that have nothing to do with. Mark Zuckerberg's stupid ass glasses. That is such a limited window into things. So do I take it seriously? Let me be as clear as I possibly can be. No, because I'm not gullible. Thanks.

Well, wow. Well said. as clear as I possibly can be. No, because I'm not gullible. Thanks. Well said. Final piece, Luke. I got an email, like a press email today, that had quotes from Eric Bischoff, the former WCW wrestling head about some interview he gave. He's claiming he heard that Vince McMahon

is currently talking with BKFC. And if people don't know, the disgraced Vince McMahon, who still has trial coming up in that Janelle Grant case. He has been rumored to be putting a lot of money together and looking at first there was talk of him doing something in pro wrestling on Fox and doing something in this space. Could you imagine if BKFC has Connor and Vince in the bullpen working for them? Is there anything to that? Is this the weirdest news you ever heard? Who are they missing? Mother Teresa? I mean, that's really, let's get warm machine up with the bullpen. But like, seriously, like, what the hell is that Luke?

I mean, to, you know, to be KFC's credit, they're probably spending a lot of money. They probably need an investor. Vince might like that. You know, it is a, it is a BKFC is a real alternative for MMA fans, so to speak, in terms of, uh, you know, another combat sport that is like MMA adjacent, but not MMA. Um, so, you know, there's, it's not together. It's not, it's not crazy to think that that would, could be a partnership that works, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah. All the female fighters should wear hair nuts from here on out.

All right, look, there you go. Hey, let's get into topic number five. It is the weekend boxing preview. And while there's no slam dunk pay-per-view or super fight this weekend, there are four boxing cards of note from Tim Tzu's comeback to Jana Beck's Kazakhstan homecoming to US Olympian Richard Torres Jr.

getting his first top ranked main event. And oh, how about that UK heavyweight clash between Joe Joyce and Philip Ergovich? Luke, is there a fighter storyline of the above that tickles your fancy the most this weekend in terms of you carrying? Yeah, there's definitely a few of these that I care about.

So let's, okay, I don't care about all of them. The Torres fight against Vianelo or Vianayo, I'm not sure how you pronounce it, is not interesting to me at all. Can I be honest about that? Okay, I don't care about all of them. The Torres fight against Vianello or Vianello, I'm not sure how you pronounce it, is not interesting to me at all. Can I be honest about that? I don't care. I don't care even a little bit about that one.

So, although it's competitive, reasonably speaking, nor do I care about the Jannebch fight, and not that much, right? However, the first two you listed are quite interesting. Tim Tzu is taking on Joey Spencer. Tim Tzu was a big acquisition for PBC. And I think still has a possibility of turning this around, but holy shit, it has not gone according to plan at all.

So you could be forgiving, obviously, with the loss to Fundora, because he had the cut on the top of his head. It was an absolute bloodbath. But that was surprising for PBC and certainly unwelcome. But that really wasn't the problem. The problem was, what was the guy's name? Or Zalia? Baccaro Mertesale. Yeah, then he loses badly to Baccaro Mertesale. You have in

a fight that was supposed to be a walk over for the guy. And now you just don't even know where he is now granted Keith Thurman kind of one and there. So they're saying for PBC, they're building a star in that direction and You know God only knows what could happen there, but they're just trying to rehabilitate this guy Joey Spencer is not a great fighter, but he's a decent fighter So this is a fight that Tim's who should win it's back in Australia And by the way, Joey Spencer was kind of objecting because all three judges are gonna be Australian Which I'm told unless it's like a world title fight. That's not necessarily uncommon

They do try to you know mix them up like from all different geographic. They did fix it, by the way, they did adhere to his complaints, even though Zeus had publicly, don't worry, we won't need the judges in this fight. They did fix it. All right. So you get my point. Like there's been a little bit of controversy about it, but Tim Zou needs a win. Bad. So, yeah, let's stay here with this fight for a second. Zou will be a minus 800 favorite against Spencer, who's plus 500. Now, Spencer is a pretty good fighter, a former PBC prospect. He does only have one defeat, but it was a stoppage loss to Jesus Ramos Jr. in a prospect versus prospect fight.

Like, look, it's tough. Zou's 30 or 31 years old, one of the two. Those are disastrous losses last year. But I do think, not excuses, but everything you said is true. It's like he was on his way to knock in Fundora out, who by the way was a late replacement for Thurman, until that cut changed it. And I guess you have to give credit where credit's due for Zoo for gutting it out, not asking out of that fight and nearly winning it. He only lost by split decision. What the murder Zalia fight whether his father being ringside for the first time since his pro debut as they fix their

strange relationship mattered or not dude. He walked into the same punch over and over again with no defense no head movement. So while that was awful and bad. I think it's fixable because don't forget when Tim Tzu made his US debut on Showtime against Terrell Gaucher, he did the same thing. He got into what he calls Terminator mode off the start and he got dropped in discipline in the first round by Gaucher but finally adjusted. I do think there's an argument to make that Tim throws away the game plan too quickly and just goes to war. There is a window though where he can turn this around and Spencer is the type of opponent who can be tough enough if Zou's not the same guy. I mean look should we have concern about the amount

of punishment he took in the last year? Yeah that was terrible. It's been terrible. The cut and the blood I have less concern about but definitely against Murtazaliev. He got rocked. How many times did he get dropped? Three times? Yeah. Yeah. But I think even four, it was just, I called that fight. It was rude.

They had to throw the towel to stop the shit because it was just awful. Like, you know, Joey Spencer is not that kind of a puncher. So it's obviously a more manageable risk, but dude, Tim's a, and I want to point out something too, you're like the Fundora fight was close. You're right. But like even that was not expected to be that close because Brian Mendoza had sent Fendora crashing to the mat with one of the best knockouts of that previous year.

And then Mendoza fought Zou and Zou smoked him like, or beat him easily with a decision win. Like, you know, had him beat up real bad. So you're like, oh, you know, we don't want to play too much boxing math, but he should go in there and win. And he got fucked up, you know? So, so this is a, this is a real precarious moment for Tim Zoo.

Yeah. Zoo's main promoter, no limit boxing in Australia will be putting on this card, but PBC will air it on prime video, non pay-per-view of course, in prime time live in the U S on Saturday nights. You can check that out. Uh, here's Tim Zoo talking about the lessons learned against Murtazaliev. And as you mentioned, Luke, it looks like he'll be fighting Keith Thurman in July. If he wins on Saturday, is it hard to see the fight again?

Like to look back at it? Yeah, to a certain extent, to a certain extent. But you know what? When I when I rewatched it, there was a lot of lessons learned and I watched it from a tactical point of view and it was different. I got hit with a shot that I shouldn't have been hit with, you know, and I've learned my whole life to defend it in a certain way and stuff like was, I've been here with shots, but usually I'm recovered and, and, and stuff like that.

But I don't know. I wasn't able to recover myself this time. I don't know what it was exactly. Um, could have been the rehydration stuff and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, it wasn't ideal. And, but yeah, you live in your loan. Don't get caught with it again. He got caught with it consistently. We have a quick uh face off between the two of

them. We can talk over at Luke. Uh if he loses here, it it really might be over in terms of an elite level but uh a little bit of a dad out there or no from zoo on the right. He's never been exactly you know Ronnie Coleman Ronnie Coleman. Uh, all right. Yeah. I never see workout gloves on them. You're right. Oh yeah. Uh, but, uh, you know, I think he should be fine.

All right. There we go. That is Saturday night, PBC and no limit. Can I bring that to you, Luke? You mentioned the other fight that you will care about. It goes down Saturday afternoon on the zone. So Joe Joyce, who to be fair, when he was a prospect prospect he was like 35 years old but this is a man who KO Daniel Dubois and Joseph Parker until a recent run of three losses in

four fights which included two bad knockout losses to Big Bang Zhang now at age 39 he's gonna try to come back in a big fight and put it all together Filip Ergovic is in front of himgovich was previously undefeated until he got stopped by Dandle Dubois last year for the vacant IBF heavyweight title after Usyk was stripped because he chose that immediate rematch with Tyson Fury. So Luke, here's the real question right now, brother. Is Joe Joyce washed? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't think so until his last fight. I don't think he can take a punch. And here's the thing. Dubois, remember that that win by Dubois over Ergovich was important for two reasons. One because it was just a quality win. But the other one was like Ergovich was kind of putting it on him a little bit. Like he was landing big punches and Dubois had to kind of take it and

roll with it and then storm back a little bit later in that one winning by TKO in the eighth. So that was like a very, very impressive win, but make no mistake, like Ergovich was, it was handling him a little bit early. And as you mentioned, has beaten Big Bang Zhang and was undefeated up until that Dubois win hasn't fought since. So it's been a year here. He is back, but Joyce do you see, you know, you know, boxing certainly better than I do, but my assessment about all of that is his ability to take a punch has been

badly diminished and Ergovich is both skilled from an amateur perspective and then on top of it, he can punch. I mean, it's not the most devastating puncher I think in that division. That's not what I'm saying, but he could certainly, he can certainly cause serious problems. So I don't, what are the odds? I think they have them here in the, uh, Joe Joyce plus two 75, the underdog minus 370 is Ergovic and don't forget you mentioned Joyce's last fight that was at 10 round war with old bass Derek Jussora and he took a beating in that one. Exactly. So this is what I'm saying. I'm surprised

the odds are that close. I get that Ergovic has been off for a while and that Dubois loss was surprising, but I think Ergovic should win here. Excuse me. I think Ergovic should win here. I'll say if he Ergovic should win here. I'll say if he loses, that would be very surprising and would be a huge redemption for Joe Joyce. But I just don't think it's in the cards. Well, there's an undercard bout on this Joyce Ergovic card and at the press conference this week, it got wild. Let's look in on this piece of business.

Trust me, bro. I really live it. Trust me, bro. I really live it. Trust me, Jamie. **** **** ****

**** **** Look, I get down for that. Alright, I didn't know the guy's names. You know, that's how all dinners look in the BC household right there. Yes. Yes. Yes. There you go.

Yeah. So Jana Beck will bring his unified middleweight title in a Kazakh homecoming on ESPN plus. He's a minus 1100 betting favorite against a fella named Anuwal Nagmasengwue. Sorry for that seizure. And as we mentioned, Richard Torres Jr., who is 12 and 0 with 11 KOs, has only fought fat white guys. Luke, this is considered a step up. He'll be a minus 250 favorite when he headlines in Vegas

against plus 200 Guido Vianello, the Italian who has decent experience against good names. I don't think Torres is bad, but we're still not at the stage where I'm like, you know, get excited. We're not there yet. I'm with you. He's a Southpaw He's got a porn star mustache. He's a little bit weird, but he can think and punch a little bit

We'll find out with the box this week a long out look you don't care about any of these from a betting standpoint, right? No, to be honest, I Was going down my row he long out Luke is like the quintessential MMA fan. It's like oh you like combat sports, right? Nope, just MMA fuck off. Nope. I also like I was working all fan. It's like, oh, you like combat sports, right? Nope. Just MMA. Fuck off. Nope. I also like, I was working all week. I wasn't really on top of the news. I'm just giving you shit, but it's kind of funny. All right. It's time for our fan segments

to close today's episode. Morningcombat.gmail.com is your chance to reach out to Mikey and touch someone. Just be nice with it. So full disclosure here. Mikey said we only had three fans this week and they were all 911 related. So, uh he made the the judgment call to uh to not to

not run those this week. Are our fans hitting you up and being like, hey, can you show us the fans subs now that you couldn't show on MK and I wanna be as clear as I possibly can. They'll never see the light of day, okay? can you show us the fansubs now that you couldn't show on MK? And I want to be as clear as I possibly can. They'll never see the light of day. Okay. Not from us anyway. I'll put that. Yeah. Unless they put them on that Reddit page, but that's on them. All right. So we won't have fansubs, but please, if you care, put some in for next week. We do have though a few dead wrongs where we take the stand because not everything we say is well-researched or even accurate. Sometimes we're just shitting out of our mouth, but you better come original.

You better have timestamps. This one's called Dead Wrong. Do we know whose voice that is? Is that Kev? No, I think it's like AI. I don't even know. AI voice. All right, here we go.

Hey, our first Dead Wrong is from Marcus. What's up, Donkelberry Finn and Donk Sawyer? I'm a have you whitewashed MFers painting fences all day with this one. At 38 minutes and 51 seconds of last week's episode, y'all devoted a whole ass segment to sharing your personal top five pound for pound welterweight rankings. Let me say that again, pound for pound welterweight rankings. Maybe it's the booze or maybe it's the green, but y'all got to be some shit. Think in thinking that you can have a pound for pound ranking list of fighters in the same damn weight class. Yeah. The only thing more egregious than this verbal misstep was having to listen to BC's completely asinine take on Ian Machado gangbang. Go ahead and collect your L on the way to painting this fence with love from the Midwest. It's Marcus. Luke, I'd love to

dunk back on Marcus, but he did. He came original. I mean, he brought it. Also Mark Twain, big lover of the N word. It turned out in high school. I learned that. Wow. So Luke, technically it was wrong for me to say pound for pound cause they are all the same. You were using pound for pound as like, you know, all time, you know, all time best Walter weights, right? No, I, I, I said, let's rank our, our Walter weights in a pound for pound ranking because I was using essentially the criteria that I believe is most important in pound for pound rankings, which is ultimately like what is their stock right now and

would they beat each other head to head? Oh, yes. And that's right. That's right. Yes. It made sense to me. But yes, technically Marcus, I will take that L. There we go. Number two comes to us from Gabriel. Hey, dogs, mild dead wrong for LT on his Espanol this Monday for MK. LT was half right. And that some spouse sounds in Spanish are not fully enunciated than natural speech. So sometimes the G sound is so soft that when spoken, it disappears. Because of that though, BC is actually fire to a pronounced squad.

A Lahara as water Lahhara because in natural speech that is essentially how the word sounds. You can enunciate the G but how BC said it is actually pretty natural and didn't really need to be corrected. Not sure if that's specifically a Mexican thing, maybe a regional dialect. Some other words with the soft G are agua and gooey. Well, also like just you know, so it's so okay. So I'm learning this. So like it G depending on what it comes before will have different pronunciations. Obviously, it can be like GE would be Geraldo, right? So it just

depends on what's in front of it but like guacamole. I've just never heard anybody say guacamole. You know what I mean? Well, I have but not gringos but real people. He's they say unfortunately, I'm around Latin. I've just never heard anybody say guacamole. You know what I mean? Well, I have, but not gringos, but real people. They say, unfortunately. I'm around Latin, I've been around Spanish speakers every day of my life. Not one of them says guacamole, motherfucker. Well, it doesn't have something to do with the true difference between pronunciation between different Spanish speaking countries. Yes, absolutely. That's what I mentioned to you before.

They'll say certain things so softly that you're like, are they even saying it? You know, I was doing it Mexico style about a Mexican city showing respect for the fine Mexican people. I think we have to meet in the middle on this one. Yeah. It's like, hold on. I got to interrupt you to I'm just saying when they teach it, because I've taken classes on this, when they teach it, they don't teach it guacamole or what a Lahara.

They may say it that way, but they teach it guacamole Guadalajara. Gabriel goes on to say, unfortunately for LT clapping, Latina cheeks does not make you fluent in Spanish. Wow. I've, I've never claimed to be good at Spanish. Never, never, never. All jokes aside, MK all day. Love y'all. It's Gabriel. And his source is that he is a full-blooded Mexican with roots in Guadalajara, so there you go. All right, Luke's took a half L a half. I'll take that half L I'll take it. All right. Daz is ready to what Luke Daz back up on that ass and give these motherfuckers a blast from the past

Aloha donks in light of the disagreement on the pronunciation of Saka Kibara around an hour and 13 minutes, and as an ethnically Japanese person, Daz says, I would like to weigh in. In Japanese, generally, all syllables are given the same level of emphasis, meaning syllables are not emphasized the same way as they are in English.

Thus, Luke was more correct, wow, in his pronunciation of Sokka Kibara because he did it with less syllabalic emphasis. BT's preferential pronunciation of Sokka Kibara places too much emphasis on certain syllables and broke the pronunciation up in an awkward way. In this case Lt is more right and bc is incorrect. I'm sorry if this is too pedantic I figured if we are discussing the pronunciation of water lahara, then we can try to get these japanese names pronounced correctly as well Mahalo, it's daz. All right

Well, I respect what daz is saying and I respect the root of what he's saying being that he is of the Japanese persuasion there and knows the pronunciations. I have to say though what I forgot to say and I should have said it during that episode was I hosted that Ryan Garcia press conference in December of which Saki Kabara was there and I asked his very well-known translator slash matchmaker guy from back in the pride days who was kind of representing him there because sake kabars English is is Not limited. Yeah, and that's how they told me to say it sake or or I guess soccer kabara All I was saying to you is there's no chance in hell. It's Sakaki there's no chance. There's not even a remote chance

I mean, it sounds like neither of us were all that close but not that far either But I didn't realize that they didn't have, like, so for example, as you know, in Spanish, like if you see an accent, that's where you put the emphasis. I didn't realize that Japanese, I mean, obviously Japanese is very different language than Spanish, but I didn't know that they did or didn't have those kinds of emphasis points on their, on their words. I mean, I'm sure I get, I was wrong in a great degree. I'm always wrong on speaking.

Luke, I can barely speak English on this show I get shop like all out of nowhere. Sometimes our last dead wrong comes to us from Paul He says hello from Belfast you washed POS is it's a dead wrong of sorts From Luke and BC when discussing the best fights to watch in WEC history How about the absolute banger of Leonard Garcia versus Chan Sung Jung? Oh Jesus How did we miss that fuck we screwed up the very fight that earned him the nickname the Korean zombie Okay, maybe not a dead wrong But certainly deserves mention as an absolutely insane fight in which Garcia got the nod only for the zombie to get revenge in

the UFC via twister. They are Paul loves our work. He's a day one donk He's not a Jan sixer. He's from Belfast, Northern Ireland All right. I'll take that out. Especially that one. I'll take because how the fuck did we omit that that is egregious That was egregious right there great moments in pre other MMA promotional history which the UFC consistently bought out or folded but yeah that was their WEC had consistent bangers dude in that small cage shout out to Reid Harris back in the day great matchmaker right yeah i mean again they had divisions that went you know above 170 or above 155 and the under the UFC brought some of those guys over and folded them but obviously the magic was that they had all the guys 55 and below.

And this is what I mean about being, you know, less is more BC. They put a blue cage and they went to different weight classes, but it was just MMA at that point. They didn't try and do like, we're going to have a tournament season format with points. Like what the stop, stop, stop. And obviously it's harder now that, you know, there's less innovation that's possible. But that WEC worked for a reason. It was now that the you know, there's less innovation that's possible but um That that wec worked for a reason it was not accidental, you know, indeed indeed

Um, all right morning combat gmail.com hit us with fansubs hit us with dead rungs reach out to the show complain Show your ball back to mikey whatever. Well, sorry except for that last part. Whatever you got to do. There it is Uh, that's our show by the way for today. We will be back a remote episode Monday 11 AM Eastern at morning combat on YouTube and we'll be back in studio Wednesday for of course that UFC 314 pregame preview brought to you by Cuervo, the tequila that invented tequila. Yeah baby. Yeah. Luke, fantastic show. You got any great weekend plans you wanna share? No, I'm just gonna hang out

with the fam. I'm not gonna do a watch along for that that card. I'm not gonna insult it because people get very sensitive about it but I'm not gonna know if I did a watch along and no one would watch along. You know what I'm saying? So, I gotta wait for it. I gotta wait but but I have to say this BC. We're not far from UFC 314 now. Pretty, pretty close. Very excited about that.

Rubbed that on the gums. Check out that appearance I made, by the way, on submission radio with Jed Mishue and Dennis. Big Dennis fan over here, Luke. What a great guy, right? Dennis is awesome. I did an hour long UFC 314 preview with him yesterday. So that'll be out whenever.

Fantastic job. That guy will get up at the ass crack of dawn to meet us Americans on our own time. So I got a lot of respect for that guy for Long Island Luke. No, Sita Luke. You got you got anything else? Probably not Join me for the watch along tomorrow Luke won't be live. I'll be there guys main card. Join me for that Appreciate you. All right, plenty of bong hits to be had between no He showed me what he's going to be enjoying after today's program Let's just say TSA needs to check his bags. You know what I mean?

Like, hey, TSA, we got some THC coming in indeed. All right. Here we go. If you're sitting next to Long Island Luke on his flight home, prepare to get a contact high because that's what's coming, you know? Hell yeah. For Long Island Luke, regular Luke, I am your boy BC. Take care of yourselves. We love you. Thank you for supporting. Be nice to each other. Have a great weekend.

Enjoy the fights. We are out of here. Yeah, yeah, baby. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season One. Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer.

He's just straight evil. I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known. At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer. Listen to new episodes of Bone Valley Season Two starting April 9th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.