MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Mike Malott Finishes Burns | UFC Winnipeg Recap | RAF 8: Arman Tsarukyan runs Urijah Faber off stage

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Luke and Chuck are in the house on a Morning Kombat Monday to go over the results from UFC Winnipeg and more. First up, the guys discuss the main event where Mike Malott finished Gilbert Burns in the third round for a resounding victory. The guys debate what's next for Malott and also reflect on Burns' career after he announced his retirement. There's other fights to recap like Charles Jourdain defeating Kyler Phillips and how the Canadian market looks after this event. Plus, Arman Tsarukyan ran Urijah Faber practically into the announcer's table at RAF 8 and more from the combat sports world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Oh, that's right. I'm a player. You can put me on the roster. I'm all about the cheese, Chuck Mindenhall. Don't worry about the pasta. What do you know about that, huh?

On this, oh, Jesus, 20th day of April. It's 420, everyone. And somewhere Long Island Luke is not sober. How are you doing, everybody? Oh, let me, hold me fix this here real quick. I think that's the earliest we've sounded that horn. I was like within the first 15 seconds. I had it the wrong side.

There we go. Hello, everyone. On this 20th day. of April, 26. My name is Luke Thomas. Welcome to another episode of Morning Combat. I'm merely one half of your hosting duo. I join you from the capital of Estados Sanitos right here in Washington, D.C., joined by my Connecticut brethren, the one and only Iceman, Chuck Mendenhall. What's up, buddy? Not too much, man. Wait a minute. The NHL playoffs kicked out this weekend. Were you watching Washington? Where they are they in it? I have not kept up with the capital.

The ticket prices are so insane that I've done. Once that happened, you're like, I just, they don't exist to you. It's not that they don't exist. It's just like, for example, like two, problems you emerge. One, the tickets are insane. And then the other problem is monumental sports, which owns the Wizards and it owns the Capitals, they went off of linear TV. So you have to get the app to watch the home games. Oh, yeah. Okay. And I'm like, I'm not doing that. You know, never got similar problems. Yeah, with the avalanche. Uh, I did, I did see the Mario movie yesterday. It's terrible. It's absolutely dog shit. I hope you took your daughter and this wasn't a solo mission. Like this is, uh, yeah, no, no, I wasn't in the back being creepy. I was there with

my daughter, obviously. And it was terrible. Terrible last movie. But I did see the Nats on Saturday. I went to go see the Nats play the Giants at Nats Park. It was actually great. So cool. Are you doing, bud? People recognize you at a baseball game? Yes. Okay. Yes, everywhere I go, as a matter of fact. Okay. Um, which is a, it's a mind fuck for my daughter because she's always like, yo, how do you know these people? And I'm like, I don't. You're a don't. You're a don't. How do it? Okay. I have to kind of explain. I'm like, people know what I do. You know, she's like, oh, are you famous?

I'm like, that's not the right way to look at that. Right. You know what I mean? So anyway, how was your weekend, Charles? It was good, man. You know, just kind of had my daughter in town. So we just, we watch WrestleMania, which is a two-day event. I'm sure that you avoided that at all costs.

And it felt like a marathon, you know. I heard day one was one of the worst days ever. I heard yesterday was much better. Yeah, yesterday's was better. I can't explain it. Sometimes I'm like, do I, am I just not the target audience? Like, I just can't keep buying into this type of thing. But there were times where it really lag, man, where you're just like, it didn't feel like the crowd was into it there in Las Vegas.

There was like 50,000 people there. And it just felt like it was kind of dying in the middle of the, it was like an afternoon show for them. So the sun is out. It just just had a very strange vibe. But I thought that yesterday's was a lot better. But this definitely, I don't know if you've ever watched WrestleMania. like this didn't feel like one of the better ones if you know what I'm saying this felt like it was kind of you know hoping for something to happen and you are just it wanted to generate more than it did it just didn't really hit home I don't bag on professional wrestling like I used to I mean it's still not for me but from what I understand there were as many ads on Saturday as there was actual wrestling time and then I saw yesterday during one of the wrestlers one of the wrestlers one of the wrestlers one of walkouts in the arena itself, they were showing a Snickers ad during the walkout. Did you see this?

Over the top. Yes, I saw this. And also they would pull out tables like this, you know, like they do that. They pull out the ladders and chairs and what the tables would have Slim Jim, you know, slogans on them. I just, I don't know, man, it's just going, it's too much at this point. Dude, leave it to private equity to find any place to pull a dollar from. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. It's incredible. Let's get to the third member here of the show. I don't know if he was watching WrestleMania this weekend, but I know he was probably. probably ignoring his girlfriend. It's my friend and yours. It's Long Island Luke. What's up, player? What's up? I'm with you, LT. I don't, I don't fuck with wrestling like that, man.

I don't get the interest in it. I used to hate on it. I don't hate on it anymore. I mean, I don't hate on it, but like, if you guys didn't, I mean, I will say, I'm going submission radio later today. And Dennis was like, we're going to recap. At least he told you what you're going to recap. Yeah, you're right. But I was like, I was like, brother, I don't know about that. But, uh, yeah, I don't watch wrestling at all. Did watch Winnipeg, full card. I enjoyed myself somewhat. But more importantly, guys, it's 420 today, and you know what that means. We're doing a merch sale, baby. 42% off all shirts and posters right now, morning combat.

Dot shop. Do not miss it. Shirts are going for as cheap as like 20 bucks right now. So make sure you hop on that. Now, let's clarify this, Long Island. Is the 420 sale just for these two items or any of the items available on the shop itself? All shirts and posters, as you see there on the right LT. Just make it sure. Yeah, yeah.

Now, everything on the site, all, every single fucking t-shirt. And this is the only poster on the site. But yes, every poster as well. Now, if you look here at Long Island, show him my shirt. I'm wearing the, I'm wearing the M.K. Root beer. This is the root beer variety right here. So, man, how cool was it?

What's your comedian friend out there in D.C.? Was wearing the sport in the com. Oh, W. Camel. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I saw that he was wearing that, you saw that, like, video. He was talking about Dana wet in the White House. But he's like, wearing the. The morning comment, I was like, how appropriate, man.

Yeah, I saw his show on Friday at the Strathmore Theater, which is in North Bethesda. And it was a great show, but then there was like a 45-minute ride home. And I was like, holy fucking shit. I'm too old to be doing this. Yeah. In any event, we got a lot to get to today. So as you heard from Long Island, Luke, we got to get to UFC Winnipeg.

We got a lot of results there. We'll actually have a little bit of WrestleMania talk today, although not about the actual WrestleMania itself. but there's a media angle we'd like to talk about, plus a gazillion other smaller news and notes we're going to get to in the world of combat sports. So thumbs up on the video, hit subscribe if you haven't, give us a follow and subscribe and all that fun stuff on social media.

We already told you about the shirts. Morningcombat at gmail.com. Of course, it's going to be the best way to reach the show. And of course, as a reminder, best meme for fan subs all month gets a signed poster gratis for free. It should be a lot of fun. Anything else I'm missing here on this early preamble? Well, you didn't mention that Brock Lesnar put down his gloves at

WrestleMania, but I mean, really? I didn't hear that. Is that true? Yeah, I mean, normally guys don't wear gloves in this situation, but he put down his MMA gloves. So is it customary to put down props in wrestling retirements? I don't know, but it was the one part of the show where I'm like, I don't know if the WWE or TKO was really in on this. I don't know if they were like surprised, but I felt like it was a general surprise to the public that he was kind of walking. Because they have like a big event coming up in Minnesota and summer

SummerSlam, which obviously he has the roots to his wrestling and he lived there for a long time. So I think people assumed he would retire there if he's going to retire. Does this mean he comes back to UFC? I was wondering that. You know, that's why I kind of was mentioning it you know, but I mean, how crazy? I don't know how old is

he's like 47, 48 years old. He's got to be up there. He's got to be roughly my age. We went to college at the same time. Yeah. So I mean like right in the wheel. house of a heavyweight age i think he could come in 48 48 49 in july great he's older than me he's older than me it's still be a cross although i don't know if you saw him i'm not sure he'd pass i don't know if they do drug tests anymore but i'm not sure he'd pass him i mean he just looks like a hot dog they left in the microwave too long that is true and then now he's got i forget what kind of haircut he has he has like oh my god it's he's got like a ponytail but he doesn't have a

ponytail at the bottom he's got a ponytail at the top you know what I'm talking about? It's not quite the Kentucky waterfall, but it's bordering on something like that. It's like it flows back and then it's, yeah, the ponytail. I don't know. I don't know what you would call that.

I mean, I can't talk. I look like I've been electrocuted and I'm dying, but at the same time, I don't quite get the ponytail after age 40. Can I be honest with you? It doesn't do it for me. All right, let's talk about it. We got a lot of fights to get to.

So without further ado, let's go to topic number one if we can. Let's get to that main event from the UFC card this weekend. So UFC, UFC fight night, Winnipeg or UFC Fight Night Burns versus Milot. It took place in Winnipeg, Canada. And Mike Malat scored a third round stoppage in the main event over Gilbert Burns. The talk heading into this contest, Chuck, was kind of about Malat. Everything was centered on him here. We had talked about how he had suffered the lost to Neil Magni and it kind of at the time had collapsed

this stock. But now he's on a win streak. He gets at least the biggest name of his career on his resume and he certainly looked good doing it. So the question for you would be, was this a turning point performance for you? Did he make you a believer after Saturday? I think a little bit, man. You know, he's he's a guy that, have you ever talked to Mike Malott? He's, uh, no, there's, he doesn't have a very dynamic personality. He actually, he reminds me of the way sports were through the 80s and 90s and even in the 2000s when, you know, guys spoke in general bromides and they just don't give you anything. Everything's kind of linked to, uh, little wisdoms that have been passed down that, you know, are just kind of cliche at this point.

So he's not going to kill you in that sense. And I wondered if this, you know, even with that kind of like professional attitude, because his brother is a professional player, I think he takes some of that, a professional hockey player, I think he takes some of that. I wondered how he would handle a situation where he becomes the focal point of a main event like this. His first main event, Winnipeg, even though that's not exactly where he's from his Canadian. so he knew the fans would be with him in this pursuit. And I worried a little bit for him going into this fight,

given that we've seen like Hanato Moikano kind of stopped the hands of time for a second and say, like, nope, you're not going to get by me a couple weeks ago. And I was wondering about that with Gilbert Burns. Just would he be able to dig in, kind of show his expertise. He'd lost four in a row and just say like, this is as far as you get. But I thought from the very beginning of that fight, when you could see a couple of the, you know, you could see that what the game was,

which was to keep it standing, obviously, and seeing the kind of poison which he was handling himself, like the strikes were fairly crisp from the beginning from a lot. And I thought he was handling it really well, and then to get the outcome that he did, basically shutting down all of the offense that Burns.

I mean, the Burns had some moments there, but like shutting down all the big offensive movements that Burns was trying to bring. I thought it showed a guy who was, ready to kind of step up and be in that spot. Where that puts him, I know the Burns was ranked, I think, 11th coming into that fight. Whether he like catapults into the top 10, we'll see.

But I thought he handled himself very, very well, given that big stage. Long Island, I'm curious to get your perspective on this. Did Mike Malat make you a believer? Not really. And no disrespect to him, you know, solid performance. But like, I just feel like Gilbert is old and washed at this point. No disrespect Gilbert.

legend I had a bet on him was really like how you're like no disrespect this guy's a piece no I mean bro you got to tell it how it is you I thought early but they both beat my ass let's just be real that's what I mean no disrespect but also like I just feel like I got to see you're looking at who's next for Mike Malat and it's like I don't like any of these matchups for him I still am not that much of a believer there's like eros meditch is sitting there that's like the one winnable matchup for him I feel like other than that you're looking at like they give him like Leon Edwards. I still would favor Leon in that fight. And then like Drod's sitting there. What made you what makes you feel like you couldn't handle like Leon's kind of in like on the

dwindling form here too. You're right. But I don't think he's I don't think he's dwindled to the sense that Burns was. And maybe I'm just again, I'm holding on to straws. I bet on Leon his last few losses. I bet on Gilbert his last few losses. Maybe I'm just like they still got it guys. But But Mike Milat just, I don't know, he didn't do it for me. Luke, I take it that you were not overly impressed. Am I correct here? I mean, this is what I'm sensing. It's, I mean, this is a strange one.

It's a strange one because, you know, if you watch that performance, Chuck, it's a good performance. Like, he doesn't fuck it up. He makes good decisions. He took his time. You know, he didn't rush it. But when it was time to really press the gas, he did, I thought he did a, he did a, he did a really great job with the takedown defense kind of stopping it before

it could ever really get started. So the down blocking was nice. I thought they had a good game plan for Gilbert. And honestly, you know, if you really look at the way in which how accurate the punching was, particularly that final right hook that sat burns down for the second

time, you know, that was real nice. It was real nice. Like he definitely did not look scrubby. He did not look out of shape. He also, by the way, be noted and i know we all know that gilbert came up from 55 years ago yeah a lot looked huge he did relative to gilbert so it's not like i can go to that performance and been like oh that was crappy that was crappy no no yeah but to the to the point that long island luke raised it's like

it's just hard to rate it super highly because i just think burns was a really really good fighter but he is so clearly done you know and we'll talk about the burns angle in just a minute Like Burns is sitting currently right now. They haven't updated the rankings, right? So this is still from last week, essentially. Burns is sitting at 11. So you've got Malat who's going to jump somewhere into that top 10-ish kind of space. Bonfim at 10, Buckley at 9, Edwards at 8, and then below that would be MVP at 12, although

I don't know what situation is going to be with him. And then Medich, as you guys indicated at 13, D-Rud at 14. You know, I think those are all pretty reasonable fights for him. It's like on the one hand, dude, here is a guy who was moving. himself into the rankings deservedly so at the same time do I like in the sense of wow here's a guy

whose upper bound potential is high enough where let's see how he can move through the ranks I don't know if he can move through the ranks does that make sense yeah yeah and I would share that to an extent I just thought that you know when Gilbert he was not going to allow Gilbert to come down Broadway you know like anytime

that Gilbert was you know kind of jumping to changing levels that uppercut the knees, the things like that. I just, I mean, it's, it's maybe it is one, you know, maybe it is that Gilbert is not in the same form. But I just thought that like a guy who was anticipating that stuff and keeping it where he wanted it. And then once he had it had it back at range and, uh, and they were in the striking again, I felt like he executed really well.

I guess from a, from the standpoint of just the pressure because he had so much, um, you know, so many family, like he was pointing them all out afterwards, family, you know, the Canadian angle. I talked to him before this fight about the GSP thing where are they still, is the UFC still trying to replace GSP in terms of the Canadian market? Are you the guy that they're trying to plug in there? And he was

like, that might be what they're looking at, but that's not how I'm looking at it. But you could tell that there was, he'd been asked similar questions and there was a pressure associated to that. I guess when I'm looking at his performance, I'm looking at all that stuff too. You know, I don't know, like when Luke was mentioning when Long Island was mentioning just kind of the guys in that division that you look at. I don't know which of those guys he can beat.

But if you just look at the Neil Magni thing, and I don't know how you guys see this, but the Neil Magni fight, he was winning the fight up until the end where he loses the fight. And he's that close to being, what, seven or eight, no in the UFC in that division. So I don't have a reason yet, I guess, or a big enough reason yet to be like he can't be a player. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. I don't know what's true. The only thing I know what's true is that he has definitely earned a spot in that 9 to 11 or 8 to 12 range, right?

Yeah. For his ranking. And if he can, you know, is he some kind of a pretender who sucks? No. No, he's not. But before, I guess what I would say is before I'm ready to believe he's a top five or top three guy, he's got some work to do. You know, and not just in this literal sense that like, you know, your ranking position. is not high enough. Like there's, I just need to see him beat someone who's got their

peas and cues and cues covered, accounted for, dialed in, he's a little bit younger. You know what I mean? I kind of need to see that before I'm really ready to turn the page. But certainly, no question about it. He looked good. He looked good on Saturday. And he did what he was supposed to do. There's this stat here that we have for Mike Malott. Most Walterway finishes. I don't know what it means to have this from 2022 to present. I don't know why that's the demarcation line, but such that it matters, you can see he's tied with five with some other names,

only one above him, essentially, when Carlos Procha. So, like, again, with Mike Malat, like, is he doing the kinds of things that he needs to be doing? Yes, he is. Yes, he is. He absolutely is. It is important to note that he probably benefits.

And I mean, obviously, this is what we're kind of alluding to here is like from advantageous matchmaking. Like, you're putting a guy, in there with Gilbert Burns who I think everybody kind of knew this was his last kind of I don't want to call it a hell Mary but last look to see okay we're going to put him in a very disadvantaged situation you're going to go in the other guy's territory and he's the up and comer even at 34 you know like he's the up and comer go beat that guy and he can't do it this is all geared towards Mike Malott and I think even like Kevin Holland I think where was that fight in Vancouver it was or it was in somewhere in Canada but he's fought all these fights in Canada and in most cases cases when they do this, they try to give you an opponent that's not going to come in there and embarrass you, right? Like they try to give you a little bit of a of a guy you can do well

against. And even, I think the Neil Magnifyt was certainly set up that way too. So, do you want to see him kind of go against a guy and more of a neutral? Like maybe, maybe that's where it would, you know, that would tell us more things. If they put him against, you know, Medich, and they do the fight in Vegas,

say, I think that would tell us a lot more as to where he's at at this point. But yeah. Yeah, I think that he's kind of in that. He's still wait and see on that level. I would need for me, and this is just me, and I don't know how the viewers feel, I don't know how you feel, but for me, if he was going up against someone really good, you know, respectively good, got pushed and then was able to answer the push,

I'd feel a little bit differently, you know, or I'd be able to update the way I feel now. So I'm going to take a wait and see approach until I can really launder the taste of the Neil Magnify out of my mouth, you know? But, but, but I certainly feel like, you know, all you can do on fight night is the assignment you are given. And he did it. He did it. And you have to give him that, I think, in the end. Now, it takes us to the other side of the equation with Gilbert Burns. So I look this up, Chuck. Gilbert Burns has now lost five in a row. Okay. All right. This is the first losing streak of his entire career. All the other ones were like one-offs, basically. and more importantly, of these five, three of them have been by stoppage.

And then here's the real kicker. The last two back to back were by stoppage. I mean, we're in a territory now of Burns's decline that he's never even come close to sniffing before. Seemed to me like Saturday was a good time to retire. Do you agree? Yes. I mean, and you guys detailed this. The washed thing, right?

Like I think that that's, it's such a harsh way to say it, but that's what it is. You know, it's like he just doesn't look like he's going to be able. Like he did a pretty good job in that first round. You know, I think you're kind of getting at the lead leg a little bit. He had some good exchanges. But when you saw that he could, like his plan A was being shut down, which was I'm going to try to change levels, get this to the ground and do something there. He couldn't do it. And there was no such thing as like him winning a scramble.

There was no scramble. He was not allowed to get into a scramble either. He couldn't create that. So once you see that, and then that third round where he gets dropped the first time with like an upper, it was like an uppercut,

beautiful uppercut like a hook combo. Yep. It drops them. Right there. You can see it right there. Yeah. And it was, I mean,

it was a beautifully executed, you know, sequence there from a lot. But watching him get back up and try to recover and then take that right hand, I was like, it's always in those types of situations.

You're like, okay, I've seen Gilbert now in there a long time. He's 39 years old. The guy had a very good run. in the UFC. He never won gold, but he did fight for it. But you just know at that point, you're like, you're spinning your wheels. There's no way that you're going to be able to even try to go out on a happy note.

It's going to be difficult for him at this point. So, yes, I think it's time to retire. Dude, we should just say it out loud. Like, Gilbert Burns has been, you know, I don't do a lot of interviews anymore, Chuck, but Gilbert Burns might be one of my favorite guys to ever talk to. In fact, one of the videos that we did together on MK when it was a full-time operation, Chuck was a BC and I flew down to Kilcliffe in Deerfield Beach and we interviewed Gabriel we interviewed I was thinking about somebody else Bonfeme we interviewed Gilbert Burns just prior to

the Hamzot fight and it blew up it did huge numbers obviously mostly because of Hamzot but I remember in that conversation just how thoughtful Gilbert Burns was and how much he was thinking through his problem, personal problems, strategic problems, problems of success, problems of failure. He really, really try to do things the right way. And I just have so much respect for that. I have so much respect for somebody who, you know, honestly to me, and this is partly why I like Cubs Swanson a lot too. Cubs Swanson's a thinking guy too, right? These guys who really internalize what they're trying to do and they give a thoughtful approach to it, one way or the other, Chuck, they make an imprint on you, even if it's not necessarily from becoming a weight class champion.

And Gilbert Burns, to me, did exactly that. I really, really encourage everyone. If you never saw the interview that we did, I don't even know if it's still up because we transitioned everything from CBS to all the smoke. A lot of stuff got lost. But if it is still available, I really encourage people to check it out. Gilbert was, not well, I say it was, but I'm saying, is so smart, is so clever. and again, I don't need a guy to be the best ever.

I just need a guy to be interesting and try. And he did more than that. He was very loyal too to that team, right? Because Henry Hooft has been with him. Melon said, like these guys have been with him the whole time. And if you've talked to those guys over the years, I think that they, you know, they talk about Gilbert as like the model kind of, you know, fighter because he's going to, he is always trying to learn.

He's always trying to get better. And man, he had a great run right, right as the pandemic. right? Is that, he was kind of like, he was, he was flying high there for a minute. He won like five or six fights. I remember the Damian Maya one that was in Brazil where he, you know, was able to get through that one. And then the Woodley one would be coming off of the title shot with Usman. Winning that fight was when I was like, okay, you know, at that point, I wasn't sure that Gilbert Burns was in the way that we're talking about Mike Malap maybe where you're like, I'm not sure he's ready for this step. And, you know, he was able to do it. He got his title shot. He wasn't able to win it. But the dudes who beat him, you know, we're like, especially in that, in that, in his prime, we're the very, very best guys, you know, so when you look at a guy like that, you're like, when they say perennial, like top, you know, perennial title contender or whatever, that's him, right? He sat near in that space for a very, very long time in one of the toughest divisions. Dude, the dude fought hammers. Yeah. He fought hammers basically beginning to end. I mean, there was very few times you were like, oh, they're going to give Gilbert a soft fucking landing here, you know? That's true. took on tough ass opponents over and over and over again. And as a reminder for folks I don't know, 2011 world champion in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, IBJJF,

he also won Nogi Worlds. And then I think he got in 2015, he got like bronze at ADCC, but he was already well into his MMA career by then. So even that's kind of pretty fucking remarkable to say the least of a, you know, there's so many times like, oh, this guy was a world class blackball. And they're not, no, this guy was a world class blackball. This is the kind of guy.

And the thing I love about his game, too, you know, it had limits, obviously, Chuck. It couldn't extend forever. But the fact that, you know, he didn't need to go to his jiu-jitsu. I like the guys who need to go to their jiu-jitsu. It's not like an either-or thing. But if you're able to give yourself options, that obviously, to me, signals a little bit of an advancement in your technical

development. And he could do that too. He could slug it out with guys. That slug-fest he had to a degree anyway with Hans-Zot is kind of proof of that. You know what I mean? It was one of the few guys that kind of give some doubt into an equation that involved Shemaya Bright. I thought like he was the one the original guy that's like, okay, wait, maybe there is

an approach to this guy because he had some moments there. I think that, you know, I saw Dana White afterwards, was like, you know, the main thing that you take away from Gilbert is he's a good guy, he's a nice guy. And I was like, that's very, you don't usually hear somebody mention that, but I know it's Canada, you know, and Canada's

a little bit nice. They're not like, they're not like the USA crowds that are chanting USA through the, you know, but they're very prideful of their roots. But they were chanting you know, Gilbert's name during that, you know, during the end there. And I just thought that was cool too, man, because

if anybody deserves you know, like to get that love, I think it's a guy like Gilbert. I believe him, too. We're never in on these negotiations. But when he says, I never said no to a fight, don't you get the sense that he never said no to a fight? I feel like he's one of those guys, whenever the UFC needed him, he was there. That's it.

And I got to say, if you're going to retire, there are a worse place to do it than Canada. You know what I'm saying? That's true. That's true. It was like the, yeah, the, all what was the hobby? Like that fight when Aldo, and I felt like there was this love for Aldo too. I guess if you're at the soft landing you mentioned might just be in the place, the geography,

because you go to Canada, at least they're going to hug you and embrace you at the end. Yeah. Meanwhile, in Brazil, you're going to die. What's the chant? You will die or whatever. Yeah. So great to see what I think Burns made the right decision. You know, we have a quote graphic here. By the way, this is what he said. If I cannot win, if I cannot show everything that I have, Chuck, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to get just a paycheck. Yeah, fair enough. This is a guy who came into the sport with grand ambition. He achieved a lot, maybe not the highest level of what he wanted, but certainly made a strong account of himself. And again, one more time, MMA was his second athletic career, not his first. The fact that he got as far as he did is to me, you know, a testament to his ability. I don't know, like his what, I mean, some guys like, some guys,

when they get out of it, you're like, I don't know how they'll handle a transition out of the game. I feel like he'll be fine. You mentioned he's very smart. I also think that he's a coach too, right? Like he likes to help out. I could see him sticking around the game in that capacity for sure. Yeah, definitely. I think he will have a lot of wisdom to impart to the right kind of fighter, if that's a direction he wants to go. Or, you know, back to jiu-jitsu or whatever. Who knows? We'll see. Let's go to topic number two. Let's talk about the rest of that UFC fight night, Burns versus Milot main card. So let's go to the co-main event,

which was actually a really nice co-main. Charles Jordan gets a hard-fought win over Kyler Phillips. He basically outworked him in my judgment to a decision. You can see some of the highlights here. Jordan was looking for that jumping knee quite often. So here's what happened in the end. We were kind of right on Friday show, Chuck. We're like, okay, we know Kyler Phillips is going to get him down.

But is he going to be able to do anything with it? he's going to be able to keep him down. And the answer was affirmatively, no, not really. That's not, he wasn't able to do much with it. The question I have for you is, based off of this, as well as that win streak, so it's the two, does Jordan deserve to be ranked, top 15 right now? I think he's on the cusp of that. But if you look at that division, man, all the way down to 15, it's just so it's, it's got to be,

if not VMO stacked from 1 to 15 in the UFC. it's got to be right up there in the top couple. It's just so good that that's the only reason that I would say that he might have a hard time breaking into that top 15. This is the first time. I'd have to look this up. I don't have it in front of me, but I believe this is the first time he's put together three fights in a row

where the consistency where you're starting to see him, you know, just kind of outshine. This particular one I felt like he was not going to be outshined, if you can say that because he was going to, he wanted to put on a good fight, but I thought he was dialed in enough to win the fight. So I thought it was a very good performance, especially because I think he was probably down on the scorecards going in the second round.

It's a tough opponent. I think he was able to handle it. But in that division, man, he may have to go through one of those guys at the bottom of that, you know, at the top, then the 15, 14, 13 range. You may have to go through one of those guys to actually break in. I do think he deserves to be ranked. You're right. He had a, I think, a three or four fight win streak when he was doing regional

MMA, but since we got to the UFC, two was the most until this one. And now you look at the quality of the fighters he's beating. So he beat Victor Henry, who's a good fighter out of Josh Barnett's team, Davy Grant, solid British donk. And then Kyler Phillips, who is got some real limits, but was pretty athletic. And by the way, game himself, I thought in certain situations, but real limited. I mean, the thing for me that kind of drove me nuts in this fight, Chuck, was that if you look at the way Charles Olivaura got the takedown on Max Holloway, right, in their last fight, what was it? He would get to a body lock.

He would attach Max to him, right? Lift, trip out the post leg, and then he would keep that chest-to-chest connection as he went to the mat, and he would end up in side control. So you're ending up in side control, chest-to-chest. tight, tight positioning. Right. From there, he would immediately go to knee on belly. And then from neon belly, he would play either a back or mount game, right?

And it was that way every single time. Hands tied, attach Max to you, lift, drop them, side control, chest to chest, neon belly, back mouth. That was the sequence every time. And the reason why that's so important is because, like, he didn't have to pass guard once he got to the ground. And you might say, well, Charles would pass Max's guard, no problem. Maybe so. But the point I'm trying to make is he lands in a position that automatically sets up the next stage of his offense while maintaining control the whole way. Kyler Phillips didn't do any of that shit.

He would take Jordan down and then just play inside of his fucking guard. Yeah. He passed to side control, I think maybe even the first takedown and then stop doing it. It's like, dude, credit to Charles Jordan, because any time he was able to recapture any kind of guard, offensive or defensive, knee shield, full. guard, whatever it ended up being, he was right to work. He was throwing up triangles, arm bars, knee shields, underhooks, you name it. And it's like, this is what I mean about having that next level of talent is understanding the chain of events that precede that take down that are going to make the likelihood of success once you get to the ground much fucking higher.

Yeah. And Phillips just didn't have it. Yeah. And you got to give Charles, you got to give him his flowers too for like, I felt like in this fight, Like he would handle the situations that, you know, that you're mentioning here, he would handle the toil of the fight admirably, just so he could get back to styling on the feet and, like, throwing these crazy things because he felt like that that's really what he wants to do. It is, it's great if a guy is able to, you know, he's able to get out of situations to kind of make the fight he wants.

And I thought that that's what happened because in that first round, I got a sense that it wasn't going to turn out in his favor. You know, I thought that it was, I thought maybe we were going to see a rinse or repeat, even if there was no evolution to what we were watching. I just thought it was going to be that kind of fight. And he certainly turned it around the second round. He did. We have a little bit of a sportsmanship between them. Let's take a look at that.

You're a fucking monster. I hit you with hard fucking days. And then I dropped forward with the shit and you're like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Thank you very much. it's nice to see right I think that that's like you see something like that that would probably like you delude yourself as a fighter anyway right but I think that you sometimes believe in your hands and you you know you could imagine a situation where

you're like your coaches are telling you man you're hitting hard and then you land something flush and the guy just keeps coming forward I bet that would be somewhat astounding in the middle of a fight that you're like how are you still there if you land something clean like that. Charles Jordan looked good though. The pressure he put on, on the feet, on the ground, he just stayed working and Phillips was trying to control the fight and slow it down and couldn't. He was throwing to the end though. I'll give him credit. He was certainly throwing to the end, but he just didn't have an ability to either keep Jordan off of him at range or to stay on top of him on the ground with pins or some other kind of improved ground position.

It's nice to see him get that, by the way, just given that he's been. been toiling in the UFC for quite a while. He's been on, you know, he, what does he have, like seven losses in the O.C. I know he's, he's had a bunch. So to see a guy kind of emerge and also like pick up, I think he was given the bonus here, like, you know, to kind of pick up the extra cash. It's like, it's good to see a guy like that come through. Yeah, seven losses, Des Green, Andre Feely, Julian Arrosa, Shane Burgos, Nathaniel Wood,

Sean Woodson, Jay, J. So good fighters, largely there. Yeah. It takes us now further down the car, Jai Herbert and Mandel Nalo. They're going by Mango, which I fucking hate. It's rat garbage as long as I live. But he loses at 102, excuse me, a 20, of round number one, he gets K-O'd.

Chuck, I'm not sure what to say about this other than Jai Herbert, man. If you're not on your, if you're not on your game, he's going to find out, certainly on the feet anyway. Nalo took it to him, couldn't sustain it and gets dropped. Your reaction. I think they were like, okay, Nala, you haven't, you know, you haven't been in the U.S. you're, what, 36, you're up there, or whatever he is.

I know he's, I know he's an advanced age to be kind of in the situation he's in. We're going to throw you a guy who will accommodate you and you should win this fight. And I think that he kind of went in there believing that that was the case. He had, you know, he had Herbert, like he hurts him immediately. And then he pulls a year, right? Like he kind of goes in there not too worried about any repercussion of what just happened. And like he gets clocked and, you know, you get one of those table turning moments. It was fun.

It was fun while it lasted. But I think that it was just one of those type of fights you're like, I bet that the UFC expected, I think, for now to win this fight, right? I think that they were like, you're going to go in there and Herbert's been in,

he came in with a lot of hype from Cage Wars back in the day and he's just kind of treaded water to this point. I feel like they were like, put it on a good fight, but this is your fight. And he got caught, man,

he got beat up. He sure did. It was wild, though, right? It was a wild fight. Oh, yeah, especially as far as, I mean, you know, you're like, oh, Herbert's going to fold here,

and then he cracks him. and then Nalo gets back to his feet and you're like, all right, let's see if this settles down. Nope. Sure didn't. Sat his ass right back down. How did you bet on that one, Long Island? I had fight does not go the distance.

It cashed my four leg parlay. So I was high. Nice. Wait, what was the other leg? Someone die. It was Barboza Money Line, over one and a half in Moises, Young, Jazz DeVisius Money Line and Fight Does Not Go the Distance.

Plus 256. Nice. That's actually a good one there. You nailed that one. Speaking of which, Jasmine, Jazz, Vicious Chuck. She gets a unanimous decision winner of Karine Silva. She had a Zen in her mouth. Do we have a picture of? Look at this. She was like just nicotining it up during the middle of this fight, which I think is a no-no by the rules. I don't know if they're going to enforce anything. I didn't even notice. Wow. I didn't notice in real time either. And then this morning, Karine Silva was tweeting, uh, not all fighters are fighting clean. Uh-oh. You know, I'm not, I mean, I'm not exactly sure what the nicotine adds. I don't think, you know, it's nothing. I don't know if it's the difference than why she won or lost. But a little bit of a tough one here, right? She was able to get the way and kind of grinding it out with tick downs and top control. My question to you is, was it

enough to kind of get her back on the title shot horse? Again, that division, man, the problem is you have like Talia Silva, who already has a victory, right? Like she has a victory over Jasmine. So that it's hard to, I mean, you can get into the conversation, but you're not going to hurdle Natalia, unless something happens there. And then you have, uh, fear over. right, like who's in there who also has the victory. It's going to be tough for her. I think that a fight like with maybe Aaron Blanchfield or something like that, you could then be like, you know, if she gets through somebody like Aaron Blanchfield,

who's who's above her, I believe in the rankings, I think, then she would be discussed in that picture. I still think she's won off, though. Yeah, I'm not, like clearly she's good enough to beat this level of opponent, right? She's got enough skills. But it's like, what did you see there that makes, you think another crack at a number one contender, even a title shot would go differently. I'm not so sure.

Right. But she's definitely well-rounded, and she definitely did what she needed to stay relevant and on the horse, so to speak. Which takes us to the beginning of the main card here, Chuck, Gage Young, defeating Tiago Moises v. Split. My question to you is, what did you see at a young? Anything impress you? I mean, he looked good. 25 years old, right?

Like, yeah, I think they said he was the youngest guy on the card. He looked good, man. I mean, he just, he looked like a prospect. I obviously, I'm sure that, like, what did you see? Because, like, is this still green, right? Like, you sometimes see these guys and you're like, you're still green, give him some time, that type of thing. Yeah, it looked to me like he was smart enough to, obviously he was beginning to land more and more as the fight went on, which was nice. Yeah.

And he was able to prevent the worst of things happening in the first round when Moises had his back. and then in general was able to diffuse the danger of Moises. And that is not so simple to do. Moises is a limited father, but he's a talented one. And you've got to have some skills, particularly at 25 years of age, to be able to diffuse that bomb, which he did. And I think that should count for something. But the real mark of someone who is going to excel,

and again, he's young, he might. This is not in any way a suggestion that he's some kind of a fraud. Far from it. I'm merely pointing out, he's at the stage of his development where he's tightening, you can see he can problem solve and he can neutralize guys who might have some advantages over him, skill for skill. But he had a little bit of a hard time to me getting some of his best offense going. And that might just come with time.

That might just come with being 27, 28 versus 25 years of age. So he definitely does not look bad by any stretch, but perhaps a little limited for where he is in his growth. Yeah. And he looks better and better throughout that fight. It was like one of those things where in the beginning stages, it was kind of rough going for him. But second round, a little better, right? And then the third round, it felt like he was his fight.

I have to say, like, I don't know anything about, like, he's from, like, Missouri, like Sedalia, Missouri. I didn't know, I don't know anything about the gym or the coaching that he gets. But in between rounds, if you heard the instruction, his guys were very informed. They were telling him exactly what to do. And sometimes you're like, man, these, these. small gyms. You'll see sometimes the big

gyms and they're like, hey, stop getting hit. You know, go in there and like, and you're like, what kind of advice is this? This isn't like, you're not telling him technically what to do or you're not telling him where the danger is that he's not seeing. But these guys were right on it. So I think he's in good hands just from that one example of catching him.

And to see that he was kind of thriving down the stretch, that's a good sign. I mean, according to tapology, so take that for what it is worth, he trains out of Ignite Jiu-Jitsu. The owner of that gym is Zach Cummings. Do you remember him from the UFC. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So Zach, you know, was a guy who had, you know, he did okay in the UFC, but, you know, people think what you need to do well in fighting is you need a coach who won at

the highest level. And that can be true, certainly in some cases, but it's really overstated. What you just need is a coach who understands the fight game, whether or not they personally achieved the highest level. I'm not going to say it's immaterial, but it may not be as consequential as people think that it is. Yeah. And he did look to me like a well-trained fighter. He just looked to me like a well-trained fighter who's still early in the growth process. That's all. Like, not bad.

He wanted to bully him. I mean, he wanted to bully him. And it just, you could see that slowly turned through the fight. Yeah. That's it. I think it's going to be good for him, Chuck, because Moises can be tricky. If you're not super experienced, Moises is a little tricky, you know? Yep. All right. Let's go. By the way, hold on.

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Is it going to come as a great surprise to you, Chuck, that I did not sleep well last night? Yeah. That doesn't surprise me at all. I don't know what it is. As I get older, sleeping is like, it's a fucking, it's a challenge. It's a straight up challenge. Before I go to topic number three here, what is your nighttime routine?

The hour before bed, what are you doing? A couple of shots and then I just, no, I'm kidding. It depends, man. The one thing about not having like a traditional like kind of office job

where you have like standard hours of like nine to five or whatever is just, you know, sometimes you're working in the night or sometimes, you know, you're out doing stuff. like it's just it's a it's it varies from night to night and uh but i will say that i i i like to the one thing that makes me sleepy is to actually read a book you know so every night now i read a i mean i this i've been doing this on and off for years but now i'm like pretty strict about it yeah

i definitely read and i don't read on my kindle i read like a physical same mirror same air yeah um but i mean that didn't help last night i can tell you that i woke up at 4 a m and a pool of sweat it was awesome i feel bad for you because this is like maybe the second or third time very recently that you've had this. Dude, I don't know. I don't, I'm telling you like I, I, every passing day, sleep becomes just, I have, so I have to wear a no strip earplugs, right, right. I mask. I have to have sleep medicine. I have to have the room controlled at a certain temperature. And you're like, well, what happens if you don't have any of those things? Well, then I can't sleep at all. Oh, man. Those are just preconditions

to try to sleep. And then, and then the nights you're asleep, your daughter comes and he's like, dad, wake up. Yeah, I know. she'll be like, dad, you know what I was dreaming about? Zebras. They'll be like, get the fuck to sleep. All right. Let's go to topic number three if we can. Let's talk about that prelim portion now. I'll say this, Chuck, I thought the main card was in general pretty good. Yeah. We've talked about some of the highlights, some of the low lights as such, but in general, it was pretty good.

Prelim card definitely had some bangers, definitely had some duds along the way. Let's talk about the part that was the banger for me. What can you say? Maricio Barbosa. sending Dennis Buzukia to the land of Winding Ghost rolls under, I think, a right hand or maybe a left hand and then lands his own here. You can see it, Chuck. He looked awesome. Did he not? If you were to slow that sequence

down where like, you know, he goes in there, he throws it like a combo, right? And then the left hand comes in on him. He slips under that and then just pops up and cracks him with his own left hook. I mean, that was, that's one of those beautiful sequences that you could play like classical music to and it would pound home in the right way, you know? That was one of those type of knockouts. Very, very prettily done, man.

Long Island, you were high on Barbosa, I think, pre-fight memory serves, right? I had him in my parlay. You know, no disrespect. Dennis Bazooka, Long Island legend, but he hadn't fought in like two years. He hadn't won to fight in like three years. You know, it was just, there was a lot going against him there. But I will say up until that finishing combo, I was like, oh, God, I don't know. Not that I thought Bazooka, I was only like a

minute long. And not that I thought Bazooka was winning, but I was like, shit, man. I expected Barbosa to come out a little hotter here. But, you know, he did the job in the end. That's all it meant. I was going to say, Bazookia looked pretty good early, but it just you know, he made one fatal error. And yeah, that's it.

In MMA, dude, if you can slip and you can roll and then counter, you're going to win so many fucking fights. Yeah. I cannot I mean, if I had a chance to like, if someone was like, you know, what should focus on as a young fighter. Focus on your jab and focus on turning defense into offense in your boxing. And that means footwork. That means slipping. That means blocking and rolling. It means a lot of

different things. But if you can get a jab right and you can get turning defense into offense, you're going to set these donks on fire. Trust me. So true, man. Any hype for Gokan Saracham, I think is how they pronounce it. It's spelled S-A-R-I-C-A-M after he starts Tanner Bozer, not bosser, but Bozer. Yeah. He came from Bellator. He looked fast. He had crisp combos. He's got a real dad bod build there.

What do you think, Chuck? Well, I mean, is this starting to, is the heavyweight division starting to, like, give you some charms now. I feel like we've had a couple weeks now where the guys are going after it. And is it changing in your mind at all, or was this just another dogfest for you? I'll say this. I mean, let's see more of it. Sure.

That's where I'm nice two weeks for sure. I will say that how you say his name, Bozer is like I always I always say this wrong. Yeah, I thought it was boss or two. Same here. It's just, but he went in there. His nickname, uh,

bulldozer. Oh, right, right, right. He went in there head hunting, man. And I mean,

I thought a couple of times early he may put the fight away. So it wasn't just that he came, uh, that sorry, however you say his name. It wasn't just that he came back and won the fight in the second round. It was, you know,

he withstood some heavy weather to get there. And dude, he didn't, like, it's right at that moment too when it looks like they're huffing air and you're like this fight if it goes into the third round just going to die like it was starting to get into that that space and then it was just that very straight bam right down just right off of a leg kick he just throws that hand and it was a beautiful knockout so I uh I thought it was pretty impressive

but I'm with you it's like you now we wait and see what he does next uh I don't have much to say beyond that. We had the Long Island. How did you score the JJ Aldrich Jamie Lynn Horth fight? All right. So admittedly was half paying attention during that fight. You know, it's one of those fights. It's kind of lulling you to sleep.

Jamie Lynn, I thought clearly won round one. And then we were kind of like, even the chat, we were all half paying attention. And then like the reading the official decision, we're all like, all right, yeah, that was a Jamie Lynn decision. And then JJ Aldrich wins and we're all like, what the hell? Ironically, I was talking to Danny Seguer.

because he was high. That's why I brought this up. Yeah, okay, go ahead. He was high on Jamie Lynn. He's like, I actually thought J.J. Eldridge won that fight. Wow, weird. Oh, all right.

You might be the only one. Yeah, for real. Even the commentators, Sanko, Felder, they were all like, yeah, that was weird. I mean, I thought it was 3027. I'm not going to,

like, I thought Horth, like, did enough in every round, you know, she was kind of leading the dance, right? Like, she was the one initiation, and she was tracking down and, uh, changing stance.

She was doing, she was doing all of the action, you know, And I felt like JJ, like occasionally, a couple of times it looked like she could get off and she could do something, but she would throw a single strike and then kind of cautiously get out of there. It just, I don't know how they came up with that scorecard, to be honest. I mean, it wasn't like a robbery because the rounds were not like definitive, but in my mind, all three of them kind of lean the other way.

It's an interesting one. Danny Sigurra, I'm looking here at MMA decisions of anyone who they recorded, not like me, they didn't have the full slate, but of anyone who recorded their scores, Danny is the only one who had it for Aldrich. He had it 29, 28, because he hit me up on Saturday. He was like, how did you score it? And by the time he had asked me, I still had not seen it. And I was like, well, why?

What happened? He's like, dude, they're fucking killing me on Twitter because I had the fight for Aldrich. And then you look at MMA decisions and basically everyone except Danny had it for Horth. I thought Horth should have won it 2928. I think 3027 is a little strong for me. to your point, the rounds are close enough where it's like, you know, you can squint and kind of see a few different ways that can go. But not, yeah, I mean, here's the scoring again. By the way, that's not the Greg Jackson, right?

That's a different Greg Jackson, right? It's got to be. It's got to be. Yeah, it's not like Jackson week. But someone pointed out, dude, J.J. Aldridge only threw six significant strikes in round one. And she won round one on one of these judges score cards. Yeah, I don't get that. I don't get that.

let me pull up the numbers here. If you look at the end, Jamie Lynn Horth landed 70 significant strikes to J.J. Aldrich's 50. And in round one, Jamie Linn Horth landed 21 significant strikes. J.J. Aldridge, seven. The other two were close, but not that round.

Yeah. So, yeah, kind of a strange one, if I can. Oh, okay. Castan Yeda, because there's an N. Yeah, on the end, Valachdine. I got to tell you, I love Volok Dien's game, and you can see the, the point that was deducted in round number two for the second low blow,

which by the way, great job by referee Jason Herzog in taking a point. Volok Dean is way too fucking hitable for me. Way too. I love his offense, but he's so short. He has a hard time getting in. He has a hard time getting out.

He'll do it, but he gets hit a lot. I said on Friday, bro, I said there's way too much hype for this guy, just because he had a really fun fight and contender series i haven't seen anything to be impressed also this is another fight that i thought was bullshit scoring john castanato won this fight it should have been 29 27 he won all three rounds you take the point away in round two that's it like that was a robbery and if i've ever seen

one and that one was interesting too i will say valedine is not a bad fighter he's a good offensive fighter he's a bad defensive fighter yeah you know what i mean yeah we thought charles jordaigne Charles Rodane, I think, through two Rolling Thunders. Mark Vologdine through fucking like five Rolling Thunder. Where was it just the night of the Rolling Thunder this week? Including at the end of round one. Well, you know what? The original guy who threw it in the

UFC, Harold Howard, was Canadian. Really? So, you know what? Maybe it's a Canadian thing, Josh. It was like rolling thunders. How about the crowd chanting take a point? That was pretty funny. Did you hear that? And then he did. But I was like, it was good to see that. It was really good to see that because they should be

that definitive with it. You know, multiple occurrences like you got to do it and by the way shots to the commentary crew a lot of times I mute the commentary crew but it was to me one of my one of I think one of their better ones it was Brendan Fitzgerald Paul Felder and Laura Sanko and they were quick and then I think Fitzgerald was pretty quick

to note that he was like hey it's not about the intention of the foul it's just about its like application did it affect the fight or not you gotta take a fucking point I was like yes fucking hell yes that's why they're good right I saw you pointing out that you like this crew but that's they are very good

Paul Felder, he sees things in real time. Like, he'll tell you exactly what just happened. And he breaks it down in a very kind of layway that, like, you're, all right, anybody who's even a casual is going to understand what they just watch there, you know? This guy apparently has, you know, I don't know, I'm not exactly sure about his views. Let's say he has very questionable views. Robert Valentin, he finally gets a rear naked choke over a guy who did not look ready for me for this level. But, you know, he hand fought here and he got the choke. there you go.

People want to turn people with bad tattoos into heroes, and I'm not going to do that. All right, that is it for topic number three. Let's turn to topic number four. Now, this is an interesting one. We're not going to cover pro wrestling as such on this one, but the parallels to me were a little bit too much to ignore. So over the weekend, let's look at the tweet here if you can.

This is a tweet from ESPN's MMA and pro wrestling reporter And Andreas Hale. In fact, Andreas Hale has been on morning combat. He did, I believe it was the Caleb Plant and Canelo pregame preview that we did at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. In any event, he writes the following. This was on Saturday. Quote, I will not be covering WrestleMania for ESPN. WWE denied my credentials and blocked my access. Neither I nor ESPN has been told why. You can speculate on the reasons, but if you want answers, ask WWE. Let me know what they tell you. And then it's a fan.

Interestingly, for folks who may not know this, ESPN is WWE's broadcast partner. So they're denying the credential of the broadcast partner. Chuck, UFC and WWE basically share executive leadership. In light of that, what does this episode tell us about the state and maybe future of combat sports's ability to do its job? it's such a tough one, especially given that this, WWE, and I remember being at ESPN, and the discussion was always like,

can you even cover it, given that it's not a real sport, right? So in some ways, they're denying a theater critic. You know, it's like a theater critic being denied a credential because his taser unsweighable and, you know,

it's not favorable to the company. It's equally BS, right? If you're doing it, If you're on ESPN and you have a partnership with ESPN and one of the writers who's been assigned to cover this sport or this event, it should happen that way because it doesn't, it's not about you trying to monitor. You know what I mean? Like you're not, it should never be about trying to quell a voice within the space. It should just be like, this is what we're putting out there. It's a public form of entertainment.

And you have to accept basically. what people say about it. And that's essentially what's going on. I know that I was talking to Long Island right before tape and, you know, having known some people within the WWE, I'm sure that there's, like, there's a lot of gossiping that goes on within this because it's such a traveling circus and like people spend a lot of time together. And you wonder about Hale's reputation within there. And like in terms of, I saw that our truth came in on that, on that very tweet we just posted and basically was like in favor of him, not getting his school. credentials. I don't know how much all this plays in, but from ESPN standpoint, this is BS. They should

be the ones advocating for their journalist or their writer to go into this situation. I don't like when you see something like this one. We basically have seen shades of this because it wasn't it Lance Pugmire who was denied credentials for the boxing event? Which one was? It was the Canelo Crawford. Do you remember when this was going on? It had to do with the Riyadh, the Turkey thing. Do you remember when Lance was denied credentials? Fairly recently. Yeah, in boxing. I'm just kind of throwing up parallel.

I mean, we've seen people getting denied credentials. And it's always based on, you know, some kind of exertion of control from, you know, the TK or whatever it is, like from the other side of it. But these, they need advocates. They need advocates from ESPN. I remember when Josh Gross, when I was at ESPN, Josh Gross had already been banned from the UFC to get credentialed. And ESPN at that time sat down with the UFC, ESPN at that time sat down with the UFC multiple occasions,

at least a couple of occasions to try to sort that out, to try to get Josh credentials from events. And of course, the UFC was steadfast in saying no, but at least they advocated, you know, for the journalist at that point in time. I haven't seen anything. Have you seen anything from ESPN to basically have their writers back in the situation? No, and I'm not really surprised that it went the way that it went.

I mean, people have speculated about why he got denied. And to be clear, like, if you look at his tweet again, he's like, he doesn't really know. And I don't know either. What I can say is some time ago, he was doing like a letter grade column. And he had given some event, you know, not a failing grade, but I think like a pretty low grade somewhere in the C range. And the reporting at the time, this is not, I'm not breaking news. This is the reporting at the time was that WWE had expressed its frustration. to ESPN about the column.

And so ESPN killed it. They killed the column. And that was, but that wasn't recently. That was, you know, a little while ago. And now we're at the place where they're straight up just denying credentials to all of this. I mean, I just want to be clear about this. Like people have made a statement like, you know, well, because they're, because, because ESPN's the official broadcast partner, they should push back harder, which I certainly agree. But I just think as a general rule on this kind of whole.

whole thing. I am lucky to be sitting in a chair and you too, Chuck, where we have a company in all the smoke that, you know, basically just, I mean, we can't, we can't like say whatever we want, but we have extraordinary latitude to do this kind of a job. And I don't really hunt for credentials. So like threatening me with taking one away doesn't really mean anything to me. Right. And so I have inoculated myself. But I just want to be clear to any media folks who are out there who are watching it, you might get lucky. You might get lucky and you might find a place that will, you know, an exception that proves the rule. You might find a place like what we have here and they might, they might help you. But the vast majority of corporate media is going to do exactly what

ESPN does here. I've seen this, Chuck, so many times. I don't think reporters realize this. if you get sideways with a sports organization, whether it's a team, fight promotion, or whatever, and then that entity in your line of work refuses to credential you, let me make it as clear as I possibly can. In all likelihood, with exceptions here or there, your outlet is not going to protect you. They're going to hang you out to dry.

Because in the end, the best amount of ad deals for these kind of companies, comes from having a working partnership with the entities that they cover. That's just the truth of corporate media. So if you get in the way of that, or if that sports organization wants to at least say that you're getting in the way of that, and the choice for that media outlet

becomes you or them, they're going to pick them 99 times out of 100. It doesn't matter how big the media outlet is that you work for. It doesn't mean any of that shit. if you want protection in this industry, you have to have your own audience. It's the only thing that will protect you. It's the only thing. You know, they talk about church and state, especially within journalism, right?

Like, I worked at newspaper publications coming up, and there was always a church and state ethic, I guess, that was in play that was, you know, your advertisers didn't dictate the editorial. And that started to change over the course of time where it was like they, Not that it changed in terms of dictating what the editorial was going to be, but there was certainly a caution. And this goes to New York Times. This goes to anybody.

Like there was a caution of, do we want to run a story that's this negative about, you know, this negative about one of our moneymakers? And I think that this is where it comes from, right? The one thing I will say, if it really comes from the grading aspect, this is something that ESPN has done since the time I was there. remember we would put grades on certain events or whatever back in the day. And the NFL, everybody does. Like if there's a draft, they grade the draft. Of course, they're really just grading a specific team. They're not grading the NFL specifically or anything like that.

But this has kind of just been a, you know, kind of a structure that they use for the writers to weigh in. And I feel like it's tremendously thin skin. I mean, this is in the fight game especially. Like, what a thin-skinned reason. If that's really what it boils down to, to keep somebody out is that he gave a C grade to wrestle Palouse a few years ago. I mean, that's just like, that's other level petty. The thing for me that I had a hard time learning about this industry, that it took me a while to understand because it was so counterintuitive, which is that

if you become very famous and very wealthy, or at a bare minimum, even if not famous, very wealthy, and then in some position of power, you might, like, are a assumption, Chuck, is that once you ascend to those heights, yeah, a bunch of people might criticize you, but like, you're just so above them and your life is so removed from them that, like, who cares? You know what I mean? Like, you know, you have millions of dollars in the bank. You have, you get to make decisions about key, you know, companies or whatever. And it's not just in combat sports. I'm talking like generally. But what I have found, Chuck, is that actually something happens in

many cases that is the reverse, that the more famous and that the more powerful and the richer that these leaders of these companies get, actually the more sensitive they become. And it has this effect where they now want to use that power to then dictate what can or can't be said about them. We have always operated under the assumption that the bigger you get, the more you graduate from that. And I think what this episode and many others highlight is it, no, no, no, no, it actually comes all the way back around and they want to control everything from that point. I don't know what this means for Andreas's future, particularly at ESPN.

I don't know how this is going to go, but like, I'm telling you folks. Chuck, I gave that guest lecture at the University of Maryland a couple of weeks ago, and then afterwards there was a Q&A, and then some kid asked me, you know, what was your, what's a piece of advice you would have for aspiring journalism students? and I was like, well, first of all, don't. That's always my first advice, yes. But the second one was, and I'm going to repeat it here, for anybody watching who's thinking about getting into media,

if you don't have your own audience that, I'm not saying control, but I'm saying that will follow you, that will subsidize your work, that will, you know, that you can kind of collect and shape, and then you have this direct relationship to, if you don't have that, you are at the mercy of, forces that they themselves are at the mercy of the people that you are covering and again if it's a choice between them or you corporate media with some exception is just going to pick them all the

time one that's my and you know like uh you know my we know ariel hollani too this is just another example i liked it like kind of put that uh ariel is another he's another example of uh you know where basically i don't think ESPN has his back in terms of when the UFC was advocating that, you know, do not put him on platforms. Like they, these days, how many times do you see the ads that run were like, hey, watch Chal in DC, the bad guy, whatever, the bad guy, that show, whatever it is during a broadcast. And they never once did that during Ariel's whole time with the same, basically the same show, like that he was running for, for years within that.

It happens on so many levels. You know what I mean? It happens on so many levels. and Ariel basically, I think, and we've, you know, you know Ariel too, like, in terms of what he's, what he's been able to do. But, like, that's why he, I think a big reason why he started his own enterprise for the very reason you're talking about. Who's going to want to go back to ESPN after that? Yeah. I mean, I just kind of believe, like, you know, this is why I don't ask them for a credential or anything.

I mean, I probably would get denied anyway at this point. But you think so? Yeah. But, like, even if it was still in play, you know i don't even bother with it because um you know the more you ask them for things the more they will leverage them against you yeah that's just how it's always been and unless there's some significant change in leadership that's just how it's always going to be and i don't want to have to ask permission to tell the truth as best as i can ascertain it and you have but you have to plan

for these things like my advice to everyone out there is you've got to like in intentionally think about what you're building as a way to shield you from these forces. Or, you know, maybe your coverage isn't that kind. Maybe your coverage is pretty, you know, corporate friendly and you don't have to worry about this. But if you're at all an independent voice and you haven't protected yourself, like, they're going to get you. Like, just straight up, they're going to get you. Well, you would see a lot more of our standard, like, from two, like, go back, what, 2007 to 2000. I don't know.

You look at Press Row from those days. a lot of these people would still be, including myself, I'd probably still be at more events. A lot of these people would still be covering the sport. If it had been where, you know, it's just you let the guys do their job. But I think what happens in the end is if you look at who's covering the sport, we talk about this with press conferences and everything. I'm not trying to throw people under the bus,

but they want people around who are going to glow about the event or, you know, lob softball questions during the, you know, or inane questions during the press conference, they're not looking for true journalists at their events anymore. I mean, even Dana was like, if he could replace all journalists with just the influencers, that's what he would do. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, everyone should understand what the score is at this point. All right, let's move on to, oh, excuse me, before we move on to that, let's actually think one of our friends here on the show, big friends of the show, I should say, from face off to final decision, fight night delivers the adrenaline and Cuervo, the energy to match it. Whether you're hosting your crew at home,

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excuse me, Wednesday, May 6 is going to be our next pregame preview brought to you by our friends at Cuervo. We look forward to being back in studio and bringing you that fun show. Let's go to topic number five if we can here, Chuck. Let's just do some combat sports quick hits. I love to get your take on it if we can. So Carlos Olberg has now gotten surgery on his knee and is, you know, you can see all smiles. there. The interesting part is he's going to rehab at the UFC Performance Institute. We've got a clip from Dana talking about it and then I'd like to get your reaction. Has there been any talk about yet what you do at 205? I mean, it's going to be a while. Yeah. So one of the good things

about it is he was a power slap last night and I was talking to him and he's going to stay in Vegas. So he got the surgery. He's going to start working at the PI. You know, apparently where he lives and Australia is in a remote part of the country. So there wasn't a lot around them. And what we used to find before we built the Performance Institute is we would get these guys surgery with great doctors, then they'd go back home and wouldn't do anything. They didn't do any, you know, physical therapy and recovery.

So now with the PI, you know, that place has saved more fights and help more athletes prolong their careers and we'll get him in there, see how fast he starts to recover, and we always figure it out. I know Polokos has been talking already about interim belts and whatnot. I assume you guys haven't really had that conversation yet. We have not, yeah. I mean, Carlos is still getting set up here, but we will figure it out.

Your reaction. I mean, I think it's smart in the sense, like, what else is it for? And you know that they're going, from everything I've heard, this is one of the great things the UFC has done because these Performance Institute, like I think a lot of people are kind of held. You know, like they get what they're supposed to from there.

So I could understand it. I will say that is Carlos Oldberg seems to be making the most of his victory lap here. Like they just mentioned he was a power slap and you didn't watch WrestleMania, but he was there with D.C. sitting you know, right up near the ring and he actually played a role with the necklace, the lay type thing that they're wearing

in the main event. So it's kind of good to see him getting that crossover pop. Maybe it won't be the worst thing for him because I felt like he needed to get more exposure. Anyway, that was one of the talking points coming out of it. Yeah, I don't have much to say. But I think Dana's quite right on this one. I can well imagine guys getting orthopedic surgery and then thinking to themselves, oh yeah, I'll just let it heal naturally and it'll be done. Bro, rehab is the second part of that surgery.

You know what I mean? Have you ever had an orthopedic surgery? I never have. But, I mean, you cover sports like, you feel like you have you've dealt with it for so long and it's just the right move um for his timetable to be like for them to gauge his timetable especially right because they'll know exactly what's happening no rehab is is is so fucking critical you have to do that correctly otherwise you'll mess up everything uh armin sarukian by the way winning 13 to one at raf eight over the weekend here we have the video where he shoots on a single and just runs him out of the off the fucking surface.

Here's Armand, definitely definitely not looking like a loose cannon, Chuck. How did it even get to Philadelphia, Luke? I mean, then they kick him off the plane. Bro, I got to tell you, someone had a tweet underneath, like one of the aggregator accounts talking about, because there's video of him,

you know, there's a video of the flight attendant outside the flight, like pulling, not pulling literally, but like, you know, getting Sarukian to get off. And Sarukian's archery. with her and she's just like nope you're going to go and he goes obviously as someone in the comments wrote um flight attendants are undefeated against ufc fighters and it's so fucking true dude i cannot tell you i have been on two flights myself over the course of my career that m matures who had a fight coming up

were on and got thrown off for making threats against people or just acting crazy it's like how often is that shit happening where people are getting thrown off where mhm fighters are getting thrown off of flights because they just can't, you know, keep their tray tables up in an upright and locked position, you know? Yeah. These days, I mean, everybody's got a surveillance camera on you. So it's like, it's going to be harder to get by with the, yes, I've seen that very thing happen to. But, you know, in terms of the RRF thing, I mean, what did we expect on any level here?

Did you, like, it would be, it'd be stranger if we were like, nothing really happened. It kind of went quietly this time. Serukin showed up, just did the job, you know, it'd be, that'd be strange. I'd be like something's wrong with them. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, Armin, really, it's just Armin. You don't have to be agro for everything. It's just, you know, pumped the brakes a little. Also, he was like, you'd rather just see a punch thrown than that because it was just so dangerous, right?

Like, totally. Yeah, I mean, you're fucked up doing that. Nothing happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Also, they signed Hamzat Chimayev.

R.A. Yeah. Now, here's the thing. I'm actually kind of intrigued by that to see how he does. But I saw people being like, oh, yeah, you can set up the bow-nickel match. But UFC apparently is not allowing an active UFC fire. to go up against in wrestling another active UFC fighter. Really? Okay.

Or at least not in the same weight class. If there's any chance, like, that's a real fight that could be made. R.F. is kind of steering away from that. So I'm curious to see how Hamzat Shemayev does, but like some of the more interesting ones you're already kind of blocked off from. I don't know. We'll see how that goes, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it's intriguing. It's fun to at least get him involved because he's not the most

prolific UFC fighter at this point. So it's like, you know, to get glimpses of him in any way as is a bone. is it boom. That's the other part too. It's like, oh, we signed Hamzat Sharmive. It's like, I mean, did you? I know. Is he going to compete there? You know, it's like the steveson one. Like he keeps signing with all these. My son jokes all the time. Like, is he actually going to fight? You know, because he signed the WWE never appeared. You know, he's with the UFC. I'm like, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. All right. Big news actually in the boxing side of things as crime boss and former like, what do you want to call him? Like influential power broker, Daniel Kinnahan was arrested in Dubai. Dude, understandably. Let me read this tweet. Daniel Kinnahan has been arrested in connection with alleged serious organized crime offenses. Kenahan was arrested in Dubai following an arrest warrant issued by the Irish courts per broadcaster RTE. That's like their NPR up there. Dubai police said the arrest took place on April 15th after what they described as an extensive search and surveillance operations.

Dude, they had Bellingcat and some other folks in Irish media scanned an MMA event that took place like a UAE Warriors event that had taken place, I think, in the last year or so, and they scanned the crowd, and they found Kenahan there. They found him. He had a hat on, you know, he wasn't like, you know, making a huge scene necessarily, but they found him there in the audience. So people were wondering, like, so he can just go to Dubai and chill out. Dude, Dubai is having a crazy reckoning because it used to be this place for like tax, I'm not going to say evasion, per se, but tax avoidance, let's put it that way. And then, And also kind of like a playground for organized crime.

And now they're cracking down on that shit. And they got this guy. Dude, Kinnahan was like intimately connected in the boxing world. Helping to make fights, working with the biggest names. I mean, you name it.

Chuck, your reaction to this news. I mean, it felt inevitable, but this felt inevitable from a long time ago. I remember reading a big, huge. I think it was New York Times piece about him living in Dubai, right? That's where he was.

New Yorker, I think, had a big piece. New Yorker. That's what it was. It was New Yorker. They had a very big piece and just being like, this is kind of crazy that you know everything going on, but nothing happens with this dude. You know what I mean? So it just feels like it's always a little gross. Was it tight? It was Tyson Fury, you know, attending like, you know, personal events and stuff. And it just, it always feels gross when there's some entanglement this way in the fight game. And unfortunately, there's been a lot of that, especially in boxing's history. But it's good because it's like, Talking to Pizzi, who's an Irishman, that's a big deal. You know what I mean? It's a big deal. It's a bigger deal for them over there than it is the guys like us who just kind of peripherally watch it. But I think it's a good thing that justice is being served.

It was the Irish who apprehended him in Dubai, was it? Is that how it went down? I mean, I think with assistance from the local government. I mean, it's good. After I read that piece, I was like, why can't they do anything about this? And then they finally have. Just chilling out there in Dubai. But I think Dubai is starting to be like, we got a, we got to crack down on this shit.

Yeah, they must be to that point. They're going to extradite him. I saw an article in, maybe it was Irish Times. I'm not sure. But they were saying that like the security protocol just to extradite him back like in Ireland is crazy high because of, you know, all the things that could go wrong in a situation like that. So we'll have to see what ends up happening. But they caught his ass chilling at an MMA event. Can you fucking believe that?

It's insane, man. Unbelievable. How about this? Benoit St. Dini has, this is, I think, an AI thing he made. Right? I'm not sure. Oh, he doesn't want the Le Hoofie. Oh, he got that one already. How about this one on the menu? The Le Dereuch. It's a good deal. The Leigh Hooker. He eats that or Le Hooker. Uh-oh. What's this? What's this one? Look at that. Look at that smile. Why is there a weird dude smiling back at him? Roast beef You just cut in slices there With an angry look on his face I am Does anyone speak French? Fine?

A famished? Hungry. It's hungry And roast beef National dish of England Ah, I get it. He's calling for a fight against Patty. Patty, Chuck,

has confirmed that he's fighting July 11th at International Fight Week. Now, he did not confirm necessarily that it was against BSD. But Chuck, your reaction to A, Patty returning on what will be a very big card, and B.S.D, what do you think about that?

I'm just connecting some dots here, Luke. And I honestly think that maybe they would put those two together in that situation. What do you think? Yes. I'm for it. I think that's a great fight for both guys. I like that.

I fucking love that fight. I mean, they've got to, it'd be a little bit wrong to say they have similar styles, but they have similar, ish strengths. And so that ground battle could actually be a really good one. If BSD ends up being the victor, you get, you know, a bunch of wins here

over some names, Patty, maybe the biggest name if he gets that win. By contrast, if Patty gets the win, it's really redemptive, you know? So that's a fun one. That's a fun one. I'd be down with it, man. We've been, I think that when we first were talking about what's next for Patty, he was one of the names we threw out there in

terms of accommodating like a good fight and still being beatable, even though I think that we, it's like he's always going to be, I think, a step below his potential for some reason. Like, you know what I mean? Say that he like, it feels like he's always going to be one of those guys like, we had him pegged up here, but like he's always just here. So I think that that's a good matchup. Last but not least, Connor Ben has signed a new deal with Zufa boxing. Now, this is a multi-fight, multi-year deal. We do not have, to my knowledge, we do not, as of the time of this broadcast, Chuck, the details of the contract. Folks might be confused. It's like, well, didn't he?

he just signed a one fight deal, but they also might be sued, Chuck. So are you following this? Here's how it goes. It looks like what Zufa tried to do, and I'm not here in any way suggesting that there's impropriety. I do not know. But what I'm saying it looks like is that Ben was at the end of his matchroom deal, but they had matching rights.

So Zufa made an offer that basically was so big that it killed the ability to have matching rights. They couldn't match $15 million for a single fight. but that was enough to get out of his deal, right? So that, you know, they couldn't match. You had a chance. Now he's done. And then from there, he could then sign a multi-fight deal.

Hearn claims that, I mean, not definitively, but seems to be suggesting that there might be something untoward about that, that it's actually all part of the same deal. And they're not saying it. I don't know. Here's the part I wanted to make, though, Chuck. Why the fuck are they signing him at all? I don't know.

Dude, two things are going to act. There are only two things that could derail Zufa boxing. One is if Saudi Arabia pulls all their financing. They could still do it. They could still do it, but that changes the equation pretty substantially at that point. The other one is, dude, they've signed Callum Walsh and Connor Ben. Who is in charge of talent over there at Zufo boxing? What the fuck are you doing?

Why are you signing these guys who are not good? I don't understand it at all. Yeah. The only thing I'll say is at least, because if we were concerned with the mystery of, you know, the $15 million for a single fight, now you kind of look at it and you say like, okay, wait. So this was like there were entanglements and it was part of a big picture thing. But I think a lot of people are almost giving Connor Ben like the benefit that does. Like, hey, of course I'm taking the $15 million and he'll end up back with Eddie Hearn. This actually is saying like, no, Eddie Hearn, you're not going to, you know, it kind of cuts Eddie Hearn back out of that. So all of the initial, you know, kind of complaints about this loyalty and all that stuff have kind of been come back into play. It's a very strange development.

I honestly didn't think that they would bring him back after the pro gray fight. Did you? I mean, I was like, this can't be good for their investment. I thought that for sure they were going to punch. Yeah. And then they fucking re-signed him. That's crazy, dude. That's crazy. I don't, I don't get that at all. I just don't know what, like, I don't know what he adds.

Maybe Eddie's point is why they re-sign him. signed him to Eddie's point maybe this was the initial deal so they hadn't like it was already assigned deal oh I see progress right rather than making two decisions to say exactly Eddie's suggesting it was one decision and they're just breaking it up right okay okay well I mean that would be the only one I could accept to be honest with you I just don't know how you look at that program you're like we got to sign this guy this is fucking great that's all I thought watching that fight man so I mean I guess continued congratulations to Connor Ben here. Dude, can someone pay me $15 million to do this ship? I mean, I will just, you know,

I'll whore anybody at this point. All right. That's it for our top five. Now it's your turn to ask us questions. We post on Instagram every Sunday a call for questions. You guys fill them up. The producers pick them. It's time for DMs from dogs. All right. Put it on the screen here. I'm going to read off the screen from Tito 1129. How much would do UFC have to pay heavyweights to get top heavyweight athletes interested in pursuing MMA, Chuck? What do you think? Okay, so we're talking about top heavyweight athletes. We're probably talking about people who already have professional gigs, meaning like football players, because remember we were talking about this, like guys who could trant like that would

be able to go over and kick ass in MMA. They'd have to pay them a lot because those, I don't know if anybody's looked at the types of money they're making, but it's certainly, you know, in the eight-digit range per year. And so like for the UFC to even compete with some of those type of things, it's just never going to happen. Those kinds of numbers. Yeah. They're never going to do it. Also, I think a point that people don't really fully connect with is they're like, okay, well, the UFC could offer more money. And that would certainly help. I mean, clearly that would make a difference, I think. But one of the bigger challenges that even a lot of money, Chuck, won't necessarily fix is that, like, imagine something. Imagine if you're a big, heavyweight kid. Right. And I'll just,

just use my own area where I grew up as like an example. If you're from Georgia and you're, you know, a premier American football player and you're getting a scholarship to go play at a premier division one program, you're kind of already in that pipeline. You know what I mean, Chuck? Like it's hard to get someone who's already in. Like if you're a, again,

we're talking about like a Georgia, an Alabama, Oregon, right? A big program. If you're in that program, getting someone out of it when they're, and we're talking like the premier guys on that team, when they're already just dead set focused on the NFL. It's not just giving these guys a bunch of money because that doesn't do it. You've got to pull them out of that pipeline.

This is why going back to the wrestling, I think, is going to be so important for UFC because you need guys in that pipeline. Yes, you do. They don't have a place to go, really. Like they traditionally not had a place to go. To deviate from what you're saying, because from the time you're a kid,

all the way, if you make it to college and you're shining in college, I mean, that is the pipeline. You're trying to make the NFL. The deviations that we've seen where somebody like that ends up in the UFC, Brendan Shaw, Matt Mitreone, and even Hokit, right? Like, they're guys who made it if for a cup of coffee in the NFL, but couldn't stay there.

They couldn't sustain themselves. And so then they, what's next? What can I do after this? And this is what they did. They defaulted in a strange way or just segueed into MMA from that point. They probably always had an interest in it, but that's not where their interest lied in terms of where they're, going at their career at first.

They only pivoted when that pipeline failed them. Right. You know what I mean? You might see more of those. I'm sure we will. We'll see more of those as we go on. But to just get like a top athlete to just step away. Even Greg Hardy, like he was, right?

He was basically banned from the NFL when he came over the UFC. So like I just don't know if you're ever going to have a guy at the top of his athletic prime who has the option to make, you know, $20 million a year in the NFL or something to say like, nah, you know what? I think I want to fight in the U.S. because it means more to me to fight in the UFC. I don't think you're going to see that. It's a tough thing to figure out.

All right, next. From Jets, Jets, what do you believe is the ceiling for Armand's wrestling career? I mean, you're looking at it. Yeah. Like, what's you going to do? He's going to go, I mean, maybe he could compete for Armenia, you know, or something. But even then, do like, Armenia's got some good athletes, even though it's a small country or Russia. I mean, especially he's not making it.

He's not making any fucking Russian. I will say that in the end, do you think that this is all helping Armand? Like, basically this R.F thing, like, he was just going to be idle. I mean, now we're talking about him all the time. I feel like he's way more popular, you know, through this RIF channel than he would have been if he just was strictly sticking to the UFC. Dude, we talk about Armin almost every fucking week on this show. I know, man.

And obviously, like, he's getting clicks from people, like, in terms of the other websites, too. I think that that RAF clip had more retweets than anything I saw. from the UFC card. It's just crazy what he's able to do. Stealing shows now, man. But like, what's the ceiling? Like, dog, you're not, let me assure you, he's not making any Russian team at all.

Yeah. And maybe he could, you know, like try for an Armenian team, but I don't think he can make that either. You think he's like, I saw your eye at favor say, like, basically call him a spoiled brat or something along these terms. Like he was just saying his spoiled brat, you know, just does these things because there's no. Is it,

is he, is he, like devising this? Like at some level, like, you know what? I want to do something controversial with kind of a Dylan,

Danis kind of way. Or do you think that this is just who he is? Like I, now I'm a little bit like, I don't know now. At first I was like, nah, it's just an entitled guy.

Then I was like, no, he's, I think that he's probably like now happy to, you know, more controversy a little bit. But now I'm not sure, man,

I'm like caught between these worlds. I'm not, I think it's a good question. I'm a little. bit half and half on this one. I think on the one hand, some of his own decisions have kind of forced him into this position. On the other hand, I think he's kind of also been like, let's just make lemonade, you know, out of lemons. And at that, in that sense, leaned into it. But, you know, if he had not gotten in trouble or whatever and had, you know, like, I don't know what the fuck

happened with the rematch against Islam, but, you know, if he hadn't been in that position, I don't know if he'd be pursuing these as much. But, but, you know, he is now and it's working. Take up for what it's worth, yeah? All right, next. From MT Titties. With the political capital, Dana White has amassed. Do you think he's setting up for a run for either mayor of Vegas or governor of Nevada

and what are his chances? What do you think, Chuck? Good Lord. I've heard some variation of this in the past. Haven't you? Like, I feel like people have asked this type of thing in the past. Yes, I've heard variations of this. what, man, there would have been a time I was like, there's just no way that he could have

a political career. There would have been a time that I would have been like, that's just impossible because just the barriers. He seems so unqualified. That's what I mean. I mean, all of this, but you could just, you could point out a million things as to why this wouldn't happen. But given the way the world has gone since 2016, who am I to say, man? I mean, to me, I'm like, maybe he starts to meet the qualifications of what people want. I don't know. Like, I, I, I, I, I, wouldn't put it past, but I just not sure that that's ever in his, like, I don't, I'm not sure that that's his personnel. I don't know if he wants to do that sort of thing. It strikes me as a guy who's maybe too comfortable now, but very comfortable in the role that he has. Yeah. Yeah.

And also like, you know, it's not like Dana can't make deals. He makes deals all the time. But political dealmaking requires a different kind of compromise that I don't know he's particularly well suited for. Um, also. Also, you know, it's not like mayor of Nevada or excuse me, mayor of Vegas or governor of Nevada pays what a lot of money, you know. The dude's gambling like in Vegas like what, $100,000 on a blackjack and I don't know if he's going to want to go to Caesars and just do whatever the fuck he wants. If you're, man, if you're mayor of Vegas that, I mean, I don't think gambling would play poorly, but until three, four, five a.m. And if there's other issues not getting met, you know, I could, I don't know. It just seems like an encumbrance and is like, I'm with you.

should he desire to pursue it, I would not preclude the possibility. You know what I mean? Well, if he did want to do it, then it would be like, I could see a scenario for sure where people would want him, you know, like to do it. I just don't think that he has interest in that. He loves his freedoms, man. Like, to just be able to do what he wants. Yeah. And then also like, just as a general rule, I really don't care, you know, what party they line up for.

But it's probably a bad idea to vote for someone who's been a fight for. promoter for elected office. That just seems like a very easy thing to get right, you know? That's true. Yeah. All right. Next. Von Beckel. Beckle. Which county?

Which county? Does he mean country? He must mean country. Yeah, probably. Which country has the most educated fans, MMA fans, in your opinion? That's a good question. Ooh. They didn't say, now listen to this.

They didn't necessarily say, the best although there's kind of a loose association it's funny man they said most yeah we used to really pay attention to this you know when they go to new markets like hey these people are really sort of informed because they knew the ground game and they knew these things yeah someone would be yeah someone would pass guard yeah and that you would hear yeah you would see the hear the appreciation this is a tough one i would say i would have said canada before because i felt like they were just so rabid for it and it was like they had watched and gs p i guess being kind of the the the groundbreaker for them

And it felt like every time I was up there, they were super educated on everything. Like, you know what I mean? Like, they would talk to you about GSP. Remember the last, like he was getting BJ Penn's arms up so that he could drain his arms. Like, what was it? Like he was trying to like, do you remember this? Like he had a tactic. He wanted his arms up so he could sort of like weaken his arms.

And they would talk to you about this stuff. They'd be like, they would talk to you about strategy and all this. This was years and years ago. So I would, I would have initially said them. feel like other places have caught up. It feels like Australia has a very educated fan base, Brazil. You know, there it is. I don't know about Brazil.

I mean, well, I've only gone to one. And you're right. I mean, it's like, it's hard to kind of judge that. I've only been to one down there.

But maybe I'm just more basing that on the enthusiasm they showed for their fighters. But Canada certainly would still be up there, I think. Canada's up there. I think Australia is up there. There might be some, you know, maybe you could say Ireland,

too. Ireland's pretty good. And even parts of the U.S. certainly have some educated pockets for sure. But you know, you get a lot of wooing here too, you know. All right, next. From. Oh, Jesus.

Lison Rings 1775. This is Rundum Cheeks, Joe. Oh, is that who it is? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Which city has the best bathrooms, Chuck? The city has the best bathrooms. I don't know, man.

You ever visited a city and just, found like wow man these bathrooms here are sick um it's easier to point out the cities that have really poor bathrooms uh like i feel like new york city of all the places i mean i'm sure they have but you can't get to the good ones like are the ones that you're using if you're just out and about are going to be complete garbage yeah i got to tell you i don't love i don't love um some of the bathrooms in columbia if i can just be perfectly honest with you um well i mean you can get great ones there but you got to be can i tell you my biggest complaint about the classrooms in columbia the toilet paper there is not

too my favorite situation yeah why it's like just thin cheap stuff or what no the opposite almost waxy oh okay it doesn't absorb anything we're getting into some details here that I think a little bit much but it it does paint a picture of something

yeah I mean I look at painted pictures every time I'm pulling my hand back it takes a while to get a thing I'll put it that yeah it takes a while I'm putting some Jackson Pollock's on those things for like 15 minutes before I make some progress. I grew up in Colorado and a lot of it. My father's side comes from the mountains, you know, Leadville, Colorado, like places high elevation. The bathrooms and those, like a lot of times it's outhouses or it's straight up, like, you know, it's just, it's as bad as it gets. I mean, as rustic as I don't think they've improved anything in those areas since like 1890, you know?

Yeah. Just no indoor plumbing at all. These days there might be some. but not not when the days I was going there and Turkey I went to Istanbul and Istanbul was a real hit or miss it had both the worst bathrooms I'd ever seen or up there up there with the worst

and also some of the nicest ones too but I want to give a shout out I was in Boston once and I have no idea where I was but I walked into a random hotel to take a piss and I'm using the journal and each urinal had a little TV on it playing like sports center like this is the coolest fucking death

I've ever been in. No idea where it is, but shout out to that bathroom in Boston. You guys like bathroom attendance. I don't like, I don't like these guys trying to. No, they would. I hate that shit. Yeah, get the fuck out of my face. I don't know.

I'll like go around them to like dry my own hands. I'm like, get out of here. I don't have to hand me that. I don't need a mint right now, you know, or whatever. I don't need a mint. I don't need your pillow. And I'm not going to give you $5. I know.

I know. I'm not. All right. I think that's it. I think that's it for our top five. with that in mind it's now time to do oh we have one more no no yeah you can always contact the show morning combat at gmail dot combs you can send in your dead wrongs your fan subs and a whole lot more wow we got a bunch of these holy shit okay so let's get to these uh right now it's time for fan subs you've got mail you're standard rule best meme this month gets a free signed poster so always keep that in mind all right we got two memes here from kevin s let's see what we got rogan said seven words to me they should be obvious. I'm going to chug donkey

see what a joy. Yeah, that was not it. That was not it. All right, here's the next one. Oh my God, they turned you into Jesus. I mean a doctor. Finally. Wait, wait, wait, look at this picture. Hold on. Look at this picture. Is that Brian Gamble down there? You're healing Brian. Oscar is a You got both Luke's on the left. You've got Jed and Oscar on the right. Jed has an earring for some reason. There's the twin towers over Jed's head and three margaritas.

Which fighter is that in the top, Long Island? In the top? Oh, all the way. Yeah, who is that? I can't. I want to, like, do the finger thing where you like, uh, zoom in. I can't do that. Obviously on the screen.

Yeah. I can't tell. I have a big screen next to me too and I still can't make out who it is. And then you got the Colombian flag in the background. This is, uh, Chuck, you wanted memes. You got them, bud. Yes. Yes.

I like it. I got to say that's actually pretty good. That is good. Pretty good one. All right. Good job from Kevin S. Quinn has one and says, Yeri,

when his opponent is severely compromised. Let's watch. This is, isn't this glass Joe? Joe, man. He's like, come on. And then Little Mac.

I love how he slides. Like, oh, that's awesome. That's a good one. That's a good one. All right. From John McLean says,

can't hurt him for trying. Dana's a girl. Luke, please retweet me. me. Did he do that? I don't know. This feels more Shaq Majori than Danny. Danny doesn't beg me for retweets, but Shaq does. Jesus.

Maybe he needed you to retweet his controversial scorecard, you know. Apparently people were coming after him on that one. Yeah. Which is so unlike Twitter. It's such a civil. No, I know. All right. From Paul, we've got a meme.

The Washington Guardian. Wearing pink pants, no less. Nice. Yeah. why are the wolves and bears saluting me? And by the way, not for nothing, the wolves did it right with their right hand. This fucking bear did it with his left.

Can't do that. Yeah. That looks like me, sort of. I don't think my neck is quite that short. But I like that one. All right. Jesse, we got three memes from Jesse. Wow, all right.

Sir, you can't use this bathroom if you don't have an account with us. LT about to shit his pants. Yeah, I'm going to use it anyway. There you go. That's one. Chuck Mindenhall and the hat salesman working on commission. Chuck, they got you. This is true, actually.

Yes. Although you got a lot of free shit too. Yeah, yeah. But there's that one. And then Long Island Luke, nine beers and 12 bong rips deep when his parlay hits. Hell yeah, it is. That was me, Mandonalo and Guy Herbert.

I was like, eh. Hell yeah. All right. Great job by Jesse. That ruled. Now Marcus has an explanation here. So let me read this one out if I can. Marcus T. writes, spotted at UFC Winnipeg, fellow donk and sometimes MK guest co-host, Aaron Bronstetter.

Oh, wow. A.B. made the trek and thugged it out our second winter with temperatures reaching negative 20 degrees Celsius. Despite the not so great card on paper at first, the card delivered, he wrote. Winnipeg's crowd absolutely showed out as well, little booze and woo's packed to the tits, and not to mention the class they showed for Gilbert Burns. That is true. Already looking forward to the next UFC Winnipeg in 10 years. maybe next time we can spot another MK Donk co-host like LTLIT or and or the man in the crap he says sorry man in the hat Chuck long time don't why's he strained me T there you go yeah

yeah by the way these seats right here these are the good seats yeah if your eye level is at the top of the cage exactly that's where you want to be right 100% man like I've said this many times when you're sitting down right at the on the floor you end up you sometimes you'll see what you're like if you look for it but there's a lot of people kind of standing there but so you're you're mostly looking at some screen somewhere to actually see what's happening intricately with the action so very different right yeah totally uh all right and last but not least we've got four memes from christian l let's see following ufc 327 jad letting go of yeri i don't want to play with you anymore that's pretty good did he cast him out no he was still no but he's always like

Geary's my lovable son or whatever. Okay, all right. Next. They've got Rodrigo del Campo where I don't know how they call that in Mexico in Colombia. They call that a Ruana, but I don't know how they call it in Mexico. And then he's got the, what do you call it? Concho?

No, the Morocco. Morocco. Maraca, see, that's how you say. And then there's me pointing at me and Roderick. You know what? I'll take that. I like that. So fuck y'all.

How about that? Yeah. All right, next, we've got two more. Never ask a woman her age, a man his salary, or Brian Campbell, his search history. Oh, yeah. That's a great one. And then last but not least here, Luke Thomas, when he's gone more than five minutes without saying, and more to the point, your mileage may vary, or that's neither here nor there.

That is a very fair meme. That's a good one. Well done, everybody. Well done. Yeah, that was great. morning combat at gmail.com morning combat at gmail.com send those in best one all month you get a free signed poster we'll sign it send it to you it'll be great all right by the way it was funny that uh somebody asked dana white hey is it going to be another nine years before you come to winnipeg did you hear this and he's like probably probably he wasn't kidding and he ends the press like he tries to end the press guys I missed that one it was I was like wow I think you think he's going to be like no hopefully we won't he didn't even say he was joking I know because if you if you've never been to a UFC event like whenever they go to a city,

there's always, Chuck, you know this, but for the audience's the sake, there's always someone who's like, works at like the local news station or something. And their question, like,

let's just imagine we're in, make something up. We're in, you know, Atlanta, Georgia. Right. There's going to be someone for the Atlanta local news there.

He's going to be like, hey, so when are you coming back to Atlanta? And Dana's always like, oh, we'll be back soon. You know, we love Atlanta,

blah, blah, this time, I guess he was like, yeah, he didn't even play that game. That's what's why it stood out. I was like he just kind of, uh, probably. That's what I said? That's so funny. Uh, all right.

Uh, Chuck, what do you have on the docket for the week and how can folks find it? I will be it uncrowned. Uh, I've got, I've got some pieces coming up this week. I'm not sure what order we're running them, but I'll have a couple, we'll have some written component and then I'll be on the crack on Friday as usual. So, uh, on that crack. Yeah, on that crack. Yeah, I'll be on crack again. This weekend I'll be doing the crack. Right. Trying to give you some new ones to use there. Long Island, what you got going on this week? I'm doing submission radio later today. Dennis going a day late. So happy 420 to everyone. I'll be on that. That's in like five-ish hours. Okay. And then I'll do a bet breakdown, prop quiz on Friday, full card watch along Saturday. We got Aljo in the main event this weekend, apex card, but it's not a terrible ape. At least the main event is fun. I heard Ben Folks got carved up on the shot to get a chance to watch it. Yeah, that was a bad movie. I mean, it's an epic ending. I will say that because PT goes all in on the last question. And he is no. nowhere near getting it and then pulls it out of his wow out of his ass so it's great but uh yeah we got a new one coming this week and uh want to remind

everyone one last time yeah this goes till midnight the 420 sale 42% off all shirts and posters get them while they're hot please there you have it morning combat dot shop 42% off it's our 420 sale uh go get it today now of course the other items will be available to the rest of the month, but the deal, that deal is today. You'd be kind of eyeballing some of this stuff. This is your chance to go get it. All right? Morningcombat. Dot shop. And then that's it. I'll have some coverage of some stuff this week. That's it. All right. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Thank you so much for Long Island Luke. For everyone on the show, including Chuck Mendenhall, I'm Luke Thomas. We'll see you guys on Friday. And until then, may all of your gains be loyal.

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